The Henson Journals

[268]

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Tuesday, September 1st, 1914.

I wrote a long & careful letter to Archbishop Söderblom, emphasizing the menace to all the smaller states of Europe involved in the German treatment of Belgium.

I changed a cheque, & paid a month's wages to my household. How long will this familiar process continue to be possible?

In the afternoon I took the Dennistouns in the motor to see the entrenchments at Whitburn.

On my return to the house I wrote letters to Raleigh etc.

There are no news from the seat of war, though it is stated that the great German effort to 'hack through' to Paris has been renewed. The papers are publishing many personal narratives from the wounded, who are now being brought to England in considerable numbers. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Germans are acting with amazing brutality. They certainly carry into the campaign a deplorable theory of war, while our men have no theory at all to confuse their natural kindliness. The burning of Louvain gives a probability to the worst accounts of German barbarism, which cannot be left out of count: nor can we altogether forget the settled policy of calumny & falsehood which the German Government has adopted for the behoof of its own people.

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