THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
THE LAND 0V
DEEPENING SHADOW
GERMANY-AT-WAR
D. THOMAS CURTIN
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
V5I5
C8
COPYEIGHT, 1917,
BY GEOEQE II. DOEAN COMPANY
FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA
TO
LORD NORTHCLIFFE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I GETTING IN .... 11
II WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE . . 20
III THE CRIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN 30
IV PULPITS OF HATE . . .39
V PUPPET PROFESSORS ... 48
VI THE LIE ON THE FILM . . .57
VII THE IDEA FACTORY . . .79
VIII CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES . 91
IX ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGATT . 103
X SUBMARINE MOTIVES . . . 112
XI THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE . 118
XII IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET . . 136
XIII A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES . .156
XIV THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT . 16-1
XV PREVENTIVE ARREST . . . 176
XVI POLICE EULE IN BOHEMIA . . 194
XVII SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES . . . 202
XVIII THE IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LOR-
RAINE ..... 215
XIX THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW . .225
7
8 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XX THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN . . 241
XXI TOMMY IN GERMANY . . .250
XXII How THE PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME
-HOME FROM THE SOMME . 265
XXIII How GERMANY DENIES . . 276
XXIV GERMANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES . 285
XXV BERLIN'S EAST-END . . .292
XXVI IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW . . 300
XXVII ACROSS THE NORTH SEA . . 317
XXVIII THE LITTLE SHIPS 332
THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
THE LAND OF
DEEPENING SHADOW
CHAPTER I
GETTING IN
EARLY in November, 1915, I sailed from New York
to Rotterdam.
I spent nearly a month in Holland completing my
preparations, and at length one grey winter morning
I took the step that I dreaded. I had left Germany
six months before with a feeling that to enter it again
and get safely out was hopeless, foolish, dangerous,
impossible. But at any rate I was going to try.
At Zevenaar, while the Dutch customs officials were
examining my baggage, I patronised the youth selling
apple cakes and coffee, for after several months'
absence from Germany my imagination had been
kindled to contemplate living uncomfortably on short
rations for some time as the least of my troubles.
Furthermore, the editorial opinion vouchsafed in the
Dutch newspaper which I had bought at Arnhem was
that Austria's reply to the "Ancona" Note made a
break with America almost a certainty. Consequently
as the train rolled over the few remaining miles to the
frontier I crammed down my apple cakes, resolved to
face the unknown on a full stomach.
ii
1 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
The wheels ground under the brakes, I pulled down
the window with a bang and looked out no longer upon
the soft rolled military cap of Holland but upon the
business-like spiked helmet of Germany. I steeled my-
self. There was no backing out now. I had crossed
the German frontier.
The few passengers filed into the customs room, where
a corps of skilled mechanics prised open the contents of
bags and trunks. Each man was an expert in his
profession. A hand plunged into one of my bags and
emerged with several bars of chocolate, the wrappers of
which were shorn off before the chocolate was well out
of the bag. A bottle of liniment, the brand that made
us forget our sprains and bruises in college days, was
brought to light, and with commendable dexterity the
innocent label was removed in a twinkling with a spe-
cially constructed piece of steel. The label had a pic-
ture of a man with a very extensive moustache the
man who had made the liniment famous, or vice versa
but the trade name and proprietor must go unsung in
the Fatherland, for the Government has decreed that
travellers entering Germany may bring only three
things containing printed matter, viz. : railroad tickets,
money and passports.
When the baggage squad had finished its task and
replaced all unsuspected articles, the bags were sealed
and sent on to await the owner, whose real troubles
now began.
I stepped into a small room where I was asked to
hand over all printed matter on my person. Two
reference books necessary for my work were tried and
found not guilty, after which they were enclosed
GETTING IN 13
in a large envelope and sent through the regular
censor.
Switched into a third room before I had a chance
even to bid good-bye to the examiners in the second,
I found myself standing before a small desk answering
questions about myself and my business asked tersely
by an inquisitor who read from a lengthy paper which
had to be filled in, and behind whom stood three officers
in uniform. These occasionally interpolated questions
and always glared into my very heart. When I
momentarily looked away from their riveted eyes it
was only to be held transfixed by the scrutinising orbs
of a sharp, neatly dressed man who had been a passenger
on the train. He plays the double role of detective-
interpreter, and he plays it in first-class fashion.
While the man behind the desk was writing my biog-
raphy, the detective or rather the interpreter, as I
prefer to think of him, because he spoke such perfect
English cross-examined me in his own way. As the
grilling went on I did not know whether to be anxious
about the future or to glow with pride over the
profound interest which the land of Goethe and
Schiller was displaying in my life and literary
efforts.
Had I not a letter from Count Bernstorff ?
I was not thus blessed.
Did I not have a birth certificate? Whom did I
know in Germany? Where did they live? On what
occasions had I visited Germany during my past life?
On what fronts had I already seen fighting? What
languages did I speak, and the degree of proficiency
in each?
14 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Many of my answers to these and similar questions
were carefully written down by the man at the desk,
while his companions in the inquisition glared, always
glared, and the room danced with soldiers passing
through it.
At length my passport was folded and returned to
me, but my credentials and reference books were sealed
in an envelope. They would be returned to me later,
I was told.
I was shunted along into an adjoining small room
where nimble fingers dexterously ran through my cloth-
ing to find out if I had overlooked declaring anything.
Another shunting and I was in a large room. I
rubbed elbows with more soldiers along the way, but
nobody spoke. Miraculously I came to a halt before
a huge desk, much as a bar of glowing iron, after glid-
ing like a living thing along the floor of a rolling mill,
halts suddenly at the bidding of a distant hand.
Behind the desk stood men in active service uni-
forms men who had undoubtedly faced death for the
land which I was seeking to enter. They fired further
questions at me and took down the data on my pass-
port, after which I wrote my signature for the official
files. Attacks came hard and fast from the front and
both flanks, while a silent soldier thumbed through a
formidable card file, apparently to see if I were a per-
sona non grata, or worse, in the records.
I became conscious of a silent power to my left, and
turning my glance momentarily from the rapid-fire
questioners at the desk, I looked into a pair of lynx
eyes flashing up and down my person. Another detec-
tive, with probably the added role of interpreter, but
GETTING IN 15
as I was answering all questions in German he said not
a word. Yet he looked volumes.
Through more soldiers to the platform, and then a
swift and comparatively comfortable journey to Emme-
rich, accompanied by a soldier who carried my sealed
envelope, the contents of which were subsequently re-
turned to me after an examination by the censor.
At last I was alone! or rather I thought I was, for
my innocent stroll about Emmerich was duly observed
by a man who bore the unmistakable air of his pro-
fession, and who stepped into my compartment on the
Cologne train as I sat mopping my brow waiting for it
to start. He flashed his badge of detective authority,
asked to see my papers, returned them to me politely,
and bowed himself out.
My journey was through the heart of industrial Ger-
many, a heart which throbs feverishly night and day,
month in and month out, to drive the Teuton power
east, west, north, and south.
Forests of lofty chimney-stacks in Wesel, Duisburg,
Krefeld, Essen, Elberfeld and Diisseldorf belched smoke
which hazed the landscape far and wide: smoke which
made cities, villages, lone brick farmhouses, trees, and
cattle appear blurred and indistinct, and which filtered
into one's very clothing and into locked travelling bags.
But there was a strength and virility about every-
thing, from the vulcanic pounding and crashing in mills
and arsenals to the sturdy uniformed women who were
pushing heavy trucks along railroad platforms or pol-
ishing railings and door knobs on the long lines of cars
in the train yards.
Freight trains, military trains and passenger trains
1 6 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
were speeding over the network of rails without a hitch,
soldiers and officers were crowding station platforms,
and if there was any faltering of victory hopes among
these men as the atmosphere of the outside world may
have at that time led one to believe I utterly failed
to detect it in their faces. They were either doggedly
and determinedly moving in the direction of duty, or
going happily home for a brief holiday respite, as an
unmistakable brightness of expression, even when their
faces were drawn from the strain of the trenches,
clearly showed.
But it is the humming, beehive activity of these
Ehenish-Westphalian cities and towns which crowd one
another for space that impresses the traveller in this
workshop section of Germany. He knows that the sea
of smoke, the clirr and crash of countless foundries are
the impelling force behind Germany's soldier millions,
whether they are holding far-thrown lines in Russia, or
smashing through the Near East, or desperately coun^
ter-attacking in the West.
In harmony with the scene the winter sun sank like
a molten metal ball behind the smoke-stack forest, to
set blood-red an hour later beyond the zigzag lines in
France.
Maximilian Harden had just been widely reported
as having said that Germany's great military conquests
were in no way due to planning in higher circles, but
are the work of the rank and file of the Schultzs and
the Schmidts. I liked to think of this as the train sped
on at the close of the short winter afternoon, for my
first business was to call upon a middle-class family
on behalf of a German-American in New York, who
GETTING IN 17
wished me to take 100 to his relatives in a small
Rhenish town.
Thus my first evening in Germany found me in a
dark little town on the Rhine groping my way through
crooked streets to a home, the threshold of which I
no sooner crossed than I was made to feel that the arm
of the police is long and that it stretches out into the
remotest villages and hamlets.
The following incident, which was exactly typical
of what would happen in nineteen German households
out of twenty, may reveal one small aspect of German
character to British and American people, who are as
a rule completely unable to understand German psy-
chology.
Although I had come far out of my way to bring
what was for them a considerable sum of money, as
well as some portraits of their long-absent relatives in
the United States and interesting family news, my re-
ception was as cold as the snow-blown air outside. I
was not allowed to finish explaining my business when
I was at first petulantly and then violently and angrily
interrupted with:
"Have you been to the police ?"
"No," I said. "I did not think it was necessary
to go to the police, as I am merely passing through
here, and am not going to stay."
The lady of the house replied coldly, "Go to the
police," and shut the door in my face.
I mastered my temper by reminding myself that
whereas such treatment at home would have been suf-
ficiently insulting to break off further relations, it was
not intended as such in Germany.
1 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
It was a long walk for a tired man to the Polizeiamt.
When I got there I was fortunate in encountering a
lank, easy-going old fellow who had been comman-
deered for the job owing to the departure of all the local
police for the war. He was clearly more interested in
trying to find out something of his relations in some re-
mote village in America, which he said was named after
them, than in my business.
I returned to pay the 100 and deliver the photo-
graphs, and now that I had been officially "policed" was
received with great cordiality and pressed to spend the
evening.
Father, mother, grown-up daughters and brother-in-
law all assured me that it was not owing to my per-
sonal appearance that I had been so coldly received, but
that war is war and law is law and that everything must
be done as the authorities decree.
Cigars and cigarettes were showered upon me and
my glass was never allowed to be empty of Rhine wine.
Good food was set before me and the stock generously
replenished whenever necessary. It will be remem-
bered that I had come unexpectedly and that I was not
being entertained in a wealthy home, and this at a time
when the only counter-attack on Germany's success in
the Balkans was an increased amount of stories that
she was starving.
Evidently the Schultzs and the Schmidts were not
taking all the credit for Germany's position to them-
selves. They pointed with pride to a picture of the
Emperor adorning one wall and then smiled with satis-
faction as they indicated the portrait of von Hinden-
burg on the wall opposite. One of the daughters wore
GETTING IN 19
a huge silver medallion of the same renowned general
on her neck. After nearly a year and a half of war
these hard-working Germans were proud of their leaders
and had absolute faith in them.
But this family had felt the war. One son had just
been wounded, they knew not how severely, in France.
If some unknown English soldier on the Yser had raised
his rifle just a hairbreadth higher the other son would
be sleeping in the blood-soaked soil of Flanders instead
of doing garrison duty in Hanover while recovering
from a bullet which had passed through his head just
under the eyes,
CHAPTER II
WHEN SKIES WEEE BLUE
THEEE was one more passenger, making three, in
our first-class compartment in the all-day express
train from Cologne to Berlin after it left Hanover. He
was a naval officer of about forty-five, clean-cut, alert,
clearly an intelligent man. His manner was proud, but
not objectionably so.
The same might be said of the manner of the major
who had sat opposite me since the train left Diisseldorf.
I had been in Germany less than thirty hours and was
feeling my way carefully, so I made no attempt to en-
ter into conversation. Just before lunch the jolting of
the train deposited the major's coat at my feet. I
picked it up and handed it to him. He received it with
thanks and a trace of a smile. He was polite, but icily
so. I was an American, he was a German officer. In
his way of reasoning my country was unneutrally mak-
ing ammunition to kill himself and his men. But for
my country the war would have been over long ago.
Therefore he hated me, but his training made him po-
lite in his hate. That is the difference between the
better class of army and naval officers and diplomats
and the rest of the Germans.
When he left the compartment for the dining-car he
saluted and bowed stiffly. When we met in the narrow
corridor after our return from lunch, each stepped aside
20
WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE 21
to let the other pass in first. I exchanged with him heel-
click for heel-click, salute for salute, waist-bow for
waist-bow, and after-you-my-dear-Alphonse sweep of the
arm for you-go-first-my-dear-Gaston motion from him.
The result was that we both started at once, collided,
backed away and indulged in all the protestations and
gymnastics necessary to beg another's pardon in mili-
tary Germany. At length we entered, erected a screen
of ice between us, and alternately looked from one an-
other to the scenery hour after hour.
The entrance of the naval officer relieved the strain,
for the two branches of the Kaiser's armed might were
soon after the usual gymnastics engaged in conver-
sation. They were not men to discuss their business be-
fore a stranger. Once I caught the word Amerikaner
uttered in a low voice, but though their looks told that
they regarded me as an intruder in their country they
said nothing on that point.
At Stendal we got the Berlin evening papers, which
had little of interest except a few lines about the An-
cona affair between Washington and Vienna.
"Do you think Austria will grant the American de-
mands ?" the man in grey asked the man in blue.
"Austria will do what Germany thinks best. Per-
sonally, I hope that we take a firm stand. I do not
believe in letting the United States tell us how to con-
duct the war. We are quite capable of conducting it
and completing it in a manner satisfactory to ourselves."
The man in grey agreed with the man in blue.
Past the blazing munition works at Spandau, across
the Havel, through the Tiergarten, running slowly now,
to the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof.
2 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
A bewildering swirl of thoughts rushed through my
head as I stepped out on the platform. More than three
months ago I had left London for my long, circuitous
journey to Berlin. I had planned and feared, planned
and hoped. The German spy system is the most elab-
orate in the world. Only through a miracle could the
Wilhelmstrasse be ignorant of the fact that I had trav-
elled all over Europe during the war for the hated Brit-
ish Press. I could only hope that the age of miracles
had not passed.
The crowd was great, porters were as scarce as they
used to be plentiful, I was waiting for somebody, so I
stood still and took note of my surroundings.
Across the platform was a long train ready to start
west, and from each window leaned officers and soldiers
bidding good-bye to groups of friends. The train was
marked Hannover, Kdln, Lille. As though I had never
known it before, I found myself saying, "Lille is in
France, and those men ride there straight from here."
The train on which I had arrived had pulled out and
another had taken its place. This was marked Posen,
Thorn, Insterburg, Stalluponen, Alexandrovo, Vilna.
As I stood on that platform I felt Germany's power in
a peculiar but convincing way. I had been in Germany,
in East Prussia, when the Russians were not only in
possession of the last four places named, but about to
threaten the first two.
Now the simple printed list of stations on the heavy
train about to start from the capital of Germany to
Vilna, deep in Russia, was an awe-inspiring tribute to
the great military machine of the Fatherland. For a
WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE 23
moment I believed in von Bethmann-Holweg's talk
about the "map of Europe."
I was eager to see how much Berlin had changed, for
I knew it at various stages of the war, but I cannot
honestly saj that the changes which I detected later,
and which I shall deal with in subsequent chapters of
this book changes which are absorbingly interesting
to study on the spot and vitally important in the prog-
ress and outcome of the war were very apparent then.
In the dying days of 1915 I found the people of Ber-
lin almost as supremely confident of victory, especially
now since Bulgaria's entrance had made such sweeping
changes in the Balkans, as they were on that day of
cloudless blue, the first of August, 1914, when the dense
mass swayed before the Royal Palace, to see William
II. come out upon the balcony to bid his people rise to
arms. Eyes sparkled, cheeks flushed, the buzz changed
to cheering, the cheering swelled to a roar. The army
which had been brought to the highest perfection, the
army which would sweep Europe at last the German
people could see what it would do, would show the world
what it would do. The anticipation intoxicated them.
An American friend told me of how he struggled to-
ward the Schloss, but in the jam of humanity got only
as far as the monument of Frederick the Great. There
a youth threw his hat in the air and cried : "Hoch der
Krieg, Hoch der Krieg!" (Hurrah for the war).
That was the spirit that raged like a prairie fire.
An old man next to him looked him full in the eyes.
"Der Krieg ist eine ernste Sache, Junge!" (War is a
serious matter, young man), he said and turned away.
24 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
He was in the crowd, but not of it. His note was dis-
cordant. They snarled at him and pushed him roughly.
They gloried in the thought of war. They were certain
that they were invincible. All that they had been
taught, all the influences on their lives convinced them
that nothing could stand before the furor teutonicus
once it was turned loose.
Delirious days when military bands blared regiment
after regiment through lines of cheering thousands;
whole companies deluged with flowers, long military
trains festooned with blossoms and greenery rolling
with clock-like regularity from the stations amid thun-
derous cheers. Sad partings were almost unknown, for,
of course, no earthly power could withstand the on-
slaughts of the Kaiser's troops. God was with them
even their belts and helmets showed that. So, "Good-
bye for six weeks !"
The 2nd of September is Sedan Day, and in 1914 it
was celebrated as never before. A great parade was
scheduled, a parade which would show German prowess.
Though I arrived in "Unter den Linden" two hours
before the procession was due, I could not get anywhere
near the broad central avenue down which it would
pass. I chartered a taxi which had foundered in the
throng, and perched on top. The Government, always
attentive to the patriotic education of the children, had
given special orders for such occasions. The little ones
were brought to the front by the police, and boys were
even permitted to climb the sacred Linden trees that
they might better see what the Fatherland had done.
The triumphal column entered through the Kaiser
'Arch of the Brandenburger Tor, and bedlam broke loose
WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE 25
during the passing of the captured cannon of Russia,
France, and Belgium these last cast by German work-
men at Essen and fired by Belgian artillerists against
German soldiers at Liege.
The gates of Paris ! Then the clear-cut German of-
ficial reports became vague for a few days about the
West, but had much of Hindenburg and victory in the
East. Democracies wash their dirty linen in public,
while absolute governments tuck theirs out of sight,
where it usually disappears, but sometimes unexpectedly
develops spontaneous combustion.
Nobody outside of the little circle questioned the
delay in entering Paris. Everything was going accord-
ing to plan, was the saying. I suppose sheep entertain
a somewhat similar attitude when their leader conducts
them over a precipice. Antwerp must be taken first
that was the key to Paris and London. Such was the
gossip when the scene was once more set in Belgium,
and the great Skoda mortars pulverised forts which on*
paper were impregnable. Many a time during the first
days of October I left my glass of beer or cup of tea
half finished and rushed from cafe and restaurant with
the crowd to see if the newspaper criers of headlines
were announcing the fall of the fortress on the Scheldt.
How those people discussed the terms of the coming
early peace, terms which were not by any means easy!
Berlin certainly had its thumbs turned down on the
rest of Europe.
With two other Americans I sat with a group of pros-
perous Berliners in their luxurious club. Waiters
moved noiselessly over costly rugs and glasses clinked,
while these men seriously discussed the probable terms
26 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Germany would soon impose on a conquered continent.
Belgium would, of course, be incorporated into the Ger-
man Empire, and Antwerp would be the chief outlet for
Germany's commerce and how that commerce would
soon boom at the expense of Great Britain ! France
would now have an opportunity to develop her socialis-
tic experiments, as she would be permitted to maintain
only a very small army. The mistake of 1870 must not
be repeated. This time there would be no paltry levy
of five billion francs. A great German Empire would
rise on the ruins of the British. Commercial gain was
the theme. I did not gather from the conversation that
anybody but Germany would be a party to the peace.
A man in close touch with things military entered
at midnight. His eyes danced as he gave us new in-
formation about Antwerp. Clearly the city was
doomed.
I did not sleep that night. I packed. Next evening
I was in Holland. I saw a big story, hired a car, picked
up a Times courier, and, after "fixing" things with the
Dutch guards, dashed for Antwerp. The long story of a
retreat with the rearguard of the Belgian Army has no
place here. But there were scenes which contrasted
with the boasting, confident, joyous capital I had left.
Belgian horses drawing dejected families, weeping on
their household goods, other families with everything
they had saved bundled in a tablecloth or a hand-
kerchief. Some had their belongings tied on a bicycle,
others trundled wheel-barrows. Valuable draught dogs,
harnessed, but drawing no cart, were led by their mas-
ters, while other dogs that nobody thought of just fol-
lowed along. And tear-drenched faces everywhere.
WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE 27
Back in Bergen-op-Zoom and Putten I had seen chalk
writing on brick walls saying that members of certain
families had gone that way and would wait in certain
designated places for other members who chanced to
pass. On the road, now dark, and fringed with pines,
I saw a faint light flicker. A group passed, four very
old women tottering after a very old man, he holding a
candle before him to light the way.
As I jotted down these things and handed them to
my courier I thought of the happy faces back in Ber-
lin, of jubilant crowds dashing from restaurants and
cafes as each newspaper edition was shouted out, and
I knew that the men in the luxurious club were figuring
out to what extent they could mulct Belgium.
I pressed on in the dark and joined the Belgian army
and the British ITaval Brigade falling back before the
Germans. I came upon an American, now captain of a
Belgian company. "It's a damn shame, and I hate to
admit it," he said, "but the Allies are done for." That
is the way it looked to us in the black hours of the re-
treat.
Soldiers were walking in their sleep. Some sank, too
exhausted to continue. An English sailor, a tireless
young giant, trudged on mile after mile with a Belgian
soldier on his back. Both the Belgian's feet had been
shot off and tightly bound handkerchiefs failed to check
the crimson trail.
London and Paris were gloomy, but Berlin was bask-
ing in the bright morning sunshine of the war.
Although the fronts were locked during the winter,
the German authorities had good reason to feel opti-
28 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
mistic about the coming spring campaign. They knew
that they had increased their munition output enor-
mously, and their spies told them that Russia had prac-
tically run out of ammunition, while England had ntot
yet awakened to the realisation that this is a war of
shells.
The public saw the result in the spring. The armies
of the Tsar fell back all along the line, while in Ger-
many the flags were waving and the bells of victory
were pealing.
All through this there was unity in Germany, a unity
that the Germans felt and gloried in. "No other nation
acts as one man in this wonderful time as do we Ger-
mans," they told the stranger again and again. Unity
and Germany became synonymous in my mind.
Love of country and bitterness against the enemy are
intensified in a nation going to war. It is something
more than this, however, which has imbued and sus-
tained the flaming spirit of Germany during this war.
In July, 1914, the Government deliberately set out to
overcome two great forces. The first was the growing
section of her anti-militaristic citizens, and the second
was the combination of Great Powers which she made
up her mind she must fight sooner or later if she would
gain that place in the sun which had dazzled her so
long.
Her success against the opposition within her was
phenomenal. Germany was defending herself against
treacherous attack that was the watchword. The So-
cial Democrats climbed upon the band-waggon along
with the rest for the joy-ride to victory, and they re-
WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE 29
mained on the band-waggon for more than a year
then some of them dropped off.
The story of how all Germans were made to think
as one man is a story of one of the greatest phenomena
of history. It is my purpose in the next few chapters
to show how the German Government creates unity.
Then, in later chapters, I will describe the forces tend-
ing to disintegrate that wonderful unity.
Germany entered the war with the Government in
control of all the forces affecting public opinion. The
only way in which newspaper editors, reporters, lec-
turers, professors, teachers, theatre managers, and pul-
pit preachers could hope to accomplish anything in the
world was to do something to please the Government.
To displease the Government meant to be silenced or to
experience something worse.
CHAPTER III
THE CEIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN
THE boys and girls of Germany play an important
part in die grosse Zeit (this great wartime).
Every atom of energy that can be dragged out of the
children has been put to practical purpose.
Their little souls, cursed by "incubated hate," have
been so worked upon by the State schoolmasters that
they have redoubled their energies in the tasks imposed
upon them of collecting gold, copper, nickel, brass,
paper, acorns, blackberries, blueberries, rubber, woollen
and war loan money.
All this summer on release from school, which com-
mences at seven and closes at three in most parts of
Germany, the hours varying in some districts, the chil-
dren, in organised squads, have been put to these im-
portant purposes of State. They had much to do with
the getting in of the harvest.
The schoolmaster has played his part in the training
of the child to militarism, State worship, and enemy
hatred as effectively as the professor and the clergyman.
Here are two German children's school songs, that
are being sung daily. Both of them are creations of
the war: both written by schoolmasters. The particu-
larly offensive song about King Edward and England
is principally sung by girls the future mothers of Ger-
many :
30
CRIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN 31
O England, O England,
Wie gross sind Deine Liigen !
1st Dem Verbrechen noch so gross,
Du schwindelst Dich vom Galgen los.
O Eduard, O Eduard, du Muster aller Eiirsten,
Nichts hattest Du von einem Rex,
Du eitler Schlips und Westenfex.
[Oh, England, oh, England, how great are thy lies!
However great thy crimes, thou cheatest the gallows.
Oh, Edward, oh, Edward, thou model Prince! Thou
hadst nothing kindly in thee, thou vain fop!]
Da driiben, da druben liegt der Eeind,
In feigen Schiitzengraben,
Wir greif en ihn an, und ein Hund, wer meint,
Heut' wiirde Pardon gegeben.
Schlagt alles tot, was um Gnade fleht,
Schiesst alles nieder wie Hunde,
Mehr Eeinde, mehr Feinde ! sei euer Gebet
In dieser Vergeltungsstunde.
[Over there in the cowardly trenches lies the enemy.
We attack him, and only a dog will say that pardon
should be given to-day. Strike dead everything which
prays for mercy. Shoot everything down like dogs.
''More enemies, more enemies," be your prayer in this
hour of retribution.]
The elementary schools, or Volksschulen, are free,
and attendance is compulsory from six to fourteen.
There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools
with over 10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private ele-
mentary schools, with 42,000 pupils who pay fees.
Germany is a land of civil service, to enter which
a certificate from a secondary school is necessary. Some
authorities maintain that the only way to prevent being
flooded with candidates is to make the examinations
crushingly severe. Children are early made to realise
32 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
that all hope of succeeding in life rests upon the pass-
ing of these examinations. Thus the despair which
often leads to suicide on the one hand and knowledge
without keenness on the other.
Hardly any class has suffered more heavily in the
war than the masters of the State schools, which are
equivalent to English Council schools and American
public schools. Th'e thinning 'of their ranks is an
eloquent proof of the heaviness of the German death
toll. Their places have been taken by elderly men, but
principally by women. It is a kind of Nemesis that
they should have fallen in the very cause they have
been propagating for at least a generation.
Those who knew only the old and pleasant Germany
do not realise the speeding up of the hate machine that
has taken place in the last decade. The protests against
this State creation of hate grow less and less as the war
proceeds. To-day only comparatively few members of
the Social-Democrat Party raise objection to this horri-
ble contamination of the minds of the coming genera-
tion of German men and women. Not much reflection
is needed to see on what fruitful soil the great National
Liberal Party, with its backing of capitalists, greedy
merchants, chemists, bankers, ship and mine owners,
is planting its seeds for the future. There is no cure
for this evil state of affairs, but the practical proof, in-
flicted by big cannon, that the world will not tolerate
a nation of which the very children are trained to hate
the rest of the world, and taught that German Kultur
must be spread by bloodshed and terror.
With the change in Germany has come a change in
the family life. The good influence of some churches
CRIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN 33
has gone completely. They are part of the great war
machine. The position of the mother is not what it was.
The old German Hausfrau of the three K's, which I
will roughly translate by "Kids, Kitchen, and Kirk,"
has become even more a servant of the master of the
house than she was. The State has taken control of
the souls of her children, and she has not even that
authority that she had twenty years ago. The father has
become even more important than of yore. The natural
tendency of a nation of which almost every man is a
soldier, is to elevate the man at the expense of the
woman, and the German woman has taken to her new
position very readily. She plays her wonderful part in
the production of munitions, not as in Britain in a
spirit of equality, but with a sort of admitted inferior-
ity difficult to describe exactly.
At four years of age the German male child begins
to be a soldier. At six he is accustomed to walk in
military formation. This system has a few advantages,
but many disadvantages. A great concourse of infants
can, for example, be marshalled through the streets of a
city without any trouble at all. But that useful disci-
pline is more than counterbalanced by the killing of in-
dividuality. German children, especially during the
war, try to grow up to be little men and women as
quickly as possible. They have shared the long work-
ing hours of the grown-ups, and late in the hot summer
nights I have seen little Bavarian boys and girls who
have been at school from seven and worked in the fields
from three o'clock till dark, drinking their beer in the
beer garden with a relish that showed they needed some
stimulant. The beer is not Bass's ale, but it contains
34 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
from two to five per cent, of alcohol. Unhealthy-look-
ing little men are these German boys of from twelve to
fifteen during the war. The overwork, and the lowering
of the diet, has given them pasty faces and dark rings
round their eyes. All games and amusements have been
abandoned, and the only relaxation is corps marching
through the streets at night, singing their hate songs
and "Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles."
The girls, in like fashion, often spend their school
interval in marching in columns of four, singing the
same horrible chants.
Up to the time of the scarcity of woollen materials,
the millions of little German schoolgirls produced their
full output of comforts for the troops.
The practical result, from a military point of view,
of training children to venerate the All-Highest War
Lord and his family, together with his ancestors, was
shown at the beginning of the war, when there came a
great rush of volunteers (Freiwillige*) , many of them
beneath the military age, many of them beyond it. In
most of the calculations of German man-power, some
ally and neutral military writers seem to have forgotten
these volunteers, estimated at two millions.
A significant change in Germany is the cessation of
the volunteer movement. Parents who gladly sent
forth their boys as volunteers, are now endeavouring
by every means in their power to postpone the evil day
in the firm belief that peace will come before the age
of military service has been reached. It is a change at
least as significant as that which lies between the Ger-
man's "We have won the more enemies the better" of
two years back, and the 'We must hold out" of to-day.
CRIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN 35
Of the school structures in modern Germany it would
be idle to pretend that they are not excellent in every
respect perfect ventilation, sanitation, plenty of space,
large numbers of class-rooms, and halls for the choral
singing, which is part of the German system of educa-
tion, and by which the "hate" songs have been so readily
spread. The same halls are used for evening lectures
for adults and night improvement schools.
It is significant that all the schools built between
1911 and 1914 were so arranged, not only in Germany,
but throughout Austria, that they could be turned into
hospitals with hardly any alteration. For this pur-
pose, temporary partitions divided portions of the
buildings, and an unusually large supply of water was
laid on. Special entrances for ambulances were already
in existence, baths had already been fitted in the
wounded reception rooms, and in many cases sterilising
sheds were already installed. The walls were made of a
material that could be quickly whitewashed for the ex-
termination of germs. If this obvious preparation for
war is named to the average German, his reply is, "The
growing jealousy of German culture and commerce
throughout the world rendered necessary protective
measures."
A total lack of sense of humour and sense of pro-
portion among the Germans can be gathered from the
fact that Mr. Haselden's famous cartoons of Big and
Little Willie, which have a vogue among Americans
and other neutrals in Germany, and are by no means
unkind, are regarded by Germans as a sort of sacrilege.
These same people do not hesitate to circulate the most
horrible and indecent pictures of President Wilson,
36 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
King George, President Poincare, and especially of
Viscount Grey of Falloden. The Tsar is usually de-
picted covered with vermin. The King of Italy as an
evil-looking dwarf with a dagger in his hand. Only
those who have seen the virulence of the caricatures,
circulated by picture postcard, can have any idea of the
horrible material on which the German child is fed.
The only protest I ever heard came from the Artists'
Society of Munich, who objected to these loathsome edu-
cational efforts as being injurious to the reputation of
artistic Germany and calculated to produce permanent
damage to the juvenile mind.
The atmosphere of the German home is so different
from that in which I have been brought up in the
United States, and have seen in England, that the Ger-
mans are not at all shocked by topics of conversation
never referred to in other countries. Subjects are dis-
cussed before German girls of eleven and twelve, and
German boys of the same age, that make an Anglo-
Saxon anxious to get out of the room. I do not know
whether it is this or the over-education that leads to
the notorious child suicides of Germany, upon which
so many learned treatises have been written.
Just before the war it looked as though the German
young man and woman were going to improve. Lawn
tennis was spreading, despite old-fashioned prejudice.
Football was coming in. Rowing was making some
progress, as you may have learned at Henley. It was
not the spontaneous sport of Anglo-Saxon countries, but
a more concentrated effort to imitate and to excel.
Running races had become lately a German school
amusement, but the results, as a rule, were that if
CRIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN 37
there were five competitors, the four losers entered a
protest against the winner. In any case, each of the four
produced excellent excuses why he had lost, other than
the fact that he had been properly beaten.
A learned American "exchange professor," who had
returned from a German university, whom I met in
Boston last year on my way from England to Germany,
truly summed up the situation of athletics in German
schools by saying, "German boys are bad-tempered losers
and boastful winners."
Upon what kinds of history is the German child being
brought up ? The basis of it is the history of the House
of Hohenzollern, with volumes devoted to the Danish
and Austrian campaigns and minute descriptions of
every phase of all the battles with France in 1870,
written in a curious hysterical fashion.
The admixture of Biblical references and German
boasting are typical of the lessons taught at German
Sunday Schools, which play a great role in war prop-
aganda. The schoolmaster having done his work for
six days of the week, the pastor gives an extra virulent
dose on the Sabbath. Sedan Day, which before the war
was the culmination of hate lessons, often formed the
occasion of Sunday School picnics, at which the chil-
dren sang new anti-French songs.
There are some traits in German children most
likeable. There are, for example, the respect for, and
courtesy and kindness towards, anybody older than
themselves. There are admiration for learning and
ambition to excel in any particular task. There is a
genuine love of music. On the other hand, there is
much dishonesty, as may be witnessed by the proceed-
38 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ings in the German police courts, and has been proved
in the gold and other collections.
The elimination of real religion in the education of
children and the substitution of worship of the State is,
in the minds of many impartial observers, something
approaching a national catastrophe. In any other com-
munity it would probably be accompanied by anarchy.
It certainly has swelled the calendar of German crime.
German statistics prove that every sort of horror has
been greatly on the increase in the last quarter of a
century.
I went to Germany the first time under the impres-
sion that the Anglo-Saxon had much to learn from
German education. I do not think that any observer
in Germany itself to-day would find anything valuable
to learn in the field of education, except when the Ger-
man student comes to the time he takes up scentific re-
search, to which the German mind, with its intense in-
dustry and regard for detail, is so eminently suited.
The German Government gives these young students
every advantage. They are not, as with us, obliged to
start money-making as soon as they leave school. As a
rule a German boy's career is marked out for him by
his parents and the schoolmaster at a very early age.
If he is to follow out any one of the thousand branches
of chemical research dealing with coal-tar products, for
example, he knows his fate at fourteen or fifteen, and his
eye is rarely averted from his goal until he has achieved
knowledge and experience likely to help him in the
great German trade success which has followed their
utilisation of applied science.
CHAPTER IV
PULPITS OF HATE
THE unpleasant part played by the clergy, and
especially the Lutheran pastors, needs to be ex-
plained to those who regard clerics as necessarily men
of peace.
The claim that the Almighty is on the side of Ger-
many is not a new one. It was made as far back as
the time of Frederick the Great. It was advanced in
the war of 1870. It found strong voice at the time of
the Boer War, when the pastors issued a united mani-
festo virulently attacking Great Britain.
These pastors are in communication with the German-
American Lutherans in the United States, who exerted
their influence to the utmost against the election of
President Wilson, taking their instructions indirectly
from the German Foreign Office.
The state of affairs in the German churches is so dif-
ferent from anything on the other side of the Atlantic,
and in Great Britain, that it is almost as difficult to
make people in England understand war-preaching min-
isters as it is to make them comprehend war-teaching
schoolmasters.
My description of the poisoning by hate songs of the
child mind of Germany at its most impressionable age
came as a shock to many of my readers. But the hate
songs of the children are not as fierce as the hate hymns
39
40 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
and prayers of the pastors. Do the public here realise
that of the original Zeppelin fund hundreds of thou-
sands of marks were subscribed in churches and chapels,
and that models of Zeppelins have formed portions of
church decorations at festivals ?
The pastors of the Prussian State Church are in one
important respect the exact opposite of Martin Luther.
He was thoroughly independent in spirit and rebelled
against authority; they are abjectly submissive to it.
As with the professor, so with the pastor, it is no mere
accident that he is a puppet-tool of the State. The Ger-
man Government leaves nothing to chance, and realising
to the fullest the importance of docile and unified sub-
jects both for interior rule and exterior conquest, it
deliberately and artfully regulates those who create pub-
lic opinion.
There are some Lutheran pastors in Germany who
work for an ideal, who detest the propagation of hate.
Why, one may naturally ask, do they not cry out against
such a pernicious practice ? They cannot, for they are
muzzled. When a pastor enters this Church of which
the Supreme War Lord is the head, his first oath is un-
qualified allegiance to his King and State. If he keeps
his oath he can preach no reform, for the State, being a
perfect institution, can have no flaw. If he breaks his
oath, which happens when he raises his voice in the
slightest criticism, he is silenced. This means that he
must seek other means of earning a livelihood a thing
almost impossible in a land where training casts a man
in a rigid mould. Thus these parsons have their choice
between going on quietly with their work and being
nonentities in the public eye or bespattering the non-
PULPITS OF HATE 41
Germanic section of the world with the mire of hate.
I regret to say that most of them choose the latter
course.
While I was in Germany I read a lenghty and solicit-
out letter from Pastor Winter, of Bruch, addressed to
Admiral von Tipitz, who had just retired for the osten-
sible reason that he was unwell, but whose illness was
patently only diplomatic. The good pastor expressed
the hope that his early recovery would permit the ad-
miral to continue his noble work of olbiterating Eng-
land. Pastor Talk, of Berlin, is a typical fire-eater.
His Whitsuntide address was an attack upon Anglo-
Saxon civilisation and the urgent German mission of
smashing Britain and America. The Easter sermons of
hate, one of which I heard at Stettin, were especially
bloodthirsty. Congregations are larger than usual on
that day, which is intended to commemorate a spirit
quite the opposite to hate. The clergy are instructed
not to attack France or Russia, and so it comes about
that, as I have previously pointed out, in Prussia,
Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, and Sax-
ony, the pastors of the State Church preach hatred of
Britain as violently in their pulpits as in their pastoral
visits.
The pulpit orators, taking their tip from the Govern-
ment, are also exhorting their congregations to "hold out
and win the war." I know of one pastor in a good sec-
tion of Berlin, however, who has recently lost consider-
able influence in his congregation. Sunday after Sun-
day his text has been, "Wir mussen durchhalten !"
(We must hold out !) "No sacrifice should be too great
for the Fatherland, no privation too arduous to be en-
42 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
dured if one but has the spirit to conquer." He paid
particular attention to the rapidly increasing number
of people who grumble incessantly over the shortage of
food. The good man was clearly losing patience with
those who complained.
One day thieves broke into his home and got away
with an enormous amount of hams and other edibles.
I remind the reader that ham had ere this become un-
known in Berlin. Less than three hundred pigs were
being killed there per week where formerly twenty-five
thousand were slaughtered. The Government had more-
over taken a house-to-house inventory of food, and
hoarding had been made punishable by law.
The story, of course, never appeared in the papers,
since such divines are useful implements of the State,
but the whole congregation heard of it, with the disas-
trous consequence that the good man's future sermons
on self-denial fell upon stony ground.
One dear old lady, a widow, whose two sons had
fallen in the war, told me that she had not gone to
church for years, but after her second son fell she sought
spiritual comfort in attending services every Sunday.
"I am so lonesome now," she said, "and somehow I feel
that when I hear the word of God I shall be nearer to
my boys."
I met her some weeks later on her way home from
church. "It is no use," she sighed, shaking her head
sadly, "the church does not satisfy the longing in my
heart. It is not for such as me. Nothing but war, war,
war, and hate, hate, hate !"
The German Navy League, an aggressive body which
had gathered around it more than a million members
PULPITS OF HATE 43
previous to the war, stirred up anti-British feeling by
means of leaflets, newspaper articles, kinematograph
exhibitions, and sermons. Among the bitterest of the
preachers are returned missionaries from British pos-
sessions.
Although the social position of the pastor in a German
village is less than that of a minor Government official,
yet he and his wife wield considerable influence. The
leading pastors receive each week many of the Govern-
ment propaganda documents, including a digest carefully
prepared for them by the Foreign Press Department.
I obtained some copies of this weekly digest, but was
unable to bring them out of Germany. What purport
to be extracts from the London newspapers are ingenious
distortions. Sometimes a portion of an article is re-
printed with the omission of the context, thus entirely
altering its meaning. The recipients of this carefully
prepared sheet believe implicitly in its authenticity.
Any chance remark of a political nobody in the House
of Commons that seems favourable to Germany is
quoted extensively. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, in the
eyes of the German village clergyman, ranks as one of
the most important men in the British Empire. Mr.
Stanton, M.P., in their view, is a low hireling of the
British Government, doing dirty work in the hope of
getting political preferment. The Labour Leader, which
I have not seen in any house or hotel or on any news-
paper stall, is, according to this digest, one of the lead-
ing English newspapers, and almost the only truth-
telling organ of the Allies.
These people really believe this. When home-staying
Englishmen talk to me about the German War party, I
44 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
find it difficult to explain to them that the German
War party is practically the whole country.
One or two better-travelled and better-educated pas-
tors have expressed mild regret at the bloodthirsty atti-
tude of their brethren in private conversation. But I
never heard of one who had the courage to "speak out in
open meeting."
The modern, material Germany has not much use for
religion except as a factor in government. The notori-
ous spread of extreme agnosticism in the last quarter of
a century renders it essential for the clergy to hold their
places by stooping to the violence of the Professors.
Mixed with their attitude of hostility to Britain is a
considerable amount of professional jealousy and envy.
A number of German pastors paid a visit to London
some two or three years before the outbreak of war, and
I happened to meet one of them recently in Germany.
So far from being impressed by what he had seen there,
he had come to the conclusion that the English clergy,
and especially the Nonconformists, were an overpaid
and undisciplined body, with no other aim than their
personal comfort. He had visited Westminster Abbey,
St. Paul's^ Spurgeon's Tabernacle, the City Temple, and
had studied so he told me English Wesleyanism and
Congregationalism in several provincial centres. He
was particularly bitter about one Nonconformist who
had accepted a large salary to go to the United States.
He returned to Germany impressed with the idea that
the Nonconformist and State Churches alike were a
body of sycophants, sharing the general decadent state
of the English. What struck him principally was what
he referred to continually as the lack of discipline and
PULPITS OF HATE 45
uniformity. Each man seemed to take his own point
of view, without any regard to the opinions of the partic-
ular religious denomination to which he belonged. All
were grossly ignorant of science and chemistry, and all
were very much overpaid. Here, I think, lay the sting
of his envy, and it is part of the general jealousy of Eng-
land, a country where everybody is supposed to be under-
worked and overpaid.
The only worse country in this respect from the Ger-
man point of view is the United States, "where even
the American Lutheran pastors have fallen victims to
the lust for money." The particular Lutheran of whom
I am speaking had been the guest of an English Non-
conformist minister and his wife, who had evidently
tried to be as hospitable as possible, and had no doubt
put themselves out to take him for excursions and out-
ings in the Shakespeare country.
"It was nothing but eating and drinking and sight-
seeing," remarked the Herr Pastor.
I suggested that he was a guest, to be looked after.
"I can assure you," he replied, "that Mr. had
nothing to do all day but read the newspapers, and
drink tea with his congregation. He did not take the
trouble to grow his own vegetables, and all he had to do
was to preach on Sundays and attend a very unruly
Sunday school. His wife, too, was not dressed as one
of ours."
He explained to me that his own life was very dif-
ferent. He eked out his minute salary by a small sci-
entifically managed farm, and I gathered the impression
that he was much more of a farmer than a pastor, for he
deplored his inability to obtain imported nitrates owing
to the blockade. The only question on which he was
at all unorthodox was that of the Junkers and their
regrettable power of holding potatoes, pigs, and other
supplies while small men like him had been obliged to
sell. He had a good collection of modern scientific agri-
cultural works, of which the Germans have an
abundance.
But while admiring the energy of the great capitalists
and the National Liberal Party, the average clergyman
tends towards sympathy with the Agrarians. The pas-
tor of the small towns and villages, who is very much
under the thumb of the local Junker or rich manufac-
turer, has as his highest ambition the hope that he and
his wife may be invited to coffee at least twice a year.
The pastor's wife is delighted to be condescendingly
received by the great lady. Herr Pastor talks agricul-
ture with Herr Baron, and Frau Pastor discusses past
and coming incidents in the local birth rate with Frau
Baron. Snobbery has no greater exemplification than
in the relations of the local Lutheran pastor and the
local landlord or millionaire.
A sidelight on German mentality is contained in a
little conversation which I had with a clergyman in the
Province of Posen. He knew England well, by resi-
dence and by matrimonial connections.
This is how he explained the battle of the Somme.
I give his own words :
"Many wounded men are coming back to our Church
from the dreadful Western front. They have been
fighting the British, and they find that so ignorant are
the British of warfare that the British soldiers on the
Somme refuse to surrender, not knowing that they are
PULPITS OF HATE 47
really beaten, with the result that terrible losses are
inflicted upon our brave troops."
In this exact report of a conversation is summed up
a great deal of German psychology.
For the Salvation Army a number of Germans have
genuine respect, because it seems to be organised on
some military basis. The Church of England they con-
sider as degenerate as the Nonconformist. Both, they
think, are mere refuges for money-making ecclesiastics.
CHAPTER V
PUPPET PROFESSOES
THE professor, like the army officer, has long been
a semi-deity in Germany. Not only in his uni-
versity lectures does he influence the students, and
particularly the prospective teachers of secondary
schools who hang on his words, but he writes the bulk
of the historical, economic and political literature of the
daily Press, the magazines and the tons of pamphlets
which flood the country.
Years before the war the Government corralled him
for its own. It gave him social status, in return for
which he would do his part to make the citizen an un-
questioning, faithful and obedient servant of the State.
As soon as he enters on his duties he becomes a civil
servant, since the universities are State institutions. He
takes an oath in which it is stipulated that he will
not write or preach or do anything questioning the
ways of the State. His only way to make progress
in life, then, is to serve the State, to preach what it
wishes preached, to teach history as it wishes history
taught.
The history of Prussia is the history of the House of
Hohenzollern, and the members of the House,, genera-
tion after generation, must all be portrayed as heroes.
There was a striking illustration of this in 1913 when
the Kaiser had Hauptmann's historical play suppressed
48
PUPPET PROFESSORS 49
because it represented Frederick William III. in true
light, as putty in the hands of Napoleon.
There is a small group of German professors inter-
ested solely in scientific research, such as Professor
Roentgen and the late Professor Ehrlich, which we ex-
clude from the "puppet professors." Such men succeed
through sheer ability and their results are their diplo-
mas before the world. Neither shoulder-knots nor
medals pinned in rows across their breasts would con-
tribute one iota to their success, nor make that success
the more glittering once it is achieved.
One of these, a Bavarian of the old school, a thought-
ful, liberal man who had travelled widely, told me that
he deplored the depths of mental slavery to which the
mass of the German professors had sunk. "They are
living on the reputation made by us scientists," he de-
clared. "They write volumes and they go about preach-
ing through the land, but they contribute nothing,
absolutely nothing, to the uplifting of humanity and of
the country." He told me of how Government spies
before the war and during it watch professors who are
suspected of having independent ways of thought, and
for the slightest "offence" such as being in the audience
of a Social Democratic lecture (this before the war, of
course ; such meetings are forbidden now) they are put
on the official black-list and promotion is closed to them
for ever.
In warring Germany I found professors vying with
one another to sow hatred among the people, to show
that Germany is always right, and that she is fighting a
war of defence, which she tried to avoid by every means
in her power, and that any methods employed to crush
50 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Great Britain, the real instigator of the attack on Ger-
many, are good methods.
With the pastors, they spread the idea that "Ger-
many is the rock selected by Almighty God upon
which to build His Empire." J. P. Bang, the able Dan-
ish Professor of Theology at the University of Copen-
hagen, writes clearly on this point. He says, when
describing Emanuel Geibel :
"He has succeeded in finding the classical formula
for the German arrogance, which of necessity demands
that Germanism shall be placed above everything else
in the world, and at the same time in giving this arro-
gance such an expression that it shall not conflict with
the German demand for moral justification. This has
been achieved in the lines which have been quoted times
without number in the newest German war literature:
Und es mag am deuischen Wesen
Einmal noch die Welt genesen!
(The world may yet again be healed by Germanism.)
"The hope here expressed has become a certainty for
modern Germany, and the Germans see in this the moral
basis for all their demands. Why must Germany be
victorious, why must she have her place in the sun, why
must her frontiers be extended, why is all opposition
to Germany shameful, not to say devilish, why must
Germany become a world-empire, why ought Germany
and not Great Britain to become the great Colonial
Power ? Why, because it is through the medium of Ger-
manism that the world is to be healed ; it is upon Ger-
manism that the salvation of the world depends. That
is why all attacks against Germanism are against God's
plans, in opposition to His designs for the world; in
PUPPET PROFESSORS 51
short, a sin against God. The Germans do not seem to
be able to understand that other nations cannot be par-
ticularly delighted at being described as sickly shoots
which can only be healed by coming under the influence
of German fountains of health. Yet one would think
that, if they would only reflect a little upon what the
two lines quoted above imply, they would be able in
some measure to understand the dislike for them, which
they declare to be so incomprehensible.
"He also prophesied about the great master who
would arise and create the unity of Germany. This
prophecy was brilliantly fulfilled in Bismarck. After
1866 he loudly clamours for Alsace-Lorraine. This he
cannot reasonably have expected to obtain without war ;
but when the war comes we hear exactly the same tale
as now of the Germans' love of peace and the despicable
deceitfulness of their enemies. 'And the peace shall be
a German peace; now tremble before the sword of God
and of Germany ye who are strong in impiety and fruit-
ful in bloodguiltiness.' '
Hate lectures have been both fashionable and popular
in Germany during the war. I was attracted to one
in Munich by flaming red and yellow posters which an-
nounced that Professor Werner Sombart of the Univer-
sity of Berlin would speak at the Vierjahreszeiten Hall
on "Unser Hass gegen England" (Our Hatred of Eng-
land).
I sat among the elite of the Bavarian capital in a
large hall with even the standing room filled, when a
black-bearded professor stepped upon the stage amid
a flutter of handclapping and proceeded to his task
without any introduction. He was a Professor of
5 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Hatred, and it soon became quite clear that he was full
of his subject. His lank frame leaned over the foot-
lights and he wound and unwound his long, thin fingers,
while his lips sneered and his sharp black eyes gleamed
venom as he instructed business men, bankers, smart
young officers, lorgnetted dowagers and sweet-faced
girls, in the duty of hating with the whole heart and the
whole mind. I soon felt that if Lissauer is the Horace
of Hate, Sombart is its Demosthenes.
"It is not our duty (duty is always a good catchword
in German appeal) to hate individual Englishmen, such
as Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd
George. No, we must go far beyond that. We must
hate the very essence of everything English. We must
hate the very soul of England. An abysmal gulf yawns
between the two nations which can never, and must
never, be bridged over. We need borrow Kultur from
no nation on earth, for we ourselves have developed the
highest Kultur in the world."
The professor continued in this strain for an hour
and a half, and concluded with the rather striking
statements that hatred is the greatest force in the ivorld
to overcome tremendous obstacles, and that either one
must hate or one must fear.
The moral is, of course, obvious. Nobody wishes to
be a coward, therefore the only alternative is to hate.
Therefore, hate England !
I watched the audience during the lecture and did
not fail to note the close attention shown the professor
and the constant nods and sighs of assent of those about
me. I was not, however, prepared for the wild tumult
of applause at the finish. Indeed the admiring throng
PUPPET PROFESSORS 53
rushed to the stage to shower him with ad-
miration.
"Das war dber zu schon!" sighed a dowager near me.
"Ja, ja, wunderbar. Ein Berliner Professor!" And
the student with Sclimissen (sabre cuts) across his close-
cropped head smacked his lips with satisfaction over the
words much as he might have done over his Stein at the
Fiirstenhof.
I investigated Professor Sombart and learned from
authority which is beyond question that he was an out
and out Government agent foisted on to the University
of Berlin against the wishes of its faculty.
The name of Professor Joseph Kohler is known all
over the world to men who have the slightest acquain-
tance with German jurisprudence. His literary output
has been enormous and he has unquestionably made
many valuable contributions to legal science. Even
he, however, cannot do the impossible, and his "Not
Jcennt Tcein Geboi" (Necessity knows no law), an at-
tempt in the summer of 1915 to justify the German
invasion of Belgium, makes Germany's case on this
particular point appear worse than ever.
The Empire of Rome and the Empire of Napoleon
worked upon the principle that necessity knows no law.
Why should not the Empire of William II. ? That is
the introductory theme. The reader then wades through
page after page of classical philosophy, biblical philos-
ophy, and modern German philosophy which support
the theory that a sin may not always be a sin. One may
steal, for example, if by so doing a life be saved. It
naturally follows from this that when a nation is con-
fronted by a problem which involves its very existence
54 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
it may do anything which may work to its advantage.
Thus Germany did right in attacking the little country
she had solemnly sworn to defend, and history will later
prove that the real barbarians of the war are the Amer-
icans, since they are so abjectly ignorant as to call the
Germans barbarians for acting as they did. So argues
Joseph Kohler, who certainly ranks among the first
half-dozen professors of Germany.
There are a few professors of international law in
Germany, however, who have preserved a legally-
balanced attitude despite their sympathies. One of
these wrote an article for a law periodical, many of the
statements of which were in direct contradiction to
statements in the German Press. The German people,
for example, were being instructed a not difficult task
that Britain was violating international law when her
vessels hoisted a neutral flag during pursuit. This pro-
fessor simply quoted paragraph 81 of the German Prize
Code which showed that orders to German ships were
precisely the same. Were this known to the German
population one of the ten thousand hate tricks would be
out of commission. Therefore, this and similar articles
must be suppressed, not because they are not true, but
because they would interfere with the delusion of hate
which saturates the mind of the new Germany. I have
seen articles returned to this distinguished writer with
the censor stamp : Not to be published till after the war.
When a winning Germany began to grow angry at
American munition deliveries I heard much talk of the
indemnity which the United States would be compelled
to pay after Europe had been duly disposed of. Pro-
fessor Hermann Oncken, of the University of Heidel-
berg, made this his theme in a widely read booklet, en-
PUPPET PROFESSORS 55
titled, "Deutschlands \Veltkrieg und die Deutsch-Ameri-
kaner"
Professor P. von Gast, of the Technical College of
Aachen, does not appear to realise that his country has
a sufficient job on her hands in Europe and Africa, but
thinks the midst of a great war a suitable time to arouse
his countrymen against the .United States in Latin
America. He explains that the Monroe Doctrine was
simply an attempt on the part of the great Anglo-Saxon
Kepublic to gobble up the whole continent to the south
for herself. "All the world must oppose America in this
attempt," he feels.
Then there is Professor Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who
writes on reprisals in the Juristenblatt of July, 1916.
It should be borne in mind that he is a professor of law
and that he is writing in a book which is read by legal
minds and not by the general public; all the more reason
that we should expect something that would contain
common sense. Professor Bartholdy, after expressing
his profound horror over the French raid on Karlsruhe,
hastens to explain that such methods can be of not the
slightest military advantage to the French, but will only
arouse Germany to fight all the harder. He deplores
enemy attacks on unfortified districts, and claims that
the French military powers confess that such acts are
not glorious by their failure to pin decorations on the
breasts of the aviators who perpetrate them, in the same
way as the German Staff honours heroes like Boelke and
Immelmann, who fight, as do all German aviators, like
men.
There have been many incidents outside of Germany
of which the professor apparently has never heard, or
else his sense of humour is below the zero mark.
56 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
My talks with German professors impressed me with
how little most of them keep in touch with the war
situation from day to day and from month to month.
A Berlin professor of repute with whom I sipped coffee
one day in the Cafe Bauer expressed the greatest sur-
prise when he heard that a neutral could actually get
from America to Germany. I heard this opinion very
often among the common people, but had supposed that
doctors of philosophy were somewhat better informed.
During my conversation with another professor,
whose war remarks have been circulated in the neutral
countries by the Official News Service, he remarked that
he read the London Times and other English news-
papers regularly.
"Oh, so you get the English papers ?" I asked, fully
aware that one may do so in Germany.
"Not exactly," returned the professor. "The Gov-
ernment has a very nice arrangement by which con-
densed articles from the English newspapers are pre-
pared and sent to us professors."
This was the final straw. I had always considered
professors to be men who did research work, and I sup-
posed that professors on political science and history
consulted original sources when possible. Yet the Ger-
man professor of the twentieth century is content to
take what the Government gives him and only what the
Government gives to him.
Thus we find that the professor is a great power in
Germany in the control of the minds of the people, and
that the Government controls the mind of the professor.
He is simply one of the instruments in the German
Government's Intellectual Blockade of the German
people.
CHAPTER VI
THE LIE ON THE FILM
AT the end of an absorbingly interesting reel show-
ing the Kaiser reviewing his troops, a huge green
trade-mark globe revolved with a streamer fluttering
Berlin. The lights were turned on and the operator
looked over his assortment of reels.
An American had been granted permission to take
war films in Germany in the autumn of 1914, to be
exhibited in the United States. After he had arrived,
however, the authorities had refused to Het him take
pictures with the army, but, like the proverbial druggist,
had offered him something "just as good." In London,
on his return journey home, he showed to a few news-
paper correspondents the fijms which Germany had
foisted upon him.
"The next film, gentlemen, will depict scenes in East
Prussia," the operator announced.
Although I had probably seen most of these pictures
in Germany, my interest quickened, for I had been
through that devastated province during and after the
first invasion. Familiar scenes of ruined villages and
refugees scudding from the sulphur storm passed before
my eyes. Then came the ruined heap of a once stately
church tagged Beautiful Church in Allenburg Destroyed
by the Russians. The destruction seemed the more
heinous since a trace of former beauty lived through the
57
5 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ruins, and you could not view this link of evidence
against the Russians without a feeling of resentment.
This out-of-the-way church was not architecturally im-
portant to the world as is Rheims Cathedral, to be sure,
but the destruction seemed just as wanton.
The next picture flashed on the screen showed a Rus-
sian church intact, with the simple title, Russian Church
at Potetschki. The moral of the sequence was clear.
The German Government, up to the minute in all things,
knows the vivid educative force of the kinema, and
realises the effect of such a sequence of pictures upon
her people at home and neutrals throughout the world.
It enables them to see for themselves the difference
between the barbarous Russians and the generous
Germans.
The reel buzzed on, but I did not see the succeeding
pictures, for my thoughts were of far-off East Prussia,
of Allenburg, and of the true story of the ruined church
by the Alle River.
Tannenberg had been fought, Samsanow had been
decisively smashed in the swamps and plashy streams,
and Hindenburg turned north-east to cut off Rennen-
kampf's army, which had advanced to the gates of
Kb'nigsberg. The outside world had been horrified by
stories of German crime in Belgium; whereupon Ger-
many counter attacked with reports of terrible atrocities
perpetrated by the Russians, of boys whose right hands
had been cut off so that they could never serve in the
army, of wanton murder, rapine and burnings. I read
these stories in the Berlin papers, and they filled me
with a deep feeling against Russia.
THE LIE ON THE FILM 59
One of the most momentous battles of history was
being fought in the West, and the Kaiser's armies were
in full retreat from the Marne to the Aisne, but Berlin
knew nothing of this. Refugees from East Prussia
with white arm-bands filled the streets, Hindenburg
and victory were on every tongue, Paris was forgotten,
and all interest centred in the Eastern theatre of war.
That was in the good old days when the war was
young, when armies were taking up positions, when the
management of newspaper reporters was not developed
to a fine art, when Europe was topsy-turvy, when it was
quite the thing for war correspondents to outwit the
authorities and see all they could.
I resolved to make an attempt to get into East Prus-
sia, and as it was useless to wait for official permission
that is, if I was to see things while fresh I de-
termined to play the game and trust to luck.
Danzig seemed the end of my effort, for the railroad
running east was choked with military trains, the trans-
portation of troops and supplies in one direction and
prisoners and wounded in the other. By good fortune,
however, I booked passage on a boat for Konigsberg.
The little steamer nosed its way through a long lock
canal amid scenery decidedly Dutch, with old grey
windmills dotting broad flat stretches, black and white
cows looming large and distinct on the landscape, and
fish nets along the water's edge. To the right the shore
grew bolder after we entered the Frishes Haff, a broad
lagoon separated from the Baltic by a narrow strip of
pasture land. Red sails glowed in the clear sunshine,
adding an Adriatic touch. Cumbersome junk-like boats
flying the Red Cross passed west under full sail. Ger-
60 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
many was using every man at her disposal to transport
wounded and prisoners from the battle region which we
were drawing near.
A smoky haze ahead indicated Kb'nigsberg. The
mouth of the Pregel bustled with activity, new fortifi-
cations were being everywhere thrown up, while indis-
tinct field-grey figures swarmed over the plain like ants.
We glided through forests of masts and rigging and slid
up to a pier opposite great sagging warehouses behind
which the sun was setting.
As I picked up my bag to go ashore, a heavy hand
fell on my shoulder and I was asked to wait until we
were boarded from the police boat which was puffing
alongside. My detainer, a government inspector, a man
of massive frame with deep set eyes and a shaggy black
beard, refused to say more than that the police wished
to see me. They had been signalled and were coming
to the boat expressly for that purpose.
American ammunition had not begun to play its part
in German public opinion at that time, and, moreover,
America was being hailed everywhere in Germany as a
possible ally against Japan. Therefore, although only a
few days previously Russian guns had been booming
less than a dozen miles away, and Kb'nigsburg was now
the base against Rennenkampf, my presence was toler-
ated, and I finally managed to get lodgings for the night
after I had found two hotels turned into hospitals.
I spent the following day trying to obtain permission
to pass the cordon of sentries outside the city, but I
received only the advice to go back to Berlin and apply
at the Auswartiges Ami (Foreign Office). I did not
wish to wait in Berlin until this campaign was over ; I
THE LIE ON THE FILM 61
wished to follow on the heels of the army through the
ruined land and catch up to the fighting if possible.
American correspondents had done this in Belgium. I
myself had done it with the Austrians against the Serbs,
and I succeeded in East Prussia, but not through Berlin.
I was well aware that Germany was making a tre-
mendous bid for neutral favour. I had furthermore
heard so much of Russian atrocities that I was convinced
that the stories were true; consequently I decided to
play the role of an investigator of Muscovite crime.
I won Herr Meyer of the Wolff Telegraph Bureau, who
sent me along with his card to Commandant von Ranch,
who at first refused to let me proceed, but after I had
hovered outside his door for three days, finally gave me
a pass to go to Tapiau, the high-water mark of the Rus-
sian invasion.
That night, "by chance," in the Deutsclicr Hof, I met
the black-bearded official who had arrested me on the
boat, and I told him that I had permission to go to Ta-
piau next morning. When he became convinced that
I was a professional atrocity hunter who believed that
the Russians had been brutal, his hospitality became
boundless, and over copious steins of Munich beer he
described the invaders in a manner which made Glad-
stone's expose of the Turks in Bulgaria, the stories of
Captain Kidd, and the tales of the Spanish Inquisition
seem like essays on brotherly love. He was particularly
incensed at the Russians because they had destroyed
Allenburg, for Allenburg was his home. One of the
stories on which he laid great stress was that a band of
Cossacks had pillaged the church just outside of Allen-
burg on the road to Friedland, after they had driven
sixty innocent maidens into it and outraged them there.
62 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
A train of the Milit'dr-Personenzug variety bore me
next morning through a country of barbed wire, gun
emplacements and fields seamed with trenches to Ta-
piau, a town withered in the blast of war. Two ruined
bridges in the Pregel bore silent testimony to the straits
of the retreating Germans, for the remaining ends on
the further shore were barricaded with scraps of iron
and wood gathered from the wreckage.
Landsturm guards examined my pass, which was
good only for Tapiau and return. I decided to miss
the train back, however, and push on in the wake of the
army to Wehlau. Outside of Tapiau I was challenged
by a sentry, who, to my amazement, did not examine my
now worthless pass when I pulled it from my pocket,
but motioned me on.
The road ran through eye-tiring stretches of meadows
pockmarked with great shell holes full of black water.
I came upon the remains of an old brick farmhouse bat-
tered to dust in woods which were torn to splinters by
shell, bullet and shrapnel. The Russians had bom-
barded Tapiau from here, and had in turn been shelled
in the trenches which they had dug and chopped in the
labyrinth of roots. Among the debris of tins, cases,
knapsacks and cartridge clips were fragments of uni-
forms which had been blown off Russian bodies by Ger-
man shells, while on a branch above my head a
shrivelled human arm dangled in the light breeze of
September.
I left the sickening atmosphere of the woods behind
and pushed on to Wehlau, a primitive little town situ-
ated on the meadows where the Alle flows into the
Pregel. Here my troubles began. Soldiers stared at
THE LIE ON THE FILM 63
me as I walked through crooked, narrow streets un-
evenly paved with small stones in a manner that would
bring joy to the heart of a shoe manufacturer. The sun
sank in a cloudless blaze behind a line of trenches on
a gentle slope above the. western shore when I entered
the Gasthof Robe, where I hoped to get a room for the
night.
I had no sooner crossed the threshold, however, than
I was arrested and brought to the Etappen-Commandant
in the Pregelstrasse. I fully expected to be placed un-
der arrest or be deported, but I determined to put up the
best bluff possible. A knowledge of Germans and their
respect for any authority above that invested in their
own individual selves led me to decide upon a bold
course of action, so I resolved to play the game with a
high hand and with an absolute exterior confidence of
manner.
Instead of waiting to be questioned when I was
brought into the presence of the stern old officer, I told
him at once that I had been looking for him. I informed
him that Herr von Meyer and Commandant Rauch in
Konigsberg were in hearty sympathy with my search for
Russian atrocities, but although I succeeded in quieting
any suspicions which the Commandant may have en-
tertained, I found winning permission to stay in Wehlau
an exceedingly difficult matter.
Orders were orders! He explained that the battle
was rolling eastward not far away and that I must go
back. To add weight to what he said he read me a set
of typewritten orders which had come from Berlin the
day before. "Journalists are not allowed with the army
or in the wake of the army in East Prussia. . . ."
64 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
he read, in a tone which indicated that he considered the
last word said.
But I had become so fascinated with this battle-
scarred, uncanny, out-of-the-way land that I resolved
to try every means to stay. I declared that on this
particular mission I was more of an investigator than a
journalist, that I had the special task (self-imposed,
to be sure) of investigating Russian atrocities; that if
Berlin reports were to be given credence abroad they
must be substantiated by some impartial observer. If
Germany would supply the atrocities, I would supply
the copy. That she wished to do so was evidenced by
the permissions granted me by Herr von Meyer of the
Wolff Telegraph Bureau and Commandant Rauch of
the capital of the devastated province. (I had passed
beyond the point where I was told that I could go, but
at any rate their names carried weight.) Would it not
seem strange if the Commandant at Wehlau had me
sent back after these great men had set their seal of
approval upon my investigations ? After Germany had
made such grave charges against the Russians, how
would it impress American readers that the German
Commandant at Wehlau could not make good and had
sent me back ?
Then, as a finishing stroke, I pulled my passport from
my pocket and showed Berlin's approval of me stamped
impressively in the right-hand corner. This vise was
not at all unique with me. It had been affixed to the
passports of thousands of Americans of all grades, and
was merely to ensure passage from Germany into Hol-
land. As I did not wish to impose upon the time of the
Commandant I did not burden him with these extran-
THE LIE ON THE FILM 65
ecus details while he feasted his eyes on the magic
words: Gesehen, Berlin. Mount Olympus, Mecca, Im-
perial and Ecclesiastical Rome all rolled into one
that is authoritative Berlin to the German of the
province.
"Geselien, Berlin," he repeated with reverence, care-
fully folded the passport and deferentially handed it
back to me. I saw that I was winning, so I sought to
rise to the occasion.
"And now, Herr Commandant," I began, "can you
suggest where I may best begin my atrocity work to-
morrow ? Or first, would it not be well for me to get a
more complete idea of the invasion by seeing on the map
just what routes the Russians took coming in ?"
He unfolded a large military map of peerless Ger-
man accuracy and regaled me for more than half an
hour with the military features of the campaign.
"Just tell me the worst things that the Russians have
done," I began, "and I will start investigating them to-
morrow."
Then he anathematised the Russians and all things
Russian, while his orderly stood stiffly and admiringly
at attention and the other officers stopped in their tracks.
"First you should visit the ruins of the once beauti-
ful old castle at Labiau destroyed by the beasts," he
thundered. "And they also wantonly destroyed the
magnificent old church near by."
He followed with an account of the history of the
castle, and it was clear that he was deeply affected by
the loss of these landscape embellishments which he had
learned to love so much that they became part of his life,
and that their destruction deeply enraged him against
66 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the enemy. Though I saw his point of view and sym-
pathised with him, I questioned him in the hope of
learning of some real atrocities. It was useless. Al-
though he made general charges against the Russians,
he always reverted, when pinned down to facts, with a
fresh burst of anger, to the castle and church of Labiau
as his pet atrocity.
The orderly had just been commanded to take me on
a search for quarters for the night, when an automobile
horn tooted beneath the window. Heavy steps on the
stairs ; a Staff Officer entered the room, looked surprised
to see me, and asked who I was. The Commandant
justified his permission to let me remain by eulogising
the noble work upon which I was engaged, but though
the Staff Officer's objections were hushed, he did not
enthuse over my coming.
With intent to convince him that I was already hard
at work I told him of the terrible destruction of the
castle and church at Labiau, which I would visit on the
following day.
"I have a sergeant below who was there, and I will
have him come in," he said.
The sergeant entered, clicked his heels at attention;
a doughty old warrior, small and wiry, not a civilian
thrust into field-grey, but a soldier, every inch of him,
a Prussian soldier, turned to stone in the presence of
his superior officers, his sharp clear eyes strained on
some point in space directly ahead. He might
have stepped out of the pages of the Seven Years'
War.
Nobody spoke. The pale yellow light of the oil lamp
on the Commandant's desk fell on the military faces,
THE LIE ON THE FILM 67
figures and trappings of the men in the room. The
shuffling tramp of soldiers in the dark street below died
away in the direction of the river. I felt the military
tenseness of the scene. I realised that I was inside the
German lines on a bluff that was succeeding but might
collapse at any moment.
Feeling that a good investigating committee should
display initiative I broke the silence by questioning the
little sergeant, and I began on a line which I felt would
please the Commandant. "You were at Labiau during
the fighting?" I asked.
"I was, sir!"
He did not move a muscle except those necessary
for speech. His eyes were still rigid on that invisible
something directly ahead. He clearly was conscious of
the importance of his position as informant to a stranger
before his superior officers.
"I have heard that the beautiful old castle and the
magnificent old church were destroyed," I continued.
"You know of this, of course ?"
"Ja, ja, that is true! Our wonderful artillery
knocked them to pieces when we drove the Russians out
in panic!"
The sergeant was not the only one looking into
space now. The Staff Officer relieved the situation by
dismissing him from the room, whereupon the Com-
mandant sharply bade the orderly conduct me to my
night lodgings.
"Xo Iron Cross for the little sergeant," I reflected,
as we stumbled through the cooked old streets in the
dark. Is it any wonder that the German Government
insists that neutral correspondents be chaperoned by
68 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
someone who can skilfully show them what is proper
for them to see, and let them hear that which is proper
for them to hear ?
Everywhere in rooms lighted by oil lamps soldiers sat
talking, drinking and playing cards. They were under
every roof, and were also bivouacked on the flats along
the river. In all three inns there was not even floor
space available. The little brick town hall, too, was
crowded with soldiers.
At the pontoon bridge we were sharply challenged by
a sentry. The orderly answered and we passed on to
a crowded beer hall above which I was fortunate to
secure a room. By the flickering light of a candle I was
conducted to a dusty attic furnished with ferruginous
junk in one corner and a dilapidated bed in another.
ISTo such luxuries as bed clothing, of course ; only a red
mattress which had not been benefited in the least by
Russian bayonet thrusts and sabre slashes in the quest
of concealed treasure. I could not wash unless I would
go down to the river, for with the blowing up of the
bridges the water mains had also been destroyed. The
excellent organisation of the Germans was in evidence,
however, for during my stay I witnessed their prompt
and efficient measures to restore sanitation in order to
avert disease.
I went downstairs and entered the large beer room,
hazy with tobacco smoke, and filled for the most part
with non-commissioned officers. They, like everybody
else in the room, seemed to have heard of my arrival.
I joined a group at a long table, a jovial crowd of men
who chaffed good naturedly one of their number who
said he wished to be home with his wife and little ones.
THE LIE ON THE FILM 69
They looked at me and laughed, then pointing at him
said, "He is no warrior !"
But it was their talk about the Russians which in-
terested me most. There was no hate in their speech,
only indifference and contempt for their Eastern enemy.
Hindenburg was their hero, and they drank toast after
toast to his health. The Russian menace was over, they
felt; Britain and France would be easily smashed.
They loved their Army, their Emperor, and Hinden-
burg, and believed implicitly in all three.
They sang a song of East Prussia and raised their
foaming glasses at the last two lines :
"Es trinkt der Mensch, es stiuft das Pferd,
In Ostpreussen ist das umgekehrt."
While they were singing a man in civilian clothes en-
tered, approached me with an air of authority, and an-
nounced in a loud tone of voice that he had heard that
I had said that I had come to East Prussia in search of
Russian atrocities.
"My name is Curtin," I began, introducing myself,
although I felt somewhat uneasy.
"Thomas!" was all he said.
"Good Heavens!" I thought. "Is this man looking
for me ? Am I in for serious trouble now ?"
Instead, however, of Thomas being an interrogation
as to my first name, it was his simple introduction of
himself a strange coincidence.
Although he was addressing his remarks to me, he
exclaimed in a tone which could be heard all over the
room that he was Chief of Police during the Russian
occupation of Wehlau for three weeks, and took great
pride in asserting that he was the man who could tell
yo THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
me all that I wished to know. He was highly elated
because the Russians had employed him, given him a
whistle and invested him with authority to summon aid
if he detected any wrong-doing. They had further-
more paid him for his services. Although he now
roundly tongue-lashed them in general terms, there was
no definite personal accusation that he could make
against them.
He told me of a sergeant who went into a house,
ordered a meal and then demanded money, threatening
the woman who had served him. A lieutenant entered
at this moment, learned the particulars of the alterca-
tion, and struck the sergeant, whom he reproved for dis-
obeying commands for good conduct Avhich had come
from Headquarters. "Just think of such lack of respect
among officers," Thomas concluded. "One officer strik-
ing another for something done against a person in an
enemy country. That is bad for discipline. Such a
thing would never happen in the German Army."
The moral of the story as I saw it was quite different
from what he had intended it to be.
A few days later I was again in the crowded beer hall
when Herr Thomas entered. He liked to be in the lime-
light, and had a most extraordinary manner of appar-
ently addressing his conversation to some selected indi-
vidual, but carried it on in a tone which could be heard
throughout the entire room. The Russian whistle which
he still wore, and of which he was very proud, threat-
ened to become a millstone about his neck, for return-
ing refugees were accusing him of inefficiency during
his reign, since they asserted that the Russians had
stolen their goods from under his very nose.
THE LIE ON THE FILM 71
After he had hurled the usual invectives against the
invaders for my benefit, two splendid looking officers,
captain and lieutenant, both perfect gentlemen, said
that they hoped that I would not become so saturated
with this talk that I would write unfairly about the Rus-
sians. They added that they had been impressed by the
Russian officers in that region and the control which
they had exercised over their men.
Early next morning I met the big man with the black
beard who was either on my trail or had encountered me
again by chance. When I said that I was going to Al-
lenburg, of the destruction of which I had heard so
much, he practically insisted that I go with him in his
carriage. A mysterious stranger in brown was with
him, who also assisted in the sight-seeing.
We road through a gently undulating farming and
grazing country to the Alle River, where we boarded
a little Government tug which threaded its way through
dead cows, horses, pigs, dogs, and now and then a man
floating down the stream. Battered trenches, ruined
farmhouses, splintered woods, the hoof marks of Rus-
sian horses that had forded the stream under German
fire, showed that the struggle had been intense along the
river. The plan of battle formed in my mind. It was
clear that the Germans had made the western bank a
main line of defence, which, however, had been broken
through.
"Just wait until we reach Allenburg," said the man
in brown, "and you will see what beasts the murdering
Russians are. Wait until you see how they have
destroyed that innocent town !"
According to the course of the battle and the story
72 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
of the Russian destruction of Allenburg, I expected to
find it on the western bank, but to my great surprise it
is on the eastern, with a considerable stretch of road
separating it from the river. We left the boat and
walked along this road, on each side of which lay wil-
lows in perfect rows where they had been skilfully felled
by the Russians. This sight evoked new assaults from
my guides upon "the beasts" whom they accused of
wanton and wilful violation of the arboreal beauty
which the Allenburgers had loved.
I put myself in the place of the citizens of Allenburg,
returning to their little town devastated by war ; I un-
derstood their feelings and I sympathised with them.
I was seeing the other side of Germany's page of con-
quest. The war map of Europe shows that she has done
most of the invading, and during all the days I spent in
the Fatherland I never heard a single word of pity for
the people of the regions overrun by her armies ex-
cept, of course, the Pecksniffian variety used by her dip-
lomats. It was now (my rare privilege to return with
German refugees to their ruined country, and they vied
with one another when they talked to me in the presence
of my guides in accusing the Russians of every crime
under the sun. The war had been brought home to
them, but in the meantime other Germans had brought
the war home even more forcibly to the citizens of Bel-
gium and northern France, but the thing could not
balance in the minds of those affected.
I was conducted to a combination home and chem-
ist's shop, the upper part of which had been wrecked
by a shell. The Russians had looted the place of chem-
icals and had searched through all the letters in the
THE LIE ON THE FILM 73
owner's desk. These they had thrown upon the floor
instead of putting them back neatly in the drawers.
My guides laid great stress on such crimes, but I took
mental note of certain other things which were not
pointed out to me. The beasts as they always called
them had been quartered here for three weeks, but not
a mirror had been cracked, not a scratch marred the
highly polished black piano, and the well-stocked, ex-
quisitely carved bookcase was precisely as it had been
before the, first Cossack patrol entered the city.
The owner viewed his loss philosophically. "When
we have placed a war indemnity upon Russia I shall
be paid in full," he declared in a voice of supreme con-
fidence.
My guides never gave me an opportunity to talk alone
with the few civilians in the place, and at the sausage
and beer lunch the conversation was based on the "wan-
ton destruction by the beasts of an innocent town."
After they had drunk so much beer that they both
fell asleep I slipped quietly away and went about amid
the ruins. I came upon human bodies burned to a crisp.
Heaps of empty cartridge shells littered the ground,
which I examined with astonishment for they were Rus-
sian, not German, shells, and must have been used by
men defending the town.
I met a pretty girl of seventeen drawing water at a
well, who had remained during the three weeks that the
Russians were there to care for her invalid father, and
had not suffered the slightest insult. Yet all my in-
formants had told me that the Russians had spared none
of the weaker sex who had remained in their path.
Further investigations had revealed that the Russians
74 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
had not fired a shot upon the town, but that the Ger-
mans had destroyed it driving them out.
I entered a little Roman Catholic church in the un-
damaged section of the town and noted with interest
that nothing had apparently been disturbed this the
more significant since the Russians hold a different
faith.
I walked back towards the river and strolled through
the neat, well-shaded churchyard to the ruins of the
large church, the dominating feature of the town. It
was clear from what was left that the lines of the body
and the spire had been of rare beauty for such an in-
significant place as Allenburg.
"Too bad!" I remarked to a white-haired old man
who was sitting on a bench mournfully contemplating
the ruins.
"Sad, so sad !" he said in a voice full of grief. "And
it seems sadder that it had to be done by our ow
people," he added.
"Were you here during the fighting ?" I asked.
"I was," he answered. "I would rather die than
leave this place, where I was born and where I have
always lived."
I returned to the anxious guides and told them that
I had visited the ruins of the church.
"A destruction which could serve no military pur-
pose," declared the man in brown. "You see the
methods of the people Germany is fighting."
I expressed a desire to seek only one more thing, the
church on the road to Friedland which had been de-
stroyed by the Russians after the sixty maidens had
THE LIE ON THE FILM 75
been driven into it. We went to it, but, alas ! it had not
been disturbed in the least. I somehow felt that my
guides saw the lack of destruction with genuine regret.
The big man with the black beard was at a loss to recon-
cile the story he told me at Kb'nigsberg with the actual
facts found on the spot.
"Somebody must have made a mistake," was all he
said.
My last view of Allenburg was from across the river
with the long rays of the setting sun burnishing the
ruins of the once beautiful church, the church I saw
months later on the screen in the London display room,
the church that has been shown all over the world as
evidence of Russian methods in war.
I went all through East Prussia studying first hand
the effects of the great campaign. My luck increased
from day to day. I secured a military pass to visit all
hospitals in the XXth Army Corps, which aided my
investigations not a little. The prejudice which I had
against the Russians died in East Prussia. It was
buried forever the following winter when I was with
the Russian Army in the memorable retreat through
the Bukowina. In East Prussia I was in an entirely
different position from a man investigating conditions
in Belgium, for I was in the German's own country
after he had driven out the invader. I tried to see
some youth whose hand had been cut off, but could not
find a single case, although everybody had heard of
such mutilations. The fact that no doctor whom I ques-
tioned knew of any case was sufficient refutation, since
a person whose hand had been cut off would need some-
thing more than a bandage tied on at home.
76 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
When the Russians entered the province they struck
yellow and black posters everywhere announcing that
it was annexed to Russia. In view of this the Russian
officers were instructed to restrain their men and to
treat the natives well. Isolated cases of violence, for
the most part murder and robbery of the victim, had
occurred where men had broken away from restraint,
but they were surprisingly few.
After I returned to Berlin I met an American corre-
spondent who was in East Prussia when I was. His
sympathies were pro-German, but he was an open and
fair-minded man, who, like me, had left Berlin with a
deep feeling against the Russians, thanks to the excel-
lent German propaganda. "I went especially to get
some good stories of Russian atrocities," he said. "I
thought that every mile would be blood-marked with
evidence, but I came back defeated. Some petty lar-
ceny and robbery, a Red Cross flag torn to shreds by a
Russian shell, two old men murdered and robbed by
Cossacks, and a woman in the hospital at Soldau, who
had been outraged by five Cossacks, was all that I could
find, even though I was aided by the German Govern-
ment."
My own first-hand investigations convinced me that
it would be difficult for any army in the world to con-
duct a cleaner campaign than Russia conducted in her
first invasion of East Prussia. I remind the reader
that I am speaking of the first invasion, for I have no
personal knowledge of the second. Subsequently in
Germany when I spoke of the matter I was always told
that it was the second invasion which was so bad. Per-
haps! But I had been fooled when Berlin cried wolf
the first time.
THE LIE ON THE FILM 77
By a stroke of fortune while in East Prussia I be-
came "assistant" for two days to a Government mov-
ing picture photographer who had a pass for himself
and assistant in those happy days of inexactitude. We
formed the kind of close comradeship which men form
who are suffocated but unhurt by a shell which kills and
maims others all about them. That had been our ex-
perience. He had, moreover, been over much of the
ground covered by me behind the front.
"I am instructed to get four kinds of pictures," he
explained. "(1) Pictures which show German patriot-
ism and unity. (2) Pictures which show German or-
ganisation and efficiency. (3) Pictures which show
evidence of humanity in the German Army. (4) Pic-
tures which show destruction by the enemy. Some of
my pictures are kept by the Kriegsministerium for pur-
poses of studying the war. The greater part, however,
are used for propaganda both at home and abroad.
Furthermore, I must be careful to keep an accurate rec-
ord of what each picture is. The pictures are then ar-
ranged and given suitable titles in Berlin."
I thought of all this in the London display-room
when the familiar picture of the ruined church flashed
before my eyes with the title Beautiful Church at Al-
leriburg Destroyed by the Russians a deliberate lie on
the film.
I have nothing to say against the Germans for knock-
ing their own town to pieces or against the British and
French for knocking French towns to pieces. That is
one of the misfortunes of war.
The point is, that the propaganda department of the
78 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Wilhelmstrasse fully understands that people who do
not see the war, especially neutrals, are shocked at the
destruction of churches. The Germans have been
taught an unpleasant lesson in this in the case of
Rheims. Therefore they answer by falsifying a film
when it suits their purpose with just as little compunc-
tion as they repudiate promises.
"A little thing !" you might say.
That adds to its importance, for it is attention to de-
tail which characterises modern Germany. It is the
subtle things which are difficult to detect. The Gov-
ernment neglects nothing which will aid in the owner-
ship of public opinion at home and the influencing of
neutrals throughout the world.
CHAPTER VII
THE IDEA FACTORY
AGEOUP of diplomats and newspaper correspondents
were gathered at lunch in a German city early in
the war, when one of the latter, an American, asked how
a certain proposition which was being discussed would
suit public opinion. "Will public opinion favour such
a move ?" he questioned.
"Public opinion ! Public opinion !" a member of the
German Foreign Office repeated in a tone which showed
that he was honestly perplexed. "Why, we create it !"
He spoke the truth. They certainly do.
The State-controlled professor, parson and moving-
picture producer appeal to limited audiences in halls
and churches, but the newspaper is ubiquitous, particu-
larly in a country where illiteracy is practically un-
known, and where regulations bidding and forbidding
are constantly appearing in the newspapers the read-
ing of which is thus absolutely necessary if one would
avoid friction with the authorities.
In a free Press, like that of the United States or
Great Britain, the truth on any question of public in-
terest is reasonably certain to come to light sooner or
later. Competition is keen, and if one paper does not
dig up and publish the facts, a rival is likely to do so.
The German Press was gaining a limited degree of
freedom before the war, but that has been wiped away.
79
8o THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
As in other belligerent countries news of a military na-
ture must quite properly pass the censor. But in Ger-
many, unlike Great Britain, for example, all other
topics must be written in a manner to please the Gov-
ernment, or trouble ensues for the writer and his paper.
To a certain extent the Press is a little unmuzzled dur-
ing the sittings of the Reichstag not much, but some-
what, for the reports of the Reichstag proceedings are
strictly censored. The famous speech of Deputy Bauer
in May, 1916, was a striking example, for not a word
of his speech, the truth of which was not questioned,
was allowed to appear in a single German newspaper.
The suppression of most of Herr Hoffmann's speech in
the Prussian Diet in January, 1917, is another impor-
tant case in point. This is in striking contrast to the
British Parliament, which is supreme, and over whose
reports the Press Bureau has no control. The German
Press Bureau, on the other hand, revises and even sup-
presses the publication of speeches. When necessary, it
specially transmits speeches by telegram and wireless to
foreign countries if it thinks those speeches will help
German propaganda.
The Berlin and provincial editors are summoned
from time to time to meetings, when they are addressed
by members of the Government as to what it is wise
for them to say and not to say. These meetings consti-
tute a hint that if the editors are indiscreet, if they,
for example, publish matter "calculated to promote dis-
unity," they may be subject to the increasingly severe
penalties now administered. If a newspaper shows a
tendency to kick over the traces, a Government emissary
waits upon the editor, calls his attention to any offend-
THE IDEA FACTORY 81
ing article or paragraph, and suggests a correction. If
a newspaper still offends, it is liable to a suspension for
a day or even a week, or it may be suppressed alto-
gether.
But in peace, as well as in war, editors all over Ger-
many were instructed as to the topic on which to lay
accent for a limited period, and just how to treat that
topic. For example, during the three months preceding
the w r ar, Russia was bitterly attacked in the German
Press. From August 1 to August 4, 1914, the German
people had it crammed down their throats that she was
the sole cause of the war. On August 4 the Govern-
ment marshalled the editors and professors and ordered
them to throw all the responsibility on Britain, and the
hate was switched from one to the other with the speed
and ease of a stage electrician throwing the lever from
red to blue.
How do the editors like being mere clerks for the
Government ? The limited numbers of editors of inde-
pendent thought, such as the "relentless" Count Revent-
low, Maximilian Harden, and Theodor Wolff, detest
such a role, and struggle against it. After sincere and
thorough investigation, however, I am convinced the
average German editor or reporter, like the average pro-
fessor, prefers to have his news handed to him to dig-
ging it up for himself.
In this connection the remark made to me by the
editor of a little paper in East Prussia is interesting.
After the Russians had fallen back he told me of two
boys in a neighbouring village whose hands had been
cut off. He said that he was going to run the story, and
suggested that I also use it. I proposed that we make
8 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
a little trip of investigation, as we could do so in a
couple of hours.
He looked surprised. "Why, we have the story al-
ready," he declared.
"But I am not going to write it unless I can prove
it," I replied.
A moment later I heard him sigh with despair as he
half whispered to a cavalry captain: "Yes, yes, alas,
over there the Press is in the hands of the people !"
Many newspaper readers run more or less carelessly
through articles, and many more simply read the head-
lines and headings. The Official Press Bureau, for
which no detail is too minute, realises this perfectly,
with the result that German newspaper headings are
constructed, less with a view to sensationalism, as in
some British and American papers, or with a view to
condense accurately the chief news feature of the day,
as to impress the reader or the hearer, since the head-
lines are cried shrilly in Berlin and other cities with
the idea that Germany is always making progress to-
wards ultimate victory. The daily reports of the Gen-
eral Staff have been excellent, with a few notable ex-
ceptions such as the Battle of the Marne and the Battle
of the Somme. During reverses, however, they have
shown a tendency to pack unpalatable truths in plenty
of "shock absorber," with the result that the public
mind, as I know from my personal investigations, is
completely befogged as to the significance of military
operations which did not go in a manner satisfactory to
the German leaders. In all this the headline never
failed to cheer. When the Russians were smashing the
Austrians in the East, while the British and F-rench
THE IDEA FACTORY 83
were making important gains and inflicting much more
important losses on the Somme, the old reliable head-
line TERRIBLE RUSSIAN LOSSES was used until it was
worn threadbare.
What would you think, you who live in London or
New York, if you .woke up some morning to find every
newspaper in the city with the same headlines? And
would you not be surprised to learn that nearly every
newspaper throughout your country had the same head-
lines that day? You would conclude that there was
wonderful central control somewhere, would you not?
Yet that is what happens in Germany repeatedly.
It is of special significance on "total days." Those are
the days when the Government, in the absence of fresh
victories, adds the totals of prisoners taken for a given
period, and as only the totals appear in the headlines
the casual reader feels nearer a victorious peace. On
the morning of March 13, 1916, most of the papers had
"total" headlines for Verdun.
Not so the Tageblatt. Theodor Wolff, its editor, has
had so much journalistic experience, outside of Ger-
many, and is, moreover, a man of such marked ability,
that he is striving to be something more than a syco-
phantic clerk of the Government. He is not a grumbler,
not a dissatisfied extremist, not unpatriotic, but pos-
sesses a breadth of outlook patriotic in the highest sense.
On the morning after the Liebknecht riots in the Pots-
darner Platz, his paper did not appear. The reason
given by the Commandant of the Mark of Branden-
burg was that he had threatened the Burgfriede by
charging certain interests in Germany with attempting
to make the war a profitable institution. But there are
84 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
those who say that the police were very watchful in the
newspaper offices that night, and that the Tageblatt
did not appear because of its attempt to print some of
the happenings in the Potsdamer Platz.
It has been the custom of Herr Wolff to write a front-
page article every Monday morning signed T. W. On
the last Monday morning in July, 1916, in a brilliantly
written article, the first part of which patted the Gov-
ernment on the back for some things, he delicately ex-
pressed a desire for reform in diplomatic methods which
would render war-making less easy. Then he added
that if some statesman, such as Prince Billow, had
been called as adviser in July, 1914, a way to avert the
war might have been found.
This so angered the Government, which has success-
fully convinced its great human sheep-fold that Ger-
many is the innocent victim of attack, that the Tageblatt
was suppressed for nearly a week, and, like the ex-
Socialist paper Vorwaerts, was permitted to reappear
only after it promised "to be good." Theodor Wolff
was personally silenced for several months. This was
his greatest but not his only offence. All over Ger-
many the people have been officially taught to regard
this great war time as die grosse Zeit. Wolff, however,
sarcastically set the expression in inverted commas
thereby committing a sacrilege against the State.
Throughout Germany monuments have been reared
and nails driven into emblems marked DIE GROSSE ZEIT.
I have often wondered just what thoughts these monu-
ments will arouse in the German's mind if his country
is finally beaten and all his bloodshed and food depriva-
tion will have been in vain.
THE IDEA FACTORY 85
The Press has, of course, been the chief instrument,
reinforced by the schoolmaster, professor and parson, in
spreading the doctrine of scientific hatred. It is not
generally known that Deputy Cohn, speaking in the
Eeichstag on April 8, 1916, sharply criticised the
method of interning British civilians at Ruhleben. He
went on to say that, "reports of the persecutions of
Germans in England were magnified and to some ex-
tent invented by the German Press in order to stir up
war feeling against England."
I saw a brilliant example of the German Press
Bureau's attention to details in the late autumn of
1914. I was on a point of vantage half way up the
Schlossberg behind Freiburg during the first aerial at-
tack by the French in that region. In broad daylight
a solitary airman flew directly over the town and went
on until he was directly over the extensive barracks just
outside. Freiburg is a compact city of 85,000 inhabi-
tants, and it would have been easy to have caused dam-
age, and probably loss of life to the civilian population.
It was clear to me in my front-row position and to the
natives, with many of whom I afterwards discussed the
matter, that the Frenchman was careful to avoid dam-
aging the town, and circled directly over the barracks
on which he dropped all his bombs. The Freiburg
papers said little about the raid, but to my surprise
when I reached Frankfurt and Cologne a week later,
newspaper notices were still stuck about the cities call-
ing upon Germans to witness again the dastardly
methods of the enemy who attack the inhabitants of
peaceful towns outside of the zone of operations.
The French very properly and effectively practised
86 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
reprisals later, but the Germans believe that the shoe
is on the other foot. And so it is in everything con-
nected with the war. The Germans tell you that they
use poisonous gas because the French used it; in fact,
only their good luck in capturing some of the French
gas generators enabled them to learn the method.
Britain, not Germany, violates the laws of the sea. It
was the Belgians who were cruel to German troops,
especially the Belgian women and the Belgian children.
When the Verdun offensive came to a standstill a
spirit of restlessness developed which was reflected in
the Reichstag, where a few Social Democrats attacked
the Government because they believed that Germany
could now make peace if she wished, and that further
bloodshed would be for a war of conquest, advocated by
the annexationists.
During the succession of German military victories,
especially in the first part of the war, there was plenty
of "front copy" both as news and filler. Some of the
accounts were excellent. The reader seldom got the
idea, however, that German soldiers were being killed
and wounded, and after a time most of the battle de-
scriptions contained much of soft nocturnal breezes
whispering in the moonlight, but precious few real live
details of fighting.
Regarding this point, a German of exceptional in-
formation of the world outside his own country ex-
pressed to me his utter amazement at the accounts ap-
pearing in the British Press of the hard life in the
trenches. "I don't see how they hope to get men to
enlist when they write such discouraging stuff," he said.
After the Battle of the Somme opened, the German
THE IDEA FACTORY 87
newspapers used to print extracts from the London
papers in which British correspondents vividly described
how their own men were mown down by German ma-
chine-guns after they had passed them, so well was the
enemy entrenched. On that occasion one of the manip-
ulators of public opinion said to me, "The British
Government is mad to permit such descriptions to ap-
pear in the Press. They will have only themselves to
blame if their soldiers soon refuse to fight !"
This is one of the many instances which I shall cite
throughout this book to show that because the German
authorities know other countries they do not neces-
sarily know other subjects.
As weeks of war became months and months became
years, the censorship screws were twisted tighter than
ever, with the result that docile editors were often at
their wits' end to provide even filler.
On July 14, for example, with battles of colossal
magnitude raging east and west, the Berliner Morgen-
post found news so scarce that it had to devote most of
the front page to the review of a book called "Paris and
the French Front," by Nils Christiernssen, a Swedish
writer. I had read the book months before, as the Pro-
paganda Department of the Foreign Office had sent it
to all foreign correspondents.
It became noticeable, however, that as food portions
diminished, soothing-syrup doses for the public in-
creased. Whenever a wave of complaints over food
shortage began to rise the Press would build a dyke of
accounts of the trials of meatless days in Russia, of
England's scarcity of things to eat, and of the dread
in France of another winter. The professors writing
88 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
in the Press grew particularly comforting. Thus on
June 30 one of them comforted the public in a lengthy
and serious article in the evening edition of the Vos-
siscJie Zeitung with "the revelation that over-eating 13
a cause of baldness."
The cheering news of enemy privations continued to
such an extent that many Americans were asked by
the more credulous if there were bread-tickets in New
York and other American cities. In short, Germany is
being run on the principle that when you are down with
small-pox it is comforting to know that your neighbour
has cholera.
The key-note of the German Press, however, has been
to show that the war was forced on peace-loving Ger-
many. Of the Government's success in its propaganda
among its own people I saw evidence every day. The
people go even one step farther than the Government,
for the Government sought merely to show that it was
forced to declare war upon Russia and France. Most
of the German people are labouring under the delusion
that Russia and France actually declared war on Ger-
many. This misconception, no doubt, is partly due to
the accounts in the German papers during the first days
of August, 1914, describing how the Russians and
French crossed the frontier to attack Germany before
any declaration of war.
A German girl who was in England at the outbreak
of war, and who subsequently returned to her own coun-
try, asked her obstinate, hard-headed Saxon uncle, a
wealthy manufacturer, if Germany did not declare war
on Russia and France. She insisted that Germany did,
for she had become convinced not only in England but
THE IDEA FACTORY 89
in Holland. Her uncle, in a rage, dismissed the mat-
ter with: Du l>ist falsch unterrichtet. (You are falsely
informed.)
An American in Berlin had a clause in his apartment
lease that his obligations were abruptly and automati-
cally terminated should Germany be in a state of war.
Yet when he wished to pack up and go his German
landlord took the case to court on the ground that Ger-
many had not declared war.
The hypnotic effect of the German newspapers on the
German is not apprehended either in Great Britain or
in the United States. Those papers, all directed from
the Foreign Office in the Wilhelmstrasse, can manipu-
late the thoughts of these docile people, and turn their
attention to any particular part of the war with the
same celerity as the operator of a searchlight can direct
his beam at any part of the sky he chooses. For the
moment the whole German nation looks at that beam
and at nothing else.
In the late afternoon of an autumnal day I stopped
at a little wayside inn near Hildesheim. The place
had an empty look, and the woman who came in at the
sound of my footsteps bore unmistakable lines of trouble
and anxiety.
Ko meat that day, no cheese either, except for the
household. She could not even give me bread without
a bread-ticket nothing but diluted beer.
Before the war business had been good. Then came
one misfortune after another. Her husband was a
prisoner in Russia, and her eldest son had died with
von Kluck's Army almost in sight of the Eiffel Tower.
90 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
"You must find it hard to get along," I said.
"I do," she sighed. "But, then, when fodder got
scarce we killed all the pigs, so bother with them is over
now."
"You are not downhearted about the war ?" I asked.
"I know that Germany cannot be defeated," she re-
plied. "But we do so long for peace."
. "You do not think your Government responsible at
all for the war ?" I ventured.
"I don't, and the rest of us do not," was her unhesi-
tating reply. "We all know that our Kaiser wanted
only peace. Everybody knows that England caused all
this misery." Then she looked squarely and honestly
into my eyes and said in a tone I shall never forget:
"Do you think that if our Government were responsible
for the war that we should be willing to bear all these
terrible sacrifices?"
I thought of that banquet table more than two years
before, and the remark about creating public opinion.
I realised that the road is long which winds from it to
the little wayside inn near Hildesheim, but that it is a
road on which live both the diplomat and the lonely,
war-weary woman. They live on different ends, that
is all,
CHAPTER VIII
TOWARDS the end of 1915 the neutral newspaper
correspondents in Berlin were summoned to the
Kriegs-Presse-Bureau (War Press Bureau) of the
Great General Staff. The official in charge, Major
^icolai, notified them that the German Government
desired their signature to an agreement respecting their
future activities in the war. It had been decided, Major
Nicolai stated, to allow the American journalists to
visit the German fronts at more or less regular inter-
vals, hut before this was done it would be necessary for
them to enter into certain pledges. These were,
mainly :
1. To remain in Germany for the duration of the
war, unless given special permission to leave by
the German authorities.
2. To guarantee that dispatches would be published
in the United States precisely as sent from Ger-
many, that is to say, as edited and passed by the
military censorship.
3. To supply their own headlines for their dispatches,
and to guarantee that these, and none others,
would be printed.
After labouring in vain to instruct Major Nicolai
that with the best of intentions on the part of the corre-
spondents it was beyond their power to say in exactly
92 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
what form the Omaha Bee or the New Orleans Picayune
would publish their "copy," they affixed their signatures
to the weird document laid before them. It was signed,
without exception, by all the important correspondents
permanently stationed in Berlin. Two or three who did
not desire to hand over the control of their personal
movements to the German Government for an unlimited
number of years did not "take the pledge," with the re-
sult that they were not invited to join the personally
conducted junkets to the fronts which were subsequently
organised.
Nothing that has happened in Germany during the
war illustrates so well the vassalage to which neutral
correspondents have been reduced as the humiliating
pledges extorted from them by the German Govern-
ment as the price of their remaining in Berlin for the
practice of their profession.
It was undoubtedly this episode which inspired the
American Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, to tell the Ameri-
can correspondents last summer that they would do well
to obtain their freedom from the German censorship
before invoking the Embassy's good offices to break
down the alleged interference with their dispatches by
the British censorship. When the Germans learned of
the rebuff which Mr. Gerard had administered to his
journalistic compatriots, the Berlin Press launched one
of those violent attacks against the Ambassador to
which he has constantly been subject in Germany dur-
ing the war.
As I have shown in a previous chapter the German
Government attaches so much importance to the control
and manufacture of public opinion through the Press
CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES 93
that it is drastic in the regulation of German news-
papers. It is therefore comprehensible that it should
strive to enlist to the fullest possible extent the Press of
other countries. At least one paper in practically every
neutral country is directly subsidised by the German
Foreign Office, which does not, however, stop at this.
The attempt to seduce the newspapers of other nations
into interpreting the Fatherland as the Wilhelmstrasse
wishes it to be interpreted leads the investigators to a
subterranean labyrinth of schemes which would fill a
volume.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on
June 28, 1914. Long before that Dr. Hammann, head
of the Nachrichtendienst of the German Foreign Office,
had organised a plan for the successful influencing of
the Press of the world. In May, 1914, the work of a
special bureau under his direction and presided over by
a woman of international reputation was in full opera-
tion.
The following incident, which is one of the many I
might cite, throws interesting light on one method of
procedure. The head of the special bureau asked one
of the best known woman newspaper reporters of Nor-
way if she would like to do some easy work which
would take up very little of her time and for which she
would be well paid.
The Norwegian reporter was interested and asked for
particulars.
"Germany wishes to educate other countries to a true
appreciation of things German. Within a year, or at
most within two years, we shall be doing this by send-
ing to foreign newspapers articles which will instruct
94 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the world about Germany. Of course, it is not advis-
able to send them directly from our own bureau; it is
much better to have them appear to come from the
correspondents of the various foreign newspapers.
Thus, we shall send you articles which you need only
copy or translate and sign."
This has been the practice in German journalism for
years, and its extension to other countries was merely a
chain in the link of Germany's deliberate and thorough
preparations for the war.
With a few exceptions, German reporters and corre-
spondents are underpaid sycophants, mere putty in the
hands of the Government. Therefore, the chagrin of
the officials over the independence and ability of the
majority of the American correspondents is easy to un-
derstand. The Wilhelmstrasse determined to control
them, and through them to influence the American
Press. Hence the rules given above.
When a man signs an agreement that he will not
leave Germany until the end of the war, without special
dispensation, he has bound himself to earn his liveli-
hood in that country. He cannot do this without the
consent of the Government, for if he does not write in
a manner to please them they can slash his copy, de-
lay it, and prevent him from going on trips to such an
extent that he will be a failure with his newspaper at
home. His whole success depends therefore upon his
being "good" much after the manner in which a Ger-
man editor must be "good." If he expresses a wish to
leave Germany before the end of the war and the wish
is granted, he feels that a great favour has been con-
ferred upon him and he is supposed to feel himself
CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES 95
morally bound to be "good" to Germany in the future.
The American journalistic colony in Germany is an
entirely different thing from what it used to be in pre-
war days. Before 1914 it consisted merely of the rep-
resentatives of the Associated Press and United Press,
half a dozen New York papers (including the notorious
New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung), and the well-known and
important Western journal, the Chicago Daily News.
To-day many papers published in the United States are
represented in Berlin by special correspondents. The
influx of newcomers has been mostly from German-lan-
guage papers, printed in such Teutonic centres as Chi-
cago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, etc. Journals
like the Illinoiser Staats-zeitung, of Chicago, which for
years past has barely been able to keep its head above
water, have suddenly found themselves affluent enough
to maintain correspondents in Europe who, for their
part, scorn lodgings less pretentious than those of the
de luxe Hotel Adlon in Unter den Linden.
The bright star in the American journalistic firma-
ment in Berlin is Karl Heinrich von Wiegand, the spe-
cial representative of the New York World. The New
York World is not pro-German, but von Wiegand is of
direct, and noble German origin. Apart from his ad-
mitted talents as a newspaper man, his Prussian "von"
is of no inconsiderable value to any newspaper which
employs him. Von Wiegand, I believe, is a native of
California. Persons unfriendly to him assert that he is
really a native of Prussia, who went to the United
States when a child. Wherever he was born, he is now
typically American, and speaks German with an unmis-
takable Transatlantic accent. He is a bookseller by
96 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
origin, and his little shop in San Francisco was wiped
out by the earthquake. About forty-five years of age,
he is a man of medium build, conspicuously near-
sighted, wears inordinately thick "Teddy Roosevelt eye-
glasses," and is in his whole bearing a "real" Westerner
of unusually affable personality. Von Wiegand
claims, when taunted with being a Press agent of the
German Government, that he is nothing but an enter-
prising correspondent of the New York World. 1 did
not find this opinion of himself fully shared in Ger-
many. There are many people who will tell you that if
von Wiegand is not an actual attache of the German
Press Bureau, his "enterprise" almost always takes the
form of very effective Press agent work for the Kaiser's
cause. He certainly comes and goes at all official head-
quarters in Germany on terms of welcome and intimacy,
and is a close friend of the notorious Count Reventlow.
My personal opinion, however, is that he is above all
a journalist, and an exceedingly able one.
Von Wiegand's liaison with the powers that be in
Berlin has long been a standing joke among his Ameri-
can colleagues. Shortly after the fall of Warsaw in
August, 1915, when the stage in Poland was set for
exhibition to the neutral world, he was roused from his
slumbers in his suite at the Adlon by a midnight tele-
phone message, apprising him that if he would be at
Friedrichstrasse Station at 4.30 the next morning, with
packed bags, he would be the only correspondent to be
taken on a staff trip to Warsaw. Wiegand was there
at the appointed hour, but was astonished to discover
that he had been hoaxed. The perpetrators of the "rag"
were some of his U. S. confreres.
CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES 97
Von Wiegand for nearly two years has been the re-
cipient of such marked and exclusive favours in Berlin
that Mr. Hearst's New York American (the chief rival
of the New York World, and the head of the "Interna-
tional News Service" which has been suppressed in
Great Britain, where it has been proved to have ma-
liciously lied on divers occasions) decided to send to
Germany a special correspondent who would also have
a place in the sun. The gentleman appointed to crowd
Mr. von Wiegand out of the limelight was a former
clergyman named Dr. William Bayard Hale, a gifted
writer and speaker, who obtained some international
notoriety eight years ago by interviewing the Kaiser.
That interview was so full of blazing political indis-
cretions that the German Government suppressed it at
great cost by buying up the entire issue of the New
York magazine in which the explosion was about to
take place. Enough of the contents of the interview
subsequently leaked out to indicate that its main fea-
ture was the German Emperor's insane animosity to
Great Britain and Japan and his determination to go
to war with them.
Dr. Hale also enjoyed the prestige of having once
been an intimate of President Wilson. He had written
the latter's biography, and later represented him in
Mexico as a special emissary. Shortly before the war
he married a New York German woman, who is, I be-
lieve, a sister or near relative of Herr Muschenheim,
the owner of the Hotel Astor, which in 1914 and 1915
was inhabited by the German propaganda bureau, or
one of the many bureaus maintained in New York City.
From the date of his German matrimonial alliance Dr.
98 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Hale became an ardent protagonist of Kultur. One of
his last activities before going to Germany was to edit
a huge "yellow book" which summarised "Great
Britain's violations of international law" and the acri-
monious correspondence on contraband and shipping
controversies between the British and American Gov-
ernments. This publication was financed by the German
publicity organisation and widely circulated in the
United States and all neutral countries.
Dr. Hale, a tall, dark, keen-looking, smooth-shaven,
and smooth-spoken American, received in Berlin on his
arrival a welcome customarily extended only to a new-
coming foreign Ambassador. He came, of course, pro-
vided with the warmest credentials Count Bernstorff
could supply. Long before Hale had a chance to pre-
sent himself at the Foreign Office, the Foreign Office
presented itself to him, an emissary from the Imperial
Chancellor having, according to the story current in
Berlin, left his compliments at Dr. Hale's hotel. He
had not been in Berlin many days before an interview
with Bethmann-Hollweg was handed to him on a silver
plate. Forthwith the New York American began to be
deluged with the journalistic sweetmeats Ministerial
interviews, Departmental statements, and exclusive
news tit-bits with which Karl Heinrich von Wiegand
had so long and alone been distinguishing himself.
I have told in detail these facts about von Wiegand
and Hale because between them the two men are able
to flood the American public with a torrent of German-
made news and views, whose volume and influence are
tremendous. The New York World's European news
is "syndicated" to scores of newspapers throughout the
CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES 99
American continent, and the service has "featured"
von Wiegand's Berlin dispatches to the exclusion, or at
least almost to the eclipse, of the World's other war
news. Hale's dispatches to the Hearst Press have been
published all the way across the Republic, not only in
the dailies of vast circulation owned by Mr. Hearst in
New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los An-
geles, and elsewhere, but also in a great many other
papers like the prominent Philadelphia North Ameri-
can, which subscribed to the "International News Ser-
vice."
The German authorities understand all this perfectly
well. That explains their unceasing attentions to von
Wiegand and Hale, and to other valuable correspon-
dents. One of these recently undertook to compile a
book on Belgium in war-time for the purpose of white-
washing Germans in American estimation. Accom-
panied by his wife, he was motored and wined and
dined through the conquered country under the watch-
ful chaperonage of German officers. He has returned
to Berlin to write his book, although it is com-
mon knowledge there that during his entire stay in
Belgium he was not permitted to talk to a single
Belgian.
Although nominally catered to and fawned upon by
the German authorities, the American correspondents
cut on the whole a humiliating figure, although not all
of them realise it. It is notorious they are spied upon
day and night. They are even at times ruthlessly
scorned by their benefactors in the Wilhelmstrasse.
One of the Americans who essays to be independent,
was some time ago a member of a journalistic party
i oo THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
conducted to Lille. He left the party long enough to
stroll into a jeweller's shop to purchase a new glass for
his watch. While making the purchase he asked the
Frenchman who waited on him how he liked the Ger-
mans. "They are very harsh, but just," was the reply.
A couple of weeks later, when the correspondents were
back in Berlin, Major Nicolai, of the War Press
Bureau, sent for the correspondent, said to him that he
knew of the occasion on which the American journalist
had "left the party" in Lille, and demanded to know
what had occurred in the watchmaker's shop. The
correspondent repeated precisely what the Frenchman
had said. "Well," snarled Major ISTicolai, "why didn't
you send that to your papers?" I may mention here
that these parties of neutral correspondents are herded
rather than conducted when on tour.
The American correspondents had a sample of the
actual contempt in which the German authorities hold
them on the day when the commercial submarine
Deutschland returned to Bremen, August 23. For pur-
poses of glorifying the Deutschland' s achievement in
the United States, the American correspondents in Ber-
lin were dispatched to Bremen, where they were told
that elaborate special arrangements for their reception
and entertainment had been completed. Count Zeppelin,
two airship commanders, who had just raided England,
and a number of other national heroes would be pres-
ent, together with the Grand Duke of Oldenburg at the
head of a galaxy of civil, military, and naval digni-
taries. The grand climax of the Deutschland joy car-
nival was to be a magnificent banquet with plenty of
that rare luxury, bread and butter, at the famous
CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES 101
Bremen Rathaus accompanied by both oratorical and
pyrotechnical fireworks. The correspondents were
given an opportunity to watch the triumphal progess
of the Deutschland through the Weser into Bremen har-
bour, but at night, when they looked for their places at
the Rathaus feast, they were informed that there was
no room for them. An overflow banquet had been ar-
ranged in their special honour in a neighbouring tav-
ern. This was too much even for some of the War
Press Bureau's best American friends, and the overflow
dinner party was served at a table which contained
many vacant chairs. Their intended occupiers had
taken the first train back to Berlin, thoroughly dis-
gusted.
It is fair to say that several of the principal Amer-
ican correspondents in Berlin are making a serious ef-
fort to practise independent journalism, but it is a diffi-
cult and hopeless struggle. They are shackled and con-
trolled from one end of the week to the other. They
could not if they wished send the unadorned truth to
the United States. All they are permitted to report is
that portion of the truth which reflects Germany in the
light in which it is useful for Germany to appear from
time to time.
Germany has organised news for neutrals in the most
intricate fashion. A certain kind of news is doled out
for the United States, a totally different kind for Spain,
and still a different brand, when emergency demands,
for Switzerland, Brazil, or China. There is a Chinese
correspondent among the other "neutrals" in Germany.
The "news" prepared for him by Major Nicolai's de-
partment would be very amusing reading in the col-
U8RARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
102 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
umns of Mr. von Wiegand's or Dr. Hale's papers.
There is a celebrated and pro- Ally newspaper in l^ew
York whose motto is "All the news that's fit to print."
The motto of the German War Press Bureau is "All the
news that's safe to print."
CHAPTER IX
ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU
WHILE I was at home on a few weeks' visit in Oc-
tober, 1915, I read in the newspapers a simple
announcement cabled from Europe that Anton Lang of
Oberammergau had been killed in the great French of-
fensive in Champagne. This came as a shock to many
Americans, for the name of this wonderful character
who had inspired people of all shades of opinion and
religious belief in his masterful impersonation of Christ
in the decennial Passion Play was almost as well known
in the United States and in England as in his native
Bavaria, and better, I found than in Prussia.
British and American tourist agencies had put
Oberammergau on the map of the world. The interest
in America after the Passion Play of 1910 was so great,
in fact, that some newspapers ran extensive series of il-
lustrated articles describing it. The man who played
the part of Christ was idealised, everybody who had
seen him liked him, respected him and admired him.
Thousands had said that somehow a person felt better
after he had seen Anton Lang. As a supreme test of
his popularity, American vaudeville managers asked
him to name his own terms for a theatrical tour.
And now the man who had imbued his life with that
of the Prince of Peace had thrown the past aside, and
with the spiked helmet in place of the Crown of Thorns
103
104 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
had gone to his death trying not to save but to slaughter
his fellow-men.
Truly, the changes wrought by war are great !
* * * -x- *
In Berlin I inquired into the circumstances of Anton
Lang's death. Nobody knew anything definite. Ber-
lin knew little of him in life, much less than London,
New York or Montreal.
Munich is different. There his name is a household
word. Herr von Meinl, then Director of the Bavarian
Ministry, now member of the Bundesrat, told me that
he believed that there was a mistake in the report that
Anton had been killed.
Later, when tramping through the Bavarian High-
lands, I walked one winter day from Partenkirchen to
Oberammergau, for I had a whim to know the truth
of the matter.
On the lonely mountain road that winds sharply up
from Oberau I overtook a Benedictine monk who was
walking to the monastery at Ettal. We talked of the
war in general and of the Russian prisoners we had
seen in the saw-mills at Untermberg. I was curious
to hear his views upon the war, and I soon saw that not
even the thick walls of a monastery are proof against
the idea-machine in the Wilhelmstrasse. Despite Car-
dinal Mercier's denunciation of German methods in
Belgium, this monk's views were the same as the rest of
the Kaiser's subjects. He did, however, admit that he
was sorry for the Belgians, although, in true German
fashion, he did not consider Germany to blame. He
sighed to think that "the Belgian King had so treacher-
ously betrayed his people by abandoning his neutrality
ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU 105
and entering into a secret agreement with France and
Great Britain." He recited the regular story of the
secret military letters found by the Germans after they
had invaded Belgium, the all-important marginal notes
of which were maliciously left untranslated in the Ger-
man Press.
We parted at Ettal, and I pushed on down the narrow
valley to Oberammergau. The road ahead was now in
shadow, but behind me the mountain mass was dazzling
white in the rays of the setting sun. "What a pity," I
thought, "that the peasant must depart from these beau-
tiful mountains and valleys to die in the slime of the
trenches."
The day was closing in quiet and grandeur, yet all
the time the shadow of death was darkening the peace-
ful valley of the Ammer. I became aware of it first as
I passed the silent churchyard with its grey stones ris-
ing from the snow. For there, on the other side of
the old stone wall that marks the road, was a monument
on which the Reaper hacks the toll of death. The list
for 1870 was small, indeed, compared with that of die
grosse Zeit. I looked for Lang and found it, for Hans
had died, as had also Richard.
I passed groups of men cutting wood and hauling ice
and grading roads, men with rounder faces and flatter
noses than the Bavarians, still wearing the yellowish-
brown uniform of Russia. That is, most of them wore
it. Some, whose uniforms had long since gone to tat-
ters, were dressed in ordinary clothing, with flaming
red R's painted on trousers and jackets.
An old woman with a heavy basket on her back was
trudging past a group of these. "How do you like
106 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
them ?" I asked. "We shall really miss them when they
go," she said. "They seem part of the village now.
The poor fellows, it must be sad for them so far from
home."
Evidently the spirit of new Germany had not satu-
rated her.
I went through crooked streets, bordered with houses
brightly frescoed with biblical scenes, to the Pension
Daheim, the home of the man I wished to see. As he
rose from his pottery bench to welcome me, I felt that
beneath his great blue apron and rough garb of the
working man was true nobility. I did not need to ask
if he was Anton Lang. I had seen his picture and had
often been told that his face was the image of His Who
died on the Cross. I expected much, but found in-
finitely more. I felt that life had been breathed into
a Rubens masterpiece. No photograph can do him jus-
tice, for no lens can catch the wondrous light in his clear
blue eyes.
I was the only guest at the Pension Daheim; indeed,
I was the only stranger in Oberammergau. I sat beside
Anton Lang in his work room as his steady hands fash-
ioned things of clay, I ate at table with him, and in the
evening we pulled up our chairs to the comfortable fire-
side, where we talked of his country and of my country,
of the Passion Play and of the war.
I had been sceptical about him until I met him. I
wondered if he was self-conscious about his goodness,
or if he was a dreamer who could not get down to the
realities of this world, or if he had been spoiled by
flattery, or if piety was part of his profession.
When I finally went from there I felt that I really
ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU 107
understood him. His life has been without an atom of
reproach, yet he never poses as pious. He does not
preach or stand aloof, or try to make you feel that ho
is better than you, but down in your heart you know
that he is. He has been honoured by royalty and men
of state, yet he remains simple and unaffected, though
quietly dignified in manner. He is truly Nature's
Nobleman, with a mind that is pure and a face the mir-
ror of his mind.
To play well his role of Christus is the dominating
passion of his life. Not the make-up box, but his own
thoughts must mould his features for the role, which
has been his in 1890, 1900 and 1910.
His travels include journeys to Rome and to the Holy
Land. He is well read, an interesting talker, and an
interested listener. He commented upon the great
change in the spirit of the people, a change from the
intoxicating enthusiasm of victory to a war-weary feel-
ing of trying to hold out through a sense of duty. To
my question as to when he thought the war would end,
he answered : "When Great Britain and Germany both
realise that each must make concessions. Neither can
crush the other."
The doctrine that "only through hate can the greatest
obstacles in life be overcome" has not reached his home,
nor was there hanging on the wall, as in so many Ger-
man homes, the famous order of the day of Crown
Prince Rupert of Bavaria, which commences with "Sol-
diers of the army! Before you are the English!" in
which he exhorts his troops with all the tricky sophistry
of hate.
Anton Lang has worked long hard hours to bring up
io8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
his family, rather than accept fabulous offers for a
theatrical tour of America. He refused these offers
through no mere caprice.
"I admit that the temptation is great," he said to
me. "Here I must always work hard and remain poor ;
there I quickly could have grown rich. But the Pas-
sion Play is not a business," he continued earnestly.
"Nearly three hundred years ago, when a terrible plague
raged over the land, the people of Oberammergau vowed
to Almighty God that if He would save their village,
they would perform every ten years in His glory the
Passion of His Divine Son. The village was saved and
Oberammergau has kept its promise. You see, if I had
accepted those theatrical offers I could never again live
in my native village, and that would break my heart."
There is carefully preserved in the town hall at
Oberammergau an old chronicle which tells of the
plague. There will undoubtedly be preserved in the
family of Lang a new chronicle, a product of the war,
printed in another country, a chronicle which did not
rest content with a notice of Anton's obituary, but told
the details of his death in battle.
Frau Lang showed me this chronicle. She seemed to
have something on her mind of which she wished to
speak, after I told her that I was an American jour-
nalist. At length one evening, after the three younger
children had gone to bed, and the eldest was indus-
triously studying his lessons for the next day, she ven-
tured. "American newspapers tell stories which are
not at all true, don't they ?" she half stated, half asked.
My natural inclination was to defend American jour-
nalism by attacking that of Germany, but something re-
ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU 109
strained me, I did not know what. "Of course," I ex-
plained, "in a country such as ours where the Press is
free, evils sometimes arise. We have all kinds of news-
papers. A few are very yellow, but the vast majority
seek to be accurate, for accuracy pays in the long run
in self-respecting journalism." I thought that perhaps
she was referring to the announcement of the death of
the man who was sitting with us in the room. We both
agreed, however, that such a mistake was perfectly natu-
ral since two Langs of Oberammergau had already been
killed. In fact, Anton had read of his own death notice
in a Munich paper. The American correspondent who
had cabled the news on two occasions had presumably
simply "lifted" the announcement from the German
papers. Frau Lang could understand that very well
when I explained, but how about the stories that Anton
had been serving a machine-gun and other details which
were pure fiction?
She had trump cards which she played at tfiis point.
Two gaudily coloured "Sunday Supplements" of a cer-
tain newspaper combination in the United States were
spread before me. The first told of how Anton Lang
had become a machine-gunner of marked ability, and
that he served his deadly weapon with determination.
Could the Oberammergau Passion Play ever exert the
old influence again, after this ? was the query at the end
of the article.
A second had all the details of Anton's death and was
profusely illustrated. The story started with Anton
going years ago into the mountains to try out his voice
in order to develop it for his histrionic task. There
was a brief account of how he had followed in the path
of the Prince of Peace, and of the tremendous effect he
had upon his audiences.
Then came the war, which tore him from his humble
home. The battle raged, the Bavarians charged the
French lines, and the spot-light of the story was played
upon a soldier from Oberammergau who lay wounded
in "No-Man's Land." Another charging wave swept
by this soldier, and as he looked up he saw the face of
the man he had respected and loved more than all other
men, the face of Anton Lang, the Christus of Oberam-
mergau. The soldier covered his eyes with his hands,
for never had Anton Lang looked as he did then. The
eyes which had always been so beautiful, so compas-
sionate, had murder in them now.
The scene shifted. A French sergeant and private
crouched by their machine-gun ready to repel the charge,
the mutual relationship being apparently somewhat that
of a plumber and his assistant. They sprayed the on-
coming Bavarians with a shower of steel and piled the
dead high outside the French trenches. The charge had
failed, and the sergeant began to act strangely. At
length he broke the silence. "Did you see that last
l)oche f Jean ?" he asked. "Did you see that face ?" Jean
confessed that he did not. "You are fortunate, Jean,"
said the sergeant. "Never have I seen such a face be-
fore. I felt as if there was something supernatural
about it I felt that it was wrong to kill that man. I
hated to do it, Jean. But then the butcher was coming
at us with a knife two feet long."
I finished reading and looked up at the questioning
eyes of Frau Lang and at the wonderful, indescribable
blue eyes of the "butcher" across the table, who, I may
ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU 1 1 1
add, is fifty-two years of age, and has not had a day's
military training in his life.
"And look," said Frau Lang, "these men are not even
Oberammergauers."
She pointed to one of the illustrations which de-
picted a small group of rather vicious-looking Prus-
sians, with rifles ready peering over the rim of a trench.
The picture was labelled "Four apostles now serving at
the Front."
"And see," continued the perplexed woman, "there is
Johann Zwinck, the Judas in the play. It says that he
is at the front. Why, he is sixty-nine years old, and is
still the village painter. Only yesterday I heard him
complain that the war was making it difficult for him
to get sufficient oil to mix his paint."
I was at a loss for words. "When one compares such
terrible untruths with our German White Book," de-
clared Frau Lang, "it is indeed difficult for the Ameri-
can people to understand the true situation."
I felt that it would be useless for me at that moment
to explain certain very important omissions in the Ger-
man White Book. Anything would look white in com'
parison with the yellow journal I had just read. But
I knew, and tried to explain that the particular news-
paper combination which printed such rubbish was well
known in America for its inaccuracies and fabrications,
and although it was pro-German, it would sacrifice any-
thing for sensation. But the good woman, being a Ger-
man, and consequently accustomed to standardisation^
could not dissociate this newspaper from the real Press.
CHAPTER X
SUBMARINE MOTIVES
THE German submarines are standardised. The
draughts and blue prints of the most important
machinery are multiplied and sent, if necessary, to
twenty different factories, while all the minor stamp-
ings are produced at one or other main factory. The
"assembling" of the submarines, therefore, is not diffi-
cult. During the war submarine parts have been as-
sembled at Trieste, Zeebrugge, Kiel, Bremerhaven, Stet-
tin, and half a dozen other places in Germany unneces-
sary to relate. With commendable foresight, Germany
sent submarine parts packed as machinery to South
America, where they are being assembled somewhere on
the west coast.
The improvement, enlargement, and simplification
of the submarine has progressed with great rapidity.
When I was in England after a former visit to Ger-
many I met a number of seafolk who pooh-poohed ex-
tensive future submarining, by saying that, no matter
how many submarines the Germans might be able to
produce, the training of submarine officers and crew
was such a difficult task that the "submarine menace,"
as it was then called in England, need not be taken too
seriously.
The difficulty is not so great. German submarine
officers and men are trained by the simple process of
112
SUBMARINE MOTIVES 113
double or treble banking of the crews of submarines on
more or less active service. Submarine crews are there-
fore multiplied probably a great deal faster than the
war destroys them. These double or treble crews, who
rarely go far away from German waters, and are mostly
trained in the safe Baltic, are generally composed of
young but experienced seamen. There are, however,
an increasing number of cases of soldiers being trans-
ferred abruptly to the U-boat service.
The education of submarine officers and crew begins
in thorough German fashion on land or in docks, in
dummy or disused submarines, accompanied by much
lecture work and drill. Submarine life is not so un-
comfortable as we think. With the exception of the
deprivation of his beer, which is not allowed in sub-
marines, or, indeed, any form of alcohol, except a small
quantity of brandy, which is kept under the captain's
lock and key, Hans in his submarine is quite as com-
fortable as Johann in his destroyer.
Extra comforts are forwarded to submarine men,
which consist of gramophone records (mostly Viennese
waltzes), chocolate, sausages, smoked eels, margarine,
cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco, a small and treasured
quantity of real coffee, jam, marmalade, and sugar. All
these, I was proudly told, were extras. There is no
shortage in the German Navy.
I learned nothing of value about the largest German
submarines, except that everybody in Germany knew
they were being built, and by the time the gossip of
them reached Berlin the impression there was that they
were at least as large as Atlantic liners.
Now as to German submarine policies. The part
1 14 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
that has to do with winning the war will be dealt with
in the next chapter. But there is also a definite policy
in connection with the use of submarines for winning
the "war after the war."
The National Liberal Party, of which Tirpitz is the
god, is at the head of the vast, gradually solidifying
mammoth trust, which embraces Krupps, the mines,
shipbuilding yards, and the manufactures. Now and
then a little of its growth leaks out, such as the linking
up of Krupps with the new shipbuilding.
The scheme is brutally simple and is going on under
the eyes of the British every day. These people be-
lieve that by building ships themselves and destroying
enemy and neutral shipping, they will be the world's
shipping masters at the termination of the war. . In
their attitude towards Norwegian shipping, you will
notice that they make the flimsiest excuse for the de-
struction of as much tonnage as they can sink. It was
confidently stated to me by a member of the National
Liberal Party, and by no means an unimportant one,
that Germany is building ships as rapidly as she is sink-
ing them. That I do not believe ; but that a great part
of her effort is devoted to the construction of mercan-
tile vessels I ascertained beyond the shadow of a doubt.
I have met people in England who refuse to believe
that Germany, battling on long lines east and west, and
constructing with feverish haste war vessels of every
description, can find sufficient surplus energy to build
ships which will not be of the slightest use until after
the war is finished. I can only say that I personally
have seen the recently completed Hamburg-America
liners Cap Polonio and Cap Finisterre anchored in the
SUBMARINE MOTIVES 115
Elbe off Altona. They are beautiful boats of 20,000
and 16,000 tons, a credit to the German shipbuilding
industry, which has made such phenomenal strides in
recent years. At Stettin I passed almost under the
stern of the brand new 21,000 ton Hamburg-South
America liner, Tirpitz which for obvious business
reasons may be re-named after the war.
Both at Hamburg and Liibeck, where the rattle of
the pneumatic riveter was as incessant as in any Ameri-
can city in course of construction, I was amazed at the
number of vessels of five or six thousand tons which I
saw being built. Furthermore, the giant North German
Lloyd liner, Hindenburg, is nearing completion, while
the Bismarck, of the Hamburg-America Line will be
ready for her maiden trip in the early days of peace.
Another part of the National Liberals' policy is the
keeping alive of all German businesses, banks and
others, in enemy countries. Some people in England
seem to think that the Germans are anxious to keep
these businesses alive in order to make money. Many
Germans regard John Bull as extremely simple, but not
so simple as to allow them to do that. So long as the
businesses are kept going until after the war, when they
can again start out with redoubled energy, the Germans
desire nothing more. The Deutsche Bank, for example,
which bears no comparison to an English or American
bank, but which is an institution for promoting both
political and industrial enterprise, is entrenched be-
hind so powerful an Anglo-German backing in London,
I was informed on many occasions, that the British Gov-
ernment dare not close it down. The mixture of spying
and propaganda with banking, with export, with manu-
1 1 6 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
^0
f acture, seems so foreign to Anglo-Saxon ways as to be
almost inconceivable.
Coincident with the destruction of foreign shipping,
and the maintenance of their businesses in enemy coun-
tries (England and Italy especially) is the exploita-
tion of the coal and other mines, oil wells, and forests
in occupied enemy territory. The French and Belgian
coalfields are being worked to the utmost, together with
the iron mines at Longwy and Brieux. Poland is being
deforested to such an extent that the climate is actually
altering.
It is a vast and definite scheme, with such able lead-
ers as Herr Bassermann, the real leader of the National
Liberal Party, Herr Stresemann, and Herr Hirsch, of
Essen. "We have powerful friends, not only in Lon-
don, Milan, Rome, Madrid, New York, and Montreal,
but throughout the whole of South America, and every-
where except in Australia where that verdammter
Hooges (Hughes) played into the hands of our feeble,
so-called leader, von Bethmann-Hollweg, by warning the
people that the British people would follow Hughes'
lead."
So much for the commercial part of submarining.
U-boating close to England has long ceased to be a
popular amusement with the German submarine flotilla,
who have a thoroughly healthy appreciation of the vari-
ous devices by which so many of them have been de-
stroyed. The National Liberals believe that the British
will not be able to tackle long-distance submarines oper-
ating in the Atlantic and elsewhere. Their radius of
action is undoubtedly increasing almost month by
month. From remarks made to me I do not believe that
SUBMARINE MOTIVES 117
these submarines have many land bases at great dis-
tances certainly none in the United States. They may
have floating bases; but this I do know that their
petrol-carrying capacity altogether exceeds that of any
earlier type of submarine, and that their surface speed,
at any rate in official tests, runs up to nearly 20 knots.
The trip of the Deuischland was not only for the
purpose of bringing a few tons of nickel and rubber,
but for thoroughly testing the new engines (designed
by Maybach), for bringing back a hundred reports of
the effects of submersion in such cold waters as are to
be found off the banks of Newfoundland, for ascertain-
ing how many days' submerged or surface travelling is
likely to be experienced, and, indeed, for making such
a trial trip across the Atlantic and back as was usual
in the early days of steamships.
CHAPTER XI
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE
AN enthusiastic, war-mad crowd had gathered about
an impromptu speaker in the Ringstrasse, not far
from the Hotel Bristol, in Vienna, one pleasant August
evening in 1914. His theme was the military prowess
of Austria-Hungary and Germany.
"And now," he concluded, "Japan has treacherously
joined our enemies. Yet we should not be disturbed,
for her entrance will but serve to bring us another ally
too. You all know of the ill-feeling between the United
States and Japan. At any moment we may hear that
the great Republic has declared war." He called for
cheers, and the Ringstrasse echoed with Hoch! Hoch!
Hoch ! for the United States of America.
That was. my introduction to European opinion of
my country during the war. During my four weeks in
the Austro-Serbian zone of hostilities, I had heard no
mention of anything but the purely military business
at hand.
The following evening from the window of an "Amer-
ican-Tourist-Special Train" I looked down on the happy
Austrians who jammed the platform, determined to give
the Americans a grand send-off, which they did with
flag-waving and cheers. A stranger on the platform
thrust a lengthy typewritten document into my hands,
with the urgent request that I should give it to the Press
n8
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 119
in New York. It was a stirring appeal to Americans
to "witness the righteousness of the cause of the Central
Powers in this war which had been forced upon them."
Three prominent citizens of Vienna had signed it, one
of whom was the famous Doctor Lorenz.
Berlin, in an ecstasy of joyful anticipation of the
rapid and triumphal entrance into Paris, was a repeti-
tion of Vienna. True, in the beginning, Americans,
mistaken for Englishmen by some of the undiscerning,
had been roughly treated, but a hint from those in high
authority changed that. In like manner, well-meaning
patriots who persisted in indiscriminately mobbing all
members of the yellow race were urged to differentiate
between Chinese and Japanese.
So I found festive Berlin patting Americans on the
back, cheering Americans in German-American meet-
ings, and prettily intertwining the Stars and Stripes
and the German flag.
"Now is your opportunity to take Canada," said the
man in the street. In fact, it was utterly incomprehen-
sible to the average German that we should not indulge
in some neighbouring land-grabbing while Britain was
so busy with affairs in Europe.
The German Foreign Office was, of course, under no
such delusion, although it had cherished the equally ab-
surd belief that England's colonies would rebel at the
first opportunity. The Wilhelmstrasse was, however,
hard at work taking the propaganda which it had so
successfully crammed down the throats of the German
citizen and translating it into English to be crammed
down the throats of the people in America. This wa3
simply one of the Wilhelmstrasse's numerous mistakes
120 THE IAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
THE EAGLE AND THE \TLTCBE
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1 22 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
edly. Their belief that they could starve England was
absolute. What could be simpler than putting a ring
of U-boats round the British Isles and cutting off all
trade until the pangs of hunger should compel Britain
to yield ? I heard no talk then about the "base crime
of starving women and children," which became their
whine a year later when the knife began to cut the other
way.
In 1915 it was immaterial to the mass of Germans
whether America joined their enemies or not. Their
training had led them to think in army corps, and they
frankly and sneeringly asked us, "What could you do ?"
They were still in the stage where they freely applied to
enemies and possible enemies the expression, "They are
afraid of us." "The more enemies, the more glory,"
was the inane motto so popular early in the war that it
was even printed on post cards.
The Gulflight, flying the Stars and Stripes, was tor-
pedoed in the reign of submarine anarchy immediately
inaugurated. But two can play most games, and when
the British Navy made it increasingly difficult for U-
boats to operate in the waters near the British Isles, the
German Foreign Office and the German Admiralty be-
gan to entertain divergent opinions concerning the ad-
visability of pushing the submarine campaign to a point
which would drag the United States into the war.
Only a few people in Germany know that von Beth-
mann-Hollweg strenuously opposed the plan to sink the
Lusitania. That is, he opposed it up to a point. The
advertisement from the German Embassy at Washing-
ton which appeared in American newspapers warning
Americans could not have appeared without his sane-
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 123
tion. In the last days of July, 1914, backed by the
Kaiser, he had opposed the mobilisation order sufficient
to cause a three days' delay which his military op-
ponents in German politics claim was the chief cause
of the failure to take Paris but in the case of the Lusi-
tania he was even more powerless against rampant mili-
tarism.
For nearly a year after the colossal blunder of the
Lusitania there existed in the deep undercurrents of
German politics a most remarkable whirlpool of dis-
cord, in which the policy of von Tirpitz was a severe
tax on the patience of von Bethmann-Hollweg and the
Foreign Office, for it was they who had to invent all
sorts of plausible excuses to placate various neutral
Powers.
The Kaiser after disastrously meddling with the Gen-
eral Staff during the first month of the war, subse-
quently took no active hand in military, naval and po-
litical policies unless conflicts between his chosen chief-
tains forced him to do so.
One striking instance of this occurred when the
Wilhelmstrasse discovered that Washington was in pos-
session of information in the "Arabic incident" which
made the official excuses palpably too thin. After the
German authorities became convinced that their failure
to guarantee that unresisting merchantmen would not
be sunk until passengers and crew were removed to a
place of safety would cause a break with the United
States, Tirpitz asserted that the disadvantages to Ger-
many from America as an enemy would be slight in
comparison with the advantages from the relentless sub-
marining which in his opinion would defeat Britain.
1 24 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
He therefore advocated that no concessions be made to
Washington. Von Bethmann-Hollweg was of the op-
posite opinion. A deadlock resulted, which was broken
when the Kaiser summoned both men to separate and
secret conferences. He decided in favour of the Chan-
cellor, whereupon Washington received the famous
"Arabic Guarantees." It is highly significant that
these were never made known to the German people.
Then followed six months of "frightfulness," broken
pledges, notes, crises, semi-crises, and finally the great
crisis de luxe in the case of the Sussex. When, a few
days after my return to England from Germany, I used
the expression "Sussex Crisis" to a leading Englishman,
he expressed surprise at the term "crisis." "We did not
get the impression in England that the affair was a real
crisis," he said.
My experiences in Germany during the last week in
April and the first four days in May, 1916, left no
doubt in my mind that I was living through a crisis, the
outcome of which would have a tremendous effect upon
the subsequent course of the war. Previous dealings
with Washington had convinced the German Govern-
ment as well as the German people that the American
Government would stand for anything. Thus the ex-
traordinary explanation of the German Foreign Office
that the Sussex was not torpedoed by a German subma-
rine, since the only U-boat commander who had fired a
torpedo in the channel waters on the fateful day had
made a sketch of the vessel which he had attacked,
which, according to the sketch, was not the Sussex.
The German people were so supremely satisfied with
this explanation that they displayed chagrin which
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 125
quickly changed to ugliness when the German Press was
allowed to print enough of the news from Washington
to prepare the public mind for something sharp from
across the Atlantic. I have seen Berlin joyful, serious,
and sad during the war; I have seen it on many mem-
orable days ; but never have I seen it exactly as on Sat-
urday, April 22nd, the day when the Sussex Ultimatum
was made known through the Press. The news was
headlined in the afternoon editions. The eager crowds
snapped them up, stood still in their tracks, and then
one and all expressed their amazement to anybody near
them. "President Wilson began by shaking his fist at
Germany, and ended by shaking his finger," was the
way one of the President's political opponents sum-
marised his Notes. That was the opinion in Germany.
And now he had "pulled a gun." The Germans could
not understand it. When they encountered any of the
few Americans left in their country they either foamed
in rage at them, or, in blank amazement, asked them
what it was all about.
t It was extremely interesting to the student of the
war to see that the people really did not understand
what it was all about. Theodor Wolff, the brilliant edi-
tor of the Berliner Tageblati, with great daring for a
German editor, raised this point in the edition in which
the Ultimatum was printed. He asserted that the Ger-
man people did not understand the case because they
purposely had been left in the dark by the Government.
He said, among other things, that his countrymen were
in no position to understand the feeling of resentment
in the United States, because the meagre reports per-
mitted in the German Press never described such de-
1 26 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
tails as the death agonies of women and children strug-
gling helplessly in the water.
This article in the Tageblatt was the striking excep-
tion to the rest of the Press comment throughout Ger-
many, for the German Government made one of its
typical moves at this point. "To climb down or not to
climb down/' was a question which would take several
days to decide. Public opinion was already sufficiently
enraged against America to give the Government united
support in case of a break, but it must be made more
enraged and consequently more united. Thus on Easter
Sunday the full current of hate was turned on in the
German Press. President Wilson was violently at-
tacked for working in the interest of the Allies, whom
he wished to save. Germany would not bow to this in-
justice, she would fight, and America, too, would be
made to feel what it means to go to war with Germany.
The German Press did its part to inflame a united
German sentiment, and the Foreign Office, which be-
lieves in playing the game both ways when it is of ad-
vantage to do so, with characteristic thoroughness did
not permit the American correspondents to cable to their
papers the virulent lies, such as those in the Tdgliche
Rundschau, about the affair in general and President
Wilson in particular. These papers were furthermore
not allowed to leave Germany.
On the evening preceding the publication of the Ul-
timatum, Maximilian Harden's most famous number of
the Zukunft appeared with the title "If I Were Wil-
son." On Saturday morning it was advertised on yel-
low and black posters throughout Berlin, and was
qui-ckly bought by a feverish public to whom anything
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 127
pertaining to German-American relations was of the
sharpest interest. The remarkable article was directly
at variance with all the manufactured ideas which had
been storming in German brains for more than a year.
The British sea policy was represented in a light quite
different from the officially incubated German concep-
tion of it. President Wilson was correctly portrayed as
strictly neutral in all his official acts. This staggered
Harden's readers quite as much as his attacks on the
brutal submarine policy of his country.
A careless censor had allowed "If I Were Wilson," to
appear. But a vigilant Government, ever watchful of
the food for the minds of its children, hastened with the
usual police methods to correct the mistake. The Zu-
kunft was beschlagnahmt, which means that the police
hastily gathered up all unsold copies at the publishers,
kiosks, and wherever else they were to be found. If a
policeman saw one in a man's pocket he took it away.
Why did the Government do everything in its power
to suppress this article ? The Government fully under-
stood that there was nothing in it that was not true,
nothing in it of a revolutionary character. It divulged
no military or naval secrets. It was a simple statement
of political truths. But the German great Idea Fac-
tory in the Wilhelmstrasse does not judge printed mat-
ter from its truth or falsity. The forming of the public
mind in the mould in which it will best serve the in-
terests of the State is the sole consideration. While the
Directors of Thought were deliberating on the relative
disadvantages of a curtailment of submarine activity
and America as an enemy, and the order of the day was
to instill hatred, no matter how, they decided that it
1 2 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
would be inadvisable for the people to read the true
statements of Harden.
One American correspondent began to cable five
thousand words of "If I Were Wilson" to his paper.
The Censor stopped him after he had sent thirteen hun-
dred. A rival correspondent, when he glanced at the
article immediately after it had appeared, decided that
it was more suitable for mail matter than cable matter,
put it in an envelope, and actually scored a scoop over
all opponents.
During the following days, when the leaders of Ger-
many were in conference at the Headquarters of the
General Staff, I travelled as much as possible to find
out German sentiment. The people were intoxicated
with the successes against Verdun, and were angrily in
favour of a break. One German editor said to me,
"The Government has educated them to believe that the
U-boat can win the war. Their belief is so firm that
it will be difficult for the authorities to explain a back-
down to Wilson."
It was not. The Government can explain anything
to the German people. The back-down came, causing
sentiments which can be divided into three groups.
One, "We were very good to give in to America. Eng-
land would not be so good." Two, "Americans put us
in a bad position. To curtail our submarine weapon
means a lengthening of the war. On the other hand, to
add America to the list of our enemies would lengthen
the war still more." Three, "We shall wait our oppor-
tunity and pay back America for what she has done
to us." I heard the latter expression everywhere, par-
ticularly among the upper classes. It was the expres-
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 129
sion of Doctor Drechsler, head of the Amerika-Institut
in Berlin, and one of the powerful propaganda trium-
virate composed of himself, Doctor Bertling, and the
late Professor Miinsterberg.
With the increasing deterioration inside the German
Empire the resolve of the Chancellor to avoid a clash
with the United States strengthened daily. His op-
ponents, however, most of the great Agrarians and Na-
tional Liberals, the men behind Tirpitz, continue to
work for a new submarine campaign in which all neu-
trals will be warned that their vessels will be sunk
without notice if bound to or from the ports of Ger-
many's enemies. They are practical men, who believe
that only through the unrestricted use of the submarine
can Britain, whom they call the keystone of the oppo-
sition, be beaten. The Chancellor is also a practical
man, who believes that the entrance of America on the
side of the Entente would seal the fate of Germany.
He is supported by Herr Helfferich, the Vice-Chancel-
lor, and Herr Zimmermann, the Foreign Secretary, men
with a deep insight into the questions of trade and
treaties. They believe that peace will be made across
the table and not at the point of the sword, and they
realise that it is much better for Germany not to have
the United States at the table as an enemy.
In September, 1916, the Chancellor began to lay the
wires for a new campaign, a campaign to enlist the ser-
vices of Uncle Sam in a move for peace. It is signifi-
cant, however, that he and his Government continue to
play the game both ways. While Germany presses her
official friendship on the United States, and conducts
propaganda there to bring the two nations closer to-
1 30 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
gether, she at the same time keeps up the propaganda
of hate at home against America, in order to have the
support of the people in case of emergency.
The attacks against Washington in the Continental
Times show which way the wind blows, for this paper
is subsidised by the German Foreign Office through the
simple device of buying 30,000 copies of each issue
it appears three times weekly at Si/oeZ. per copy. The
editors are Aubrey Stanhope, an Englishman who even
before the war could not return to his native country
for reasons of his own, and R. L. Orchelle, whose real
name is Hermann Scheffauer, who claims to be an
American, but is not known as such at the. American
Embassy in Berlin. He has specialised in attacks
against Great Britain in the United States. Some of
the vicious onslaughts against Washington in Germany
were made by him.
American flags are scarce in Berlin to-day, but one
always waves from the window of 48, Potsdamerstrasse.
It is a snare for the unwary, but the League uses it
here as in countless other instances as a cloak for its
warfare against the U.S.A.
The League started early in the war by issuing book-
lets by the ton for distribution in Germany and Amer-
ica. Subscription blanks were scattered broadcast for
contributions for the cause of light and truth. Dona-
tions soon poured in, some of them very large, from
Germans and German-Americans who wished, many of
them sincerely, to have what they considered the truth
told about Germany.
The ways of the League, however, being crooked,
some of the charter members began to fall away from
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 131
one another and many of the doings of the ringleaders
are now coming to light.
The League must be doing well financially, as Wil-
liam Martin, the chief of the Potsdamerstrasse^ office,
jubilantly declared that no matter how the war ended
he would come out of it with a million.
Any real American, whether at home or abroad,
deeply resents the degradation of his flag. Yet the
League of Truth in Berlin has consistently dragged the
Stars and Stripes in the mire, and that in a country
which boasts that the police are not only omniscient but
omnipotent.
A constant attempt, in accordance with the policy of
most German newspapers, I may add, is made to de-
pict us as a spineless jelly-fish nation. They have re-
garded principles of international custom as little as the
manipulators of submarines under the reign of Tirpitz.
Last fourth of July, Charles Mueller, a pseudo-
American, hung from his home in the busy Kurfiirsten-
damm a huge American flag with a deep border of
black that Berlin might see a "real American's" symbol
of humiliation. On the same day, dear to the hearts of
Americans, a four-page flyer was spread broadcast
through the German capital with a black border on the
front page enclosing a black cross. The Declaration of
Independence was bordered with black inside and an
ode to American degradation by John L. Stoddard com-
pleted the slap in the face.
The League selected January 27th, 1916, the Kaiser's
birthday, as a suitable occasion for Mueller and Marten,
not even hyphenates, solemnly and in the presence of a
great crowd to place an immense wreath at the base of
132 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the statue of Frederick the Great on the Linden, with
the inscription "Wilson and his Press are not America."
The stern Police Department of Berlin does not per-
mit the promiscuous scattering of floral decorations and
advertising matter on the statues of German gods, and
the fact that the wreath remained there month after
month proved that somebody high up was sanctioning
the methods of the League.
The protests of the American Ambassador were of
no avail, until he determined to make an end of the
humiliation, after three months, by threatening to go
down to this busy section of Berlin, near the Koyal Pal-
ace, and remove the wreath himself. Force is the only
argument which impresses the Prussians, and we are
extremely fortunate that our Ambassador to Germany is
a man of force.
The League, however, had printed a picture of the
wreath in its issue of Light and Truth, which it en-
deavours to circulate everywhere.
Stoddard, mentioned above, is the famous lecturer.
He has written booklets for the League, one of which I
read in America. His last pamphlet, however, is a
most scurrilous attack against his country. He raves
against America, and, after throwing the facts of in-
ternational law to the winds, he shrieks for the impeach-
ment of Wilson to stop this slaughter for which he has
sold himself.
It is no secret in Berlin that the League have sys-
tematically hounded Mr. Gerard. I do not know why
they hate him, unless it is because he is a member of
the American Government. I have heard it said that
one way to get at Wilson was through his Ambassador.
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 133
Their threats and abuse became so great that he and one
of the American newspaper correspondents went to 48,
Potsdamerstrasse during the Sussex crisis to warn the
leaders. They answered by swearing out a warrant
against Mr. Gerard with the Berlin police paying no
heed to international customs in such matters and cir-
culating copies of the charge broadcast.
Readers who are familiar with Germany know that
if a man does not instantly defend himself against Be-
leidigung society judges him guilty. Thus this and
countless other printed circulations of falsehood against
Mr. Gerard have cruelly hurt him throughout Ger-
many, as I know from personal investigation. Next to
Mr. Wilson and a few men in England he is the most
hated man among the German people. He finally felt
obliged to deny in the German Press some of the ab-
surd stories circulated about him, such as that of Mrs.
Gerard putting a German decoration he received on her
dog.
Mueller, however, was not content with mere printed
attacks, but has made threats against the life of the
American Ambassador. A prominent American has
sworn an affidavit to this effect, but Mueller still pur-
sues his easy way. On the night that the farewell din-
ner was being given to a departing secretary at our
Embassay, Mueller and a German officer went about
Berlin seeking Mr. Gerard for the professed purpose of
picking a fight with him. They went to Richards'
Restaurant, where the dinner was being given, but for-
tunately missed the Ambassador.
The trickery of the League would fill a volume, for
Marten especially is particularly clever. He leapt into
134 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
fame in Berlin by going to Belgium "at his own risk."
as he says, to refute the charges of German cruelty
there. His book on Belgium, and a later one claiming
to refute the Bryce report, are unimpressive since they
fail to introduce facts, and the writer contents himself
for the main part with soliloquies on Belgian battle-
fields, in which he attacks Russian aggression and
Britain's perfidy in entering the war. The Belgians,
we gather, are more or less delighted with the change
from Albert to Wilhelm.
Marten prints testimonials of the book from leading
Germans, most of whom, such as General Falkenhayn,
content themselves with acknowledgment of receipt with
thanks and statement of having read the work. Count
Zeppelin goes further, and hopes that the volume will
find a wide circulation, particularly in neutral countries.
And now for the vice-president of this anti-American
organisation. He is St. John Gaffney, former Ameri-
can Consul-General to Munich. He belongs to the mod-
ern martyr series of the German of to-day. All over
Germany I was told that he was dismissed by Mr. Wil-
son because he sympathised with Germany. The Ger-
mans as a mass know nothing further, but I can state
from unimpeachable authority that he used rooms of
the American Hospital in Munich, while a member of
the board of that hospital and an officer in the consular
service of the United States, for propaganda purposes.
His presence became so objectionable to the heads of
the hospital, excellent people whose sole aim is to aid
suffering humanity, that he was ousted.
He returned from his American trip after his dis-
missal last year and gave a widely quoted interview
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 135
upon arrival in Germany which sought to discredit
America through hitting Mr. Wilson and the Press
in the most tense point of our last altercation in Feb-
ruary with Germany over the Lusitania. Such men as
Gaffney are greatly to blame for many German delu-
sions.
Mr. Gerard is not the only official whose path has
not been strewn with roses in Germany. Our military
attache has not been permitted to go to the German
front for nearly a year, and the snub is apparent in the
newspaper and Government circles of Berlin. He is
probably the only one left behind.
The big Press does not use League of Truth material
and certain other anti-American copy which would be
bad for Germany, to reach foreign critics' attacks.
Many provincial papers, however, furiously protested
against the recent trip of the American military attache
through industrial Germany. It was only the Ameri-
can, not other foreign attaches, to whom they objected.
All this is useful to the German Government, for it
keeps the populace in the right frame of mind for two
purposes. In the first place, a hatred of America in-
spired by the belief that she is really an enemy, gives
the German Government greater power over the people.
Secondly, should the Wilhelmstrasse decide to play the
relentless submarine warfare as its last hand it will have
practically united support.
CHAPTER XII
IN THE GKIP OF THE FLEET
THERE is only one way to realise the distress in Ger-
many, and that is to go there and travel as widely
as possible preferably on foot. The truth about the
food situation and the growing discontent cannot be
told by the neutral correspondent in Germany. It must
be memorised and carried across the frontier in the
brain, for the searching process extends to the very skin
of the traveller. If he has an umbrella or a stick it is
likely to be broken for examination. The heels are
taken from his boots lest they may conceal writings.
This does not happen in every case, but it takes place
frequently. Many travellers are in addition given an
acid bath to develop any possible writing in invisible
ink.
In Germany, as it is no longer possible to conceal the
actual state of affairs from any but highly placed and
carefully attended neutrals travelling therein, the ut-
most pains are being taken to mislead the outside world.
The foreign correspondents are not allowed to send any-
thing the Government does not wish to get out. They
are, moreover, regularly dosed with propaganda dis-
tributed by the Nachrichtendienst (Publicity Service
of the Foreign Office).
One of the books handed round to the neutrals when
I was in Berlin was a treatise on the German industrial
136
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 13?
and economic situation by Professor Cassell, of the
University of Upsala, Sweden.
He came upon the invitation of the German author-
ities for a three weeks' study of conditions. In his
preface he artlessly mentions that he was enabled to
accomplish so much in three weeks owing to the praise-
worthy way in which everything was arranged for him.
He compiled his work from information discreetly
imparted at interviews with officials, from printed sta-
tistics, and from observations made on carefully
shepherded expeditions. Neutral correspondents are
expected to use this sort of thing, which is turned out
by the hundredweight, as the basis of their communica-
tions to their newspapers. We were supplied with a
similar volume on the "Great German naval victory
of Jutland."
One feels in Germany that the great drama of the
war is the drama of the food supply the struggle of
a whole nation to prevent itself being exhausted through
hunger and shortage of raw materials.
After six months of war the bread ticket was intro-
duced, which guaranteed thirty-eight ordinary sized
rolls or equivalent each week to everybody throughout
the Empire. In the autumn of 1915 Tuesday and Fri-
day became meatless days. The butter lines had become
an institution towards the close of the year. There was
little discomfort, however.
For seventeen months Germany laughed at the at-
tempt to starve her out. Then, early in 1916 came a
change. An economic decline was noticeable, a decline
which was rapid and continuous during each succeeding
month. Pork disappeared from the menu, beef became
138 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
scarcer and scarcer, but veal was plentiful until April.
In March sugar could be obtained in only small quan-
tities, six months later the unnutritious saccharine had
almost completely replaced it. Fish continued in abun-
dance, but became increasingly expensive. A shortage
in meat caused a run on eggs. In September egg cards
limited each person to two eggs per week, in December
the maximum became one egg in two weeks. Vege-
tables, particularly cabbage and turnips, were plentiful
enough to be of great help.
In Berlin the meat shortage became 4 so acute in
April, 1916, that for five days in the week preceding
Easter most butchers' shops did not open their doors.
This made it imperative that the city should extend
the ticket rationing system to meat. The police issued
cards to the residents of their districts, permitting them
to purchase one-half pound of meat per week from a
butcher to whom they were arbitrarily assigned in order
to facilitate distribution. The butchers buy through the
municipal authorities, who contract for the entire sup-
ply of the city. The tickets are in strips, each of which
represents a week, and each strip is subdivided into five
sections for the convenience of diners in restaurants.
Since the supply in each butcher's shop was seldom
sufficient to let everybody be served in one day, the
custom of posting in the windows or advertising in the
local papers "Thursday, Nos. 1-500," and later, Sat-
urday, Nos. 501-1000," was introduced. A few butch-
ers went still further and announced at what houra
certain numbers could be served, thus doing away with
the long queues.
Most of the competent authorities with whom I dis-
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 139
cussed the matter agreed that the great flaw in the meat
regulations was that, unlike those of bread, they were
only local and thus there were great differences and cor-
respondinng discontent all over Germany.
One factor which contributed to Germany's shortage
of meat was the indiscriminate killing of the live-
stock, especially pigs, when the price of fodder first rose
in the last months of 1914. Most of this excess killing
was done by the small owners. Our plates were heaped
unnecessarily. Some of the dressing was done so hur-
riedly and carelessly that there were numerous cases of
pork becoming so full of worms that it had to be
destroyed.
The great agrarian junkers were not forced by lack
of fodder to kill; consequently they own a still larger
proportion of the live-stock than they did at the begin-
ning of the war.
On October 1st, 1916, the regulation of meat was
taken out of the hands of the local authorities so far
as their power to regulate the amount for each person
was concerned, and this amount was made practically
the same throughout Germany.
First and foremost in the welfare of the people, what-
ever may be said by the vegetarians, is the vital ques-
tion of the meat supply. Involved in the question of
cattle is milk, leather, other products, and of course,
meat itself.
One German statistician told me he believed that
the conquest of Roumania would add between nine and
ten months to Germany's capacity to hold out, during
which time, no doubt, one or other of the Allies would
succumb.
140 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
At the beginning of 1917 the actual number of cattle
in Germany does not seem to be so greatly depreciated
as one would expect. After a very thorough investiga-
tion I am convinced that there are in Germany to-day
from three-fourths to four-fifths as many head of cattle
as there were before the war.
In the spring and summer these cattle did very well,
but with the passing of the grazing season new difficul-
ties are arising. Cattle must be fed, and unless suffi-
cient grain comes from Roumania to supply the bread
for the people and the fodder for the cattle it is obvious
that there must be a wholesale slaughtering, and con-
sequent reduction of milk, butter, and cheese.
All these details may seem tiresome, but they directly
concern the length of the war.
To add to the shortage, the present stock of cattle
in Germany was, when I left, being largely drawn upon
for the supply of the German armies in the occupied
parts of France, Belgium, and Russia, and the winter
prospect for Germany, therefore, is one of obviously
increased privation, provided always that the blockade
is drastic.
Cattle are, of course, not the only food supply. There
is game. Venison is a much commoner food in Ger-
many than in England, especially now there is much
of it left. *EIares, rabbits, partridges are in some parts
of Germany much more numerous even than in Eng-
land. A friend of mine recently arrived from Hungary
told me that he had been present at a shoot over driven
partridges at which, on three successive days, over 400
brace fell to the guns. Wherever I went in Germany,
however, game was being netted.
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 141
Before the war, pork, ham, and bacon were the most
popular German food, but owing to the mistake of
killing pigs in what I heard called the "pork panic"
the Germans are to-day facing a remarkable shortage of
their favourite meat. I am convinced that they began
1917 with less than one-fourth as many pigs as they had
before the war.
The Berlin stockyards slaughtered over 25,000 pigs
weekly before August, 1914. During the first 10
months of the war the figure actually rose to 50,000
pigs per week in that one city alone. In one
week in September last the figure had fallen to 350
pigs!
The great slaughter early in the war gave a false
optimism not only to Germans, but also to visitors. If
you have the curiosity to look back at newspapers of that
time you will find that the great plenty of pork was
dilated upon by travelling neutrals.
To-day the most tremendous efforts are being made
to increase the number of pigs. You will not find much
about this in the German newspapers in fact what
the German newspapers do not print is often more im-
portant than what they do print. In the rural districts
you can learn much more of Germany's food secrets
than in the newspapers.
In one small village which I went to I counted no
fewer than thirty public notices on various topics. Here
is one:
FATTEN PIGS.
Fat is an essential for sol-
diers and hard workers.
Not to keep and fatten pigs
1 42 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
if you are able to do
so is treason to the
Fatherland.
No pen empty every pen full.
These food notices may be necessary, but they are
bringing about intense class hatred in Germany. They
are directed at the small farmer, who in many cases has
killed all his pigs and most of his cows, because of his
difficulty in getting fodder. As I have said, the great
agrarian junkers, the wealthy landowners of Prussia,
have in many cases more cows, more pigs, more poultry
than before the war.
The facts of these great disparities of life are well
known, and if there were more individuality in the
German character they would lead to something more
serious than the very tame riots, at several of which I
have been present.
That the food question is the dominating topic in
Germany among all except the very rich, and that this
winter will add to the intensity of the conversations on
the subject, is not difficult to understand. Most of the
shopping of the world is done by women, and the Ger-
man woman of the middle class, whose maidservant
has gone off to a munition factory, has to spend at least
half her day waiting in a long line for potatoes, butter,
or meat.
There is a curious belief in England and in the
United States in the perfection of German organisation.
My experience of their organisation is that it is abso-
lutely marvellous when there are no unexpected diffi-
culties in the way. When the Germans first put the
nation on rations as to certain commodities, the outside
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 143
world said, "Ah, they arc beginning to starve!" or
"What wonderful organisers!"
As a matter of fact, they were not beginning to starve,
and they were not wonderful organisers. The rationing
was done about as badly as it could be done. It was
arranged in such a fashion as to produce plenty in some
places and dearth in others. It was done so that wealthy
men made fortunes and poor men were made still
poorer. The inordinate greed and lack of real patriot-
ism on the part of influential parties in both Germany
and Austria-Hungary have added to the bad state of
affairs. As if to make matters worse, the whole vast
machine of rationing by ticket was based on the expecta-
tion of a comparatively quick and decisive victory for
Germany. This led to reckless consumption and a great
rise in prices. The fight that is now going on between
the masses in the towns and the wealthy land-owning
farmers has been denounced in public by food dictator
Batocki (pronounced Batoski), who, in words almost
of despair, complained of the selfish landed proprietor,
who would only disgorge to the suffering millions in
the great manufacturing centres at a price greatly ex-
ceeding that fixed by the food authorities.
All manner of earnest public men are endeavouring
to cope with the coming distress, and at this point I
can do no better than quote from an interview given
me by Dr. Siidekum, Social Democratic member of the
Reichstag for Nuremberg, Bavaria. He is a sincere
patriot, and a prominent worker in food organisation.
"More than a year ago," he explained, "I worked
out a plan for the distribution of food, which provided
for uniform food-cards throughout the entire empire.
144 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
For example, everyone, whether he lived in a Bavarian
village or in a Prussian city, would receive, say, half
a pound of meat a week. I presented my plan to the
Government, with whose approval it met. Xeverthe-
less, they did not see fit to adopt it for three reasons.
In the first place because they believed that the people
might become unnecessarily alarmed. Secondly, be-
cause our enemies might make capital out of such
measures. Thirdly, because our leaders at that time
believed that the war might be over before the end of
1915.
'*But the war dragged on, and we were somewhat
extravagant with our supplies I except bread, for
which we introduced cards in February, 1915 and
instead of the whole Empire husbanding the distribu-
tion of meat, for example, various sections here and
there introduced purely local measures, with the inevi-
table resulting confusion.
"Hunger has been a cause of revolution in the past,"
Dr. Siidekum continued thoughtfully. fr We should take
lessons from history, and do everything in our power
to provide for the poor. I have worked hard in the
development of the 'People's Kitchens' in Berlin. We
started in the suburbs early in 1916, in some great cen-
tral kitchens in which we cook a nourishing meat and
vegetable stew. From these kitchens distributing vehi-
cles Gulasch-kanonen (stew cannons) as they are jocu-
larly called are sent through the city, and from them
one may purchase enough for a meal at less than the
cost of production. We have added a new central
kitchen each week until we now have 30, each of which
supplies 10,000 people a day with a meal, or, more
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 145
correctly, a meal and a half. In July, however, the
work assumed greater proportions, for the municipal
authorities also created great central kitchens. Most
of the dinners are taken to the homes and eaten there.
"The People's Kitchen idea is now spreading through-
out Germany. But I believe in going further. I be-
lieve in putting every German I make no exception
upon rations. That is what is done in a besieged city,
and our position is sufficiently analogous to a besieged
city to warrant the same measures. All our food would
then be available for equal distribution, and each person
would get his allowance."
This earnest Social Democrat's idea is, of course,
perfect in theory. Even the able, hard-working Batocki,
however, cannot make it practicable. Why not ? The
Agrarian, the great Junker of Prussia, not only will
not make sacrifices, but stubbornly insists upon wring-
ing every pfennig of misery money from the nation
which has boasted to the world that its patriotism was
unselfish and unrivalled.
The most important German crop of all at this
juncture is potatoes, for potatoes are an integral part
of German and Austrian bread. The handling of the
crop, to which all Germany was looking forward so
eagerly, exhibits in its most naked form the horrid pro-
fiteering to which the German poor are being subjected
by the German rich.
It was a wet summer in Germany. Wherever I went
in my rural excursions I heard that the potatoes were
poor. The people in the towns knew little of this, and
were told that the harvests were good.
An abominable deception was practised upon the pub-
146 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
lie with the first potato supply. For many months
tickets had heen in use for this food, which is called
the "German staff of life." Suddenly official notices
appeared that potatoes could be had for a few days
without tickets, and the unsuspecting public at once
ordered great quantities.
The Agrarians thus got rid of all their bad potatoes to
the mass of the people. In many cases they were
rotting so fast that the purchaser had to bury them.
It was found that they produced illness when given to
swine.
What other people in the world than the Germans
would stand that? But they did stand it. "These are
only the early potattoes the main crop will be all
right," said the profiteers right and left, and gradually
the masses began to echo them, as is usual in Germany.
Well, the main crop has been gathered, and Food
Dictator von Batocki is, according to the latest reports
I hear from Germany, unable to make the Agrarians
put their potatoes upon the market even at the maxi-
mum price set by the Food Commission.
They are holding back their supplies until they have
forced up the maximum price, just as a year ago many
of them allowed their potatoes to rot rather than sell
them to the millions in the cities at the price set by
law.
Some Germans, mostly Social Democratic leaders,
declare that since their country is in a state of siege,
the Government should, beyond question, commandeer
the supplies and distribute them, but just as the indus-
trial classes have, until quite recently, resisted war
taxes, so do the Prussian Junkers, by reason of their
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 14?
power in the Reichstag, snap their fingers at any sug-
gested fair laws for food distribution.
The Burgomaster usually a powerful person in
Germany is helpless. When on September 1 the great
house-to-house inventory of food supplies was taken,
burgomasters of the various sections of Greater Berlin
took orders from the people for the whole winter supply
of potatoes on special forms delivered at every house.
Up to the time I left, the burgomasters were unable
to deliver the potatoes.
Any dupes of German propaganda who imagine that
there is much self -sacrifice among the wealthy class in
Germany in this war should disabuse their minds of
that theory at once. While the poor are being deprived
of what they have, the purchases of pearls, diamonds,
and other gems by the profiteers are on a scale never
before known in Germany.
One of the paradoxes of the situation, both in Austria
and in Germany, is the coincidence of the great gold
hunt, which is clearing out the trinkets of the humblest,
with the roaring trade in jewelry in Berlin and Vienna.
As an instance I can vouch for the veracity of the fol-
lowing story :
A Berlin woman went to Werner's, the well-known
jewellers in the TJnter den Linden, and asked to be
shown some pearl necklaces. After very little exam-
ination she selected one that cost 40,000 marks
(2,000). The manager, who knew the purchaser as a
regular customer for small articles of jewelry, ven-
tured to express his surprise, remarking, "I well remem-
ber, madam, that you have been coming here for many
years, and that you have never bought anything ex-
ceeding in value 100 marks. Naturally I am somewhat
E4fl THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
surprised at the purchase of this necklace," "Oh, it
it very simple," she replied. "Hy husband is in the
leather business, and our war profits have made us rich
beyond our fondest hopes."
Throughout Austria and Germany in every village
and townlet are appearing notices to bring in gold.
The following notice is to be met with in all parts of
Germany:
LET EVERY ONE WORTHY OF THB NAME OF
GERMAN DO HIS DUTY sow.
Our enemies, after realising that they cannot de-
feat us on the field of battle, are striving to defeat
us economically. But here they win also f aiL
OCT WITH YOUR GOLD.
Out with your gold ! What is the value of a trinket
to the life of the dear one that gave it I By giving
now you may save the life of a husband, brother, or
son.
Bring your gold to the places designated below.
If the value of the gold you bring exceeds five
marlnt, yon will receive an iron memento of "Die
grosseZeiL"
Iron chains will be given for gold chains.
Wedding rings of those still living will not be ac-
cepted*
From rural pulpits is preached the wickedness of
retaining gold which might purchase food for the man
in the trenches.
The precedent of the historic great ladies of Prussia
who exchanged their golden wedding rings for rings
of iron is drummed into the smaller folk continuously.
The example is being followed by the exchange of gold
trinkets for trinkets made of iron, with the addition of
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 149
the price paid at the central collecting station paid, of
course, in paper, which is at a 30 per cent, discount in
Germany and 47 per cent, discount in Austria. Every
bringer of a trinket worth more than 5s. receives a
small iron token of "die grosse Zeit" (the great epoch).
The gold hunt has revealed unexpected possessions in
the hands of the German and Austrian lower classes.
To me it was pathetic to see an old woman tremblingly
handing over treasures that had come down probably for
two or three generations treasures that had never been
worn except on high days and festivals, weddings, and
perhaps on the day of the local fair. Particularly sad
is this self-sacrifice in view of the gigantic profits of the
food usurers and war profiteers. The matter is no
secret in Germany or Austria. It is denounced by the
small Socialist minority in the Reichstag, to whose
impotence I have often referred. It is stoutly defended
in good Prussian fashion by those openly making the
profits.
There has arisen a one-sided Socialism which no one
but Bismarck's famous "nation of lackeys" would
tolerate. At the top is a narrow circle of agrarian and
industrial profiteers, often belonging to the aristocratic
classes. At the other end of the scale is, for example,
the small farmer, who has now absolutely nothing to say
concerning either the planting, the marketing, or the
selling of his crops. Regulations are laid down as to
what he should sow, where he should sell, and the price
at which he should sell. Unlike the Junker, he has not
a long purse. He must sell.
What state of mind does this produce among the
people ? I know that outside Germany there is an idea
150 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
that every German is working at top speed with the
spirit of the Fatherland naming him on. That was the
spirit I witnessed in the early days of the war, when
Germany was winning and food was plentiful.
In certain rural districts as well as in centres of
population there is an intense longing for peace not
merely for a German peace but any peace, and a peace
not merely for military reasons, but arising out of
utter weariness of the rule of the profiteers and the cas-
ualties not revealed by the doctored lists ingeniously
issued lists, which, for example, have never revealed
the loss of a submarine crew, though intelligent Ham-
burg shipping people, who are in close touch with Ger-
man naval people, estimate the loss of German
submarines as at least one hundred. I have heard the
figure put higher, and also lower.
This kind of one-sided Socialism makes the people so
apathetic that in some parts of Germany it has been
very difficult to induce them to harvest their own crops,
and in German Poland they have been forced to garner
the fields at the point of the bayonet.
When a man has no interest in the planting, market-
ing, and selling price of his produce; when he knows
that what he grows may be swept away from his dis-
trict without being sure that it will be of any benfit to
himself and his family ; when, in addition, the father or
sons of the households lie buried by the Yser, the
Somme, the Meuse or the Drina, it is impossible for the
authorities to inspire any enthusiasm for life, let alone
war, even among so docile a people as those they deal
with.
*******
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 151
With regard to the other crops, rye is good ; beets look
good, but are believed to be deficient in sugar owing to
the absence of South American fertilisers; wheat is
fairly good; oats extremely good, and barley also ex-
cellent. The Germans have boasted to the neutral vis-
itor that their artificial nitrates are just as good fertili-
sers as those imported from South America. It is true
that they do very well for most crops when the weather
is damp. But beets, strangely enough, require the gen-
uine Chilean saltpetre to produce their maximum of
sugar. The failure to get this, plus the use of sugar
in munition making, accounts for the dearth of that
commodity among the civilian population.
In order that nothing shall be wasted, the Govern-
ment decreed this year that the public should be allowed
to scavenge the fields after the harvest had been
gathered, and this was a source of some benefit to those
residing near the great centres of population.
Schoolmasters were also ordered to teach the children
the need of gathering every sort of berry and nut.
Passing along an English hedgerow the other day,
and seeing it still covered with withered blackberries,
I compared them with the bare brambles which I saw
in Germany from which all berries have gone to help
the great jam-making business which is to eke out the
gradually decreasing butter and margarine supply.
Sickness and death have resulted from mistakes made,
not only in gathering berries, but in gathering mush-
rooms and other fungi, which have been keenly sought.
It is safe to say that the Germans are leaving no
stone unturned to avoid the starvation of the Seven
Years' War. The ingenuity of the chemists in produc-
152 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ing substitutes was never greater. One of the most
disagreeable foods I have tasted was bread made of
straw. Countless experiments have been made in the
last year to adapt straw to the human stomach, but
although something resembling bread has been pro-
duced, it contains almost no nourishment and results in
illness.
People who reside in the cities and carefully shep-
herded visiting neutrals, who do not go into the country,
have little notion of the terrific effort being put forward
to make the fruits of Mother Earth defeat the blockade,
and above all to extract any kind of oil from anything
that grows.
Here is one notice:
How THE CIVIL POPULATION CAN HELP IN THE WAK.
Our enemies are trying to exhaust us, but they
cannot succeed if every one
does his duty.
OIL is a Necessity.
You can help the Fatherland if you plant
poppies, castor plant, sunflowers.
In addition to doing important work for
the Fatherland you benefit yourself be-
cause the price for oil is high.
I may say that the populace have responded. Never
have I seen such vast fields of poppies, sunflowers, rape
plant, and other oleaginous crops. Oil has been ex-
tracted from plum-stones, cherry-stones, and walnuts.
The Government have not pleased the people even in
this matter. One glorious summer day, after tramp-
ing alone the sandy roads of Southern Brandenburg,
I came to a little red-brick village in the midst of its
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 153
sea of waving rye and blaze of sunflowers and poppies.
Taking my seat at the long table in front of the local
Gasihaus, and ordering some imitation coffee the only
refreshment provided in the absence of a local bread
ticket I pointed out one of these notices to the only
other person at the table, who was drinking some "ex-
traordinarily weak beer," as he put it. "Have the peo-
ple here planted much of these things I see on that
notice?" I asked, pointing to one of the placards.
"Yes," he said, "certainly. A great deal ; but the Gov-
ernment is going to be false to us again. It will be
commandeered at a price which they have already set."
Then came the usual string of grumbles which one hears
everywhere in the agricultural districts. I will not
repeat them. They all have to do with the food short-
age, profiteering, and discontent at the length of the
war.
Though all Germans, with the exception of a few
profiteers, are grumbling at the length of the war, it
must not be supposed that they have lost hope. In fact
their grumblings are punctuated frequently by very
bright hopes. When Douaumont fell, food troubles
were forgotten. The bells rang, the flags were unfurled,
faces brightened, crowds gathered before the maps and
discussed the early fall of Verdun and the collapse of
France. Again I heard on every hand the echo of the
boasts of the first year of the war.
The glorious manner in which France hurled back
the assault was making itself felt in Germany with a
consequent depression over food shortage when the
greatest naval victory in history so we gathered, at
least, from the first German reports raised the spirits
154 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
and hopes of the people so high that they fully believed
that the blockade had been smashed. On the third day
of the celebration, Saturday, June 3rd, I rode in a tram
from Wilmersdorf, a suburb of Berlin, to the heart of
the city through miles of streets flaring with a solid
mass of colour. From nearly every window and bal-
cony hung pennants and flags; on every trolley pole
fluttered a pennant of red, white and black. Even the
ancient horse 'buses rattled through the streets with the
flags of Germany and her allies on each corner of the
roof. The newspapers screamed headlines of triumph,
nobody could settle down to business, the faces one
met were wreathed in smiles, complaining was for-
gotten, the assurance of final victory was in the very
air.
Unter den Linden, the decorations on which were so
thick that in many cases they screened the buildings
from which they hung, was particularly happy. Knots
of excited men stood discussing the defeat of the British
Fleet. Two American friends and I went from the
street of happy and confident talk into the Zollernhof
Eestaurant. With the din of the celebration over the
"lifting of the blockade" ringing in our ears from the
street, we looked on the bill of fare, and there, for the
first time, we saw Boiled Crow.
Through the spring and early summer the people
were officially buoyed up with the hope that the new
harvest would make an end of their troubles. They
had many reasons, it is true, to expect an improvement.
The 1915 harvest in Germany had fallen below the
average. Therefore, if the 1916 harvest would be bet-
ter per acre, the additional supplies from the conquered
IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET 155
regions of Kussia would enable Germany to laugh at
the efforts of her enemies to starve her out. Once more,
however, official assurances and predictions were wrong,
and the economic condition grew worse through every
month of 1916.
CHAPTER XIII
A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES
THE only food substitute which meets the casual eye
of the visitor to England in war time is margarine
for butter. Germany, on the contrary, is a land of
substitutes. t
Since the war, food exhibitions in various cities, but
more especially in Berlin, have had as one of their most
prominent features booths where you could sample sub-
stitutes for coffee, yeast, eggs, butter, olive oil, and the
like. Undoubtedly many of these substitutes are des-
tined to take their place in the future alongside some of
the products for which they are rendering vicarious
service. In fact, in a "Proclamation touching the Pro-
tection of Inventions, Designs, and Trade Marks in the
Exhibition of Substitute-Materials in Berlin-Charlot-
tenburg, 1916," it is provided that the substitutes to be
exhibited shall enjoy the protection of the Law. Even
before the war, substitutes like Kathreiner's malt coffee
were household words, whilst the roasting of acorns for
admixture with coffee was not only a usual practice on
the part of some families in the lower middle class, but
was so generally recognised among the humbler folk
that the children of poor families were given special
printed permissions by the police to gather acorns for
the purpose on the sacred grass of the public parks.
To deal with meat which in other countries would
156
A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES 157
be regarded as unfit for human consumption there have
long been special appliances in regular use in peace
time. The so-called Freibank was a State or municipal
butcher's shop attached to the extensive municipal
abattoirs in Berlin, Munich, Cologne, and elsewhere.
Here tainted meat, or meat from animals locally
affected by disease, is specially treated by a steam pro-
cess and other methods, so as to free it from all danger
to health. Meat so treated does not, of course, have the
nutritive value of ordinary fresh meat, but the Ger-
mans acted on the principle that anything was better
than nothing. Such meat was described as bedingt
tauglicli (that is, fit for consumption under reserve).
It was sold before the war at very low rates to the poorer
population, who in times of scarcity came great dis-
tances and kept long vigils outside the Freibank, to be
near the head of the queue when the sale began. Thus
we see that many Germans long ago acquired the habit
of standing in line for food, which is such a characteris-
tic of German city life to-day.
Horseflesh was consumed before the war in Germany,
as in Belgium and France. Its sale was carefully con-
trolled by the police, and severe punishment fell upon
anyone who tried to disguise its character. An ordi-
nary butcher might not sell it at all. He had to be
specially licensed, and to maintain a special establish-
ment or a special branch of his business for the purpose.
Thus, when wider circles of the population were driven
to resort to substitutes, there was already in existence
a State-organised system to control the output.
Since the war began, sausage has served as a German
stand-by from the time that beef and pork became diffi-
1 5 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
cult to obtain. In the late spring, however, the in-
creased demand for sausage made that also more
difficut to procure, and we often got a substitute full of
breadcrumbs, which made the food-value of this par-
ticular Wurst considerably less than its size would
indicate. It was frequently so soft that it was practi-
cally impossible to cut, and we had to spread it on our
bread like butter.
The substitute of which the world has read the most
is war bread. This differs in various localities, but it
consists chiefly of a mixture of rye and potato with a
little wheat flour. In Hungary, which is a great maize-
growing country, maize is substituted for rye.
Imitation tea is made of plum and other leaves
boiled in real tea and dried.
To turn to substitutes other than food, it will be
recalled that Germany very early began to popularise
the use of benzol as an alternative to petrol for motor
engines. This was a natural outgrowth of her mar-
vellously developed coal-tar industry, of which benzol
is a product. Prizes for the most effective benzol-
consuming engine, for benzol carburettors, etc., have
been offered by various official departments in recent
years, and I am told that during the war ingenious in-
ventions for the more satisfactory employment of benzol
have been adopted. Owing to the increased use of pota-
toes as food, the alcoholic extract from them, always a
great German and Austro-Hungarian industry, has had
to be restricted.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, as I learned
from the owner of a little general shop in a Branden-
burg village. He told me that about twenty-five years
A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES 159
ago, when kerosene became widely used in the village
for illuminating purposes, he was left with a tremendous
supply of candles which he could never sell. The oil
famine has caused the substitution of candle light for
lamp light during the war, and has enabled him to sell
out the whole stock at inflated prices. All oils are at a
premium. The price of castor-oil has risen fivefold in
Germany, chiefly owing to the fact that it is being
extensively used for aeroplane and other lubrication
purposes.
But it is oil from which explosives are derived that
chiefly interests Germany. Almost any kind of fruit
stone contains glycerine. That is why notices have
been put on all trains which run through fruit districts,
such as Werder, near Berlin, and Baden, advising the
people to save their fruit stones and bring them to
special depots for collection.
Five pounds of fat treated with caustic soda can be
made to yield one pound of glycerine. This is one
reason, in addition to the British blockade, which causes
the great fat shortage among the civil population.
Glycerine united with ammonium nitrate is used in
the manufacture of explosives. Deprived of nitrogenous
material from South America, Germany has greatly
developed the process for the manufacture of artificial
nitrates. She spent 25,000,000 after the outbreak of
war to enable her chemists and engineers to turn out a
sufficient amount of nitric acid.
Toluol, a very important ingredient of explosives, is
obtained from coal-tar, which\ Germany is naturally
able to manufacture at present better than any other
country in the world, since she had practically a mon-
1 60 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
opoly in coal-tar products before hostilities commenced.
Evidently, however, substitutes to reinforce goods
smuggled through the blockade have not sufficed to meet
the chemical demands of the German Government, for
great flaming placards were posted up all over the Em-
pire announcing the commandeering of such commodi-
ties as sulphur, sulphuric acid, toluol, saltpetre, and the
like.
Germany long ago claimed to have perfected wood-
pulp as a substitute for cotton in propulsive ammuni-
tion. She made this claim very early, however, for the
(purpose of hoodwinking British blockade advocates.
Her great need eventually led her to take steps to induce
the United States to insist on the Entente Powers rais-
ing the blockade on cotton. She went to great trouble
and expense to send samples by special means to her
agents in America.
The cotton shortage began to be seriously felt early in
1916 in the manufacturing districts of Saxony, where
so many operatives were suddenly thrown out of work
that the Government had to set aside a special fund for
their temporary relief, until they could be transferred to
other war industries.
* The success which Germany claimed for a cotton-
cloth substitute has been greatly exaggerated. When
the Germans realised that Great Britain really meant
business on the question of cotton they cultivated nettle
and willow fibre, and made a cloth consisting for the
most part of nettle or willow fibre with a small propor-
tion of cotton or wool.
It was boasted in many quarters that the exclusion
of cotton would make but little difference so far as
A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES 161
clothing was concerned. !Not only does the universal
introduction of clothing tickets falsify this boast, but
the cloth is found to be a mere makeshift when tested.
Blouses and stockings wear out with discouraging rapid-
ity when made of the substitute.
My personal investigations still lead me to believe
in the motto of the Sunny South that : "Cotton is king."
Paper, although running short in Germany, is the
substitute for cloth in many cases. Sacking, formerly
used for making bags in which to ship potatoes and
other vegetables, has given way to it. Paper-string is
a good substitute widely used, although "no string" was
the verbal substitute I often got when buying various
articles, and it was necessary for me to hold the paper
on to the parcel with my hands.
The craze for substitutes has spread so extensively
that there have been some unpleasant results both for
the purchaser and the producer, as was the case with
several bakers, who were finally detected and convicted
of a liberal use of sawdust in their cakes.
Germany has worked especially hard to find a sub-
stitute for indiarubber, though with only moderate
success. I know that the Kaiser's Government is still
sending men into contiguous neutral countries to buy up
every scrap of rubber obtainable. In no other com-
modity has there been more relentless commandeering.
When bicycle tyres were commandeered the authori-
ties deciding that three marks was the proper price to
pay for a new pair of tyres which had cost ten there
was a great deal of complaining. Nevertheless, without
an excellent reason, no German could securi the police
pass necessary to allow him to ride a bicycle. Those
1 62 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
who did obtain permission to ride to and from their
work had to select the shortest route, and "joy-riding"
was forbidden.
"Substitute rubber" heels for boots could be readily
obtained until the late summer, but after that only with
difficulty. They were practically worthless, as I know
from personal experience, and were as hard as leather
after one or two days' use.
Despite the rubber shortage, the Lower Saxon Rubber
Company, of Hildersheim, does a thriving business in
raincoats made from rubber substitutes. The factory
is running almost full blast, all the work being done by
women, and the finished product is a tribute to the skill
of those in charge.
It is impossible to buy a real tennis ball in the Ger-
man Empire to-day. A most hopeless makeshift ball
has been put on the market, but after a few minutes'
play it no longer keeps its shape or resiliency.
Germany has been very successful in the substitution
of a sort of enamelled-iron for aluminium, brass, and
copper. Some of the Rhenish- Westphalian iron indus-
tries have made enormous war profits, supplying iron
chandeliers, stove doors, pots and pans, and other
articles formerly made of brass to take the place of
those commandeered for the purpose of supplying the
Army with much-needed metals.
For copper used in electrical and other industries
she claims to have devised substitutes before the war,
and her experts now assert that a two-years' supply of
copper and brass has been gathered from the kitchens
and roofs of Germany. The copper quest has assumed
such proportions that the roof of the historic, world-
A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES 163
renowned Rathaus at Bremen has been stripped. Nearly
half the church bells of Austria have found their way
to the great Skoda Works.
Of course Germans never boast of the priceless orna-
ments they have stolen from Belgium and Northern
France. They joyfully claim that every pound of cop-
per made available at home diminishes the amount
which they must import from abroad, and pay for with
their cherished gold.
The authorities delight in telling the neutral visitors
that they have found adequate substitutes for nickel,
chromium, and vanadium for the hardening of steel. If
that is really so, why does the Deutschland's cargo con-
sist mainly of these three commodities ?
CHAPTEK XIV
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT
ALTHOUGH Bismarck gave the Germans a Constitu-
tion and a Parliament after the Franco-Prussian
War as a sop for their sacrifices in that campaign, he
never intended the Reichstag to be a Parliament in the
sense in which the institution is understood in Great
Britain.
What Bismarck gave the Germans was a debating so-
ciety and a safety-valve. They needed a place to air
their theories and ventilate their grievances. But the
Chancellor of Iron was very careful, in drawing up the
plans for the "debating society," to see that it con-
ferred little more real power on the nation's "represen-
tatives" than is enjoyed by the stump-speakers near
Marble Arch in London on Sundays.
Many people in England and the United States of
America, I find, do not at all understand the meaning-
lessness of German Parliamentary proceedings. When
they read about "stormy sittings" of the Reichstag and
"bitter criticism" of the Chancellor, they judge such
things as they judge similar events in the House of
Commons or the American House of Representatives.
Nothing could be more inaccurate. Governments do
not fall in Germany in consequence of adverse Reich-
stag votes, as they do in England. They are not the
people's Governments, but merely the Kaiser's crea-
tures. They rise and fall by his grace alone.
164
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT 165
Even this state of affairs needs to be qualified and
explained to the citizens of free countries. The Gov-
ernment is not a Cabinet or a Ministry.
The German Government is a one-man affair. It
consists of the Imperial Chancellor. He, and nobody
else, is the "Government," subject only to the All-
Highest will of the Emperor, whose bidding the Chan-
cellor is required to do.
The Chancellor, in the name of the "Government,"
brings in Bills to be passed by the Reichstag. If the
Reichstag does not like a Bill, which sometimes hap-
pens, it refuses to give it a majority. But the "Gov-
ernment" does not fall. It can simply, as it has done
on numerous occasions, dissolve the Reichstag, order a
General Election, and keep on doing so indefinitely,
until it gets exactly the kind of "Parliament" it wants.
Thus, though the Reichstag votes on financial matters,
it can be made to vote as the "Government" wishes.
As I have said, the Reichstag was invented to be, and
has always served the purpose hitherto of, a forum in
which discontented Germany could blow off steam, but
achieve little in the way of remedy or reform. But
during the war the Reichstag has even ceased to be a
place where free speech is tolerated. It has been gagged
as effectually as the German Press. I was an eye-
witness of one of the most drastic muzzling episodes
which has occurred in the Reichstag during the war
or probably in the history of any modern Parliament
the suppression of Dr. Karl Liebknecht, member for
Potsdam, during the debate on military affairs on Jan-
uary 17, 1916. That event will be of historic im-
portance in establishing how public opinion in Germany
1 66 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
during the war has been ruthlessly trampled under foot.
The Reichstag has practically nothing to do with the
conduct of the war.
Up, practically, to the beginning of 1916 the sporadic
Social Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr.
Liebknecht, was ignored by the Government. The war-
machine was running so smoothly, and, from the Ger-
man standpoint, so victoriously, that the Government
thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his heart's
content.
Dr. Liebknecht had long been a thorn in the War
Party's side. He inherited an animosity to Prussian
militarism from his late father, Dr. Wilhelm Lieb-
knecht, who with August Bebel founded the modern
German Social Democratic Party. Four or five years
before the war Liebknecht, a lawyer by profession, cam-
paigned so fiercely against militarism that he was
sentenced to eighteen months' fortress imprisonment
for "sedition." He served his sentence, and soon after-
wards his political friends nominated him for the
Reichstag for the Royal Division of Potsdam, of all
places in the world, knowing that such a candidature
would be as ironical a blow as could be dealt to the war
aristocrats. He was elected by a big majority in 1912,
the votes of the large working-class population of the
division, including Spandau (the Prussian Woolwich),
being more than enough to offset the military vote which
the Kaiser's henchmen mobilised against him. Some
time afterwards Liebknecht was also elected to represent
a Berlin Labour constituency in the Prussian Diet, the
Legislature which deals with the affairs in the Kingdom
of Prussia, as distinct from the Reichstag (the Imperial
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT 167
Diet), which concerns itself with Empire matters
only.
Dr. Liebknecht is forty-four years old. Of medium
build, he wears a shock of long, curly, upstanding hair,
which rather accentuates his "agitator" type of
countenance, and is a skilful and eloquent debater. A
university graduate and well-read thinker and student,
he turned out to be the one consistent Social Demo-
cratic politician in Germany on the question of the war.
When the war began the Socialist Party was effectually
and willingly tied to the Government's chariot includ-
ing, nominally, even Liebknecht. A few hours before
making his notorious "Necessity-knows-no-law" speech
in Ihe Reichstag on August 4, 1914, Bethmann-Iiollweg
conferred with all the Parliamentary parties, and con-
vinced them (including the Socialists) that Germany
had been cruelly dragged into a war of defence. Later
in the day, following other party leaders, Herr Haase,
spokesman for the Socialists, got up in the House,
voiced a few harmless platitudes about Socialist opposi-
tion to war on principle, and then pledged the party's
111 votes solidly to the War Credits for which the Gov-
ernment was asking. When the Chancellor afterwards
made his celebrated speech it was cheered to the echo by
the entire House, including the Socialists. I do not
know whether Liebknecht was present, though he is
almost certain to have been, but if so he made no note-
worthy protest. How completely the Government
befooled the Socialists about the war was proved a few
days later when Dr. Franck, one of the Social Dem-
ocracy's most shining lights and the man who was in
line to be Bebel's successor, volunteered for military
1 68 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
service. He was one of the first to fall fighting in Sep-
tember, somewhere in the West.
The authorities might have known that Liebknecht
was a hard man to keep quiet if he ever decided to speak
out. Fresh in the Government's mind was his bold
exposure of the Krupp bribery scandals at the War
Office (in 1913) and his disclosures about how the
German munition trust for years systematically stirred
up war fever abroad, in order to convince the German
people of the necessity of speeding up their own huge
armaments on land and sea. As soon as Liebknecht's
Reichstag and Prussian Diet speeches began to show
that he was tired of the muzzle, the Government called
him up for military service. They stuck him into the
uniform of an Armierungssoldat (Army Service Corps
soldier). This meant that his public speeches in con-
nection with the war had to be confined to the two
Parliaments in which he held seats. Anything of an
opposition character which he said or did outside would
be "treason" or "sedition."
Liebknecht was put to work on A.S.C. jobs behind the
fronts alternately in the East and West, I believe, but
was given leaves of absence to attend to his Parlia-
mentary duties from time to time. On these occasions
he would appear in the Reichstag in the dull field-grey
of an ordinary private the only member so clad in a
House of 397 Deputies, among whom are dozens of
officers in uniform up to the rank of generals.
I was particularly fortunate to be able to secure a
card of admission to the Strangers' Gallery of the
Reichstag on January 17, the day set for discussion of
military matters. I went to my place early a few
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT 169
minutes past the noon hour, as the Reichstag usually
convenes at 1 p.m. The floor was still quite empty,
though the galleries were filled with people anxious, like
myself, to see the show from start to finish.
The Reichstag's decorative scheme is panelled oak
and gilt-paint. The members' seating space spreads
fanlike round the floor, with individual seats and desks
exactly like those used by schoolboys, which is not an
inappropriate simile. On the extreme right are the
places of the Conservative-Junker landowners
Party ; to their left sit, in succession, the Roman Catho-
lic Clericals (who occupy the exact centre of the floor
and are thus known as the Zentrum, or Centre Party).
The "Centre" includes many priests, mostly Rhine-
landers and Bavarians. Then come the National
Liberals, the violently anti-British and anti-American
Party, the Progressive People's Party, and the Social
Democrats. The latter are on the "extreme left." That
is why they are often so described in reports of Reich-
stag proceedings abroad. The Socialists comprise 111
out of 397 members of the House, so their segment of
the fan is the largest of all. Next in size is the Centre
Party, with eighty-five or ninety seats, the Conserva-
tives, National Liberals, and Progressives accounting
for the rest of the floor in more or less equal propor-
tions.
The outstanding aspect of the Reichstag is the
tribune for speakers, which faces the floor and is ele-
vated above it some five or six feet. It is flanked on the
right by the Government "table," consisting of indi-
vidual seats and desks for Ministers. In the centre of
the tribune the presiding officer, who is "President," not
1 70 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Speaker, of the House, sits. On his left is a row of
seats and desks, like the opposite Government "table,"
for the members of the Federal Council. The Federal
Council, I may remind my readers, consists of the
delegates of the various States of Germany. They are
not elected by the people, but are appointed by the rulers
of the several States. They constitute practically an
Imperial Upper Chamber, and are the real legislative
body of the Empire. Bills require the Federal Coun-
cil's approval before submission to the Reichstag.
On so-called "big days" in the Reichstag a host of
small fry from the Departments collects behind the Gov-
ernment and this dominent Federal Council. The
Chancellor, whose place is at the corner of the Govern-
ment "table" nearest the President, is always shep-
herded by his political aide-de-camp, Dr. Wahnschaffe.
There is always a group of uniformed Army and Navy
officers on the tribune, too, and to-day, of course, as the
Army discussions were on the agenda, there was an
unusually brave array of gold braid and brass buttons.
Herr von Oldenburg, a prominent Junker M.P., once
said if he were the Kaiser he would send a Prussian
lieutenant and ten men to close up the Reichstag.
Liebknecht arrived early, a slight and unimpressive
figure in somewhat worn field-grey, the German khaki.
The "debate" having begun, I noticed how he listened
eagerly to every word spoken, jotting down notes in-
cessantly for the evident purpose of replying to the
grandiloquent utterances about our "glorious army of
-ZTwZ^wr-bearers" which were falling from the lips of
"patriotic" party orators. Liebknecht had earned the
displeasure of the House a few days before by asking
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT 171
some embarrassing questions about Turkish massacres
in Armenia. He was jerred and laughed at hilariously
when he went on to say that a "Black Chamber" was
spying on his every movement, shadowing other mem-
bers of the Reichstag, even eavesdropping on their tele-
phone conversations and opening their private corre-
spondence.
While a Socialist comrade, Herr Davidssohn, was
speaking from the desk in the centre of the tribune, at
which all members must stand when addressing the
House, I now saw Liebknecht walking up the aisle
leading from the Socialist seats to the President's chair
as unobtrusively as possible. He was walking furtively
and he cut the figure of a hunted animal which is con-
scious that it is surrounded by other animals anxious
to pounce upon it and devour it if it dares to show itself
in the open.
Liebknecht has now reached the President's side.
The President, a long-whiskered septuagenarian, is pop-
ularly known as "Papa" Kaempf. I see Liebknecht
whispering quietly in Kaempf's ear. He is asking for
permission to speak, probably as soon as comrade
Davidssohn has finished making his innocuous sugges-
tions of minor reforms to relieve discomforts in the
trenches. Kaempf is shaking his head negatively. As
the official executor of the House's wishes, the old man
understands perfectly well that Liebknecht must under
no circumstances have a hearing. Davidssohn has now
stopped talking. Liebknecht has meantime reached the
bottom step of the stairway of five or six steps leading
from the tribune to the level of the floor. He can be
plainly seen from all sections of the House. I hear him
1 72 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
start to say that he has a double right to be heard on
the Army Bill, not only as a member of the House, but
as a soldier. He gets no further. The Chamber is
already filled with shouts and jeers. "Maul lialten!"
(shut your mouth!) bursts from a dozen places in the
Conservative and National Liberal and Centre benches.
"Raus mit ihm!" (throw him out!) is another angry
taunt which I can distinguish in the bedlam. Lieb-
knecht has been howled down many times before under
similar circumstances. He is not terrified to-day,
though his face is pale with excitement and anger. He
stands his ground. His right arm is extended, a finger
levelled accusingly at the Right and Centre from which
imprecations, unceasingly, are being snarled at him.
But he cannot make himself heard amid the
uproar.
A Socialist colleague intervenes, Ledebour, a thin,
grey-haired, actor-like person, of ascetic mien and reso-
nant voice. "Checking free speech is an evil custom
of this House," declares Ledebour. "Papa" Kaempf
clangs his big hand-bell. He rules out "such improper
expressions as 'evil custom' in this high House." Lede-
bour is the Reichstag's master of repartee. He rejoins
smilingly: "Very well, not an 'evil custom,' but not
altogether a pleasant custom." l^ow the House is howl-
ing Ledebour down. He, too, has weathered such
storms before. He waits, impassive and undismayed,
for a lull in the cyclone. It comes. "Wait, wait !" he
thunders. "My friend Liebknecht and I, and others like
us, have a great following. You grievously underes-
timate that following. Some day you will realise that.
Wait " Ledebour, like Liebknecht, can no longer
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT i?3
proceed. The House is now boiling, an indistinguish-
able and most undignified pandemonium. I can detect
that there is considerable ironical laughter mixed with
its indignation. Members are not taking Ledebour's
threat seriously.
Liebknecht has temporarily returned to his seat
under cover of the tornado provoked by Ledebour's in-
tervention, but now I see him stealthily crawling, dodg-
ing, almost panther-like, back to the steps of the tribune.
He is bent upon renewing the attempt to raise his voice
above the hostile din. The sight of him unchains the
House's fury afresh. The racket is increased by the
mad ding-donging of "Papa" Kaempf, trying hopelessly
to restore a semblance of quiet. It is useless. The
House will not subside until Liebknecht is driven from
the speakers' tribune. He is not to have even the chance
of the lull which enabled Ledebour to say a pertinent
thing or two. A score of embittered deputies advance
toward the tribune, red-faced and gesticulating in the
German way when excitement is the dominant passion.
Their fists are clenched. I say to myself that Lieb-
knecht will this time be beaten down, if he is not con-
tent to be shouted down. He makes an unforgettable
figure, alone there, assailed, barked and snarled at from
every side, a private in the German Army bidding
defiance to a hundred men, also in uniform, but superior
officers. Mere Kanonenfutter (cannon fodder) defying
the majestic authority of its helmeted and epauletted
overlords ! An unprecedented episode, as well as an un-
forgettable one. . .
Liebknecht insists upon tempting fate once more. He
is going to try to outshout the crazy chorus howling
at him. He succeeds, but only for an instant and to the
extent of one biting phrase : "Such treatment," I can
hear him shrieking, "is unverschaemt (shameless) and
unerhoert (unheard of) ! It could take place in no
other legislative body in the world !"
With that the one German Social Democrat of con-
viction, courage, and consistency retires, baffled and dis-
comfited. Potsdam's representative in the Reichstag is
at last effectually muzzled, but in the muzzling I have
seen the German Government at work on a task almost
as prodigious as the one it now faces on the Somme
the task of keeping the German people deaf, dumb, and
blind.
Of what has meantime happened to Liebknecht the
main facts are known. He was arrested on May 1 for
alleged "incitement to public disorder during a state of
war," tried, convicted, and sentenced to penal servitude.
A couple of months previously (on March 13) he had
delivered another bitter attack on the War Government
in the Prussian Diet. He accused the German educa-
tional authorities of systematically teaching hate to
school children and of distorting even contemporary his-
tory so as to poison their minds to the glorification of
Prussian militarism. He said it was not the business
of the schools to turn children into machines for the
Moloch of militarism.
"Let us teach history correctly" declared Liebknecht,
"and tell the children that the crime of Sarajevo was
looked upon by wide circles in Austria-Hungary and
Germany as a gift from Heaven. Let us "
He got no farther, for the cyclone broke. He had
dared to do what no other man in Germany had done.
THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT 175
He had publicly accused his Government of making the
war. From that moment his doom was certain.
This narrative should be instructive to those Brit-
ishers and Americans who think it possible that German
Socialists may one day have the power to end the war.
There are two effective replies to this curious Anglo-
Saxon misunderstanding of Germany. The first is that
Liebknecht had not, and has not, the support of his own
party ; the second, that were that party twice as numer-
ous as it is its votes would be worthless in view of the
power wielded by the Kaiser's representative, von
Bethmann-Hollweg, backed up by the Federal Council.
It is difficult to drive this fact into the heads of
British and American people, who are both prone to
judge German institutions by their own.
For, remember always that behind the dominant
Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, stands
the All-Highest War Lord, and behind him, what is still,
if damaged, the mightiest military machine in the world
the German Army. Opposed to that there is at
present a slowly increasing Socialist vote the two have
grown to about twenty.
CHAPTER XV
PREVENTIVE ARREST
IN the beginning of the war, when all seemed to be
going well, there was no disunity in Germany.
When Germany was winning victory after victory, prac-
tically no censorship was needed in the newspapers ; the
police were tolerant; every German smiled upon every
other German; soldiers went forth singing and their
trains were gaily decorated with oak leaves; social de-
mocracy praised militarism.
All that has changed and the hosts who went singing
on their way in the belief that they would be home in
six weeks, have left behind homes many of them be-
reaved by the immense casualties, and most of them
suffering from the increased food shortage.
Class feeling soon increased. The poor began to
call the rich agrarians "usurers." The Government
forbade socialistic papers such as the Vorwaerts to use
the word "usurer" any more, because it was applied to
the powerful junkers. Such papers as the Tdgliche
Rundschau and the Tageszeitung could continue to use
it, however, for they applied it to the small shopkeeper
who exceeded the maximum price by a fraction of a
penny.
As the rigour of the blockade increased, the discon-
tent of the small minority who were beginning to hate
their own Government almost as much as, and in many
176
PREVENTIVE ARREST 177
cases more, than they hated enemies of Germany, as-
sumed more threatening forms than mere discussion.
Their disillusionment regarding Germany's invincibil-
ity opened their eyes to faults at home. Some of the
extreme Social Democrats were secretly spreading the
treasonable doctrine that the German Government was
not entirely blameless in the causes of the war. It has
been my custom to converse with all classes of society,
and I was amazed at the increasing number of dis-
gruntled citizens.
But the German Government is still determined to
have unity. They had enlisted the services of editors,
reporters, professors, parsons and cinema operators to
create it ; they are now giving the police an increasingly
important role to maintain it.
As the German Parliament in no way resembles the
British Parliament, so do the German police in no way
resemble the British police. The German police,
mounted or unmounted, are armed with a revolver, a
sword, and not infrequently provided with a machine-
gun. They have powers of search and arrest without
warrant. They are allowed at their discretion to strike
or otherwise maltreat not only civilians, but soldiers.
Always armed with extraordinary power, their position
during the past few months has risen to such an extent
that the words used in the Reichstag, "The Reign of
Terror," are not an exaggeration.
Aided and even abetted by a myriad of spies and
agents-provocateurs, they have placed under what is
known as "preventive arrest" throughout the German
Empire and Austria so great a number of civilians that
178 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the German prisons, as has been admitted, are filled to
repletion.
With the Reichstag shut up, and the hold on the
newspapers tightening, what opportunity remains by
which independent thought can be disseminated?
In Poland meetings to consider what they call
"Church affairs," but which were really revolutionary
gatherings, afforded opportunity for discussion. These
have been ruled out of order.
The lectures taking place in their thousands all over
Germany might afford a chance of expression of opin-
ion, but the professors, like the pastors, are, as I have
said, so absolutely dependent upon the Government for
their position and promotion, that I have only heard
of one of them who had the temerity to make any speech
other than those of the "God-punish-England" and
"We-must-hold-out" type. His resignation from the
University of Munich was immediately demanded, and
any number of sycophants were ready to take his place.
Clubs are illegal in Germany, and the humblest
working-men's cafes are attended by spies. In my re-
searches in the Berlin East-end I often visited these
places and shared my adulterated beer and war bread
with the working folk all of them over or under mili-
tary age.
One evening a shabby old man said rather more
loudly than was necessary to a number of those round
him: "I am tired of reading in the newspapers how
nice the war is. Even the Vorwaerts (then a Socialist
paper) lies to us. I am tired of walking home night
after night and finding restaurants turned into hos-
pitals for the wounded."
PREVENTIVE ARREST 179
He was referring in particular to the great Schult-
heiss working-men's restaurants in Hasenheide. His
remarks were received with obvious sympathy.
A couple of nights later I went into this same place
and took my seat, but it was obvious that my visit was
unwelcome. I was looked at suspiciously. I did not
think very much of the incident, but ten days later in
passing I called again, when a lusty young fellow of
eighteen, to whom I had spoken on my first visit, came
forward and said to me, almost threateningly, "You
are a stranger here. May I ask what you are doing?"
I said : "I am an American newspaper correspondent,
and am trying to find out what I can about the ways of
German working folk."
He could tell by my accent that I was a foreigner,
and said: "We thought that you had told the Govern-
ment about that little free speaking we had here a few
days ago. You know that the little old man who was
complaining about the restaurants being turned into his-
pitals has been arrested?"
This form of arrest, by which hundreds of people are
mysteriously disappearing, is one of the burning griev-
ances of Germany to-day. In its application it re-
sembles what we used to read about Russian police. It
has created a condition beneath the surface in Germany
resembling the terrorism of the French Revolution. In
the absence of a Habeas Corpus Act, the victim lies in
gaol indefinitely, while the police are, nominally, col-
lecting the evidence against him. One cannot move
about very long without coming across instances of this
growing form of tyranny, but I will merely give one
other.
i so THE; LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
A German family, resident in Sweden, were in corre-
spondence with a woman resident in Prussia. In one
of her letters she incautiously remarked, "What a pity
that the two Emperors cannot be taught what war really
means to the German peoples." She had lost two sons,
and her expression of bitterness was just a feminine
outburst, which in any other country, would have been
passed by. She was placed under preventive arrest,
and is still in gaol.
The police are armed with the censorship of the in-
ternal postal correspondence, telegrams and telephones.
One of the complaints of the Social Democrat members
of the Reichstag is that every movement is spied upon,
and their communications tampered with by what they
call the "Black Chamber."
There is no reason to suppose that the debates in
the closing session of the Reichstag in 1916 on police
tyranny, the Press censorship, the suppression of public
opinion, will lead to any result other than the familiar
expressions of mild indignation such as that which
came from the National Liberal and Pan-German
leader, Dr. Paasche and perhaps a little innocent leg-
islation. But the reports of the detailed charges against
the Government constitute, even as passed by the Ger-
man censorship for publication, a remarkable revela-
tion. It should be remembered in reading the follow-
ing quotations that the whole subject has been discussed
in the secrecy of the Reichstag Committee, and that
what is now disclosed is in the main only what the Gov-
ernment has been unable to hush up or hide.
In his famous speech on "preventive arrest" the So-
cial Democratic Deputy, Herr Dittmann said:
PREVENTIVE ARREST 1 8 1
"Last May I remarked that the system of preventive
arrest was producing a real reign of terror, and since
then things have got steadily worse. The law as it was
before 1848 and the Socialist Law, of scandalous
memory, are celebrating their resurrection. The sys-
tem of denunciation and of agents-provocateurs is in
full bloom, and it is all being done under the mask of
patriotism and the saving of the country. Anybody
who for personal or other reasons is regarded by the
professional agents-provocateurs as unsatisfactory or
inconvenient is put under suspicion of espionage, or
treason, or other crime. And such vague denunciations
are then sufficient to deprive the victim of his freedom,
without any possibility of defence being given him. In
many cases such arrest has been ^maintained by the year
without any lawful foundation for it. Treachery and
low cunning are now enjoying real orgies. A criminal
is duly convicted and knows his fate. The man under
preventive arrest is overburdened by the uncertainty of
despair, and is simply buried alive. The members of
the Government do not seem to have a spark of under-
standing for this situation, the mental and material ef-
fects of which are equally terrible.
"Dr. Helfferich said in the Budget Committee in the
case of Dr. Franz Mehring that it is better that he
should be under detention than that he should be at
large and do something for which he would have to be
punished. According to this reasoning the best thing
would be to lock up everybody and keep them from
breaking the law. The ideal of Dr. Helfferich seems
to be the German National Prison of which Heine
spoke. The case of Mehring is classical proof of the
182 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
fact that we are no longer far removed from the Helf-
ferich ideal."
Herr Dittmann went on to say that Herr Mehring's
only offence was that in a letter seized by the police
he wrote to a Reichstag deputy named Herzfeld in
favour of a peace demonstration in Berlin, and offered
to write a fly-sheet inviting attendance at such a meet-
ing. Mehring, who is over 70 years of age, was then
locked up. Herr Dittmann continued:
"How much longer will it be before even thoughts
become criminal in Germany? Mehring is one of the
most brilliant historians and writers, and one of the
first representatives of German intellectual life known
as such far beyond the German frontiers. When it is
now known abroad that such a man has been put under
a sort of preventive arrest merely in order to cut him
off from the public for political reasons, one really can-
not be astonished at the low reputation enjoyed by the
German Government both at home and abroad. How
evil must be the state of a Government which has to
lock up the first minds of the country in order to choke
their opposition!"
Herr Dittmann's second case was that of Frau Rosa
Luxemburg. He said that she was put under arrest
many months ago, without any charge being made
against her, and merely out of fear of her intellectual
influence upon the working classes. All the Socialist
women of Germany were deeply indignant, and he in-
vited the Government to consider that such things must
make it the positive duty of Socialists in France, Eng-
land, Italy and Russia "to fight against a Government
which imprisons without any reason the best-known
PREVENTIVE ARREST 183
champions of the International proletariat." The treat-
ment of both Mehring and Frau Luxemburg had been
terrible. The former, old and ill, had had the greatest
difficulty in getting admission to a prison infirmary.
Fran Luxemburg a month ago was taken from her
prison bed in the middle of the night, removed to the
police headquarters, and put in a cell which was re-
served for prostitutes. She had not been allowed a
doctor, and had been given food which she could not
eat. Just before the Reichstag debate she had been
taken away from Berlin to Wronke, in the Province
of Posen.
Herr Dittmann then gave a terrible account, some
of it unfit for reproduction, of the treatment in prison
of two girls of eighteen whose offence was that on June
27th they had distributed invitations to working women
to attend a meeting of protest against the procedure in
the case of Herr Liebknecht. He observed that they
owed it entirely to themselves and to their training if
they had not been ruined physically and morally in
their "royal Prussian prison." When they were
at last released they were informed that they would
be imprisoned for the rest of the war if they
attended any public meeting. Herr Dittmann pro-
ceeded :
"Here we have police brutality in all its purity.
This is how a working-class child who is trying to make
her way up to knowledge and Kultur is treated in the
country of the promised 'new orientation/ in which
(according to the Imperial Chancellor) 'the road is to
be opened for all who are efficient.' These are the
methods by which the spirit of independence is syste-
1 84 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
matically to be killed. That is the reason for the arrests
of members of the Socialist party who stand on the side
of determined opposition. You imagine that by isolat-
ing the leading elements of the opposition you can crush
the head of the snake."
Herr Dittmann's next case was that of Dr. Meyer,
one of the editors of Vorwaerts f who was arrested many
months ago. He is suffering from tuberculosis, but is
not allowed to go to a sanatorium. Another Socialist
journalist named Regge, father of six children, has
been under arrest since August, his only offence being
that he has agitated against the militarist majority.
Herr Dittmann then dealt at lenght with the Socialist
journalist named Kliihs, who has been in prison for
eight months, also for his activity on behalf of the So-
cialist minority against the majority, and was pre-
vented from communicating with his dying wife or at-
tending her funeral.
Herr Dittmann gave the details of three cases at
Diisseldorf and one at Brunswick, and then explained
how the military authorities in many parts of Germany
are deliberately offering Socialists the choice between
silence and military service. A well-known trade union
official at Elberfeld, named Sauerbrey, who had been
declared totally unfit for military service because he
had lost several fingers on his left hand, was arrested
and charged with treason. He was acquitted, but in-
stead of obtaining his freedom he was immediately
called up and is now in training for the front. Herr
Dittmann said that this case had caused intense bitter-
ness, and added:
"The Military Command at Minister is surprised
PREVENTIVE ARREST 185
that the feeling in the whole Wupper Valley is becom-
ing more and more discontented, and the military are
now hatching new measures of violence in order to be
able to master this discontent. One would think that
such things came from the madhouse. In reality they
represent conditions under martial law, and this case
is only one of very many."
llerr Dittmann gave several instances of men de-
clared unfit for service who had been called up for po-
litical reasons, and he ended his speech as follows:
"In regard to all this persecution of peaceful citi-
zens there is a regular apparatus of agents-provoca-
teurs, provided by officials of all kinds, and the appara-
tus is growing every day. If these persecutions were
stopped a great number of these agents and officials
could be released for military service. In most cases
they are mere shirkers, and that is why they cling to
their posts and seek every day to prove themselves in-
dispensable by discovering all sorts of crimes. Because
they do not want to go to the trenches other people must
go to prison. Put an end to the state of martial law,
and help us to root up a state of things which disgraces
the German name."
The Alsatian deputy, Herr Haus, said that Alsace-
Lorraine is suffering more than any other part of the
country, and that more than 1,000 persons have been
arrested without any charge being brought against them.
Herr Seyda, for the Poles, said that the Polish popula-
tion of Germany suffers especially from the system of
preventive arrest.
In his contemptuous reply, which showed that the
Government was confident that it had nothing to fear
1 86 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
from the majority in the Reichstag, Herr Helfferich
said :
"The institution of the dictator comes from ancient
Rome, from the classical Republic of antiquity.
(Laughter.) When the State was fighting for its ex-
istence it was found necessary to place supreme power
in the hands of a single man, and to give this Roman
dictator authority which was much greater than the au-
thority belonging to preventive arrest and martial law.
The whole development proceeds by way of compro-
mise between the needs of the State and the needs of
protection for the individual. The results vary accord-
ing to the particular level of civilisation -reached by the
particular State. (Socialist cries of 'Very true.') We
are not at the lowest level. When one considers the
state of things in Germany in peace time we can be
proud. (Socialist interruptions.) I am proud of Ger-
many. I think that our constitutional system before
the outbreak of war and our level of Kultur were such
as every German could be proud of. ('No, no.') I
hope that we shall soon be able to revert to those con-
ditions."
Herr Helfferich went on to argue that repression in
Germany is really much milder than in France, Eng-
land, or Italy; and for the debate on the censorship,
which followed the debate on preventive arrest, he came
armed with an account of the Defence of the Realm
Acts. When he enlarged upon the powers of the Brit-
ish Government he was interrupted by cries of "It is
a question not of theory but of practice," and the So-
cialist leader Herr Stadthagen made a scathing reply.
He said:
PREVENTIVE ARREST 187
"Even if everything in England is as Herr Helf-
ferich described it, the state of things is much better
there than in Germany. Herr Helfferich stated the
cases in which arrest and searcB of dwellings may take
place, but those are cases in which similar action can
be taken in Germany in time of peace under the or-
dinary criminal law. The Englishman has quite other
rights. He has the right to his personality, and, above
all, the officials in England, unlike Germany, are per-
sonally responsible. When we make a law, that law
is repealed by the Administration. That is the whole
point, but Herr Helfferich does not see it, and he does
not see that we live in a Police State and under a po-
lice system. Did it ever occur to anybody in England
to dispute the right of immunity of members of parlia-
ment? Did it ever occur to anybody in England
to go to members of the Opposition in Parliament and
demand that they should resign their seats on pain of
arrest ? Or has anybody in England been threatened
with arrest if he does not withdraw a declaration
against the committee of his party ? Two newspapers
have been suppressed in England because they opposed
munitions work. I regret this check upon free criticism
in England, but what would have happened in Ger-
many? In Germany there would undoubtedly have
been a prosecution for high treason. In England,
moreover, the newspapers are allowed to reappear, and
that without giving any guarantees. In Germany we
are required to give guarantees that the papers shall be
conducted by a person approved of by the political po-
lice. Herr Helfferich employs inappropriate compari-
sons. I will give him one which applies. The political
1 8 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
police in Germany is precisely what the State Inquisi-
tion was in Venice."
An interesting point in the censorship debate was
the disclosure of the fact that the local censors do what
they please. Herr Seyda protested against the peculiar
persecution of the Poles. He remarked that at Gnesen
no Polish paper has been allowed to appear for the past
two years.
But as significant as anything was Herr Stadthagen's
account of the recruiting for the political police. He
said that the police freely offer both money and exemp-
tion from military service to boys who are about to be-
come liable for service. He gave a typical case of a
boy of seventeen. The police called at his home and
inquired whether he belonged to any Socialist organisa-
tion and whether he had been medically examined for
the Army. A police official then waylaid the boy aa
he was leaving work and promised him that, if he would
give information of what went on in his Socialist as-
sociation, he could earn from 4 to 4 10s. a month
and be exempt from military service.
There is a peculiar connection between censorship
and police. The evil effect of the censorship of their
own Press by the German Government is to hypnotise
the thousands of Government bureaucrats into the be-
lief that that which they read in their own controlled
Press is true.
No people are more ready to believe what they want
to believe than the governing class in Germany. They
wanted to believe that Great Britain would not come
into the war. They had got into their heads, too, that
Japan was going to be an ally of theirs. They wrote
PREVENTIVE ARREST 189
themselves into the belief that France was defeated and
would collapse.
Regarding the Press, as they do, as all-important,
they picked from the British Press any articles or
fragments of articles suitable for their purpose and
quoted them. They are adepts in the art of dissecting
a paragraph so that the sense is quite contrary to that
meant by the writer.
But the German Government goes further than that.
It is quite content to quote to-day expressions of Greek
opinion from Athens organs well known to be subsidised
by Germany. Certain bribed papers in Zurich and
Stockholm, and one notorious American paper, are used
for this process of self-hypnotism. The object is two-
fold. First, to influence public opinion in the foreign
country, and, secondly, by requoting the opinion, to in-
fluence their own people into believing that this is the
opinion held in the country from which it emanates.
Thus, when I told Germans that large numbers of the
Dutch people are pro-Ally, they point to an extract
from an article in De Toekomst and controvert me.
These methods go to strengthen the hands of the po-
lice when they declare that in acting severely they are
only acting against anarchistic opinions likely to create
the impression abroad that there is disunity within the
Empire.
Never, so far as I can gather, in the world's history
was there so complete a machine for the suppression of
individual opinion as the German police.
The anti-war demonstrations in Germany range all
the way from the smashing of a few food-shop windows
190 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
to the complete preparations for a serious crippling of
the armies in the field by a general munition strike.
Half-way between were the so-called "Liebknecht
riots" in Berlin. The notices summoning these semi-
revolutionary meetings were whispered through fac-
tories, and from mouth to mouth by women standing
in the food lines waiting for their potatoes, morning
bread, meat, sugar, cheese, and other supplies. Lieb-
knecht was brought to secret trial on June 27th, on the
evening of which demonstrations took piace throughout
the city. I was present at the one near the Rathaus,
which was dispersed towards midnight when the police
actually drew their revolvers and charged the crowd.
The following evening I was at an early hour in the
Potsdamer Platz, where a great demonstration was to
take place. It was the second anniversary of the mur-
der at Sarajevo. The city was clearly restless, agi-
tated ; people were on the watch for something to hap-
pen. The Potsdamer Platz is the centre through which
the great arteries of traffic flow westward after the work
of the day is done. The people who stream through it
do not belong to the poorer classes, for these live in
the east and the north. But on this mild June evening
there was a noticeably large number of working men in
the streets leading into the Platz. I was standing near
a group of these when the evening editions appeared
with the news that Liebknecht had been sentenced. A
low murmur among the workmen, mutterings of sup-
pressed rage when they realised the significance of the
short trial of two days, and a determined movement
toward the place of demonstration.
I hurried to the Potsdamer Platz. The number of
PREVENTIVE ARREST 1 9 1
police stationed in the streets leading into it increased.
The Platz itself was blue with them, for they stood
together in groups of six, ten and twelve. I went along
the Budapester Strasse to the Brandenburger Tor,
through which workmen from Moabit had streamed at
noon declaring that they would strike. They had been
charged by the mounted police, who drove them back
across the Spree. There was a blue patrol along the
TJnter den Linden now. A whole army corps of police
were on the alert in the German capital.
I returned to the Potsdamer Platz. It was thick
with people now curious onlookers. There were
crowds of workmen in the adjacent streets, but they
were not allowed to approach too near. Again and
again they tried, but, unarmed, they were powerless
when the horses were driven into them. I saw a few
of the most obstinate struck with the flat of sabres, and
on others were rained blows from the police on foot.
Nobody hit back, or even defended himself.
There was practically no violence such as one expects
from a mob. It was something else which impressed
me. It impressed my police-lieutenant friend, also.
That was the dangerous ugliness in the workmen. Hate
was written in their faces, and the low growl in the
crowd told all too plainly the growing feeling against
the war.
The Government realised this. They had already
seen that the unity they had so artificially created could
only be held by force. They had used force in the muz-
zling of Liebknecht, and quietly they were employing
a most potent force every day, the force of preventive
arrest.
1 92 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
In July there was agitation for the great munition
strike which was to have taken place on the day of the
second anniversary of the war. The dimensions of the
proposed rising were effectually concealed by the cen-
sorship. The ugly feeling in the Potsdamer Platz had
taught the Government a lesson.
No detail was neglected in the preparations against
the strike. There was a significant movement of ma-
chine-guns to all points of danger, such as the Moabit
district of Berlin, and Spandau, together with count-
less warnings against so-called "anarchists." Any
workman who showed the slightest tendency to be a
leader in a factory group was taken away. The ex-
pressions of intention not to work the first four days
of August became so strong that the Press issued a
warning that any man refusing to work would be put
into a uniform, and he would receive not eight or more
marks a day as in munition work, but three marks in
ten days. Even the Kaiser supplemented his regular
anniversary manifestoes to the armed forces of the Em-
pire and the civilian population with a special appeal
to the workmen.
I was up and ready at an early hour on the morning
of August 1st. Again the city was blue with police.
But this time they were reinforced. As I walked
through streets lined with soldiers in the workingmen's
quarters, I realised the futility of any further anti-war
demonstrations in the Fatherland.
I stood in the immense square before the Royal Pal-
ace, and reflected that two years ago it was packed with
a crowd wild with joy at the opportunity of going to
war. There was unity. I stood on the very spot where
PREVENTIVE ARREST 193
the old man was jeered because he had said, "War is a
serious business, young fellow."
On August 1st, 1916, there were more police in the
square than civilians. On Unter den Linden paced the
blue patrol. There was still unity in Germany, but a
unity maintained by revolver, sword and machine-
gun.
CHAPTER XVI
POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA
IN his speech to the Senate President Wilson said:
"No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not
recognise and accept the principle that Governments
derive all their just powers from the consent of the
governed. . . . !N"o nation should seek to extend
its polity over any other nation or people, but every
people should be left free to determine its own policy,
its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened,
unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful."
The realisation of these admirable sentiments pre-
sents infinite problems in various sections of Europe,
but nowhere, perhaps, more than in Austria-Hungary.
In his heterogeneous collection of peoples, the old Em-
peror had to make a choice between two courses in order
to hold his thirteen distinct races together in one Em-
pire. He could have tried to make them politically
contented through freedom to manage their own affairs
while owing allegiance to the Empire as a whole, or he
could suppress the individual people to such an extent
that he would have unity by force.
He chose the second course. With the Germans dom-
inant in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary, other
nations have been scientifically subjugated. As in the
case of the procedure of "Preventive Arrest" in Ger-
many, the authorities seek to work smoothly and si-
194
POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA 195
lently, with the result that only an occasional echo
reaches the outside world.
The description of the relations of the various peoples
and the "Unity-Machine" employed would fill a large
book. Control of public opinion has been the first ac-
tion of the rulers of the Dual Monarchy. In peace
time, not only were the suppressed nations, such as the
Czechs, Slovaks, Rumanians, Luthenians, Poles, Slo-
venes, Italians, but all the citizens of Austria-Hungary,
denied the right of free speech and freedom of the
Press. Some of the regulations by which the Govern-
ment held absolute sway over its subjects are:
(1) No newspaper or other printing business could
be established until a heavy deposit was made with
the police for the payment of fines, such fines to be
arbitrarily imposed by the police in whom is vested
extraordinary power when anything political was
written which did not please them. They are difficult
to please, I may add.
(2) A complete copy of each edition must be sent to
the police before it was put on sale. "Good" editors
whose inspiration was of a nature to enable them to
interpret the wishes of the Government, sometimes re-
ceived a dispensation from this formality.
(3) No club might hold a private meeting. A repre-
sentative of the police must be present. This rule was
often extended even to friendly gatherings in private
homes in such places as Bohemia.
(4) No political meeting might be held without a
permit, and a representative of the police must he
present. Often he sat on the platform. It is amusing
for the visitor from a free country to attend a political
196 THE LAND OF DEEPENING.SHADOW
meeting where the chairman, speaker and policeman
file up on the stage to occupy the three chairs reserved
for them. The policeman may be heard by those in
the front rows continually cautioning the speaker. If
he thinks the speaker is talking too freely he either in-
tervenes through the chairman and asks him to be
moderate or dismisses the meeting.
These regulations, I again remind the reader, were in
force in peace time. It is easy to see how an extension
of them effectually checks attempts of the Czechs (Bo-
hemians) and other peoples to legislate themselves into
a little freedom.
When I came to England early in the war from
Austria-Hungary and Germany I heard many expres-
sions of hope that the discontented races in the Empire
of Francis Joseph would rebel, and later expressions of
surprise that they did not. Englishmen held the opinion
that such races would be decidedly averse from fighting
for the Hapsburgs. The opinion was correct, and no-
body knew this better than the Hapsburgs themselves.
Like the German Government in the matter of
Alsace-Lorraine, the Austrian Government has en-
deavoured to mislead public opinion in foreign coun-
tries as to the state of mind of the Czechs by false
information and to conceal the true military and politi-
cal situation from the population at home. Austria's
first problem at the outbreak of war a problem which
has been worked out to the last detail was rapidly
to move the soldiers of the subjugated races from their
native lands. Since the Bosnians, for example, are of
the Serbian race, they were mobilised secretly in the
middle of July and sent out of Bosnia. I saw 30,000
POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA 197
moved through Trieste several days before war was
declared on Serbia. A German acquaintance, with
great shipping interests, enthusiastically indiscreet at
sight of them, exclaimed to the little group of which
I was one : "A wonderful system a wonderful system !
The Bosnians could not be trusted to fight the Serbs.
But we Germans can use them if they prove trouble-
some to Austria," he continued excitedly. "We can
send them against the French. We will tell them that
if they do not shoot the French, we will shoot them"
I thought this a rather curious conversation for July
25th, 1914.
Less than fortnight later I saw two Bohemian regi-
ments arrive at Prasso, Transylvania, the province
farthest removed from their homes, to be garrisoned iu
a region, the population of which is Rumanian, Hun-
garian and Saxon. I was told later that the Rumanians
who had left the garrisons at Brasso had gone to Bo-
hemia. As I observed these initial steps in the great
smooth-running Ausfcro-Hungarian military machine,
I was impressed with the impossibility of revolution.
With the soldier element scientifically broken up and
scattered all over the country, who could revolt the
women and children?
The Slav soldiers of Austria-Hungary desert to Rus-
sia at every opportunity. The fact that she now has
upwards of 1,200,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners is
sufficient refutation of the sugar-coated propaganda
describing how all the peoples who make up Austria-
Hungary rushed loyally and enthusiastically to arms to
the defence of their Emperor and common country.
This is perfectly true of the politically dominant races,
198 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the Germans and the Magyars, but the "enthusiasm"
I witnessed among the subjugated races consisted
chiefly of sad-faced soldiers and weeping women.
The Bohemians have given most trouble. One Ger-
man officer who was sent to Austria to help bolster up
her army told me that he didn't worry over the deser-
tion of Bohemians singly and in small groups. He ex-
pected that. But he did take serious exception to the
increasingly popular custom of whole battalions with
their officers and equipment passing over to the Russian
lines intact.
The story of the Bohemian regiment trapped in the
Army of Leopold of Bavaria is generally known in
Austria. When the staff learned that this regiment
planned to cross to the Russians on a certain night,
three Bavarian regiments, well equipped with machine-
guns, were set to trap it. Contrary to usual procedure,
the Bohemians were induced by the men impersonating
the Russians to lay down their arms as an evidence of
good faith before crossing. The whole regiment was
then rounded up and marched to the rear, where a pub-
lic example was made of it. The officers were shot.
Then every tenth man was shot. The Government, in
order to circumvent any unfavourable impression which
this act might make in Bohemia, caused to be read each
day for three days in the schools a decree of the Em-
peror, condemning the treachery of this regiment, the
number of which was ordered for ever to be struck from
the military rolls of the Empire.
During the terrific fighting at Baranowitchi in the
great Russian offensive last summer, at a time when
the Russians repeatedly but unsuccessfully stormed that
POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA 199
important railway junction, some Prussian units found
their right flank unsupported one morning at dawn,
because two Bohemian battalions had changed flags
during the night. The next Russian attack caused the
Prussians to lose 48 per cent, of their men.
This was the final straw for the Staff of Leopold's
Army. An Order was issued explaining to the troops
that henceforth no more Czechs would have the honour
of doing first line duty, since their courage was not of
as high a degree as that of the others. I found that
the Prussians, despite their depleted state, actually be-
lieved this explanation, which filled them with pride in
themselves and contempt for the Czechs.
But the German officers in charge of reorganising the
Austro-Hungarian Army were not content to let Bo-
hemians perform safe duties in the rear. Consequently,
they diluted them until no regiment contained more
than 20 per cent.
The authorities have been no less thorough with the
civilian population. From the day of mobilisation all
political life was suspended. The three parties of the
Opposition, the Radicals, the National-Socialists, and
the Progressives, were annihilated and their newspapers
suppressed. Their leaders, such men as Kramarzh,
Rasin, Klofatch, Scheiner, Mazaryk, Durich, the men
who served as guides to the nation, were imprisoned or
exiled. This is surely a violation of the principle that
Governments derive their just powers from the consent
of the governed, for all these men were the true repre-
sentatives of the people. The fact that the Government
was obliged to get rid of the leaders of the nation shows
what the real situation in Bohemia is.
200 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
The Czech deputies who were considered dangerous,
numbering forty, were mobilised. They were not all
sent to the front ; some were allowed temporary exemp-
tion; but the Government gave them to understand
that the slightest act of hostility towards the Monarchy
on their part would result in their being called up imme-
diately and sent to the front.
The fetters of the Press were drawn more tightly.
Even the German papers were not allowed into Bohe-
mia. For some months, two or three enterprising
editors used to send a representative to Dresden to read
the German and English papers there. At present
three-quarters of the Czech papers and all the Slovak
newspapers have been suppressed. The columns of
those which are still allowed to appear in Bohemia and
Moravia are congested by mandates of the police and
the military authorities, which the editors are compelled
to insert. Recently the Government censorship has
been particularly active against books, collections of
national songs, and post-cards. It has even gone so
far as to confiscate scientific works dealing with Slav
questions, Dostoyevski's novels, the books of Tolstoi
and Millioukoff, and collections of purely scientific Slav
study and histories.
The Government, however, have had to proceed to
far greater lengths. By May, 1916, the death sentences
of civilians pronounced in Austria since the beginning
of the war exceeded 4,000. Of these, 965 were Czechs.
A large proportion of the condemned were women.
The total of soldiers executed amounts to several
thousands.
Is it not peculiar that among people which the
POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA 201
Viennese propaganda represents as loyal, hostages are
taken in Bohemia, and condemned to death, under the
threat of execution if a popular movement takes place ?
The people are told of this and are given to understand
that the hostages have hopes for mercy if all is quiet.
Not only have the authorities confiscated the prop-
erty of all persons convicted of political offences and
of all Czechs who have fled from Austria-Hungary, but
a system has been established by which the property of
Czech soldiers who are prisoners in Russia is confis-
cated. The State profits doubly by this measure, for
it futher suppresses the allowances made to the fam-
ilies of these soldiers. In order to terrorise its adver-
saries through such measures, the Government instructs
the Austrian newspapers to publish long lists of con-
fiscations and other penalties.
After a time, however, the Austrian Government
practically abdicated in favour of the Prussians and
now undertake to carry out the measures of Germanisa-
tion dictated by Berlin. The rights in connection with
the u$e of the Czech language in administration, in
the Law Courts and on the railways, rights which were
won by the desperate efforts of two generations of Czech
politicians, have been abrogated. The management of
the railways has been placed in the hands of Prussian
military officials; the use of the Czech language has
been suppressed in the administration, where it had
formerly been lawful. The Czechs have been denied
access to the Magistrature and to public offices where
they had occasionally succeeded in directing the affairs
in their own country.
CHAPTER XVII
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES
A COMPREHENSIVE account of the German system of
espionage would need something resembling the
dimensions of a general encyclopaedia, but for the
present I must endeavour to summarise the subject in
the course of a chapter.
Spying is just as essential an ingredient of Prussian
character as conceit, indifference to the feelings of
others, jealousy, envy, self-satisfaction, conceit, indus-
try, inquisitiveness, veneration for officialdom, imita-
tiveness, materialism, and the other national attributes
that will occur to those who know Prussia, as distinct
from the other German States.
Prussian men and women hardly know the meaning
of the word "private," and, as they have Prussianised
to a great or less degree all the other States of the
Empire, they have inured the German to publicity from
childhood upwards.
In the enforcement of food regulations the hands of
the Government in Germany are strengthened by cer-
tain elements in the German character, one of which
is the tendency of people to spy upon each other. Here
is a case. Last Easter the customary baking of cakes
a time-honoured ceremony in Germany was forbidden
all over Prussia from April 1 to 26. A certain good
woman of Stettin, whose husband was coming home
202
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES 203
from the trenches, thought that she would welcome her
soldier with one of the cakes of which German men and
women are so fond. She foolishly displayed her treasure
to a neighbour, who had dropped in for gossip. The
neighbour cut short the interview, went home to her
telephone, called up the police and, as she put it, did
her duty. I suppose from the German point of view it
is the duty of people to spy in each other's houses.
From an Anglo-Saxon point of view it is something
rather like sneaking at school.
With these elements in their character, it is natural
that the Germans should be past masters in the art of
espionage. It does not follow that they are equally
successful in the deductions formed from their investi-
gations in foreign matters, but they are so egoistical and
so literal, so fond of making reports, so fond of seeing
things only from their own point of view, that, while
they may be successful in obtaining possession by spy-
ing, purchase, or theft, of the plans, say, of a new bat-
tleship, they are not able to form an accurate estimate
of the character and intentions of the people among
whom they may be spying.
Their military spying is believed to be as perfect as
such work can be, marred occasionally by the contempt
they feel for other nations in military matters. I pre-
sume that there is not much difference in the systems
of various nations except that the German military spy-
ing is probably more thorough.
It is also true that Germans of social distinction will
often take positions far beneath their rank in order to
gather valuable information for their Government.
The case of the hall porter in the Hotel dcs Indes, the
204 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
most fashionable hotel in The Hague, is a notorious
example. He is of gentle birth, a brother of Baron von
Wangenheim, late German Ambassador to Constanti-
nople.
In one of the most luxurious dining-saloons on one of
the most luxurious of the great German liners I
promised my trustworthy informant not to be more
definite the man who was head-waiter during the year
preceding the war impressed those under him with
being much more interested in some mysterious busi-
ness ashore than in his duties aboard ship. He threw
most of his work on subordinates, who complained,
though unsuccessfully, to the management. Unlike
other head-waiters and chief stewards, he was never
aboard the ship when it was in port. He was the only
German in the dining-saloon, and he seemed to have
great influence. He conversed freely with influential
passengers of various nationalities.
The liner was in the English Channel eastward
bound when news came that Germany had declared
war upon Russia. What little interest he had pre-
viously displayed in his duties now vanished completely,
and he paced the deck more and more impatiently as
the vessel neared Cuxhaven. He was one of the first to
go ashore, but before leaving he turned to two of the
stewards and exclaimed, "Good-bye. I am going to
Wilhelmshaven to take command of my cruiser."
In general, the work of military attaches of all coun-
tries is added to by more or less formal reports by
officers who may be travelling on leave. But German
military spying goes much farther than this, for inas-
much as most Germans have been soldiers, the majority
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES 205
of Germans travelling or resident in a foreign country
are trained observers of military matters and often act
as semi-spies.
The system of "sowing" Germans in foreign coun-
tries, as I have heard it called in Germany, and getting
them naturalised, was begun by Prussia before the war
of 1866 against Austria. It was so successful under
the indirect auspices of the Triumvirate Moltke,
Roon, and Bismarck that it was developed in other
countries. Thus it is that, while there are compara-
tively few Frenchmen, for example, naturalised in Eng-
land, many German residents go through this more or
less meaningless form just as suits their partic-
ular business or the German Government, double
nationality being regarded as a patriotic duty to the
Fatherland.
There are, as a rule, three schools of German espion-
age in other countries the Embassy, the Consulates,
and the individual spies, who have no connection with
either and who forward their reports direct to Ger-
many.
There is a fourth class of fairly well-paid profes-
sional spies, men and women, of all classes, who visit
foreign countries with letters of introduction, who
attend working-men's conventions, scientific, military,
and other industrial congresses, receiving from 40 to
100 monthly by way of pay. The case of Lody, whom
the British caught and executed, was a type of the
patriotic officer spy. But his execution caused no real
regret in Germany, for he was regarded as a clumsy
fellow, who roused the vigilance of the British author-
ities, with the result, I was informed in Germany, of
206 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the arrest and execution of several others, mostly, it is
said, Dutch, South American and other neutrals.
The atmosphere of spying in business is a subtle and
comparatively modern form of German espionage, and
has developed with the remarkable rise of German in-
dustry in the last quarter of a century. It fits in
admirably with the Consular spy system, and links up
Germans, naturalised and otherwise, in a chain which
binds them together in a solidarity of workers for the
cause. The Deutsche Bank and the Hamburg- Amerika
Line were very potent engines of espionage.
Nor does the "Viktoria Insurance Company of
Berlin" limit its activities to the kind of business sug-
gested by the sign over the door. A "Special Bureau"
in the Avenue de 1'Opera, Paris, consisted of German.
Reserve officers who spent a half-year or more in
France. As soon as one of these "finished his educa-
tion" he was replaced by another Reserve officer. Their
duties took them on long motor-trips through eastern
France, strangely enough to localities which might be
of strategic importance in the event of war. It is not
without significance that all the clerks of the "Special
Bureau" left for Germany the day of mobilisation.
Many of the semi-spies of the German commercial,
musical, and theatrical world are, from their point of
view, honest workers and enthusiastic for German
Kultur. They recently fastened upon England, because
the Germans for many years have been taught to regard
this country as their next opponent.
They are now as industrious in the United States as
they were in England before the war, because those
Germans who think they have won the war believe that
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES 207
the United States is their next enemy. How active
they have been in my country may be gathered from
the revelations concerning Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-
ed, Dumba, the officials of the Hamburg-Amerika Line,
and many others, whose machinations have been re-
vealed by the New York World and other journals.
It is the duty of the German Minister and his staff
in any foreign conutry, and particularly in countries
likely to become hostile, to get as close as possible to
members of Governments, members of Legislatures,
leaders of thought and society, and members of the
Press, especially the first and the last in this category.
Count Bernstorff in the United States did exactly what
Prince Lichnowsky did in Britain before the war, and,
if I may say so, did it a great deal more successfully,
though it is the plea of the Prince's defenders that he
succeeded in making very powerful and permanent con-
nections in Great Britain.
Our American Ambassadors, on the other hand, con-
fine their attention to strictly ambassadorial work,
attend to the needs of travelling Americans, and com-
municate with their Government on matters vital to
American interests.
The excellent German Consular system, which has
done so much to help German trade invaders in foreign
countries, is openly a spy bureau, and is provided in
almeet every important centre with its own secret
service fund. Attached to it are spies and semi-spies,
hotel-keepers, hairdressers, tutors, governesses, and em-
ployees in Government establishments, such as ship-
building yards and armament factories. It is a mistake
to suppose that all these are Germans. Some, I regret
208 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
to say, are natives of the land in which the Germans are
spying, mostly people who have got into trouble and
with whom the German agents have got into touch.
Such men, especially those who have suffered imprison-
ment, have often a grudge against their own country
and are easily caught in the spy net.
Part of the system in England before the war was a
commercial information bureau resembling the Ameri-
can Bradstreets and the English Stubbs, by which, on
payment of a small sum, the commercial standing of
any firm or individual can be obtained. This bureau,
which had its branches also in Prance and Belgium,
closed its activities immediately prior to the war, the
whole of the card-indexes being removed to Berlin.
It is the German boast, and I believe a legitimate
one, that they know England better than do the English.
Their error is in believing that in knowing England
they know the English themselves.
At the outset of the war, when the Germans were
winning, Herr Albert TJlrich, of the Deutsche Bank,
and chief of their Oil Development Department, speak-
ing in perfect English, told me in a rather heated
altercation we had in regard to my country that he
knew the United States and Great Britain very thor-
oughly indeed, and boasted that the American subma-
rines, building at Fore River, of which the Germans
had secured the designs, would be of little value in the
case of hostilities between Germany and the United
States, which he then thought imminent.
It is typical of German mentality that when I met
him in Berlin, fifteen months later, he had completely
altered his tune as to the war, and his tone was, "When
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES 209
is this dreadful war going to end?" This, however,
is bj the way. Herr Ulrich is only an instance of the
solidarity of Pan-Germanism. An English or Amer-
ican banker visting a foreign country attends to his
affairs and departs. A German in a similar position is
a sort of human ferret. An hotel with us is a place of
residence for transient strangers. The Hotel Adlon
and others in Berlin are excellent hotels as such, but
mixed up with spying upon strangers; Herr Adlon,
senior, a friend of the Kaiser's, assists the Government
spies when any important or suspicious visitor registers.
The hotel telephones or any other telephones are syste-
matically tapped. German soldiers are granted special
leave for hotel service that is to say, hotel spying.
When Belgium and France were invaded, German
officers led their men through particular districts to
particular houses with certainty, with knowledge gained
by previous residence and spying. I know an officer
with von Kluck's army who received the Iron Cross,
First Class, for special information he had given to
von Kluck which facilitated his progress through
Belgium.
Any German spies who may be working in England
to-day have no great difficulty in communicating with
Germany, though communication is slow and expen-
sive. They can do so by many routes and many means.
As it is impossible to isolate Great Britain from Europe,
it is equally impossible to prevent the conveyance of
information to the enemy with more or less rapidity.
Agents of the various belligerent Powers are plentiful
in Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway and
Sweden, and the United States. So far as the maritime
2 io THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
countries are concerned, ships leave and enter daily.
It is quite impossible to control the movements of neu-
tral sailors and others engaged in these vessels. To
watch all the movements of all those men would require
a detective force of impossible dimensions. That in-
formation comes and goes freely by these channels is
notorious. That all the sailors are legitimate sailors
I do not believe, and as a matter of fact I know that
they are not.
The transmission of documents via Switzerland,
Holland,, Denmark, Swteden, and Norway has been
rendered difficult, but not always impossible. Cabling
and telegraphing have been made very risky.
Judging by the impatience manifested in certain
quarters in Berlin at delay in getting news of Zeppelin
raids, for example, I believe that the steps taken to
delay communication between England and Germany
have been effective, and delay in spy work is very often
fatal to its efficiency. The various tentacles of the
German spy system, its checks and counter-checks,
whereby one spy watches another; whereby the naval
spy system has no connection with the military spy
system, and the political with neither, greatly mars its
utility.
Take one great question the question that was all-
important to Germany as to whether Great Britain
would or would not enter the war in the event of an
invasion of Belgium or declaration of war against
France. I was informed on good Berlin authority
that from every part of Great Britain and Ireland
came different reports. So far as London was con-
cerned, Prince Lichnowsky said "No." Baron von
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES 2 1 1
Kiihlmann was non-committal. As a result Lichnowsky
was disgraced and von Kiihlmann continued in favour.
It is common knowledge in Berlin, and may be else-
where, that the most surprised person in Germany at
Great Britain's action was the Kaiser, whose violent
and continual denunciations of Great Britain's Govern-
ment, of King Edward, and King George, are repeated
from mouth to mouth in official circles with a sameness
that indicates accuracy.
All the ignorance of Great Britain's intentions in
1914 is to me the best proof that the German minute
system of working does not always produce the result
desired.
As one with Irish blood in my veins, I found that
Germany's Irish spy system (largely conducted by hotel
waiters and active for more than five and twenty years)
had resulted in hopeless misunderstanding of Irish
affairs and Irish character, North and South.
German spies are as a rule badly paid. The semi-
spies, such as waiters, were usually "helped" by the
German Government through waiters' friendly so-
cieties. It was the duty of these men to communicate
either in writing or verbally with the Consul, or with
certain headquarters either in Brussels or Berlin, and
it is only in accordance with human nature that spies
of that class, in order to gain a reputation for acumen
and consequent increase of pay, provided the kind of
information that pleased the paymaster. That, indeed,
was one of the causes of the breakdown of the German
political spy system. A spy waiter or governess in the
County of Cork, for instance, who assiduously reported
that a revolution throughout the whole of Ireland would
2 1 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
immediately follow Great Britain's entry into the war,
received much more attention than the spy waiter in
Belfast who told the authorities that if Germany went
to war many Irishmen would join England. Ireland,
I admit, is very difficult and puzzling ground for spy
work, but it was ground thoroughly covered by the Ger-
mans according to their methods.
The military party in Germany, who are flaying von
Bethmann-Hollweg for his ignorance of the intentions
of Britain's Dominions and of Ireland, never cease to
throw in his teeth the fact that he had millions of
pounds (not marks) at his back to make the necessary
investigations, and that he failed. That and his lack
of the use of ruthlessness, his alleged three days' delay
to mobilise in 1914, are the principal charges against
him charges which, in my opinion, may eventually
result in his downfall.
The great mob of semi-spies do not derive their whole
income from Germany, nor are they, I believe, all actu-
ally paid at regular intervals. The struggling German
shopkeeper in England was helped, and I have no
doubt is still helped, by occasional sums received for
business development sums nominally in the nature of
donations or loans from other Germans. The army of
German clerks, who came to England and worked with-
out salary between 1875 and 1900, received, as a rule,
their travelling money and an allowance paid direct
from Germany, or, when in urgent need, from the Con-
sul in London or elsewhere. Their spying was largely
commercial, although many of them formed connec-
tions here which became valuable as Germany began
to prepare directly for war with Britain. They also
SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES 213
helped to spread the knowledge of the English language
which has enabled Germany to analyse the country by
means of its books, Blue-books, statistical publications,
and newspapers. They also brought back with them
topographical and local knowledge that supplemented
the military spy work later achieved by the German
officers who came to live here for spying purposes, and
the great army of trained spy waiters, who are not to be
confused with the semi-spies in hotels, who drew small
sums from Consuls.
One of the finest pieces of spy work achieved by
Germany was the obtaining by a German professor of a
unique set of photographs of the whole of the Scottish
coast, from north to south. Those photographs show-
ing every inlet and harbour, are now at the Reichs-
Marine-Amt (Admiralty) in the Leipsigerplatz. They
have been reproduced for the use of the Navy. I do
not know how they were obtained. I know they are in
existence, and they were taken for geological purposes.
Thefts of documents from British Government De-
partments are not always successfully accomplished by
German agents, I was told. Some of the more astute
officials are alleged, especially by the Naval Depart-
ment, to have laid traps and supplied the spies with
purposely misleading designs and codes.
Assiduous fishing in the troubled waters around the
Wilhelmstrasse waters that will become more and
more troubled as the siege of Germany proceeds ren-
ders the gathering of information not so difficult as it
might appear.
By sympathising with the critics of the German
Foreign Office in the violent attacks upon the Govern-
2 1 4 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ment by the non-official Social Democrats, a sym-
pathetic listener can learn a great deal.
One thing I learned is that, beyond question, the
German spy system, in that misty period called "after
the war," will be very completely revised. The huge
sums of money mentioned in the Reichstag as having
been expended on secret service have, so far as England
is concerned, proved of no political value, and the topo-
graphical and personal knowledge gained would only
be of service in case of actual invasion and the conse-
quent exactions of ransoms from individuals, cities, and
districts.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE
THE state of affairs in Alsace-Lorraine is one of
Germany's most carefully hidden secrets.
In the first months of the war I heard so much talk
in Germany talk based upon articles in the Press of
how the Alsatians, like the rest of the Kaiser's subjects,
"rushed to the defence of the Fatherland," that I was
filled with curiosity to go and see for myself if they
had suddenly changed. I could hardly believe that
they had, for I had studied conditions in the "lost
provinces" before the war.
Still, the Wilhelmstrasse propaganda was convincing
millions that the Alsations received the French very
coldly when they invaded the province to Mulhouse,
and that they greeted the German troops most heartily
when they drove back the invader. Indeed, Alsatian
fathers were depicted as rushing into the streets to cheer
the German colours, while their wives and daughters
"were so beside themselves with joy that they hung
upon the necks of the brave German Michaels, hailing
them as saviours."
A pretty picture of the appreciation of the blessings
of German rule, but was it true ?
Some months later in Paris, when I stood in the
Place de la Concorde before the Monument of Strass-
burg, covered with new mourning wreaths and a Brit-
215
2 1 6 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ish flag now added, I felt an irresistible yearning to
visit the closely guarded region of secrecy and mystery.
On my subsequent trip to Germany I planned and
planned day after day how I could get into Alsace
and go about studying actual conditions there. When
I told one American consul that I wished to go to
Strassburg to see things for myself, he threw up his
hands with a gesture of despair and reminded me that
not an American or other consulate was allowed in
Alsace-Lorraine, even in peace time. When I replied
that I was determined to go he looked grave, and said
earnestly: "Remember that you are going into a damn
bad country, and you go at your own risk."
It is extremely difficult for Germans, to say nothing
of foreigners, to enter the fortress-city of Strassburg.
Business must be exceedingly urgent, and a military
pass is required. A special pass is necessary to remain
over night.
How did I get into Strassburg in war-time?
That is my own story, quite a simple one, but I do
not propose to tell it now except by analogy, in order
not to get anybody into trouble.
During my last voyage across the ocean, which was
on the Dutch liner Rotterdam, I went into the fo'castle
one day to talk to a stowaway, a simple young East
Prussian lad, who had gone to sea and had found him-
self in the United States at the outbreak of war.
"How on earth did you manage to pass through the
iron-clad regulations at the docks of Hoboken (New
York) without a permit, and why did you do it?" I
asked.
"I was home-sick," he answered, "and I wanted to
IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 217
go back to Germany to see my mother. I got on board
quite easily. I noticed a gentleman carrying his own
baggage, and I said to him, 'Can I carry your suit-
cases on board, sir ?' '
Once on board his knowledge of ships told him how
to hide.
Having myself stood for more than two hours on the
quay in a long and growling queue of passengers, I
could not but be amused by the simple device by which
this country youth had outwitted the stringent war em-
barkation regulations of war-time New York. He was
in due course taken off by the British authorities at
Falmouth, and is now probably enjoying the sumptuous
diet provided at the Alexandra Palace or the Isle of
Man.
Well, that is not exactly how I got into Strassburg,
but I got in.
Night had fallen when I crossed the Rhine from
Baden. I was conscious of an indescribable thrill when
my feet touched the soil so sacred to all Frenchmen,
and I somehow felt as if I were walking in fairyland
as I pushed on in the dark. I had good fortune,
arising from the fact that a great troop movement
was taking place, with consequent confusion and
crowding.
On all sides from the surrounding girdle of forts the
searchlights swept the sky, and columns of weary sol-
diers tramped past me on that four-mile road that led
into Strassburg. I kept as close to them as possible
with some other pedestrians, labourers returning from
the great electric power plant.
Presently I was alone on the road when suddenly a
2 1 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
soldier lurched from the shadows and accosted me. I
let him do the talking. But there was no need to be
alarmed ; he was only a drunken straggler who had got
separated from his company and wanted to know
whether any more troops were coming on.
I had already passed through two cordons of func-
tionaries outside, and felt little fear in Strassburg it-
self, so long as I was duly cautious. I had thought out
my project carefully. I realised that I must sleep in
the open ; for, unprovided with a pass it was impossible
for me to go to an hotel. Thankful that I was familiar
with my surroundings I wended my way to the beauti-
ful park, the Orangerie, where I made myself com-
fortable in a clump of bushes and watched the unceas-
ing flash of searchlights criss-cross in the sky until I
fell asleep.
Next day I continued my investigations, but in Al-
sace as elsewhere my personal adventures are of no im-
portance to the world unless, as in some instances, they
throw light on conditions or are necessary to support
statements made, whereas the facts set down belong to
the history of the war. Therefore I shall here sum-
marise what I found in the old French province.
The Germans have treated Alsace-Lorraine ruth-
lessly since the outbreak of war. In no part of the
Empire is the iron hand so evident. In Strassburg it-
self all signs of the French have disappeared. Readers
who know the place well will remark that they were
vanishing before the war. Externally they have now
gone altogether, but the hearts and spirit of the people
are as before.
What I saw reminded me of the words of a Social
IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 219
Democrat friend in Berlin, who told me that the Prus-
sian Government determined at the beginning of the
war that they would have no more Alsace-Lorraine
problem in the future.
They have, therefore, sent the soldiers from these two
provinces to the most dangerous places at the various
fronts. One Alsace regiment was hurled again and
again at the old British Army on the Yser in Novem-
ber, 1914, until at the end of a week only three officers
and six men were left alive. Some of the most perilous
work at Verdun was forced upon the Alsatians.
The Prussian authorities deliberately retain with
the colours Alsatians and Lorrainers unfit for military
service, and wounded men are not allowed to return to
their homes.
In the little circle to which I was introduced in
Strassburg I talked with one sorrowing woman, who
said that her son, obviously in an advanced state of
tuberculosis, had been called up in spite of protests.
He died within three weeks. Another young man, suf-
fering from haemorrhage of the lungs, was called up.
He was forced to stand for punishment all one winter's
day in the snow. In less than two months a merciful
death in a military hospital released him from the
Prussian clutch.
The town of Strassburg is a vast hospital. I do not
think I have ever seen so many Red Cross flags before.
They waved from the Imperial Palace, the public li-
brary, the large and excellent military hospitals, the
schoolhouses, hotels, and private residences. The
Orangerie is thronged with convalescent wounded, and
when hunger directed my steps to the extensive Park
2 20 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Restaurant I found it, too, converted into a hospital.
Even the large concert room was crowded with cots.
The glorious old sandstone Cathedral, with its gor-
geous facade and lace-like spire, had a Red Cross flag
waving over the nave while a wireless apparatus was
installed on the spire. Sentries paced backwards and
forwards on the uncompleted tower, which dominates
the region to the Vosges.
The whole object of Prussia is to eliminate every
vestige of French influence in the two provinces. The
use of the French language, whether in speech or writ-
ing, is strictly forbidden. To print, sell, offer for sale,
or purchase anything in French is to commit a crime.
Detectives are everywhere on the alert to discover vio-
lations of the law. All French trade names have been
changed to their German equivalents. For example,
the sign Guillaume Rondee, Tailleur, has come down,
and if the tradesman wants to continue in his business
Wilhelm Rondee, Schneider, must go up. He may have
a quantity of valuable business forms or letter-heads in
French even if they contain only one French word
they must be destroyed. And those intimate friends
who are accustomed to address him by his first name
must bear in mind that it is Wilhelm.
Eloi'se was a milliner at the outbreak of the war. To-
day, if she desires to continue her business, she is
obliged to remove the final "e" and thus Germanise her
name.
After having been fed in Berlin on stories of Alsatian
loyalty to the Kaiser, I was naturally puzzled by these
things. If Guillaume had rushed into the street to
cheer the German colours when the French were driven
IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 221
back, and Eloi'se had hung upon the neck of the German
Michael, was it not rather ungrateful of the Prussians
subsequently to persecute them even to the stamping
out of their names ? Not only that, but to be so efficient
in hate that even inscriptions on tombstones may no
longer be written in French?
Alsace-Lorraine is to be literally Elsass-Lothringen
to the last detail.
The truth of the matter is that the Alsatians greeted
the French as deliverers and were depressed when they
fell back. This, as might be expected, exasperated
Prussia, for it was a slap in the face for her system of
government by oppression. Thus, at the very time that
the NacJirichtendienst (News Service) connected with
the Wilhelmstrasse was instructing Germans and neu-
trals that the Alsatians' enthusiastic reception of Ger-
man troops was evidence of their approval of German
rule, the military authorities were posting quite a dif-
ferent kind of notice in Alsace, a notice which reveals
the true story.
"During the transport of French prisoners of war a
portion of the populace has given expression to a feel-
ing of sympathy for these prisoners and for France.
This is to inform all whom it may concern that such
expressions of sympathy are criminal and punishable,
and that, should they again take place, the persons tab
ing part in them will be proceeded against by court-
martial, and the rest of the inhabitants will be sum-
marily deprived of the privileges they now enjoy. ^
"All crowding around prisoners of war, conversations
with them, cries of welcome and demonstrations of sym-
pathy of all kinds, as well as the supply of gifts, is
222 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
strictly prohibited. It is also forbidden to remain
standing while prisoners are being conducted or to fol-
low the transport."
The result of the persecution of the French-speaking
portion of the population has been a boomerang for
Prussia. The Germans of the region, most of whom
never cared much for Prussia, are now bitterly hostile
to her, and thus it is that all citizens of Alsace, whether
French or German, who go into other parts of Germany
are under the same police regulations as alien enemies.
In order to permit military relentlessness to proceed
smoothly without any opposition, the very members of
the local Parliament, the Strassburg Diet, are abso-
lutely muzzled. They have been compelled to promise
not to criticise at any time, or in any way, the military
control ; otherwise their Parliament will be closed. As
for the Local Councils, they are not allowed to discuss
any political questions whatsoever. A representative
of the police is present at every meeting to enforce this
rule to the letter.
The people do not even get the sugared Reichstag re-
ports, as does the rest of Germany. These are specially
re-censored at Miilhouse. The official reports of the
General Staff are often days late, and sometimes do not
appear at all. In no part of the war zone is there so
much ignorance about what is happening at the various
fronts as in the two "lost provinces."
Those who do not sympathise with Germany in her
career of conquest upon which she so joyfully and ruth-
lessly embarked in August, 1914, may well point to
Alsace-Lorraine as an argument against the probability
IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 223
of other peoples delighting in the rule which she would
force upon them.
She has become more intolerant, not less, in the old
French provinces. It will be recalled that by the Treaty
of Frankfurt, signed in March, 1871, they became a
"Reichsland," that is, an Imperial Land, not a self-
governing State like Bavaria, Saxony, or Wiirttemberg.
As Bismarck bluntly and truly said to the Alsatian
deputies in the Reichstag: "It is not for your sakes
nor in your interests that we conquered you, but in the
interests of the Empire."
For more than forty years Prussia has employed
every means but kindness to Germanise the conquered
territory. But though she has hushed every syllable of
French in the elementary schools and forced the chil-
dren to learn the German language and history only;
though freedom of speech, liberty of the Press, rights
of public meeting, have been things unknown; though
even the little children playing at sand castles have
been arrested and fined if in their enthusiasm they
raised a tiny French flag, or in the excitement of their
mock contest cried "Vive la France !" ; though men and
women have been fined and thrown into prison for the
most trifling manifestations that they had not become
enthusiastic for their rulers across the Rhine; and
though most of the men filling Government positions
and they are legion are Prussians, the Alsatians pre-
serve their individuality and remain uncowed.
Having failed in two score of years to absorb them
by force, Prussia during the war has sought by scien-
tific methods carried to any extreme to blot out for ever
themselves and their spirit.
224 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
To do the German credit, I believe that he is sincere
when he believes that his rule would be a benefit to
others and that he is genuinely perplexed when he dis-
covers that other people do not like his regulations. The
attitude which I have found in Germany towards other
nationalities was expressed by Treitschke when he said,
"We Germans know better what is good for Alsace than
the unhappy people themselves."
The German idea of how she should govern other
people is an anachronism. This idea, which I have
heard voiced all over Germany, was aptly set forth be-
fore the war by a speaker on "The Decadence of the
British Empire," when he sought to prove such deca-
dence by citing the fact that there was only one British
soldier to every 4,000 of the people of India. "Why,"
he concluded, "Germany has more soldiers in Alsace-
Lorraine alone than Great Britain has in all India."
That is a bad spirit for the world, and it is a bad
spirit for Germany. She herself will receive one great
blessing from the war if it is hammered out of her.
CHAPTER XIX
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW
HE handling of the always difficult question of the
eternal feminine was firmly tackled by the Ger-
man Government almost immediately after the out-
break of war.
To understand the differences between the situation
here and in Germany it is necessary first to have a lit-
tle understanding of the German woman and her status.
With us, woman is treated as something apart, some-
thing on a pedestal. In Germany and in Austria the
situation is reversed. The German man uses his home
as a place to eat and sleep in, and be waited upon. The
attitude of the German woman towards the man is
nearly always that of the obedient humble servant to
command. If a husband and wife are out shopping it
is often enough the wife who carries the parcels. In
entering any public place the middle-class man walks
first and the wife dutifully follows. When leaving, it
is the custom for the man to be helped with his coat be-
fore the woman. Indeed, she is generally left to shift
for herself.
Woman is the under sex, the very much under sex, in
Germany, regarded by the man as his plaything or as
his cook-wife and nurse of his children; and she will
continue to be the under sex until she develops pride
enough to assert herself. She accepts her inferiority
225
226 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
without murmur; indeed, she often impresses one as
delighting in it.
It is no dishonour for a girl of the middle or lower
class to have a liaison with some admirer, particularly
if he is a student or a young officer ; in fact, it is quite
the proper thing for him to be welcomed by her parents,
although it is perfectly well understood that he has not
the slightest idea of marrying her. The girls are doing
their part to help along the doctrine of free love, the
preaching and practice of which are so greatly increas-
ing in the modern German State.
After marriage the woman's influence in the world is
nearly zero. The idolatry of titles is carried to an
extreme in Germany which goes from the pathetic to
the ludicrous. One does not address a German lady by
her surname, as Frau Schmidt, but by her husband's
title or position, as Frau Hauptmann (Mrs. Captain),
Frau Doktor, Frau Professor, Frau Backermeister
(Mrs. Bakershopowner), or even Frau Schornstein-
fegermeister (Mrs. Master Chimneysweep), although
her husband may be master over only some occasional
juvenile assistant. In military social functions, and
they are of daily occurrence in garrison towns, Mrs.
Colonel naturally takes precedence in all matters over
the wives and daughters of other members of the regi-
ment. Contemplate the joyful existence of a vivacious
American or British girl, accustomed to the respectful
consideration of the other sex, married to a young lieu-
tenant and ruled over by all the wives of his superior
officers !
To try to marry money is considered praiseworthy
and correct in German militarv circles. In Prussia a
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 227
lieutenant in peace times receives for the first three
years 60 a year, from the fourth to the sixth year 85,
from the seventh to the ninth year 99, from the tenth
to the twelfth year 110, and after the twelfth year
120 a year. A captain receives from the first to the
fourth year 170, from the fifth to the eighth year
230, and the ninth year and after 255.
Thus it is that no young lady, however ugly, need be
without an officer husband if she has money enough to
buy one. If he has not a private income, the Govern-
ment forbids him to marry until his pay is sufficient.
That point is seldom reached before he is thirty-five
years of age. Marriage helps him out of the difficulty,
and since the army is so deified in the Fatherland that
the highest ambition of nearly every girl is to marry an
officer, his opportunity of trading shoulder-knots for a
dowry is excellent.
The 'efforts of some women to increase their fortune
sufficiently to enable them to invest in a military better-
half are pathetic from an Anglo-Saxon point of view.
One woman who requested an interview with me said
that as I was an American correspondent I might be
able to advise her how she could dispose of a collection
of autographs to some American millionaire. She ex-
plained that her financial condition was not so good as
formerly, but she was desperate to better it as she was
in love with an officer, who, although he loved her,
would have to marry another if she could not increase
her income. The autographs she showed me were from
Prince Henry of Prussia, Prince Billow and other not-
ables, and most of them were signed to private letters.
Take the story of Marie and Fritz, both of whom I
228 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
knew in a garrison city in eastern Germany, Nothing
could illustrate better the difference between the Ger-
man attitude and our own on certain matters. She
was a charming, lovable girl of nineteen engaged to an
impecunious young lieutenant a few years older. They
moved in the best circle in the Garnisonsiadt.
Two years after their engagement her father lost
heavily in business and could no longer afford to settle
5,000 on her to enable them to marry.
It mattered not ; theirs was true love, and they would
wait until his pay was sufficient.
All went well until another girl, as unattractive as
Marie was charming, decided that she would try to buy
Fritz as a husband. After four months of her acquaint-
ance he found time at the end of a day's drill to write a
few lines informing the young lady, nine years of whose
life he had monopolised, of his intention to marry the
new rival. Life became black for Marie, the more as
she realised that she and Fritz had only to wait a little
longer and his pay would be sufficient.
How would Fritz be regarded in this country, and
how was he regarded according to German standards ?
That is what makes the story worth telling. With us
such a man as Fritz would have been cut socially and
there would have been great sympathy for the sweet
girl whose years had been wasted. But on the other
side of the Rhine women exist solely for the comfort
of men. In militaristic Germany Fritz lost not an iota
of the esteem of his friends of either sex ; as for Marie,
she had failed in a fair game, that was all. The girl's
mother even excused his conduct by saying that he was
ambitious to get ahead in the army. Like most of her
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 229
sex in Germany she has been reared to venerate the
uniform so much that anything done by the man who
wears it is quite excusable. Indeed, Marie's mother
still listens with respectful approval at Kaffeeklatsch
to Fritz's mother when she boasts of what her son is
doing as a major over Turkish troops.
German women have many estimable qualities, but a
proper amount of independence and pride is noticeably
foreign to their natures. Is it surprising that the Amer-
ican girl of German parents requires only a very brief
visit to the Fatherland to convince her that the career
of the Hausfrau is not attractive.
On the whole, the efforts of the German woman have
almost doubled the national output of war energy. Ex-
cept in Berlin few are idle, and these only among the
newly-rich class. The women of the upper classes, both
in Germany and Austria, are either in hospitals or are
making comforts for the troops. Women have always
worked harder in Germany and at more kinds of work
than in Britain or the States, and what, judging by
London illustrated papers, seems to be a novelty the
engagement of women in agricultural and other pur-
suits is just the natural way of things in Germany.
It should always be remembered, when estimating Ger-
man man-power and German ability to hold out, that
the bulk of the work of civil life is being done by pris-
oners and women. A German woman and a prisoner
of war, usually a Kussian, working side by side in the
fields is a common sight throughout Germany.
It is the boast of the Germans that their building
constructions are going on as usual. I have myself
230 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
seen plenty of evidence of this, such as the grading of
the Isar at Munich, the completion of the colossal rail-
way station at Leipzig, the largest in Germany, the
construction of the new railway station at Gorlitz, the
complete building since the war of the palatial Hotel
Astoria at Leipzig, also two gigantic new steel and con-
crete palaces in the same city for the semi-annual fair,
the erection of a new Hamburg-America Line office
building adjacent to the old one and dwarfing it. The
slaughter-house annexes, contracted for in days of
peace, continue their slow growth, although Berlin has
no present need for such extension in these half-pound-
of-meat-a-week times.
The construction of the !NTord-Siid Bahn of the under-
ground railway, for linking iip the north and south sec-
tions of Berlin has proceeded right along, the women
down in the pit with picks and shovels doing the heavy
work of navvies. That department of the German Gov-
ernment whose duty it is to enlighten Neutrals is not
too proud of the fact, surprisingly enough. An Amer-
ican kinematograph operator, Mr. Edwards, of Mr.
Hearst's papers, was desirous of taking a film of the&e
women navvies heavy, sad creatures they are. The
Government stepped in and suggested that, although
they had no objection to a personally conducted and
posed picture in which the women would no doubt
smile to order they could not permit the realities of
this unwomanly task to be shown in the form of a truth-
telling moving picture.
German authorities are utilising every kind of
woman. The social evil, against which the Bishop of
London and others are agitating in England, was effec-
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 231
tivelj dealt with by the German authorities, not only
for the sake of the health of the troops, but in the in-
terests of munitions. Women of doubtful character
were first told that if found in the neighbourhood of
barracks or in cafes they were liable to be arrested, and
when so found were immediately removed to their na-
tive places, and put into the nearest cartridge filling or
other shop. The double effect has been an increased
output of munitions for the army and increased health
for the soldier, and such scenes as one may witness in
Piccadilly or other London streets at night have been
effectively squelched by the strong Prussian hand, with
benefit to all concerned.
I am not speaking of German morals in general,
which are notorious. I merely state the practical way
the Germans turn the women of the street into useful
munition makers.
The lot of the German woman has been much more
difficult than the lot of her sister in the Allied countries,
for upon her has fallen the great and increasing burden
of the struggle to get enough to eat for her household.
In practically all classes of Germany it has been the
custom of the man to come home from his work,
whether in a Government office, bank, or factory, for
his midday meal, usually followed by an hour's sleep.
The German man is often a greedy fellow as regards
meals. For him special food is always provided, and
the wife and children sit round patiently watching him
eat it. He expects special food to-day. The soldier,
of course, is getting it, and properly, but the stay-at-
homes, who are men over forty-five or lads under nine-
teen, still get the best of such food as can be got. Ex-
232 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ceptions to the nineteen to forty-five rule are very few
indeed. National work in Germany means war work
pure and simple, and now the women are treated ex-
actly as the men in this respect, except that they will
not be sent to the front.
In January, 1917, Germany at length began formally
to organise the women of the country to help in the
war. Each of the six chief army "commands" through-
out the Empire now has a woman attached to it as
Directress of the "Division for Women's Service."
Hitherto, as in England, war work by women has been
entirely voluntary. The Patriotic Auxiliary Service
(Mass Levy) Law is not compulsory so far as female
labour is concerned. German women, however, having
proclaimed that they regard themselves liable for
national service under the spirit if not the letter
of the law, it has finally been decided to mobilise
their services on a more systematic basis than in the
past.
None of the countless revolutions in German life
produced by the war outstrips in historical importance
this official linking up of women with the military ma-
chine. Equally striking is the fact that the directresses
of Women's Service, who hold office in Berlin, Breslau,
Magdeburg, Coblenz, Konigsberg, and Karlsruhe, are
all feminist leaders and promoters of the women's eman-
cipation movement. The directress for the Mark of
Brandenburg (the Berlin-Potsdam district) is an able
Jewess named Dr. Alice Salomon, who is one of the
pioneers of the German women's movement. The main
object of the "Women's Service" Department is to or-
ganise female labour for munitions and other work
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 233
from which men can be liberated for the fighting
line.
I have nothing but praise and admiration for the way
in which the German women have thrown themselves
into this struggle. Believing implicitly as they have
been told and with the exception of the lower classes,
after more than two years of war, they believe every-
thing the Government tells them that this war was
carefully prepared by "Sir Grey" (Lord Grey of Fallo-
don), "the man without a conscience," as he is called
in Germany, they feel that they are helping to fight a
war for the defence of their homes and their children,
and the cynics at the German Foreign Office, who man-
ufacture their opinions for them, rub this in in sermons
from the pastors, novels, newspaper articles, faked
cinema films, garbled extracts from Allied newspapers,
books, and bogus photographs, Reichstag orations by
Bethmann-Hollweg, and the rest of it, not forgetting the
all-important lectures by the professors, who are un-
ceasing in their efforts all over Germany.
To show how little the truth of the war is under-
stood by the German women, I may mention an inci-
dent that occurred at the house of people of the official
class at which I was visiting one day. The eldest son,
who was just back from the Somme trenches, suffering
from slight shell-shock, brought home a copy of a Lon-
don illustrated paper, which had been thrown across
the trenches by the English. In this photograph there
was a picture of a long procession of German prisoners
captured by the English. The daughter of the house,
a well-read girl of nineteen, blazed up at the sight of
this photograph, and showed it to her mother, who was
234 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
equally surprised. The son of the house remarked,
"Surely you know the English have taken a great many
prisoners ?"
His mother, realising her mistake, looked confused,
and simply said, "I didn't think." In other words, the
obvious fact that Germans were sometimes captured
had never been pointed out to her by the Government,
and most Germans are accustomed to think only what
they are officially told to think.
While there are an increasing number of doubters
among the German males as to the accuracy of state-
ments issued by the Government, in the class with
which I mostly came into contact in Germany, the
women are blindfold and believe all they are told. So
strong, too, is the influence of Government propaganda
on the people in Germany that in a town where I met
two English ladies married to Germans, they believed
that Germany had Verdun in her grasp, had annihi-
lated the British troops (mainly black) on the Somme,
had defeated the British Fleet in the battle of Skager-
rak (Jutland), and reduced the greater part of the for-
tifications, docks, and munition factories of London to
ruins by Zeppelins.
Their anguish for the fate of their English relations
was sincere, and they were intensely hopeful that
Britain would accept any sort of terms of peace in
order to prevent the invasion which some people in Ger-
many still believe possible.
At the beginning of the war the click of the knitting
neeHle was heard everywhere; shop-girls knitted while
waiting for customers, women knitted in trams and
trains, at theatres, in churches, and, of course, in the
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 235
home. The knitting is ceasing now for the very prac-
tical reason that the military authorities have comman-
deered all the wool for the clothing of the soldiery. A
further reason for the stoppage of such needlework is
the fact that women are engaged in countless forms
of definite war work.
Upon the whole it is beyond question that the Ger-
man women are not standing the losses as well as the
British women. I have been honoured in England by
conversations with more than one lady who has lost
many dear ones. The attitude is quieter here than in
Germany, and is not followed by the peace talk which
such events produce in German households.
What surprises me in England is the fact that the
word "peace" is hardly ever mentioned anywhere,
whereas in any German railway train or tramcar the
two dominant words are Friede (peace) and Essen
(food). The peace is always a German idea of peace
for the extreme grumblers do not talk freely in pub-
licand the food talk is not always the result of the
shortage, but of the great difficulty in getting what is
to be obtained, together with the increasing monotony of
the diet.
It must not be supposed, however, that the life of
feminine Germany is entirely a gloomy round of duty
and suffering. Among the women of the poor, things
are as bad as they can be. They are getting higher
wages than ever, but the food usury and the blockade
rob them of the increase.
The middle and upper classes still devote a good deal
of time to the feminine pursuits of shopping and dress-
ing. The outbreak of war hit the fashions at a curious
236 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
moment. Paris had just abandoned the tight skirt, and
a comical struggle took place between the Government
and those women who desired to be correctly gowned.
The Government said, "In order to avoid waste of
material, you must stick to the tight skirt," and the
amount of cloth allowed was carefully prescribed.
Women's desire to be in the mode was, however, too
powerful for even Prussianism. Copies of French
fashion magazines were smuggled in from Paris
through Switzerland, passed from dressmaker to dress-
maker, and house to house, and despite the military
instructions and the leather shortage, wide skirts and
high boots began to appear everywhere.
This feminine ebullition was followed by an appeal
from the Government to abandon all enemy example
and to institute new German fashions of their own
making. Models were exhibited in shop windows of
what were called the "old and elegant Viennese fash-
ions." These, however, were found to be great con-
sumers of material, and the women still continued to
imitate Paris.
The day before I left Berlin I heard an amusing
conversation in the underground railway between two
women, one of whom was talking about her hat. She
told her friend that she found the picture of the hat in
a smuggled fashion paper, and had it made at her mil-
liner's and she was obviously very pleased with her
taste.
The women in the munition factories, who number
millions, wear a serviceable kind of uniform overall.
The venom of the German women in regard to the
war is quite in contrast to the feeling expressed by Eng-
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 237
lish women. They have read a great deal about British
and American women and they cordially detest them.
Their point of view is very difficult to explain. When
I have told German women that in many States in my
country women have votes, their reply is, "How vul-
gar!" Their attitude towards the whole question of
women's franchise is that it is a form of Anglo-Saxon
lack of culture and lack of authority.
The freedom accorded to English and American girls
is entirely misunderstood. A Dutch girl who, in the
presence of some German ladies, expressed admiration
for certain aspects of English feminine life, was fiercely
and venomously attacked by that never-failing weapon,
the German woman's tongue. The poor thing, who
mildly expressed the view that hockey was a good game
for girls, and the fine complexions and elegant walk of
English women were due to outdoor sports, was reduced
almost to tears.
The intolerance of German women is almost impos-
sible to express. I know a case of one young girl, a
German-American, whose parents returned to Ham-
burg, who declined to repeat the ridiculous German
formula, "Gott strafe England," and stuck to her point,
with the result that she was not invited to that circle
again.
To the cry "Gott strafe England" has been added
"Gott strafe Amerika," the latter being as popular with
the German women as the German men. The pastors,
professors, and the Press have told the German women
that their husbands and sons and lovers are being killed
by American shells. A man who ought to know better,
like Prince Rupert of Bavaria, made a public statement
238 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
that half of the Allies' ammunition is American. After
the British and French autumn offensive of 1915 tfie
feeling against America on the part of German women
became so intense that the American flag had to be
withdrawn from the American hospital at Munich, al-
though that hospital, supported by German-American
funds, has done wonderful work for the German
wounded.
Arguments with German women about the war are
absolutely futile. They follow the war very closely
after their own method, and believe that any defeats,
such as on the Somme or Verdun, are tactical rear-
rangements of positions, dictated by the wisdom of the
General Staff, and so long as no Allied troops are upon
German soil so long will the German populace believe
in the invincibility of its army. I am speaking always
of the middle and upper classes, who are on the whole,
but with increasing exceptions, as intensely pro-war as
the lower classes are anti-war.
The modern German Bible is the Zeitung (the rough
translation of which is "newspaper") and German
women are even more fanatical than the men, if pos-
sible, in their worship of it.
On one occasion, when I candidly remarked that von
Papen and Boy-Ed came back to the Fatherland for
certain unbecoming acts, some of which I enumerated,
a Frau Hauptmann jumped to her feet and, after the
customary brilliant manner of German argument,
shrieked that I was a liar. She declared that their
Zeitung had said nothing about the charges I men-
tioned, therefore they were not true. She further-
more promised to report me to Colonel at the
THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW 239
Kriegsministerium (War Office), and she kept her
word.
The neglect, and, in some cases refusal, to attend the
British wounded by German nurses are a sign both of
their own intensity of feeling in regard to the war and
their entirely different mentality. Again and again
I have heard German women say, "In the event of a
successful German invasion of England the women will
accompany the men, and teach the women of England
that war is war." Their remarks in regard to the
women of my own country are equally offensive. In-
deed, States that Germany regards as neutral, and who
are treated by the officially controlled German Press
with a certain amount of respect, are loathed by Ger-
man women. Their attitude is that all who are not on
their side are their enemies. American women who are
making shells for the British, French, and Kussians are
just as much the enemies of Germany as the Allied sol-
diers and sailors. One argument often used is that to
be strictly neutral America should make no munitions
at all, but it would not be so bad, say the Germans, if
half the American ammunition went to Germany and
half to the Allies.
I lost my temper once by saying to one elderly red-
faced Erau, "Since you have beaten the British at sea,
why don't you send your ships to fetch it?" "Our
fleet," she said, "is too busy choking the British Fleet
in its safe hiding places to afford time to go to Amer-
ica. You will see enough of our fleet one day, remem-
ber that 1"
Summing up this brief and very sketchy analysis of
German femininity in the war, I reiterate views ex-
240 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
pressed on previous visits to Germany, that German
women are not standing the anxiety of the war as well
as those of France and Britain.
They have done noble work for the Fatherland, but
the grumblings of the lower third of the population are
now such as have not been heard since 1848. German
officials in the Press Department of the Foreign Office
try to explain the unrest away to foreign correspond-
ents like myself, but many thinking Germans are sur-
prised and troubled by this unexpected manifestation
on the part of those who for generations have been al-
inoat as docile and easily managed as children.
CHAPTER XX
THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN"
ESSEN, the noisiest town in the world, bulks largely
in the imagination of the Entente Allies, but "Es-
sen" is not merely one city. It is a centre or capital of
a whole group of arsenal towns. Look at your map of
Germany, and you will see how temptingly near they
are to the Dutch frontier. Look at the proximity of
Holland and Essen, and you will understand the Dutch
fear of Germany. You will grasp also the German
fear, real as well as pretended, that the battle of the
Somme may one day be accompanied by a thrust at the
real heart of Germany, which is Westphalia West-
phalia with its coal and iron and millions of trained
factory hands.
I saw when in Germany extracts from speeches by
British politicians in which the bombing of Essen by
air was advocated. Perhaps the task would have been
easier if the bombing had come first and the speeches
afterwards. Forewarned, forearmed ; and Essen is now
very much armed.
All German railroads seem to lead to this war
monster. Attached to almost every goods train in Ger-
many you will see wagons marked "Essen special
train." Wagons travel from the far ends of Austria
and into Switzerland, which is showing its strict neu-
trality by making munitions for both sides.
241
242 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
On the occasion of my second visit to Essen during
the war I arrived at night. It was before the time of
the bombing speeches, and, though it was well into the
hours when the world is asleep, the sky glowed red with
a glare that could be seen for full thirty miles. My
German companion glowed also, as he opened the car-
riage window and bade me join him in a peep at what
we were coming to. "This is the place where we make
the stuff to blow the world to pieces," he proudly
boasted. "If our enemies could only see that the war
would be over."
I suggested that Essen was not the only arsenal.
There were, for instance, Woolwich, Glasgow, New-
castle, Creusot, and in my own strictly neutral country
Bethlehem, Bridgeport, and one or two other humble
hamlets. He brushed aside my remarks, "But we have
also here in this very region Dortmund, Bochum, Wit-
ten, Duisburg, Krefeld, Diisseldorf, Solingen, Elber-
feld and Barmen."
As we approached nearer, freight trains, military
trains and passenger trains were everywhere. Officers
and soldiers crowded the station platforms, and though
it was night the activity of these Rhenish- Westphalian
arsenal towns impressed me with the belief that unless
the British blockade can strictly exclude essentials, such
as copper and nickel, especially from their roaring fac-
tories, the war will be needlessly protracted.
It is not necessary to be long in Rhineland and West-
phalia to realise that a shortage in these and other es-
sentials is much more disturbing to the heads of these
wonderful organisations than the fear of aerial bombs.
On the occasion of my first war-time visit to Essen
THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN 243
it would have been easy to have bombed it. There is
an old saying that a shoemaker's children are the worst
shod, and the display of anti-aircraft guns which has
since manifested itself was then non-existent. The
town was ablaze. It is still ablaze, but the lighting has
been cunningly arranged to deceive nocturnal visitors,
and any aeroplanes approaching Essen at a height of
twelve or fifteen thousand feet would find it hard to dis-
cover which was Essen, and which Borbeck, and which
was Steele.
Miilheim is easily found, because it is close to the
River Ruhr. We had to halt a long time outside the
station of Essen, so great was the pressure of traffic.
The cordon surrounding the entrance to the city is some
distance away, and having passed that safely I had no
fear of being again interrogated.
I told the hotel manager that I was a travelling news-
paper correspondent, and should like to see as many as
possible of the wonders of his town. After praise of
his hostelry, which, as the sub-manager said, was too
good for the Essenites, I set out on my travels to see
the sights of the city, foremost among them being the
regulation statue of William I.
It was easy to find Krupps, for I had only to turn
my steps towards the lurid panorama in the sky. As I
came nearer, not only my sense of sight but my sense
of hearing told me that Germany's great arsenal was
throbbing with unwonted life. The crash and din of
mighty steam hammers and giant anvils, the flame and
flash of roaring blast furnaces, the rumbling of great
railway trucks trundling raw and finished products in
and out, chimneys of dizzy height belching forth mon-
244 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ster coils of Cimmerian smoke, seem to transport one
from the prosaic valley of the Ruhr into the deafening
realm of Vulcan and Thor. The impression of Krupps
by night is ineffaceable. The very air exudes iron and
energy. You can almost imagine yourself in the midst
of a thunderous artillery duel. You are at any rate in
no doubt that the myriad of hands at work behind those
carefully guarded walls are even more vital factors in
the war than the men in the firing line. The blaze and
roar fill one with the overpowering sense of the Kaiser's
limitless resources for war-making. For you must roll
Sheffield and Xewcastle-on-Tyne and Barrow-in-Fur-
ness into one clanging whole to visualise Essen-on-the-
Ruhr.
In some way Essen is unlike any other town I have
visited. It has its own internal network of railways,
running to and from the various branches of Krupps,
and as the trains pass across the streets they naturally
block the traffic for some minutes. They are almost
continuous and the pedestrians' progress is slow, but it
is exciting, for it is here that one realises what it means
to be at war with Germany. If the resolution of the
German people were as rigid as the steel in the great
cranes and rolling mills, the Allied task would be im-
possible.
The brief noon-tide rush of the workpeople resembles
our six o'clock rush in America towards Brooklyn
Bridge. I can say no more than that. There is noth-
ing like it in London. The home-going crowd round
the Bank of England does not compare with the Essen
crowd, because the crowd at Essen is for a few minutes
more concentrated. Old and young, men and women,
THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN 245
refugees and prisoners of several nationalities (I saw
no British), Poles and Russians predominating, grimy,
worn, and weary, they pour out in a solid mass, and
cover the tramcars like bees in swarming time. The
pedestrians gradually break up into little companies,
most of them going to Kronenberg and other model col-
onies founded by Fran Krupp "Bertha," as she is
affectionately called throughout Germany. The highest
honour the Germans can bestow upon her is to name
their 16-inch howitzer "Fat Bertha." Frau Bertha
Krupp, it may be well to recall, was the heiress to tho
great Krupp fortune, and on her marriage in 1906 to
Herr von Bohlen und Halbach, a diplomatist, he
changed his name to Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.
Though a private corporation with 12,500,000 share
capital owned by the "Cannon Queen" and her fam-
ily, it is to all intents and purposes a Government De-
partment just as Woolwich Arsenal is an adjunct of the
British War Office. In the past, as the elaborate cen-
tenary (1910) memorial proudly recites, fifty-two Gov-
ernments throughout the world have bought Krupp
guns, armour, shells, and warships, with Germany by
far the biggest customer.
Out of the stupendous profits of war machines the
Krupps have built workpeople's houses that, as regards
material comfort, would not be easy to excel. These
houses are provided with ingenious coal-saving stoves,
that might well be copied elsewhere, for though Essen
is in the coal centre of Germany, they are just as care-
ful about coal as though it were imported from the
other end of the world.
Frau Bertha and her husband (a simple and modest
246 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
man, who is, I was informed, entirely in the hands of
his specialists, and who has the wisdom to let well
alone) have put up a big fight with Batocki, the food
dictator. The semi-famine had not reached its height
when I was in Essen, and the suffering was not great
there. A munition-maker working in any of the Rhen-
ish-^Yestphalian towns is regarded by Germans as a
soldier. As the war has proceeded he has been subject
to continuous combing out.
The amount of food allowed to those engaged in
these great factories and rolling mills is, I estimate, 33
per cent more than that allowed to the rest of the civil
population. In all the notices issued throughout Ger-
many in regard to further food restrictions, there is
appended the line, "This change is necessary owing to
the need for fully supplying your brothers in the army
and the munition works."
Essen is a town that before the war had a population
exceeding 300,000. A conservative estimate makes the
figure to-day nearly half a million. The Krupp Com-
pany employ about 120,000. A prevalent illusion is
that Krupps confine their war-time effort exclusively to
making war material. . That is a mistake. A consider-
able part of Krupp's work is the manufacture of ar-
ticles which can be exchanged for food and other prod-
ucts in neighbouring countries, thus taking the place of
gold. At Liibeck, I saw the quays crowded with the
products of Essen in the shape of steel girders and other
building machinery going to Sweden in exchange for
oil, lime from Gotland, iron ore, paper, wood, and food
products.
A mining engineer of the great mines at Kiruna,
THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN 247
Lapland, told me that he had just given an order for
steam shovels from the Westphalian manufacturers,
who are also sending into Holland knives and scissors
and other cutlery and tools.
Germany's principal bargaining commodities with
contiguous neutral nations are steel building materials,
coal, and dye-stuffs. Coal dug in Belgium by Belgian
miners is a distinct asset for Germany, when she ex-
changes it for Swiss cattle, Dutch cheese, and Swedish
wood. When we consider that the great industrial
combinations of Rhineland and Westphalia are not
only reaping enormous munition profits, but supply the
steel and coal which form the bulk of German war-time
exports, we can easily understand why some Social
Democrats grew dissatisfied because the all-powerful
National Liberals resisted a war profits tax for two
years. It is noteworthy that several of the more out-
spoken German editors have been suspended for attack-
ing these profiteers.
I should qualify this statement of exports slightly by
saying that they pertained up to November, 1916. The
effort to put more than ten million men into military
uniform resulted not only in the slave-raids in Belgium
but in a concentration in munition output that stopped
further exports of steel products and coal on a large
scale.
We should always remember in this great war of
machinery that Germany secured a tremendous advan-
tage at the expense of France at the outset when she
occupied the most important French iron region of
Longwy-Briey. The Germans, as I previously observed,
have been working the French mines to the utmost
248 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
indeed, they boast that they have installed improyed
machinery in them. They have, furthermore, been im-
porting ore steadily from Sweden, some of the Swedish
ore, such as Dannemora, being the best in the world for
the manufacture of tool steel so important in muni-
tion work.
Diisseldorf, probably the most attractive large manu-
facturing city in the world, had planned an industrial
exhibition for 1915 or 1916, and the steel skeletons of
many of the buildings had already been erected at the
outbreak of war. But the Germans immediately set to
work to tear down the steel frames to use them for more
practical purposes. "We were going to call it a German
Fair" said a native manufacturer to me early in the
war; "but we can have it later and call it a World's
Fair, as the terms will be synonymous."
Isolated near the Khine is the immense reconstructed
Zeppelin shed which British airmen in November,
1914, partly destroyed, together with the nearly com-
pleted Zeppelin within it. The daring exploit evidently
work up the newly appointed anti-aircraft gunners, for
they subsequently annihilated two of their own ma-
chines approaching from the West.
The badly paid war slaves of Essen are working the
whole twenty-four hours, seven days a week, in three
shifts a day of eight hours each, under strict martial
law. The town is a hotbed of extreme Social Democ-
racy, and as a rule the Socialists of Westphalia are
almost as red as those of the manufacturing districts of
Saxony. But Socialists though they be, they are just
as anti-British as the rest of Germany, and they like
to 'Send out their products with the familiar hall-mark
THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN 249
of "Gott strafe England," or "Best wishes for King
George." It is the kind of Socialism that wants more
money, more votes, less work, but has no objection to
plenty of war. It is a common-sense Socialism, which
knows that without war Essen might shrink to its pre-
war dimensions.
Essen is very jealous of the great Skoda works near
Pilsen in Austria. My hotel manager spoke with some
acerbity of the amount of advertising the Austrian siege
howitzers were receiving. "You can accept my assur-
ance," he said, "that the guns for the bombardment of
Dover were made here, and not at the skoda works, as
the Austrians claim."
Every German in Essen seems to feel a personal
pride in the importance of the works to the Empire at
the fateful hour. The 42-centimetre gun "which con-
quered Belgium" as the native puts it is almost dei-
fied. Everybody struts about in the consciousness that
he or she has had directly or indirectly something to do
with the murderous weapon which has wrought such
death and glory in Germany's name. "The Empire has
the men, Essen has the armour-plate, the torpedoes, the
shells, the guns. It is the combination which must
win." That is the spirit in Kruppville.
CHAPTER XXI
TOMMY IN GERMANY
ONE day the world will be flooded with some of the
most dramatic, horrible, and romantic of narra-
tives the life-stories of the British soldiers captured
in the early days of the war, their gross ill-treatment,
their escapes, and attempts at escape. I claim to be the
only unofficial neutral with any large amount of eye-
witness, hand-to-hand knowledge of those poor men in
Germany.
One of the most difficult tasks I assumed during the
war was the personal and unconducted investigation of
British prisoners of war. The visitor is only allowed
to talk with prisoners when visiting camps under the
supervision of a guide. My tramps on foot all over
Germany gave me valuable information on this as on
other matters.
My task was facilitated by the Germany policy of
showing the hated British captives to as many people as
possible; thus the 30,000 men have been scattered into
at least 600 prison camps. In the depleted state of
the German Army it is not easy to find efficient guards
for so many establishments. Prisoners are constantly
being moved about. They are conveyed ostentatiously
and shown at railway stations en route, where until re
cently they were allowed to be spat upon by the public,
and were given coffee into which the public were al-
250
TOMMY IN GERMANY 251
lowed to spit. These are but a few of the slights and
abominations heaped upon them. Much of it is quite
unprintable.
Many a night did I lie awake in Berlin cogitating
how to get into touch with some of these men. I learned
something on a previous visit in 1914, when I saw the
British prisoners at one of the camps. At that time it
was impossible to get into conversation with them.
They were efficiently and continually guarded by com-
paratively active soldiers.
On this occasion I came across my first British pris-
oner quite by accident, and, as so often happens in life,
difficult problems settle themselves automatically. In
nothing that I write shall I give any indication of tho
whereabouts of the sixty prisoners with whom I con-
versed privately, but there can be no harm in my men-
tioning the whereabouts of my public visit, which took
place in one of the regular neutral "Cook's tours" of
the prisoners in Germany.
The strain of my work in so suspicious a place as
Berlin, the constant care required to guard one's ex-
pressions, and the anxiety as to whether one was being
watched or not got on my nerves sometimes, and one
Sunday I determined to take a day off and go into the
country with another neutral friend. There, by acci-
dent, I came across my first private specimen of Tommy
in Germany.
We were looking about for a decent Gasthaus in
which to get something to eat when we saw a notice
high up in large type on a wall outside an old farm-
house building, which read:
252 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Jeder Verkehr der Zivilbevblkerung mil den
Kriegsgefangenen ist STRENG VERBOTEN.
"Any intercourse of the civil population with the
prisoners of war is strictly forbidden."
These notices, which threaten the civilian population
with heavy penalties if they exchange any words with
the prisoners, are familiar all over Germany, but I did
not expect to find them in that small village.
My neutral friend thought it would make a nice
photograph if I would stand under the notice, which I
did after a cautious survey showed that the coast was
clear.
As I did so a Russian came out of the barn and said,
in rather bad German, "Going to have your photograph
taken?" I replied, in German, "Yes."
He heard me speaking English to my friend, and
then, looking up and down the street each way to see if
we were being watched, he addressed me in English
with a strong Cockney accent.
"You speak English, then ?" I said.
"I am English," he replied. "I'm an English pris-
oner."
"Then what are you doing in a Russian uniform ?"
"It is the only thing I could get when my own clothes
wore out." Keeping a careful eye up and down the
street, he told us his story. He was one of the old Ex-
peditionary Eorce; was taken at Mons with five bullet
wounds in him, and, after a series of unpublishable hu-
miliations, had been drafted from camp to camp until
he had arrived at this little village, where, in view of
the German policy of letting all the population see an
TOMMY IN GERMANY 253
Englishman, he was the representative of his race in
that community. "The local M.P." he called himself,
in his humorous way.
Eobinson Crusoe on his island was not more ignorant
of the truth about the great world than that man, for,
while he had learnt a few daily expressions in German,
he was unable to read it. The only information he
could gather was from the French, Belgian, and Rus-
sian prisoners with him, and some he got by bribing one
of the Landsturm Guards with a little margarine or
sugar out of his parcel from England. He was full of
the battle of Mons and how badly he and his comrades
in Germany felt at the way they had been left unsup-
ported there. None the less, though alone, with no
Englishman for miles, living almost entirely on his par-
cels, absolutely cut off from the real facts of the war,
hearing little but lies, he was as calmly confident of the
ultimate victory of the Allies as I am.
I asked him if he heard from home.
"Yes," he said, "now and then, but the folks tell me
nothing and I can tell them nothing. If you get back
to England you tell the people there not to believe a
word that comes from English prisoners. Those who
write favourably do so because they have to. Every
truthful letter is burned by the military censor. Tell
the people to arrange the parcels better and see that
every man gets a parcel at least once a week not send
five parcels to one man and no parcels to some poor
bloke like me who is alone. How is the war going on,
guv'nor ?" he asked. I gave him my views. "I think
it's going badly for the Germans not by what they tell
me here or what I gets in that awful Continental Times
254 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
paper, but from what I notice in the people round
about, and the officers who visit us. The people are not
so abusive to the English as they used to be. The su-
perior officers do not treat us like dogs, as they did, and
as for the Landsturmers well, look at old Heinrich
here."
At that moment a heavy, shabby old Landsturm sol-
dier came round the corner, and the Cockney prisoner
treated him almost as though he were a performing
bear.
"You're all right, ain't you, Heiny, so long as I give
you a bit of sugar now and then ?" he said to his de-
crepit old guardian in his German gibberish.
This state of affairs was a revelation to me, but I was
soon to find that if the British prisoners are weary of
their captivity their old German guardians are much
more weary of their task. These high-spirited British
lads, whom two years of cruelty have not cowed, are an
intense puzzle to the German authorities.
"You see," remarked a very decent German official
connected with the military censorship department,
"everyone of these Britishers is different. Every one
of them sticks up for what he calls his 'rights' : many
of them decline to work on Sunday, and short of taking
them out on Sunday morning at the point of the bayonet
we cannot get them to do it. We have to be careful, too,
with these Englishmen now. As a man of the world,
you will realise that though our general public here do
not know that the English have captured many Germans
lately, and the fact is never mentioned in the communi-
ques, we have had a hint from Headquarters that the
British prisoners may one day balance ours, and that
TOMMY IN GERMANY 255
hardship for these verftuchte Engldnder may result in
hardship for our men in England."
That incident was long ago. It is important to relate
that since the beginning of the battle of the Somme
there is, if I was correctly informed, a marked improve-
ment in the condition of English prisoners all over Ger-
many not as regards food supplied by the authorities,
because the food squeeze naturally affects the prisoners
as it does their guardians, but in other ways.
In addition to the British capturing numbers of Ger-
man hostages on the Somme to hold against the treat-
ment of their men in Germany, I think I may claim
without undue pride that much good work has been
done by the American Ambassador and his staff of
attaches, who work as sedulously on behalf of the pris-
oners as though those prisoners had been American.
The German authorities hate and respect publicity
and force in matters not to their liking, and Mr.
Gerard's fearlessness in reports of conditions and urgent
pleas for improvement have been of great service. All
the threats and bluster of Germany have failed to cow
him.
To continue my narrative of the Cockney soldier in
Russian uniform. So many Englishmen are in Rus-
sian uniform, Belgian uniform, French uniform, or a
mix-up uniform that there is no possibility of my Cock-
ney Russian being recognised by the authorities, and
the photograph which my neutral friend took of him
and me was taken under the very eyes of his Land-
sturmer.
"Heiny," said the Russian Cockney, "is fed up with
the war. Aren't you, old Heiny ? During the last few
weeks a fresh call for more men has cleared the district
256 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
of everything on two legs. We have had to work four-
teen hours a day, and I wonder what my mates at home
would think of 3s. pay for ten days' work ?"
I was able to comfort him by giving him some cigars,
and a great deal of really true and good news about the
war, all of which he repeated to Landsturmer Heinrich.
I suggested that this might be unwise. "Not a bit of
it," he said. "Lots of these old Germans are only too
anxious to hear bad news, because they think that bad
news will bring the thing to a stop."
How true that remark was I knew from my minute
investigations. The incident was closed by the distant
appearence of a Feldwebel (sergeant-major). My
Cockney vanished, and Heinrich patrolled onward.
This particular incident is not typical of the life of a
British prisoner in Germany, but it is indicative of the
position many of the 30,000 prisoners have taken up by
reason of their strong individuality and extraordinary
cheerfulness and confidence. My impression of them
is of alert, resourceful men (their escapes have been
wonderful) men who never know when they are
beaten. If Britain has sufficient of these people she
cannot possibly lose the war.
*****
The world does not need reminders such as that of
Wittenberg or of such singularly accurate narratives, as
several in Blackwood's Magazine to know what has
happened to British prisoners in Germany.
It is common knowledge throughout the German
Empire that the most loathsome tasks of the war in
connection with every camp or cage are given to the
British. They have had to clean the latrines of negro
TOMMY IN GERMANY 257
prisoners, and were in some cases forced to work witK
implements which would make their task the more
disgusting. One man told me that his lunch was
served to him where he was working, and when he
protested he was told to eat it there, or go without.
Conversations that I have had here in London
about prisoners give me the impression that the British
public does not exactly apprehend what a prisoner
stands for in German eyes.
First, he is a hostage. If he be an officer his exact
social value is estimated by the authorities in Berlin,
who have a complete card index of all their officer
prisoners, showing to what British families they belong
and whether they have social or political connections
in Britain. Thus when someone in England mistakenly,
and before sufficient German prisoners were in their
hands, treated certain submarine marauders differently
from other prisoners, the German Government speedily
referred to this card-index, picked out a number of
officers with connections in the Souse of Lords and
House of Commons, and treated them as convicts.
The other German view of the prisoner is his cash
value as a labourer. I invite my readers to realise the
enormous pecuniary worth of the two million prisoner
slaves now reclaiming swamps, tilling the soil, building
roads and railways, and working in factories for their
German taskmasters,
The most numerous body of prisoners in Germany
are the Russians. They are to be seen everywhere. In
some cases they have greater freedom than any other
prisoners, and often, in isolated cases, travel unguarded
by rail or tramway to and from their work. If they are
258 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
not provided with good Kussian uniforms, in which,
of course, they would not be able to escape, they are
made conspicuous by a wide stripe down the trouser
or on the back. They are easy, docile, physically strong,
and accustomed to a lower grade of food than any other
prisoners, except the Serbs.
The British, of course, are much the smallest num-
ber in Germany, but much the most highly prized for
hate propaganda purposes.
"More difficult to manage," said one Unteroffizier to
me, "than the whole of the rest of our two million." It
is, indeed, a fact that the 30,000 British prisoners,
though the worst treated, are the gayest, most outspoken,
and rebellious against tyranny of the whole collection.
There is, however, a brighter side to prison life in
Germany, I am happy to record. A number of really
excellent camps have been arranged to which neutral
visitors are taken. When I told the German Foreign
Office that I would like to see the good side of prison
life, I was given permission by the Kriegsministerium
(War Office) to visit the great camp at Soltau with its
31,000 inmates with Halil Halid Bey (formerly Turk-
ish Consul in Berlin) and Herr Miiller (interested in
Germany's Far Eastern developments).
Five hours away from Berlin, on the monotonous
Liineberger Heide (Liineberg Heath), has sprung up
this great town with the speed of a boom mining town
in Colorado.
On arrival at the little old town of Soltau we were
met by a military automobile and driven out on a road
made by the prisoners to the largest collection of huts
I have ever seen.
TOMMY IN GERMANY 259
There is nothing wrong that I could detect in the
camp, and I should say that the 200 British prisoners
there are as well treated as any in Germany. The Com-
mandant seems to be a good fellow. His task of ruling
so great an assemblage of men is a large and difficult
one, rendered the easier by the good spirit engendered
by his tact and kindness.
I had confirmation of my own views of him later,
when I came across a Belgian who had escaped from
Germany, and who had been in this camp. He said :
"The little captain at Soltau was a good fellow, and if
I am with the force that releases the prisoners there
after we get into Germany, I will do my best to see that
he gets extra good treatment."
Our inspection occupied six hours. Halil Halid
Bey, who talks English perfectly, and looks like an
Irishman, was taken for an American by the prisoners.
In fact, one Belgian, believing him to be an American
official, rushed up to him and with arms outstretched
pleaded: "Do you save poor Belgians, too, as well as
British?"
The physical comfort of the prisoners is well looked
after in the neat and perfectly clean dormitories. The
men were packed rather closely, I thought, but not more
than on board ship.
One became almost dazed in passing through these
miles of huts, arranged in blocks like the streets of an
American town.
We visited the hospital, which was as good as many
civilian hospitals in other countries. There I heard
the first complaint, from a little red-headed Irishman,
his voice wheezing with asthma, whose grievance was
260 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
not against the camp itself, but against a medical or-
der which had reversed what he called his promise to
be sent to Switzerland. He raised his voice without
any fear, as our little group, accompanied by the Com-
mandant and the interpreter, went round, and I was
allowed to speak to him freely. I am not a medical
man, but I should think his was a case for release. His
lungs were obviously in a bad state.
We were also accompanied by an English sergeant,
one Saxton a magnificent type of the old Army, so
many of whom are eating out their days in Germany.
He spoke freely and frankly about the arrangements,
and had no complaint to make except the food shortage
and the quality of the food.
The British section reminded one now and then of
England. Portraits of wives, children, and sweethearts
were over the beds ; there was no lack of footballs, and
the British and Belgians play football practically every
day after the daily work of reclaiming the land, erect-
ing new huts, making new roads, and looking after the
farms and market gardens has been accomplished.
An attempt has been made to raise certain kinds of
live stock, such as pigs, poultry, and Belgian hares at
large kind of rabbit. There were a few pet dogs about
one had been trained by a Belgian to perform tricks
equal to any of those displayed at variety theatres.
Apparently there is no lack of amusement. I visited
the cinematograph theatre, and the operator asked,
"What would you like to see something funny ?" He
showed us a rather familiar old film. The reels are
those that have been passed out of service of the Ger-
man moving picture shows. In the large theatre, which
TOMMY IN GERMANY 261
would hold, I should think, seven hundred to a thou-
sand people, there was a good acrobatic act and the
performing dog, to which I have referred, with an or-
chestra of twenty-five instruments, almost all prisoners,
but a couple of German Landsturmers helped out. The
guarding of the prisoners is effected by plenty of
barbed wire and a comparatively small number of old-
ish Landsturmers.
A special cruelty of the Germans towards prisoners
is the provision of a lying newspaper in French for
the Frenchmen, called the Gazette des Ardennes. The
Gazette des- Ardennes publishes every imaginable kind
of lie about the French and French Army, with garbled
quotations from English newspapers, and particularly
The Times,, calculated to disturb the relations o^ the
French and English prisoners in Germany. For the
British there is a paper in English which is quite as
bad, to which I have already referred, called the Con-
tinental Times, doled out three times a week. The
Continental Times is, I regret to say, largely written by
renegade Englishmen in Berlin employed by the Ger-
man Government, notably Aubrey Stanhope, who for
well-known reasons was unable to enter England at the
outbreak of war, and so remains and must remain in
Germany, where, for a very humble pittance, he con-
ducts this campaign against his own country.
For the Russians a special prevaricating sheet, called
the Russki Visnik, is issued. All these newspapers pre-
tend to print the official French, British, and Russian
communiques.
For a long time the effect on the British prisoners
was bad, but little by little events revealed to them that
262 THE LAND OF DEEPEN ING SHADOW
the Cmiimtmttl Times, which makes a specialty of at-
tacks on the Ifr^Ksii Press, was anti-British.
The aiiiwal of letters and parcels is, of comae, the
great event for die priaoneis and, so far as the large
camps are concerned, I do not think that there are now
aaty lfrt'H*Mi prisoners unprovided with parcels. It is
the isolated and scattered men, awed often from place
to place for exhibition purposes, who miss panda.
SoitaoL alAn^gh a model f * n f t is U*^V and dreair
and isolated. At the onlaet cases of typhus ocmrred
there, and to a TJ**^T secluded comer ox t**e camp MMur
of * <nn *V"t WMPM* fgil the tale of sadness. The
f^mm. marked a FMBHP*** IHJIII lar-awa v Vilna. PMJ
next a Tommy from. Lnndoi. East had met West in
the Ueak and sflentgrarcjaid on the heather. Close to
diem slept a soldier from some obscure Tillage in Xor-
mandy, and beside 1dm lay a Belgian, whose life had
been. An penalty of his country's driiri minat mn to de-
fend her neorrality. Here in the heart of Germany the
AlKps were nnited even in <|p*ili.
As I made the long journey back to Berlin I re-
m M t -.1 ^^.^ i . _ . 1 __J *!.:_-_ T 1^ a.
necfcu *** some ff^***^** on ** SDOQ. mmiES A uao. ^"^^i
at Sohan. and I felt conrineed that the men in charge
of the camp do everything within their power to make
the fife of the prisoners happy. But as the train
along in the A*v*r*v** I v seemed to see a face
before me which I could not banish. It was the face
of a Belgian, Jing at the altar in die Catholic
chapel, his eyes riveted on his Sariour on the Gross, his
whole being tense in fervent supplication, his lips quiv-
ering in |Bayet. My companions had gone, but I
hdd spellbound, feeling "How long! How long!"
TOMMY IN GERMANY 263
the anguish of his mind. He must have been a man
who had a home and loved it, and his whole expression
told unmistakably that he was imploring for strength
to hold out till the end in that dreary, cheerless region
of brown and grey.
His captors had given him a chapel, to be sure, but
why was he in Germany at all ?
*****
Soltau and other camps are satisfactory but there
are others, many others, such as unvisited punishment
camps. The average Britisher in confinement in Ger-
many is under the care of an oldish guard, such as
Heiny of the Landsturm, but the immediate authority
is often a man of the notorious Unteroffizier type, whoso
cruelty to the German private is well known, and whose
treatment of the most hated enemy can be imagined.
The petty forms of tyranny meted out to German
soldiers such as making a man walk for hours up and
down stairs in order to fill a bath with a wineglass;
making him shine and soil then again shine and soil
hour after hour a pair of boots ; making him chew and
swallow his own socks have been described in suppressed
German books.
I believe that publicity, rigorous blockade and big
shells are the only arguments that have any effect on the
Prussians at present. It is publicity and the fear of
opinion of certain neutrals that has produced such
camps as Soltau. It is difficult for the comfortable
sit-at-homes to visualise the condition of men who have
been in the enemy atmosphere of hate for a long period.
All the British soldiers whom I met in Germany were
captured in the early part of the war when their shell-
264 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
less Army had to face machine-guns and high explosives
often with the shield of their own breasts and a rifle.
Herded like cattle many of the wounded dying, they
travelled eastwards to be subject to the insults and vili-
fications of the German population. That they should
retain their cheery confidence in surroundings and
among a people so ferociously hostile so entirely un-
British, so devoid of chivalry or sporting instinct, is a
monument to the character of their race.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW THE PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME FROM
THE SOMME
EARLY in August, 1916, I was in Berlin. The Brit-
ish and French offensive had commenced on July
1st. Outwardly it appeared to attract very little no-
tice on the part of Germany and I do not believe that
it attracted sufficient attention even in the highest mili-
tary quarters. It was considered to be Great Britain's
final "bluff." The great maps in the shop windows in
every street and on the walls in every German house
showed no change, and still show no change worth no-
ticing. "Maps speak," say the Germans.
One hot evening in Berlin I met a young officer whom
I had known on a previous visit to Germany, and who
was home on ten days' furlough. I noticed that he was
ill or out of sorts, and he told me that he had been un-
expectedly called back to his regiment on the Western
front. "How is that ?" I said. He made that curious
and indescribable German gesture which shows discon-
tent and dissatisfaction. "These English are put-
ting every man they have got into a final and ridiculous
attempt to make us listen to peace terms. My leave
is cut short, and I am off this evening." We had a glass
of beer at the Bavaria Restaurant in the Friedrich-
strasse.
"You have been in England, haven't you?" he in-
265
266 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
quired. I told him that I had been there last year.
"They seem to have more soldiers than we thought," he
said. "They seem to be learning the business ; my bat-
talion has suffered terribly."
Within the next day or two there were other rumours
in Berlin rumours quite unknown to the mass. How
and where I heard these rumours it would be unfair
to certain Germans, who were extremely kind to me,
to say, but it was suggested to me by a friend a mem-
ber of the Extreme Left of the Social Democratic Party
that if I wanted to learn the truth I should go out to
Potsdam and see the arrival of the wounded men of the
famous Prussian Guard, who had, he said, had a ter-
rible experience at the hands of the English at Contal-
maison on July 10th.
He drew me aside in the Tiergarten and told me, for
he is, I am sure, a real German patriot, that the state
of things in the Somme, if known throughout Germany,
would effectively destroy the pretensions of the annexa-
tionist party, who believed that Germany has won the
war and will hold Belgium and the conquered portion
of France and Poland.
He told me to go out to Potsdam with caution, and
he warned me that I should have the utmost difficulty
in getting anywhere near the military sidings of the
railway station there.
I asked another usually extremely well-informed
friend if there was anything particular happening in
the war, and told him that I thought of going to Pots-
dam, and he said, "What for? There is nothing to be
seen there the same old drilling drilling, drilling."
So well are secrets kept in Germany.
HOW PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME 267
The 4th of August is the anniversary of what is
known in Germany as "England's treachery" the day
that Britain entered the war in what the German Gov-
ernment tells the people is "a base and cowardly at-
tempt to try and beat her by starving innocent women
and children."
On that sunny and fresh morning I looked out of the
railway carriage window some quarter of a mile before
we arrived at Potsdam and saw numerous brown trains
marked with the Red Cross, trains that usually travel
by night in Germany.
There were a couple of officers of the Guard Cavalry
in the same carriage with me. They also looked out.
"Ach, nodi 'mat" ("What, again?") discontentedly re-
marked the elder. They were a gloomy pair and they
had reason to be. The German public has begun to
know a great deal about the wounded. They do not yet
know all the facts, because wounded men are, as far as
possible, hidden in Germany and never sent to Socialist
centres unless it is absolutely unavoidable. The official
figures which are increasing in an enormous ratio since
the development of Britain's war machine, are falsified
by manipulation.
And if easy proof be needed of the truth of my as-
sertion I point to the monstrous official misstatement
involved in the announcement that over ninety per cent,
of German wounded return to the firing line ! Of the
great crush of wounded at Potsdam I doubt whether
any appreciable portion of the serious cases will return
to anything except permanent invalidism. They are
suffering from shell wounds, not shrapnel, for the most
part, I gathered.
268 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
As our train emptied it was obvious that some great
spectacle was in progress. The exit to the station be-
came blocked with staring peasant women returning
from the early market in Berlin, their high fruit and
vegetable baskets empty on their backs. When I
eventually got through the crowd into the outer air and
paused at the top of the short flight of steps I beheld a
scene that will never pass from my memory. Filmed
and circulated in Germany it would evoke inconceivable
astonishment to this deluded nation and would swell the
malcontents, already a formidable mass, into a united
and dangerous army of angry, eye-opened dupes. This
is not the mere expression of a neutral view, but is also
the opinion of a sober and patriotic German states-
man.
I saw the British wounded arrive from Neuve Cha-
pelle at Boulogne; I saw the Russian wounded in the
retreat from the Bukovina ; I saw the Belgian wounded
in the Antwerp retreat, and the German wounded in
East Prussia, but the wounded of the Prussian Guard
at Potsdam surpassed in sadness anything I have wit-
nessed in the last two bloody years.
The British Neuve Chapelle wounded were, if not
gay, many of them blithe and smiling their bodies
were hurt but their minds were cheerful; but the
wounded of the Prussian Guard the proudest military
force in the world who had come back to their home
town decimated and humbled these Guards formed
the most amazing agglomeration of broken men I have
ever encountered. As to the numbers of them, of these
five Reserve regiments but few are believed to be un-
hurt. Vast numbers were killed, and most of the rest
HOW PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME 269
are back at Potsdam in the ever growing streets of hos-
pitals that are being built on the Bornstadterfeld.
One of the trains had just stopped. The square was
blocked with vehicles of every description. I was sur-
prised to find the great German furniture vans, which
by comparison with those used in England and the
"United States look almost like houses on wheels, were
drawn up in rows with military precision. As if these
were not enough, the whole of the wheeled traffic of
Potsdam seemed to be commandeered by the military
for the lightly wounded cabs, tradesmen's wagons, pri-
vate carriages everything on wheels except, of course,
motor-cars, which are non-existent owing to the
rubber shortage. Endless tiers of stretchers lay
along the low embankment sloping up to the line.
Doctors, nurses, and bearers were waiting in quiet
readiness.
The passengers coming out of the station, inchiding
the women with the tall baskets, stopped, but only for
a moment. They did not tarry, for the police, of which
there will never be any dearth if the war lasts thirty
years, motioned them on, a slight movement of the hand
being sufficient.
I was so absorbed that I failed to notice the big con-
stable near me until he laid his heavy paw upon my
shoulder and told me to move on. A schoolmaster and
his wife, his Rucksack full of lunch, who had taken ad-
vantage of the glorious sunshine to get away from Ber-
lin to spend a day amidst the woods along the Havel,
asked the policeman what the matter was.
The reply was "Nichis hier zu sehen" ("Nothing to
270 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
be seen here. Get along!"). The great "Hush! Hush!
Hush!" machinery of Germany was at work.
Determined not to be baffled, I moved out of the
square into the shelter of a roadside tree, on the prin-
ciple that a distant view would be better than none at
all, but the police were on the alert, and a police lieu-
tenant tackled me at once. I decided to act on the
German military theory that attack is the best defence,
and, stepping up to him, I stated that I was a news-
paper correspondent. "Might I not see the wounded
taken from the train ?" I requested. He very cour-
teously replied that I might not, unless I had a special
pass for that purpose from the Kriegsministerium in
Berlin.
I hit upon a plan.
I regretfully sighed that I would go back to Berlin
and get a pass, and retracing my steps to the station I
bought a ticket.
A soldier and an TJnteroffizier were stationed near the
box in which stood the uniformed woman who punches
tickets.
The Unteroffizier looked at me sharply. "No train
for an hour and a half," he said.
"That doesn't disturb me in the least when I have
plenty to read," I answered pleasantly, at the same time
pointing to the bundle of morning papers which I car-
ried, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of the For-
eign Office, on the outside.
I knew Potsdam thoroughly, and was perfectly fa-
miliar with every foot of the station. I knew that there
was a large window in the first and second-class dining-
HOW PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME 271
room which was even closer to the ambulances in the
square than were the exit steps.
I did not go directly to the dining-room, but sat on
one of the high-backed benches on the platform and be-
gan to read the papers. The Unteromzier looked out
and found me fairly buried in them. He returned a
little later and saw me asleep or thought he did.
When he had gone I sauntered along the platform
into the dining-room, to find it vacant save for a youth-
ful waiter and a barmaid. I walked straight to the
window where the light would be better for reading
and ordered bread and Edam cheese, tearing off a fifty
gram amount from my Berlin bread ticket, which waa
fortunately good in Potsdam.
My position enabled me to look right out upon the
square below, but rendered me inconspicuous from the
street.
By this time the wounded were being moved from
the train. The slightly wounded were drawn up in
double ranks, their clean white arm- and head-bandages
gleaming in the noonday light. They stood dazed and
dejected, looking on at the real work which was just
beginning the removal of the severely wounded.
Then it was that I learned the use of those mam-
moth furniture vans. Then it was, I realised that these
vans are part of Germany's plans by which her wounded
are carried I will not say secretly, but as unob-
trusively as possible. In some of the mammoths were
put twelve, into others fourteen; others held as many
as twenty.
The Prussian Guard had come home. The steel
corps of the army of Germany had met near Contal-
272 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
maison the light-hearted boys I had seen drilling in
Hyde Park last year, and in a furious counter-attack,
in which they had attempted to regain the village, had
been wiped out.
These were not merely wounded, but dejected
wounded. The whole atmosphere of the scene was that
of intense surprise and depression. Tradition going
back to Frederick the Great, nearly two hundred years
ago, had been smashed by amateur soldiers. The cal-
low youth of sixteen who served my lunch was mutter-
ing something to the barmaid, who replied that he was
lucky to be in a class that was not likely to be called up
yet.
The extreme cases were carried at a snail's pace by
bearers, who put their feet down as carefully as if they
were testing very thin ice, and who placed the com-
fortable spring stretchers in the very few vehicles which
had rubber or imitation rubber tyres. The work was
done with military precision and great celerity. The
evacuation of this train was no sooner finished than an-
other took its place, and the same scene was repeated.
Presently the great furniture vans returned from hav-
ing deposited their terrible loads, and were again filled.
One van was reserved for those who had expired on the
journey, and it was full.
This, then, was the battered remnant of the five Re-
serve regiments of the Prussian Guard which had
charged the British lines at Cental maison three weeks
before in a desperate German counter-attack to wrest
the village from the enemy, who had just occupied it.
Each train discharged between six and seven hundred
HOW PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME 273
maimed passengers. Nor was this the last day of the
influx.
The Guard had its garrisons chiefly in Potsdam, but
also partly in Berlin, and represents the physical flower
of German manhood. On parade it was inspiring to
look at, and no military officer in the world ever
doubted its prowess. Nor has it failed in the war to
show splendid courage and fighting qualities. English
people simply do not understand its prestige at home
and among neutrals.
The Guard is sent only where there is supreme work
to be done. If you hear that it has been hurled into a
charge you may rest assured that it is striving to gain
something on which Germany sets the highest price
for the life-blood of the Guard is the dearest that she
can pay.
In the battle of the Marne the active regiments of
the Guard forming a link between the armies of von
Billow and von Hausen were dashed like spray on
jagged cliffs when they surged in wave after wave
against the army of Foch at Sezanne and Fere Cham-
penoise.
Germany was willing to sacrifice those superb troops
during the early part of the battle because she knew
that von Kluck had only to hold his army together, even
though he did not advance, and the overthrow of Foch
would mean a Teuton wedge driven between Verdun
and Paris.
One year and ten months later she hurled the Guard
Reserve at Contalmaison because she was determined
that this important link in the chain of concrete and
steel that coiled back and forth before Bapaume-Pe-
2 74 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
ronne must remain unbroken. The newly-formed lines
of Britain's sons bent but did not break under the
shock. They were outnumbered, but, like all the rest
of the British that the back-from-the-front German sol-
diers have told me about, these fought on and on, never
thinking of surrender.
I know from one of these that in a first onslaught
the Guard lost heavily, but was reinforced and again
advanced. Another desperate encounter and the men
from Potsdam withered in the hand-to-hand carnage.
The Germans could not hold what they had won back,
and the khaki succeeded the field grey at Contalmaison.
The evacuation of the wounded occupied hours. I
purposely missed my train, for I knew that I was prob-
ably the only foreign civilian to see the historic picture
of the proudest soldiery of Prussia return to its gar-
rison town from the greatest battle in history.
Empty trains were pulled out of the way, to be
succeeded by more trains full of wounded, and again
more. Doctors and nurses were attentive and always
busy, and the stretcher-bearers moved back and forth
until their faces grew red with exertion.
But it was the visages of the men on the stretchers
that riveted my attention. I never saw so many men
so completely exhausted. Not one pair of lips relaxed
into a smile, and not an eye lit up with the glad recog-
nition of former surroundings.
It was not, however, the lines of suffering in those
faces that impressed me, but that uncanny sameness
of expression, an expression of hopeless gloom so deep
that it made me forget that the sun was shining from
an unclouded sky. The dejection of the police, of the
HOW PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME 275
soldier onlookers, of the walking wounded, and those
upturned faces on the white pillows told as plainly as
words could ever tell that the Guard had at last met a
force superior to themselves and their war machine.
They knew well that they were the idol of their Father-
land, and that they had fought with every ounce of their
great physical strength, backed by their long traditions.
They had been vanquished by an army of mere sports-
men.
My thoughts went back to Berlin and the uninformed
scoffings at the British Army and its futile efforts to
push back the troops of Rupprecht on the Somme. Yet
here on the actual outskirts of the German capital was
a grim tribute to the machine that Great Britain had
built up under the protection of her Navy.
In Berlin at that moment the afternoon editions were
fluttering their daily headlines of victory to the crowds
on the Linden and the Friedrichstrasse, but here the
mammoth vans were moving slowly through the streets
of Potsdam.
To the women who stood in the long lines waiting
with the potato and butter tickets for food on the other
side of the old stone bridge that spans the Havel they
were merely ordinary cumbersome furniture wagons.
How were they to know that these tumbrils contained
the bloody story of Contalmaison ?
CHAPTEK XXIII
HOW GERMANY DENIES
GEBMANY, according to Keichstag statements, is
spending millions of pounds upon German propa-
ganda throughout the universe. The trend of that pro-
paganda is:
1. To attempt to convince the neutral world that
Germany cannot be beaten; and
2. Above all, to convince Great Britain (the chief
enemy) that Germany cannot be beaten.
The only factors really feared by the Germans of
the governing class are the Western front and the
blockade.
I went into Germany determined to try to find out
the truth, and to tell the truth. I had an added incen-
tive to be thorough and work on original lines, since I
was fortunate enough to secure possession of an official
letter which advised those whom it concerned to give no
information of value to Americans in general. I also
got accurate information that the Wilhelmstrasse had
singled me out as one American in particular to whom
nothing of value was to be imparted.
The German, with his cast-in-a-mould mind, does
not understand the trait developed among other peoples
of seeing things for themselves. He is unacquainted
with originality in Imman beings. He thinks a corre-
276
HOW GERMANY DENIES 277
spondent does not observe anything unless it is pointed
out to him.
Last summer, for example, one could learn in the
Wilhelmstrasse that the potato crop was a glittering
success. By walking through the country and pulling
up an occasional plant, also talking to the farmers, I
concluded that it was a dismal failure, which conclu-
sion I announced in one of the first newspaper articles
I wrote after I had left Germany. Recent reports from
that country show that I was right, which increases my
conviction that the confidential tips given by Germany's
professional experts, who instruct neutral visitors, do
very well to make Germany's position seem better than
it actually is, but they seldom stand the acid test of
history.
Seeking to invent excuses is not peculiar to the Ger-
mans, but it is more prevalent among them than among
any other people that I know. In this one respect the
German Government is a Government of the people.
Some of the diplomatic explanations which have ema-
nated from Berlin during the war have been weird in
their absurdity and an insult to the intelligence of those
to whom they were addressed.
President Wilson did not accept the official lie con-
cerning the sinking of the Arabic, in view of the posi-
tive proof against Germany, and Germany backed
down. President Wilson did not accept the official lie
concerning the sinking of the Sussex. Incomprehensible
as it is to the Teutonic mind, he attached greater weight
to the first-hand evidence of reliable eye-witnesses, plus
fragments of the torpedo which struck the vessel, than
to the sacred words of the German Foreign Office,
278 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
which had the impertinence to base its case on a sketch,
or alleged sketch, hastily made by a U-boat manipulator
whose artistic temperament should have led him to
Munich rather than to Kiel. The crime and the lie
were so glaring that Germany once more backed down.
Germany lied about the Dutch liner Tubantia. As
in the case of the Sussex, the evidence of the fragments
of torpedo was so incontrovertible that Berlin had to
admit that a German torpedo sank the Tubantia,. In-
deed, one fragment contained the number of the tor-
pedo. During my travels in the Fatherland at that
time I found no doubt in the minds of those with whom
I discussed the matter that a German submarine sank
the vessel, though many were of the opinion that it was
a mistake.
The Wilhelmstrasse is tenacious, however, and we
awoke one morning to read what was probably its most
remarkable excuse. To be sure, a German torpedo sank
the Tubantia, but it was not fired by the Germans. The
expert accountant who was in charge of the U-boat
learned upon consulting his books that he fired that
torpedo on March 6. It did not strike the Tubantia
until March 16. So that it had either been floating
about aimlessly and had encountered the liner, or per-
haps the cunning British had corraled it and made use
of it. At any rate, Berlin disclaimed all responsibility
for its acts subsequent to the day it parted company
with the German submarine.
The path of the torpedo, however, had been observed
from the bridge of the Tubantia.
I remarked to one of my well-informed confidants
among the Social Democratic politicians that although
HOW GERMANY DENIES 279
it is perfectly true that a rolling stone gathers no moss,
it is equally true that a moving torpedo leaves no
wake.
"Yes," he said with a twinkle in his eye, "our For-
eign Office is well aware of that. Have you not noticed
the significance of the two dates, March 6, when the
torpedo is said to have been fired, and March 16, when
it struck ? Do you not see that our diplomats have still
one more loop-hole in case they are pressed ? Is it not
clear that they could find a way out of their absurd
explanation by shifting the responsibility to the man
or the men who jotted down the date and transferred
it ? The question in my mind is : Who lost the 1 from
the 16?"
Be that as it may, little Holland, enraged at the
wanton destruction of one of her largest vessels, was
not in a position to enforce her demands. Therefore
Germany did not back down that is, not publicly.
My description of the return of the Prussian Guard
to Potsdam naturally aroused the wrath of a Govern-
ment which strives incessantly to hide 80 much from its
own people and the outside world.
Directly the article reached Germany the Govern-
ment flashed a wireless to America that no members of
the Potsdam Guard returned to Potsdam from Contql-
maison. This is a typical German denial trick. I
never mentioned the Potsdam Guard.
I had referred to the Prussian Guard.
If any reader of this chapter cares to look into the
files of English newspapers at the time of the Contal-
maison battle, for such it was, they will find confirma-
tion of my statements as to the presence of the Prus-
28o THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Guard in the EngUsh <kspai<te published in the
week in July.
The Contahnaisop article has in whole or in part
circulated in the United States, and also in the
Sooth-American Republics, and probably in other neu-
tral countries. This has now called forth a semi-official
detailed denial, which I print herewith.
It is signed by the Head Staff Doctor at Potsdam,
cue Geronne, by itam**. ITp divides his contradiction
into ten fbmsfti- Each of the first nine contains an
aluBHtilp untruth.
The last is a mere comment on a well-known German
alalKMiian, who told me that as I was seeking the truth
in Germany I had better go and find it at Potsdam.
I wish to deal with the denials one by one, as each
Oi VT^THUD ^J
~L The hospital train,
which reached Potsdam on
Angnst 4, and was there
loaded, brought wound-
ed men from Tarioos troop
drffinion TlBere were no
Guards among
2. Xo wounded man is
kept concealed in Ger-
many. AD are consigned
to public hospitals or laz-
arete, where they may at
any time be visited by
their rdatrres and friends,
This says "Hospital
fnin" (singular). I de-
scribed hospital trains
(plural). It may be true
that ome train did not oon-
tain any Prussian Guards.
I did not happen to see
train. AH Ae traina
I saw unloaded Prus-
sian Guard Reserres.
I hare never said that
any wounded man was
kept concealed in Ger-
many. I hare pointed out
that the whole system of
the German placing of the
wounded is to hide from
HOW GERMANY DENIES
the Ger
and espec
"
3. Hospital trains travel
by day as well as by night,
and, in accordance with
jiMrihrnfrinna^ are unloaded
only in the daytime. In
case they reach their des-
tination during tin* night,
the regulations provide
that they are to wait until
the following morning be-
fore
4. In order that the
loading Or unloading of
the vehicles which trans-
port the wounded to die
lazarets may proceed as
rapidly as possible, it is
necessary to keep the sur-
roundings of the train
dear. The wounded must
also be spared all annoy-
ance and. curiosity on the
part of the public.
5. Dead men hare
never been unloaded from
the lazaret trains at Pots-
dam t herefore there
could have been none on
ion,
tent of their wounded.
This is absolutely un-
true. The number of
wounded arriving at the
depots in Germany is now
so great that the trains are
obliged to be imlfqyifd
whenever they arrive, by
day or by night. I have
witnessed both.
The whole of this para-
graph is a transparent dis-
tortion of fact. What hap-
pens at Potsdam and what
happens everywhere else
is that a cordon of police
fin rKMHMiji ^IM* 9fpnq* fnta
drives the public by force
in the usual Prussian way,
if necessary, from die
method by which I wit-
nessed what was going on
at die railway station from
the railway station
freshment room itself.
I saw die dead ma
re-
2 8 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
August 4, 1916. The prin-
ciple of transporting the
wounded is based upon the
ability of the wounded to
bear transportation. All
those who suffer during
the journey are removed
to a hospital at the fron-
tier.
6. The furniture vans
used for transporting
wounded to the hospitals
at Potsdam and other
cities have proved a great
success. These vans, more-
over, all bear the sign of
the Red Cross, and may
easily be recognised as
hospital vehicles.
7. That men who are
seriously wounded should
give one an impression of
weariness goes without
saying. Lightly wounded
men who travel from the
Somme to Boulogne may
make a better appearance
than the seriously wound-
ed who have made the long
journey from the West
front to Potsdam.
A transparent untruth
on the face of it. If only
one train came into Pots-
dam why use furniture
vans at all ? The furni-
ture vans are used for pur-
poses of concealment, and
because the very large am-
bulance supply always on
duty at the great military
hospitals at Potsdam was
unequal to the task. I saw
no Red Cross indications.
My statement is that all
the German wounded at
the present stage of the
war, lightly or otherwise,
compare badly with the
English and French
wounded, whom I have
seen. They are utterly
war weary and suffering
not so much from shell
shock as from surprise
shock, the revelation of the
creation of a British
Army that had never oc-
curred to the German sol-
diers.
HOW GERMANY DENIES
283
8. As to the great
"Hush ! hush ! machinery"
what is one to call the
attempt to keep the truth
from neutrals by closing
English harbours near the
Channel to neutral ship-
ping for whole days at a
time during which the
English ship-transports of
wounded proceed to Eng<
land?
9. The fi g u r e s pub-
lished by the Ministry of
War concerning the num-
bers of men dismissed
from lazarets (hospitals)
are based upon unques-
tionable statistics. These
statistics remain as given
despite all the asper-
sions of our enemies.
I have made inquiries
of British officials, and
they tell me that it is abso-
lutely untrue that the
channel is closed to neu-
tral shipping when the
English hospital trans-
ports proceed to England.
This untruth is on a par
with the others.
An interesting revela-
tion as to German casualty
lists. It is stated by this
head medical officer of
Potsdam that these lists
are drawn up from the
men dismissed from laz-
arets (hospitals), that is
to say, this doctor admits
that the custom is now to
keep back the casualty
lists until the man is dis-
charged, whereas your
British lists, I am in-
formed on authority, are
published as speedily as
possible after the soldier is
wounded. The whole of
the German wounded now
in hospitals have not yet,
therefore, been included
in casualty lists the cas-
ualties which are forcing
the Germans to employ
every kind of labour they
284 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
can enslave or enroll from
Belgium, Poland, France,
and now from their own
people from sixteen up to
sixty years of age of both
sexes.
10. It would prove in- For obvious reasons I
teresting to learn the name decline to subject my
of the "patriotic German friend to the certain pun-
Statesman," who is said to ishment that would follow
cherish the same opinions disclosure of his name,
as this writer in the Daily
Mail.
I regret to burden readers with a chapter so personal
to myself, but I think that anyone who studies these
German denials with the preceding chapter on the Con-
talmaison wounded will learn at least as much about
the German mind as he would by studying the famous
British White paper of August, 1914.
CHAPTER XXIV
GERMANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES
THREE factors are of chief importance in estimating
German man-power. First, the number of men of
military age; second, the number of these that are in-
dispensable in civil life; third, the number of casual-
ties. Concerning the last two there are great differences
of opinion among military critics in Allied and neu-
tral countries. As regards the first there need be little
difference, although I confess surprise at the number
of people I have met who believe the grotesque myth
that Germany has systematically concealed her increase
in population, and that instead of being a nation of
less than seventy millions she has really more than one
hundred millions.
It is safe to say that at the outbreak of war Germany
was a nation of 68,000,000, of whom 33,500,000 were
males. Of these nearly 14,000,000 were between 18
and 45 ; 350,000 men over 45 are also with the Colours.
The boys who were then 16 and 17 can now be added,
giving us a grand total of some 15,000,000.
Normally Germany employed men of between 18 and
45 as follows : Mines, 600,000; metals, 800,000;
transport, 650,000 ; agriculture, 3,000,000 ; clothing,
food preparation, 1,000,000, making a total of 6,-
050,000.
Up to this point there can be little difference of
285
286 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
opinion. From this point on, however, I must, like
others who deal with the subject, make estimates upon
data obtained. During my last visit to Germany I
systematically employed a rough check on the figures
derived through the usual channels. Concentrated ef-
fort to obtain first-hand information in city, village, and
countryside, north, east, south, and west, with eyes
and ears open, and vocal organs constantly used for
purposes of interrogation, naturally yielded consider-
able data when carried over a period of ten months.
The changes from my last visit and from peace time
were also duly observed as were the differences between
Germany and the other nations I had visited during
the war. Walking, of which I did a colossal amount,
was most instructive, because it afforded me an oppor-
tunity to study conditions in the villages. Discreet
questioning gave me accurate statistics in hundreds of
these that I visited, and of many more hundreds that
I asked about from people whom I met on my travels.
For example, in Oberammergau, which had at the be-
ginning of the war 1,900 inhabitants, about 350 had
been called to the Colours when I was there, and of
these thirty-nine had been killed.
My investigations in the Fatherland convinced me
that of the 3,000,000 men between 18 and 45 formerly
engaged in agriculture, considerably fewer than 100,-
000 continue to be thus occupied. This work is done
by prisoners and women. Mine and metal work have
kept from 60 to 70 per cent, of their men of military
age; but transport, already cut somewhat, lost 25 per
cent, of the remainder when Hindenburg assumed su-
preme command, which would reduce 650,000 to about
GERMANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES 287
300,000. More than 90 per cent, of those engaged in
the preparation of food and the making of clothing have
been called up. Thus of the 6,050,000 engaged in the
occupations given above, about 1,750,000 remain,
which means that more than 4,000,000 have been called
to the Colours.
From building and allied trades at least 90 per cent,
are in military uniform. Assuming that some 2,000,-
000 men of military age are included in indispensable
engineers, fishermen, chemists, physically unfit, and so
forth, we conclude on this basis that Germany can en-
rol in her Army and Navy more than 11,000,000 men.
We may approach the subject from a somewhat dif-
ferent angle by considering what percentage of her
total population Germany could call to the Colours un-
der stress and she is to-day under stress. Savage
tribes have been known to put one-fifth under arms.
An industrial State such as Germany cannot go to this
extreme. Yet by using every means within her power
she makes a very close approach to it. In practically
every village of which I secured figures in Saxony, Ba-
varia, Posen, East Prussia, West Prussia, Pomerania,
Mecklenburg, and Oldenburg, a fifth or nearly a fifth
have been called up. In some Silesian and Rhenish-
Westphalian districts, however, not more than from a
seventh to a tenth. If we allow for all Germany a lit-
tle less than one-sixth, we get 11,000,000.
What are the factors which enable Germany to call
this number or a little more than this number to the
Colours? First, the organisation of the women. I
have seen them even in the forges of Rhineland doing
the work of strong men. "The finest women in the
288 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
world, these Rhinelanders," as one manager put it.
"Just look at that one lift that weight. Few men could
do better." And his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
Second, and of tremendous importance, are the huge
numbers of prisoners in Germany, and her sensible de-
termination to make them work. She has taken about
one and two-third millions on the field of battle. There
also happen to ~be in Germany nearly a million other
prisoners, buried alive, whose existence has apparently
escaped the notice of the outside world. These are the
Russian civilians who were caught in the German trap
when it snapped suddenly tight in the summer of 1914.
Before the war 2,000,000 Russians used to go to Ger-
many at harvest time. The war began at harvest time.
The number of these men, which from my own first-
hand investigations in the remote country districts I
estimate at nearly a million, would have escaped my
notice also, had I not walked across Germany.
Another important factor in the labour problem in
Germany is the employment of the Poles. !N"ot only
are they employed on the land, but great colonies of
them have grown up in Diisseldorf and other industrial
centres. I saw an order instructing the military com-
mandants throughout Germany to warn the Poles,
whose discontent with the food conditions in Germany
made them desire to return home, that conditions in
Poland were much worse. This, then, is an official
German admission that there is starvation in Poland,
for much worse could mean nothing else. Germany is
keeping Poland a sealed book, although I admit that
she occasionally takes tourists to see the German-fos-
tered university at Warsaw. Just before I left Ger-
GERMANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES 289
many still another order was issued for the regulation
of neutral correspondents. Under no circumstances
were they to be allowed to talk with the natives in Po-
land. From unimpeachable authority I learned that
the Poles were intensely discouraged at the thorough-
ness with which the Prussians stripped the country af-
ter the last harvest, and that in some sections the people
are actually dying of hunger. Even in Warsaw, the
death-rate in some neighbourhoods has increased from
TOO to 800 per cent. I was witness to German rage
when Viscount Grey stipulated that food could be sent
there only if the natives were allowed to have the prod-
uce of their own land. Prussia wanted that produce,
and she got it.
I mention these supplies here because the Poles who
worked to produce them must be included in German
labour estimates just as much as though they had been
working in Germany.
Germany also adds to her man-power by utilising
her wounded so far as possible. Her efforts in this
direction are praiseworthy, since they not only con-
tribute to the welfare of the State, but benefit the in-
dividual. I have seen soldiers with one leg gone, or
parts of both legs gone, doing a full day's work mend-
ing uniforms. The blind are taught typewriting, which
enables them to earn an independent living in Govern-
ment employ. In short, work is found for everybody
who can do anything at all.
In a previous chapter I have spoken of the organisa-
tion of the children, a factor which should not be left
out of consideration.
*****
290 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Having considered the assets, let us turn to the debits.
The German casualty lists to the end of 1916 total
4,010,160, of which 909,665 have been killed or died
of wonnds. My investigations in Germany lead me to
put the German killed or died of wounds at 1,200,000,
and the total casualties at close to 5,000,000. If we
assume that 50 per cent, of all wounded return to the
front and another 25 per cent, to service in the interior,
we must also consider in computation of man-power
that the casualty lists do not include the vast num-
bers of invalided and the sick, which almost balance
those that return to the front. This means, in short,
that the net losses are nearly as great at any one time
as the gross losses. Consequently, according to my es-
timates there must be at least 4,500,000 Germans out
of action at this moment.
In a war of attrition it is the number of men def-
initely out of action which counts, for the German lines
can be successfully broken, and only successfully
broken, when there are not enough men to hold them.
The Germans now have in the West probably about 130
divisions.
Hindenburg's levies in the late summer were so enor-
mous that I am convinced from what I saw in Germany
that she has now called almost everything possible to
the Colours. One of Hindenburg's stipulations in tak-
ing command was that he should always have a force
of half a million to throw wherever he wished. We
have seen the result in Rumania, and the men skimmed
from the training units then have been replaced by this
last great levy from civilian life.
Therefore, with something over 11,000,000 men
GERMANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES 291
called up, Germany has now 6,000,000, or a little more
all told, many of whom are not at all suited for service
at the front.
Germany on the defensive at the Somme certainly
lost at least 600,000 men. Attrition, to be sure, works
both ways, but if the Germans are out-gunned this year
in the West to the extent expected their position must
become untenable. The deadly work of reducing Ger-
man man-power continues even though the Allied line
does not advance. I know of a section of the German
front opposite the French last winter which for five
months did not have an action of sufficient importance
to be mentioned by either side in the official reports, yet
the Germans lost 10 per cent of their effectives in
killed.
The more munitions the Allies make Germany use,
the more fat she must use for this purpose, and the less
she will have for the civil population, with a conse-
quent diminution of their output of work. Germany
simply cannot burn the candle at both ends,
CHAPTER XXV
BERLIN'S EAST-END
%
THE poor of Berlin live in the north and east of the
city. I have seen Berlin's East-end change from
the hilarious joy of the first year of the war to an
ever-deepening gloom. I have studied conditions there
long and carefully, but I feel that I can do no better
than describe my last Saturday in that interesting quar-
ter of the German capital.
Late in the morning I left the Stettiner Bahnhof in
the north and walked eastward through the Invaliden-
strasse. There was practically no meat in the butchers'
shops, just the customary lines of empty hooks. A long
queue farther on attracted my attention and I crossed
the street to see what the people were waiting for. A
glance at the dark red carcases in the shop told me that
this was horse-meat day for that district.
The number of vacant shops of all descriptions was
increasing. The small shoemaker and tailor were clos-
ing up. The centralisation of food distribution is
greater here than in the better-class districts, with the
result that many small shopkeepers have been driven
out of business. In parts of Lothringerstrasse a quar-
ter of the shops were vacant, in other parts one-half.
The bakers' shops are nearly empty except at morning
and evening. In fact, after my long sojourn in block-
aded Germany I still find myself after two months iu
292
BERLIN'S EAST-END 293
England staring in amazement at the well-stocked shop
windows of every description.
Shortly before noon I reached the Zentral Viehund-
Schlachthof (the slaughter-houses). Through a great
gateway poured women and children, each carrying
some sort of a tin or dish full of stew. Some of the
children were scarcely beyond the age of babyhood, and
their faces showed unmistakable traces of toil. The
poor little things drudged hard enough in peace
time, and in war they are merely part of the big
machine.
The diminishing supply of cattle and pigs for kill-
ing has afforded an opportunity to convert a section
of the slaughter-houses into one of the great People's
Kitchens. Few eat there, however. Just before noon
and at noon the people come in thousands for the
stew, which costs forty pfennigs (about 5d.) a quart,
and a quart is supposed to be enough for a meal and a
half.
I have been in the great Schlachthof kitchen, where
I have eaten the stew, and I have nothing but praise
for the work being done. This kitchen, like the others
I have visited, is the last word in neatness. The labour-
saving devices, such as electric potato-parers, are of the
most modern type. In fact, the war is increasing the
demand for labour-saving machinery in Germany to at
least as great an extent as high wages have caused such
a demand in America. Among the women who prepare
the food and wait upon the people there is a noticeable
spirit of co-operation and a pride in the part they are
playing to help the Fatherland durchhalten (hold out).
Should any of the stew remain unsold it is taken by a
294 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
well-known .restaurant in the Potsdamer Platz, which
has a contract with the municipal authorities. Little
was wasted in Germany before the war; nothing, abso-
lutely nothing, is wasted to-day.
As at the central slaughter-house, so in other districts
the poor are served in thousands with standard stew.
The immense Alexander Market has been cleared of
its booths and tables and serves more than 30,000
people. One director of this work told me that the
Berlin authorities would supply nearly 400,000 people
before the end of the winter.
The occasional soldier met in the streets looked shab-
bier in the shabby surroundings of the East. The Ger-
man uniform, which once evoked unstinted praise, is
suffering sadly to-day owing to lack of raw materials.
I was in a Social Democratic district, but the men in
uniform who were home on leave were probably "good"
Social Democrats, since it is notorious that the regular
variety are denied this privilege.
The faces of the soldiers were like the rest of the
faces I saw that day. There was not the least trace
of the cheerful, confident expression of the days when
all believed that the Kaiser's armies would hammer
their way to an early peace "in three months," as
people used to say during the first year and a quarter of
the war. Verdun had been promised them as a certain
key to early peace, and Admiral Scheer was deified as
the immortal who tore loose the British clutch from the
German throat. But Verdun and Jutland faded in
succeeding months before the terrible first-hand evi-
dence that the constant diminution of food made life a
struggle day after day and week after week. The news
BERLIN'S EAST-END 295
from Rumania, though good, would bring them no cheer
until it was followed by plenty of food.
In the vicinity of the Schlesischer Bahnhof occurred
a trifling incident which gave me an opportunity to see
the inside of a poor German home that day. A soldier
in faded field-grey, home on leave, asked me for a
match. During the conversation which followed I said
that I was an American, but to my surprise he did not
make the usual German reply that the war would have
been ended long ago if it had not been for American
ammunition. On the contrary, he showed an interest
in my country, as he had a brother there, and finally
asked me if I would step into his home and explain a
few things to him with the aid of a map.
Though I was in a district of poverty the room I
entered was commendably clean. An old picture of
William I. hung on one wall; opposite was Bismarck.
Over the low door was an unframed portrait of "unscr
Kaiser," while Hindenburg completed the collection.
Wooden hearts, on which were printed the names Liege,
Maubeuge, and Antwerp, recalled the days when Ger-
man hearts were light and German tongues were full
of brag.
A girl of ten entered the room. She hated the war
because she had to rush every day at noon from school
to the People's Kitchen to fetch the family stew. In
the afternoon she had to look after the younger chil-
dren while her mother stood in the long lines before
the shops where food was sold. The family were grow-
ing tired of stew day after day. They missed the good
German sausage and unlimited amount of bread and
butter.
296 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
The mother looked in on her way to the street, bas-
ket under arm. She was tired, and was dulled by the
daily routine of trying to get food. She talked bitterly
about the war, but though she blamed the Agrarians for
not doing their part to relieve the food situation, she
expressed no animosity against her own Government.
The father had been through Lodz in Hindenburg's two
frontal assaults on Warsaw, where he had seen the
slopes covered with forests of crosses marking the Ger-
man dead, and his words were bitter, too, when he
talked of his lost comrades. And then, the depressing
feeling of returning from an army pursuing the mirage
of victory to find his family and every other family
struggling in the meshes of that terrible and relentless
blockade !
It never had occurred to him that his Government
might be in the least responsible for the misery of his
country. Like the great bulk of the German people he
is firmly convinced that the Fatherland has been fight-
ing a war of defence from the very beginning. "To
think that one nation, England, is responsible for all
this suffering!" was the way that he put it. He is a
"good" Social Democrat.
When I once more resumed my walk I saw the lines
of people waiting for food in every street. Each time
I turned a corner great black masses dominated the
scene. I paused at a line of more than three hundred
waiting for potatoes. Ten yards away not a sound
could be heard. The very silence added to the depres-
sion. With faces anxious and drawn they stood four
abreast, and moved with the orderliness of soldiers.
Not a sign of disturbance, and not a policeman in sight.
BERLIN'S EAST-END 297
Some women were mending socks ; a few, standing on
the edge of the closely packed column, pushed baby car-
riages as they crawled hour after hour toward the nar-
row entrance of the shop.
Every line was like the rest. The absence of police-
men is particularly noteworthy, since they had to be
present in the early days a year ago when the butter
lines came into being. Drastic measures were taken
when the impatient women rioted. Those days are over.
The Government has taught the people a lesson. They
will wait hour after hour, docile and obedient hence-
forth, if necessary until they drop make no mistake
of that.
But the authorities also learned a lesson. "People
think most of revolution when they are hungry," was
what one leader said to me. On this Saturday of which
I write not a potato was to be bought in the West-end
of Berlin, where the better classes live. Berlin had
been without potatoes for nearly a week. To-day they
had arrived, and the first to come were sent to the East-
end. In the West-end the people are filled with more
unquestioning praise of everything the Government
does ; they applaud when their Kaiser confers an Order
upon their Crown Prince for something, not quite clear,
which he is supposed to have accomplished at Verdun.
Therefore they can wait for potatoes until the more
critical East-end is supplied.
I went farther eastward through the Kottbuser dis-
trict to the Kottbuser Ufer on the canal, along which
a couple of hundred people waited in an orderly calumn
without any guardian another evidence of the success
of the drastic measures of July and early August, when
298 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the demonstrations against the war were nipped in the
bud. These people were waiting for the free advertise-
ment sheets from the gaudily painted yellow Ullstein
newspaper building across the square. They had to
stand by the side of the canal because a queue of sev-
eral hundred people waiting for potatoes wound slowly
before Ullstein's to the underground potato-shop next
door.
I had not heard a laugh or seen anybody smile all
day, and when darkness fell on the weary city I went to
a cheap little beer-room where several "bad," but really
harmless, Social Democrats used to gather. Among
them was the inevitable one who had been to America,
and I had become acquainted with them through him.
They talked in the new strain of their type, that they
might as well be under the British or French as under
their own Government.
Their voices were low a rare event where Germans
gather at table. They did not plot, they merely
grumbled incessantly. The end of the war had def-
initely sunk below their horizon, and peace, not merely
steps to peace, was what they longed for. There was
the customary ciirsing of the Agrarians and the expres-
sions of resolve to have a new order of freedom after
the war, expressions which I believe will not be real-
ised unless Germany is compelled to accept peace by
superior forces from without.
I left the dreary room for the dreary streets, and
turned towards the centre and West-end of Berlin,
where the cafe lights were bright and tinkling music
made restricted menu-cards easier to bear.
Suddenly the oppressive feeling of the East-end was
BERLIN'S EAST-END 299
dispelled by the strains of military music drawing
closer in a street near by. I hurried towards it, and
saw a band marching at the head of two companies of
wounded soldiers, their bandages showing white under
the bright street lights of Berlin.
The men were returning to their hospital off the
Prenzlauer Allee from a day's outing on the River
Spree. Scores of followers swelled to hundreds. The
troubles of the day were forgotten. Eyes brightened
as the throng kept step with the martial music. A roll
of drum, a flare of brass, and the crowd, scattered voices
at first, and then swelling in a grand crescendo, sang
Deutschland uber Alles. To-morrow they would com-
plain again of food shortage and sigh for peace, but to-
night they would dream of victory.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW
A LITTLE, bent old woman, neat, shrivelled, with
clear, healthy eye and keen intelligence, was col-
lecting acorns in the park outside the great Schloss, the
residence of von Oppen, a relative of the Police Presi-
dent of Berlin.
I had walked long and was about to eat rny picnic
lunch, and stopped and spoke with her. We soon came
to the one topic in Germany the war. She was eighty-
four years of age, she told me, and she worked for
twelve hours a day. Her mother had seen Napoleon
pass through the red-roofed village hard by. She well
remembered what she called "the Bismarck wars." She
was of the old generation, for she spoke of the Kaiser
as "the King."
"No," she said, "this war is not going like the Bis-
marck wars not like the three that happened in 1864,
1866, 1870, within seven years when I was a young
woman." She was referring, of course, to Denmark,
Austria, and France. "We have lost many in our vil-
lage food is hard to get." Here she pointed to the two
thin slices of black bread which were to form her mid-
day meal. She did not grumble at her twelve hours'
day in the fields, which were in addition to the work
of her little house, but she wished that she could have
half an hour in which to read history.
300
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 301
Her belief was that the war would be terminated by
the Zeppelins. "When our humane King really gives
the word, the English ships and towns will all be de-
stroyed by our Zeppelins. He is holding back his great
secret of destruction out of kindness."
The remark of that simple, but intelligent old woman
as to the restraint imposed by the Kaiser upon the Zep-
pelins constituted the universal belief of all Germany
until the British doggedly built up an air service under
the stress of necessity, which has brilliantly checked the
aerial carnival of frightfulness. People in Great
Britain seem to have no conception of the great part
the Zeppelins were to play in the war, according to
German imagination. That simple old peasant lady
expressed the views that had been uttered to me by in-
telligent members of the Reichstag bankers, mer-
chants, men and women of all degrees. The first de-
struction of Zeppelins that by Lieutenant Warneford,
and the bringing down of L Z77 at Revigny, did not
produce much disappointment. The war was going
well in other directions. But the further destruction
of Zeppelins has had almost as much to do with the de-
sire for peace, in the popular mind, as the discomfort
and illness caused by food shortage and the perpetual
hammerings by the French and British Armies in the
West.
It should be realised that the Zeppelin has been a
fetish of the Germans for the last ten years. The
Kaiser started the worship by publicly kissing Count
Zeppelin, and fervently exclaiming that he was the
greatest man of the century. Thousands of pictures
have been imagined of Zeppelins dropping bombs on
302 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England, and the
Grand Fleet. For a long time, owing to the hiding of
the facts in England of the Zeppelin raids, even high
German officials believed that immense damage had
been done. The French acted more wisely. They al-
lowed full descriptions of the aeroplane and Zeppelin
raids in France to be published, and the result was dis-
couraging to the Germans. I remember studying the
British Zeppelin communiques with Germans. At that
time the London Authorities were constantly referring
to these raids taking place in the "Eastern counties,"
when the returned Germans knew exactly where they
had been. The result was great encouragement. Noth-
ing did more to depress the Germans than the humorous
and true accounts of the Zeppelin raids which were
eventually allowed to appear in the English newspapers.
The Germans have now facts as to the actual dam-
age done in England. They know that the British pub-
lic receive the Zeppelins with excellent aircraft and
gun-fire. They know that anti-aircraft preparations
are likely to increase rather than decrease, and while,
for the sake of saving the nation's "face," it will be
necessary that Zeppelins be further used, the people
who are directing the war know that, so far as land
warfare is concerned, they are not a factor.
There have been more mishaps than have been pub-
lished; more wounded and damaged Zeppelins than the
Germans have ever announced. I was informed that
the overhauling and repair of many Zeppelins after a
successful or unsuccessful raid was a matter, not of
days, but of weeks. There was great difficulty in ob-
taining crews. Most of them are sailors, as are the
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 303
officers. There have been suppressed mutinies in con-
nection with the manning of the Zeppelins.
Count Zeppelin, who, up to a year ago, was a na-
tional hero, is already c^garded by a large section of
the population as a failure. The very house servants
who subscribed their pfennigs and marks in the early
days to help conduct his experiments now no longer
speak of him with respect. They have transferred their
admiration to Hindenburg and the submarines.
The majority of Germans of all classes believe what
they are officially instructed to believe, no more, no
less. The overmastering self-hypnotism which leads
the present-day German to believe that black is white,
if it adds to his self-satisfaction, is one of the most
startling phenomena of history. But what of Ballin,
Heineken, von Gwinner, Gutmann, Thyssen, Rathenau,
and other captains of industry and finance ? Some of
them have expressed opinions in interviews, but what
do they really think? I am not going to indulge in
any guesswork on this matter. I am simply going to
disclose some important statements made at a secret
meeting attended by many of the business directors of
the German Empire. The meeting was for the pur-
pose of discussing actual conditions in a straightfor-
ward manner, therefore no member of the Press, Ger-
man or foreign, was present.
In striking contrast with custom when the war is
discussed, nothing was said of Kultur, of German in-
nocence or enemy guilt, of an early and victorious
peace, of British warships hiding always in safety, or
of the omniscience and infallibility of the Supreme
Military Command.
304 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
The little circle of Germans who have displayed such
brilliant organising ability in commerce and industry
are practical men, who look at the war and the days to
follow the war in the cold light of debit and credit.
This being the case, the honest opinions expressed by
Arthur von Gwinner, President of the Deutsche Bank,
are worthy of serious consideration. His chief points
were : ,
1. The belief cherished by the mass of the nation
that a Central Europe Economic Alliance will amply
compensate us for any shortcomings elsewhere, and en-
able us to sit back and snap our fingers at the rest of the
world is too absurd to be entertained by serious men.
Our trade, import and export, with Austria-Hungary
was as great as it could be for many years to come, and
it was only a small part of our total trade. After the
war, as before, the bulk of our trade must be with coun-
tries now neutral or enemy, and we must seriously con-
sider how to hold and add to this trade in the future.
2. The solution of the labour problem will be vital
in the work of reconstruction. We must make every
provision in order to forge rapidly ahead immediately
after the close of the war.
No German, except for necessary reasons of State,
should ~be allowed to leave the country for a number of
years after the war.
3. Before the war 2,000,000 Russians came to us
every year at harvest time. These must continue to
come.
4. We have done wonderful work in scientific agri-
culture, but the limit of productivity of the soil has
undoubtedly been reached.
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 305
5. Do not place too much hope in an early war be-
tween the United States and Japan.
6. There is great rejoicing over the sinking of enemy
ships. It should also be remembered, however, that
we are not paying any dividends at present.
In the discussion which followed the statements of
Herr von G winner and from various channels of re-
liable information which I made use of in Germany,
I found a serious view taken of these and other topics,
of which the great body of Germans are quite un-
aware.
Take the labour problem, for example. For years
Germany has recognised the necessity of a rapid in-
crease of population, if a nation is to smash rivals in
industry and war. Not for a moment during this
struggle has Germany lost sight of this fact. Many
times have I heard in the Fatherland that the assurance
of milk to children is not entirely for sentimental but
also for practical reasons. Official attempts are being
made at present to increase the population in ways
which cannot be discussed in this book. "You get your-
self born and the State does all the rest" was an ac-
curate analysis of Germany before the war; but the
State looks after everything now.
When men go home on leave from the army, mar-
ried or single, they are instructed in their duty of d-ing
their part to increase the population so that Germany
will have plenty of colonists for the Balkans, Turkey
and Asia in the great economic development of those
regions. To impress this they argue that Germany
and France had nearly the same number of inhabitants
in 1870. "See the difference to-day," says the German.
306 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
"This difference is one of the chief causes of our greatly
superior strength."
Working girls in Dresden have not only been en-
couraged but quietly advised to serve the State "by en-
abling Deutschland to achieve the high place in the
world which God marked out for it, which can only be
done if there are a sufficient number of Germans to
make their influence felt in the world." They have
tten told not to worry, that the State will provide for
the offspring. In fact, societies of godfathers and god-
mothers are growing all over Germany. They do not
necessarily have to bring up the child in their own
home ; they can pay for its maintenance. Thus the rich
woman who does not care to have many children her-
self is made to feel in ultra-scientific Germany that she
should help her poorer sister.
The Germans treat the matter very lightly. In
Bremen, for example, where the quartering of Land-
stiirmers (the oldest Germans called to military service)
among the people resulted in a large batch of illegiti-
mate children, I found it the custom, even in mixed so-
ciety of the higher circles, to refer to them jokingly as
"young Landstiirmers."
A serious consideration of what Germany, or any
other belligerent, will do after the war is usually of
little value, as conditions after the war depend upon
what is done during the war. The amount of freedom
which the German people attain in the next few years
is in direct proportion to the amount of thrashing ad-
ministered to their country by the Allies. Perhaps
they will have something to say about the frontier regu-
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 307
lations of Germany ; but assuming that the training of
centuries will prevent their hastily casting aside their
docility, it is extremely probable that few, if any, Ger-
mans will be allowed to leave Germany during the first
years of reconstruction.
This will disappoint several million Germans. De-
spite the snarling rage displayed everywhere in the
Fatherland, except in diplomatic circles, against the
United States, I heard an ever-increasing number of
malcontents declare that, immediately after the close
of war, they would go to the States to escape the bur-
den of taxation. One hears two words Friede (peace)
and Essen (food) constantly. The third word I
should add is Steuern (taxes). It is all very well to
sit by some neutral fireside reading Goethe or Schopen-
hauer, while listening to the Meistersinger von Nurn-
berg, or the "Melody in F," and lull yourself into the
belief that the Germans are a race of idealists. This
touch is used to a considerable extent in German propa-
ganda. Any one familiar, however, with conditions in
modern Germany knows that Germans are ultra-ma-
terialistic.
I have heard them talk of the cost of the war from
the very beginning. They gloated over the sweeping
indemnities they would exact. After they realised the
possibilities of State-organised scientific burglary in
Belgium they were beside themselves in joyful antici-
pation of what Paris, London, and a score of other
cities would yield. When the war became a temporary
stalemate, I heard it said, particularly by army officers,
that Germany was taking no chances with the future,
but was exacting indemnities now from the occupied
308 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
districts. When taxes rose and food shortage increased,
the possibility that the Germans themselves would have
to pay some of their own costs of the war in various
forms of taxation determined a rapidly growing num-
ber to seeek a way out by emigrating at the first op-
portunity.
As Herr Ballin said, "The world will find us as
strongly organised for peace as we were organised for
war." The labour problem, however, not only now,
but for the days of reconstruction, is viewed very seri-
ously, how seriously may be gathered from the fact that
there is so much apprehension that Russia may refuse
to allow her workers to go to Germany for some years
after the war, that nearly everyone at the secret con-
ference mentioned above was in favour of making con-
cessions at the peace conference, should Russia insist.
Indeed one Rhinelander was of the opinion that it
would be worth while giving up Courland to get an un-
limited supply of labour.
In the meantime the Germans have not been idle m
other directions. Until Hindenburg called up his im-
mense levies in the late summer, Germany exported
steel building materials and coal to contiguous neutral
countries, but she can no longer do this. Nevertheless,
she did make elaborate preparations to "dump" into
Russia on a colossal scale immediately after the resump-
tion of intercourse. Immense supplies of farming im-
plements and other articles of steel have been stored in
the Rhineland, Westphalia, and Silesia, ready for im-
mediate shipment to Russia, thus enabling Germany
to get ahead of all rivals in this field.
Germans also derive comfort from the fact that their
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 309
ships will be ready at once to carry cargoes and pas-
sengers, while so many of those of the Allies will be
used for the transport of troops after the close of the
war, and must then refit.
With such plans for "getting the jump" on com-
petitors it is only natural that I saw more and more ir-
ritability on the part of the financial men with each
month of the war after last April.
Von Gwinner's remark about the improbability of
war between Japan and the United States in the near
future would, if known to the German people, cause
still another keen disappointment, since one of their
solaces has been the thought that they would soon have
an opportunity of reaping a munition harvest them-
selves.
When Germany tried to make a separate peace with
Russia, Japan was also approached how far, I do not
know. The Wilhelmstrasse still maintains a Japanese
department, and any possible thread, however light,
which may be twisted from a Tokyo newspaper to
show that perhaps Japan may be won over, is pounced
upon most eagerly. Germany, Japan, and Russia was
the combination whispered in Berlin at the time of the
unsuccessful attempt to separate the Allies.
Absolute governments have certain advantages in
war. They have also disadvantages. When things are
not running smoothly in Germany the Germans worry
more than do the English when things are not going
well in England. When the German leaders began to
disagree as to the best methods to conduct the war, the
effect upon the people was demoralising. Only their
gullibility saved them from complete dismay.
3 io THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Month after month the great struggle raged, under
the surface for the most part, but occasionally boiling
over. Would it be to the best interests of Germany to
go the limit with the submarines or not ? Not once did
I hear the subject discussed on ethical grounds. Some
remarks made to me by Doctor Stresemann, one of the
powerful National Liberals behind the mammoth indus-
trial trust in Germany, and the most violent apostle
of frightfulness in the Reichstag, aptly express the sen-
timent in favour of unrestricted submarine warfare.
He and the rest of the men behind Tirpitz had fought
and lost in the three Committee Assemblies called to
discuss U-boat policy in 1916.
As the day set for the September meeting of the
Reichstag approached I noticed that Herr Stresemann
was growing more and more excited. "This war is
lasting too long," he declared to me in great agitation.
"The Kaiser's most glaring fault is that of trying to
fight Great Britain with one foot in the grave of chiv-
alry. If the Chancellor continues to sway him, we will
wreck the Chancellor at all costs. The only way to win
this war is to publish again, and this time enforce, the
decree of February 4th, 1915, warning all neutrals to
keep out of the submarine zone."
"But, according to the ' Sussex Ultimatum,' that will
cause a break with the United States," I said.
"We cannot let that deter us," he declared. "Britain
is the keystone of our enemies. If she falls they all
fall. We must attack her where she is vulnerable. We
must starve her out. As for America, we have little to
fear from her. In the first place, although she may
break off diplomatic relations, she will not enter the
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 3 1 1
war if we are careful not to sink her ships. As Ameri-
can ships play a small part in the carrying trade to
England, we can thus refrain from sinking them
although we naturally should not proclaim this.
"In the second place, if America does declare war
upon Germany, it would have little effect. The war
will be over before she can organise after the manner of
Great Britain. Herr Helfferich (former Minister of
Finance and now Vive-Chancellor) feels that we
should do everything possible to keep America out, inas-
much as thereby we shall be in a better position to con-
clude commercial treaties after the war. Herr Helffe-
rich exerted powerful influence in the meeting at Great
Headquarters at the time of the Sussex Crisis. But
our duty to ourselves is to win the war. If we starve
out England we win, no matter how many enemies we
have. If we fail, another enemy, even the United
States, would not make our defeat more thorough. We
are justified, for our existence is at stake. The only
way we can escape defeat is by a successful U-boat war
against England. That would change defeat into over-
whelming victory. I am absolutely confident; that is
why the slow methods of the Chancellor make me so
angry. It will take at least half a year to bring Eng-
land to her knees, and with our increased privations he
may wait too long. But we shall compel him ; we shall
compel him."
Herr Stresemann later requested me not to publish
these statements at least, not until a decision had been
reached. I did, however, lay the matter before the
American Embassy in London as soon as I arrived in
England, since my investigations in Germany left no
3 1 2 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
doubt in my mind that she would play two great cards
one, to work for peace through negotiation ; the other,
the last desperate recourse to the submarine.
As I write (January 21st, 1917) I am convinced
that it is only a question of time until Germany is
reduced to this last desperate resort. The men who will
decide that time will be Hindenburg and Batocki. The
successful siege of Germany is a stupendous though not
impossible task.
On the other hand, the human system is a very
elastic piece of mechanism, and modern man, far from
being the degenerate which some admirers of cave-man
hardihood have pictured him, is able to undergo a
tremendous amount of privation. Besieged cities have
nearly always held out longer than the besiegers ex-
pected. In the besieged city the civilian population
is for the most part a drag on the military, but in be-
sieged Germany the civilian population, reinforced by
slave labour from Belgium, France and Poland, con-
tinues working at high pressure in order to enable the
military to keep the field. Fat is the vital factor. The
more munitions Germany heaps up the more fat she
must use for this purpose, and the less she will have for
the civil population, with a consequent diminution of
their output of work. Germany simply cannot burn
the candle at both ends. It is my personal opinion that
Verdun marks the supreme culmination of German
military offensive in the West, and the West is the
decisive theatre of war. If that is Hindenburg's
opinion, then he realises that another colossal German
offensive in the West would not bring a victorious
peace. There remains only the alternative of building
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 3 '3
up a defensive against the coming Allied attacks an
alternative depending for its success upon (sufficient
food for the mass of the people. Thus the U-boat de-
cision clearly rests upon the Chief of Staff and the Food
Dictator, since their advice to the Imperial Chancellor
and the All Highest War Lord must be determinative.
When the day comes for Germany to proclaim to the
world that she will sink at sight all ships going to and
from the ports of her enemies, that day will be one of
the great moments of history. Germany's last card will
be on the table. It will be war to the knife. Either
she will starve Great Britain or Great Britain will
starve her.
These are problems for the leaders, who have the
further task of keeping the population hopeful on an
alarmingly decreasing diet. Superficially, or until you
want something to eat, or a ride in a taxicab, Berlin
at night is gay. But you somehow feel that the gaiety
is forced. London at first sight is appallingly gloomy
is the evening, and foreigners hardly care to leave
their hotels. But I find that behind the gloom and the
darkness there is plenty of spontaneous merriment at
the theatres and other places of entertainment. There
is plenty of food, little peace talk, and quiet confidence.
Across the North Sea, however, great efforts are
made by the German Government to keep up the spirits
of the people. No public entertainer need go to the
war at all, and the opera is carried on exactly as in
peace time, though I confess that my material soul
found it difficult to enjoy Tristan on a long and mono-
tonous diet of sardines, potatoes., pheese f(nd fresh-
water fish chiefly pike and carp. A humorous
3 H THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
American friend used to laugh at the situation the
brilliantly dressed house, officers ,!m their extremely
handsome grey uniforms, ladies, some of them with
too many diamonds, and very little to eat.
At the slightest military gain the bells of victory peal
wildly, and gay flags colour mile after mile of city
streets, flags under which weary, silent women crawl
in long lines to the shops where food is sold. A bewil-
dering spectacle is this crawling through victory after
victory ever nearer to defeat.
Early in the war a Norwegian packer, who had not
Tiad much demand for his sardines in Germany, put
the picture of Hindenburg on the tins and christened
them the "Hindenburg Sardines." When he changed
the trade-mark the Germans bought them as fast as he
could supply them not because they were short of food
at that time, but through the magic of a name. To-day
all that is changed. Norwegians no longer have to flat-
ter the Germans, who are anxious to buy anything in
the way of food. They flood Germany now with im-
punity with sardines whose merits are extolled in the
hated English language, sardines which had originally
been intended for Britain or America, but which are
now eagerly snapped up at four and five times the peace
price by people who invariably bid one another good-
bye with "Gott strafe England" I saw the gem of the
collection in a Friedrichstrasse window. It was en-
titled: "Our Allies Brand," on a bright label which
displayed the flags of Great Britain, France, Russia,
Italy, Belgium and Japan.
In Germany you feel that the drama of the battle-
field has changed to the drama of the larder. Hope and
IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW 315
despair succeed one another in the determination to
hold out economically while soldier and sailor convince
the world that Germany cannot be beaten. People
laugh at the blockade, sneer at the blockade and curse
the blockade in the same breath. A headline of victory,
a mention of the army, the army they love, and they
boast again. Then a place in the food line, or a seat at
table, and they whine at the long war and rage against
"British treachery." Like a cork tossing on the waves
such is the spirit of Germany.
The majority struggle on in the distorted belief that
Germany was forced to defend herself from attack
planned by Great Britain, while the minority are kept
in check by armed patrols and "preventive arrest."
The spirit of "all for the Fatherland" is yielding to
the spirit of self-preservation of the individual. Every-
where one sees evidence of this. The cry of a little girl
running out of a meat shop in Friedenau, an excellent
quarter of Berlin, brought me in to find a woman, worn
out with grief over the loss of her son and the long wait-
ing in the queue for food, lying on the floor in a semi-
conscious condition. It is the custom to admit five or
six people at a time. I was at first surprised that no-
body in the line outside had stirred at the appeal of the
child, but I need not have expected individual initiative
even under the most extenuating circumstances from
people so slavishly disciplined that they would stolidly
wait their turn. But the four women inside why did
they not help the woman ? The spirit of self-preserva-
tion must be the answer. For them the main event of
the day was to secure the half-pound of meat which
would last them for a week. They simply would not
3 1 6 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
be turned from that one objective until it^vas reached.
And the soldiers passing through Berlin ! I saw some
my last afternoon in Berlin, loaded with their kit,
marching silently down Unter den Linden to the troop
trains, where a few relatives would tearfully bid them
good-bye. There was not a sound in their ranks
only the dull thud of their heavy marching boots. They
didn't sing nor even speak. The passers-by buttoned
their coats more tightly against the chill wind and
hurried on their several ways, with never a thought or a
look for the men in field-grey, moving, many of them
for the last time, through the streets of the capital.
The old man who angered the war-mad throng before
the Schloss on August 1st, 1914, with his discordant
croak of "War is a serious business, young man," lives
in the spirit of to-day. And he did not have to go to
the mountain!
CHAPTER XXVII
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA
AFTER my last exit from Germany into Holland I
was confronted by a new problem. I had found
going to England very simple on my previous war-time
crossings. Now, however, there were two obstacles in
my path first, to secure permission to board a vessel
bound for England; secondly, to make the actual pas-
sage safely.
The passport difficulty was the first to overcome.
The passport with which I had come to Europe before
the war, and which had been covered with frontier
visees, secret service permissions and military permis-
sions, from the Alps to the White Sea and from the
Thames to the Black Sea, had been cancelled in Wash-
ington at my request during my brief visit home in the
autumn of 1915. On my last passport I had limited
the countries which I intended to visit to Germany
and Austria-Hungary. I purposed adding to this list
as I had done on my old passport, but subsequent Amer-
ican regulations, aimed at restricting travellers to one
set of belligerents, prevented that.
I was not only anxious to return to London to con-
tinue my work with Lord Northcliffe on The Times and
the Daily Mail, but I was encouraged by two American
officials in Germany and Austria-Hungary to write the
truth about Germany a feat quite impossible, as one
317
3 1 8 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
of them said to me, for a correspondent remaining in
the zone of the Central Powers. The official in Austria-
Hungary had become righteously indignant at the sneer-
ing German remarks about how they could "play with
Washington in the U-boat question." He asked me to
learn all possible news of submarines. The official in
Germany had been impressed by my investigations
among the men behind Tirpitz, men who never for a
moment ceased in their efforts to turn on frightfulness
m full force. When I mentioned the new American
passport regulations which would delay me getting to
England, he said : "In Holland fix it with the British.
I hope you will do some good with all this information,
for you have the big scoop of the day. Now is the
time."
I tried to "fix it" with the British authorities in
Rotterdam, but as they did not know me my progress
was slow for a few days. Then I went to Amsterdam
to my old newspaper friend, Charles Tower, correspon-
dent for the Daily Mail, a man of broad experience, and
ir close touch with affairs in Holland, a country which
war journalists have grown to look upon as an im-
portant link in the news chain between Germany and
England. I realised that this move might confirm the
suspicions of von Kiihlmann's spies who were on my
trail. However, the free air of Holland was making
me a little incautious, a little over-confident.
"There is the man who is following you," said Tower,
as we stepped in the evening from his home on to the
brightly lighted street and made our way along the edge
of the canals. The tall, round-shouldered German
shadowed us through the crowded streets to the Amstel
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 319
Hotel. Then we shadowed him, while he telephoned for
help which came in the form of a persistent Hollander,
who insisted in sitting at the table next to us, although
it had just been vacated by diners and needed re-arrang-
ing, whereas many other tables were entirely free.
That is a sample of the manner in which we were
systematically spied upon. In order to make arrange-
ments it was necessary for us to travel together so that
we could talk, as our time was limited. It was abso-
lutely impossible for us to go into a restaurant or get
into a railway compartment without having a satellite
at our elbow. They were very persistent and very
thorough; but the system in Holland has the same
glaring flaw that is common to the German system
everywhere too much system and not sufficient clever-
ness in the individual.
Von Kiihlmann, the German Minister, certainly does
not lack men. We encountered them everywhere. Travel-
ling first class gives one more or less privacy in Holland,
so that it was decidedly irritating to have a listener
make for our compartment, while adjoining first-class
compartments were entirely empty. If the intrusion
resulted in our going to another compartment, an ever-
ready Kamerad would quickly join us.
In all countries German} 7 considers certain telephone
connections to be of great strategic importance. It is
practically impossible to be connected with the British
Consulate at Kotterdam until the "interpreter" is put
on. Mr. Tower experiences the same annoyance. In-
deed, the Germans are extremely attentive to him.
Although he needs only a small flat, since he lives alone,
he has to protect himself by hiring the floor above and
320 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
the floor below, as the Germans are continually trying
to get rooms as close to him as possible. The German
Government has for years been pouring out money like
water to conquer the world. If I were a German
taxpayer I should feel much like the man who
discovers that the Florida land which some smooth-
talking combination travelling book-agent and real
estate agent persuaded him to buy is several feet under
water. ,
Tower and the British authorities finally obtained
permission for me to land in England, but they insisted
that it would be worse than useless for me to attempt
to go on a Dutch steamer, as I should be taken off.
Within a week two of these steamers had been con-
ducted by the Germans to Zeebrugge.
After I had left word that I wished to go at the first
possible opportunity, and had received some further
instructions, Tower and I left for Rotterdam on our
last train ride together in Holland. The little man
with the book who sat beside us in the tram to the
Central station turned us over to a big man with
whitish eyebrows and reddish hair and moustache, who
followed us into a second-class compartment, which we
had entered purposely, although we had bought first-
class tickets. We then pretended to discover our mis-
take and changed to a vacant first-class compartment.
Through some rare oversight there was no Kamerad
on hand, whereupon the man with the reddish hair fol-
lowed us with the pathetically feeble explanation that
he, too, had made the same mistake.
When Tower and I had talked ad nauseam on such
fiercely neutral subjects as Dutch cheese and Swiss
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 321
scenery, I felt an impelling desire to "get even" with'
the intruder, and began to complain to Tower of thn
injustice of the British not allowing me to return to
America via England, which I wished to see for a few
days. He took the cue readily, and accused me of being
"fed-up like all neutral correspondents in Berlin." He
frankly expressed his disgust at the enthusiasm which
he declared that I had been showing for everything
German since I met him in Holland. As the train
pulled into the Hague, where I prepared to leave him,
he concluded by saying, "After all, you ought not to
blame the British authorities for refusing you permis-
sion to go to England. I have done my best and have
failed ; there is nothing more that I can do. I did get
one concession for you, however. You will not be
roughly handled or otherwise maltreated when your
vessel touches at Falmouth."
I had to make a serious effort to keep a straight face
while leaving the train with this last realistic touch of
"British brutality" ringing in my ears. Tower, I might
add, had voiced the extraordinary myth one hears in the
Fatherland about the terrible manner in which the
British treat passengers on neutral steamers touching
at their ports.
The man with the reddish hair followed me to the
office of the Holland- America Line, where I made appli-
cation for a reservation on the boat which would sail in
a week or ten days. From there I went to a small
restaurant. He seemed satisfied and left me, where-
upon I followed him. He hurried to the large Cafe
Central, stepped straight to a table in the front room,
which is level with the street, and seated himself beside
322 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
a thin, dark German of the intellectual type who ap-
peared to be awaiting him. From my seat in the
shadows of the higher room I watched with amusement
the increasingly puzzled expression on the face of the
intellectual German while the man with the reddish
hair unfolded his tale. When they parted my curiosity
caused me to trail after the thin, dark man. He went
straight to the German Legation.
For two days I nervously paced up and down the
sands at Scheveningen looking out upon the North Sea
and waiting for the call. It came one short drizzly
afternoon. The Germans, of course, knew the where-
abouts of the vessel on which I should embark for Eng-
land, though it is highly improbable that they knew
the sailing time, and they did not know when I
should go on it.
I did everything possible to throw any possible spies
off the trail as I made my way in the dark to a lonely
wharf on the Maas River where I gave the password to
a watchman who stepped out of a black corner near
the massive gates which opened to the pier.
I went aboard a little five hundred ton vessel with
steam up, and stood near two other men on the narrow
deck, where I watched in considerable awe the silent
preparations to cast away.
A man stepped out of the cabin. "I presume, sir,
that you are the American journalist," he said. He
explained that he was the steward. From the bridge
came the voice of the captain, "We can give them only
a fe\* minutes more,''* he said.
Two minutes of silence, broken only by the gentle
throbbing of the engines. Then from the blackness
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 323
near the street gate came the sound of hurrying feet.
I could make out three stumbling figures, apparently
urged along by a fourth. "Who are they*" I asked
the steward.
"They must be the three Tommies who escaped from
Germany. Brave lads they are. A couple more days
and we'll have them back in England."
"A couple of days?" I exclaimed. "Why, it'a only
eight hours to the Thames estuary, isn't it ?"
"Eight hours in peace time; and eight hours for
Dutch 'lioats now when the Germans don't kidnap
them away to Zeebrugge. But the course to the Thames
is not our course. The old fourteen-hour trip to Hull
often takes us forty now. Every passage is different,
too. It isn't only on the sea that the Germans try to
bother us ; they also keep after us when we are in port
here. Only yesterday the Dutch inspectors did us a
good turn by arresting five spies monkeying around the
boat three Germans and two Dutchmen."
The little vessel was headed into the stream now,
the three Tommies had gone inside, followed a little
later by the two men who were on the deck when I
arrived, men who talked French. When the steward
left I was alone on the deck.
I watched the receding lights of Rotterdam till they
flickered out in the distance. The night was misty and
too dark to make out anything on shore. My thoughts
went back to the last time, nearly a year before, when
I had been on that river. I saw it then, in flood of
moonlight as I stepped on the boat deck of the giant
liner Rotterdam. The soft strains of a waltz floated up
from the music room, adding enchantment to the wind-
324 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADO\V
mills and low Dutch farmhouses strung out below the
level of the water.
At that time my thoughts were full of my coming
attempt to get into Germany, a Germany which was
smashing through Serbia, and already jplanning the
colossal onslaught against Verdun, the onslaught which
she hoped would put France out of the war. I had got
into Germany, but for a long time I had almost de-
spaired of getting out; twice I had been turned back
courteously but firmly from the frontiers, once when I
tried to cross to Switzerland and again when I started
for Denmark. A reliable friend had told me that the
Wilhelmstrasse had suspected me but could prove
nothing against me. The day before I felt Germany I
was called to the Wilhelmstrasse, where I received the
interesting and somewhat surprising information that
the greatest good that a correspondent could do in the
world be to use his influence to bring the United States
and Germany to a better understanding. I made
neither comment nor promise. I was well aware that
the same Wilhelmstrasse, while laying the wires for an
attempt to have my country play Germany's game, was
sedulously continuing its propaganda of Gott strafe
Amerika among the German people. As in the hatred
sown against Great Britain hate against America was
sown so that the Government would have a united Ger-
many behind them in case of war.
I was at last out of Germany, but the lights of the
Hook of Holland reminded me that a field of German
activity lay ahead floating mines, torpedoes, subma-
rines, and swift destroyers operating from Ostend and
Zeebrugge. They are challenging British supremacy
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 325
in the southern part of the North Sea, through the
waters of which we must now feel our way.
We were off the Hook running straight to the open
sea. The nervous feeling of planning and delay of
the last few days gave way now to the exhilaration
which comes of activity in danger. If the Germans
should get us, the least that would happen to me would
be internment until the end of the war. I was risking
everything on the skill and pluck of the man who paced
the bridge above my head, and on the efficiency of the
British patrol of the seas.
The little steamer suddenly began to plunge and roll
with the waves washing her decks when I groped my
way, hanging to the rail, to the snug cabin where six
men sat about the table. The pallor of their faces made
them appear wax-like in the yellow light of the smoking
oil lamp which swung suspended overhead. Three of
them were British, two were Belgian, and one was
French, but there was a common bond which drew them
together in a comradeship which transcends all barriers
of nationality, for they had escaped from a common
enemy.
They welcomed me to the table. It is surprising
what a degree of intimacy can spring up between seven
men, all with histories behind, and all with the same
hope of getting to England. They were only beginning
to find themselves, they were indeed still groping to
pick up the threads of reality of a world from which
they had been snatched two years before.
The Englishman at my right, a corporal, had been
taken prisoner with a bullet in his foot at the retreat
from Mons. In the summer of 1916 he had been sent
326
to a punishment work camp near Windau in Oourland.
I had already heard unsavoury rumours of this camp
while I was in Germany, of men forced to toil until
they dropped in their tracks, of an Englishman shot
simply because his guard was in bad temper. But the
most damning arraignment of Windau came from a
young Saxon medical student, who told me that after
he had qualified for a commission as second lieutenant
he declined to accept it. This was such an unusual
occurrence in a country where the army officer is a
semi-deity that I was naturally curious to know
why.
"I am loyal to the Fatherland," the young Saxon
said to me, "and I am not afraid to die. I was filled
with enthusiasm to receive a commission, but all that
enthusiasm died when I saw the way Russian prisoners
were treated in East Prussia and at Windau. I saw
them stripped to the waist under orders from the camp
officers, tied to trees and lashed until the blood flowed.
When I saw one prisoner, weak from underfeeding, cut
with switches until he died in the presence of a Berlin
captain, my mind was made up. My country has gone
too far in making the army officer supreme. I now
could see the full significance of Zabern, a significance
which I could not realise at the time. During the first
part of the war I became angry when outsiders called us
barbarians; now I feel sad. I do not blame them.
But it is our system that is at fault, and we must cor-
rect it. Therefore, although I am an insignificant indi-
vidual and do not count, I shall, as I love my country,
obey the dictates of my conscience. I will not be an
officer in the German system."
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 327
I thought of that sincere young student while the
boat staggered under the onslaughts of heavy seas, and
the corporal told of how twelve hours' daily toil on the
railway in Courland with rations entirely inadequate
for such work, finally put him on the sick list, and he
was sent back to Miinster in western Germany.
He was then sent into the fields with two companions
the two who were in the group about the table and
with them he seized a favourable opportunity to escape.
His companions had tried on previous occasions, each
separately, but had been caught, sent back and put into
dark cells and given only one meal a day for a long and
weakening period. That did not daunt them. The
Germans thought that men who had gone through that
kind of punishment would not try to escape again. Yet
as soon as their strength was restored through their food
parcels from home they were off, but in an entirely
different direction.
I asked one of them, a little Welshman, where he got
the waterproof rubber bag on the floor at his feet, in
which were all his earthly belongings. "That used to be
the old German farmer's tablecloth," he said.
To-day in Europe Ithere are millions of civilians
dressed in military uniform, which fails to.hide the fact
that their main work of life is not that of the soldier.
But the three British soldiers sitting under the smoky
brass lamp were of a different sort. Twelve years of
service had so indelibly stamped them as soldiers of
the King that the make-shift clothing given them in
Holland could not conceal their calling. Their faces
were an unnatural white from the terrible experiences
which thev had undergone, but, like the rest of the
328 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
Old Army, they were always soldiers, every inch of
them.
The two men whom I had heard talking French on
the deck were Belgians. The one had been a soldier at
Liege, and had managed to scramble across a ditch
after his three days' tramp to Holland, although the
sentry's bullet whistled uncomfortably close. He said
that his strongest wish was to rejoin the Belgian army
so that he might do his part to avenge the death of seven
civilian hostages who had been shot before his eyes.
The other Belgian was just over military age, but
he wanted to reach England to volunteer. His nerve
and resource are certainly all right. He knew of the
electrified wire along the Belgian-Dutch frontier, so he
brought two pieces of glass with him, and thus held the
current of death away from his body while he wriggled
through to freedom.
We talked until after midnight. The French cap-
tain, formerly an instructor of artillery at Saint Cyr
the West Point and the Sandhurst of France taken
prisoner in the first autumn of the war, was the last to
tell his story.
At Torgau, Saxony, in the heart of Germany, he
plunged into the Elbe in the darkness of night, stemmed
the swift waters, and on landing, half-drowned, rose
speedily and walked fast to avoid a fatal chill.
For twenty-nine days he struggled on towards liberty.
Nothing but the tremendous impulse of the desire for
freedom could have carried him on his own two feet
across Germany, without money, through countless
closely-policed villages and great cities, in a country
where everyone carries an identity book (with which,
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 329
of course, he was unprovided), without a friend or
accomplice at any point of the journey, with only a map
torn from a railway time-table, and no other guides
than the sun, moon, and stars and direction posts.
I will give the rest of the man's story in his own
words.
"I came to the conclusion that my brain would not
stand the captivity. I knew some of the difficulties
before me, but I doubt whether I would have started if
I had known them all. I lived on unthreshed wheat
and rye, apples, blackberries, bilberries, carrots, turnips
and even raw potatoes. I did not taste one morsel of
cooked food or anything stronger than water till I
arrived in Holland. I did not speak one word to any
human being. On two occasions I marched more than
thirty miles in the twenty-four hours. I slept always
away from the roadside, and very often by day, and as
far as possible from any inhabited house. I am, as
you see, weak and thin, practically only muscle and
bone, and during the last three days, while waiting in
Holland for the boat, I have had to eat carefully to
avoid the illness that would almost certainly follow
repletion."
After I had lain down for a few hours' sleep, I
thought, as I had often thought during the past thirty
months, that although this is a war of machinery there
is plenty of the human element in it, too. People who
tell only of the grim-drab aspect of the great struggle
sometimes forget that romances just as fine as were ever
spun by Victor Hugo happen around them every day.
At dawn I hung to the rail of the wildly tossing ship,
looking at the horizon from which the mists were
33Q
clearing. Two specks began to grow into the long low
black lines of destroyers. Our most anxious moment
of the voyage had come. We waited for the shot that
would show them to be German.
"They're all right. They're the escort 1" came a voice
on the winds that swept over the bridge.
They grew rapidly large, lashed the sea white as
they tore along one on each side of us, diving through
the waves when they could not ride them. When
abreast of us they seemed almost to stop in their own
length, wheel and disappear in the distance. Somehow
the way they wheeled reminded me of the way the Cos-
sacks used to pull their horses sharply at right angles
when I saw them covering the rearguard in the retreat
through the Bukovina.
The rough soldier at my side looked after them, with
a mist in his eyes that did not come from the sea. "I'll
be able to see my wife again.," he said, more to the waves
than to me. "I didn't write, because I didn't want to
raise any false hopes. But this settles it, we're certain
to get home safe now. I suppose I'll walk in and find
her packing my food parcel for Germany the parcel
that kept me alive, while some of them poor Russian
chaps with nobody to send them parcels are going under
every day."
We ran close to two masts sticking up out of the
water near the mouth of the Humber, the mast of our
sister ship, which had gone down with all on board
when she struck a mine.
That is the sort of sight which makes some critics
say, "What is the matter with the British Navy?"
Those critics forget to praise the mine-sweepers that
ACROSS THE NORTH SEA 331
we saw all about, whose bravery, endurance and noble
spirit of self-sacrifice lead them to persevere in their
perilous work and enable a thousand ships to reach port
to one that goes down.
On that rough voyage across the North Sea, through
the destroyer and armed motor launch patrol, main-
tained by men who work unflinchingly in the shadow of
death, I felt once again the power of the British Navy.
I cast my lot with that Navy when I left Holland. I
know what its protection means, for I could not have
crossed on a neutral Dutch vessel.
It is all very well to complain about a few raiders
that manage in thirty months to pierce the British
patrols, or the hurried dash of swift destroyers into the
Channel, but when you look from the white chalk cliffs
of the Kentish coast at hundreds of vessels passing
safely off the Downs, when you sail the Atlantic and
the Mediterranean and see only neutral and Allied
ships carrying on commerce, when you cross the Rhine
and stand in food lines hour after hour and day after
day, where men and women who gloried in war now
whine at the hardships it brings, when you see a mighty
nation disintegrating in the shadow of starvation, and
then pass to another nation, which, though far less self-
sustaining in food, has plenty to eat, you simply have
to realise that there are silent victories which are often
farther reaching than victories of eclat.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE LITTLE SHIPS
I HAVE been particularly impressed with two miscon-
ceptions which have existed, and to some extent
still exist, not only in Germany but in neutral countries.
The first is that England lacks virility, is degenerate,
has had her day of greatness; the second, that in the
present war she is continuing what is alleged to have
been her policy in the past, namely, pulling the strings
and reaping the benefit while other nations do the fight-
ing. Through personal investigation I find these con-
tentions so thoroughly refuted that to develop the point
would be to commence another book instead of finishing
this one.
As I write I can look from my desk in the Alexandra
Hotel, Bridlington, on to the North Sea where it
washes the "Frightfulness Coast," for Bridlington lies
between Hull and Scarborough.
I see trawlers fishing and mine-sweeping whenever
I raise my eyes from my writing. Their crews know
that they work in the shadow of death in what they
describe in the dock-side taverns as the greatest sport
in the world. Praise of the big ships often causes us
to forget the little ships. I admire the one and rev-
erence the other. For if the men on the humbler craft
could be intimidated, the doctrine of Frightfulness
would be justified by victory.
332
THE LITTLE SHIPS 333
Intimidation is a favourite weapon of the people
across the Rhine. I was among them when their air-
men dropped bombs on Paris early in the war. "It is
really humane," they said, "for it will frighten the
civilian population into imploring the military to yield
to us to save them." They thought the same of Zep-
pelin raids over England. Intimidation was their guid-
ing star in Belgium. The first I heard of the massacre
of Louvain was from one of its perpetrators.
Intimidation was again their weapon in the case of
Captain Fryatt. "We planned it well," snarled a mem-
ber of the Reichstag, incensed over my expression of
disapproval. "Before we sent our ships to intercept
the Brussels we determined to capture him, try him
quickly and execute him. Since our submarines will
win the war we must protect them by all passible means.
You see, when the next British captain thinks of ram-
ming one of our submarines he will remember the fate
of Captain Fryatt and think twice!"
Once more Germany is attempting intimidation, and
seeking to make neutrals her ally in an attempt to
starve Britain into defeat. The American Ambassador
is leaving Berlin, hundreds of neutral vessels hug
havens of safety all over the world, but the women in
Grimsby and Hull still wave farewell to the little
trawlers that slip down the Humber to grapple with
death. Freighters, mine-sweepers, trawlers, and the
rest of the unsung toilers of the sea continue their
silent, all-important task. They know that for them
Germany has declared the law off, that they will be
slaughtered at sight. They know also that despite the
Grand Fleet and the armies in France, the Allies and
334 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
their cause will go down in complete defeat if Germany
succeeds in blocking the routes of commerce. The in-
surmountable obstacle in her path is the simple, old-
fashioned dogged courage of the average British seaman.
The Germans have developed to an astounding degree
the quality of incorrectly diagnosing other peoples, due
partly to the unbounded conceit engendered by their
three wars of unification and their rapid increase of
prosperity. Their mental food in recent years has been
war, conquest, disparagement of others and glorification
of self. They entered the struggle thinking only in
army corps and siege artillery. Certain undefinable
moral qualities, such as the last-ditch spirit of the old
British Army on the Yser, did not come within their
scope of reckoning.
British illusions of the early part of the war are
gone. The average Briton fully appreciates Germany's
gigantic strength, and he coldly realises that as condi-
tions are at present, his country must supply most of
the driving force men, guns, and shells to break it.
He thinks of the awful cost in life, and the thought
makes him serious, but he is ready for any sacrifice.
He welcomes help from Allies and neutrals, but
whether the help be great or small, he is willing and re-
solved to stand on his own feet, and carry on to the end.
It is this spirit which makes Britain magnificent to-day.
When losses are brought home to the Germans they
generally give vent to their feelings by hurling maledic-
tions upon their enemies. The Briton, under similar
circumstances, is usually remarkably quiet, but, unlike
the German, he is individually more determined, in
consequence of the loss, to see the thing through. Some-
THE LITTLE SHIPS 335
how the German always made me feel that his war
determination had been organised for him.
Organisation is the glory and the curse of Germany.
The Germans are by nature and training easily influ-
enced, and as a mass they can be led as readily in the
right path as in the wrong. Common-sense administra-
tion and co-operation have made their cities places of
beauty, health, comfort and pleasure. But when you
stop for a moment in your admiration of the streets,
buildings, statues, bridges, in such a city as Munich
and enter a crowded hall to sit among people who listen
with attention, obedience and delight to a professor
venomously instructing them in their duty of "hating
with the whole heart and the whole mind," and convinc-
ing them that "only through hate can the greatest
obstacles be overcome," you begin to suspect that some-
thing is wrong.
It is part of the Prussian nature to push everything
to extremes, a trait which has advantages and disad-
vantages. It has resulted in brilliant achievements in
chemical and physical laboratories, and in gout, dyspep-
sia and flabbiness in eating establishments. A virtue
carried too far becomes a vice. In Germany patriotism
becomes jingoistic hatred and contempt for others, or-
ganisation becomes the utilisation of servility, obedi-
ence becomes willingness to do wrong at command.
Americans and British are inclined to ascribe to the
Germans their own qualities. In nothing is this more
obvious than in the English idea that the fair treatment
of Germans in England will beget fair treatment of the
English in Germany. The Prussians, who have many
Oriental characteristics and some of them, a good deal
336 THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW
of Oriental appearance think orientally and attribute
fair, or what we call sportsmanlike, treatment to fright
and a desire to curry favour.
When Maubeuge fell I heard Germans of all classes
boast of how their soldiers struck the British who
offered to shake hands after they surrendered to the
Germans. Nearly two years later, during the Battle of
the Somme, some Berlin papers copied from London
papers a report of how British soldiers presented arms
to the group of prisoners who had stubbornly defended
Ovillers. I called the attention of several German
acquaintances to this as an evidence of Anglo-Saxon
sporting spirit, but I got practically the same response
in every case. "Yes, they are beginning at last to see
what we can do !" was the angry remark.
The Germans have become more and more "Prus-
sianised" in recent years. State worship had advanced
so far that the German people entered the conflict in the
perverted belief that the German Government had used
every means to avert war. It is a mistake, however, to
suppose that the German people entered the war reluc-
tantly. They did not. There was perfect unity in the
joyful thought of German invincibility, easy and com-
plete victory, plenty of plunder, and such huge indem-
nities that the growing burden of taxation would be
thrown off their shoulders.
A country where the innocent children are scientifi-
cally inoculated with the virus of hate, where force, and
only force, is held to be the determinant internationally
of mine and thine, where the morals of the farmyard
are preached from the professorial chair in order to
manufacture human cogs for the machine of militarism,
THE LITTLE SHIPS 337
is an undesirable and a dangerous neighbour and will
continue so until it accepts other standards. A victori-
ous Germany would not accept other standards.
That is why I look on the little ships with so much
admiration this morning. They sail between Germany
and victory, for if they could be intimidated Britain
would be starved out. Then the go 
