Perfect weather: how we are wasting it. What a shame to carry all those 40 English and Americans who wanted to land at Southampton to Germany !4 If war breaks, they’ll be interned there and may never get home at all. I’m sure steamers have no right to do that to fare-payers….
Very much love.
E.R.M.
Flat 7, 8, Luxborough St, W.1
6 September, [1939]
Dearest Jeanie,
It was so nice meeting together to-day, in spite of the miserable circs.5 Perhaps hell too will be broken by such little gatherings from time to time. I’ve just had two young Air Raid Wardens in, very polite, to say I had a window that ‘might be better masked’; we went round the flat to locate it, and found it was the glass panel over a bedroom door, which I have now drawn the curtains across. What a life!… I hope your wireless arrived, in time for you to hear the 9 o’clock news, and Harold Nicolson after it; he was very good, comparing 1914 with now. As he says truly, there was much more excitement then, and less sad realisation of all it means. He said he didn’t think, and he hoped not, that much anti-German feeling will rise this time, spy mania, alien-hunting, etc, as it is not ‘the Germans’ that we are against, but the Nazi Government, which we know many Germans hate themselves. He says all his German friends do. I don’t meet anti-German feeling, certainly. I’m afraid there may be some anti-us feeling among Germans, as it has been so worked up; but I hope all our great civility to their merchant ships will soothe them—or will they only think us smug? Or, more likely, they will be told we have sunk them without warning and saved none of the crew, as we did the Athenia6.… What an intense longing for peace everyone (except perhaps the Czechs, who want their independence back) must feel, with all… [the] minor hardships as well as the great hardship of war. The evacuated mothers are many of them complaining bitterly about country life—no gas or electricity often, coal fires, hard beds, too few shops, etc.—and their hosts and hostesses of course resent this. Some of them will probably return to London and face the bombs, I expect.
Very much love:
Your loving E.R.M.
Flat 7, 8, Luxborough St, W.1
14 September, [1939]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I enclose K.H.7 His ‘reasons for being at war’ are sound, if one admits the legitimacy of general war at all.8 I don’t. If Nazism really can’t be defeated except by war, I say, let it win (for a time) in spite of all its horrors & cruelties. It is less irrevocable than war. The war is pitiful in its side effects, quite apart from the fighting etc. Any number of small businesses and workmen are ruined by it already, and men being sacked all round because their employers are reducing staff. A very nice young garage hand at my garage said to me to-day ‘I suppose I shall be sacked soon, even if I’m not called up. It doesn’t seem as if these people’ (governments, he meant) ‘can be human, not to be able to think of some way to settle things except by ruining every one’s lives.’ I find that the less people know about public affairs and read the papers and understand world politics, the more they feel that—naturally. It is the informed ones who feel ‘anything to stop Hitlerism’. I don’t know about the Quakers, but I think they would say, if you have promised to commit an awful crime, you must announce at once that you aren’t going to—of course with very abject apologies for having promised and misled a small nation….
I like letters which don’t refer to the war. I got a nice one yesterday, from an Oxford don, asking me for the date of a manuscript poem, and telling me what work he is doing, editing Bishop Corbet’s poems.9 The more people who can be thus detached the better, I’m sure.
Very much love…
Your loving E.R.M.
I ride a bicycle now a lot.
Sunday [18 September, 1939]10
I hope to come on Wed: afternoon—by road, as we have a week’s respite before petrol rations. It was a great sight last Friday night to see the cars queuing up for miles round each garage to fill up before midnight. Lots of them were also filling containers, which was illegal as well as selfish. And then after all it was put off….
Germany is now obviously about to use gas on the Poles. And Russia invading their eastern frontier.11 They must be very nearly finished. Then the Great Temptation12 will be offered us by H., we shall refuse to yield to it, and then our turn will begin.
Love,
E.R.M.
Wednesday [21 September, 1939]13
I got back all right, tho’ lost way 2 or 3 times. Am now listening to Greenwood explaining why we are at war.14… Best news was Czech revolt—they are being ruthlessly suppressed, but must be making themselves troublesome, and it may spread. Already it is in Slovakia as well as Bohemia, and is joined in by a lot of German residents there. Greenwood is telling us we are fighting against the ‘arbitrament of force’. Seems an odd way of doing it, using the methods we are fighting against. Also, he says, to restore Poland. What a hope! I feel anything may happen, and have decided, I think, for the present to store Elk at Liss15 and be a part-time ambulance driver without a car. I called at the Ambulance Station on way home. They want more full-time drivers—but I don’t think I shall be one: we discussed the war. A man (gent:) said he’d rather be shot through the head than ‘cave in’ now. A woman (wife of doctor just going to front with R.A.M.C.) said she’d rather cave in for ever than risk her husband being killed. Another woman thought much as we do that this war would settle nothing, and that we shall have war after war, whether we lose or win….
Very much love.
È.R.M.
28 September, [1939]
Dearest Jeanie,
... It was so nice seeing you yesterday. In the evening I dined with the Nicholsons16 (Dorothy Brooke that was) and met Sir William Beveridge, now Master of University College, Oxford. He was very depressed about the war, but thought it necessary, to get ‘a decent international order’ and prevent weak countries being continually attacked and smashed like this. I said, was the war at all sure to lead to this result, even if we won; he thought it would, and that a world federation must follow. I don’t see that it need, myself, or any evidence that this war won’t be just another one in the long series. He says nearly all the undergraduates are either getting commissions or looking forward to soon, and all inspired by idealistic hopes of ‘smashing Hitlerism’ and getting international decency. He said he finds no military spirit among them, or anything but distaste for war as such. But it is the ancient idea that you can drive out evil from the world by a war against it. He says they face dying, and don’t seem to think about killing, which is, I suppose, the normal reaction of the young and inexperienced. It is all tragic and pathetic, and must be the same in Germany, only young Germans don’t think they are fighting evil, or fighting for international decency, but fighting for Germany—a lower motive, but quite as strong. I feel sadder when I have been seeing all these informed & intelligent people, because they are quite sure we shall have the war, and that it will be pretty awful. They think we shall win it in the end, but after how long and after what waste of life! Sir W.B. said I couldn’t really hate war as much as he does, because I want to stop this one, and he feels sure that would only lead to others, and he wants to stop the others by having this. Who hates war most is unimportant: I think we all hate it. But I feel more and more strongly that, if we really have this one, the whole world will be thrown back for years. How can our rulers take it on themselves, all this killing? I suppose they too think it will stop other wars and protect the world from Hitler methods in future. I see no hope now but in a German revolution, and I don’t think we shall get it in time.
The Budget is alarming— what waste of money is going on!17 We shall be a ruined country in about a month, at this rate. The big surtax payers will be left with only 3/- in every pound. How cross Uncle R. would have been!… And 7/6 is bad enough for us smaller incomes. Half the London shops are closing or closed, and their staffs sacked. And all this government-paid A.R.P. work etc. is taking men out of industr
y, and ruining the industries, and paying the men out of public money. The world seems to have gone quite crazy….
Very much love.
E.R.M.
Monday [3 October, 1939]18
I think things move, and Peace with Ignominy is gaining in the country. Push on with the good work. I don’t like all these stores of food and men19 arriving in France, it will look so silly bringing them back. But we might pretend it is for manœeuvres. However, we must just make up our minds to look silly, of course. We have already run through a fortune over it. It is an interesting cleavage among people of goodwill. Virginia Woolf tells me the editor of the New Statesman 20 has gone over to Peace, and will come out with it in next number. She is for Peace, Leonard (her husband) for the war. The Communists and the Fascists both for Peace, to please Russia and the Nazis. The Church for War. And the Universities, and the House of Commons, and the Judges, Barristers, Clubmen, journalists (Vernon Bartlett, King-Hall, etc.) and nearly the whole press. My Mrs Browne21 for Peace, on any terms. The war party are sure Hitler will make war on us in a year or so if we let him get stronger now. The Communist Daily Worker is very funny just now, it makes out the Nazi attack on Poland as a Polish invasion of Germany and Russia, and Poland’s being crushed by Gemany as a kind of spontaneous disintegration, a falling to pieces from internal weakness, from which Russia has delivered her and ‘established Peace in Europe’. What with these and the Mosley party, any one might be disgusted with the idea of peace on their terms. Just heard Ebor.22 Smug. His idea of our unanimity shows what limited circles he moves in. He should meet ’Ubby.23 And his Conference should come now, not after the war.24
Much love.
E.R.M.
5 October, [1939]
Dearest Jeanie,
… What can be the mysterious ‘contingency’ which may arise (B.B.C. announcement) and cause us to have to fill in our addresses on our identity cards? How they love mysteries! I can’t see what harm it could do to have them filled in now, and alter them if we moved. I think they are just childish. Latest news I get of peace-situation in War Cabinet is that they are 3 for peace-with-ignominy to 6 against. The 3 are Halifax, Simon, and Hoare. This is what Lord Ponsonby25 reports. He adds that Chamberlain is the most implacable of the lot, feeling that H. has personally affronted and betrayed him. Lord P. says there are 16 peers for p.w.i. (this phrase is mine, not his, by the way. I know that is the peace I want—
I mean, I think it’s the only kind we shall be offered). The worst point about it would be not the ignominy, nor the triumph and scorn of our foes, but its probable shortness. He might turn on us when stronger, as this article suggests,26 and attack us. Anyhow, this is what they all think would happen. But time is on our side.
I am following with interest the Clackmannan election, where Andrew Stewart is a stop-the-war candidate. The results will be very informing.27
I’m glad you have a telephone now. I rang, but you were with that expectant mother. I hope her expectations are now fulfilled.
A sensible talk from some woman about evacuees the other day, I thought. She advised householders to learn to put up with a little dirt, and evacuees to learn to put up with a little soap & water. Very sound. Country cottages can never have been thought so clean before, I should think! It seems they are shocked at insects and dirty habits in a way that shows they never heard of them before.
Very much love.
E.R.M.
I am fighting for the establishment of a supreme authority in Europe whose laws and judgments shall be accepted by all European nations.
Flat 7, 8, Luxborough St, W.1
9 October, [1939]
Dearest Jeanie,
... I do agree about demanding a conference [of Nations] at once.28 The column to-day on p. 7 of the News Chronicle (‘War Diary’) says what I feel about it, don’t you think so?29 I enclose some other cuttings, to illustrate to ’Ubby and others what the various views on our war (or peace) aims are (but you’ll never have time to read them). The best statement is H. N. Brailsford’s.30 This is the view held by the majority of the (educated) people I meet. So, also, are the views expressed by the Dominions, and by the article from The Times. What they boil down to is that we will call the war off if (a) Hitler is prepared to evacuate Poland and Czecho-Slovakia at once (including removing his Gestapo from the latter) and make their restoration & independence a subject for negotiation at the conference (so far he has expressly excluded this); (b)… H. retires, and leaves us another government to deal with, which hasn’t broken all its pledges. It is obviously absurd to be signing treaties and guarantees with a man who has shown that his promise means nothing to him but a trap to betray those who have also signed it. He guaranteed the independence of Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, and Poland, each separately, before marching into them and taking them, so naturally the other nations near him, including France and us, feel it is useless to deal with him again. He seems to be absolutely without scruples in this respect; in fact, he has said in Mein Kampf that treaties aren’t to be observed when the good of the nation demands their breaking—it would be like trying to bind an eel.
Anyhow, all nations, belligerent and neutral (except Italy & Hungary & Russia) feel that he makes lasting peace impossible (that America feels this is very important, as America might, if he were gone, take the lead in negotiations). So it seems to me that our first condition should be his abdication. If he really wanted to avoid a general war, and not merely to consolidate his gains while he prepares to spring again, he would resign now. Any patriotic leader would. It would at once end the whole business. But of course he won’t, and of course he won’t give up his conquests; he would rather have a war against us and France, though he is afraid of this, than give up the prestige and the material gains he has got, and hopes to get, out of them. He says that ‘Central Europe should be an indivisible block’, under the Reich. That is what the rest of Europe is ready to fight against. As Brailsford says, it means slavery to all peoples who come under its rule.
I do understand these aims and this point of view, quite well. My own is, like yours, that they aren’t worth a general war, and that an immediate conference should be called. It even might achieve some of the aims; in any case, it would gain time, and would, as Lloyd George said, force H. to state his terms clearly before the world—to ‘talk to us, not at us’—and be judged by the world in conclave. Then, L.G. says, if we couldn’t agree, the war. That is where I should part company with him; but he is doing excellent work in urging the conference, and is receiving thousands of letters supporting him. I do hope it happens.
The Church is, as usual, behaving deplorably. It should be throwing all its weight on the side of calling off hostilities while we negotiate; instead, its spokesmen seem to be nearly all encouraging us to ‘endure the trial of war, and trust that God will defend the right’. Canon Morris, chairman of the Peace Pledge Union31, is giving up his orders in disgust, which I think is a mistake; all clergy should stay in, and try and give the Church a less bad name. I am going to a small gathering to-night where Canon Raven (another pacifist) is speaking; he is v.g.—a very able Cambridge Master of a College.32 I shall be interested to hear his views. But mostly the clergy are deplorable. Better, however, than the R.C. ones. I went in for 10 minutes yesterday to the R.C. church near here,33 where there was a sermon going on. It was all about how the Supreme Being had created various orders of Angels, good and bad. I cannot think why we have endured all these centuries all this lifeless nonsense. I thought as I sat there, what if the congregation all rose up and mobbed the preacher, and beat him up, and the women scratched his face and the men kicked him, saying ‘We want something to the purpose, not angels & devils; give us bread not stones.’ Why don’t they? Or (at least) occasionally protest? (In all the Churches, I mean.)
I can’t sympathise with Hitler, by the way. His origins don’t at all excuse his extreme brutality and treachery. The kink in his brain does more, of course. But he is so horribly cruel. I
t is the quality that is hardest to get over in any one, I suppose. There is only one thing left for him to do—go. I think we should say this much more plainly than we do—though we do say we can’t treat with him.
By the way, the cutting ‘Keep it dark’ is for your opinion on whether halibut liver oil (full of Vit. A.) really helps one to see in the dark better. If so, I must take it. (It’s not an advertisement, the article.)
Letters to a Sister Page 7
