Читать книгу A Passing World - Marie Belloc Lowndes - Страница 4

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In the summer of 1914 my mother, Bessie Parkes Belloc, was eighty-five, and the outbreak of war brought back a surge of memories of 1870-1871. Although she spent the four years at Slindon, she was often in London, and took the keenest interest in everything that happened. Thus my elder daughter remembers it was from her grandmother she first heard of the tanks. It is probable my brother told her of this new engine of war, and it had impressed her imagination. Even in the darkest days she never faltered in her conviction that the Allies were bound to win. Yet her belief in the strength of Germany was not affected by Germany's defeat. She felt convinced that Germany would again attack, though she did not think that attack would take place as soon as it did. This conviction was partly owing to what had happened in 1870-1871, and also because all through her youth the growing strength of Prussia had disturbed and made anxious her father and certain of his friends.

Her attitude to this matter was the more remarkable because all her English friends had by then turned against France, and were becoming, even if unaware of the fact, pro-German. She had no belief in a German republican regime and had hoped that in 1919 the Allies would reconstitute the Germany of her youth, with Prussia once more a kingdom.

My son Charles joined the 52nd Light Infantry, being then eighteen. He was stationed for a short time at Shorncliffe, and went to France for the first time on September 8th, 1916. He fought in the battle of Beaumont-Hamel, where he won the Military Cross. After being out in No-Man's Land for three days, wounded, he was sent to England. I remember with deep gratitude an officer at the War Office, whose name I never knew, who telephoned and asked me where I wished my boy to be sent. I told him Lady Ridley's Hospital, in Carlton House Terrace, because my closest friend was an aunt of Lady Ridley. As to that we were very fortunate—England was full of wounded, and private houses had been turned into hospitals all over the country.