The Life and Times of the American Journalsit Arno

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE AMERICAN JOURNALSIT ARNO DOSCH FLEUROT (1879-1951): DEFINING AMERICAN LIBERALISM IN WORLD WAR ONE ERA THROUGH THE LENSE OF FOREIGN REPORTING ______

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

California State University, Fullerton ______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

History ______

Angelina Slepchenkova

Thesis Committee Approval:

Volker Janssen, Department of History, Chair Benjamin Cawthra, Department of History Cora Granata, Department of History

Summer, 2017

ABSTRACT

This study examines life and times of Arno Dosch Fleurot (1879-1951), the

American veteran newspaperman, who was a foreign correspondent in Europe since 1914 and reported to Americans about many important world events – World War One and

World War Two, revolutions in Russia and Germany to name a few. The focus of this research is Dosch Fleurot’s experience as a foreign reporter during World War One and in the early 1920s, in the period that became the determinant for his professional and personal life. His witnesses and opinions about the war and its outcomes reflected in his articles for the Worlds Work, a monthly magazine, the New York World, and some other newspapers that published or syndicated his articles and his correspondence with family in Portland, Oregon exemplify the challenges the conflict brought to people with a liberal outlook. Indeed, the war experience raised doubts among the ranks of American liberals, and Dosch Fleurot was not the exception, about their core belief in the inevitable spread of democracy throughout the world. The purpose of this study is to examine Dosch

Fleurot’s evolution of this idealistic belief and illustrate how American liberals tried to reconcile their advocacy of the spread of democracy with the national interests of the

United States. Since the beginning of World War One, the question of how international the American foreign policy should be became a controversial issue in the American society. The debate continues to this day.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter 1. REPORTING FROM THE WESTERN FRONT (1914-1916): WAITING FOR A SOCIAL REVOLUTION...... 14

American Neutrality in Action ...... 15 Neutrality of Spirit ...... 28 Grasping the War ...... 37

2. ARNO DOSCH FLEUROT IN REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA: AMERICAN RESPONSE TO THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917 ...... 45

Building Russian Democracy ...... 46 Russia Must Fight ...... 56 Arno Dosch Fleurot and Bolshevism ...... 64

3. THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR ONE: THE COLLAPSE OF AMERICAN IDEALISM IN 1920S ...... 73

Disillusionment with the German Revolution ...... 74 The Spread of Bolshevism ...... 79 The Postwar International System ...... 91

CONCLUSION ...... 104

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 117

iii 1

INTRODUCTION

May be there won’t be war, though the Bolsheviks just will not let you live in peace in the same world with them. I have been trying to make this thought register for thirty-odd years, but people do not learn anything until it hits them.1 — Arno Dosch Fleurot

Arno Dosch Fleurot, a veteran newspaperman, belonged to the generation of

American foreign reporters who emerged during World War One. He came to Belgium with the first group of American correspondents in August 1914, and from then on one can describe his life as a series of thrilling adventures. Starting as a war reporter on the

Western Front in 1914 he was transferred to Russia where he witnessed two Russian revolutions and the beginning of the Russian Civil War. When World War One was over, he could have returned to his native country, but he chose to stay in Europe. His long assignments alternated with short visits to the United States. Following major world events, Dosch Fleurot moved from country to country and became a true cosmopolitan and an expert in world politics.

Dosch Fleurot was born in 1879, in Portland, Oregon, to a well-to-do family of first-generation immigrants. His father, Henry Ernst Dosch came to the United States from Mainz, a city in Western Germany. Shortly before the beginning of the American

1 Arno Dosch Fleurot (ADF) to Marcus (Marguerite Dosch Campbell), January 19, 1951. All letters are in possession of John Wilson Special Collections, Multnomah County Library, Portland, Oregon.

Civil War, he settled in St. Louis, a city with a big German community. When war broke out, Henry Dosch decided to join the Union army and enlisted in the cavalry service.

After his discharge in 1863, he took the Oregon Trail and moved westward. He had tried different jobs before he settled in Portland, Oregon where he eventually became a successful merchant and horticulturist. In 1866, he married Marie Louise Fleurot, who was born in France and came to the United States as a little girl. Henry and Marie Dosch had ten children, four of which died in childhood.2

Dosch Fleurot graduated from Harvard Law School and could have become a lawyer. Instead, returning to his native city he decided to be a journalist. At first, the young writer tried himself in the newspaper business of his native city, first as a reporter for the Oregonian and as an editor of the Pacific Monthly. When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake happened, he was sent to the city as a correspondent of the Oregonian and decided to settle there. After the unsuccessful attempt to start an illustrated weekly, the

East and West, he wrote for the San Francisco Call and the San Francisco Bulletin.3 In

San Francisco, Dosch Fleurot met his first wife Elsie Sperry, who was helping in the soup kitchens after the earthquake. She was a girl from a prosperous California family, pretty

2 Fred Lockley, “Reminiscences of Colonel Henry Ernst Dosch,” The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 25, no. 1 (March, 1924): 53-71; Sunday Oregonian, April 16, 1922, 6.

3 Harvard University, Secretary’s Second Report Harvard College Class 1904 (Cambridge: Crimson Printing Company, June 1910), 81.

3 and well-educated, spoke different languages and had taken several trips to Europe. Arno and Elsie married in January, 1908.4

By the time of his marriage, Dosch Fleurot had accumulated a big debt as a result of his failed venture with the publication the East and West. His father helped him repay a part of it, but he still owed some money. His marriage came with the understanding that now he should not be as reckless as he had been before. He wrote to his father: “Being married put it up to me every day not only to look out for the present but to plan into the future.”5 When Dosch Fleurot’s first daughter Betsy was born in March, 1909, it brought new responsibilities. In the search of new perspectives, he decided to move to New York.

“Nothing of real advantage is open in this town [San Francisco] and I have acquired an idea that my talents need a lager field,” he wrote to his father.6 In New York, Dosch

Fleurot gradually became a successful free-lance writer, but it was also the first time, he

“had to do a good deal of hack-work, to keep the things going.” He recalled that once he had written “in less than three months . . . almost a quarter of a million words for the year-book of an encyclopedia.” Finally, he found more creative money-making opportunities writing muckraking stories and selling those to different magazines. Most often, he contributed to the Pearson’s and the World Works.7

4 Daphne Berenbach, Essay about Elsie Sperry Dosch-Fleurot. Courtesy of Middlebury College Special Collections and Archives, Middlebury, Vermont.

5ADF to Henry Ernst Dosch (HED), March 16, 1908.

6 ADF to HED, April 18, 1908.

7 Harvard University, Secretary’s Third Report Harvard College Class 1904 (Cambridge: Crimson Printing Company, June 1914), 138-139.

Coming to Europe at the beginning of World War One as a correspondent of the

Worlds Work, Dosch Fleurot soon was hired by the New York World and continued with this newspaper as its foreign correspondent in different European countries until the paper folded in 1931. Most of the 1930s, he worked for William Randolph Hearst’s news corporation in Germany and France. He quit in 1937, amidst Hearst’s financial crisis. For a short period of time, he wrote for the New York Times, the New York Tribune and the

Baltimore Sun until 1941, when he became a correspondent of the Christian Science

Monitor in Vichy France. When Vichy France was occupied by Germany in November

1942, Dosch Fleurot was interned and spent thirteen months in detention in one of the hotels of Baden-Baden, Germany with other American newspapermen, diplomats, and

Red Cross workers.8 When the internees were released, he continued with the Christian

Science Monitor as its Spanish and North African correspondent until his death in 1951.9

Although during his lifetime Dosch Fleurot earned a reputation in the newspaper business, he is almost unknown today. On the one hand, it happened because writing for

American newspapers, he eventually became a cosmopolitan, and in his wanderings around the world was gradually lost for the next generations. On the other hand, he did not like publicity. If it was possible he tried to avoid public speaking. If he had to give lectures during his visits to the United States, he did it reluctantly. Once he wrote to his father, “I much prefer to write what I have to say, and let people read it.”10 Moreover,

8 New York Times, November 12, 1942, 3.

9 Christian Science Monitor, February 26, 1944, 1; New York Times, April 17, 1951, 29.

10 ADF to HED, September 27, 1920.

Dosch Fleurot never considered himself a strong storyteller and felt that his vocation was straight news reporting. Partly because of this, he delayed the publication of the book about his journalistic experiences during World War One until 1931. For the same reason, Dosch Fleurot based his book mainly on his newspaper and magazine articles and made only slight changes to his wartime narrative.11 Additionally, he was always busy with day-to-day news and did not have time for writing a book. For example, he published his book about the same time when he lost his job in the New York World. The next opportunity for writing a big story appeared only during World War Two. During his internment in Baden-Baden, he decided to write his memoirs for his grown-up daughters and tell about his professional path. Dosch Fleurot was able to take these memoirs with him when he left Germany. He added some parts to them later and entrusted his daughters to publish his manuscript. They never did it. At the beginning of the 1990s, they were still in possession of Dosch Fleurot’s second daughter Daphne, who allowed historian Ken Hawkins to transcribe the text from an onion-skin paper copy.12

This transcript is now in the possession of John Wilson Special Collections (JWSC),

Multnomah County Library at Portland, Oregon. The fate of the original is unknown.

Since the copyright of Dosch Fleurot’s unpublished memoirs is unclear and only their transcript is available, I have decided not to use them in this MA thesis. However,

JWSC houses a large number of Dosch Fleurot’s letters to his family in Portland, Oregon.

11 Arno Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution: Being the Experience of a Newspaper Correspondent in War and Revolution, 1914-1920 (London: John Lane, 1931).

12 Berenbach, Essay about Elsie Sperry Dosch-Fleurot.

Being a part of the Henry Dosch Papers, this correspondence comprises Dosch Fleurot’s letters to his parents and siblings since the beginning of the twentieth century until his death in 1951. The letters provide an interesting insight into his private life and professional activities. Another big group of primary sources in this research are Dosch

Fleurot’s articles for the Worlds Work, a monthly magazine, the New York World, and some other newspapers that published or syndicated his articles. Additionally, in 1921, the New York World issued as a brochure five of Dosch Fleurot’s articles about the prospects of social upheaval in the United States. The articles were based on Dosch

Fleurot’s observations that he made during his travel across the United States.13 Dosch

Fleurot’s views about the development of American journalism are reflected in the book review of Brisbane: A Candid Biography (New York, 1937).14

Dosch Fleurot’s brief autobiographies written before World War One are available in the second and third reports of his class at Harvard University.15 Different facts about Dosch Fleurot’s private life and career can be found in the American press of his time. Two items were crucial on the initial phase of research: a brief biography of

13 Arno Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism Is There in America? (New York World, January 1921).

14 Arno Dosch Fleurot, Review of Brisbane: A Candid Biography by Oliver Carlson, The Public Opinion Quarterly 2, No 3 (Jul. 1938): 497-500.

15 Harvard University, Secretary’s Second Report Harvard College Class 1904; Harvard University, Secretary’s Third Report Harvard College Class 1904.

Dosch Fleurot in the Old Oregon and his obituary in the New York Times.16 Dosch

Fleurot’s family background is described in his father’s reminiscences and his daughter

Daphne’s essay about her mother Elsie Dosch Fleurot.17 Some valuable information can be found in journalist works and memoirs of different American correspondents.18

In 1980s, the life of Dosch Fleurot attracted attention of Ken Hawkins, a young

Portlander who was interested in local history. Hawkins got access to the Dosch family’s papers which at that time were in the possession of Henry Ernst Dosch’s grand-son James

Driscoll. Driscoll subsequently transferred them to Multnomah County Library and they became known as the Henry Dosch Papers. Hawkins wrote his MA thesis on Dosch

Fleurot’s experience during World War One, but he placed the main emphasis on the analysis of his articles about the Russian Revolution. He paid less attention to Dosch

16 Mildred Wilson, “Meet Our Alums,” The Old Oregon 24, no7 (March, 1943): 2, 9; New York Times, April 17, 1951, 29.

17 Lockley, “Reminiscences of Colonel Henry Ernst Dosch,” 53-71; Berenbach, Essay about Elsie Sperry Dosch-Fleurot.

18 Irvin S. Cobb, Paths of Glory: Impression of War Written At and Near the Front (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1918); Will Irwin, “Detained by the Germans,” Collier’s, October 3, 1914, 5-6, 23-27;Will Irwin, The Making of a Reporter (New York: G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 1942); Will Irwin, “Wreckage of War,” American Magazine, November, 1914, 49, 70-78; John McCutcheon, “McCutcheon Describes First Day with Germans,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 24, 1914, 5; John McCutcheon, Drawn from Memory [Autobiography] Containing Many of the Author's Famous Cartoons and Sketches (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950); James O’Donnell Bennett, “Stories of German Atrocities Have no Foundation in Fact,” Albuquerque Morning Journal, September 21, 1914, 30; Wythe Williams, The Dusk of Empire: The Decline of Europe and the Rise of the United States, as Observed by a Foreign Correspondent in a Quarter Century Service (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937); Florence MacLeod Harper, Runaway Russia (New York: The Century Co, 1918).

Fleurot’s experience as war reporter on the Western Front.19 Although Dosch Fleurot is often mentioned among the American correspondents on the Western Front, many episodes of his war reporting remain unknown.20 The American historian Christopher

Lasch briefly referred to Dosch Fleurot in his study of the American response to the

Russian Revolution. Alton Earl Ingram mentions Dosch Fleurot in the connection with the American diplomatic mission of Eliot Root to Russia in 1917, which was sent to investigate the young republic’s political situation.21 In two recently published books,

Helen Rappaport, a British author, and Chris Dubs, an American military historian, listed

Dosch Fleurot among American witnesses to the Russian Revolution because of Dosch

Fleurot’s book Through War to Revolution. Rapport also uses Hawkins’ MA thesis, which remains the only in-depth research of Dosch Fleurot’s life.22

19 Ken Hawkins, “Through War to Revolution with Dosch-Fleurot: A Personal History of an American Newspaper Correspondent in Europe and Russia, 1914-1918,” (master’s thesis, University of Rochester, 1986).

20 Emmet Crozier, American Reporters on the Western Front (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959); Anita Lawson, Irvin S. Cobb (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1984); Ed Klekowoski and Libby Klekowski, Americans in Occupied Belgium, 1914-1918: Account of the War from Journalists, Tourists, Troops and Medical Staff (Jefferson, North Carolina: Mc. Farland and Company, 2012); Chris Dubbs, American Journalists in the Great War: Rewriting the Rules of Reporting (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017).

21 Christopher Lasch, The American Liberals and the Russian Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962); Alton Earl Ingram, “The Root Mission to Russia, 1917” (PhD. diss, Louisiana State University, 1970).

22 Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, Russia, 1917-A World on the Edge (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 2017); Dubbs, American Journalists in the Great War.

My MA thesis is another contribution to the understanding of Dosch Fleurot’s life and career that coincided with a period of tremendous political and social changes in the world. During his life, humanity experienced two world wars, several revolutions, and civil wars that drastically changed the world – physically, culturally, and ideologically.

Dosch Fleurot was interested in those major events and processes as an observer and a reporter. However, it was World War One that became the determinant event of his professional and personal life. His witnesses and opinions about the war and its outcomes reflected in his articles and correspondence exemplify the challenges the conflict brought to people with a liberal outlook. Indeed, the war experience raised doubts among the ranks of American liberals, and Dosch Fleurot was not the exception, about their core belief in “the inevitable spread of democracy throughout the world, by orderly change or by revolution, as circumstances might dictate.”23 Dosch Fleurot’s evolution of this idealistic belief is the subject of this essay. The development of his political views illustrates how American liberals tried to reconcile their advocacy of the spread of democracy with the national interests of the United States. Since the beginning of World

War One, the question of how international the American foreign policy should be became a controversial issue in the American society. The debate continues to this day.

The analysis of Dosch Fleurot’s reportages from the Western Front shows that the notion of American neutrality clashed with the democratic values and multiracial character of the American nation. Dosch Fleurot, who came to Europe in 1914 with the hope that the war would lead to a social revolution in Germany and Austria—and which

23 Lasch, viii.

10 in turn would produce the foundation for a new democratic Europe—struggled to maintain impartial attitude to the events. Simultaneously, his attempt to respect sentiments of his German-born father prevented his reports from any blunt statement about Germany and during the first months of the war, even made an impression that he justified some actions of the German army during the invasion of Belgium. In fact, his observations strengthened his pro-Allied sentiments and his vision of the conflict as a war of democracy against autocracy.

Unexpectedly, the war caused revolution at first in Russia, not in Germany, and

Dosch Fleurot, who at that moment was on an assignment in the Russian capital, was able to witness and report about the events. After the abdication of the Russian Emperor

Nicholas II in February 1917, the country became a republic ruled by the Provisional

Government. Simultaneously, the February Revolution created in Russia a new form of government in the form of the Soviets (councils), which competed for power with the

Provisional Government and were under control of moderate socialists. The United States positively responded to the Russian Revolution, and diplomatically accepted the Russian

Provisional Government. However, because in one month after the revolution, the United

States entered the war on the side of the Allied Powers, the American attitude toward the

Russian democracy was constrained by the national interests and a goal to win the war.

Although the Soviets were based on a principle of direct democracy and initially did not forbid participation of non-socialist representatives in the elections, the American official position was to support only the Provisional Government, which guaranteed the further participation of Russia in the war. The political ignorance of the Soviets as a too radical body also led to the underestimation of their political influence in the country. The last

11 point was based on the opinion of the American Ambassador David Francis and members of the Root Mission, which visited Russia during the summer of 1917.

Dosch Fleurot’s point of view differed from the position of the US Department of

State. While the Soviets leading by Russian moderate socialists were gradually taking control over the country, many Americans were puzzled and disappointed, but not Dosch

Fleurot. He believed that the Soviets were only a radical form of western democracy.

While Russia was controlled by a joint power of liberals and moderate socialists and while it remained the war ally of the United States, Dosch Fleurot had been witnessing the Russian political experiment with curiosity.

His position started to change when the Bolsheviks took power during the second revolution in October 1917. For the next five months, Dosch Fleurot had been trying to decide how to regard government suggested by the Bolsheviks, a dictatorship of the proletariat, which rejected equal rights of citizens. This period of Dosch Fleurot’s life is hard to evaluate. There is no direct evidence of Dosch Fleurot’s support of the

Bolsheviks, but after the October Revolution, the language of his reporting changed. His contempt for the Bolsheviks, which he had been expressing for eight months, vanished.

Instead, he started to write about them with more respect and sometimes with favor, often emphasizing his personal acquaintance with one of the Bolsheviks’ leader Leon Trotsky.

While Lasch and Hawkins explain this change with the fact that Dosch Fleurot accepted the Bolsheviks as strategic partners in the war with Germany, it also could be a part of his journalistic strategy to pass his articles through the Russian censorship. At last, the first critique of Bolshevism appeared in the article that Dosch Fleurot wrote in Stockholm, outside of Russia in March of 1918. From that moment until the end of his life, he

12 expressed hostility toward Bolshevism and regarded the Russian socialist experiment the main political catastrophe of his time.

The revolutionary events in Russia deeply influenced Dosch Fleurot’s private life.

His first marriage collapsed after two and a half years that he and his wife had spent apart. They divorced, but Dosch Fleurot continued supporting his children and from time to time met with them. During this time, after his return from Russia, Dosch Fleurot maintained many contacts among the Russian community in Europe. Here, he met

Russian émigré Anna Sredinsky. Anna became the most important person of his life – his wife, his friend, and his soul mate. This marriage became a consolation for Dosch

Fleurot, who needed somebody who could understand his feelings towards Russia. For

Dosch Fleurot, the Russian Revolution became the most significant event he ever witnessed in his life, and he considered its outcomes not only the failure of the world democracy but also as his personal tragedy. During his stay in the country, he felt in love with Russia, and now he wished to see it free from the rule of the Bolsheviks. As that did not happen, his wife Anna became his “little Russia.”

The German Revolution that finally happened in November 1918 was a disappointment for Dosch Fleurot. At the beginning, Germany was at risk of repeating the Russian scenario and creating a Soviet republic. When this did not happen, the country seemed to swing too far to the right and Dosch Fleurot regretted that Germany had not become a true democracy. The postwar international order created by the Paris

Peace Conference also became a subject of unending criticism and pessimism for Dosch

Fleurot. The spread of Bolshevism, the unfair treatment of defeated countries, and the passive attitude of the United States toward European affairs were only some of his

13 commonly expressed dissatisfactions. Dosch Fleurot’s experience during World War One once and forever shattered his belief in the possibility of a world democracy.

During the interwar period, Dosch Fleurot noticeably changed his political views.

His optimism about the inevitability of the world democracy was crushed by years of political instability and military conflicts. His concerns about the spread of Bolshevism led him to the conservative assessments of the world politics. Through the 1930s, Dosch

Fleurot developed a suspicion that President Roosevelt was too radical in his domestic and foreign policy and involved in a communist conspiracy. This idea influenced Dosch

Fleurot’s views of World War Two. During the early stage of the war, he argued for the

American neutrality in the conflict, and after the military defeat of France, he embraced the efforts of Philippe Petain, the head of Vichy France, to avoid the further involvement of the country into the war actions. During the development of the conflict, Dosch Fleurot realized the necessity of the American intervention in the war and supported the Allies’ fight against the Nazi Germany. However, after the end of World War Two, he continued his criticism of the U.S. foreign policy arguing against political and economic isolation of

Spain. Dosch Fleurot believed that Spain was amongst a few countries in the world that had potential to resist the danger of Bolshevism.

CHAPTER 1

REPORTING FROM THE WESTERN FRONT (1914-1916): WAITING FOR A SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Since the beginning of 1914, Dosch Fleurot had been working very intensively.

He had planned a European vacation in the middle of August, and had been trying to save as much money as possible to pay for travel expenses. Arno promised his wife Elsie a bicycle trip through Southeastern France, and at the beginning of the summer he was able to book the tickets from New York to Marseilles. The choice of the place was not accidental. Dosch Fleurot intended to visit his French relatives from his mother’s side in

Burgundy. His five-year-old daughter was in California with Elsie’s parents. It seemed that nothing could change his plans. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28 did not attract much attention in the United States.

Surprisingly, the assassination escalated old European rivalries and became the reason of a new war. At the end of July, Dosch Fleurot received an assignment from the Worlds

Work to go to Europe and write about the conflict. He had to rebook his tickets, choosing

London instead of Marseilles, and in order to save vacation plans at least partly, he decided to take Elsie with him. It was agreed that while Arno was working, Elsie could spend some time with her aunt, who had a house in London.1

1 ADF to HED, June 12, 1914; ADF to Parents, August 6, 1914.

The day before the departure, Dosch Fleurot wrote to his parents in order to appease them:

I doubt very much that I will be able to get where the real things are doing. As a matter of fact I it is the social situation, the revolutions that will follow that I am most interested in, so mother need not worry. I doubt if I will get anywhere there is fighting.2

From the board of the American liner St. Paul, he explained to his father more explicitly:

I look for a social revolution in Germany after the war, and I want to see that too. I fancy there will be a United States of Germany including Austria, making a real German nation and not an autocratic Prussian monarchy spreading itself over the whole country.3

The hope of new democratic Europe became central for the life and career of

Dosch Fleurot during World War One. Desire to witness this social transformation not only led him to this continent but also incited to relocate his wife and children there. In retrospect, this decision became a turning point of his career and life in general. In

Europe, he started to enjoy the life of cosmopolitan and found his professional path of a foreign reporter.

American Neutrality in Action

By the time Dosch Fleurot and his wife entered the board of the American liner

St. Paul on August 7, 1914, the novice foreign correspondent realized that a new

European assignment could open up new horizons for his career. However, Dosch Fleurot was realistic. He did not have the necessary connections in military and governmental

2ADF to Parents, August 6, 1914; Hawkins, 11.

3 ADF to HED, August 14, 1914; Hawkins, 12.

16 circles, so the chance to receive the official accreditation and go to the front was little. At the same time, interested more in the aftermath of the war than in real fighting, he was not too upset. He believed that the trip would be successful anyway. He wrote to his parents, “I can get what I want anyhow. We have had very little war news that looks authentic. It is all coming from England and tells of nothing but German defeats.”4

Meanwhile, all American reporters who came to Europe in August 1914 found that none of the belligerents wanted any correspondents on the front and issued accreditations reluctantly. The practice of correspondents accompanying armies developed through the second part of the nineteenth century, but the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Boer

War showed that newspapermen could be dangerous for the military cause. The lack of accreditation leveled the playing field for all journalists and allowed Dosch Fleurot to come as close to the front as more experienced and famous reporters.

Although military officials did not give official accreditations to correspondents, they could not prevent them from going to the war zone at their own risk. In this situation, neutrality that the United States declared at the beginning of World War One put American journalists in a unique position. Both belligerents had their own plans towards the United States. Britain and France hoped that the United States would enter the war. Germany wanted it to stay neutral. Even though belligerents did not trust

American journalists, they tried to avoid conflicts with the United States, and in many situations, military officials turned a blind eye to American neutrals. Probably, the most

4ADF to HED, August 14, 1914.

17 unique situation developed during the first weeks of the war when Dosch Fleurot and his companions were able to move freely around Belgian and German armies.5

On August 16, 1914, Dosch Fleurot arrived in Brussels after he had left his wife

Elsie in London. He was in the company of three other American journalists, whom he had met on board of the liner St. Paul. Among the group, the most famous and best-paid reporter was humorist Irvin S. Cobb of the Saturday Evening Post. The reporter and cartoonist John McCutcheon, who wrote for the Chicago Tribune, was also well-known in the United States. Will Irwin represented the Collier’s magazine, and American readers remembered his reports from the San Francisco earthquake in 1907. A freelance writer for magazines from New York, Arno Dosch Fleurot was the less renowned. Irwin described him as “dark-haired, blue-eyed, full of the sparkle of youth and adventure.”6

Nobody in the group had ever been in Belgium before. Only McCutcheon had experience in war reporting during the Spanish American War. Both Irwin and Dosch Fleurot could speak (limited) French, and the latter also had meager German skills.7

5 The Belgian experience of American journalists is well described in firsthand and secondhand accounts. For the firsthand accounts see Irwin, “Detained by the Germans,” 5-6, 23-27; Irwin, “Wreckage of War,” 49,70-78; Irwin, The Making of a Reporter; McCutcheon, “McCutcheon Describes First Day with Germans,” 5; McCutcheon, Drawn from Memory; Cobb, Paths of Glory, Bennett, “Stories of German Atrocities Have no Foundation in Fact,” 30. For the secondhand accounts see Crozier, American Reporters on the Western Front; Klekowoski and Klekowski, Americans in Occupied Belgium; Lawson, Irvin S. Cobb; Dubbs, American Journalists in the Great War.

6 Irwin, The Making of a Reporter, 209.

7 The first two weeks in Belgium Dosch Fleurot describes in “Louvain the Lost,” Worlds Work, October, 1914, A-G; “The “System” of the German Army,” Worlds Work, November 1914, 61-65; Through War to Revolution, 1-33.

In Brussels, Dosch Fleurot and three other journalists tried to obtain permission to go out of the city toward the advancing German army, but they were rejected. This did not stop the reporters, and they decided to leave the city without official passes. On

August 19, four Americans hired a taxi cab and asked the chauffeur to go as far as possible. The journalists had American passports and documents from Ethelbert Watts, the Consul-General in Brussels, confirming their citizenship. The taxicab was stopped a couple of times by civilian guards and gendarmes, who checked their documents, but nobody prevented them from leaving. The taxicab passed from one barricade to another and soon the correspondents were outside of the city. Soon, they started meeting Belgian refugees and scattering groups of retreating Belgian soldiers. Some of them looked at the strange company in the taxicab with surprise, but everybody was busy with their own problems. Only two English motion picture men warned them not to go further. The warning frightened the taxicab driver, but not the journalists, who continued on foot.8

The correspondents entered the city of Louvain and in a couple of hours they saw the first German soldiers on the streets, and soon realized that it was the invasion of the

German army. Dosch Fleurot and his colleagues tried to get lost in the crowd of townspeople, but finally understood the necessity to report themselves to the German officials because they could be taken for British correspondents and treated as spies. The

Germans handled the situation with understanding and humor. It seemed curious that four

American correspondents came “to the war in a taxicab”, but the German officers believed them. The American journalists were asked politely, but at the same time

8 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 2-7; Cobb, 31-39; McCutcheon, Drawn from Memory, 267-268.

19 unconditionally, to stay in Louvain until the German army had marched through the town. However, the journalists were never real prisoners in the city. They stayed in a hotel, ate in restaurants, bought food in the store, and visited the barber. The Germans’ march lasted for three days, and on August 22, the reporters were free to go. They returned back to the Belgian capital, which was already occupied by the Germans.9

In Brussels, Dosch Fleurot, Cobb, Irwin, and McCutcheon decided to team up with three other Americans – Harry Hansen of the Chicago Daily News, James

O’Donnell Bennett, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, and Roger Lewis of the

Associated Press. These eight American reporters determined to follow the German offensive despite the fact that they had official permits to stay only in Brussels and its vicinity. On August 23, they hired a horse carriage and moved south toward Waterloo, where they believed the next big battle would take place. At the end of the day, Irwin, who had a fever and sore throat, went back to Brussels. Dosch Fleurot stayed with the group for one more day after the correspondents caught up with the rear columns of the

German army but then turned back to Brussels too. He had to write down his observations and send an article before the deadline. The rest of the group continued with the German army until the German command finally decided to arrest bothersome

Americans for three weeks.10

9 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 8-18; Cobb, 47-51, 90-105; McCutcheon, Drawn from Memory, 269-270.

10 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 19-25; Cobb, 56-81, 90-105; McCutcheon, Drawn from Memory, 271-274; New York Tribune, September 4, 1914,1, 4; Lawson, 117-121.

When Dosch Fleurot reached Brussels, he met with Irwin and Richard Harding

Davis, a journalist celebrity from the New York Tribune. Just recently, the Germans had issued a deportation order for Davis. He had raised suspicion by coming too close to the

German army. Dosch Fleurot and Irwin decided to join Davis as well as two other

American journalists Mary O’Reilly and Glen Morgan. On August 27, they were put on an empty troop train that carried them to Aix-la-Chapelle, a German city on the Belgian border. The train passed through Louvain, and the journalists were able to observe the last stage of the city’s destruction, which the German army had started after Dosch

Fleurot and his colleagues had left the city a week prior. From Aix-la-Chapelle, they all safely traveled to London through neutral Netherlands, except for Mary O’Reilly, who turned back to Louvain for a sensational story about the destiny of Belgian civilians.11

Returning to London, Dosch Fleurot decided to test his neutral status once more.

On September 5, 1914, Dosch Fleurot and his wife left London, bought tickets for the

Southampton-Le Havre boat, and the next day they were in Paris. Everybody was sure the city would fall. Until September 10, no news from the front was available, and a couple stayed in the French capital. When news about the Allied victory arrived, Dosch Fleurot and his wife dared to penetrate the war zone. Their destination was a château on the river

Aisne that belonged to Elsie’s aunt. The couple had only their American passports and permits to stay in Paris. On bikes, they went through different French cordons and finally, left the city. Nobody stopped them. They finally reached the château that stood very close

11 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 25-33; Irwin, The Making of a Reporter, 228-239; South Bend News Times, September 17, 1914, 9; Dubbs, 39.

21 to the front lines and was used as British headquarters.12 The location suited Dosch

Fleurot, and they remained at the château for more than three weeks. From here, Dosch

Fleurot could observe developments daily but at the safe distance. He reported to the editor of the Worlds Work, Arthur Page, “We have not been shelled here; though wheel within reach of German guns. But I’d better cross my fingers on that.”13 In the château,

Dosch Fleurot was able to speak with British soldiers who went there for rest. Once, he even got a chance to get closer to the front line and spend some time in the British trenches. Only when rumors about Dosch Fleurot’s residence in the château reached the

French police, he was ordered to leave. But it suited his plans too. His editors were waiting for articles from him, and he could not send dispatches until he came back to

London.

In London, Dosch Fleurot usually sent his articles to the Worlds Work through the

American Embassy. He gave his cables to Mr. Harold Fowler, a personal secretary of

Ambassador Walter Hines Page, who forwarded them through his diplomatic channels.

He enjoyed this privilege because Ambassador Page was a former editor of the Worlds

Work and father of the current editor Arthur Page. Dosch Fleurot had a good relationship

12 For description of this assignment see Yorkville Enquirer, October 23, 1914, 1 [Unsigned] (Reprinted from New York World, October 20, 1914); New York World, October 21, 1914, 1-2 [Unsigned]; “Under “The Fog of War,” Worlds Work, February 1915, 470-475; Through War to Revolution, 34-53.

13 ADF to Arthur [Page], October 15, 1914.

22 with the Ambassador and from time to time, dined with him and his wife.14 The cables for the New York World were also sent from London, but they had to pass the censorship of Sir Stanley Buckmaster.15

Germany was unable to complete the occupation of Belgium. By the end of

October 1914, the Yser region was still held by the Belgians. This northernmost part of the Western Front, the “last ditch of Belgium” according to Dosch Fleurot, became the place of his destination in late October-November 1914.16 He found this part of the front much more easily accessible than the others. His first travel happened at the end of

October from the French seaport Calais. In the town, he met a reporter who explained how to find his way on a train. Dosch Fleurot followed his advice and went through the buffet’s door on a platform passing security check. The train took him to Dunkirk where he was immediately arrested and taken to the chief of the railway police. Here, the newspaperman was able to convince the officer of his peaceful intentions and received a pass to enter Dunkirk. However, Dosch Fleurot’s plan was not to stay in the French city, but to enter Belgian territory. The next morning, wearing local clothes, he slipped past

14 ADF to Arthur [Page], October 25, 1914; ADF to Arthur [Page], November 8, 1914; ADF to Family (to parents and siblings in Portland, Oregon), December 19, 1914; Hawkins, 13.

15 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 52.

16 Dosch Fleurot describes his experience on the Yser Front in New York Evening World, November 7, 1914, 1-2; Rock Island Argus, November 7, 1914, 8; New York World, November 23, 1914, 1-2 [unsigned]; “The Last Ditch in Belgium,” Worlds Work, January, 1915, 269-274; Through War to Revolution, 54-64; “The Day The French Reached Lombaertzyde,” Worlds Work, April, 1915, 683-687; See also Klekowoski and Klekowski, Americans in Occupied Belgium, 106-107.

23 the guarded city gate and stepped on a highway, which was crowded by automobiles, motor cars, and motor-buses carrying troops. He walked northwest toward Furness, an old Flemish town and then from Furness took little steam railway to La Panne. In La

Panne, he became acquainted with some Belgian soldiers. The next day, one of them took him on an excursion along the shore line where Dosch Fleurot saw how the British ships fired upon German positions in the distant dunes. He tried to get closer to the front and reached the village of Ramscapell where he experienced strong artillerist fire and decided to turn back to the more peaceful La Panne.

After this trip, Dosch Fleurot realized the importance of the Yser Front. It was the place of the last stand of the Belgian army. He, who witnessed the bravery of Belgian soldiers many times, was sure that they would defend this last part of their homeland with courage and persistency. Moreover, he knew that the chances of Belgians had improved with the help of the British Navy in the north and French naval divisions in the south. The situation also changed dramatically after the decision to open the sluice gates of the Yser

River and allow the seawater to flood the area. The inundation of the Yser plain stopped the advance of the German army. Returning from unoccupied Belgium, he wrote to the editor of the Worlds Work,

It begins to look as if Belgium were again going to be the battle ground of nations and the great decisive battle of this war will probably be fought there. So I am going back there, if the French authorities will let me through and await the event. It may be fought soon and at any rate, it is the most interesting place to be. 17

17 ADF to Arthur [Page,] November 8, 1914.

Dosch Fleurot found a way to pass through French checkpoints. He traveled from

London to the Yser Front and back several times, and at least once he took his wife with him.18 It is hard to determine whether or not Dosch Fleurot had the official accreditation of the Belgian army. Meanwhile, Dosch Fleurot wrote that he “was living at the same hotel with members of the staff of one division of the Belgian army” and was taking on excursions along the Belgian lines. This “fortunate circumstances of . . . relations with the army” helped him when he was suspected of espionage. He was arrested for twenty- four hours and only the Belgian officers who knew Dosch Fleurot helped prove his innocence.19

When the intensity of military actions on the Yser Front decreased in December

1914, Dosch Fleurot found himself involved in the investigation of American food relief in occupied Belgium. Some American newspapers published stories that food shipped for

Belgian civilians was taken by German soldiers. With the help of American officials,

Dosch Fleurot received a pass to travel legally through the country and was able to dispel rumors about the unfair food distribution. At the end of December, Dosch Fleurot received a letter from the American Legation that asked him to leave occupied Belgium.

The letter warned that he was recognized by the Germans as one of the American reporters who wrote lies about the burning of Louvain. The American Legation was afraid that Dosch Fleurot’s stay in Brussels could create tensions with the German

18 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 64; ADF to Parents, November 30, 1914.

19 New York World, November 23, 1914, 2 [unsigned].

25 authorities and complicate American humanitarian efforts. The reporter did not want any such complications and left Belgium for London.20

By the end of 1914, Dosch Fleurot was exhausted after four months of non-stop traveling. He decided to find a place where he could concentrate on writing. He liked

Paris much more than London and chose it as his headquarters. His plan was to stay there until the big battles of the spring, which, he hoped, would be decisive and finish the war by the summer .21 Elsie stayed with her husband until March of 1915, when she had to return to the United States. She was preparing to give birth to their second child and also missed her first daughter, who stayed in California. Before leaving, she did not feel well, and in the United States, was diagnosed with typhoid fever. Elsie informed her husband only when she was convalescent and no risk for life existed. Although concerned about his wife’s health, Dosch Fleurot decided to prolong his stay in Europe for two more months. He had been still waiting for the end of the war and the social revolution that he predicted would follow the defeat of Germany. In May, he reluctantly returned to the

United States with a hope of coming back. He wrote to his mother,

During the winter I have become pretty well acquainted in Paris and might come here to live, except that I am afraid it would be fatal for me. I like it too much. It is better [professionally] for me to be in New York which I don’t not like. I am most likely to accomplish something [in New York] . . . Perhaps I may make some arrangements in New York to come back here, and I certainly hope to see some more of the war and its aftereffects.22

20 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 65-83.

21 ADF to Family, December 19 1914; ADF to Marie Louise Dosch (MLD), January 3, 1915; ADF to HED, February 7, 1915.

22 ADF to MLD, April 10, 1915.

The return to the United States became a critical moment in the life of Dosch

Fleurot. At the end of June, Elsie gave birth to a baby girl named Daphna. Soon after that, the family went west in order to be reunited with their first daughter Betsy, who had been living with her grandparents in California.23 On the West Coast, Dosch Fleurot spent time with wife and children in Redwood City in the house of Elsie’s parents. He also made a short visit with Betsy to his parents in Portland, Oregon. In order to support his family, he arranged some lectures. Magazine articles provided some income too, but after two months, he started thinking about returning to the East Coast. He wrote to his father that he had to go because he could not “earn enough money here [on the West Coast] to keep things going indefinitely.”24 Finally, at the end of 1915, Dosch Fleurot returned to New

York. He promised his wife that he would not go abroad without her, but he nonetheless accepted the New York World’s offer to go back to France for one hundred dollars a week.25 Elsie was furious. She wrote to her father-in-law,

Arno advanced many arguments in favor of his going, but the truth is that he wanted to go and would have gone for almost any salary . . . Arno has the wandering foot I fear and the idea of a permanent home and of making an effort for the future provision of his children does not appeal to him.26

23 ADF to Parents, July 24, 1915.

24 ADF to HED, November 2, 1915.

25 ADF to HED, Undated [End of December 1915-beginnig of January 1916 ]

26 Elsie Sperry Dosch (ESD) to HED, January 1916; Hawkins, 15-16.

This time, Dosch Fleurot left the United States only for four months. He visited

France, Egypt, and Greece, and on May 1916 returned back to New York. All his thoughts were about how to organize the life of his family. The West Coast was not a good place for him professionally. After Portland and California, New York did not seem right for raising children. Moreover, he had been continuously thinking about Europe and wanted to return. When the New York World offered him a one year offer in Paris with a good salary and travel expenses, he immediately agreed. In July, the family crossed

Atlantic.27 For all four members of the family, the stay abroad would last much more than one year.

In France, Dosch Fleurot resumed his work as a war correspondent, but the conditions of war reporting changed dramatically in comparison with the fall of 1914. At the beginning of the war, the lack of official accreditation for correspondents and

American neutrality made every journalistic assignment an adventure. By 1916, the

United States had been steadily moving from neutrality toward the support of the Allies.

American reporters were now officially allowed near the Allied front lines, but their work was also well controlled. During the fall of 1916, Dosch Fleurot participated in different conducted tours over the Western Front and started felling emotionally exhausted.

Observing the slow progress of the French and British troops on the Western Front, he

27 ADF to Marcus; ADF to Mrs. George M Sperry, May 13, 1916; ADF to HED, July 1, 1916.

28 realized that the German Empire had been still standing firmly.28 Waiting for the further development of the events, he wrote to his family in Portland,

It looked for a while as I should be sent on to Saloniki, but that affair goes slowly . . . But I should not mind seeing [Eleftherios] Venezelos organizing the revolution in Greece, which he is doing now. I know him and feel sure he would let me go with him. But it will make no difference what Greece does. It cannot affect the outcome of the war, and it is the big story the [New York] World is after.29

Instead of Greece, Dosch Fleurot was soon assigned to Russia, where he found another revolution and his “big story” for the New York World.

Neutrality of Spirit

The American journalists, who came to Europe in August 1914, found themselves in a delicate situation as writers. At the beginning of World War One, the United States immediately declared a position of neutrality. In his appeal to the Americans, President

Wilson emphasized that many American citizens came from the countries that were now involved in the war. He declared that in order to maintain the unity of nation, “The

United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action . . . ”30 The majority of

Americans supported the declaration of neutrality and showed no desire of involvement

28 New York World, September 13, 1916, 1-2; New York World, September 15, 1916, 12; New York World, November 13, 1916, 1-2; “In a Dugout on Douaumont,” Worlds Work, February 1917, 416-429; Through War to Revolution, 91-96.

29 ADF to Family, October 9, 1916; Eleftherios Venizelos was Prime Minister of Greece who supported the creation a republic instead of the monarchy in Greece. Most likely, Dosch Fleurot met Venizelos during his short visit to Greece in April 1916, see New York World, April 24, 1916, 3.

30 President Woodrow Wilson’s Appeal for Neutrality, August 19, 1914.

29 in European affairs. However, the German invasion of Belgium and France in August

1914 was a test for the presidential appeal. By the fall of 1914, Americans found their sympathies divided along two belligerent camps. While the bigger part of the population revealed pro-Allied sentiments, about twenty percent (mostly Americans of German and

Irish descent) favored the Central Powers.31

Journalists, together with other Americans who lived or worked in Europe, were the first who realized that neutrality of spirit was a utopian construct. According to James

O’Donnell Bennett from the Chicago Tribune, most of the American correspondents who came to Europe in August 1914 were in “a pro-British state of mind, if not in an anti-

German state of mind.” He emphasized that even Arno Dosch, “who is of German extraction,” shared this view.32 Surprisingly, while some of the correspondents chose a pro-Allied position, many of them wrote articles that did not sound anti-German at all and often transmitted friendly images of the German soldiers and their command.

Probably, the strongest pro-Allied sentiments were expressed by Richard Harding

Davis. Davis considered that American neutrality was “the attitude of a coward.” He insisted, “Germany is fighting foully. She is defying not only the rule of war but the rules of humanity.” In order to convince his readers of the necessity of not being impartial observers, he appealed to the democratic values of Americans:

31 David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and the American Society (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 24, 46; Amanda M. Manchini, “Neutral in Spirit?: An Analysis of Woodrow Wilson's Policies and the United States' Involvement in World War I,” International Social Science Review 72, no. 3-4 (1997), 137.

32 Albuquerque Morning Journal, September 23, 1914.

This is not the war against the Germans, as we know Germans in America, who are among our sanest and most industrious and most responsible our fellow countrymen. It is a war...against the military aristocracy of Germany, men who are six hundred years behind the times; who, to preserve their class against democracy, have perverted every great invention of modern times to the uses of warfare, to the destruction of life.33

Another journalist who was sympathetic to the Allies was Will Irwin. In comparison with Davis, he was less judgmental in his language. His articles were full of sympathy for Belgians and simultaneously, lamented the futility of their fight against “a gray machine of death.”34 In his autobiography, published during World War Two, Irwin would use more severe language. Denouncing German military offensives, he also emphasized their indecent and intimidating demeanor toward civilians and prisoners of the war. He recalls that one episode when he witnessed the mistreatment of prisoners of the war by German soldiers became decisive for him, “After I saw insulting kicks on the persons of defenseless Scots and Englishmen—people of my own blood and background—I was neutral no longer.”35

Another perspective of the conflict was expressed by a group of five American journalists. Cobb, Hansen, McCutcheon, Lewis, and Bennett became famous for the telegram that they dispatched while being under German arrest. Their telegram was printed on September 7 in the New York Times and emphasized the respectable behavior of German soldiers toward civilians and countered claims of German atrocities in

33 New York Tribune, September 2, 1914, 1, 3.

34 Irwin, “Wreckage of War,” 71.

35 Irwin, The Making of a Reporter, 226.

Belgium. The message created a lot of rumors in the United States because many people believed that it was written under pressure. Although the telegram improved the position of American correspondents, who from that moment were taken on military observation tours, it “reflected the reporters’ actual experience and sentiments.”36 Not only the telegram but also their articles treated the German side softly and in some cases even favorably. For example, McCutcheon stated that after his daily communication with

German soldiers, all the stories about alleged German atrocities looked ridiculous to him.

He changed his vision of German officers as brutal military men and “found a degree of courtesy and civility which has been as pleasing as it has been surprising” for him.37

Other correspondents also emphasized the fact that they did not see any outraged women or tortured children and did not witness any other acts of unnecessary brutality. All

German actions responded to the norms and rules of the civilized warfare.38

Dosch Fleurot’s opinion about the German invasion of Belgium was complicated.

Although he shared doubts of some of his colleagues about German atrocities, he was more cautious in using the arguments about German civility and humanity. In contrast to the group of arrested American correspondents, he witnessed indecent behavior of the

German army in Louvain:

36 Lawson, 121-122.

37 Chicago Daily Tribune, September 24, 1914, 5.

38 Albuquerque Morning Journal, September 23, 1914; Cobb, The Path of Glory, 61 -108.

I was not able to verify or find any evidence to account for the stories of German atrocities which have been published in the London papers and are probably being published in the United States. The German army has been inflexible in its demand for reprisal, as the barbaric destruction of Louvain shows, but the German soldiers have been no more cruel than their enemies.39

“The barbaric destruction of Louvain” included the burning of the town, together with a university library full of medieval books, execution of more than two hundred civilians and expelling of all the remaining population. Dosch Fleurot witnessed and described a part of these events. “All the handsomest houses in the northern end of the city [Louvain] were bare brick and stone walls,” he wrote, “There were a few dwellings along the ramparts to the east still standing, but these were burning, too, when our train went on two hours later.” From a window of the train, Dosch Fleurot saw an even more dramatic scene—the preparation of the executions- and then, heard the shots of the firing squad.40

He was undoubtedly upset by the story of Louvain and sympathetic to the townspeople, some of whom he had become acquainted with during his three days in the town. But his explanation as to why it happened seemed to excuse the German army:

There were a dozen stories current as to why it [Louvain] was being burned, but none of them were susceptible of proof. I tried to get at the facts, as I realized the burning of Louvain would go down in history, but I doubt whether it will ever be known just what happened in Louvain immediately before the city was ordered to be destroyed. The details, however, are not really important. Ill-feeling had been growing from the second day. The German troops had become bad-tempered when their comrades were shot by snipers, and the people of the town had in turn grown restive under the rule of the mailed

39 Dosch, “Louvain the Lost,” D.

40 Dosch,” Louvain the Lost,” G-H.

33 fist. There had been an exchange of shots, perhaps even a conspiracy, and the German troops took the full measure of reprisal.41

Dosch Fleurot’s pro-German element was peculiar only for two early wartime articles. His German roots alone cannot explain this since he was also of the French origin. He loved both of his parents deeply. During his visits to France in 1914-1916,

Dosch Fleurot felt in love with his French heritage. He liked Paris and gained much pleasure from visiting his mother’s relatives in Burgundy. At the same time, his German- born father remained a special person for him. His opinion was always important, and his sentiments mattered.

Dosch Fleurot’s grandfather John Baptiste Dosch stemmed from German military aristocracy. In 1848, he became a supporter of the German revolution who “organized the regiment to resist Prussians.” After the failed revolution, John Baptiste Dosch could have been sent out of the country. However, he was allowed to stay because he had been a classmate of Otto von Bismarck. Dosch Fleurot’s father, Henry Ernst Dosch graduated from the Kastel-Meinz, College of commerce and industry, with the engineering degree.

At the age of eighteen, he came to the United States for one year with intention to come back to Germany for military service. He changed his plans when the American Civil

War started and enlisted in the Union army. During the war, he attained the rank of

Colonel which he later used in civilian life. 42

41 Dosch, “Louvain the Lost,” G.

42 Lockley, “Reminiscences of Colonel Henry Ernst Dosch,” 53-55.

Although the military roots of his German ancestors were never of much interest to Dosch Fleurot, the idea to revolutionize Germany occupied his mind. He wrote to his father that after two months in Europe he came to a bitter conclusion—Germany of the revolution of 1848 was gone- and strengthened his idea that the only solution for the country was to overthrow the Hohenzollerns and create a political system based on the

United States:

If you saw the German army as I did I am sure you would agree with me. Far from wanting peace the Kaiser wants war and aggression . . . no one could have seen Louvain, and the arrogance of Prussians in Belgium, and sympathize with it. I know that if you had been in Belgium with me, you would have resented their arrogance as much as I did. It was not that they did not treat me well enough. I met many charming Germans. But this fight is wrong and there is no escaping it.43

Dosch Fleurot expressed this negative image of German soldiers publicly during his lectures in Portland in September of 1915 when he named the burning of Louvain “a drunken orgy” of German soldiers. This statement gained him critics in the local press.

He was blamed as an incompetent journalist who transmitted rumors about intelligent and disciplined Germans.44 The letter and speech reveal Dosch Fleurot’s discomfort with

German actions in Belgium (particularly in Louvain) and stand in contrast to his newspaper accounts. The articles and the letter could have been written by two different people.

43 ADF to HED, October 25, 1914.

44 Morning Oregonian, September 10, 1915, 14; Sunday Oregonian, September 26, 1915, 11.

Another letter sheds some more light to Dosch Fleurot’s views. He wrote to his father,

You are mistaken if you think that I am anti-German, I am anti-Prussian, anti-Prussian militarism, anti-Kaiser, anti-the-whole-system-of-warlord . . . I am besides pro-Belgian and pro-French. I will only be anti-German if Germany stands for junkerism after this war. 45

It is obvious that World War One brought a dilemma to Dosch Fleurot. Since the beginning of the war, he had sympathy towards the Allies because of his political preferences. At the same time, he tried to treat Germans as fairly and objectively as he could because he cared about his father’s opinion and felt sorry that his German feelings were not as strong as his father’s. At the beginning of the war, it led to the tendency of emphasizing the good sides of the Germans’ behavior in his articles. German soldiers and officers pay in the stores and not looting Belgian civilians. They are disciplined. There are in general good fellows. It is the cruelty of the war that makes them to kill. He knew that the father would read his articles, clip them and glue to his scrap book.

By October 1915, Dosch Fleurot understood that he “said so many disjointed things about this war and expressed opinions so freely.” He also was afraid that his father thought that his son was “too severe with the German army or too blind to its cause.” He felt that he ought to clarify his attitude to the war to his father, to the public and probably, even for himself. Dosch Fleurot decided to write a series of letters about the war addressed to his father and publishing them as a book latter on.46 This project has never

45 ADF to HED, August 4, 1915.

46 ADF to HED, October 12, 1915.

36 happened. Dosch Fleurot was always so busy with current assignments. The book about his World War One experience was delayed until 1931.

The relationship between the two was also darkened with one more circumstance.

Arno Dosch Fleurot came to Europe as Arno Dosch. Because most of the time he stayed on the Allied territory, in France, in unoccupied parts of Belgium, and London, he found life uneasy with his German last name. According to Dosch Fleurot’s wife, his colleague

Frederic Palmer “reported Arno to the Foreign Office in Paris as a suspicious character of

German parentage and German sympathies.”47 Afraid about his safety and that of his wife, he hyphenated his mother’s last name after his father’s. This was how Arno became

Dosch Fleurot in private life.48

The German last name was also inconvenient in his career. Coming to Europe as a magazine writer he soon was hired by the New York World. In the beginning, he intentionally did not use his byline for the most important articles for the New York

World, but all his magazine articles in the World Works and some less important articles in the newspaper were published under his birth-given name Arno Dosch. It was May 1,

1916 when the New York World printed the article signed Arno Dosch Fleurot for the first time. Dosch Fleurot wrote to his father that he “always feared it might hurt” his father’s feelings. He explained that it was an accident, a mistake of the night editor, who did it in

47 ESD to HED, January 1916; Hawkins, 14.

48 ADF to HED, October 25, 1914.

37 a rush.49 Most likely, it was not. Arno Dosch Fleurot used the double last name for the rest of his life.

World War One brought a challenge to the Americans with liberal outlook. They easily found the discrepancy between American neutrality and their liberal values. The

German position of invaders made it hard to maintain neutral or positive images of

German soldiers, and such events as the senseless destruction of Louvain contributed to it too. As a result, many liberals considered neutrality as a betrayal of their beliefs. In case of Dosch Fleurot, his liberal position was complicated by German roots, which influenced his reporting. Although from the beginning of the war, he sympathized with the Allies, Belgium and France particularly, fear of hurting his father’s feelings led to the tendency of downplaying the responsibility of the German army in Belgium.

Grasping the War

On the road from the United States to England in August 1914, Dosch Fleurot wrote to his father, “When you see cruisers patrolling the coast of England and all the harbors ruined except Liverpool, you begin to realize what this is.”50 For Dosch Fleurot, it was the very first touch of the war. Neither he nor his colleagues on the board of St.

Paul could predict that this conflict would be known in history as World War One and that it would last more than four years.51 When the American journalists realized that official accreditations were not available, they were disappointed, but as neutrals felt

49 ADF to HED, May 3, 1916.

50 ADF to HED, August 14, 1914; Hawkins, 12.

51 ADF to Family, January 8, 1916.

38 confident and audacious. The American reporters believed that they would find their news anyway.

The first sensation awaited reporters in Belgium. Those who chose to go there witnessed the march of the German army through the county. Every American journalist found his own words describing this phenomenon, but what would impress potential readers was the scale, strength, and order of the German military machine. The first article about this matter was sent by Richard H. Davis who witnessed the entrance of the

German troops in Brussels. He wrote,

After for three hours they had passed in one unbroken steel gray column we were board. But when hour after hour passed and there was no halt, no breathing time, no open space in the ranks, the thing became uncanny, inhuman. You returned to watch it, fascinated. It held the mystery and menace of fog rolling toward you across the sea.52

The articles of Dosch Fleurot about the German advance through Belgium were published in the Worlds Work in October and November only, but they described the same movement and were written only a couple of weeks later than Davis’s article:

The passing of the German army had an appealing affect because of its single- mindedness. I was like something cosmic. It seemed as nothing could stop it because the individual unit advanced on a fixed course and was given no discretion. It was a steam- roller passing over land.53

52 New York Tribune, August 24, 1914, 1.

53 Dosch, “The “System” of the German Army,” 63.

What highlighted the strength of the German army was the portrayal of the

Belgian troops that looked very old-fashioned, but at the same time very human in comparison with their adversaries:

They were a dusty and foot-sore lot, most of them exhausted and asleep on the grass, but those who were awake smiled and waved their hands at us. Of the hundreds of faces I saw in that brave little army there was not one which showed defeat. And, despite their careless attitude, they were in good military order.54

Despite the courage of the Belgian soldiers, the destiny of their native country seemed already obvious when Dosch Fleurot went to France at the beginning of

September 1914. It was there, on the British firing lines near the river Aisne where he saw the real face of war for the first time. It was luck for a journalist to come so close to the front as Dosch Fleurot did and any such information behind the lines was priceless.

However, every day he was looking for an opportunity to go to the real fighting. One day, he succeeded and spent half of a day with the British soldiers and later described his experience in two articles for the New York World. These articles were among the first war reportages about a new type of combat—trench warfare. This type of war was new for the soldiers. The constant danger of attack, long stretches of boredom, the horrors of unburied bodies and wounded lying between two opposite lines of the trenches caused new type of moral exhaustion.55

54 Dosch, “Louvain the Lost,’ C.

55 Yorkville Enquirer, October 23, 1914, 1; New York World, 1914, October 21, 1- 2 [Unsigned].

The story that Dosch Fleurot send to the Worlds Work was not this depressing. He explained to the editor Arthur Page, “I could write you a horrors story, but I don’t think you’d want it. It’s too bloody.”56 Although the magazine article described only Dosch

Fleurot’s trip from Paris to the battle lines, the readers of the magazine were also able to assess the horrors of modern warfare. The previously peaceful French countryside bore signs of recent fighting—piles of abandoned ammunition, fresh graves, and numerous unburied corpses of humans and horses. Towns and villages were destroyed and looked abandoned.57

The topic of trench warfare received further development in Dosch Fleurot’s articles from the Yser Front. The flooding of the Yser plain made advance of both sides impossible, and the northern part of the Western Front was also entrenched by November

1914. Traveling along the front line, Dosch Fleurot saw the same unbearable conditions that soldiers experienced in the trenches on the river Aisne. It became even worse by the end of fall. November brought cold weather, and soldiers became so numbed, especially at night, that they could barely carry their rifles. To provide some relief, officers permitted soldiers to run around to warm up.58

The events that Dosch Fleurot saw during the fall of 1914 and described to his readers influenced him deeply. The militaristic romanticism of the first days gradually

56 ADF to Arthur [Page], October 25, 1914; Hawkins, 13.

57 Dosch, “Under “The Fog of War,”470-475.

58 New York World, November 23, 1914, 1-2. [Unsigned]

41 shifted toward war realism. The battlefield experience, the depressive atmosphere in Paris and London, his acquaintance with his French relatives and the death of some of them made the war more intimate for him.59 At the end of November 1914, he wrote to his family in Oregon,

It is going to be a hopeless kind of Christmas so far from Betsy and all of you and with depressing atmosphere of war. It is beginning to be a mere butchery to me, a senseless waste doing nobody good. When they are all flat exhausted I fancy they will just have to stop . . . 60

At the end of spring 1915, personal problems almost diverted Dosch Fleurot’s attention from the war for one year. Returning back to France at the summer 1916, he was part of a group of journalists who visited the battlefields of the Somme, Marne, and

Verdun. The gap in Dosch Fleurot’s reporting allows us to see how noticeably the war had changed. By the fall of 1916, there were new tactics, new weapons, and more people involved. The battlefields looked unnatural and frightening. It seemed that any signs of life were wiped off the face of these battle-scared grounds:

The whole battlefield is slimy with mud and marked with twisted sticks where forest have been and a few heaps of bricks to mark the towns. To complete the effect, white, yellow, green and black shells are bursting all about . . . The peaceful Valley of the Somme is now as unnatural as a modernist picture.61

Probably the most striking piece of war reporting Dosch Fleurot wrote about the

Battle of Verdun which lasted from 21 February until 18 December 1916 in north-eastern

59ADF to MLD, May 9, 1915; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 56.

60 ADF to Family, November 30, 1914; Hawkins, 15.

61 New York World, September 13, 1916, 2.

France. He came to Verdun during the lull of November 1916, just after the French army recaptured Fort Douaumont, the highest and most important spot of that area. He was one of four American correspondents who had received permission from the French government to visit the fort. The other correspondents were John Bass of the Chicago

Daily News, Wythe Williams, correspondent of the New York Times, and F.O. Raill, who represented the Pittsburg Dispatch. The region they were visiting was under the German bombardment, and the battlefield was wrecked by shells and covered with mud and big craters. The trenches were gone. Heavy artillery had destroyed all signs of life. Bodies and body parts were everywhere. It was impossible to bury them and hard to save wounded. After Dosch Fleurot spent twelve hours under shell fire, he wrote, “I thrill to the thought that men can be so brave.”62

The descriptions of battlefields were not just sensational reports. Through the fall campaigns of 1914 and 1916, Dosch Fleurot tried to bring to his American readers as much as possible reliable information about the war. He was very careful with military data that could influence the fighting, but simultaneously, he argued that more news must be available for everybody.63 The possibility of American involvement in the European war made the access to news even more crucial. In the beginning of 1915, Dosch Fleurot asked his father, “By the way German threat to destroy US ships too may lead to serious

62 New York World, November 13, 1916, 1-2; New York Times, November 13, 1916, 1; Dosch Fleurot, “In a Dugout on Douaumont,”416-429; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 91-96; Williams, 72, 77-79, 84-85.

63 ADF to HED, August 14, 1914; ADF to HED, February 7, 1915.

43 consequences. Don’t you think so?”64 If an American involvement was possible, then the

United States could not ignore the new military strength of European armies and the consequences of modern warfare. It was in the fall of 1916 when Dosch Fleurot realized how immense the gap between European armies and the army of the United States was.

He warned his readers, “the sons of France paid dearly because their army was not adequately supplied with heavy artillery, just as the sons of America or any other country would pay under similar circumstances.”65 In that time, the question whether or not to strengthen the American military already divided American society. President Wilson, who at the beginning supported “the liberal anti-preparedness force,” in November 1914 agreed for “reasonable preparedness,” and the National Defense act of 1916 authorized an increase in the size of the army. But by the moment of the American entry in the war, it was still an army of only two hundred thousand men.66

At the beginning of the war, Dosch Fleurot did not expect to become a war correspondent. He planned to spend a summer vacation with his wife in Europe observing the development of the war from the rear. The events turned differently, and he got a chance trying himself in war reporting. Witnessing the cruelties of modern warfare and writing about them, Dosch Fleurot strengthened his belief in a social revolution in

Germany. Foreshadowing President Woodrow Wilson’s slogan to make a world “safe for democracy,” since the beginning of the war, he understood the conflict as the struggle of

64 ADF to HED, February 15, 1915.

65 Dosch Fleurot, “In a Dugout on Douaumont,” 420.

66 Kennedy, 32-33.

44 democracy against aggressive German militarism and autocracy. This strong belief complicated Dosch Fleurot’s relationships with his German-born father, and he tried to show loyalty to his roots by avoiding any unfair statements about Germany. It was important for Dosch Fleurot explaining to his father that his beliefs did not mean the anti-

German sentiments, but rather a concern about future of the German nation. All he wanted was liberation of the German people from the conservative political system.

The involvement in European affairs became crucial for Dosch Fleurot’s relationship with his wife too. Since the beginning of the war, he felt a dissonance between the responsibilities of being a husband and a parent and his desire to witness and describe big world events. In order to reconcile the interests of his relatives with his rapidly developing passion for the foreign reporting, he relocated his wife and children to

France. However, it did not bring happiness to them. The older daughter Betsy missed her life in California. Dosch Fleurot continued traveling, now across France, while his wife felt lonely staying in Paris. After Dosch Fleurot was assigned to Russia at the end of

1917, she wrote to her father in law,

I did not like his going anyway because it leaves me so alone. But he insisted that he ought to go as long as the [New York] World suggested it. The truth is, that he was simply dying to go away somewhere . . . I am afraid Arno is quite spoiled for ordinary humdrum life—I don’t know what he will do when the war is finally over.67

In retrospect, the wife of Dosch Fleurot was right. He has never stopped traveling, observing and writing about the world events.

67 ESD to HED, January 1, 1917.

CHAPTER 2

ARNO DOSCH FLEUROT IN REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA: AMERICAN RESPONSE TO THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 19171

It was November 17, 1916. Dosch Fleurot was sitting in one of the Parisian cafes writing a letter to his family in Portland. He wanted to inform his parents that the New

York World had sent him to Russia, and right now, he was waiting for a boat to England.

The trip to Russia seemed just another usual assignment, but Dosch Fleurot did not feel excited about it. His wife did not want him to go, and “the north and those artic days in

Petrograd” did not appeal to him.2 Surprisingly, Russia grew on him, and, for a short period of time, he “was beginning to feel at home in the country and interested in its problems.”3

Russia made mixed impressions on the American journalist. On the one hand,

Dosch Fleurot found in Russia some resemblance to the life in his native Oregon. He wrote to his family in Portland,

1 The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a pair of revolutions. The February Revolution was the revolution against the imperial government which led to the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and creation of the Provisional Government. The October Revolution was a seizure of state power by the Bolsheviks, radical Russian socialists.

2 ADF to Family, November 17, 1916; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 96; Hawkins, 18.

3 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 116.

I like Russia universally. It is more like being at home, log houses through the country, fast horses, few autos, everyone very hospitable. If it were not for Elsie and the children in Paris I should like to stay here for a long time.4

On the other hand, Dosch Fleurot was fascinated and puzzled by the country’s otherness from Europe and the Unites States. The “cheerful easygoingness, the chief characteristic of the country,” and many traditions, such as the Russian winter outfit or a habit of drinking tea from samovar to name a few, surprised him.5

These first impressions of the country spoke to Dosch Fleurot’s attachment to

Russia. His interest in the country deepened when he got engulfed by the whirlpool of revolutionary events. He considered the Russian Revolution a people’s pursuit of liberty and he was hopeful Germany would be able to do the same. Dosch Fleurot had been supporting the development of Russian Revolution as long as it did not it contradict his liberal ideas of spreading democracy all over the world. Reporting on these revolutionary events became a matter of great importance in his life. For the sake of the revolution, he stayed in Russia for twenty-two months, eventually sacrificing his marriage.

Building Russian Democracy

Dosch Fleurot arrived in Russia at the end of November 1916. Upon arrival, he went through a common procedure of introduction, first, to the American Ambassador and then, to the Russian authorities. Dosch Fleurot planned to receive “a war correspondent’s standing” and hoped that his credentials as “an accredited correspondent

4 ADF to Family, February 1, 1917; Hawkins, 31.

5 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 101.

47 with the French and British armies” would help him to succeed. Meanwhile, weeks had been passing, and he still had no “glimpse of the front.” He was explained that “there was no use trying to get anywhere in Russia without influence.”6 Fortunately, American

Ambassador David R. Francis was friends with Dosch Fleurot’s father. They knew each other well when Francis was governor of Missouri, and Henry Ernst Dosch was engaged in the St. Louis Exposition of 1906 as an Oregon official.7 Francis gave Dosch Fleurot the first lesson on Russian political life inviting him to Duma, the legislative assembly of

Russia. Awaiting for his war correspondent standing, Dosch Fleurot began to study

Russian political life and very soon, concluded that Americans “know very little about the Russian situation.”8 This finding surprised him, and he wrote a long analytical article.

However, he experienced troubles with Russian censors, and this article was published only after the February Revolution. For the first three months in Russia, he was able to send only two short articles to the New York World.9

The main characteristic of Dosch Fleurot’s pre-revolutionary articles was the optimistic vision of the Russian democratic potential and military strength. In his opinion,

Russia resembled the United States in many ways and the fact that “an American with

6 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 108, 114.

7 ADF to Family, February 1, 1917; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 105; Hawkins, 22.

8 Sunday Oregonian, April 8, 1917, 5 (Originally printed in New York World, April 1, 1917).

9 New York World, December 27, 1916, 1; New York World, January 26, 1917, 2; Sunday Oregonian, April 8, 1917, 5; Hawkins, 24.

48 intensely democratic sentiments can feel as much at home in Russia . . . argues that

Russia is something of a democracy, even though an absolute monarchy.” It was Dosch

Fleurot’s acquaintance with the work of Duma that gave him an opportunity to find the liberal tendencies of the Russian political life. According to Dosch Fleurot, Duma had the

“respect of all Russia,” even of the emperor’s supporters, and represented “nearly everyone in the empire to know enough to write his name.”10 In fact, the legislative role of the Duma was minimized by the emperor’s right to veto any of its laws while the election law established considerable advantages for the propertied classes in Duma. The same idealism characterized Dosch Fleurot’s assessments of Russia’s military aspirations.

In his first report from the country, he emphasized that “there is no peace sentiment here.”11 He affirmed later that Russia “is probably the only country in the war where the pacifists are outsiders.”12 In retrospect, these judgments were mistaken.

Dosch Fleurot’s early impressions about Russia were restricted by geographical and social factors. As Dosch Fleurot acknowledged himself, he had very limited knowledge about the country upon his arrival. Geographically, he stayed most of the time in Petrograd, the Russian capital, which was one of the most progressive cities of the

Russian Empire. Because Dosch Fleurot did not speak Russian at the beginning, his vision of the events was formed with the help of official interpreters provided to

10 Sunday Oregonian, April 8, 1917, 5-6.

11 New York World, December 27, 1916, 1.

12 Sunday Oregonian, April 8, 1917, 5.

49 correspondents or with the help of people who volunteered as translators. He also was able to grasp the reality of political life through talks with Americans or other people who could speak English. In most cases, he was surrounded by well-educated and liberal- minded people, whose political inclinations and hopes paralleled his, and it was easy for him to share their optimistic vision of Russia.13

Although Dosch Fleurot liked staying in Russia, at the beginning of February he received a telegram from the New York World with an instruction to return to London or

Paris. There was no sensational news in Russia while Germany recently had declared the unrestricted submarine warfare, and everybody waited for the reaction of the United

States. Dosch Fleurot reluctantly applied for a permission to leave the country.14

Meanwhile, on March 8, 1917, the February Revolution began, and Dosch Fleurot stayed in Russia almost for two years.15

The revolution started with the food strikes that appeared in the different parts of

Petrograd. Cossacks, the Russian cavalry police, began patrolling the city. Every day

Dosch Fleurot wrote an article and tried to send it to the United States. However, a censor had not allowed the transmission until Dosch Fleurot emphasized that although there was

13 Sunday Oregonian, April 8, 1917, 6; Hawkins, 23.

14 Arno Dosch Fleurot, “In Petrograd during the Seven Days,” Worlds Work, July 1917, 257; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 113.

15 According to the Julian calendar, which was in use in Russia until January 1918, the revolution started on February 23, 1917.

50 a food shortage, the situation was not revolutionary and under control.16 Meanwhile, the tensions in the city had been increasing. All industrial enterprises shut down, and protesters flooded the streets. Emperor Nicholas II tried to suppress a revolt with the help of the army, but soldiers were reluctant to fire on the demonstrators and instead joined them.

It was March 12, 1917 when Dosch Fleurot recognized that the events in

Petrograd were a revolution.17 On March 14, he wrote a cable hoping that the revolutionaries would open the way to telegraph, and they did. His article was published in the New York World two days later. Dosch Fleurot reported that the revolution developed unexpectedly out of the shortage of bread and was also triggered by the provocative order that allowed police to shoot without inquiry upon demonstrators. He argued that the revolution became possible because the authorities underestimated the situation and did not use necessary preventative measures. He emphasized the bloodless character of revolution and reported that the Duma and revolutionary parties not only had already obtained full control over Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, Nizhny Novgorod, and the naval base at Kronstadt but also were able to quickly restore order.18 In subsequent articles, Dosch Fleurot confirmed the peaceful character of the revolution. The abdication

16 New York World, March 12, 1917, 1-2; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 123; Hawkins, 35; Rappaport, 58.

17 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 127-129.

18 New York World, March 16, 1917, 1-2.

51 of the Emperor on March 15 was received with “a remarkable calm.” The Russian capital

“was sleeping safely and tranquilly, at last in the arms of democracy.”19

At the beginning, Dosch Fleurot’s understanding of the events coincided with the official position of American Ambassador Francis. Francis reported to Washington on

“an important change in government without bloodshed” and welcomed events in Russia as “the most amazing revolution.” Francis also suggested that the United States should immediately recognize the newly created government.20 Dosch Fleurot reported this event with great enthusiasm:

When the cable ordering Ambassador Francis formally to recognize the new provisional Russian government came this morning a cheer shook the old building which passes for the American Embassy. The Ambassador, as well as all other Americans here, knowing the rottenness of the old government and the character of the men now ruling, had eagerly awaited authority to extend recognition.21

By this time, Dosch Fleurot formed his personal attitude to the revolutionary events. In his memoirs, he named the February Revolution and six months that followed

“the only period of complete liberty in the history of Russian people.”22 He recalled that his full sympathy turned to the protesters when the imperial government decided to use arms to prevent further demonstrations, “Up to this time I had been a neutral, if disgusted,

19 Sunday Oregonian, March 18, 1917, 5; New York World, March 19, 1917, 1.

20 Georg Schild, Between Ideology and Realpolitik: Woodrow Wilson and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995), 24.

21 Sunday Oregonian, March 25, 1917, 3.

22 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 133.

52 spectator, but now I hoped the police and the whole imperial regime would pay bitterly for their insolence and stupidity.”23 Subsequently, he supported the establishment of the democratic Provisional Government and expressed the hope that Russia would chose to be a republic of the American type.24

However, the political situation in Russia developed differently. Simultaneously with the creation of the Provisional Government, the representatives of socialist parties formed The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Until October 1917, the

Provisional Government and The Petrograd Soviet competed with each other and shared dual power over the country. However, this fact was ignored in the United States. To some extent, this oversight was due to the optimistic assessments of Ambassador Francis.

In his official reports, Francis emphasized a strong position of the Provisional

Government and its control over opposition. Francis, who did not speak Russian, based his judgments on the information from members of the Provisional Government or people who supported it. It was the same liberal-minded and democratic group of Russians whose ideas inspired Dosch Fleurot and most of Americans in Petrograd. Although other

American officials, such as an American council in Petrograd North Winship warned about the increasing role of the Petrograd Soviet, it did not influence the official policy of the US State Department. President Wilson believed that Russia would gradually adopt the American political model and he did not think the Soviets could be a reasonable form of Russia’s government. Additionally, Wilson “considered the anti-war rhetoric of left-

23 Dosch Fleurot, “In Petrograd during the Seven Days,” 60.

24 New York World, March 30, 1917, 1, 3.

53 wing parties a menace” and even suspected a cooperation between the Petrograd Soviet and German groups in order to sign a separate peace between countries.25

In contrast to the American official position, Dosch Fleurot soon recognized that the Petrograd Soviet had become a powerful alternative to the Provisional Government.

Since the end of March, he explained to his readers that there were two revolutionary camps in the country. The first one, which was represented by the Petrograd Soviet, was

“the radical wing.” It included “the labor bodies, the Socialists, and numerous radicals of various shades.” It was the members of this camp who “did the actual work of developing the revolution once the revolt of the army against the police gave the opportunity . . . The more conservative wing” was the Duma party. It rejected radical reforms of the existing order and stood only for “effective government along ordinary democratic lines.” Both fractions played an important part in the revolution and now agreed to support the

Provisional Government until the National Assembly would meet and settle the issue of future government. Dosch Fleurot was confident that despite differences in political programs, the parties would be able to do it peacefully. It could be democracy, constitutional monarchy or even a government accepting some socialistic measures

“bearing on operation of factories and ownership of land.” However, he believed that most likely it would be “a central course, rather radical, however, than conservative.”26

The balance of power between two governments did not continue for a long time.

At the beginning of May, Dosch Fleurot concluded that “power has been passing steadily,

25 Schild, 17, 25-27.

26 New York World, March 26, 1917, 1.

54 sometimes imperceptibly” into the hands of the Petrograd Soviet. The events of the last six weeks also convinced him that “the types of democracies represented by the United

States and France are not sufficiently advanced for” Russian people (workmen, peasants, and soldiers), who “are progressing steadily and consciously toward some form of a socialistic state.” Dosch Fleurot predicted that this political experiment with the socialistic form of government would have “an effect on all governments in all countries.”27

It was the first political crisis of the Provisional Government that convinced

Dosch Fleurot of the power of the Petrograd Soviet. At the beginning of May, the

Provisional Government declared that Russia would continue the war against the Central

Powers to a victorious conclusion. This declaration caused unrest in the Russian capital.

The Petrograd Soviet forced the Provisional Government to clarify that Russia would stay in the war, but it would be a fight in order to maintain a democratic peace as soon as possible and without indemnities and contributions. The Petrograd Soviet also issued a proclamation forbidding any meetings and demonstrations, which immediately calmed demonstrators. Dosch Fleurot concluded that the Petrograd Soviet obtained “a new position of power as a force capable of direct government, speaking for democracy in the whole country as well as in Petrograd.”28

Dosch Fleurot was disappointed when a special American diplomatic mission, which arrived in Russia in June 1917, failed to understand the political situation in the

27 Arno Dosch Fleurot, “Russia Pulls Itself Together,” Worlds Work, August 1917, 424-430.

28 New York World, May 7, 1917, 1.

55 country. The nine-man mission, headed by former Secretary of State Elihu Root, had the purpose of stabilizing the Provisional Government and insure the Russian participation in the war. Dosch Fleurot tried to influence the mission’s position through Charles Edward

Russell, a socialist member of the group. This attempt was unsuccessful. The official report of the Root Mission indicated certain problems in the country, but its general tone was optimistic. Alton Ingram, who researched the work of the Root Mission, concluded that a careful reading of the documents leaves the impression that the Provisional

Government would maintain a position of control in Russia.29 Although Dosch Fleurot did not dare criticize the Root Mission during the summer of 1917, he did it later. After the October Revolution that overthrew the Provisional Government, he wrote that the

Root Mission “did not grasped the real situation” in Russia.30 In 1931, he recalled that the

Petrograd Soviet considered the American mission bourgeois and made fun of it.

Russell’s speech in front of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets was a result of “a personal favor” to Dosch Fleurot and another American journalist, who were well known to members of the Congress.31 Russell confirmed that he was able to speak only after

Dosch Fleurot’s intervention.32

In Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, the confidence of the Allies in the strength of the

Provisional Government and their ignorance of the threat of the Petrograd Soviet was a

29 Ingram, “The Root Mission to Russia, 1917,” 296.

30 New York World, February 22, 1918, 1-2.

31 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 163.

32 Ingram, 238-239.

56 diplomatic mistake. It led to the second Russian revolution in October 1917 and the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks. At the beginning of 1918, Dosch Fleurot wrote,

It was the obvious common place of the Russian situation that the [Provisional] Government could only stand as long as it had the [Petrograd] Soviet behind it. The barometer was the [Petrograd] Soviet. Russia’s allies could not afford to take their eyes off it for a moment. But instead, they kept their eyes on the [Provisional] Government. Otherwise they would have done some rapid footwork . . . 33

Dosch Fleurot considered this mistake fatal because the Bolsheviks substituted the democratic form of government for the dictatorship. They also signed a separate peace with Germany and thus, postponed the end of World War One and a revolution in

Germany.

Russia Must Fight

When President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, the February Revolution in Russia had already happened, and the United States entered the war on the side of democratic nations fighting autocracy. President Wilson, who initially opposed the war, decided to join it after Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. In order to reconcile his anti-war sentiments, he suggested to enter the war in order “to make the world safe for democracy.” When the United States and

Russia became allies, keeping Russia in the war became a part of Wilson’s military plan.

Dosch Fleurot supported Wilson’s intention. Moreover, from the very beginning of the Russian Revolution and until the moment when Russia signed a separate peace with Germany on March 3, 1918, Dosch Fleurot’s predictions about the possibility to

33 New York World, February 22, 1917, 1.

57 keep Russia in the war and the capabilities of the Russian army were often unreasonably optimistic. His strong desire to see the German defeat and his belief that Russia should continue to contribute to the war efforts shaped not only most of his Russian reporting but also his whole attitude to the Russian Revolution. Dosch Fleurot embraced any political force that was able to save the Russian army as a military force.

Dosch Fleurot’s optimism about the Russian participation in the war was never as strong as in the first months after the February Revolution. He even suggested that the bloodless character of the revolution was connected with “a desire to do nothing to interfere with the prosecution of the war.”34 During that period of time, he believed that the conduct of the war was the factor that should unite rather than embroil different political parties. According to Dosch Fleurot, all political forces in Russia, except “a small group, never influential,” understood the necessity to “finish the war victoriously and rid the country of monarchical German invaders in order to clear the theater for the country’s development.”35 Although both the Provisional Government and the Petrograd

Soviet supported Russian participation in the war, only the latter insisted that the new

Russia ought to disregard the old imperialistic war aims and stay in the war only for the protection of the achievements of revolution. This liberal position, which is known as revolutionary defensism, had Dosch Fleurot’s full support.36

34 Sunday Oregonian, March 18, 1917, 3.

35 Sunday Oregonian, March 26, 1917, 2.

36 Hawkins, 7.

Dosch Fleurot believed that a new Russian army would be a more efficient military force because the democratic form of government “would free the Russian army from the bureaucracy that was hampering it.”37 The reorganization of the army took place in accordance with Order Number 1 of the Petrograd Soviet. The order, which had as its goal the prevention of a counter-revolution, instructed soldiers and sailors to create councils and obey their officers and the Provisional Government only if their orders did not contradict the decrees of the Petrograd Soviet. The order also suggested more democratic communication between officers and soldiers in daily life and allowed removal of counterrevolutionary officers. All these innovations created tensions in the army, but “no actual disruption of military discipline” happened.38 By the end of March,

Dosch Fleurot found that the reorganization of the army was chiefly accomplished and the new military force had “little difference in the fighting viewpoint.”39 The previous military discipline was replaced by “a discipline based on patriotism.”40

When the euphoria of the revolution subsided, Dosch Fleurot realized that the situation in the Russian army was more alarming than he had expected. First, rumors about land distribution incited soldiers’ desertion from the front.41 Second, fraternization

37 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 131.

38 New York World, March 28, 1917, 1.

39 New York World, April 2, 1917, 3.

40 Dosch Fleurot, “Russia Pulls Itself Together,” 425.

41 New York World, April 25, 1917, 1.

59 between Russian and German troops took extensive forms, and there was no firing on some parts of the front for a week.42 The news from the front was so discouraging that in the middle of May, he warned Americans that the Russian army was not ready to do even one more offensive:

They have opposite them now a mere fridge of German troops, but they will not give the “one more big effort,” even though it would be easy now. They are thinking only about the end of the war; the predicament of the Allies on the western front is not even understood in the ranks.43

In a couple of days, he confirmed, “Russia’s help in continuing the war for the present must be recognized as negative.”44

In order to investigate the situation personally, Dosch Fleurot decided to visit the front. He arranged to accompany a party of Belgian socialists, headed by the president of the Second International Emile Vandervelde, which had the goal to maintain soldiers before the summer offensive. Together with the party, Dosch Fleurot visited various armies of the group in the southwest (in Bukovina, Galicia, and Southern Romania). The trip made a positive impression on Dosch Fleurot and revived his confidence in the

Russian army. In his articles, he wrote that the army was well supplied and fraternization stopped; military discipline was restored, and the troops were ready to fight.45

42 New York World, May 9, 1917, 2.

43 New York World, May 14, 1917, 5.

44 Sunday Oregonian, May 17, 1917, 5.

45 Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1917, 7; New York World, June 27, 1917, 1-2; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 158-162.

Meanwhile, as Hawkins noticed, a careful reading of Dosch Fleurot’s reports shows the obvious discrepancy between the optimistic headline of one of his articles – “Armies of

Russia Are Fit and Eager”- and the text:

Russia is now fit for fighting at the front. The army had the case a few weeks ago of wanting to discuss everything before acting, but that is passing. Back of the front – where soldiers are counted by the millions—the depots are still debating societies, but the front wants to fight and is going to fight.46

The attentive reader might have easily found the discrepancy. If a part of the army on the front was ready to fight, another part of the troops was obviously not.

The failure of the summer offensive proved that Dosch Fleurot’s forecasts had been unrealistic. By this time, he was disappointed and blamed liberal politicians for their inability to restore the order in the country and in the army. Hawkins notices that while people’s demand for peace grew, Dosch Fleurot was eager to report favorably about any strong man who could save Russia from the military collapse.47 In August, he believed that it could be the commander-in-chief of the Russian army Lavr Kornilov, who attempted to organize the coup d'état against the Provisional Government.48 Reporter

Florence MacLeod Harper, who represented in Petrograd the Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, recalled how Dosch Fleurot shared her upset about the failure of Kornilov:

46 Hawkins, 65 [Emphasis of Hawkins].

47 Hawkins, 8.

48 New York World, October 12, 1917, 2; New York World, November 5, 1917.

I stood looking at him stupidly, I do not know if it as tears in my eyes that blurred my vision, but his eyes looked suspiciously wet. We both used language not exactly polite. We all knew it was the last chance.49

The failure of Kornilov putsch meant for Harper the failure of the Russian democracy, and she decided to leave Russia. But for Dosch Fleurot, Russia was still of interest as a fighting force, and the obsession with the idea that Russia had to continue the fighting conditioned the development of Dosch Fleurot’s reporting during fall and winter.50 In contrast with President Wilson, who did not support any collaboration with

Russian radicals and believed that country eventually would return to democracy, Dosch

Fleurot considered it possible to find common ground with that part of the Bolsheviks that stood against signing a separate peace with Germany.51 The main proponent of this position was Leon Trotsky, who was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet at the end of September. In his interview with Dosch Fleurot, Trotsky announced the plan of the

Bolsheviks to seek an immediate democratic but not separate peace with Germany.

According to Trotsky, the Bolsheviks planned “by every possible means, including millions of proclamations dropped by aeroplanes” to urge the German people to revolt and induce their government to sign an immediate democratic peace. If Germany refused

49 Harper, Runaway Russia, 286-287; Rappaport, 244; Dubbs, 192.

50 Lasch, 20; Hawkins, 8-9.

51 Schild, 37-38.

62 such peace, every Russian soldier would continue fighting against autocratic Germany in order to defend the revolution.52

After the October Revolution, Trotsky’s plan against a separate peace appeared to become reality.53 On November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional

Government and established the Soviet state. Dosch Fleurot reported that the Bolsheviks had faced a nearly armed resistance during their insurrection and had no strong political opposition that could undermine their power.54 The Bolsheviks immediately passed the

Decree on Peace, which proposed the withdrawal of Russia from World War One and suggested all warring peoples and their governments to begin negotiations about immediate democratic peace without annexations and without indemnities. The decree did not clarify what Russia would do if Germany or other countries refused to negotiate under such conditions. But Dosch Fleurot believed that Trotsky was the strongest leader in the Bolshevik party and his opposition to a separate peace would prevail. During the end of 1917, he continued to argue that the Bolsheviks would not sign a separate peace with Germany.55

52 New York World, November 9, 1917, 1; Schild, 41.

53 According to the old Russian calendar, the Julian calendar, the revolution started on October 25, 1917.

54 New York World, November 21, 1917, 4; Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 130.

55Sunday Oregonian, November 25, 1917, 5; New York World, December 6, 1917, 4; New York World, December 10, 1917, 1; New York World, December 4, 1917, 4; New York World, December 31, 1917, 4; Lasch, 75.

Only at the beginning of 1918, when negotiations between Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk were at full swing, did Dosch Fleurot acknowledge that a separate peace was a very possible alternative. In the dispatch, which was sent to the United States with a special messenger and published without Russian censorship, he wrote,

The fundamental mistake about the Russian revolution, the mistake which all citizens of Allied countries in Russia, myself among the number, persisted in making, was that the Russian army could be induced to fight.

In the same article, he also blamed the Allied diplomacy for miscalculation of the

Russian war aims. He pointed out that since the February Revolution, Russia had been seeking an immediate and democratic peace and reinstatement of the imperialistic war aims of the Russian Empire. If the Allies had called off all old treaties and had signed new ones, it would have been possible to avoid a separate armistice between Russia and

Germany with a possibility of signing a separate peace.56

During his life Dosch Fleurot often emphasized the duty of journalist to report events objectively, “without opinion, without prejudice,”57 but never were his articles so influenced by his own views as in the period of the Russia Revolution. His desire that

German autocracy must be defeated and an idealistic assumption that Russian people

56 New York World, February 22, 1918, 1-2.

57 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 103; Dosch Fleurot, review of Brisbane, 498.

64 were ready to sacrifice themselves in the name of democratic ideal led to contradictory and unrealistic reporting about Russia as a military force.58

Arno Dosch Fleurot and Bolshevism

Although Dosch Fleurot was one of the few foreign reporters who witnessed both the February Revolution and the October Revolution, “the gold standard of [foreign] eyewitness reporting on revolutionary Russia” belongs to another Portlander, American journalist John Reed who arrived in Petrograd with his wife and colleague Louise Bryant only in September 1917.59 By that time, Dosch Fleurot was an expert in the Russian political life and provided other American journalists, Reed amongst them, with valuable information.60 Meanwhile, contrary to Reed, who was sympathetic to the October

Revolution, Dosch Fleurot championed only the February Revolution and considered the time from February to October as the most progressive period of Russian history.

Although Dosch Fleurot did not share Reed’s support of Bolshevism, he considered him a friend. After Reed’s early death in Russia in 1920, Dosch Fleurot called him “a sincere convert,” who “actually believed that they [the Bolsheviks] had something that would make the world better.”61

58 Hawkins, 104.

59 Rappaport, 254.

60 Hawkins, 2.

61 Sunday Oregonian, October 31, 1920, 10.

Meanwhile, Dosch Fleurot attitude toward Bolshevism during the Russian

Revolution was not obvious. When in 1919, Reed’s wife Bryant testified to US Senate during hearings on Bolshevik propaganda, she summarized the evolution of Dosch

Fleurot’s views on Bolshevism:

He changed every now and then [during the Russian Revolution]. Now he is very much against them. At times I think he was not so much against them. At the present time I think he is quite against them.62

In his research of Dosch Fleurot’s revolutionary articles, Hawkins also noticed this transformation. He shows how Dosch Fleurot changed the openly contemptuous attitude to the Bolsheviks, which he showed during spring and summer, to the support of

Trotsky’s idea “to fight a defensist war” in case Germany would refuse a democratic peace.63

Meanwhile, Dosch Fleurot’s position toward the Bolsheviks was not unique.

Christopher Lasch, who examined the impact of the war and revolution on American liberals, demonstrates how the events in Russia challenged their beliefs in the progressive development through revolution toward democracy. Lasch distinguishes two sets of attitudes toward the war and the revolution among American liberals. The first group,

“the war liberals”, were “critical of their own country in the peacetime” but “closed ranks in time of war.” They accepted the war as a “war to end war” in order to reconcile their liberal values with the new international reality. Another group, “anti-imperialists,”

62 New York Times, February 21, 1919, 5; Hawkins, 1-2.

63 Hawkins, 8, 103.

66 demanded the revision of the secrets treaties among the Allies as the condition of their support of the war and stood against “a punitive, vindictive, imperialistic peace.” Lasch specifies that often it is impossible clearly to distinguish which views a particular person supported because many liberals fluctuated between these two sets of opinions over the development of the events.64

In case of Dosch Fleurot, he shared many of anti-imperialist views. Additionally, to the core anti-imperialists idea—desire to avoid a separate peace treaty between Russia and Germany with the help of war aims’ revision, Dosch Fleurot, as other anti- imperialists, also accepted the Soviets. In his opinion, the Soviets that suggested a direct form of government instead of a representative one were radical extension of western democracy.65 For example, Dosch Fleurot referred to representatives of socialist parties in the Petrograd Soviet as “men with an American sense of democracy.”66 According to

Dosch Fleurot, the Soviet form of government had its own advantages:

The soviet form of government permits quick re-elections, thus showing the pulse of popular sentiment. No government can remain in power once it loses the confidence of the people, except by force of arms.67

Although Dosch Fleurot accepted the Soviets as the form of government, initially he disregarded the Bolsheviks as political force. Until they were minority in the Soviets,

64 Lasch, vii-x.

65 Lasch, 35.

66 New York World, November 5, 1917, 1.

67 Morning Oregonian, February, 9, 1918, 3.

Dosch Fleurot considered them as not influential group of the radicals, who were clamoring against the Russian participation in the war under the leadership of Vladimir

Lenin. Dosch Fleurot observed the rise of the Bolsheviks to power with anxiety. When in

September the Petrograd Soviet voted for the Bolsheviks’ resolution that suggested the transfer all political power to the Soviets, he wrote with disappointment:

The Bolsheviks are . . . . denying the right of the bourgeoisie to have any voice in the conduct of affairs. Up to this time the Russian revolution certainly had the full sympathy of Americans, but, while we as a nation are still supporting it and in all probability will continue to support it regardless of mistakes, it could not help losing some of our sympathy the moment it ceased to be truly democratic.68

He shared his frustration in a letter to his mother-in-law:

I should be right now listening to a steady flow of talk at the [Democratic] Conference called by the Soviet, which is supposed to be the making or breaking of the country, but I have reached a point where I cannot bear to hear a single public speech.69

Dosch Fleurot’s attitude toward the Bolsheviks changed when they gained a majority in the Soviets and “inherited the role of defenders of the revolution.”70 From that moment, he was sure that the consequent transfer of power would be only a matter of time if the Bolsheviks saved the control over the Soviets, “If the All-Russian Soviet, which is to meet again soon, proves to have a Bolsheviks majority, the second revolution

68 New York World, November 5, 1917, 1.

69ADF to Mrs. George M Sperry, September 27, 1917; Hawkins, 91.

70 Hawkins, 103.

68 will be under way . . . ”71 Hawkins notices that it was the first article where Dosch

Fleurot moderated his antipathy and criticism toward the Bolsheviks. He suggested that

Dosch Fleurot “would welcome a socialist/Bolsheviks revolution if it were accompanied by a general peace.”72

The shift in Dosch Fleurot’s reporting became more obvious when the October

Revolution happened. In some December articles, he “gave the impression . . . that the

Bolsheviks were not, after all, such bad fellows as he had reported all summer.”73

However this change of attitude toward the Bolsheviks was not unique for Dosch Fleurot.

Lasch argues many Americans in Russia “had come to favor attempting to reach a modus vivendi with the Bolsheviks” and believed that “the purpose of the Bolsheviks were fundamentally akin to those of the Allies.” Some American correspondents, Louis Edgar

Brown and Isaac Don Levine of the Chicago Daily News, M. Phillipps Price of the

Manchester Guardian and Arthur Ransome of the London Daily News as well as Dosch

Fleurot “had tremendous influence in propagating this view.”74

Although there is no evidence about Dosch Fleurot’s ideological support of the

October Revolution, it is possible to agree with Hawkins and Lasch that Dosch Fleurot accepted the Bolsheviks as the only real political power and the only force responsible for

71 New York World, November 9, 1917, 2; Rappaport, 271.

72 Hawkins, 94

73 Hawkins, 100.

74 Lasch, 68, 74.

69 the Russian participation in the war. However, the shift in his reporting can be also explained by his adaptation to the new political situation. In his memoirs, he mentions that by the beginning of 1918 he “had already learned not to try to cross a Bolshevik” in conversation.75 Additionally, during fall he became intimate with Leon Trotsky. He often emphasized the role of Trotsky not Vladimir Lenin as the actual leader of the revolution:

Without Trotsky there would not have been any proletarian revolution in Russia . . . Lenin [was] the spiritual power, partly real, partly legendary; Trotsky [was] the driving force and all real.76

If Trotsky was the strongest among the Bolsheviks, it was logical that his position against a separate peace should have won. If the Bolsheviks stayed in the war, the United States and Russia would remain the allies in the war against German autocracy.

Meanwhile, Dosch Fleurot understood that the war aims of the Allies and the

Bolsheviks were only partly similar. Both desired the defeat of Germany, but the Allies did not want to see socialist Germany and spread of Bolshevism in Europe. Dosch

Fleurot did not want it either. The Bolsheviks’ domestic policy contradicted his liberal views. However, he agreed to support them as a war ally. After the Treaty of Brest-

Litovsk was finally signed, he went to Stockholm “in order to write a series of articles about the Russian Revolution with a free hand.” In an article written without censorship, he immediately changed his tone and declared that the Bolsheviks ruined the revolution by “forcing a class war.” “The revolution is dead,” he argued, “Russia is in an

75 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 192.

76 New York World, January 19, 1925, 7.

70 inconceivable state of disorganization, the revolution only apparently continuing because no other force has yet arisen.”77

Dosch Fleurot stayed in Stockholm a couple of months and then, returned to

Russia. He spent some time on the north of the country, in the cities of Murmansk and

Archangelsk, and finally, came back to Petrograd. By that time, Russia was torn apart by the Civil War and staying in the country became dangerous, even completely impossible when Dosch Fleurot wrote his first article that revealed the Bolsheviks’ terror (Red

Terror):

Through Russia is a reign of terror, with the Bolsheviks trying to maintain their power by spreading fear . . . I was struck on returning to Russia, after an absence of three months, to see how the masses have fallen away from the Bolsheviks.78

Fearing for his life, at the end of summer of 1918, Dosch Fleurot left Russia through the Finn border.79 He did it with heavy feelings:

It [the Russian Revolution] had long since ceased to be a mere news assignment to me. I had hoped. I had suffered with it. I was bound to it. I was surprised to find how strong my feelings toward it. 80

After Russia, Dosch Fleurot spent some time in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and then

Germany. When in spring of 1919 he finally returned to Paris, where his wife and

77 Sunday Oregonian, March 31, 1918, 4.

78New York World, August 19, 1918, 1; New York World, September 9, 1918, 1.

79 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 212.

80 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 214.

71 children had been living, he did not go home, but went to a hotel.81 More than two years apart from his wife became an insuperable obstacle for the marriage that had been already fragile. Elsie had lost faith in the success of her marriage even before Dosch Fleurot went to Russia. After one year of separation with her husband, her feelings did not change. She wrote to her father-in- law,

Arno has the “wonder lust” now and I know that if he did come back it would only be for a little while . . . he would soon be off somewhere again . . . 82

Elsie knew her husband very well. Sometimes even the revolution started to bother him.

Dosch Fleurot wrote to his father from Russia,

It may be hard to believe but you have no idea how bored one can get in the midst of revolution. This northern mental atmosphere is heavy, and I can no longer get the excitement out of the struggle for power that is going on here. It interests me to look-see and write about it and at times the revolutionary current picks me up and carries me along, but you cannot live on that kind of thing all the time. I need a little adventure, and I need it bad. If I could only spare the time to go into the Caucasus or Tiflis, that’s the city I have always wanted to visit.83

When the couple decided to divorce, Dosch Fleurot explained to his father, “There is no scandal of any kind. It is only the incompatibility of characters, which you have all suspected no doubt for a long time. Elsie wants to go her way!; and I mine.”84 Which

81 ADF to HED, September 5, 1919.

82 ESD to HED, January 13, 1918.

83 ADF to HED, October 3, 1917; Hawkins, 90.

84 ADF to HED, September 25, 1919.

72 way Elsie wanted to go we do not know for sure. Most likely, she wanted only usual and happy domestic life. But the way of Dosch Fleurot had been passing through wars and revolutions. He became cosmopolitan, who has never had a real permanent home.

The February Revolution in Russia, which overthrew the Russian monarchy, gave

Dosch Fleurot a hope for the same event in Germany. The American entry into World

War One made the February Revolution even more crucial. The United States and Russia became the allies that fought together against German autocracy. This scenario was so attractive for Dosch Fleurot that he agreed supporting the radical version of western democracy in Russia, the Soviet form of government. At the same time, he believed that

Russia should stay in the war in order to defend the revolutionary achievements and help establish the democratic order in Germany. Dosch Fleurot reported favorably about any political force that was able to ensure the Russian participation in the war, even about the

Bolsheviks. When the Bolsheviks signed a separate peace with Germany and started to eliminate their political opponents, Dosch Fleurot suffered tremendous disappointment in the results of the Russian Revolution. For the rest of his life, he considered Bolshevism the main menace to liberal values and a democratic form of government.

CHAPTER 3

THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR ONE: THE COLLAPSE OF AMERICAN IDEALISM IN 1920S

On the morning of November 11, 1919, when the armistice between the Allies and Germany went into effect, Dosch Fleurot entered the German Legation in

Copenhagen and applied for a visa to Germany. By that time, the German Revolution was in full swing, and Dosch Fleurot was impatient to enter the country. After twenty-four hours, the visa was issued, but it took some time to arrange his transfer with the New

York World.1 In one of his letters, he shared his sentiments about the German Revolution with his father,

“What a New Germany! And the Bolsheviki are trying to ruin it as they ruined Russia . . . I think of grandfather. How he’d enjoy seeing his old enemies, the Hohenzollerns siting over in Holland begging shelter.”2

The revolution in Germany was so desirable for Dosch Fleurot and he had been anxiously observing and comparing the development of events with Russia. The constant thought in his head was whether or not the Russian Bolsheviks would be able to impact

Germany’s development. Although the Bolsheviks’ attempts to influence the creation of a

German Soviet republic failed, the country’s future in the postwar world as well as the

1 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 216.

2 ADF to HED, November 20, 1918.

74 general political situation in Europe were never a source of optimism for him. In Dosch

Fleurot’s opinion, the main tasks of the postwar settlement were “the democratizing of

Germany, a League of Nations and lasting peace,” but the Paris Peace Conference failed to deal with those issues in a proper way. 3 The postwar treatment of Germany by the

Allies conditioned its movement to the right, prevented the process of European democratization, and, thus, gave Bolshevism a chance to the spread. The new international system created by the Paris Peace Conference was a caricature semblance of the world order he had been dreaming about. Supporting President Woodrow Wilson's

Fourteen Points, Dosch Fleurot believed that the foreign policy of isolationism was the betrayal of American liberal ideals. He often emphasized that the new international order did not create a foundation for the perpetual peace in Europe and without the strong hand and impartial attitude of the United States, weak European nations would soon be a subject to oppression by major political players.

Disillusionment with the German Revolution

The German Revolution, which was triggered by the sailors’ revolt in Kiel, led to the escape to the Netherlands and the subsequent abdication of the German Emperor

Wilhelm II. On November 10, 1919, Germany became a republic with the Council of

People's Deputies as a government. The Council was a coalition government of two socialist parties—the more conservative Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). The Council was only a provisional government until a national assembly would create the

3 New York World, October 18, 1918, 4.

75 constitution of the new state. Simultaneously, the German communists, the Spartacus

League, argued for the Russian political model in Germany—a government based on local councils, which were formed across the country.

Dosch Fleurot observed the first days of the German Revolution from

Copenhagen and based his judgments of the events on German newspapers and witnesses of people who came from Germany. When it became possible, he crossed the German border and arrived in Berlin at the end of November. His previous experience in revolutionary Russia was helpful. Dosch Fleurot quickly assessed the nuances of the political situation, found a way to approach a group of revolutionary intellectuals who issued a socialistic newspaper and established contacts in high official circles. Within one week, Dosch Fleurot “met almost everyone of importance in Germany.”4 He was pleasantly surprised that his war experience as the Allied correspondent did not interfere with his work in Berlin. He found that the Germans met him hospitably and treated him with respect. 5

Dosch Fleurot cheered a republic and hoped that it would bring social reforms and create new democratic Germany. In contrast to his Russian experience, he was more cautious about the actions of German radicals. At one point, Dosch Fleurot had underestimated the Russian Bolsheviks and considered them a small non-influential minority at the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Therefore, the main focus of Dosch

Fleurot’s observation in Berlin became “the mounting political struggle between a

4 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 218-220; Dubbs, 244.

5 New York World, November 25, 1918, 1.

Constitutional assembly and the Soviet.”6 The German councils were more democratic in comparison with the Russian Soviets because they often included officers and were controlled by moderate social democrats. However, it was possible to radicalize them.7

Dosch Fleurot understood this danger:

All the power now is in the hands of the Soviets, and the bourgeois being excluded from the Government. If the Socialists follow the Russian example and prevent an assembling of the Constitutional Assembly, the defeated army can easily swing the Soviets into Bolshevism.8

Fortunately for Dosch Fleurot, the situation in Germany developed differently. Through

December, it became obvious that Bolshevism in Germany had been losing its power daily, and most socialists were satisfied with the Provisional Government.9 When in the middle of December 18, 1918, the members of the National Congress of Councils agreed voluntary “to give up the power to a nationally elected assembly,” it became a direct step toward parliamentary democracy. 10

Only the radical Spartacus League tried to prevent the summons of the National

Assembly. The Spartacists provoked a revolt on Christmas Day and after it had failed, repeated their attempt ten days later. They quickly seized the northern and western parts

6 New York World, November 25, 1918, 1; Dubbs, 245.

7 Klaus Schwabe, Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking, 1918-1919: Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 132.

8 New York World, November 13, 1918, 4.

9 New York World, December 9, 1918, 2.

10 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 222.

77 of Berlin, but faced fierce resistance from those who supported the National Assembly.

Observing the development of the Spartacists uprising at close range, Dosch Fleurot was able to assess the difference between the revolutionaries in Berlin and in Petrograd. The first distinction was that “the bourgeoisie of Berlin was ready to fight for itself.” Many civilians created squads and volunteered to defend the existing government. Another difference was the nature of the crowd that supported the soviet revolt:

There was a great difference between the two mobs. The Russian one had élan. It was a mass movement such as a revolutionist might dream he was leading to victory. This [in Berlin] was moving on, but not leaping on; it was more organized, less spontaneous.11

The uprising finally failed by the middle of January and elections to the National

Assembly happened on January 21. The results of the elections showed that the majority of delegates were moderate social democrats who argued only for social reforms on a democratic basis. Germany was going “to be a republic with liberal but not a radical

Constitution.”12 In February, Dosch Fleurot visited Weimar, where the National

Assembly took place. The choice of the city was symbolic. Weimar was a “gentle, medieval city, reminiscent of the best that Germany stood for before its head was turned by megalomania of empire.” He continued,

Perhaps it would have been more in keeping with the pressing modern problems in this immense industrial factory called Germany if the assembly had convened in an industrial city, but that atmosphere of materialism was exactly what the liberal Germans who selected Weimar tried to get away from . . .

11 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 225.

12 New York World, January 22, 1918, 1.

Visiting the assembly, Dosch Fleurot was convinced that the mood of the delegates were very far from radical and that “socialism [was] not likely to be forced on the convention.”13 In 1931, he recalled,

The appearance of delegates alone was enough to prove Germany would have no further governmental change beyond a gradual shift toward conservatism . . . There was nothing whatever in Weimar that could remind one of the constitutional assembly in Petrograd. The [parliament] republic was an accepted condition.14

The conservatism of the National Assembly was a sign that Germany had been rejecting

Bolshevism, but also a reason for Dosch Fleurot’s concerns – “If the Assembly does not rectify the hardness of their [workers] life it will be followed by another revolution.”15

Dosch Fleurot remembered very well how the protraction of social reforms in Russia helped the Bolsheviks come to power.

The conservative trend in Germany was a source of disappointment for Dosch

Fleurot. In his memoirs, he entitled the chapter about the German Revolution “Let-

Down.” In Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, Germany had moved steadily to the right in a fearful flight from the dangers of repeating the fate of revolutionary Russia. In the summer of

1919, expressing his attitude on the results of the German Revolution, he concluded,

Germany is herself again—her old self, after floundering around through eight months of revolution, she has regained her poise, and feels sure of her old imperial self again... All she needs a war lord . . .

13 New York World, February 10, 1918, 3.

14 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 228.

15 New York World, February 10, 1918, 3.

Dosch Fleurot argued that Bolshevism was so quickly replaced by the imperialism that the fact of the revolution lost its significance:

There is a democratic spirit in Germany. I have known and made friends of some sincere democrats in Germany this past winter, but unfortunately they do not express the spirit of the people. The German Empire was as what it was because the Germans were that kind of people. They fitted into the iron skeleton of the imperial machine and liked it. Revolution, the struggles toward democracy, the Soldiers and Workmen Soviets too, and even the Spartacans, all played a part for six months in trying to get the idea out of the German mind that old Germany was all right, but they failed.16

Germany was safe from Bolshevism, but Dosch Fleurot temporarily lost his professional interest in this country. There were other areas in Europe where the ideological and military fights between Bolshevism and democracy continued.

The Spread of Bolshevism

At the beginning of spring 1919, Dosch Fleurot received a cable from the New

York World. It said that Cyril Brown, the Berlin correspondent of the newspaper, was going to return to the post that he had held before the war. Dosch Fleurot decided to go to

Paris where he was planning to meet with his daughters and take a look at the peace conference that was going on in the French capital. Although the coverage of the peace settlement was not among his tasks, he was able to grasp the atmosphere of the meeting.

Dosch Fleurot was irritated that the peace conference ignored the danger emanating from the Bolsheviks. “It was hard for me to take the peace conference seriously,” he wrote to his father, “it showed in all its sections such appalling ignorance of Eastern Europe.”17

16 New York World, July 16, 1919, 4.

17 ADF to HED, February 9, 1920.

Contrary to the mood of the Paris Peace Conference, Dosch Fleurot’s interest focused on

Eastern Europe and Russia in particular. He wrote to his father, “I have lived so long away [with] the Russians now, and suffered their sufferings, and know their tragedy as well as their happy-go-lucky lives that I feel a very strong attachment to that wild place.”

Dosch Fleurot, who hoped that the rule of the Bolsheviks would soon crumble, decided until then to specialize on the Slavic countries and observe the situation in Russia from across the border. “There will be no time for quiet rest until the peace is settled up and until Russia is something like herself again.”18

The coverage of the Russian Revolution pushed Dosch Fleurot into new significance in the newspaper business. After his escape from Russia, although he lost his permanent spot, the newspaper appreciated him as a valuable and experienced correspondent with a lot of personal connections across Europe and with a high level of expertise. “I know Europe pretty well now . . . I am just about as much at home now in any European capital as another,” he boasted to his father. As long as he found a sensational story, the New York World gave him the freedom to write about any topic he was interested in. Now he had a salary of $5000 a year, which all went to his wife and daughters. He himself was living on the newspaper’s money, which paid all his expenses

– about $150 every week or more. 19 In comparison to his salary in New York before

World War One, about $100 a month, this signified a big jump in his career.20

18 ADF to HED, May 5, 1919.

19 ADF to HED, May 5, 1919.

20 ADF to HED, March 1910.

As he had announced to his father, in the summer of 1919 Dosch Fleurot went to investigate conditions “in Central Europe and on the fringe of the once great Russian

Empire.”21 For the next year, he was traveling across Europe, paying special attention to its eastern parts. His reportages came from Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,

Rumania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, to name a few. He saw it as his mission to argue that the United States was blind to the danger of Bolshevism and was failing to establish an effective Russian policy.22 He believed that Bolshevism could appear in any country where people were oppressed. As a result of people’s pursuit for freedom, he warned,

Bolshevism distorted the whole idea of liberty, “In the name of liberty the Bolsheviki took liberty away from the Russian people.”23 Instead, they created “a highly bureaucratic, strictly policed state of affairs, the imposing of a doctrine demanding implicit obedience to the word from Moscow, implicit belief in “our teacher Lenin.” 24

Dosch Fleurot argued that the only possibility to avoid the same scenario in other countries was the creation of the truly democratic society based on liberal values.

Although it seemed that the Russian Bolsheviks were weakened in the wake of the Civil War, their plan for a world revolution was still “far-reaching and big.” Since

Russia was torn apart by years of war and revolutionary struggle, Vladimir Lenin did not expect immediate results. However, Hungary, where a Soviet republic was proclaimed in

21 Morning Oregonian, October 6, 1919, 1.

22 Morning Oregonian, October 2, 1919, 2.

23 Morning Oregonian, October 9, 1919, 2.

24 Morning Oregonian, October 6, 1919, 1.

March 1919, was the first example of the Bolsheviks’ victory outside Russia. After that,

Lenin decided switching to the waiting strategy “in order that he may build up interior strength in Russia and in Hungary,” and simultaneously tried to maintain Bolshevism in

Western Europe using labor syndicates:

He counts on hard times and discontent everywhere. For this his patience will wait, and while he is giving impetus to the Bolshevik fight in Western Europe he will seek to fortify himself in Russia, his main stronghold, and in his sideshow in Hungary.

In Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, at that period of time, Lenin and Béla Kun, the Hungarian

Bolshevik leader, were in an advantageous position. Although Bolshevism in Germany failed, many workmen of Europe still continued supporting the communist ideology.25

Dosch Fleurot was convinced that the victory of Bolshevism in Hungary was only due to the hostile attitude of the Paris Peace Conference. The Hungarians were only nationalists, and communists came to power using “the fear that the Peace Conference means practically to destroy Hungary.” Because victors were also ignorant about Central

Europe, Austria was an “easy prey” for the Bolsheviks too.26 “Austria,” he wrote “asks only that the Allies be not too hard on her.” In the summer of 1919, Dosch Fleurot saw only one way to stop the spread of Bolshevism – decisive military intervention. He argued that “every thinking man is of the opinion that a real, sizeable Allied expedition” must be sent against Béla Kun. 27 He was also convinced that a military intervention in

25 New York World, July 28, 1919, 3.

26 New York World, July 28, 1919, 3.

27 New York World, July 21, 1919, 1.

Russia could also be effective, “Even with the big Russian Red army, I believe the Polish army could come nearly marching to Moscow if we [the Allies] gave it this task.”28

However, President Wilson did not support a plan to overthrow the Bolsheviks by outside force. Until June 1919, he insisted that the American Expeditionary Army in Siberia continued to maintain neutrality in the Russian Civil War. Although finally Wilson agreed to deliver weapons to the anti-Bolsheviks forces of Alexander Kolchak, he refused to grant him diplomatic recognition.29

The failure of Bolshevism in Hungary at the beginning of August 1919 and “the end of dread terror” confirmed Dosch Fleurot’s hope that the Russian Bolsheviks soon could be overpowered.30 The success of the Polish army, which had been fighting against the Bolsheviks in Southwestern Russia, inspired him. After the Poles entered the White

Russia and captured Minsk on August 9, 1919, Dosch Fleurot went to the city “to see what a big Russian town looked like just as it passed out from the Bolshevik rule.” He found Minsk in “a chronic state of common misery, brought about by lack of liberty and insufficient food.” According to his investigation, the majority of Minsk’s workmen were not the Bolsheviks, and now they did not oppose the Polish occupation. After the rule of the Russian communists and their terror against the local opposition, the Polish army was the lesser of two evils. 31

28 New York World, July 28, 1919, 3.

29 Schild, 96, 111.

30 New York World, August 4, 1919, 2.

31 Morning Oregonian, October 6, 1919, 1.

In September 1919, Dosch Fleurot returned to Paris. He was supposed temporarily to replace the Paris correspondent of the New York World, Lincoln Eyre, who was sent to Russia. Dosch Fleurot dreamt to be on Eyre’s place, but he “had written to many truths about the gang of highbinders in Moscow” and was unwelcomed in Russia.

Dosch Fleurot did not like staying in Paris. His professional interest was on the south of the former Russian Empire where General Anton Denikin, one of leaders of the anti-

Bolsheviks movement, led the offensive against the Red Army and had been steadily moving toward Moscow. As soon as possible, Dosch Fleurot, who was inspired by

Denikin’s success, “went down the Danube . . . with the intention of joining Denikin army which would have put an end to the Bolsheviki if properly supported.” Only the defeat of Denikin by the end of the year prevented Dosch Fleurot from the realization of his plans.32 Around the same time, President Wilson realized that the Allied intervention in Siberia could not help Kolchak and decided to withdraw the Expeditionary army from

Russia.33

Dosch Fleurot’s correspondence with his father suggests that the Bolsheviks’ military victories in Russia caused his professional crisis early in 1920. The role of observer and reporter did not satisfy him anymore. Now he wanted become an active participant of the events. He confessed to his father, “I find now that the war is about over that . . . newspaper corresponding does not really hold me anymore. There is one big job I want to do, the final clean-up of Russia, and then I want either to develop the

32 ADF to HED, May 22, 1920.

33 Schild, 112.

85 writing game much fa[r]ther – which means coming home –or getting into some constructive work.”34 After the defeat of Denikin and the failure of his plan to penetrate into Russia with the anti-Bolsheviks forces, Dosch Fleurot tried to get permission to enter the country from Soviet officials. During his trip to the newly created Baltic Republics, he went to Reval, the capital of Estonia, where he was able to send a telegram to the

Russian foreign minister Georgy Chicherin in Moscow, but received a negative answer:

He said he would not under any circumstances permit me to return to Russia. That was all I wanted, as it showed that the bolsheviki would not let anyone return who knew anything about Russia. Of course I was disappointed, as Russia is the most important story in Europe from the American point of view . . . But professionally it was as good as if I had been accepted.35

In summer 1920 Dosch Fleurot was transferred to Ireland to report on the Irish

War of Independence. He decided to stop in Paris en route and meet his daughters.

Picking up the correspondence that accumulated in the New York World’s office, he learned about a family tragedy back in Portland. At the beginning of May, Dosch

Fleurot’s older sister Camille and his seven year old nephew Fleurot, a son of his younger sister Marguerite, had died in a terrible train collision near Portland.36 Dosch Fleurot’s parents were devastated. These had not been the first tragic death in their family. On

December 31, 1912, their eldest daughter Lilian had died unexpectedly while she was

34 ADF to HED, February 9, 1920.

35 ADF to HED, May 22, 1920.

36 Morning Oregonian, May 10, 1920, 1; Morning Oregonian, May 11, 1920, 1, 8.

86 dressing for a New Year ball at age forty.37 Their younger son Roswell, a famous

Portland sculptor and art instructor at the University of Portland, had died on November

11, 1918. Roswell, who was a US army officer, was enlisted at the beginning of fall 1918 and became the instructor of the Reed College training school. There, he was infected with influenza, which developed into pneumonia. He died eight weeks later at the age of twenty-nine.38 The tragedy brought Dosch Fleurot to the realization that he had not been home since summer 1916 and that he had neglected his relatives. He confessed to his father, I “lost touch with both of them [Camille and Roswell] these years that I have been so restlessly pursuing my own life.”39

Dosch Fleurot decided to visit Oregon as soon as he could arrange it. Still, he spent all of that year’s summer in Ireland and only returned home at the end of October

1920.40 During his two months visit to the United States, Dosch Fleurot, wanted just “to sit down in front of the fire” in his parents’ house.41 His editors from the New York World asked him to combine his vacation with “a study of the social unrest” in the United

States. However, the task was not particularly very burdensome. He had planned to cross the country twice anyway and additional traveling did not bother him too much.42

37 HED to ADF, Telegram, January 1, 1913.

38 Morning Oregonian, November 28, 1918, 4.

39 ADF to HED, July 20, 1920.

40 Morning Oregonian, October 30, 1920, 10.

41 ADF to HED, September 27, 1920.

42 ADF to HED, October 22, 1920.

Dosch Fleurot spent all of November with his parents. During his visit to

Portland, he gave an interview to the Sunday Oregonian where he argued that the spread of Bolshevism in Europe had “ended and collapsed.”43 The year before, Dosch Fleurot pointed out that “the Bolsheviki needed industrial success—counted on it even. It was essential for their programme of world revolution. Proof that they failed is disastrous for their propaganda.”44 Since then, different worker delegations from Western Europe had been able to enter Russia. These visits delivered sufficient evidence that the Bolsheviks did not reach any industrial results and “ended the dream of the Russian scheme for world domination.”45

The investigation on the impact of European social discontent on the United

States captivated Dosch Fleurot as well. In February 1919, a general strike in Seattle, when over sixty thousand workers left their jobs, “evoked the feverish suggestion that the contaminating wartime contact with Europe had infected even the American body politic with the dread radical virus.” Although a four day shutdown had peaceful character, the strikers were considered “deep-Red revolutionists.” Then some acts of coordinating dynamiting through the country followed. These events triggered the state and federal government’s actions against Communists across the country. Massive raids against radical aliens in different cities, their arrests, and the deportation of the most suspicious radicals to Russia followed. Since then, any strike in the country was considered ordered

43 Sunday Oregonian, October 31, 1920, 10.

44 Morning Oregonian, October 6, 1919, 2.

45 Sunday Oregonian, October 31, 1920, 10.

88 and organized by Moscow.46 Dosch Fleurot conducted his inquiry when the anti-radical hysteria, which had started in late 1918, began decreasing. But readers were still interested in that topic.

He explored what he considered regions with the biggest revolutionary potentials—the Pacific Northwest, Detroit, St. Louis, the steel region of Ohio and

Pittsburgh, as well as agrarian regions of Nebraska and North Dakota. The main conclusion Dosch Fleurot drew was that Bolshevism was not a threat to the country:

And yet there is no Bolshevism in the United States. I have been looking for it, and I have not been able to trace a consistent effort at a Bolshevik movement. There are no doubt enough people who believe in Bolshevism who would like to start a Bolshevik movement—but they have not been able to do it. At least they have not succeeded in starting it among the wage-paid workmen, and there is no other place to start it.47

Dosch Fleurot highlighted that Bolshevism emerged as a reaction to unbearable social conditions. The United States, by contrast, was a country of prosperity:

I am overwhelmed by our wealth. I had been away long enough to forget how rich we were . . . That fact is of prime importance. Being rich, there is not the grueling struggle for existence that makes the problems of unrest in Europe dangerous.48

The richness of the United States provided plenty of job opportunities for workers. They could move from town to town and find new and better jobs or could resort to farming.

46 Kennedy, 288-291.

47 Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism, 7.

48Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism, 6.

This labor turnover prevented the growth of an idle proletariat in the streets, so most workers remained unorganized and safe from revolutionary propaganda.49

The most radical movement that Dosch Fleurot found in the United State were the

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which Americans often equated with

Bolshevism because they were “also rebellious against the existing order of society.”

This fact, as a historian Robert K Murray argues, was advantageous for the employer groups, who used “public concern over bolshevism . . . as an excellent opportunity to cripple American unionism.” However, the ideological differences between IWW and

Bolshevism, which were often incomprehensible for most of Americans, were tremendous for Dosch Fleurot. Bolshevism constituted state socialism, whereas IWW stood for the idea of “the One Big Union” in industry. According Dosch Fleurot this fact made IWW a powerless revolutionary movement: IWW did not have enough members because it had to compete for the workers’ sympathy with the powerful American

Federation of Labor, which supported the worker organization by crafts instead of industries. Additionally, most of IWW’s ordinary members did not pay much attention to its theory and joined the organization looking for better working conditions.50 Dosch

Fleurot concluded that industrial unionism could be revolutionary only if a coalition of

49 Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism, 13-14.

50 Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism, 7-9; Robert K Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955), 92.

Industrial Unions had the goal to take over the government, but he found no evidence of such a plot in his native country.51

Proclaiming the United States currently safe from Bolshevism or any other revolutionary ideology, Dosch Fleurot nonetheless found American liberal values in danger from another side. Wealth, a factor that protected the country from radicalism, brought to the United States “pride and intolerance,” characteristics that were fertile soil for the cultivation of Prussianism:

Since when has the democracy of America grown so weak it needs policemen to protect it? In the West a man need only carry a IWW card in his pocket to get arrested . . . There seems to be a common impression that the imprisonment of “Reds” is suppressing Bolshevism in the United States. My observations lead me to the belief the only chance of revolution . . . might come from continuing to keep these men in prison. Those who are under prison sentence were convicted under the extraordinary conditions developed by war. These extraordinary conditions no longer exist, but these men are still under sentence.52

The New York World liked the results of Dosch Fleurot’s investigation. His articles about the possibility of social unrest in the United States appeared in the New

York World in the middle of January 1921 and later were published as a brochure.53

Moreover, the newspaper’s bosses decided to replace the Berlin correspondent of the newspaper, Cyril Brown, and made Dosch Fleurot head of its Eastern European bureau with headquarters in Berlin. Dosch Fleurot boasted to his father,

51 Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism, 11.

52 Dosch Fleurot, How Much Bolshevism, 6-7

53 New York World, January 16-20, 1921.

I will spend most of my time in Berlin, which, you know, I don’t care much for. But professionally it is a compliment as Berlin is considered the most difficult post in Europe to do right. I certainly cannot complain of my treatment. They have all been very nice here in the office and it was [Ralph] Pulitzer who insisted on selecting me for the job . . . 54 The visit to the United States could have become a turning point in Dosch Fleurot’s life.

Some of his letters indicate that he considered staying in the United States as one of his options. He felt dissatisfaction with the social and political situation in Europe and simultaneously understood that his stay in the United States would be a consolation for his parents. However, the permanent post in Europe meant professional growth and an opportunity to write about a part of the world that was close to his heart. And so, on

January 9, 1921, Dosch Fleurot stepped on board of the liner Lapland and sailed back to

Europe.

The Postwar International System

Dosch Fleurot arrived in Berlin early in 1921, and the city became his home for three years. He rented a small flat and tried to arrange it with some comfort. He had more responsibilities now since his new duties included covering all news that happened east of the Rhine.55The pace and the volume of his work increased. He had to keep an eye on the news development daily and react immediately if something important happened.

“The work is more complicated than` before,” he wrote to his parents. “All stuff in the

[New York] World dated Berlin or anywhere in Central Europe is mine.”56 After a couple

54ADF to HED, January 8, 1921.

55 ADF to HED, January 18, 1921.

56 ADF to Parents, March 13, 1921; ADF to HED, June 11, 1921.

92 of months in Berlin, Dosch Fleurot hired an assistant. Sometimes he entrusted him with assignments in different locations, but when possible, he still preferred traveling himself.

“I suppose it is not a bad sort of life for me as I have nothing to tie me down,” he wrote to his parents.57 He continued to observe the situation in Russia and never gave up hope of returning one day. Many of his letters to his parents expressed such a desire, but he always stressed that this could only happen after the overthrow of the Bolsheviks. As a result, he never got to see Soviet Russia again.

Dosch Fleurot started his work in Berlin amidst the debate over the payment of reparations. He wrote to his parents that “with this question of how much Germany will, won’t, can, or can’t pay forever in the air, there is no much satisfaction in the work.”58

Dosch Fleurot had formed his vision of the postwar treatment of Germany, including the question of war reparations, back in 1918-1919 when he reported about the German revolution. He entered Germany at the end of November 1918, and it was his first visit to the country, except for his short stay in Aix-la-Chapelle in August 1914. When he arrived in Berlin, he found that “the people are not energetic,” and “its whole fabric of life worn thin.”59 During his trip across Germany, he realized that the country was in a miserable condition: the scarcity of food and other goods, unheated trains and desolated hotels were among Dosch Fleurot’s first impressions of the country. A cup of coffee, which looked like “an inky liquid,” became the last straw. “One taste of that ignoble drink,” he recalled,

57 ADF to Parents, March 13, 1921.

58 ADF to Parents, February 27, 1921.

59 New York World, November 25, 1918, 1.

“and I could no longer think of the German as an enemy, but as a man who had undergone the terrible punishment of living in ersatz.”60 Since then, he grew convinced that Germany deserved to be treated with compassion.

Communicating with different Germans during the armistice period, Dosch

Fleurot often heard the opinion that Germany was treated unfairly. Many famous

Germans he interviewed, emphasized the unbearable severity of the armistice period – especially the food shortage and the necessity of moving as soon as possible toward the peace based on the Fourteen Points.61As the Paris Peace Conference was going on, it became obvious that the peace would be less favorable toward Germany than many had expected. The Allied negotiations became “an awakening of Germans to the reality.”

They had to learn that the “dream of empire” had died and that Wilson’s doctrine would not protect them. Nevertheless, the majority of Germans still were not ready to admit their military defeat and assume responsibility for starting the war.62 Thus, the results of the Versailles Peace Treaty were a shock for Germany. In addition to the loss of one eighth of its territory, the nation had to pay reparations that made the economic restoration of the country a tremendously heavy task. The treaty’s proclamation that

60 Dosch Fleurot, Through War to Revolution, 217; Dubbs, 244.

61 Interview with Matthias Erzberger, a member of the German armistice delegation in New York World, November 27, 1918, 1; interview with Arthur Zimmermann, a former State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire in New York World, January 17, 1918, 1; Interview with Professor Bretano, an eminent German economist in New York World, February 14, 1918, 4.

62 New York World, February 28, 1918, 4.

Germany bore the moral responsibility for the war contributed to a gloomy atmosphere of the postwar Germany.

The peace settlement was a disappointment for Dosch Fleurot as well. In his opinion, the exclusion of Germany from the European political balance was a big mistake. Instead of a democratic alliance of equal nations that would be capable to prevent the spread of Bolshevism across Europe, the peace conference produced a new international system based on the leadership and selfish interests of a few strong

European nations. The behavior of the big political players was quickly adopted by other

European countries. “INTOLERANCE IS BANE OF EUROPE,” one of Dosch Fleurot’s headlines declared. Nations did not behave generously toward each other. “Such an idea as trying to find a common basis of action with neighbors did not occur to anybody. To each one his neighbor was his deadly and relentless enemy.”63

The final blow of Dosch Fleurot’s belief in democratic Europe came when the US

Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty on November 19, 1919. It automatically meant that the United States would not participate in the League of Nations because the

Covenant of the League was included in the text of the peace treaty. The American refusal to join the League bewildered Europeans:

The League of Nations idea broke upon them toward the end of the war like a great light that grew in strength. About this time last year, when the people in central Europe were beginning to see that the outcome of the war was going to bring freedom and equal opportunity to everyone, they also took President’s Wilson position regarding the league of nations as that of the American people . . . No hint ever got to them that the American

63 Morning Oregonian, October 20, 1919, 1, 3.

95 people or any other institutions were not going to back up the position the president took before Europe.64

Dosch Fleurot, who was in Paris at that time, wrote about the confusion that news of the

American opposition to the international body created in France:

While France is surprised that the United States Senate adjourned without a ratification of the peace treaty, the report that the treaty is definitely defeated does not gain credence. The French maintain faith that in President Wilson’s ability to bring a compromise that will make ratification practically certain when the Senate meets again.65

Meanwhile, the most recent researches of Wilson’s presidency agree that his weak health, which culminated in a serious stroke on October 2, 1919, influenced his actions during the Paris negotiations and the subsequent period of peace ratification at home.66

However, this information was kept from the public, and Dosch Fleurot vigorously criticized the new American foreign policy:

We American people have so easily disengaged ourselves from any European connections this few past months that we are running the danger of defeating the very purpose for which we went to war . . . We have been so lukewarm about the League of Nations that everybody down in this part of the world knows it, and not only do this peoples no longer count on the friendly shelter of a League of Nations under which they can all live together happily, but not now expecting it ever to be realized . . . One year ago, everybody here [Danube] were speaking about USA and the League of Nations. They felt a masterful and kindly hand. Three months ago . . . they had ceased talking about us and were dropping back into their selfish selves.67

64 Morning Oregonian, March 5, 1920, 2.

65 Morning Oregonian, November 21, 1919, 1.

66 John Milton Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); A. Scott Berg, Wilson (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2013).

67 New York World, December 29, 1919, 1.

Dosch Fleurot argued that the US Senate’s rejection of the League renounced its mission of democratizing and westernizing Europe and betrayed the very idea that laid behind the institution because “without the United States and its outside, disinterested, unprejudiced power, there can be no league.” The United States could have taught

Europeans the American democratic way, without the bureaucracy. Through diplomatic interferences the United States could have helped settle unresolved border issues and through educational propaganda spread ideas about the interconnectedness of all

European nations. The United States could have contributed to the restoration of normal commercial relations and new trade treaties. If the Americans did not resume the role of

“the world’s moral leaders,” Dosch Fleurot feared, the new war could be hardly avoided.68 He complained to his father,

The whole plan of Wilson, which could alone have straightened out Europe, has gone by the board, and every nation is reaching greedily into the pie, making a splendid background for another war. The war would appear to have been fought for nothing.69

Dosch Fleurot was not the only American who was disappointed with the Treaty of Versailles. The dissent against the treaty was also strong among the members of the

American peace commission in Paris, and some of the younger members of the delegation even submitted letters of resignation. However, only one of those protesters,

William Bullitt actually resigned. In the United States, the publication of the treaty also caused confusion of many Wilson’s adherents from leftists-liberal circles. One of those disappointed liberals was Walter Lippmann, who participated in the preparation of the

68 Morning Oregonian, March 5, 1920, 2.

69 ADF to HED, May 22, 1920.

Fourteen Points. Together with his fellow editors of the liberal magazine the New

Republic, Herbert Croly and Walter Weyl, Lippmann felt humiliated and considered the treaty as Wilson’s diplomatic defeat.70

Until the end of the 1920 presidential elections, Dosh Fleurot did not give up his hope that the United States could change its foreign policy and join the League. Dosch

Fleurot’s personal interest in the League of Nations reached its climax in 1920. He wrote to his father, “I have been away so long now. American problems don’t interest me so much as some of the European problems. That is why I am interested in the League of

Nations.” Dosch Fleurot believed that the initial liberal-democratic idea behind the

League could still be restored. He also felt that he, who now knew the state of European affairs very well, was ready to do “some constructive work” and be useful in this international organization. Dosch Fleurot had pinned his hope on the nomination of

Herbert Hoover, who supported the American participation in the League. Dosch Fleurot knew Hoover very well since the beginning of the war and respected his food relief efforts in Europe. He suggested that” if he [Hoover] is elected president which seems likely I may ask him for support in that direction. If we get into the League it will be the biggest thing on earth in a few years and I want to get into the deal early.”71 Hoover did not win even a Republican nomination, however. Warren Harding, who defeated the

Democratic contender James Cox Davis in a landslide, was an ardent opponent of the

League. During the 1924 presidential elections, Dosch Fleurot supported Democrat John

70 Kennedy, 359; Schwabe, 338-340.

71 ADF to HED, February 9, 1920.

Davis. He believed that he could “make big differences in our international relations,” but from the outset, he predicted poor odds for the Democratic Party’s recapture of the presidency.72 In the era of Republican leadership, those American liberals, who “pinned all their hopes for a progressive world government of Wilson” became “politically homeless.”73

Living in Germany, Dosch Fleurot was able to observe the results of the Paris

Peace Conference in action and argued that the post-war order was unreasonably unsympathetic toward the defeated country. The reparation payments imposed on

Germany were hard to bear, and Dosch Fleurot reported daily how the county tried to fulfil this task. “Germany is rushing toward internal bankruptcy with increasing speed,” he noted easily in 1922.74 Without outside financial help, the only way to pay reparations was through the rising of taxes. “The average man in Germany already pays a complicated series of taxes,” Dosch Fleurot reported, “Now this taxes are to be doubled, tripled and quadrupled, and even then the Government will not have enough money.”75

The difficulty of collecting reparations from Germany led to the Ruhr occupation by

French and Belgium troops. Germany refused to submit and decided to cease reparation payments until the end of the Ruhr occupation.76 The resentment against the Allies was

72 ADF to HED, October 19, 1924.

73 Schwabe, 407.

74 New York World, January 6, 1922, 3.

75 New York World, September 29, 1921, 1.

76 New York World, January 17, 1923, 2.

99 growing steadily. “Feeling in Germany is becoming more violent daily . . . Furious at

France and Belgium, the people are also bitter against England and America.”77 Finally, the Ruhr crisis led to the Dawes plan, an American initiative. The plan provided for an end to the Ruhr occupation and in exchange for a reasonable schedule of reparation payments.

Although the plan “evened things up,” in Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, the American foreign policy in the years followed World War One undermined the American cultural image in Europe. From the perspective of the American public opinion, in 1920s the country continued to pursuit the same noble goals in the international stage. “American citizens continued to press for open markets, peaceful settlements of disputes, and diplomatic frankness.” The United States just changed the tactics refusing “to be an enforcer or umpire.”78 However, Dosch Fleurot assessed the American foreign policy from the European perspective. Although the United States was not officially involved in the League of Nations, the country continued to send unofficial observers to European conferences, remaining an important political factor in the decisions of European nations as their main creditor. He believed that the United States “ought either to come in entirely or stay out entirely. As it is, we are cat jaws for the British, and that’s all.”79 He concluded that the current state of events weakened the image of the United States as the world’s moral leader. Instead, Europeans started considering the nation the “greatest war

77 New York World, February 7, 1923, 1.

78 Elizabeth Cobbs-Hoffman, American Umpire: The New Rules of World Order, 1776 to the Present (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013), 210-211.

79 ADF to HED, July 24, 1924.

100 profiteer.” During the war, an American was seen as an “energetic, sympathetic soldier and organizer, quick to understand the other fellow’s mentality, ready to make allowances.” This kind of American was “the best liked man of any nationality” in

Europe. This image shifted after the Versailles Peace Treaty and the American refusal to ratify it. Nonetheless, “there remained a strong light shining upon Europe from America.”

However many Europeans gradually started to believe that this light was diming. One of the reasons was that the United States “refused to do something with European affairs,” even as it kept full watch on them. Dosch Fleurot explained that many Europeans considered American unofficial observers in Europe to be “interfering without responsibility.” The U.S. insistence on collecting all war debts also produced strong resentment because Europeans believed that the United States already “had most of the world’s money, having made it out of the war.” 80

The atmosphere in postwar Europe was depressive, especially in Berlin where

Dosch Fleurot had been living until his transfer to Paris in 1924. However, during his

Berlin years, one happy event occurred in his life. On May 11, 1922, he married a

Russian girl Anna Sredinsky.81 They had probably met each other in Russia or Poland to where Anna, a daughter of a tsarist official, had emigrated after the Russian Revolution.

At the beginning, their relationship developed as a friendship, but they got close after

Dosch Fleurot helped organize the escape of Anna’s mother and sister from Russia. Anna became a good life companion, true friend and loving wife. They did not have children,

80 New York World, January 10, 1926, 9 E.

81 Morning Oregonian, July 10, 1922, 9.

101 and Anna accompanied Dosh Fleurot on most of his travels. The marriage was welcomed by Dosch Fleurot’s family in Portland, and Anna often wrote warm and detailed letters to his parents, and after their death to her sister-in-law Marguerite. In 1923, Dosch Fleurot brought Anna to Portland where he introduced her to his relatives. This visit to the United

States was the last time Dosch Fleurot saw his parents. His mother died in September

1923. She had never recovered from the loss of her daughter and grandson in the train accident of 1920. Dosch Fleurot recalled that during his last visit home it seemed to him

“that mother was already half in the other world.”82 After her death, Dosch Fleurot suggested that his father visit him in Europe. He dreamt about a joint travel to Mainz, his father’s native city. But Henry Dosch never came and died in 1925. Dosch Fleurot still had his younger sister Marguerite in Portland, with whom he stayed in touch until the end of his life and his older brother Ernest, who died in 1935, and with whom he was never very close.

Between 1924 and 1931, Dosch Fleurot was the New York World’s correspondent in Paris. When the paper was sold, he started to work for William Randolph Hearst’s news corporation in Europe.83 Most of 1930ss, Dosch Fleurot’s articles for the news agencies—International News Service and Universal Service- became shorter and almost devoid of his own opinions. Only the occasional editorials testify that he continued to see the international situation conditioned by the decisions made during the Paris Peace

Conference. In one of these editorials in May 1936, he proclaimed that Europe was living

82 ADF to HED, September, 1923.

83 Old Oregon, March 1943, 2.

102 in the expectation of a new war, “The question is not: will there be another war? That is taken for granted . . . The only question is how, when and where?” He connected the causes of this panic with the failure of the postwar international order:

The peoples of Europe have, in fact, waked up very slowly to the danger. They have only realized when it was not longer possible to escape the knowledge that their governments have failed flagrantly to do anything to prevent war. If their governments had done nothing whatever about it, it would not be so bad. But there have been ambitious schemes: the Briand-Kellogg pact against war as a national policy, signed universally; the World Congress for the Limitation of Armaments; the “collective security” of the League of Nations – all conspicuous failures. Instead, they see Europe, after all this years of talk, AGAIN DIVIDED INTO TWO HOSTILE CAMPS, ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME CAMPS AS IN 1914.84

It was a bitter statement for an American liberal who had sincerely supported President

Wilson’s attempt to create an international order based on the democratic and peaceful dialogue between nations.

Dosch Fleurot’s idealistic vision of the world order gradually crushed under the reality of national politics. He found that nations were not ready to sacrifice their selfish aspirations for a common goal of building world democracy. Finding his native country among these nations pained him deeply. American isolationism was hard to accept since in Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, the United States was a necessary part of European and world security. The United States ought to be an example of rightful democratic behavior and the world’s moral leader. Instead, his native country did not oppose to the harsh conditions imposed on Germany by the Versailles Peace Treaty and thus, betrayed the liberal ideology proclaimed in the Fourteen Points. For all other Europeans countries, the

84 Syracuse Journal, May 31, 1936, 2 E.

103 treatment of Germany set an example for undemocratic behavior and selfish nationalism.

The later was advantageous for Bolshevism since it was easier to deal with divided

Europe. In Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, the postwar order did not illuminate most of the existed problems and conflicts, and, thus, all human sacrifices of World War One were in vain.

104

CONCLUSION

Hawkins refers Dosch Fleurot as “a vocal critique of Hitler and the Nazis,” but his attitude to Germany in 1930s was not so obvious.1 Since 1933, Dosch Fleurot witnessed and reported about Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. He wrote about the establishment of a new Nazi ideology, which proclaimed the superiority of the Aryan Race, and first anti-

Jewish laws.2 He paid special attention to Hitler’s efforts to strengthen Germany as military force and undermine restrictions imposing on the country by the Treaty of

Versailles.3 He described Hitler’s efforts to eliminate his political opponents and concentrate all the power in his hands.4 However, all these articles were only straight news stories that did not show Dosch Fleurot’s personal attitude towards Hitler and

National Socialism. In his memoirs, William Shirer, whom Dosch Fleurot offered a job with Universal Service in Berlin in 1934, mentioned this professional characteristic of his friend and colleague:

1 Hawkins, 105.

2 Syracuse Journal, April 6, 1933, 8; Syracuse Journal, May 12, 1933, 19; Times Union, October 2, 1933, 2.

3 Albany Times Union, May 15, 1933, 9; Syracuse Journal, May 18, 1934, 16; Albany Times Union, August 21, 1934, 2; Syracuse American, September 15, 1935, 3.

4 Syracuse Journal, May 5, 1933, 6; Syracuse Journal, May 10, 1933, 8.

105

Dosch, unlike some of his colleagues who talked out of the side of their mouths and played at being cynical and hard-boiled, was a gentleman of the old school, courtly, wise, warm, with a fine mind and a passion not only for journalism but for history, literature and the arts . . .

Shirer found that working with Dosch Fleurot in Berlin was comfortable and contrasted him with their third colleague Pierre Huss, who “was pro-Nazi and a favorite of the

Nazi.” 5

The impartiality of reporting on Nazi Germany in 1930s was the result of Dosch

Fleurot’s attempt to find a balance between the increasingly anti-German sentiments in the United States and a point of view of his boss, William Randolph Hearst, who was famous for his sympathetic attitude towards Germany.6 According to the report of the US

Ambassador to Germany William Edward Dodd, since 1934 Hearst brought “pressure to bear on his correspondents to give only friendly accounts of what happened in Germany.”

Dodd received this information from Hearst’s correspondent in Europe Karl von

Weigand. In the unofficial statement, Weigand informed that Hearst reedited unsympathetic to Germany accounts and even dismissed unfavorable correspondents.

One of such correspondents was Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, whom Hearst ordered to

5 William L. Shirer, 20TH Century Journey: A Memoir of a Life and the Times. The Nightmare Years 1930-1940 (Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1976), 109, 228.

6 Ian Mugridge, The View from Xanadu: William Randolph Hearst and United States Foreign Policy (Montreal ; Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), 39- 41; 180, 186-187; Ben Procter, William Randolph Hearst: Final Edition, 1911-1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 180, 186-187.

106 leave Germany. He sent instead Dosch Fleurot from Paris, who by that point had reported in the manner favorable to Hearst. However, Dosch Fleurot, who always argued for objective reporting, did not agree to write untruthful accounts and soon was transferred back to Paris.7

Although Dosch Fleurot did not openly criticize Nazi Germany, in many of his articles he showed that Hitler’s rise to power was the direct result of the Paris Peace

Conference which failed to create a just and democratic order in Europe. For majority of

Germans, the Treaty of Versailles was so unfair that they preferred to consider it only “an armistice agreement . . . and a very disadvantageous one.” When Hitler suggested to his fellow citizens a chance “to free itself from the “diktat” of Versailles,” the average

German supported Hitler and accepted him as “all-powerful ruler.”8

Although Dosch Fleurot did not have any illusions about the ambitions of Adolf

Hitler and another famous dictator Benito Mussolini, he underestimated the level of their aggressiveness:

Two dictators will . . . go long way toward fulfillment of “the national aspirations’ of their people, and that means giving Europe a number of rude jolts. Observers do not necessarily expect war, but they do expect a more or less continued state of uneasiness as the interests of great powers clashed.9

7 William E. Dodd to President Roosevelt, March 30, 1935. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Papers as President: The President's Secretary's File (PSF), 1933-1945. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum. Box 32.

8 Ballston Spa Daily Journal, November 29, 1933, 4; Ballston Spa Daily Journal, January 12, 1934, 5; Syracuse American, June 30, 1935, 2.

9 New York World, January 1, 1939, 54.

107

Until spring of 1939, Dosch Fleurot was amongst those observers who believed that a new big war could be avoided. The remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936, the

Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, the annexation of Sudetenland—the ethnically

German area of Czechoslovakia,—in October 1938 were not military operations, but those acts that could be classified as efforts to restore Germany’s borders. For example, during the remilitarization of the Rhineland, Dosch Fleurot witnessed the population cheerfully greeting the German troops.10 Meanwhile, the German invasion of the remainder of Czechoslovakia and the Italian conquest of Albania in the spring of 1939, were open signs of aggression. It caused Britain and France to guarantee military support to Poland, Romania, and Greece in case of invasion.

For Dosch Fleurot, the most upsetting about the oncoming war was his personal belief that the United States, President Roosevelt in particularly, was contributing to its beginning. Dosch Fleurot’s correspondence with his sister reveals that in his fears of

Bolshevism, he gradually became more conservative in his assessments of political situation in the United States and in the world. In his letters, Dosch Fleurot regarded

Roosevelt as a person who came too close to Bolshevism in both foreign and domestic policy. Once questioning Roosevelt’s liberalism, Dosch Fleurot started to find more and more proofs of his participation in a communist conspiracy.11

10 ADF to Marcus, May 1, 1938; Shirer, 249.

11 See for example ADF to Marcus, September 4, 1940; ADF to Marcus, April 21, 1946; ADF to Hiatt, September 19, 1946; ADF to Marcus, June 17, 1949; ADF to Marcus, January 16, 1951.

108

Until the beginning of World War Two, Dosch Fleurot openly criticized foreign policy of the Roosevelt administration in Europe. The biggest blame that he put on

President Roosevelt was that he was pushing Europe into war. “War or peace now depend, according to any observers in Europe, on the “invisible balance” created by the weight of the United States in world affairs,” argued Dosch Fleurot. However,

“increasingly strained relations between the United States and Germany” was a sign that the United States had already broken this “invisible balance” and become “invisible” ally for England and France.12 Moreover, in Dosch Fleurot’s opinion, the Roosevelt administration was encouraging the French to start a military conflict with Germany.

“The statements by irresponsible persons, the interpretations of speeches and statements by responsible Americans” made an impression that the United States would immediately support any democratic coalition against Germany and Italy. He argued,

The average European has come to believe that the United States will be in the war. The average Frenchman and a certain type of Englishmen are convinced that it will be in the war practically from the start. Their point of view has not been reached by wishful thinking. It has come to them from America. It has come partly by word of mouth spread by individuals who for various reasons are eager to see the United States in the war, partly from interpretation of speeches, broadcasts and statements by responsible American statesmen, partly from reports spread by persons who pretend to have direct information of the American attitude on European affairs right from the horse’s mouth.13

After the end of World War Two, Dosch Fleurot often repeated to his sister his argument that the United States shared the responsibility for the beginning of a new world conflict.

12 New York Times, December 4, 1938, E 5.

13 Baltimore Sun, August 25, 1940, 11.

109

Taking for granted that the United States would immediately join the war against Hitler,

France, which was torn apart by its own political problems and military unprepared for war, became a sacrifice in the battle between Bolshevism and Nazism.14

Soon after the beginning of World War Two, Dosch Fleurot arrived in New York and started his lecture tour across the United States. His wife Anna accompanied him and insisted on staying in the United States, rebelling “at the very idea of climbing on some future ship.”15 The lectures brought Dosch Fleurot and his wife westward. They spent

Christmas with Dosch Fleurot’s daughters in San Francisco, who by that time had moved to the United States from Europe, and visited Dosch Fleurot’s sister Marguerite in

Portland.16 By the beginning of spring 1940, they returned to New York, and Dosch

Fleurot, who was often offered another lecturing tour in the fall, decided to stay in the

United States.17 At the end of March, Arno and Anna went to Philadelphia to spend

Easter with Dosch Fleurot’s Harvard classmate Herbert Welsh. Here, tragically, Anna was fatally injured when she fell out of an open window on the fifteenth floor during the party. Dosch Fleurot spent the last hours of his wife with her in the hospital and after her death brought her body to Portland where she was buried on the Dosch’s family cemetery

14 See for example ADF to Hiatt, September 19, 1946; ADF to Marcus, January 2, 1951; ADF to Marcus, January 16, 1951.

15 ADF to Marcus, October 22, 1939.

16 ADF to Marcus, January 4, 1940.

17 ADF to Marcus, March 14, 1940.

110 plot.18 Dosch Fleurot was devastated but he had the selfless support of his daughters, sister and close friends.19

The German invasion of neutral Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and later

France in May 1940 partly diverted Dosch Fleurot’s attention from his personal tragic loss. Sitting near the radio with his older daughter Betsy in San Francisco, he felt mentally transported to Europe. He wrote to his sister,

As I know just about every foot of territory that is being fought over I can visualize only too well what that battle is . . . My own sensibilities are dulled by just listening to the bulletins on the train radio as I visualize very bulletin.20

In June, Dosch Fleurot was already back in Europe and started his reporting from Vichy

France, a part of the country that was unoccupied by Germany. He settled in the city of

Cannes, in the apartments where he had lived with Anna before their departure to the

United States. He often traveled to Nice to send his cables to the Christian Science

Monitor and to visit Anna’s mother and sister, who lived there.21

By the time Dosch Fleurot returned to Europe, Germany and France signed the armistice, and he supported the decision of France to maintain “the inevitable neutrality of defeat.”22 “Things are going better in France than some may report. Old Marshal

18 ADF to Marcus, March 27, 1940.

19 ADF to Marcus, around May 10, 1940.

20 ADF to Marcus, March 16, 1940.

21 ADF to Marcus, August 21, 1940.

22 Christian Science Monitor, December 20, 1941, 8.

111

[Philippe Petain, the Chief of the French State] is a wonder,” he wrote to his sister.23 In the early stage of the war, Dosch Fleurot believed that belligerents still could reach a consensus and avoid further human sacrifices but only if the United States maintained neutrality. In the beginning of September, the United States made an agreement with the

United Kingdom to transfer fifty American destroyers in exchange for military base rights in the British Caribbean Islands. Dosch Fleurot found it a tremendous political mistake. He argued to his sister that President Roosevelt with his anti-Nazi position would not be able to play a role of mediator between belligerents, and he agitated his relatives to support the Republican challenger Wendell Willkie instead of Roosevelt in the forthcoming presidential elections. “Roosevelt’s backing of belligerency on this side has had the effect of making it impossible to negotiate peace,” he wrote to his sister, “It is difficult to exaggerate to the number of years of war his reelections and his continuous mixing of the American finger in the European pie will bring on. Vote Willkie!”24

Meanwhile Dosch Fleurot’s hopes did not materialize, and World War Two gained momentum. In December 1941, after Japan bombed the American fleet in Pearl

Harbor, the United States entered the war. Dosch Fleurot continued to live in unoccupied

France since the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Vichy France remained intact. By November 1942, Germany occupied the whole of France, and Dosch

Fleurot and other Americans became hostages of Nazi Germany. He voluntarily joined a group of American diplomats, newspapermen, and Red Cross workers that gathered in

23 ADF to Marcus, August 21, 1940.

24 ADF to Marcus, September 4, 1940.

112 the city of Lourdes in the southwest of France. From Lourdes, the party was sent to

Baden-Baden, Germany, and settled in the luxurious Brenner’s Park Hotel, until the exchange of hostages with Germany could be arranged. Although prisoners, the

Americans were treated well. They had a balanced diet, took walks, use the swimming pools and tennis courts. They celebrated holidays and received necessary medical treatment. Moreover, the US State Department arranged for the transmission of their correspondence with family and friends.

For Dosch Fleurot, the thirteen months in detention became a time of rest from his never-ending job. He read a lot, enjoyed walking, and started to write his memoirs.

Moreover, the place of detention had a special meaning for him since he had often visited

Baden-Baden with Anna and now had the time to reminiscence about those days. He wrote to his sister, “Outside of my window I see the park and the paths where we were once so happy. I walk there now sadly but it means much to me now to be able to be in a place where we passed so many happy days.”25

When the agreement with Germany about the release of American hostages was reached, Dosch Fleurot decided to stay in Europe instead of returning to the United

States. First, he lived in Lisbon for three months; then he settled in Franco’s Spain as the correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, making the Iberian Peninsula the focus of his reporting. However, he kept his eye on the development of the war, paying special attention to the German and French perspective of the conflict. Since spring of 1944, he started to argue for the necessity of “a successful Allied campaign in the West,” and after

25 ADF to Marcus, January 21, 1943.

113 invasion of Normandy emphasized the role of the Allied military forces in restoration of the sovereignty of France and their humanitarian efforts on the liberated territories.26

Dosch Fleurot’s daughters and sister, who were awaiting his return to the United

States, were upset by his decision to stay in Europe.27 Meanwhile, Dosch Fleurot explained that his reason for not coming home “were various but principally because the

[Christian Science] Monitor wanted me to remain on this side . . . ” Dosch Fleurot was afraid that returning back home he would lock himself out of other positions in the newspaper business. “I am not passing up opportunities, or I do so at the risk of finding myself a respected and retired member of the staff. No thanks. Action is what I want.”28

Among key reasons to stay in this region was his political sympathy towards Spain and

Portugal. Once the ardent supporter of liberty and democracy, in his later years, Dosch

Fleurot evidently moved to the right and sympathized with the dictatorial regime of

Francisco Franco in Spain and the corporatist authoritarian government of Antonio de

Oliveira Salazar in Portugal. Portugal’s political regime met with his positive assessment after his visit to Lisbon in the spring of 1944. His first impressions of the country were prosperity, cheerfulness and busyness. Dosch Fleurot decided that such situation was due

26 Science Christian Monitor, March 6, 1944, 6; Science Christian Monitor, September 1, 1944; Science Christian Monitor, April 7, 1945, 10; Science Christian Monitor, April 27, 1945, 11.

27 ADF to Marcus, March 21, 1944

28 ADF to Marcus, June 17, 1944.

114 to the corporative state and emphasized that it had nothing in common with dictatorship.29

Dosch Fleurot’s attitude towards Spain was less exalted, but he respected the persistence with which Spain defended its own political path. He believed that after the end of World War Two and the defeat of Nazism and Fascism, Bolshevism remained the main threat to the European civilization and Spain was the country that saved its energy for the struggle against it. Only with his sister and a couple of close friends, could Dosch

Fleurot share his concerns about the political situation in the world. World War Two put an end to “the great period of world history that was carried on under European culture,” he complained to his sister. Now Europe was “half-sunk and half threatened” by

Bolshevism.30 Dosch Fleurot, whose dislike of Roosevelt had only been increasing, in many ways blamed him for the outcomes of the war. First, in his opinion, the military alliance with the Soviet Union was a mistake. Second, the military tactics of the United

States in Europe was wrong, he thought. In his view, the United States should have landed in the Balkans instead of Italy. The presence of Americans in could have prevented the spread of Bolshevism to this region. “How those in high places do regret that now, but Roosevelt who was the most responsible did not live to see the fruit of his planting!”31 France, which in Dosch Fleurot’s opinion entered the war because it was sure in the immediate military support of the United States, “has torn itself to pieces to such

29 Christian Science Monitor, June 4, 1944, WM3.

30 ADF to Marcus, June 17, 1949.

31 ADF to Marcus, April 21, 1946.

115 degree and permitted the destructive force of communism to get such a hold on a country that it cannot be counted upon playing a real military role if there is need for it any time in the foreseeable future . . . .Italy perhaps even worse . . . ”32 He argued that besides

Britain, only Spain stood out in comparison with other parts of Europe. It was ready to fight back if the Soviet Union decided to attack and saved its independent political thinking. Dosch Fleurot was disappointed that the United States did not consider Spain among its allies, “Once upon a time a man was a man of honor, or he was nothing. No one mentions honor any more—I mean in Europe. Spaniards do but we [Americans] don’t want to know it.”33

The new world order that emerged after World War Two dismayed Dosch

Fleurot. He did not have any illusion about the future of international politics and the destiny of democracy in particular. He hesitated that the United Nations (UN), new international organization, would be able to restrain countries from another big war. In letters to his sister, Dosch Fleurot often called the UN Security Council “the Council of

Insecurity.” The beginning of the Cold War concerned Dosch Fleurot. If before he had condemned the United States for its friendly attitude to the Soviet Union, now he was worried about the increasing level of hostility between countries. “We bring on one terrible war by running on one extreme and now we are threatening an even worse way by rushing to other.”34 At the end of his life, Dosch Fleurot decided that the best strategy

32 ADF to Marcus, January 16, 1951.

33 ADF to Marcus, January 2, 1951.

34 ADF to Hiatt, September 19, 1946.

116 against Bolshevism was waiting. “My idea is,” he wrote in his last letter to his sister,

“that we’d better give time a chance to straighten things up. If we are in the mess we are in, we created it ourselves. The people who scream at Stalin most were quite in love with him ten years ago. Same Stalin now and then.”35

During his Spanish period, Dosch Fleurot was disappointed with politics and traumatized by the extent of the physical destructions that the war had brought to Europe.

But he found a consolation in the things of aesthetic value and the leisurely pace of life in

Spain. One could find Dosch Fleurot reading a book in the Prado Museum of Madrid or walking in a park, dancing at a flamenco party or enjoying a deep-see fishing. He traveled a lot across Europe, and in his last years spent much time in North and West

Africa writing his reportages for the Christian Science Monitor. He thought that one day he probably would cross the Atlantic and come home. But he never did. Just after his return to Madrid from Buenos Aires in April 1951, Dosch Fleurot suddenly felt ill and was brought to the hospital by his friends. He died after an emergency abdominal operation. Prior to the surgery, he remained in the full mind and remained optimistic about its results.36

35 ADF to Marcus, January 30, 1951.

36 American Embassy Madrid to Marguerite Campbell, May 18, 1951.

117

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