A Post-War Diary. Ii

Saturday, October 18, 1924. — Saw Tardieu in the early morning. He is a private gentleman now, out of politics and the press. He sees the uselessness of belonging to a party of which Clemenceau is the head, for one must recognize facts. Tardieu has lost his health and his money by his work and is disgusted with it. He considers French politicians of the Right and Left as a tas d’imbeciles, and he has washed his hands of them. He has been shooting in Scotland and catching salmon; has shot chamois in Switzerland, and was just off to shoot pheasants. That was his life and he knew what he wanted. But he made many shrewd remarks on French politics and politicians, and was very agreeable. He thinks that we are heading straight for another war and that we shall lose it.

Went on to see M. Loucheur at 9, Rue Hamelin. He was in good form and full of ideas. He thought that the post of ambassador had lost all importance and he had refused the post offered to him. But when the British elections were over he would go over to discuss affairs and would be supporting Herriot, though not of his party. He would be forward and back constantly. After we had discussed our elections we came to the question of the next British foreign minister. Loucheur thought that the Labor people had been a good influence on the whole, but had put the fat in the fire over the Disarmament Conference, a subject on which they knew nothing. It was necessary to have a FrancoBelgian-British accord and not to hurry the Conference. He even thought that our Dominions might not ratify the Protocol, in which case the whole thing would fall down. He is not only for an accord, but for the Pacific Treaties, and would have a third group of nations in the east of Europe who had special interests, and all three accords should agree to the general principles of the Protocol. This would be the link between the three accords and might bring America in. This is also Briand’s idea. Bourgeois, Briand, Loucheur, and Paul-Boncour were the French team at Geneva. He hoped to meet Burnham and would be charmed to lunch with him so long as he did not invite Gerothwohl, who had done him great harm in France by publishing an interview with him.

Loucheur says that he told Austen Chamberlain, in December 1919, how to avoid the unemployment which now worried us. The way was to seek for the cleansing — l’assainissement — of European finance by lending money to France, Germany, etc. This had proved possible with Austria, etc., and should be extended. America would follow us, as he had said in 1919, and the loan to Germany was typical. When the currencies were restored to the old standards our trade would revive, because we should no longer be undercut by lowly paid workmen. It was the debased currencies of Europe that were killing British trade. I have frequently written the same thing, from Europe and America. Copernicus made the discovery in the sixteenth century, and Lord Burghley created the wealth of England by it. He had not changed his views and thought this the only remedy. He considered that the last part of Alfred Fabre-Luce’s book, La Victoire, represents the present ideas of France, but agreed with me that in writing the first part Luce had been guilty of a mauvaise action, as Mandel, too, had suggested. He could assure me that the mass of the country was for an accord with England.

The French public during the elections had loudly cheered his allusions to the matter. ‘Soit, les Anglais sont des malins, mais il faut marcher d’accord avec cux.’ [The English may be rascals, but we must get along with them.] It was the peasants who had upset Poincaré. They would not have his anti-British policy. Poincaré hated the English. Poincaré was politically dead for four years. Millerand was not a very intelligent man, but was a better man than Poincaré and very honest. The Avenir, which Millerand was purchasing, was worth nothing. I made an allusion to the French press and said how little I thought of a press which could be pro-Poincaré one day and pro-Herriot the next. I said that Mandel had revealed the reason to me, and Loucheur said that I could not have had a better guide. Lunched with the Marquis de Castellane at 49, Avenue Victor Emmanuel III. He is renowned for his cook, the pretty women, and the wine. I was late and found mostly princesses, grand duchesses, and duchesses there.

Returning from Boni’s, I found a large crowd in the Champs-Élysées waiting for Anatole France’s funeral to pass. Waited as long as I could and then went off to see ex-President Millerand. I found him in his flat, 2, Avenue de Villars. The same as ever, but hair whiter. I was glad to see him. We discussed French politics. He will go into Parliament at the first opportunity again—into the Chambers or the Senate, he did not know which. ‘And you will have a party of two hundred behind you?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the Avenir will represent the party.’ But he personally had had nothing to do with the arrangement. It had been settled bv his friends. He would, of course, be in opposition. He almost entirely agrees with the views of Painlevé, Briand, Loucheur, Serrigny, and myself about the Disarmament Conference, which he thinks a great danger. The accord with us that he would like would be a simple one to say that in the event of any infraction of the peace treaties we should act together. I thought this covered by the League of Nations Convention, but he wanted us to guarantee the east of Europe and was not surprised when I said that I doubted whether we should accept any special obligation outside the west of Europe. He was all for an accord between England, France, and Belgium. He was very sarcastic about the handling of this question by our Labor people, and we agreed that there could be no confidence in the League of Nations until scores of years had elapsed and the new system had proved successful in practice. Colonel Fabry, the best military critic in France, is in Millerand’s group and is now rédacteur en chef of the Intransigeant. I said that I would try to see him, and Millerand thought that it would be a good thing. I said that we had great confidence in M. Millerand in England and were glad that he had kept his flag flying when the Cartel played him a dirty trick. Millerand is a bon père de famille and impresses by his transparent honesty. He is a very courageous man.

By the way, Boni is still for inventing a new Austria, but as it will mean dismembering Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia I think it is too far-fetched, and I poured cold water on it. We have enough troubles without beginning to upset the peace treaties. Had a talk with him over this question and he gave me some papers about it. He has some good pictures, tapestries, and books in his gorgeous flat, and there were heaps of menservants. But it lacked simplicity and was overcrowded. The Grand Duchess Marie thought it gloomy.

Monday, October 20. — Went to see Colonel Fabry at the office of the Intransigeant, which he now edits. His views will appear in that paper only. He is the best military critic in France, and is a fine character and dependable. He lost a leg in the war. His reports to the Chambers have been admirable. He says that the one year’s service will be very agreeable to the country, but that an entire change of the military laws will be needed. With three years’ service all went well as regards mobilization, training, and couverture. Now all will be different. The eighteen months’ service was the minimum with the French system even when there was no Ruhr affair on. A great piece of staff work was needed, and it would take long. It would cost more, for an armée de métier of a kind was a necessary compensation. People thought that if one had 18,000 officers, with the eighteen months’ service, one would have 12,000 with one year’s service, but actually the reverse was the case, and there must be reëngaged men and N. C. O.’s. It was a very big affair. He had thought the thirty-two divisions, with the eighteen months’ service, too many; it should have been twenty-five.

We discussed the matter, and that of the black troops, and we agreed to faire campagne ensemble.

Tuesday, October 21. — Went to see General Debeney, the new Chief of the General Staff of the Army, at the War Ministry this morning and had a long talk with him. I began by congratulating him on his appointment and hoped that he would not miss too much the calm atmosphere of the École de Guerre. ‘The life of a soldier is one continued labor,’ he replied. I said that it looked like being so in his case, for after Nollet’s announcement it seemed to me that a tremendous amount of labor awaited the French General Staff, amounting in fact to a remaniement complet de l’armée. He agreed that it was so. ‘When will it come into force?’ I asked. 4 Will anything be ready for next year’s budget in the spring?’ No, it would not, he answered. Not even the bases of the new plan had been settled, and it would take long, very long, to carry them out. He thought that things would go on as they were pretty much all next year, and meantime the elements would be prepared for a change of system. ‘You will want a lot of rengagés,’ I suggested. He admitted it, and said that the couverture, oversea garrisons, etc., would all require to be found. It would cost, money, but not next year until the plan was complete.

I found him less a man of the world and more a Frenchman, pure and simple, than his predecessor, Buat. He has a profound suspicion of the Germans. He pointed out that, in this so-called Republican Reich, von Seeckt and his War Minister had been steadily in office for four years despite all changes, and that von Seeckt at one time had been given dictatorial powers. What did this mean, he asked, except an intention to seek revenge? He also pointed out that at Dusseldorf, some time ago, a mass meeting had proposed the separation from Germany, and 20,000 Germans, marching in fours, had traversed the town to revolutionary songs. The Schupo had fired upon them, and a few days later 20,000 more had marched by again, but this time to the goose step and singing Deutschland über Alles!

He was all for a short statement of the accord to the League of Nations, and then for the Staffs to get together and see what it all implied. ‘You asked me in the Daily Telegraph,’ he said, ‘to explain what I meant by an Interallied Staff, and now I will tell you, for I could not put it in the lecture.’ His idea is that we should regularly train up a body of Staff officers to study questions which concern the military interests of the Allies, and that there should be Staff rides every year in which the French, British, and Belgian Chief of Staff should successively act as Director. The final Généralissime would be decided by events, as he had explained in his article. I said that I liked the plan and approved of the idea. He had been deeply interested in the reports of his officers in England who had been at the Staff College, etc., and had called them up and put questions to them. He thought that British officers took more from life than from study and had a broader view of things. He had learned much from these reports. He discussed geography and remarked how narrow was our natural Channel frontier and how easily crossed by air, and covered by long-range guns. It is a great river, and we always had to hold both sides of a river to keep enemies at a distance. Spain was all natural frontier. So was France, except on the Rhine front, and this front was the natural frontier of England, France, and Belgium. He was perfectly convinced that an accord with England was the single and whole-hearted wish of the French people, and that all would go well when it was accomplished.

At present there was no security but a scrap of paper. It was impossible to lay down for nations what they should do or not do for their own security, and the only way was to follow the principle of the League Convention and to allow every Power to maintain the amount of force which it required. There were many things in the Protocol of which he approved, — arbitrage, for example, — but the second aim, security, had not been attained, and therefore disarmament, the third item, was impracticable. (Clive asked me whether I thought the French as decadent as some people had begun to say. I said no.) î asked and received permission to explain Debeney’s Allied Staff plan to the King of the Belgians. ‘Je ne vois pas d’inconvénient,’he said. He would like to come to England, but had not been able to do so. For this reason he had not been able to discuss his idea of Allied Staff training with Lord Cavan. Debeney said that neither England nor France was a Power out for conquest. They had been, I said, but now they were not. That phase has passed.

Wednesday, October 22. — Saw Giraud (Pertinax) at 91, Rue de l’Universite afterward, at 11 A.M. He was disheveled, in a dressing gown, with his hair in a great mass. We had an hour’s talk on affairs. He was reading Morgan’s Quarterly article and was much impressed by it. Found Pertinax in his usual condition of sanguine despondency and distrust of everybody, French and English. Though living at the door of the F. O., he is not on terms with M. Herriot and does not see him. He calls the R. S. party one of the petits fonctionnaires and is evidently a disgruntled Poincaréist. He gave me no specially illuminating ideas except general criticisms, but was interesting in his reminiscences. He told me that M. Albert Thomas gave away our English Radicals in an article dished up by Herd in the Times of January 1917 — and that Signor Nitti gave away Caillaux’s Florence papers by telling Mr. Barrere about them. Pertinax is horrified at Caillaux’s reappearance at the Anatole France funeral, and I said that the anticlericalism of the present Government would do no good in England. I put it down to France’s old wars of religion, which we had never had. ‘You cut a few throats all the same,’ said P. I said yes, and burned a few zealots on both sides, but France lost four million people in thirty years — that is to say, with a sixteen-million population the French were reduced to twelve million, and that beat the World War record. I had always explained anticlericalism by those records. Pertinax was surprised by these figures and I referred him to Lavisse.

Friday, October 24. — Audience with the King at the Palace at 11 A.M. H. M. talked English with his customary deliberation, which made the conversation a little slow, but perhaps I have become so accustomed lately to talk with the quickest brains in France that everything seems slow in comparison. H. M. was looking well. He was in very stiff uniform. On the subject which was uppermost in my mind he said that from very old times he regarded England as the bulwark of Belgian independence, and would be very happy if an accord could be brought about. There would be no difficulties made here, and he thought that the main ones would come from England. He said that some bad blood had been made by war histories in which one or other Power had claimed all the glory. For instance, it was said that without Foch the Belgians and English would have gone away from the Yser and Ypres, whereas nothing of the sort was ever contemplated. On the contrary, his order was to stand to the last. (This is perfectly true.) I said that it was customary for generals and people to claim all the credit for victory and to do injustice to others. He thought F. M. Lord Ypres’s volume good and accurate. What he particularly disliked was that generals should give their views after a war without giving the text of the orders actually issued. It was these orders, which gave their views at the time, by which history should judge them. Therefore he approved of the French Official History, proofs of which he had been shown, because it gave the text of the actual orders issued. He told me that he thought the Staffs should meet if an accord was arrived at.

We talked of Wembley, of his favorite canaries, and of his old days as company officer with the grenadiers. I told him that I was going to endeavor to bring our people over to the accord idea, and he wished me all success and said it would be a great and good work. He told me that he did not think the German princes would soon return to their old places, and he did not appear to have read the German Nationalist programme. He thought Mandel the cleverest man in France and Tardieu a very alert intelligence. The King thought that the naval aid of England during the war had not been sufficiently appreciated.

Lunched with the Needhams. Drove out to the golf course and back in time to see the Foreign Minister, M. Paul Hymans, at three. We were quite in accord on the whole subject, and I found after an hour’s talk that nothing divided us. He is strongly for an accord and thinks it indispensable. He hates the Disarmament Conference and is, as I am, strongly for keeping the disarmament to the terms of Article 8 of the League Convention. He considers our Labor people infantile and in pursuit of chimeras. He admits that it is very difficult for the League Council to prepare this Disarmament Conference, which will not only lead to a wrangle, but will destroy the Protocol, which has many things in it that we want to keep. He and others do not consider the Jap amendment as a serious danger. He thinks that an accord will cause the Germans to reconsider their position and will promote peace. Belgium is now more defenseless on paper than in 1914. She has no security and therefore cannot disarm. He is for keeping the accord, so far as the League of Nations is concerned, to a short paper like the Franco-Belgian agreement, which consists of only four lines; and, similarly, the Staff work would be done in secret. He is not prepared to face a situation where we all disarm, leaving the more populous and the best-equipped nation, in the industrial sense, in command of the future. He does not want to extend our liabilities, under the accord, beyond the west of Europe. I told him, as I told the King, that the French were frightened at the future prospect, and that when the French were frightened they became reasonable. Both the King and Minister laughed heartily at this opinion, which they seemed to share. France and England, said M. Hymans, were the twin pillars of Belgian independence. In respect of France, the language, commerce, and French propaganda have their influence, but the British guaranty had always been for the Belgian F. O. the most important factor.

Saturday, October 25. — Saw M. Forthomme, the Minister of Defense, 2, Rue de la Loi, this morning. A solid, youngish man of some competence and character. I should say a safe man to work with. He made no secrets and told me the general situation of the army. The First Army, of eight divisions (four A. C.’s), can mobilize very rapidly, in about three days — 200,000 men, with the four youngest classes, including the one in the ranks. The Second Army, 160,000 men of the four nextyoungest classes, can mobilize soon after. They were pretty well up with rifles, field guns, and Maxims, and had a heap of German ordnance which they were repairing. They are no longer tributary to Krupp, as they were in old days, against all my advice. We had a long talk over army matters, when I drew him on to talk of the future. He told me his deep anxiety over the position, Belgium being tied to France; and that he, and all the best men in Belgium, were for resting on the twin pillars, France and England. Let the British fleet only appear off the coast and it would be enough. We had a long talk round the desired accord and about the military conversations which should follow it. I told him confidentially about Debeney’s plan of creating an Allied Staff, and asked his opinion of it. He found it very ingenious and interesting, and said at last that, however original it was, he did not see why it should not come about. He offered to help in every way possible, and asked me to write to him when I needed information. He was good enough to say that he expected me to ask small details about the Army, but found he was talking to a statesman. He thought that if I could make the British people accept an accord I should put the crown upon an extraordinarily successful journalistic career, but I told him that I could not bring up the question unless the Daily Telegraph backed me.

The Étoile Belge had an article about me this morning: nothing very indiscreet in it.

Major R. Van Overstraeten, the King’s orderly officer, sent me his very valuable book on Belgium in the war, profusely illustrated. Colonel Gallet, whom I visited to-day at the Ecole Militaire, which he commands, told me that it was at present the authoritative book on the war and the textbook for schools and colleges. I told M. Forthomme to-day that I was grieved to find that Belgium had erected no monument to Émile Banning, who was the man who had always seen most clearly fourteen years before the war and had foreseen events that had occurred. M. Forthomme and M. Henri Jaspar, whom I visited later in the day, both acknowledged their debt to Banning and said that they were ashamed of the oblivion. Happily, in Van Overstraeten’s book there is a photo of him, and a just acknowledgment of his merits. Forthomme, however, said that there was still no monument to Leopold II, and that it was only little men who needed monuments. He told me that the Belgians had scrapped all their fortresses, and had replaced them by prepared field positions, a course which I approved.

Went off to see M. Jaspar, at 93, Avenue de la Toison d’Or, by appointment, after leaving M. Forthomme. M. Henri Jaspar has won a world reputation by his conduct of Belgian foreign policy during the last two years, but I have never come across him before. A very attractive figure and a man of enthusiasm, intelligence, and imagination. If anything, a little too passionate and deadly in earnest for modern diplomacy. The best man in Belgium, so far as I can read political character. I told him of my visit here and in Paris, and of my conclusions. He told me that he was absolutely in accord with me, and proceeded to express his own views of the past and to give his opinion of the future. He told me of all the negotiations at Cannes and in London, and of their failure. He said that the English were too slow to comprehend the French. You must reckon France as a woman, he said, who has a great capacity for love, hate, and jealousies. I said that this was an old idea of mine and that I had frequently stated it when in charge of the French section of the Intelligence Department. One must think of Marianne, and bring flowers and sweetmeats. In fact I would always choose a lover — any lover — for negotiating with France. We treated her as if she were a president of the Board of Trade, and that was quite useless. All the beatific F. O. dispatches scoring off France were a luxury which we could only afford ourselves if we did not want to settle with her. That is Jaspar’s point of view also.

The question, I said, if we were agreed as to the principle, was how to proceed. I thought the time had come for action and not for words. We had very little time, and if we did nothing and came into the Disarmament Conference unprepared, we should all quarrel and wreck the Protocol. Jaspar thought that our Laborites were primitives and visionaries. They had made a bad mess and we had to pull them out of it. First the accord, then all the rest would follow. A formula for disarmament was unattainable. Every country must be left mistress of its own destiny. Things would drag on forever if we attempted to scale down the armies. We all wanted lasting peace, but the present plan would not achieve it. The world did not care a hang for the opinion of a pack of little states, but cared immensely for the acts of the Great Powers, and their views would prevail and set the note.

He quite agreed with me that we should stick to Article 8 of the League Convention. But time was running on and we should soon reachNovember and have to settle the preparations for the Conference. It would be best to postpone the preparatory November meeting till we had put things in order. He declaimed against history, pointed to his bookshelves, and asked how we could teach youth all this humbug. He had been concerned in many conferences of which some alluring accounts had been written. They were all lies, he thought. He had been in the batterie de cuisine and had even prepared some of the sauce. He knew how utterly realities differed from the fictions told. He was writing on the subject in the reviews, one of which is the Nineteenth Century for December, and he will send me copies.¹ I said I noticed that at St. Gilles he had advised Belgium not to ratify the Protocol unless Germany signed it.

Jaspar did not consider the Belgians either militarists or military. No, I said, they are the most pacific people in Europe. He said they were all commercials, the Army was nothing in the State, and he had had the utmost difficulty in getting the title of count or baron accorded to the leading soldiers who had done best. Jaspar indeed hoped for the day when Belgium could disarm altogether, but that time had not come. Jaspar told me of the terrible time they had passed through during the war, and of how my articles were smuggled through, read with avidity, and passed from hand to hand secretly.

Sunday, October 26. — Returned to Paris. Read in the train a good deal of Van Overstraeten’s book. Deeply interesting and places all the Belgian operations in a new light. It is rather appalling that all the things which the French H. Q. did not know about the great turning movement of the Germans in August 1914 were known to the Belgians long before, from the reports of their intelligent and patriotic people. Moral: trust the local population when it is friendly, rather than preconceived ideas, and also arrange an interallied intelligence service, to begin work on the first day of mobilization, if not earlier. By the way, I found General Maglinse disturbed about the evacuation of Wesel. He would now add Düsseldorf to the three Napoleonic brides du Rhin. I think, also, that the Belgians will not be secure until some arrangement is come to with Holland. If the Boche ever comes that way and the Mynheers go back to their water line at Utrecht, the Belgian Left may be turned again, I believe that we pay as little attention to the Low Countries as we did before 1914, and we ought to square this matter up and have a good firm Staff and F. O. decision about it. Is our Navy prepared, and has it the right type of ships to operate successfully on this bit of coast ?

Tuesday, October 28. — Saw Marshal Petain at his office, 4 bis, Boulevard des Invalides, at 10.15 A.M. He was looking uncommonly fit and well after his stay in the country, and is still the best brain in the Army and the safest guide. But, alas, he declares that he will not stay beyond the end of next year, when he will be sixty-nine. It is true that marshals have no age limit, but he says that age counts all the same and he will not wait to be asked to go. We discussed my tour and impressions. On the political side I can add nothing to the views expressed by others, as he fully shares them. Then we fell to talking army matters. He was not at all pleased with the proposed new army law which would take some four years to work out. I said, ‘Will not the Army be worse and more costly?’ He said, ‘Yes, it will be.’ He had made estimates of the additional cost, which will be from one and one-half to two milliards of francs. France had to supply the covering force, the troops in the Colonies, mobilization, and training. It could just be done with the eighteen months’ service, but not with the one year’s service. If the Army is to be a militia, as it now will be, it must be strengthened by a large number of officers and reengaged men, and the garrison fatigue duties must be found by a civil personnel paid at current rates of wages.

I asked about the moral and material situation of the Army. The officers, he said, were very discontented, and did not like to see the improved scale of pay for functionaries while nothing was done for them. A printed paper, which he showed to me, had been circulated, calling on officers to meet at the Cercle Militaire to discuss grievances. It was unsigned, and the meeting would not take place. He had nothing to do with it, but it had been useful to him and had alarmed the Government. There was a paragraph in the Matin to-day to say that something was being done. Syndicalism was not going to be restricted to the working people, said Petain. He said that the Germans in the Reichswehr and the Schupo had the cadres of their future national army and they could get their war material by camouflage. The spirit of revenge was still strong.

I asked him if he counted on the Belgians. ‘Very little,’ he replied; and the railways were bad. The Nord Line complained much of the inefficiency of the Belgian railways. If we ever came in again in a war with Germany, we, the English, should have to use the Belgian lines, for our place was marked, as before, on the left of the line which had proved to be the right place in the last war. He said that our mobilization was terribly slow. He did not think that the Dutch would do anything, but agreed that we should make sure of the Dutch attitude. The German attack would come on the front Wesel-Bonn, not only because there were five lines of rail to facilitate concentration, but because the Germans had to cover the Ruhr. He did not know whether we could do anything from the sea on the German right. The project had been examined in the past and the landing, etc., had been found useless. It might be examined afresh, for circumstances have much changed. An evacuation of the Cologne and other bridgeheads was highly unfavorable to the Allied position. He told me that General Nudant, who has just taken up the Temps military criticism, was a good officer who had commanded an army corps in the war. He was now in the reserve, but had been considered for the Conseil Superieur.

We discussed a French monument to the British dead in London. He would like to come over to inaugurate it. He had been much pleased by his last reception in London. He gave me some information for myself alone. We parted on the best of terms. I asked the Marshal not to mention that I had brought the matter of the French monument to his notice. He had told the Government that, rather than leave the Army cadres discontented, he would prefer to reduce the programme of rearmament. I asked him whether, in fact, the armée de métier was not likely to be the type of the future army in Europe. He thought it possible.

I don’t think that Petain, from other things that he said to me and showed me, has got very much further than laying down the first principles of the new army law. I feel sure he is not going to leave, with the law on his conscience, without a very clear exposition of the hurt that will be done to French defense by it. It is his way to express his feelings very straightforwardly. If a political decision is involved he will of course submit to it, but he will not dim his military renown by calling a bad thing good.

Saw General Desticker, one of Foch’s men, at 8, Boulevard des Invalides in the afternoon. He had nothing new to tell me. I was not much impressed by him, but Clive says he has a European mind. He is very thin and has a careworn face. There came in Colonel Requin. I was glad to make his acquaintance. A short, thickset, fair man with a good and cheerful face. He has talent and I like him. He is well known for his work on the League of Nations. We all had a talk round the situation, but no fresh light was thrown on it. Ended my last day with a talk at the Embassy with Sir C. Mendl, and McClure, just come from Rome. Two very capable men. McClure thought that Mussolini was holding his own and that he had learned a lesson from Corfu. There will be no more rampaging, McClure thinks, but agrees that an outlet must be found somewhere some day for the surplus Italian population. Mendl’s account of how the French press is fed by publicity advertisements does not materially differ from Georges Mandel’s. He spoke of a Greek who wanted to insert an article in some French paper. He was recommended a certain paper, but refused it because the Turks had bought it. But that does not matter, said his friend — there are still two days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for sale!

Mendl does not go bail for the absolute authenticity of this story, but is sure that one can publish almost any article by paying three thousand francs for it. Mendl does not like Pertinax’s general political outlook, but likes Pertinax himself. Mendl doubts whether Herriot will survive the budget next March.

Wednesday, October 29. — General election in England. Crossed with the Agha Khan. We talked India, racing, the war, etc., all the way. The Agha Khan agrees with my views on the Indian Frontier.

1. I have just received from him the Revue Belge for November 1. It contains an excellent article by him on ‘ Paix et Securite.’↩