Transgressions: Installment XCIII

May 1, 1938, Monday

There was a Communist march today, a huge crowd, stretching for many miles along the roads as they made their way to a gigantic rally in Hyde Park.

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May 3, 1938, Tuesday

?Pouring rain. This is the worst spring on record. Telegram from Mother:? “Certainly.”

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May 5, 1938, Thursday

At Livia’s Henderson said he has told the Germans that as France is acting for the Czechs, and Germany for the Sudeten Germans, Britain is supporting Germany. Jack said that he hoped that Germany would not refuse some kind of co-operation with Britain over Czecho-Slovakia, which might then, perhaps, lead to co-operation in other questions. “Such as,” said Lord Cecil, “The partition of the British Empire, with Germany agreeing to take, to take just the tasty bits.”? He says that there is no such thing as Sudeten Germans:? “In old Vienna they were accurately de-scribed as German Bohemians, an arrogant lot even then.”

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Baron Franckenstein, the former Austrian Minister, sat in a corner with Jack for much of the evening, discussing the prices of country houses in Surrey.

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Livia, at the door:? “So very good of the Countess to ask us to share your happiness. We’ll stay with friends so as not to trouble her more than necessary.”? A pause. “Did I happen to mention that I saw Lord Rabensberg at one of the galleries with that red haired girl you used to fancy?”

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May 7, 1938, Saturday

Now that the sun is out one can see that the Waddesdon laburnum were damaged by the bitter cold of this spring, but there are bits of gold, red & blue on the trees all the same. Cassel and Watt have received their invitations from the Countess and—for a wonder—both have accepted. Terribly nice of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cassel didn’t show, as his cough persists and Nadine is looking increasingly anxious.

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May 9, 1938, Monday

Lunch with Watt, who said that he had it “on the highest, or rather, lowest” authority that at their meeting on the Bay of Naples, Hitler was heavily rouged and Mussolini choking with disgust. “I don’t see why it should bother Il Duce that the German leader was trying to be agreeable in the way most familiar to him.”

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Jack says that the PM has opened a direct channel to the German Government, through Henderson, by-passing the Foreign Office, to keep the Germans apprised of the London discussions in regard to Czecho-Slovakia. And that the Treasury is holding fast to its policy of rationing the defence departments to a fixed total sum, lower than that desired by each of them individually.

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“It is a good thing that the PM, at least, is a sensible man. Otherwise Harrison and Duff would bankrupt the country.”

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May 12, 1938, Thursday

A hot, summer-like day.

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Livia’s:? Jack said: “You can usually find Winston in the House of Commons smoking room at the centre of a group of MPs. He speaks rapidly, seems to listen attentively to other MPs, stands up when making a point, then drops back into his chair, breaking matchsticks into little pieces and throwing them on the floor. He is the Prime Minister of the Smoking Room. Thank God Neville is the King’s Prime Minister.”

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There are rumors that Henderson is to be brought home from Berlin as being too supportive of the German demands on Czecho-Slovakia. “Not a chance,” said Lord Cecil, “He is doing his master’s bidding.”? Jack says that Britain must avoid war at almost any price until the air-defences are in order. The issue has become one of a choice between losing some of the Empire or giving up entirely on being a Great Power.

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May 13, 1938 Friday

The first ducklings of the season are on the lake in St. James’s Park; nature is always optimistic and almost convinces one that the world is safe for ducklings.

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Jack says that Henlein, the Sudeten leader, was given lunch by Cecil to-day in his rooms (Albany, of course), and then went to tea at Harold Nicolson’s rooms in King’s Bench Walk. He was conciliatory on both occasions, proposing a Swiss-canon arrangement for the German and other minorities in Czecho-Slovakia and rejecting Nazi anti-Church and anti-Semitic agitation. “Someone with whom we can do business,” was Jack’s impression. He is preparing a column to that effect.

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May 14, 1938, Saturday

Waddesdon. Interestingly, now that matters in that line are not so fraught at Hertford House, I find it easier to study the furniture here, easier and more pleasurable. It is indeed something of a study collection, acquired in a single coup, as it were, and not accumulated in the usual haphazard fashion.

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Watt, taking up the conversation from last week, asked Cassel how he would go about designing his Rembrandt encyclopaedia. “Is it exterior or interior or both?”?

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“What others knew about him or what he knew?? Both are necessary, of course, as we are so removed from the times and the milieu.”?

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Watt sketched for a moment, waiting for Cassel’s coughing fit to pass. Then, as if nothing had happened:? “Difficult. How is one to know what is essential and what not; what should be emphasized and what merely assumed?”?

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“One cannot know those things. That is why the typical disease of scholars is an indiscriminate obsession with detail.”?

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“Perhaps a disease,” said Watt, “But perhaps useful at certain times. When one part of the whole is unknown, systematically filling in the rest might reveal its outlines.”?

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Philip played a Bach Partita.

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May 15, 1938, Sunday

Watt spent some time on the telephone with Victor Rothschild, talking about the Witkowice works near Cracow, which the Germans are trying to take over from the Rothschild interests. This side of Edmund is easily forgotten, or difficult to believe, but it hardly seems possible that the Rothschilds would pay him as an advisor if they weren’t getting value for money.

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May 16, 1938, Monday

The American newspapers are carrying a report that at a luncheon given by Lady Astor, Chamberlain said that neither Briton nor France “nor probably Russia,” would come to the aid of Czecho-Slovakia in the event of an attack by Germany and that he favoured giving the Germans the Sudetenland “in the interests of peace.”? Jack says that the reference to Russia was particularly clever.

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May 18, 1938, Wednesday?

X’s confession to Jack the other night:? “I’m worried by my lack of elegance. I go to the best hosiers, the best tailors, the best haircutters. I am always washing and scrubbing. Yet, when I mix with the truly elegant—like you—at one of Livia’s exquisite dinner parties or at Port Lympne, I feel scrubby. My shirt pops, my tie becomes crooked, my hair stands on end, and I look like a drunk.”?

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“That may be because he has been drinking so much these last few months,” said Livia. “Drowning his joys in gin.”

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“Rhymes with joys.” Jack.

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Haxton has become co-editor of the Journal of the Warburg Institute and talks of no one but Saxl, Wittkower and Wind.

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May 19, 1938, Thursday

Livia’s. Jack and Cecil in a rather confusing conversation about Spain and Czecho-Slovakia, turning on the attitude of the French, who are interventionist in both theatres. Jack says that the French have to be dealt with firmly, as their Spanish policy is alienating the Italians and their Czech policy is enraging the Germans.

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“Both good things,” said Cecil.

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Cecil says that he “is told,” that the latest purge in Russia has taken two-thirds of the generals and a quarter of the other officers of the Red Army.

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Meanwhile, in gentle Westminster, the Air Minister, Swinton, has been sacked, initiating a round of Cabinet musical chairs. Many people hope Churchill will come in and many others (Nicolson, Jack) hold similar hopes for themselves.

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May 20, 1938, Friday

Windy & cold. Rumors that Halifax is going to give Cecil the Wash-ington Embassy in order to remove him from Whitehall.

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Cassel began the dinner conversation by saying “1) Predestination is conditional, not absolute, 2) The Atonement is in intention universal, 3)? Man cannot of himself exercise a saving faith.”? At which point Watt, of all people, said:? “4) That although the grace of God is a necessary condition of human effort it does not act irresistibly in man and 5)? Believers are able to resist sin, but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace.”? Cassel got to his feet, fetched the claret from a sideboard and filled Watt’s glass. Nadine, who had not appeared to be paying attention, said:? “Why are we discussing the Remonstrants?”

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Watt:? “Rembrandt, I imagine.”?

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“Yes, that is it,” said Cassel. “The origins of his Humanism, don’t you think?”

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“Erasmus?” I hazarded.

?“Erasmus,” Cassel said a bit severely, “Erasmus made Arminius possible.”

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I asked for some claret.

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“Let’s say that we can establish a layer of Remonstrantism in Rem-brandt’s intellectual formation. Given that, we would expect him to believe, to some extent, in what we might call the importance of character.”? Watt went back to his elaborate, aimless drawings on a sketch-pad Nadine had put at his place to save the linen. Cassel, grasping that he was on his own for the moment, said:? “Philip, do you have your cello?”? He did.

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May 21, 1938, Saturday

A day for rather wet cycling through the fields around Waddesdon.

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At dinner someone said that Halifax has told Ribbentrop that as a Ger-man invasion of Czecho-Slovakia would likely lead to a general European war it would be resisted by the French and Germany should not assume that Britain would stand aside. To underline the point, Halifax has ordered preparations for the withdrawal of the Berlin Embassy’s staff and their families. On the other hand, Benes has opened talks with Henlein.

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Nadine sat in Cassel’s usual place at table as he had had his dinner sent up to his room.

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May 22, 1938, Sunday

A perfect cloudless summer day. The azaleas and the irises in the Waddesdon gardens look wonderful.

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Then down to London for an “emergency” dinner party at Livia’s. Jack says that the Czechs have mobilized on word of an imminent German invasion. He says that the Government have told the French that Britain is not obliged to save France if the latter is invaded by Germany (after telling the Germans that it might be so obliged). Cadogan came in after dinner and a debate ensued between him and Lord Cecil, Cadogan arguing that war must be avoided, Cecil taking his usual line that if Britain did not appear to be ready for war, the Germans would gradually become the paramount power in Europe. Cadogan, apparently having Halifax on his side, treats Cecil’s opinions with a certain lack of respect.

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Gossip about Charles Lindbergh’s defeatism—or is it pro-Germanism?? He is advising all who will listen that the Germans have more aeroplanes than the sands of the sea and that Britain might as well throw in with them as soon as possible. Cecil thinks that Lindbergh would take a post in the German air forces if his wife would allow it.

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Some people think that war might start in a day or two.

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May 23, 1938, Monday

I’ve been looking at flats with an eye to nominating two or three for Violet to inspect. It is rather amusing to walk through them, thinking about what it would be like to live in this place rather than that.

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Jack says that Halifax has warned the French that there is nothing to be done to prevent the Germans from taking Czecho-Slovakia and that any efforts to prevent it will only result in a European war, with an outcome “at least doubtful.”? Jack says, and will so write to his constituents, that the fault for the threat to peace is entirely that of Benes, as the Czech President insisted on viewing matters from his own narrow, national self-interest point of view.

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May 24, 1938, Tuesday

Jack in a fury as Halifax, swinging the other way, wants to offer the Czechs support against Germany in return for their severing relations with France and the Soviet Union.

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May 26, 1938, Thursday

To Livia’s for an “ordinary” dinner. Cecil says that Halifax is trying to block German economic expansion into the Balkans. He says that Chamberlain, on the other hand, is telling people that he does not see an economically powerful Germany as ‘necessarily a bad thing’ and thinks it might even redirect her energies into peaceable channels. Phrases like “not necessarily a bad thing,” according to Cecil, are used by the PM to weasel his way through to objectives that can’t be publicly acknowledged. He says that there actually isn’t a conflict between Halifax and the PM, as the former is offering Prague the impression (but not the reality) of a commitment to preserve the Slavic part of the Czecho-Slovak state, in return for the reality of destroying the Czech link between Paris and Moscow, which, he says, is the whole point of the PM’s Central Europe policy.

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It’s a process, says Cecil, like that of a perverse eye doctor. “He offers you a choice between a series of innocuous alternatives, um, ah, each cleverly crafted to lead you toward a worse choice until you arrive at the chosen catastrophe.”? He says that what Chamberlain is desperate to conceal is that the Czech army—“unlike the Polish”—is likely to defeat the Germans in a fair fight. “An unlikely circumstance, to be sure.”

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Nonetheless, Cecil believes that even this ambiguous hint of resistance has interrupted the German march toward war. “They only want to fight if the other side can’t—or in our case—won’t.”? He says that the French ambassador in Moscow, Coulondre, is attempting to organize military staff discussions between the Russians and the French, while the Poles are saying that they will neither support the Czechs against the Germans, nor allow the Soviet’s passage through their territory to do so. “One surveys the animal kingdom in vain for a, a beast simultaneously sufficiently vicious and stupid to serve as an emblem for the Polish governing class.”

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May 28, 1938, Saturday

A dark and wet November day. Cassel spent most of it in the library, looking at Rembrandt etchings. At dinner he reported:? “I can’t find any depicting war. And yet, just across the border, the Thirty Years War was spreading horror across Germany for much of his lifetime. Instead of Goya’s dismembered corpses and near-corpses, we have exercises in the depiction of expression, portraits of worthy burghers, and history pictures chiefly featuring the ample charms of his wife and later of those of the serving girl who became his mistress.”

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Philip said:? “Some artists, I understand, are interested only in the arrangement of lines or colors on paper—or sounds in time, to mention something of which I am not quite as ignorant. The so-called subject matter is an invention of critics.”

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“Or the choice of patrons, like your uncle,” said Cassel. “I hear he isn’t very well?”

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“No, not very well. The doctors don’t seem to have a clue.”

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“That’s better than when they are certain,” said Watt. “They are less likely to make some murderous error.”

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Cassel:? “Then I am safe. The doctors seem adequately puzzled. To re-turn to Philip’s point: Would it mean that the pair of paintings in the collection of the Baron Gustave de Rothschild—he would be your grand-uncle, would he not?—are not “about” the Daey marriage, or bourgeois life, but certain patterns of light and shadow?”

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?“Both, I would think.”? Watt, answering for Philip. “We have the bad habit of either/or because life is short and our means still rather primitive and we believe that we must choose one thing or another to investigate. But that is contingent, not essential. To truly know any one thing we must know everything about it and everything about everything touching on it, ringing all possible permutations.”

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“Bach.”? Philip.

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“Bach.”? Cassel. “Or Leibniz.”

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Watt:? “Leibniz?? Yes, that’s very good:? Leibniz.”

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May 30, 1938, Monday

Lunch with Jack at his club, where we were joined by Lord Cecil, who said that the Cabinet were irritated at what they saw as the aggressive designs of Prague against German interests. “Rather like,” he said, “The aggressive designs of the vole at the bottom of the garden against the cat.”

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May 31, 1938, Tuesday

We’ve taken the flat in Green Street, mid-way between Hertford House and the American Embassy, which seems fitting. Violet is v. happy with it and even the Countess approves.

#historicalfiction #London #1930s