MARGINAL COMMENT

By HAROLD NICOLSON

FOR people of my generation the date of August 4th echoes always with a deep reverberation of memory. For in truth the fourth day of that summer month of 1914 retains for us an identity more sharp and solemn than that of its more tragic counterpart of September 3rd, 1939. It must be, I suppose, that upon that earlier date the knife of circumstance descended with the rush and rattle of a guillotine, severing in an instant peace from war. Up to the very last moment we had had the glitter of punts, picnics and parasols, and in a sudden roar our life, upon that warm August night, was changed. This time it came to us by gradations, as when the lights in a theatre are slowly dimmed, and September 3rd did no more than confirm a dread which for years had been accumulating in our minds. It is strange to look back across the gap of years and to compare the different emotions, both private and public, which the two declara- tions of war aroused. In 1914 we felt that we were embarking upon an adventure ; in 1939 we felt that we had at last succumbed to an illness which for months had been gnawing secretly within our flesh. I can still remember the lights, the laughter and the cheers of August 4th ; how different they were to the darkness, the grim silence and the sighs of 1939! In 1914 war still appeared to us as a series of military and naval operations, in which the fighting services would at last find an opportunity to display their accumulated skill and courage, whereas we, the civilians, would find the even monotone of our days raised to a higher pitch of patriotism and excitement. The difference was not due to the fact that in 1914 we were young and combatant, whereas in 1939 we were elderly and pacific. The old, in the early days of the First German War, were equally excited ; the young in 1939 were equally distressed and glum. The first war, in its opening stages, appeared to most of us a glittering historical occasion ; the second war, from the very start, weighed upon our consciousness as a horrible necessity. The young were as alive as we were to the sombre implications of total war ; we were grim, not gay.

The hou'rs which preceded the declaration of war at midnight on August 4th, 1914, were hours of confident exhilaration. The lights blazed out from the windows in the Government offices ; the crowds which shuffled slowly in the Horse Guards Parade or along the Mall sang national anthems and patriotic songs ; some soldiers on a lorry, hooting slowly under the Admiralty arch, waved delightedly at the passers by. Few indeed were those who at that time realised the horrors, the defeats, the long-drawn disappointments which were in store for us. I can recall being slightly shocked when my father told me how that morning he had found Sir Edward Grey pacing the carpet in his high study at the Foreign Office, biting nervously at his under lip. " I hate war! " Sir Edward had said, bringing his fist down with a crash upon the standing-desk by the windows, " I hate war." I remember also, during those exuberant days, meeting Paul Cambon at my father's house. " It is not for you or me," he said to my father, " that I feel such sympathy ; we have had our life ; we have known the douceur de vivre ; it is for this young man that I feel pity ; life will never be for him as gentle or as pleasant as it has been for us." Even at the time I felt that Monsieur Cambon was miscalculating his proportions. It might well be that never again would there be great house-parties at Chatsworth, that never again would the lamps light a thousand guests to Stafford House. Yet I felt in my heart that the absence of such delights would mean no loss to me ; I have no taste for formal pleasures ; the decay of nineteenth century conventions was for me a solid gain. Even today I look upon the past with gratitude rather than with regret, and to the future with a thrill of interested anticipation. I do not regard the young with any of Monsieur Cambon's pity ; I envy them the experiments and organisation which will be theirs ; and they also will pause at moments in their planning and have their cakes and ale.

* * * * It was not, to my mind at least, any deep love of the past, nor any deep dread of the future, which in the ten days which preceded September 3rd, 1939, filled me with such a load of depression. It

was hatred of war in general and a consciousness that this particul war would be horrible and long. I had been sailing during tho summer days in my little boat along the coasts of Devonshire Cornwall. I find in my diary a record of the several stages w marked the lowering of the lights. Here are some extracts: Wednesday, August 23rd. Plymouth. The newspapers say t. a the House is to be summoned tomorrow. I change into my sho a clothes and walk grimly to North Road Station. 'London has c, holiday look. People in shirt sleeves are sitting about in deck c in the park. The Government has published a communiqué stating rt we continue to be bound by our obligations to Poland in spite of Russo-German agreement. The German censor has not allowed to be published in Germany, so that the German people do n know that an attack upon Poland means war with us. This is es', To the club. There are those who think that the Russians st merely playing with the Germans and that Ribbentrop will be ke hanging about in Moscow even as our people were kept hang., rn about. I do not believe this. Schulenburg is far too shrewd to ha

let Ribbentrop come unless he were certain of concluding an age la ment. i regard it as a serious agreement and one which will era. tit Germany, when war comes, to throw her whole weight against Pol., ec

and then turn to the west. gr As I walk back to the Temple I pass a motor cyclist in a st fa helmet shattering the hot stillness- of the night. A sinister omen. th Thursday, August 24th. In the morning we have a private meet'. ar of a few Members of all parties. We discuss the position of It. of We agree that her probable attitude at first will be one of mena th neutrality and that the Chamberlain Government will be tempted adopt an attitude of appeasement plus oil supplies. We feel that is

Italy is to be allowed to accumulate stocks of oil she should ha forced to give some pledge of good intentions, such as the reducti• is of her garrison in Libya.

from a visit to France with Winston Churchill. He says that weeks. Their air force will be knocked out at once. He is French do not expect Poland to hold out for more than a f all sure that the Germans might not try to turn the Maginot line hiluamiliof: invading Holland and Belgium.

If war comes, we shall have a hard task to avoid being beat. ha during the first year.

Then to the House. It is more crowded than I have ever seen

Chamberlain opens his statement with a reasoned account of failure of our negotiations with Russia. He places his left hand us. set the box and rests his right !land, palm upwards, upon it. From Pe to time he gazes down at his hands thus placed. His studied sobri en is not really effective. Only at one moment does a note of pass'• wh warm his voice and that is when he says " God knows, I have wor • WO for peace." That brings a quite sincere stirring of sympathy on ^ benches.

The Emergency Powers Bill is circulated. We do not like it, . what is there to do? Rumours begin to fly round the lobby. Beck flying to Obersalzburg. The French Government are split London is to be evacuated tomorrow afternoon. Germany is to ,• liver her ultimatum tomorrow, and so on. The general a sphere is one of calm despair, shot across with conflicting rum

o IT In the smoking room Churchill and Lloyd George are sitting . dot gether. The latter wants a secret session. ligl The Russian agreement with Germany will give the latter m • of of the raw materials and food she requires. The war will at I an( go to our disadvantage and we shall have a terrible time. I w

home in a stlite of deep anxiety and depression. What a con °' with August, 1914! Then we were excited by all these events gar

there was a sense of exhilaration in the air. Today we are me . star glum. It is not merely my age and experience which silences .' arc under the leaden cope of gloom. The young men are just the sam Sol In the days that followed there came a sudden revival of optimi of It seemed for a moment as if peace could be preserved. to August 3oth I made the following entry in my diary : gar teat wtx late Thy ode whi ans, affix ban thee /lad to -0 " It is curious to recall the general mood during these dark da since August 22nd. The House, when it met on August 24th, in the depths of gloom. People scarcely spoke to each other a., a whisper, as if some clone relation were dying upstairs. Then nothing happened on Saturday and Sunday and when Hitler sented to argue about it there came a revival of hope. The behaved foolishly and stocks went up. Thus when we met on T day there was considerable optimisth and chattiness. And t.. when war seems a matter of hours, the absolute despair of a w• ago seems to have changed into determination, the gloom of an pation melting into the gaiety of courage. It is as if we had our fill of apprehension and sadness and could absorb no mote.

Yes, we displayed, during those days of 1939, a mood wholly d (It from that which preceded August 4th, 1914. A better Mood.