LITMIR.BIZ

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successful; yet the feeling prevailed that there was no quick and easy way to defeat the submarine, that anything even faintly resembling the much-sought "answer" had not yet appeared on the horizon. The prevailing impression that any new invention could control the submarine in time to be effective was deprecated. The American press was at that time constantly calling upon Edison and other great American inventors to solve this problem, and, in fact, inventors in every part of two hemispheres were turning out devices by the thousands. A regular department of the Admiralty which was headed by Admiral Fisher had charge of investigating their proposals; in a few months it had received and examined not far from 40,000 inventions, none of which answered the purpose, though many of them were exceedingly ingenious. British naval officers were not hostile to such projects; they declared, however, that it would be absurd to depend upon new devices for defeating the German campaign. The overshadowing fact—a fact which I find that many naval men have not yet sufficiently grasped—is that time was the all-important element. It was necessary not only that a way be found of curbing the submarine, but of accomplishing this result at once. The salvation of the great cause in which we had engaged was a matter of only a few months. A mechanical device, or a new type of ship which might destroy this menace six months hence, would not have helped us, for by that time Germany would have won the war.

      I discussed the situation also with members of the Cabinet, such as Mr. Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, and Sir Edward Carson. Their attitude to me was very different from the attitude which they were taking publicly; these men naturally would say nothing in the newspapers that would improve the enemy moral; but in explaining the situation to me they repeated practically everything that Jellicoe had said. It was the seriousness of this situation that soon afterward sent Mr. Balfour and the British Commission to the United States. The world does not yet understand what a dark moment that was in the history of the Allied cause. Not only were the German submarines sweeping British commerce from the seas, but the German armies were also defeating the British and French on the battlefields in France. It is only when we recall that the Germans were attaining the high peak of success with the U-boats at the very moment that General Nivelle's offensive had failed on the Western Front that we can get some idea of the real tragedy of the Allied situation in the spring of 1917.

      "Things were dark when I took that trip to America," Mr. Balfour said to me afterward. "The submarines were constantly on my mind. I could think of nothing but the number of ships which they were sinking. At that time it certainly looked as though we were going to lose the war."

      One of the men who most keenly realized the state of affairs was the King. I met His Majesty first in the vestibule of St. Paul's, on that memorable occasion in April, 1917, when the English people held a thanksgiving service to commemorate America's entrance into the war. Then, as at several subsequent meetings, the King impressed me as a simple, courteous, unaffected English gentleman. He was dressed in khaki, like any other English officer, and his manner was warm-hearted, sincere, and even democratic.

      "It gives me great pleasure to meet you on an occasion like this," said His Majesty, referring to the great Anglo-American memorial service. "I am also glad to greet an American admiral on such a mission as yours. And I wish you all success."

      On that occasion we naturally had little time to discuss the submarines, but a few days afterward I was invited to spend the night at Windsor Castle. The King in his own home proved to be even more cordial, if that were possible, than at our first meeting. After dinner we adjourned to a small room and there, over our cigars, we discussed the situation at considerable length. The King is a rapid and animated talker; he was kept constantly informed on the submarine situation, and discussed it that night in all its details. I was at first surprised by his familiarity with all naval questions and the intimate touch which he was evidently maintaining with the British fleet. Yet this was not really surprising, for His Majesty himself is a sailor; in his early youth he joined the navy, in which he worked up like any other British boy. He seemed almost as well informed about the American navy as about the British; he displayed the utmost interest in our preparations on land and sea, and he was particularly solicitous that I, as the American representative, should have complete access to the Admiralty Office. About the submarine campaign, the King was just as outspoken as Jellicoe and the other members of the Admiralty. The thing must be stopped, or the Allies could never win the war.

      Of all the influential men in British public life there was only one who at that time took an optimistic attitude. This was Mr. Lloyd George. I met the Prime Minister frequently at dinners, at his own country place and elsewhere, and the most lasting impression which I retain of this wonderful man was his irrepressible gaiety of spirits. I think of the Prime Minister of Great Britain as a great, big, exuberant boy, always laughing and joking, constantly indulging in repartee and by-play, and even in this crisis, perhaps the darkest one of British history, showing no signs of depression. His face, which was clear in its complexion as a girl's, never betrayed the slightest anxiety, and his eyes, which were always sparkling, never disclosed the faintest shadow. It was a picture which I shall never forget—that of this man, upon whose shoulders the destiny of the Empire chiefly rested, apparently refusing to admit, even to himself, the dangers that were seemingly overwhelming it, heroically devoting all his energies to uplifting the spirits of his countrymen, and, in his private intercourse with his associates, even in the most fateful moments, finding time to tell funny stories, to recall entertaining anecdotes of his own political career, to poke fun at the mistakes of his opponents, and to turn the general conversation a thousand miles away from the Western Front and the German submarines. It was the most inspiring instance of self-control that I have ever known; indeed only one other case in history can be compared with it; Lloyd George's attitude at this period constantly reminded me of Lincoln in the darkest hours of the Civil War, when, after receiving news of such calamities as Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville, he would entertain his cabinet by reading selections from Artemus Ward, interlarded with humorous sayings and anecdotes of his own. Perhaps Lloyd George's cheerfulness is explained by another trait which he likewise possessed in common with Lincoln; there is a Welsh mysticism in his nature which, I am told, sometimes takes the form of religious exaltation. Lloyd George's faith in God and in a divine ordering of history was evidently so profound that the idea of German victory probably never seized his mind as a reality; we all know that Lincoln's absolute confidence in the triumph of the North rested upon a similar basis. Certainly only some such deep-set conviction as this could explain Lloyd George's serenity and optimism in the face of the most frightful calamities. I attended a small dinner at which the Premier was present four days after the Germans had made their terrible attack in March, 1918. Even on this occasion he showed no evidences of strain; as usual his animated spirits held the upper hand; he was talking incessantly, but he never even mentioned the subject that was absorbing the thoughts of the rest of the world at that moment; instead he rattled along, touching upon the Irish question, discussing the impression which Irish conscription would make in America, and, now and then, pausing to pass some bantering remark to Mr. Balfour. This was the way that I always saw the head of the British Government; never did I meet him when he was fagged or discouraged, or when he saw any end to the war but a favourable one.

      On several occasions I attempted to impress Mr. Lloyd George with the gravity of the situation; he always refused to acknowledge that it was grave.

      "Oh, yes, things are bad," he would say with a smile and a sweep of his hand. "But we shall get the best of the submarines—never fear!"

      The cheerfulness of the Prime Minister, however, was exceptional; all his associates hardly concealed their apprehension. On the other hand, a wave of enthusiasm was at that time sweeping over Germany. Americans still have an idea that the German Government adopted the submarine campaign as the last despairing gambler's chance, and that they only half believed in its success themselves. There is an impression here that the Germans never would have staked their Empire on this desperate final throw had they foreseen that the United States would have mobilized against them all its men and resources. This conviction is entirely wrong. The Germans did not think that they were taking any chances when they announced their unrestricted campaign; the ultimate result seemed to them to be a certainty. They calculated the available shipping which the Allies and the neutral nations had afloat; they knew just how many ships their submarines could sink every month, and from these statistics they mathematically deduced, with real German precision,

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