Fall of Giants

Helpfully, the Italians had declared neutrality, saying their treaty with Austria obliged them to join only in a defensive war, whereas Austria’s action in Serbia was clearly aggressive. So far, Maud thought, Italy was the only country to have shown common sense.

Fitz and Walter were waiting in the octagonal Central Lobby. Maud immediately said: “I haven’t heard what happened at this morning’s cabinet-have you?”

“Three more resignations,” Fitz said. “Morley, Simon, and Beauchamp.”

All three were antiwar. Maud was discouraged, and also puzzled. “Not Lloyd George?”

“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?”