Boulogne Jan 10. My dear my dear - & so you think the gout will work a final cure – is that what you think? A cure for me & you hobbling to an untimely grave, is that your vision? Take me hobbling with you, if you please. If that’s your road I shall still like it better than all the flowery paths. But my dear beloved its very very tiresome about your eyes, that you can’t see at night without aches & pains, that troubles me so much. If I were with you that is when we would read the poets, I leaning against your knee, we would talk & talk & perhaps you would find time to make love to me a little when there was nothing else of importance left to say but how terribly I should scamp the important matters to get through to that other – ah my dear what nonsense I write! Would you like me to be a little more sensible for once? I’ll wrench my mind back to please you. Your hospital is at Frévent, I hear, behind Avesnes[-le-Comte] which is behind Arras. Fabian Ware told us – but I will begin at the beginning of my tale. My chief has been for two nights last week – Lord Robert, Ian Malcolm. I had been a little anxious about Lord R. not knowing if he were pleased with the way this office is run, or not, but the good Ian Malcolm, who is a warm ally, wrote me a note beforehand to say he was delighted & was coming over to hear my views & put more responsibility into my hands – if that’s where one puts it. So I greeted him with confidence (I scarcely knew him before) & found him perfectly delightful. We all dined together that night at the Hotel Folkestone, which is the Ritz of Boulogne & had a most satisfactory talk. The upshot of it is first that Cox has backed out. He has been pushed out I am glad to say, for I don’t want to work under Coz - & [?] the whole field. Lord R. has gone off to Touen to see about establishing an office there, & if he succeeds the Russells with be drafted off there & I shall have Tiger Howard (the Greystoke Howard daughter) to help me here with a much bigger staff & probably all enquiries both for officers & for privates. I should like that the more they give me to do, the better I like it - & fortunately the Russells are enchanted with the idea of Rouen. It would be much easier for me – Tiger would do the work my way without questioning, whereas I generally have to do it twice over to make sure that it is securely finished. And that is too much bother. I haven’t time to sort things out over again at the tail end of the day, making no protest lest my colleague should be hurt in her feelings. You can’t think what care & attention it all needs, especially now that I keep Fabian Ware’s record as well as my own. I work very quickly you know Dick, & I like to hand the special thing over & say “now do that and fill in this” & find it done by the time I’ve got to the next stage. As it well might be, only I generally don’t find it done & then I have to go back & pick up the threads again & disentangle them. Its very laborious. I would far rather do the whole thing myself, only I dare not for it would mean the sacrificing of old friendships. That’s what it comes to. But if 29 the Rouen scheme is brought off, all will settle itself. Therefore I pray for it. I love Lord Robert; he is the most generous & delightful of chiefs. After dinner as we sat talking, up came Fabian Ware whose acquaintance I made. I wasn’t favourably impressed by him. He is a poseur, the sort of poseur who presses your hand in his, looks deeply into your eyes and doesn’t listen to anything you say. That’s what I thought, but today he lunched here – hew was passing through on his way to England - & I liked him much better. But I like better still the two men working with him who are most closely in touch with me, Mr Carlile and Mr Cazalet. Anyhow Mr Cazalet had grown so glowing on account of our midnight sitting over his ledger that the whole Fabian Ware unit seems persuaded there’s no one like us. Their clearing hospital is at Avesnes & they pick up their wounded in front of Arras which is in the fighting line. Incidentally they do a good deal for the making of graves & collecting of information about missing & all this they pass on to me to distribute. Apparently the Adjutant General is warmly in favour of all this & allows them every possible facility. So you see they are valuable allies. Lord R. remained here all next day & was in & out of the office a good deal. I made him ask our three men respectively to lunch, to tea & to dinner, which I felt sure would please them. – Its always a good thing to be on terms of human fellowship with the people who are working for you. He is more than ready to do anything of this kind. And what was even more to the point was that he went & pressed all the authorities of Boulogne to have our drains put right – we were rapidly catching enteric! The attack is passing off a little now you will be relieved to hear, but I have a rooted distrust of French plumbers – only to be matched by my rooted confidence that I shall not catch any diseases myself, not even the gout, dearest heart, to keep you company. But I troubled you for the fate of my invaluable typewriter. The next day brought a real pleasure with it. My beloved little cousin, Oliver Stanley turned up in the afternoon on his way to join his battery. He walked into the office & filled it with affection & cheerfulness, bless him. He had left the army 6 months before the war began, rejoined of course, & has been doing transport work at the base till now. He stayed to tea & dinner & then went off to the front, taking a good slice of my heart with him – can you spare it? tell me. If not I’ll draw it all back for you. I don’t feel unreasonably anxious about him for in these days of very long range & wonderfully concealed guns the artillery suffer comparatively little. You know our artillery is getting very good. We have masses of 9.2, come & coming & we are beating the Germans at that game. Our extra super Dreadnoughts are taking the seas, with 15 in. guns & a speed of 30 25 knots. They have the legs of torpedo boats & the range of everybody & everything. But oh my dearest I boast, & all the time I know how hopeless it is, this trench warfare, the loss it means, the sacrifice, & for such small gains. Its not worth it, that’s what they all say. We had best sit still, & let them wear themselves out. We can’t drive them out when 500 men can hold a trench against 5000. Fabian Ware told me today – I said he lunched here & was much more sensible than the other night? – that the state of the country was past belief. Wire entanglements are quite useless as one can stir for the mud. You plunge in it up to the knees, up to the thighs. But he thinks that when dry weather comes, or frost, the Germans will make another big attack. I hope they will, for if we can’t take their trenches, they can’t take ours, & it’s the assailant who loses the most men. And Dearest, Maurice isn’t coming out yet. Harold Tyaker wrote to me that the order was cancelled for the moment. He is to stay & guard the coast. It’s a mountain weight off my mind – just the respite - & I praise & glorify the Germans for every threat of invasion they have uttered. My beloved have your eyes begun to ache yet with reading all I write? not yet! I have so much more to tell. Last night I ached for you – it was so many days since I had said to you that I love you & live for you; I felt sure you were beginning to forget. But I had to play at being a politician, masquerade & make pretence that I was not the lover which is all I am. I told you how Herbert Samuel wrote & asked me if I thought we could turn Palestine into a Jew state under British protection? I haven’t answered his letter, it lay for ten days, I was so busy. But last night I wrote him a long discourse – would you have agreed? I told him I had always wanted to create a neutral belt if Turkey broke up, between French Syria & the Egyptian frontier. Alliances are not imperishable. I don’t wish to have the French knocking at the gates of Egypt. But an English protectorate won’t do – the French would not understand it. And a Jew state won’t do. If we are to have any profit from the war, the settlement that follows it must be on material lines, or lines of neutrality. Such a settlement could not give Palestine to the Jews, the whole, or almost the whole, of the population being Arab & Mohammedan. And then we English are a Mohammedan power & our eastern policy must be guided thereby. Jerusalem is the third most holy city of Islam; you could not turn out Islam but with the sword & the sword we cannot use. Moreover it is so deeply seated in the heart of those religions that I believe it must remain at best undenominational. I doubt whether Christianity would bear with a Jewish Jerusalem – certainly Russian & Oriental Christianity would resent & resist it. And then I plotted out for him Palestine Prima, under 31 the guarantee of all the powers, with Israel represented upon the Administrative Council; marked the boundaries thereof, showed him how it must include the port & railway of Haifa if it were to prosper, & told him by what means & with what securities the Jews could be given a free & fair opportunity of holding their own & increasing it. It’s a great plot I’m weaving, for if I can rope in the Jews & gain their support I may get my central province yet & restrain the F. O. from leaving France to play what game she chooses. I’ve boiled down for you what was really a very exhaustive memorandum & now I’m longing to know how H. S. will take it. He is wholly ignorant of the East – amazingly ignorant of political conditions; can I teach him a little wisdom, do you think, & make him & his strive for what is attainable, not lose themselves in sands by running after what is impossible? That I should preach this to Jew or Gentile! I who spend my whole time head downwards in the sandpits because I will not follow anything but that which I cannot have. My dear, my very dear – one thing more; it’s growing late but I don’t want to leave you. Today there came to see me a very interesting man, an American called Whittimore. I knew him before – or rather he knew me, for I had forgotten him as my detestably inconvenient habit is – but I concealed this fact. He came straight from Berlin. And as he talked I began to realise what it looks like from that side. He was not anti-English, but neither was he anti-German. One had to walk very warily; he had looked on the other side of the shield and seen there the same fine spirit that is stamped on us. Berlin, he said, was perfectly normal. They go about gravely. They all know to the full the task on which they are engaged. Their papers, so he says, give a full & accurate account of the war. There will be no disillusion from the prince to the lift boy they realise it step by step. They are not discouraged. They think Joffre a great general. They say they have but one themselves; if Hindenburg could be on both sides at once it would be different. If the Austrians had not been two days late their coup on Warsaw would have succeeded. They know that the Austrians are no sure help, but they bear no resentment. They reckon them up at their worth & no more. They worship the Emperor. When he was ill & resting in Berlin they went about the streets almost on tip toe lest they should disturb his days of quiet. They have immense resources of population still untouched, men of the best fighting type not yet called out. He has gone to Paris, Mr Whittimore, & returns on Tuesday when he dines with me & I shall hear more. Oh yes & one thing more. I could see my Germans in it. They have the most wonderful Red X exhibition in Berlin – every plan of war & succour represented to the life. The people come to see it from far & near & when they 32 have seen it they know why their charity is needed & what it is relieving. He is going back to Berlin & I want him to help us in establishing direct relations between our Red X & theirs. That’s what we shall talk about on Tuesday. My Dick if you could set eyes on Arthur Stanley, the figure head of our Red X. A nincompoop of the first water. My spirit falls when I think of him & of his counterpart, his opposite in Berlin. Goodnight my best beloved. Can you love me a little, or are your eyes still clear enough to see that there’s no reason in it? Be blind, be just a little blind for me only. Jan 10. Lord Robert spent the morning here on his way back from Rouen. It is all settled. The Russells go there with Mr Durrell whose reports I shall miss very much – they are so clear & concise. We have telegraphed to Tiger Howard to come to me here. And as soon as I have another typewriter I am to do all the letter writing for the French officers. I shall be glad to have that in my hands. The form in which you convey enquiries is of the utmost importance. I have got a very decorative grey haired parson, Mr Nugent, to replace Mr Durrell. I don’t like the third man, Mr Deed; he is very [?] & his work is bad. Lord Robert doesn’t like him either & I may get him shifted. I think I need not post this letter till tomorrow. I am glad to wait till the latest possible day so that I may tell you that I still love you Jan 12 - I’ve been interviewing on behalf of your hospital today. Your wife sent me down a letter saying that she was in desperate straits for a surgeon – had telegraphed here & been refused, though it was only a temporary loan for which she asked – would I do anything. So I put on my hat & ran round to Sir Courtauld Thomson, our Commissioner, who referred us with much head scratching to the head doctor of the Commission, Stewart. Him I knew, & most fortunately had done him a service (from the office, an enquiry) & the long & short of it is that a surgeon, Mr Davies, sets out at break of day tomorrow in Dr Stewart’s motor to Frévent. I telegraphed to your wife but I expect Dr Davies will arrive before the telegram. A dresser, for whom she also asked, I can’t get – no mortal could, for all the Red X dressers have been sent home to complete their medical training. But I hope the surgeon is most needed, & him I’ve got for you dear heart. Sir Courtauld dined with us to meet Whittimore who was back from Paris. He is very pleasant & amiable, Sir Courtauld, but he was so tired 33 that he could scarcely speak. They work from 9 to 1, from 2 to 8 and from 9 to 11. It is a long day. Mr Whittimore is an archaeologist, he digs in Egypt, & when Sir C. was gone we talked of that a little, & then came back to the war & the impossibility of a victory for either side. That’s what it comes to, don’t be buoyed up by other hopes. I cannot & nobody can see how either side can win. But I win always having your love, goodnight my very dear, I am yours Gertrude