A novel idea

Saturday, October 30th., Cadogan Square, London.

I began to think more seriously about the plan of my new novel. I had already got the moral background for it: the dissatisfaction of a successful and rich man with his own secret state of discontent and with the evils of the age. I wanted a frame. I walked about three miles this morning, and about a mile after tea, without getting a really satisfactory idea; then as I was lolling in my 'easy' about 6.30, I suddenly thought that I would extend the role of the train de luxe, which I had thought of for the scene of the opening of the story, to be the scene of the whole of the novel - so that the entire time-space of the novel will only be about thirty hours or so. I didn't go any farther than this; I had enough for the day.

Then quite a lot of reading of Ludwig on the Kaiser. This seems to be rather a great book.

Wilhelm Hohenzollern by Emil Ludwig (1926)

This book is a portrait of William the Second and does not tell the whole story of his life. For fairness' sake, the author designed to let no adversary of the Emperor bear witness, but constructed his portrait wholly from William's own deed and words, together with the reports of those who stood in close relation to him and who give strikingly similar answers to the psychical questions involved. In short, this work is an attempt to trace from the idiosyncrasies of a monarch the direct evolution of international political events and the course of his country's destiny.

The end of the war

Tuesday, November 12th., Yacht Club, London.

In Sunday's papers we saw the Abdication of the Kaiser.

"It is made known from Amsterdam that the Kaiser signed his abdication on Saturday morning at the German Headquarters, in the presence of the Crown Prince and Field-Marshal von Hindenburg. The Kaiser was deeply moved. He resisted abdication until he saw an urgent message giving news of the latest happenings in Germany. ' The Kaiser read the message with a shiver, and signed the document, saying, "May it be for the good of Germany." It was announced from Rotterdam on Sunday that the ex-Kaiser and the ex-Crown Prince had reached the Dutch frontier in motor-cars. They were awaiting the permission of the Dutch Government to proceed to Middachten, where Count Bentinck has offered them a castle as a residence. The Amsterdam correspondent of the London "Daily Chronicle" says that the Kaiser's visit to headquarters was intended to rally the army round him, but only officers, and those chiefly Prussians, placed themselves at his disposal. He conferred for several hours with the Crown Prince, Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, and General von Groener. Both generals advised abdication. Von Hindenburg said : "Delay will have terrible consequences in the army." The Kaiser was undecided when the conference ended. He made up his mind an hour later, after the receipt of communications from Berlin. London was in high spirits over the announcement of the abdication of the Kaiser. Crowds of people, in buoyant mood, thronged thestreets until late at night. There was tremendous cheering and outbursts of patriotic enthusiasm in the theatres and moving-picture halls

when the news was announced from the stage. 

<http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1424850>

Returned to town yesterday morning. In Lower Regent Street first news that armistice signed - a paper boy calling out in a subdued tone. 10.45. Maroons went off at 11, and excited the populace.
A large portion of the ministry staff got very excited. Buchan came in to shake hands. Girls very excited. I had to calm them. Lunch at Wellington Club. We had driven through large crowds part way up the Mall, and were then turned off from Buckingham Palace.

Raining now. An excellent thing to damp hysteria and Bolshevism. Great struggling to cross Piccadilly Circus twice. No buses. (It was rumoured that Tubes stopped. I believe they were stopped for a time.) It stopped raining. Then cold mire in streets. Vehicles passed festooned with shouting human beings. Others, dark, with only one or two occupants. Much light in Piccadilly up to Ritz corner, and in Piccadilly Circus. It seemed most brilliant. Some theatres had lights on their facades too. The enterprising Trocadero had hung a row of temporary lights under one of its porticoes. Shouting. But nothing terrible or memorable.

<http://edwardianpromenade.com/war/a-glimpse-of-armistice-day-in-london-1918/>

Yet this morning, Brayley, my valet, said to me the usual phrases: "You wondered where the people came from. You could walk on their heads at Charing Cross, and you couldn't cross Picc. Circus at all." When he came in with my tea I said: "Well, Brayley, it's all over." He smiled and said something. That was all our conversation about the end of the war. Characteristic.

Last night I thought of lonely soldiers in that crowd. No one to talk to. But fear of death lifted from them.

Rumours of war

Friday, August 21st

Davray wrote me the other day from Paris stating without any hint of scepticism (1) that the menu of the dinner which the Kaiser was to eat in Paris on August 12th had been prepared in advance. And (2) that in the cellars of the Hotel du Rhin a garlanded bust of the emperor had been found ready to expose in the Place Vendome when the Kaiser should pass through.

Hotel du Rhin in the Place Vendome

Great spectacular depressing fact of the surrender of Brussels to the Germans this morning. But by the afternoon I had got quite used to it, and was convinced that it was part of the Allies preconceived plan and that all was well. But before getting this reassuring conviction I had gone upstairs and written 1200 words in 2 hours!

Kaiser Wilhelm (as popularly portrayed)

Henry Davray sometimes Henry-David Davray, born Durand, born in 1872 and died in London in 1944. Henry Davray was at the beginning of the last century, a prominent popularizer of literature from across the Channel, by translating and discovering the works of Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Frank Harris, HG Wells, Joseph Conrad and George Meredith . He translated the famous HG Wells novel The War of the Worlds.
He created several journals, the best known being the Anglo-French Review. After the First World War , its action in favor of the spread of English prose helped it to become the most famous French literary circles in Britain, where he settled in 1940 after being made ​​a Commander of the British Order Empire by King George VI . In 1946, the urn containing his ashes was interred in the cemetery of Bricquebec in the family vault
.
"His name may be honored like a good servant of Western culture,"  
Pierre Leberruyer