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had invested in her salon at Biarritz. And if his frequent absences were not only on war business, Gabrielle by no means languished at home. If her comment “I was my own master, and I depended on myself alone,” made later in conversation with Morand, was made with some defensiveness in relation to Arthur’s absences, it was also increasingly the case. There was no question of Gabrielle’s sincerity when she declared that Arthur “was well aware that he didn’t control me.” This, of course, was part of her attraction for him. And yet with regard to supporting her ventures, this was the point at which Arthur made that melancholy statement to Gabrielle referred to in the prologue to this book. Characterizing the problems men and women faced when trying to devise new ways of relating to one another, he said: “I thought I’d given you a plaything, I gave you your freedom.”4

The year 1916 saw the twin disasters of Verdun and the Somme. Verdun, the longest battle of the war, gained no advantage for either side and was responsible for more than half a million casualties. The Battle of the Somme was notorious for its first-day British casualties of 58,000, one third of whom lost their lives. One liaison officer, for whom the romance of war had long since disappeared, felt it was nothing more than “a dreary massacre, a stupefying alternation of boredom, fatigue and fear.”5 In February 1917, Jacques-Emile Blanche said to his friend the writer André Gide:

Huge portentous things are happening above our heads, through the branches of the trees in my garden which fall under Olivier’s axe, and will replace coal in the winter 1917–18. Boy [Arthur] Capel, our friend, the great coal importer, mobilized by England and France at St Dominique Street [the Ministry of Defense], the man our tomorrow depends on . . . said to Rose, “Have your cook come up, I will make her understand her duty. From next month onwards things will be very difficult. Stock up. Do without what is not absolutely necessary. Around June, it will be almost famine. As for next winter, even if peace is signed, you will have to stay in bed and suck your thumb.6

The effects of the Russian Revolution were now playing out their relentless course; on March 15, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. In early April, to the great relief of the Allies, America at last entered the war, and on April 26, Lenin arrived in Russia to agitate more unrest. Then, with the second October revolution, Russia withdrew from the conflict. Meanwhile, the French commander in chief, Robert Nivelle, had argued for a massive onslaught on the German lines, which was to bring about a French victory in forty-eight hours. Many high - ranking officials disagreed, but the prime minister insisted.

The massive attack on the German positions was eventually supposed to link up with the Allied forces. From the beginning, the plan was dogged by delay and information leaks, and by the time the battle was launched, the Germans had had plenty of time to prepare their defenses. The offensive was an unmitigated disaster for the French, who suffered 187,000 casualties. On the western front, the slaughter was appalling. Thousands died every day, and the people of France were in a poor state of morale.

Arthur had been appointed to the new Allied War Coal Commission, but he was also unofficially liaising between the British and French politicians and the military. In addition, by the spring of 1917, when the Allied position had never been more in doubt, he published Reflections on Victory, in which he was confident of just that. To many, this looked misguided. While respecting the move toward democracy, Arthur abhorred the centralizing state. In its place he proposed a “Europe-wide Federation, giving full autonomy to every corporate body, region, people and race.” This federation could be seen as a forerunner to the present-day European Union and indeed was recognized as such by one of those later to become one of its architects.7

Reflections on Victory was reviewed in serious journals, and despite Arthur’s antifederal