“No.”
“Strange.” Maud felt a chill of foreboding. Was there a split in the peace faction? “What is Lloyd George up to?”
Walter said: “I don’t know, but I can guess.” He looked solemn. “Last night, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium for our troops.”
Maud gasped.
Walter went on: “The Belgian cabinet sat from nine o’clock yesterday evening until four this morning, then rejected the demand and said they would fight.”
This was dreadful.
Fitz said: “So Lloyd George was wrong-the German army is not going to commit a merely technical violation.”
Walter said nothing, but spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Maud feared that the brutal German ultimatum, and the Belgian government’s foolhardy defiance, might have undermined the peace faction in the cabinet. Belgium and Germany looked too much like David and Goliath. Lloyd George had a nose for public opinion: had he sensed that the mood was about to change?
“We must take our places,” said Fitz.
Full of apprehension, Maud passed through a small door and climbed a long staircase to emerge in the Strangers’ Gallery overlooking the chamber of the House of Commons. Here sat the sovereign government of the British empire. In this room, matters of life and death were decided for the 444 million people who lived under some form of British rule. Every time she came here Maud was struck by how small it was, with less room than the average London church.
Government and opposition faced each other on tiered rows of benches, separated by a gap that-according to legend-was two sword lengths, so that opponents could not fight. For most debates the chamber was almost empty, with no more than a dozen or so members sprawled comfortably on the green leather upholstery. Today, however, the benches were packed, and M.P.s who could not find seats were standing at the entrance. Only the front rows were vacant, those places being reserved by tradition for cabinet ministers, on the government side, and opposition leaders on the other.
It was significant, Maud thought, that today’s debate was to take place in this chamber, not in the House of Lords. In fact many of the peers were, like Fitz, here in the gallery, watching. The House of Commons had the authority that came from being elected by the people-even though not much more than half of adult men had the vote, and no women. Much of Asquith’s time as prime minister had been spent fighting the Lords, especially over Lloyd George’s plan to give all old people a small pension. The battles had been fierce but, each time, the Commons had won. The underlying reason, Maud believed, was that the English aristocracy were terrified that the French revolution would be repeated here, so in the end they always accepted a compromise.
The front-benchers came in, and Maud was immediately struck by the atmosphere among the Liberals. The prime minister, Asquith, was smiling at something said by the Quaker Joseph Pease, and Lloyd George was talking to Sir Edward Grey. “Oh, God,” Maud muttered.
Walter, sitting next to her, said: “What?”
“Look at them,” she said. “They’re all pals together. They’ve made up their differences.”
“You can’t tell that just by looking.”
“Yes, I can.”
The speaker entered in an old-fashioned wig and sat on the raised throne. He called on the foreign secretary, and Grey stood up, his gaunt face pale and careworn.
He had no skill as a speaker. He was wordy and ponderous. Nevertheless, the members squeezed along the benches, and the visitors in the packed gallery listened in attentive silence, waiting patiently for the important part.
He spoke for three-quarters of an hour before mentioning Belgium. Then, at last, he revealed the details of the German ultimatum that Walter had told Maud about an hour earlier. The M.P.s were electrified. Maud saw that, as she had feared, this changed everything. Both sides of the Liberal Party-the right-wing imperialists and the left-wing defenders of the rights of small nations-were outraged.
Grey quoted Gladstone, asking “whether, under the circumstances of the case, this country, endowed as it is with influence and power, would quietly stand by and witness the perpetration of the direst crime that ever stained the pages of history, and thus become participators in the sin?”
This was rubbish, Maud thought. An invasion of Belgium would not be the direst crime in history-what about the Cawnpore Massacre? What about the slave trade? Britain did not intervene every time a country was invaded. It was ludicrous to say that such inaction made the British people participants in the sin.
But few present saw things her way. Members on both sides cheered. Maud stared in consternation at the government front bench. All the ministers who had been fervently against war yesterday were now nodding agreement: young Herbert Samuel; Lewis “Lulu” Harcourt; the Quaker Joseph Pease, who was president of the Peace Society; and, worst of all, Lloyd George himself. The fact that Lloyd George was supporting Grey meant that the political battle was over, Maud realized in despair. The German threat to Belgium had united the opposing factions.
Grey could not play on his audience’s emotions, as Lloyd George did, nor could he sound like an Old Testament prophet, as Churchill did; but today he did not need such skills, Maud reflected: the facts were doing all the work. She turned to Walter and said in a fierce whisper: “Why? Why has Germany done this?”
His face twisted in an agonized expression, but he answered with his usual calm logic. “South of Belgium, the border between Germany and France is heavily fortified. If we attacked there, we would win, but it would take too long-Russia would have time to mobilize and attack us from behind. The only way for us to be sure of a quick victory is to go through Belgium.”
“But it also ensures that Britain will go to war against you!”
Walter nodded. “But the British army is small. You rely on your navy, and this is not a sea war. Our generals think Britain will make little difference.”
“Do you agree?”
“I believe it’s never smart to make an enemy of a rich and powerful neighbor. But I lost that argument.”
And that was what had happened repeatedly over the last two weeks, Maud thought despairingly. In every country, those who were against war had been overruled. The Austrians had attacked Serbia when they might have held back; the Russians had mobilized instead of negotiating; the Germans had refused to attend an international conference to settle the issue; the French had been offered the chance to remain neutral and had spurned it; and now the British were about to join in when they might easily have remained on the sidelines.
Grey had reached his peroration. “I have put the vital facts before the House, and if, as seems not improbable, we are forced, and rapidly forced, to take our stand upon these issues, then I believe, when the country realizes what is at stake, what the real issues are, the magnitude of the impending dangers in the west of Europe, which I have endeavored to describe to the House, we shall be supported throughout, not only by the House of Commons, but by the determination, the resolution, the courage, and the endurance of the whole country.”
He sat down to cheers from all sides. There had been no vote, and Grey had not even proposed anything; but it was clear from the reaction that the M.P.s were ready for war.
The leader of the opposition, Andrew Bonar Law, got up to say that the government could rely on the support of the Conservatives. Maud was not surprised: they were always more warlike than the Liberals. But she was amazed, as was everyone else, when the Irish Nationalist leader said the same thing. Maud felt as if she was living in a madhouse. Was she the only person in the world who wanted peace?
Only the Labour Party leader dissented. “I think he is wrong,” said Ramsay MacDonald, speaking of Grey. “I think the government which he represents and for which he speaks is wrong. I think the verdict of history will be that they are wrong.”
But no one was listening. Some M.P.s were already leaving the chamber. The gallery was also emptying. Fitz stood up, and the rest of his group followed suit. Maud went along listlessly. Down in the chamber, MacDonald was saying: “If the right honorable gentleman had come here today and told us that our country is in danger, I do not care what party he appealed to, or to what class he appealed, we would be with him… What is the use of talking about coming to the aid of Belgium, when, as a matter of fact, you are engaging in a whole European war?” Maud passed out of the gallery and heard no more.
