Disgrace Abounding

by

Douglas Reed

published: March, 1939 CONTENTS

(click on a title to go straight to that chapter)

Preface

01. Journey Resumed 20. Nature Of The Beast 02. Island Lament 21. Out Of Joint 03. Bird’s-Eye View 22. The Little Rocket 04. A Coloured Handkerchief 23. How Odd Of God 05. David Undaunted 24. Long, Long Trail 06. Portrait Of A Gentleman 25. In Town To-Night 07. Hungarian Summer 26. Little Girl From Nowhere 08. End Of A Baron 27. One-Eyed Outcast 09. Hungarian Idyll 28. Make Thee Mightier Yet 10. Swastika Over Hungary 29. Christmastide In 11. Blue-Faced Venus 30. Reds!!! 12. Half A League 31. Christmas Day In Chust 13. Better The Devil … 32. Carol And Codreanu 14. Hungarian Tragedy 33. Magyarland Again 15. War In The Air 34. Belgrade Burlesque 16. And Thou 35. Bohemia In Bondage 17. Boy King 36. Looking At England 18. Fly, Fly, Fly Again 37. The Twilight Thickens 19. Blockmarks And Balkan Markets

Postscript

Appendix: Mort De Bohème

Preface

All the fictions in this book are characteristic. None of the characters is fictitious, though some are disguised. A multitude of opinions is expressed. They may be poor things; in any case, they are mine own.

If the book were to have a dedication it would be, in the words of the furniture removal man, to you - from me.

While I was finishing the book, Insanity Fair, to which this is a sequel, events began to move so fast, and myself with them, that I never had time to go through the proofs with a microscope for the misprints of others and the mistakes of myself.

The first thirty-odd impressions thus contained a large but dwindling number of slips. That they dwindled was largely due - I hardly stopped running about in the subsequent nine months for long enough meticulously to examine a single chapter - to readers in many countries, who wrote to me, or even called on or telephoned to my publishers, to point them out. To them my most cordial thanks are due.

The same thing may happen, in a lesser degree, in this book. If it does, I tender thanks in advance.

Those spacious and leisurely days are gone when a writer, at any rate a writer in my field, might sit in a quiet house, looking over green English wealds, weigh and apportion his words in long and tranquil meditation, and with measured gesture dip his quill pen into the ink and transfer them to paper.

A writer of my type, in the mid-twentieth century, is always rushing off to catch a train or aeroplane, to keep abreast of the rush of events, and between journeys has quickly to tap his thoughts on paper.

He who runs may read. To write, you have to run still faster.

Possibly some of the things I have written about will begin to happen before the book is out. I shall not alter it if they do. I think, by leaving it as it was written, you get a more plastic view of the march of events.

The direct form of address, 'You', is intended in most cases for British readers.

***

Chapter One

JOURNEY RESUMED

I wrote a book, Insanity Fair. This book begins where that one left off. I thought of calling this one The Picnic Papers. Insanity Fair, about Europe; The Picnic Papers, about England. It seemed to express the picture I had in my mind. There a lunatic fun-fair, a mad ride through the haunted house; here a crazy picnic of inertia and apathy, ignorance and arrogance. There ruthless dictators, marching armies, bright swords, glittering prizes; clear ideas, something men can understand. Here fear, irresolution, class prejudice, bewilderment, property mania, icy cynicism, fogged ideas - litter blowing about the land that once was green and pleasant, so they say. Storm over Europe. Litter over England.

The Picnic Papers, the book will remain for me. But others, good judges, tell me that the title is a bad one, that it does not convey the idea I have in mind; also, though I did not know this, it has been used befo