the importance, in
the crisis which has developed, that no change should be made. I hardly
need to add my personal hope that you will put aside any thought of
resigning your post for the present."

At this time, of course, any idea of retiring was out of the question.
The President had dismissed Bernstorff and there was every likelihood
that the country would soon be at war. Page would have regarded his
retirement at this crisis as little less than the desertion of his post.
Moreover, since Mr. Wilson had adopted the policy which the Ambassador
had been urging for nearly two years, and had sent Bernstorff home, any
logical excuse that may have existed for his resignation existed no
longer. Mr. Wilson had now adopted a course which Page could
enthusiastically support.

"I am happy to serve here at any sacrifice"--such was his reply to Mr.
Lansing--"until after the end of the war, and I am making my
arrangements to stay for this period."

The months that intervened between the Presidential election and the
declaration of war were especially difficult for the American Embassy in
London. Page had informed the President, in the course of his interview
of September 22nd, how unfavourably Great Britain regarded his efforts
in the direction of peace; he had in fact delivered a message from the
Foreign Office that any Presidential attempt to "mediate" would be
rejected by the Allies. Yet his earnest representation on this point had
produced no effect upon Mr. Wilson. The pressure which Germany was
bringing to bear upon Washington was apparently irresistible. Count
Bernstorff's memoirs, with their accompanying documents, have revealed
the intensity of the German efforts during this period; the most
startling fact revealed by the German Ambassador is that the Kaiser, on
October 9th, notified the President, almost in so many words, that,
unless he promptly moved in the direction of peace, the German
Government "would be forced to regain the freedom of action which it has
reserved to itself in the note of May 4th last[49]." It is unlikely that
the annals of diplomacy contain many documents so cool and insolent as
this one. It was a notification from the Kaiser to the President that
the so-called "Sussex pledge" was not regarded as an unconditional one
by the Imperial Government; that it was given merely to furnish Mr.
Wilson an opportunity to bring the war to an end; and that unless the
Presidential attempt to accomplish this wer