THE DRAMA OF 365 DAYS
After that he described in detail the measures we ought to take to make such an attack impossible and I hasten to add that, so far as I can see and know, the precautionary measures he recommended have all been taken since the outbreak of the war.
"WE'LL FIGHT, AND FIGHT SOON"
By that time I had, in common with the majority
of my countrymen who travelled much abroad,
been compelled to recognize the ever-increasing
hostility of the German and British peoples whenever
they encountered each other on the highways
of the world—their constant cross-purposes
on steamships, in railway trains, hotels, casinos,
post and telegraph offices—making social intercourse
difficult and friendship impossible. The
overbearing manners of many German travellers,
their aggressive and domineering selfishness,
which always demanded the best seats, the best
rooms, and the first attention, was year by year
becoming more and more intolerable to the
British spirit. It cannot be said that we acquiesced.
Indeed, it must be admitted that our
country-people usually met the German claims
to be the supermen of Europe with rather
unnecessary self-assertion. If an unmannerly
German pushed before us at the counter of a
booking-office we pushed him back; if he shouted
