November 19th

The hot fit is over and the satisfaction that we all felt on Armistice night is fading fast. I recall with amazement many of the foolish things we said and did; like millions of others, we gave loose rein to our joy. How we cheered that noble woman who, holding aloft a fasces of Allied banners on the steps of the opera house, sang the “Marseillaise,” “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and “Britannia Rules the Waves.” Our behavior was more decorous as we attended the Mass of Victory and sang the Te Deum in the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of Paris, where, as some, a very few, recall, that other victory of Franco-American arms, celebrating Yorktown, was sung by order of Louis XVI in 1781.

But now sun spots are appearing in the orb of glorious victory, and selfish instincts, long held in check by the urgency of war emergencies, are asserting themselves. Strange, but nevertheless true, all the confident words that I listened to with greedy ears on that historic night have now died away, and what I remember is a word of doubt and uncertainty, perhaps of apprehension; it was spoken by Emmanuele, the clever Italian journalist, whose articles in the Cornere della Sera I had so much admired throughout the crucial stages of the war. I remember meeting him in the milling throngs and recall his careworn face seen under the glare of one of the Boulevard arc lights.

“Yes,” he said, “we have armistice; the ora formidabile has struck.”

The “formidable hour” that only comprised sixty soul-searching minutes has lengthened into a week and more. The hopes we cherished seem now unsubstantial; indeed, many of them I cannot recall.

The Colonel’s desk is piled high with reports of unpleasant incidents that presage bitter discussion and future conflicts. I console myself with reading the morning paper. Now no longer is it filled with the casualties in fine print and then the asterisk which explains, “All second lieutenants, unless otherwise stated.”

“Yours is the only beacon light in a darkening world,” he said; “keep it brightly burning, or else—”

It is going to be difficult. Only ten days have passed and with the pressure of danger Wilson’s omnipotence has passed also. New claims and new interests are being presented of which we know little, and of which the powers we have brought into the haven of victory think we know nothing at all. Some of our people are beginning to say that Wilson should have made hard-and-fast agreements with the powers while the eventual issue still hung in the balance. Perhaps! But what a lamentable ending that would have been to the glorious and inspiring crusade that brought so many hundred thousand of our boys from the homes and the farms that many of them will never see again!