The Project Gutenberg eBook, What I Saw in Berlin and Other European capitals During Wartime, by Piermarini

WHAT I SAW IN BERLIN

WHAT I SAW IN
BERLIN AND OTHER
EUROPEAN CAPITALS
DURING WARTIME

BY

"PIERMARINI"

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1915

NOTE

Several chapters of this book are reprinted from the Evening News (London), to the Proprietors and Editor of which paper the author owes his grateful thanks for the permission to include them here.

CONTENTS

WHAT I SAW IN BERLIN

AND OTHER EUROPEAN CAPITALS

INTRODUCTORY

The golden days of the war correspondents have long since passed away; the unlimited freedom allowed to newspaper correspondents during the 1870 war, the fact that Germany could know every move, every change of front, even the exact figures of the different contingents of troops, by the simple method of getting the Paris papers, and the many instances during both the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars, in which supposed war correspondents turned out to be dangerous spies, have made the commanders of the fighting armies extremely careful; and the war correspondent is kept so far from the firing-line that even if he manages to get near to the front, he is allowed to see practically nothing, and his report is based only on what he can get out of soldiers back from the line of fire.

Moreover, the enormously wide front of the modern battlefield makes it absolutely impossible for the war correspondent to gain anything like an exact idea of what is going on. His work is essentially a work of analysis, analysis of the section in which he moves, but the synthesis of the whole movement is bound to escape his observation.

But though war is undoubtedly decided on the battlefield, it is no less certainly reflected in the life of the capitals of the belligerent nations. As long as hope, money, food, fresh supplies of men and ammunition are forthcoming, a nation retains a normal appearance; but a reverse on the battlefield is almost immediately transmitted throughout the country. Especially in the large towns, where bad news always manages to come through quickly, one can detect, from a thousand and one signs, to what degree the population has been affected.

We have only to remember how London and Paris looked in September last, and to compare the practically "Business as usual" life of to-day, to appreciate what a sensitive thermometer is the population of a great city.

The task I have essayed during the last five months has been to look at these thermometers with the eye of a doctor—sometimes anxious, sometimes unsympathetic, but always, I trust, impartial. The great capitals of Europe have been the aim of my journeys.

Upon my desk lies a cheap war-map cut from a daily paper. It is scribbled all over with blue pencil marks—marks which represent my wanderings across Europe since the beginning of the war. The atlas I have just consulted tells me I have travelled fifteen thousand miles; fifteen thousand miles of travel, during which time I met continuously new people, people of different temperaments, different nationalities, different religions; but all interested in one subject, and talking about one subject only—the war.

I have visited eight large capitals of European States, lived their lives, felt the intense wave of their sympathies, hates, sorrows, and joys, strong, of course, in a terrible crisis like the present.

From London to Paris, from Berlin to Amsterdam, from Vienna to Brussels, from Rome to Athens and Constantinople, all the European capitals show more or less the effects of the war. Curiously enough, Rome, Amsterdam, and Athens—capitals of States as yet neutral—are among the cities most altered, while least changes are to be seen in the town which has given to the war almost the whole of her adult sons—Berlin.

When one wishes to obtain, during a short visit, as true and as many impressions as possible of a town, the best thing to do is to sit in a café where the literary-journalistic element resorts. In the large room of the Café Royal in London, or under the deer-heads of the Bauer in Berlin, on the horrid yellow velvet sofas of Aragno in Rome, or on the verandah of the Ianni in Constantinople, the people talk freely. In such places the opinions of the different classes are reduced to a common denomination—public opinion; tongues wag more freely, loosened by the favourite drink, be it whisky and soda, beer, coffee, or sherbet.

London is decidedly optimistic; there is certainly a little apprehension on the score of Zeppelins, and the probability of a lengthy war; but every Briton knows that England will ultimately come out on top.

Amsterdam is, at the present moment, the town of half words and of compromises of all kinds. "We want to please England, our friends, but we wish to avoid trouble with Germany ..." is a sentence one often hears there.

Paris has given all that she had—her children, her money, and her commerce. She is waiting and hoping, for the memories of 1870 are still fresh.

But Berlin—Berlin is full of astonishment. She was certain that the war would be over and Paris taken in less than a month. She does not yet admit that the campaign is going badly, but she is very much surprised that her carefully prepared military machine has not worked perfectly.

Rome watches the war with almost morbid interest, as a woman of Madrid watches a bull-fight. She is aching to do something; she wants to follow the call of her strong sympathies, of her still stronger hates, and to break off the neutrality her diplomats have imposed upon her. Everywhere a word of hope is repeated, full of promise and of menace—"To Trieste, soon!"

Athens is waking to something of her old spirit now heroic times have come again. She is confident in her clever diplomats, and already regards Southern Albania as an essential part of Greece.

Vienna has long since begun to feel the grip of famine, defeat, and, what is worse, political dissolution. With her shops closed, her darkness, her beggars with the real accent of hunger in their tones, the town is even more sad than Brussels, that capital which is no longer a capital, that beautiful city which had to shelter in her best palaces all the bureaucrats and military cohorts of the invaders, but which still has ideals and a beloved king, and looks full of hope at her sons and her friends fighting in the near west. Brussels waits the day of resurrection.

As for Constantinople, the town is displaying truly Oriental fatalism. "The Germans took the trouble to give us money, to organise our army, to augment our navy, and we hope that everything goes well. If not—the sky will be blue all the same, the figs will ripen at the right season as they did before, the world will not have changed."

Thus might speak the Turk if he troubled himself to speak at all: but he is silent. All the talking there is done by the Germans.

A curiosity of the war is the way the street crowds have altered in composition in the different capitals.

In London there are the refugees, dressed in clothes of all shapes, colours, and dimensions, the special constables, and the crowds of recruits. In Paris—patriotic Paris—one meets many crippled people, for almost every other man not wearing a uniform has a physical deformity. In the Paris underground, at the Metropolitan Railway Station, a new figure, a sympathetic and admirable figure, has appeared: the woman who works while her husband is at the front. Often she has babies clinging to her skirt as she pierces your railway ticket.

Brussels is overrun by German uniforms; Vienna by refugees from Galicia; Rome by continuous pro-war demonstrations; Constantinople by any amount of Germans, and also by a curious class of Turco-German official who is, for the moment, the real master of the situation.

My journeys will be found in this book in their chronological order, but before I start the record of my war-time travels I should like to set down a conversation I had at Craig-Avon, near Belfast, in April, 1914.

One of the officers of the Ulster Army had just taken me round the camp and shown me everything: the new uniforms, the guns, the commissariat and sanitary arrangements, the men at drill and at play.

We were sitting in the lofty winter-garden of Craig-Avon, and beside our charming host—Captain Craig—Sir Edward Carson, the Archbishop of Belfast, and a few officers of H.M.S. Pathfinder, which was anchored off Carrickfergus, were present.

We talked about the situation, and about the organisation of the new troops, and I remember asking Sir Edward Carson the question, "Do you think all this preparation indispensable? Do you think there will ever be any actual fighting?"

"There will be, if we cannot obtain what we want without fighting," came the answer. "In any case, we are training here some jolly good troops, and it is always better for a nation to have trained than untrained men. England will know where to find a few thousand good soldiers in case of need," he concluded smiling.

Then a young officer, wearing the blue naval uniform, said in a light voice, probably for the sake of saying something, "And she will probably need them sooner than any of us think."

The old tradition that the gift of prophecy brings misfortune to the prophet, as it did to the unfortunate Cassandra, has been fulfilled. The young officer went down with his ship, the Pathfinder, without the consolation even of having fought for his country.

CHAPTER I MY FIRST WAR-TIME JOURNEY TO BERLIN

Since the war broke out I have visited Berlin twice; the first time at the beginning of October, the second at the end of December, 1914. It was my intention to compare in these pages the different impressions I received in the German capital during my two visits, the second made less than three months after the first; but now I see that this would almost completely destroy the sensation of sincerity and freshness, realised only when one is able to write immediately after having visited a country.

My readers will easily see how the last three months have changed the German capital, by reading after this chapter the one entitled "My Second War-time Journey to Berlin."

The following journal has been written partly on board the small steamer which brought me from Amsterdam back to England, and partly immediately after my return to Great Britain.

* * *

October 10th.

"Your nationality?"

"Italian."

"Where do you come from?"

"Berlin."

The fatherly-looking Custom House officer who was examining our passports dropped his glasses and looked at me in astonishment. "And what were you doing in Berlin?" he asked, after a moment's pause.

"Just a pleasure trip," was the answer, which perhaps did not satisfy him completely.

He looked again at the passport, which was in perfect order, at the half-a-dozen seals, signatures, and Consulate stencils, Italian, Dutch, and German, which have occupied, during the last two weeks almost all the room left for the purpose on the dirty-looking, official piece of paper, and concluded philosophically, giving it back to me: "After all, some folk have got curious hobbies."

Well, I really don't know if to go to Berlin from England in war time just to know what's going on is a curious hobby or not. But, when two weeks ago I read in some London newspaper wonderful stories of starvation and symptoms of panic in the German capital, and in some others that things in Berlin were going on just as usual, I thought the only way to know the truth about it was to go there myself.

I was warned that I should get into trouble, be arrested, kept prisoner, treated as a spy, etc., and the few persons who knew of my journey thought it was a very foolish thing to do. As a matter of fact, the trip was carried out without much difficulty.

Here is a summary of it: three days from London to Berlin (arrested once at Goch, a German frontier town, and once at Hanover); three days in Berlin (had to report to the police every morning and was arrested twice); three days from Berlin to Amsterdam, the only exciting diversion being a short arrest at Stendal. I would not exactly recommend an elderly lady to leave her easy chair in her Kensington sitting-room to start off on such a journey. But I enjoyed every moment of the trip.

"What is then the present condition of Berlin? Did you find out the truth about what's going on there?" Everybody keeps asking me these questions.

The answer cannot be given in a few words. Berlin, on the surface, is as usual; the life did not appear to me at first sight much different from what I saw during my last visit four years ago. London has changed her habits more on account of the war than Berlin.

The theatres in the German capital are mostly open, the crowds in the street do not look much different from the peace-time crowds, the food-stuff prices are very little higher than usual. The women driving taxi-cabs, the starving queue outside the butchers' shops in the morning, and the potatoes sold at high price—these exist only in the dreams of newspaper correspondents.

Everything seems pretty normal. The enthusiasm for the Emperor, for the Army, for the Fatherland is as strong as ever. The confidence of the people, fed on false news, on fantastic reports, on gigantic illusions, is unbounded. These people have a keen relish and delight in the fact, as they admit at once, that the whole world is against them; they seem to be proud of their isolation and despise infinitely their only allies, the Austrians.

One hears in the street people talking like this: "We are bound to win; it is fatal and it is ridiculous to see a few decrepit nations trying to stop God's Will," or "We are the only race of dictators; we will have the whole world at our feet and impose our laws on every nation"; and very often this more simple and utilitarian, "When I will be able to get a concession for a maize plantation in Algeria ..." or "When, next year, we shall start ostrich farming in South Africa," ... etc.

Most of the people I met in Berlin willingly admitted that the methods of war of their troops in Belgium and France were very wrong, but they invariably concluded: "If this is the only way to give Germany her definite position of queen of the world, you perfectly understand that the life of a few thousand men, the pillage of a few cities, the tears of a few women, cannot be an obstacle worth considering."

They don't admit for a moment that success will perhaps not crown and, to a certain extent, justify their deeds; they don't consider the possibility of disaster. If they have the worst of the struggle it will certainly not be for lack of self-confidence.

Only the military circles seem to realise fully how terribly strong is the enemy Germany is fighting, and how very small are her chances in the long run. But they keep their sentiments and feelings as secret as possible, and, helped by their wonderfully organised Press, they manage to keep alive the Berlin public's illusions.

During my short stay in Berlin, thanks to a few acquaintances in the military world and to a fair knowledge of the German language, I managed to mix with different classes of people, from the man in the street to the officers of the cavalry regiment still in Berlin for the drill of the 1914-15 recruits; from a very well-known writer on military science to the working people unemployed on account of the war crisis.

* * *

At about nine o'clock on the morning after my arrival I woke up still tired after a late night in the gayest circles of Berlin. I had been to one of the numerous cabarets, which are the equivalent in Berlin of the London night club. The gay life of the German capital was being carried on just as in peace time. Students, officers, viveurs, and the indispensable feminine element, among which the French was, as usual, much in evidence (Dumas used to say, "Le demi-monde n'a pas de patrie!"), were crowding into the large, brightly-lighted rococo room, trying hard to dance one-steps and maxixes with the latest Paris or London swing.

I was looking at my Baedeker map, trying to refresh my memory of Berlin topography, when the waiter shouted at the door, "Ein Herr wünscht Sie zu sprechen!" I did not know who the early visitor could be, so I finished dressing as quickly as possible, and went out into the corridor.

A man was standing there waiting for me; he stepped in without saying a word, and, when in the room, asked me where I came from and what my business was in Berlin. I showed him my passport. He said he would see to that afterwards; meanwhile he had to examine my luggage.

The man, I knew later on, was a police-inspector; he looked at all I had with me, and copied into a pocket-book my address and the address of my tailor, which he discovered on a small piece of white silk inside the breast pocket of one of my jackets. He then took possession of a few very innocent papers and letters, and looked underneath the lining of my hat, opened the alarm clock to see if something was concealed in the case, and was very much puzzled by a black box, which he opened most carefully, with the result that he found a manicure set.

Then he asked me to follow him to the police station. A taxi was waiting, and we reached the sombre building after a long drive. There I had to undergo a second cross-examination. I was asked to give all the references I could in Berlin, and after three hours' detention, I was finally released, having promised to report myself every morning to the police-station, and not to leave the Kaiserhof Hotel without letting them know about it.

I must say that the Police Commissair behaved quite decently, and apologised for the trouble he was forced to give me. He even offered me a bad cigar and a worse cup of coffee, which I couldn't refuse, and for which I was certainly more annoyed with him than for the arrest itself.

I stepped out of the decrepit building and found myself in a narrow, tortuous street of old Berlin, without the slightest idea of the direction I had to go to reach the modern part of the city.

After some wandering in narrow streets and irregular squares, which reminded me of some old Flemish town much more than of modern Berlin, I was lucky enough to find a taxi to drive to the post office. I began to ring up some of my old friends in Berlin. In four cases I was unlucky; three were at the front; one had gone to America last year, and though called to arms could not, or did not, trouble to come back. My fifth call was for a lieutenant friend in a cavalry regiment. I had not seen him for years. His sister answered the call, and when I asked for Otto she said, "Why, don't you know he is in hospital? He has been wounded in Belgium, and has been back over five weeks now."

She offered to take me to see him in an hour's time, and so it was that I managed to get into a German military hospital. I lunched in a large restaurant, in which the places of the waiters called to the colours had been taken by Kellnerinnen. To judge from the food I had the cook's place must have been taken by a shoemaker.

I was rather surprised to find that the hospital was a luxurious private house. I learned afterwards that the proprietor, a wealthy officer, had equipped it as an emergency nursing home for officers, and offered it to the Government. There was no difficulty in being admitted, as my friend was quite out of danger, his wounds being a light one in the face and a serious one in the knee-cap. The little white camp beds were arranged in two lines on both sides of a large sitting-room. The nurses were ladies of the best Berlin society, and seemed to add to the skill of a perfect nurse the tactful ways of a lady of quality.

After the natural surprise of my friend at our meeting in such extraordinary circumstances, he told me how he had been wounded at the very beginning of the campaign, practically without being able to do any fighting. He said that the Germans only realised that they would have to fight in Belgium when they were already on Belgian soil. The cavalry, marching in front without any artillery support, received the most serious shock. The German Government was so sure that the intimidation of Belgium would be successful that the siege guns had been sent in the direction of the French frontier.

I asked him what he thought of the position of his country at the present moment. He smiled sadly and said:

"Here, in the hospital, we only know what the newspapers say; and, of course, they are very optimistic. We officers know perfectly what our forces and the forces of our enemies are. It is certain that we are going to struggle to the very last. You know how I, personally, love France; but, of course, I will go to fight again as soon as I am better—if I am ever in condition to fight."

He said this sadly, showing me his leg, which perhaps will be crippled for ever. And he concluded in French, the language we used to speak at a time we both thought an officer was only a kind of sportsman who wore a uniform. "Enfin même si c'est un suicide il faut l'faire et on va l'faire!" He gave me some introductions to officers still in Berlin, and we parted; our last word was au revoir.... Where and when we shall meet again, what our country will be then, the blood of how many thousand men will be wasted before that day is in the hands of a mysterious future.

* * *

I devoted the rest of my afternoon to a long walk through the town.

Processions of unemployed like we used to see during the great coal strike in some cities in the North of England were coming from the east part of the town. Women and children were in very large numbers, but there was also any number of men, old, crippled, or somehow unfit for military service. Unemployment is really the most striking symptom of the war in Berlin.

Many manufacturers have had to stop their works owing to the lack of raw material. The wool, silk, leather, and cotton industries are almost completely paralysed. Other works have been stopped because Germany cannot get any fuel. All the reserves of coal have been taken up by the Government for naval and military purposes. Also the toy, furnishing, and fancy trades have had to be completely stopped, as there are no customers for such goods.

Under the patronage of Kronprinzessin Cecilie, who, by the way, is very popular during this war, a movement has been started to assist the unemployed. But the crowd of out-of-works seems to increase daily, and the twenty thousand free dinners given away every afternoon by the relief committee don't seem enough for the innocent victims of the war.

Down the endless Friedrichstrasse I saw a company of a few hundred boys still in civilian clothes, marching stiffly, and trying to keep the compass-like Prussian step. Officers and sergeants in uniform were with them. Some of the recruits did not look more than fifteen or sixteen. Most of them, with large gold or tortoiseshell spectacles, represented the classical type of the German Gymnasium and Lyceum.

The crowd cheered the boys, and they marched away as stiff as possible, without even turning their eyes to the people in the street. An old man explained to me that they were boys a few months short of seventeen, who want to be perfectly ready when, in February, they will be accepted in the army as volunteers. There are apparently over fifty thousand boys of this class, who intend to volunteer as soon as the military authorities will allow them to do so.

To get out of the Sunday crowd I walked along the Spree. Here is one of the largest barracks in Berlin. I wonder how many men of the Kaiser Alexander Garde Grenadiers will come back to their beautiful home. It seems to have been one of the regiments most severely cut up in France lately.

On a large poster at the corner of Eberts-Brücke, amongst many affiches of music-halls, boot polish, and tooth paste, I read the announcement of a special evening service and sermon at the cathedral at five o'clock.

I walked down to the Lustgarten, just in time for the service.

The large church was full of people. The crowd of over two thousand perhaps was chiefly composed of women and old men. I noticed that an extraordinary number were in mourning.

The dark crowd contrasted curiously with the aggressive bright gold of the dome lighted by a number of electric lamps.

The minister began his sermon. As I was right at the back of the church I missed at first most of his words, but, little by little, I began to understand better.

"We don't know how many of our sons have lost their lives up to now," he said, "but be sure that they have found the way which leads straight to eternal happiness. He who dies in war for his country and for the Kaiser is certain of the sight of God. The Lord has put a sword in the hands of our Kaiser. He knows where and how to strike in this war. Glory on our sons who have died; they died like heroes, all of them, and every mother, every sister, every wife, must be proud to have lost the man they love in such a noble way. Be sure that our soldiers have never done anything less than noble. They are fighting in a treacherous country, but they are fighting for a right, holy cause, and they are bound to win."

I felt like shouting at him: "Malines, Rheims, Louvaine, Termonde! What do you say of these? Is that the way the favourites of God should fight! Is that the way to fight for civilisation?"

I could not stand it any more, and walked out. In front of me was the Schloss-Brücke, with huge groups illustrating the education, life, and glorification of the warrior. This is one of the many proofs of how Germany has been preparing her children for war for generations and generations. I thought of the sentence, "The war into which we have been driven," I had just heard from the priest's lips, and I wondered if that man of God, in the House of God, was lying, knowing that he did so, or if he, too, was simply consumed utterly by the mad wave of military exaltation which seemed to have covered the whole of Germany.

* * *

Sitting round a large corner table at the Café Fürstenhof with huge glasses of beer in front of us and a good after-dinner cigar, the reticence of the two officers who were in my company melted away slowly. Even the latest German atrocities will not make me deny the wonderful convivial effect of a large glass of blonde cervogie.

"Spies!" said one of the two young fellows, who looked like bursting out of his tight green-grey tunic every time he laughed. "Why should we worry about spies? All the men and women, especially women, who were supposed to be spying for Russia in Germany and Austria were playing a double game.

"Russia was persuaded they were spying for her, and they were spying for us instead. A few useless and fantastic reports sent to St. Petersburg were good enough to put them in the confidence of generals and archdukes, and so they could get for us very important secrets. France never had a proper secret service worth talking about, and the few attempts of England in this direction were so clumsily done that it was really pathetic to see how the poor chaps got into trouble for sending home information and plans they could easily have copied from railway maps and tourist books.

"We are the only nation on earth who know how to organise a secret service!"

"You seem most proud of your spies," I remarked.

"Spies is a very ridiculous word; Napoleon used to have spies; we have informants. They mix with all classes of society; they manage to get everywhere, from the Royal Palace to the small country shop, from the barracks canteen to the Premier's house.

"Be certain that nine-tenths of those who have been arrested as our emissaries in France, England, and Russia, have nothing to do with it, and that most of the real ones are still doing their job, and doing it jolly well too.

"We know everything that happens in England," he continued, after swallowing half his glass of beer. "We know the exact number and destination of the troops sent from Britain to the Continent; we know of everyone who goes in or out of England, and also of his business and of his intentions."

"Oh, do you?" I could not help exclaiming, and I nearly burst out laughing.

"Yes, we do," he continued with unshakable assurance. "For instance, we know that Lord Kitchener is struggling to raise his Army; that London is in darkness for fear of the Zeppelins; that the King and the Royal Family have left Buckingham Palace for a small private house, afraid of bomb-dropping.

"It is really very childish of the British authorities to think that we shall send a lonely airship to drop a few bombs on London. They would not do much harm, and they would produce a panic, with the result that Kitchener would, perhaps, get on better with his recruiting. We know perfectly the Englishmen and their quiet nature. They are still asleep and it would be very foolish of us to wake them up."

The night was wonderfully fine; the Tiergarten, which we reached in a few minutes, was full of light, and of couples of lovers.

We walked up the Sieges Allee, spoiled by a childish decorative scheme of the Kaiser himself, with a multitude of marble benches and statues, and we reached the Königs Platz. "Those are the men we need now. They were the right men in the right place," exclaimed one of my companions, pointing to the statues of Bismarck and Moltke at the two ends of the square.

"Yes, but thank the Lord you don't have them," was my mental answer.

* * *

A military band wakes me up with the eternal sound of "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles," and does not leave me for a second the illusion of being in a friendly town.

The clumsy furniture of my large bedroom at the Kaiserhof Hotel, and the sight of the intensely German-looking front of the house which bounds my horizon at the other side of the Wilhelmplatz, make me realise that I am in Berlin, right in the heart of the great monster who is lacerating Europe with his steel talons from east to west.

I am seized by a sort of fever. I want to see straight away how the war has changed these Germans, among whom I have many friends, in peace time excellent organisers of commercial enterprises as merchants, as scientists, even as soldiers, but soldiers whose chivalry, as I thought then, seemed to transcend the natural grimness of the soldier.

I dress as quickly as possible. Leaving the hotel, I walk right along the Wilhelmstrasse, full of busy people. I am now in Unter den Linden.

Flags are hanging from every balcony; others wave at the top of the high masts which crown the gigantic commercial buildings; many shops display draperies with the national colours and the clawed black eagle is everywhere—on the cap of the messenger boy and at the breast of the lady, on the banner which dominates the corner turret of the Bauer Café, and on the silk handkerchiefs in the shop windows.

The Austrian colours are completely ignored. I have not seen a single Austrian flag during the whole of my stay in Berlin, and it is really curious the Olympic indifference the Prussians affect towards their ally—Germany's only friend.

A German officer whom I met later on declared to me candidly that he considered that the Austrians as allies were a drawback rather than a help.

Companies of soldiers come out from Luisenstrasse following the drums; other troops march along the Charlottenburg Chaussée through the Brandenburger Tor, on which, gilded by rays of the sun, is the Quadriga of Victory, by G. Schadov. I recollect that exactly a hundred years ago, in 1814, the heavy brass group was taken back to Berlin from Paris after seven years at the top of the arch of the Champ Elysées. How soon before its next trip to Paris?

Near one of the side colonnades a gentleman standing on a chair shouts the latest war news through a megaphone to a crowd of listeners. Everybody is anxious for news of Antwerp, because I understood it was clearly realised when that city capitulated or was taken by the Germans the besieging army would be released. Then on to Paris!

At the Pariser Platz I see wounded officers being taken into the large private houses which are used as Red Cross hospitals, and a large crowd receives them with sympathetic cheers.

One of the most remarkable things in Berlin is the number of private houses, hotels, and museums turned into hospitals; and the conclusion I came to is that the British estimates of the number of German casualties are not at all exaggerated. Berlin is a city of wounded and distressed, gay as it is on the surface; only the authorities are careful to keep this fact as dark as possible. No official list of dead and wounded is issued, and the families are generally told by means of printed letters that Hans or Fritz will not come back.

Some papers started at the beginning of the war to give lists of dead officers and men, which they drew up by means of private inquiry. Now this has been stopped, and only now and again do the papers talk of the glorious death of Captain or Lieutenant So-and-so.

The censorship in Berlin is much more strict than in London. Some newspapers have disappeared; some have reduced their dimensions; others, that tried to be coherent with their past political ideas, have been boycotted even by the section of the public which used formerly to support them.

For instance, to read Vorwaerts in public in Berlin is an action which requires a certain amount of heroism. The newspaper which in the last two months has been suppressed three times by the Censor, and three times allowed to appear again on the promise of good behaviour, is almost the only one which shows any independence of the military Press office, and dares to tell news other than optimistic to the Berlin public.

Wishing to read something fairly truthful about the war, I was scanning this newspaper while riding in a tramcar on my way to the War Fund garden party, which was, at the moment, the great attraction of all Berlin.

An elderly gentleman, sitting opposite me, after looking suspiciously for a long while at the paper and at myself, addressed me with this extraordinary remark: "To be a Socialist at the present moment is to be an enemy of the Fatherland. You should be ashamed to read a paper like that when you should be fighting for the country."

I answered that I read what I liked best and that he need not worry—I would gladly fight for my country as soon as she was at war. When the old man heard I was an Italian he commenced, tactless as only a German can be when he is of the tactless sort, a long talk about the treacherous politics of Italy, the punishment Germany is going to give her, and other similar nonsense.

I got out of the car to avoid a useless dispute, and entered the large courtyard of a sumptuous private residence in which the garden party was being held.

All that Berlin has left in the way of Society was there, chic little ladies dressed in the French style, drinking Russian tea, lounging about or sitting at small tables in true English fashion. Without a doubt, this is the ideal setting for a garden party in favour of the German War Fund!

A smart young girl came towards me and put a small silk flag in my buttonhole—a German flag, of course; I had to give her a ten-marks note for it, as other people at my side had just done.

Of all the little sins I had to commit to carry out successfully my Berlin trip, indispensable white lies, and misleading silences, the one which I have the most on my conscience is certainly the contribution of ten marks to the German War Fund!

Through a wide arch we passed from the courtyard into a fairly large garden, in which different tents had been erected for the sale of flowers, small china pieces, and all the other useless, ugly little things one is prepared to buy at a charity bazaar. The picture postcard stall specially attracted my attention, as most of the cards referred to the war. I got a large selection of masterpieces of bad taste, cheap symbolism, and antediluvian humour.

I carefully kept far from the buvette in which the Princess of Thurn and Taxis was selling by auction glasses of Moselle wine at fantastic prices. One of the officers in my company the previous night bumped into me while trying to escape from a persistent flower girl.

He was the man so well informed about London life in war time, and as he, too, seemed to consider the garden party a very dangerous social function (probably from different motives from my own) we left of common accord without being caught again.

He gave me some news about the war, and said Antwerp was about to capitulate.

"We shall get into the town in one or two days," he said. "It is the intention of the Kaiser to occupy the whole of Belgium and to advance on the north coast of France, so as to cut the usual lines of communication with England." He said also that the official reports from the eastern theatres of operation were very satisfactory (for Germany), and concluded: "The Russians don't trouble very much about us; their main objects are the southern Austrian provinces and, if possible, Turkey."

We sat down in an old-fashioned café, celebrated in all Berlin for its excellent "Weiss-bier," the old all-Prussian drink stuff which is going quite out of fashion and is now obtainable in very few restaurants. Huge piles of newspapers and reviews were laid on a large table in the centre of the room, as in every café in Berlin. The foreign publications, generally very largely represented, were reduced to a few soiled issues two months old. People sitting round the centre table were enjoying and laughing loudly at the jokes of the humorous German and Austrian papers.

The dominant note in the caricature is the monotonous repetition of a few coarse, common figures—the drunken Russian loaded with stolen loot, the tall, thin, red-haired English soldier, who cares only for the pay he gets; the sloppily-dressed Frenchman, who talks much and does nothing. Kitchener, Poincaré, and Joffre seem pet subjects, and they appear dressed in all possible clothes over and over again in monotonous succession.

One of Ulk's last issues was almost entirely devoted to Kitchener and to his recruiting scheme.

Some of the drawings are really clever and bear the signature of well-known artists, but the rest of these papers do not seem humorous even to the Germans themselves.

"They really don't know what to say," explained my companion. "All the possible subjects of humour about our enemies have been exhausted long ago, and even our best comic artists are forced to repeat themselves."

"Do you believe in this 'dum-dum' story?" I asked, showing him a drawing representing a French and an English soldier preparing the murderous bullets, and, at the back of them, Death looking very pleased at this sight.

"Well, 'dum-dum' stories take wonderfully well with the public. People simply adore to hear that the enemy are using illicit methods of warfare. In mediæval times they used to say that the enemy had the help of the evil power, or a magic sword, or something else of the kind. In modern times 'dum-dums' are a wonderful survival of the old tales. Why not give dum-dum stories to the public if they like them?"

"But do you think 'dum-dums' have really been used?" I asked.

"No, they are cruel and of no use at all. The 'dum-dum' bullets to be effective must be of fairly large size, and we cannot use anything of the kind with our modern rifles. In military circles we don't attach any importance to these rumours. In all the wars of the last fifty years the 'dum-dum' legend had a resurrection like the Arab phoenix."

"But I have seen photos of 'dum-dum' bullets," I insisted.

"So have I, but who can tell that the bullets have only been made 'dum-dum' after the cartridges have been served out? A soldier may individually, without any officer telling him to do so, cut with his pocket-knife across the part of the bullet which protrudes from the brass part of the cartridge. The result is not that of a real 'dum-dum,' of course, but it is quite a good imitation. In a case like this the Government to which the individual soldier belongs cannot be called responsible for the violation of the Hague Convention."

We walked out, as he had to get back to the barracks. I had no programme for the rest of the afternoon. I walked straight on and found myself in the Linden.

I noticed that the few shops of English firms in Berlin were closed, as were also the agencies of British ship companies.

The first night of a great military drama was announced for the evening, and curious little carriages covered by a sort of large square box with the sandwich man completely concealed inside, showed large posters with scenes of the drama. One exhibited a wonderful allegoric picture with a bulldog, a bear, and a cock transfixed by the large sword with which they had been killed. Needless to say, on the top of it was a large Prussian eagle.

The crowd of shoppers and idlers was going mostly towards the Schloss-Brücke, and having nothing better to do I followed the current of the people.

In the Lustgarten a large crowd was waiting with an expectant air, gazing at the central balcony overhanging the main entrance of the Schloss. Before I had time to ask the reason of the excitement, one of the French windows was opened by valets, and a tall lady, accompanied by three children, dressed in white, came out and bowed smilingly to the crowd.

An enormous cheer received the Kronprinzessin. After remaining on the balcony for a few minutes, during which she repeatedly bowed and kissed the fair head of her eldest son, she retired, loud cheers being again raised.

I asked the reason of the demonstration, shivering at the idea that a big success had been obtained by the German and that this was the way the Berlin population expressed loyalty to its rulers.

"Why, she appears every afternoon!" I was told. "A crowd comes here every day at four o'clock. It has been so since the beginning of the war."

"Even when the war news was not very good?" I asked.

"The news has always been very good," said my informant in a contemptuous tone, and away he walked, disgusted at my disrespectful remark.

The crowd had now melted away slowly, and the Lustgarten had resumed its air of aristocratic calm. In front of me was the huge mass of the Imperial Palace, with the large bronze groups given to the Hohenzollern family fifty years ago by the grandfather of the present Tsar.

The balustrade of the balcony on which the Kronprinzessin had just appeared is "decorated," to use the complimentary word of my Baedeker, with the statues of German emperors and empresses in mythological attire. Wilhelm II. is dreaming, I am sure, of putting there in a few years his own effigy, of which he seems so extremely fond. What disguise he will choose I cannot imagine; possibly he will dress as Janus, the god of peace, Kaiser Frederich having already taken the armour and shield of Mars.

As for his son, everybody will agree that Mercury would be a suitable rôle. Mercury was considered in old Rome the protector of the thieves.

* * *

The most astonishing thing I heard during my trip was that the price of beer is going up steadily, and that maybe the classical types of German beer—Pilsener and Münchener—will have to give place to other drinks to make which oats are not required. Most of the oats supply is imported, I learn, from South Russia and America, and the importation, of course, is now completely stopped.

I can easily fancy Berlin without the Linden, or the Sieges-Säule, the most insolent monument I have ever seen—even without the Kaiser, but not without plenty of beer. I am trying to think what the Berlin cafés will look like at night without the national drink. Probably they will get as dull as the teetotal London night clubs in war-time!

I found myself walking down the Gendarmen Market, perhaps the only fine square in Berlin.

Here is the Schauspielhaus in which during one of my former visits Moissi, an Italian who is one of Germany's best tragic actors, was appearing in Hamlet and Othello. I remember an old German professor telling me of his almost exclusive love for the Shakespearean theatre, and comparing it with the old and modern German theatre to the total disadvantage of his countrymen.

I wonder if the Chauvinistic influence of the war has made him love Hauptmann and detest Shakespeare!

Here is also the old French church, spoiled by recent restoration. Till the outbreak of the war there used to be here a daily French service and a Sunday sermon. Now the church is closed, most of the priests have gone back to France, and one of them is said to be fighting against Germany. Only an old French lady and the sacristan are there in a small house at the back of the church.

I knock for some time at the door, and finally I am admitted to an old-world sitting-room, furnished with quite a number of plasters, bronzes, and prints of all the saints who have blossomed during the past centuries on the fertile soil of France.

It takes me quite a time to persuade the good old lady that I am not German, and not there to find out anything, but I finally get all her confidence when I offer to carry a letter for her son, one of the French church priests now in France. She tells me that they had inquisitions over inquisitions by the military authorities since the beginning of the war.

"They went to look even in the church; they respect nothing, the brutes," she went on, forgetting her prudence, and, pointing to the picture of the Rheims Cathedral cut out of an illustrated paper, "This, Monsieur, was no human work. Men can construct churches, of course, and beautiful ones too, but the Cathedral was more than that; it was divine, and they have destroyed it.

"They have shelled God's house," she said, "just because Germans are, and will always be, jealous of all that is beautiful and gentle and refined. I should not talk like this. I am too old to hate anybody, but I can't help it. I have been in Berlin ten years now, and I am afraid I will never see France again. Perhaps it is better so. I could not stand seeing the eagle where the tricolour was. But we must win; the world will never have peace until Germany is beaten."

I tried to persuade her that this was also my opinion, and I got her to speak about the condition of the foreigners in Berlin. "I don't know about the others," she said, "but the French are having an awful time of it."

"Have they been put into Concentration Camp?" I asked.

"No; only the young fellows are detained, and they are, I believe, the most fortunate. A lot of French women and children are starving, as the fathers are refused work everywhere, and even the shopkeepers refuse to sell stuff to them."

I waited for her to write the letter to her son, and I left the little bit of France in German territory with a sense of distress. The last words of the old lady were, "Walk out quickly, if you please; and don't stop outside the door. A polizist is generally there, and if you are seen walking out of this place there will probably be trouble for you."

No polizist saw me leaving the presbytery; I walked down Iäger Strasse to the house of a well-known writer on military subjects, who holds a high position at the Embassy of a neutral Power in Berlin, and who was the only person who knew the reason of my visit. He was rather surprised at the way I managed to get on, and when I gave him my impressions he agreed on most points.

"I believe," he said, "that the war will in a month's time or so assume a sort of defensive character as far as the Germans are concerned. They will occupy the whole of Belgium, and cover at the west a front strengthened with temporary fortification works like those which are being fully carried out at the back of the German fighting line. Then the war will assume a more careful character; I daresay the Kaiser will start economising the lives of his men, which he has freely spent up to now. The attempt to take Paris by storm with a daring march forward, coute que coute, which was not the plan of the German military command, but the Kaiser's, has completely failed."

"Germany realises that her soldiers are none too many, and wants to make the best of them. That's why they will use any amount of temporary fortification, and will abstain from the compact formations which were quite all right forty years ago, but have proved complete failures on this occasion.

"When the Germans are on their fortified line they will wait for a fresh supply of men and guns. The guns used in Belgium are mostly done for, and have gone back to Essen to be repaired, and in many cases to be melted down again.

"As you have noticed, Germany seems to despise the Austrians' help. That is very wrong; if nothing else, Austria has taken away from Germany the shock of the largest part of the Russian Army, at least for the present moment.

"The war will only come to an end for one of the three following reasons:—

"(1) The Triple Entente obtains successes in both theatres of operation and breaks the line of temporary fortification I just told you about; then France and England would have the way open to Berlin, and if the Russians were successful in the East, Germany would be forced to ask for peace.

"(2) The Germans hurry up and break the Franco-English resistance before the new English Army and the Colonial forces (which seem to be of real advantage only in hot weather) step in next spring. This will be now very difficult, as there are two large factors in the problem: the Franco-British Fleet and the Russian Army.

"(3) A neutral Power steps in and makes the scales go down at one or the other side. If this intervention should be in favour of the Entente the crushing of Austria would be almost immediate, and all the forces could be concentrated against Germany, so that the latter would be forced to ask for peace.

"What is certain is that the war will have a sort of steady character up to March or April, and that Germany reckons she will have to make her maximum effort at that moment.

"Somebody says the end of this war will be hurried by financial reasons. I do not think that these will, alone, be strong enough to settle this gigantic struggle. They are certainly an element worth considering, but only after the military one."

"And what will be the consequences of this war?" I ask.

"I don't think the difference on the European map will be big in either case.

"Germany has fully realised what a mistake was the cession of Alsace-Lorraine by France. The colonies will certainly be the most affected by the future peace; but, of course, nowadays a war like this has hardly any pretension of leading to the annexing of new territories. What Europe is struggling for is supremacy of the economical interests of one nation over another.

"The idea that the largest Empire is the most powerful is childish, and if this had not been proved a long time ago the present European war would be enough to do so."

CHAPTER II POTSDAM AND HAMBURG

For my trip to Potsdam I had a bright, sunny morning. Potsdam, the favourite residence of the Kaiser, and one of the most intensely Prussian towns of Prussia, owing to the enormous number of barracks, military buildings, and academies she has in proportion to her size, attracted me for two reasons.

First, I knew any amount of military drill was daily going on in the large drill grounds, and that Potsdam, the cradle of the Prussian Army, would be specially interesting to see in war time.

Secondly, the only concentration camp in the immediate vicinity of Berlin in which British prisoners are kept is Doberitz, quite close to Potsdam.

Potsdam gave me straight away the impression of being absolutely full of soldiers. The regular garrison has gone to the front, of course, but the first classes of the Landsturm, just called to arms, are drilling day and night in the grounds of the artillery barracks.

Some of the new guns (for the Russian frontier, I learn) are being tested, and the military academy has been converted into a huge hospital. The ugly, pretentious little town, full of copies of old Italian and French buildings, seemed to be populated by an extraordinary number of people in mourning, probably owing to the fact that Potsdam being a garrison town, quite a number of officers' families reside there.

The entrance to the castle of Sans Souci, to the New Palace, and to the Marble Palace is verboten. I asked the reason of this, and I was told that the buildings are now being devoted to military purposes.

I was losing all hope of being able to see something of interest when the noise of a powerful engine made me look over my head. A gigantic Zeppelin was performing different evolutions, dropping and rising again hundreds of feet, changing the direction, and pointing a massive nose now to the earth, now to the sky.

I could see from the stability planes and from the shape of the tail that it was one of the very latest models; also a sort of silvery paint, probably the aluminium varnish which has been in use for years in the Italian aerial fleet, had been adopted instead of the old grey or copal varnish. I easily managed to find out that this was the first test of a new machine, that two airships exactly alike were being equipped in the flying grounds on the west side of the town, and that old Count Zeppelin himself was looking after the operations.

From morning to sunset there was an enormous activity in the whole of the aerial park. Over a hundred aeroplanes of the Taube type were under construction, and I was told that in every one of the German towns which possesses aeroplane works, flying machines are being built in large numbers. Apparently the idea is not only to supply machines in place of those lost or damaged on the frontiers, but to have a very large number of aeroplanes ready for next spring.

The figures I heard varied very much, but a well-informed officer said that Germany will have in March-April over a thousand new machines, and that the engines of the whole air-fleet are already finished. I asked what was Germany's object in getting such an enormous number of machines ready, but I could only get the answer, "You wait and see!"

As for the balloons, the largest workshops are in Posen and Hanover.

The hangars erected at Potsdam are only four, but they are very large, and a new system of concrete has been used in place of wood or corrugated iron.

The new Zeppelin seems very agile, considering its huge volume. The cigar-like shape seems to me to be thicker than the old model, and the distance between the gondolas carrying the engines and the body of the airship has been very much reduced.

A kind old lady lent me her good field-glasses, and I could see that the crew numbered over a dozen, and that a general in uniform was on board. The new airship did not, for the moment, show any number or mark of any kind. After a few more evolutions the Zeppelin disappeared, concealed by the trees of the Brauhausberg.

I gave back the glasses to the old lady who lent them to me, and she said that she was a widow of a captain who died in the 'seventies near Sedan, and had now two sons and two sons-in-law at the front. "They are at the right wing fighting the Englishmen, at the place of honour. Do you know England at all?" she asked me, and then went on without giving me time to answer her question.

"Oh, I do hate that country! She had no business to come into this war, and without her we should at this time be in Paris. Our fleet would have destroyed the French fleet, and everything would be over."

I asked her if any of her relations had been wounded.

"Yes," she answered, "one of my sons last month. He was sent back here for two weeks, but now he has recovered and has gone to the front again."

I could not help admiring the old lady; she was only thinking of the success of the campaign, and very little of the danger that her sons might never come back. The German woman has remained, in this way, the wife of the fierce, barbarous warrior of Attila, in peace time counted as a slave, or at best as a nurse for the children, but ready to buckle the breast-plate of her man and to kiss him good-bye with dry eyes when the moment for fighting comes. In peace-time one has the impression that this type of woman has disappeared from Germany, and that her place has been taken by the provincial type—sentimental up to her wedding-day, practical after, or by the coquettish city type of woman, who tries to copy the Parisienne or the Viennese, and only succeeds in being the caricature of a smart woman, handicapped as she is by a certain clumsiness of body and spirit.

Now her country is at war, the German woman has become again the descendant of the Valkyrie, of the wife of the mediæval warrior, of the nursing woman of the 1870's.

This war, sweeping away the paint of more or less real culture, of social convention, of borrowed ways and manners, brings to the surface the wild qualities of men but also the good ones of women.

I asked the old lady to whom I was talking if she did not feel terribly anxious and upset about her sons, and she answered:—

"I really haven't time to think much about them. Everybody is so busy just now. We have got miseries of all kinds—wounded, refugees from the Russian frontiers, lonely children to look after—and everybody is trying to do his very best in helping the country."

I asked her the way to Doberitz, and having crossed by the ferry boat a small branch of the Havel, I went on in the direction of the village. In a very large field at the back of the Potsdam's cavalry barracks I saw a couple of thousand horses arranged in large circles of about one hundred each, round huge piles of saddles.

A number of reservists were busy showing some of the animals, and cleaning and looking after some others. The horses, seen in the distance, seemed perfectly fresh, and some of them looked exceptionally fine. They seemed to belong mostly to the Hungarian type, and had long hairy manes and tails, and strong muscles in their legs.

I was very astonished, as I had read, and not in English papers only, that the German Army was short of horses, and that the full cavalry contingent was at the frontier.

Those horses, I learnt, were a fresh supply, just received from Austria and Hungary, as the southern Allies apparently have got many more horses than soldiers to ride them.

Other very large depôts of horses, which will be ready for military service in a month or so, were at the south side of Berlin and Eisleben and Leipsig. The Government are also trying to get horses from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, but the steps taken in this direction don't seem to have given very good results.

Germany is trying to get horses from everywhere, even at very high prices, but, like the aeroplanes, not so much for immediate use, but to have them ready for next spring. It is fully realised that cavalry at the present moment, with winter frosts and conditions prevailing, would be of hardly any use.

After a fairly long walk on the muddy road I reached Doberitz and asked for the concentration camp. I was told that it depended on whether I wanted to see the new or the old one. The new one consists of large temporary constructions, which are being erected on the manœuvring grounds on the Spandau road, and which will not be complete for some time. The old one is at the extreme west side of the town, and is really a large, lofty country house, with large green houses attached, and a chapel, formerly inhabited by Carmelite nuns, standing in a spacious garden. Only about two hundred English prisoners are kept there, but many French prisoners are quartered in another building half a mile distant. The large concentration camps are not here, but in the North of Germany. The Tommies (I don't know if there are any officers quartered with them) are made generally useful; they cut wood for the trenches, sew and prepare sacks for the same purpose, and anyone who has ability to do extra work receives a small payment for it, with which he can purchase tobacco, etc.

I asked if it was possible to talk with the prisoners, but was told that not even German people are allowed to do so, and that no permission to enter the camp was ever accorded, whatever the reasons.

I thought it would be useless, and probably dangerous, for me to try and get in, and I had to be content with walking close to the long, white wall which separates the grounds of the old convent from the main road. I heard voices talking in the purest Cockney accent, laughter, and popular English songs hummed at the other side.

At the south of Doberitz there is a small hill less than 100 ft. high, covered with thick vegetation. From its summit I managed to get a good look into the Concentration Camp.

Forty or fifty British soldiers, in khaki trousers and shirt-sleeves, were smoking and sitting about outside the main entrance of the house. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and they were evidently enjoying their after-dinner rest.

Two seemed to be in rather friendly conversation with one of the German soldiers who were looking after them, and another was listening to an old officer who was giving him some instructions.

I noticed that the Tommy stood at attention, as though he were in front of a British officer, and that, when the German went among the soldiers, they saluted him in the regular manner. All along the inside of the high wall of the garden Prussian soldiers were walking up and down as stiff as if they were mounting guard at the Imperial Palace.

"What would I give," I said to myself, "to be able to talk to them, to give them fresh news from England, to take home their letters. A scrap of paper with their names only would probably be enough to bring happiness to hundreds of English families which are now mourning them as dead. It seemed ridiculous not to be able to get somehow into contact with those men who were only four or five hundred feet distance from me."

Of course, it couldn't be done, and I walked sadly down the little hill thinking of the poor young fellows, probably worried by false news about the war and forced to prepare material for the trenches which will stop their pals' bullets and protect their gaolers.

* * *

The few days I had decided to spend in Berlin coming to an end, I set out upon the return journey through Hamburg, in which town I wanted to see as much as possible of Germany's naval preparations. Though I fully realised that it would be much better to have gone to Kiel for this purpose, or even better to Wilhelmshaven, I did not attempt such a journey because of the terribly slow railway communications, and also because of the improbability of getting anywhere near the arsenals.

Hamburg, the largest town in Germany after Berlin, the oldest shipbuilding city in Europe (she was already rich and powerful when Glasgow was unknown and Liverpool was but a small fishing village), is probably the most representative town in the whole of Germany.

Here the prosperity of Germany after the proclamation of the Empire shows itself in a mighty way; the words of August Bebel have found the right kind of soil, and have produced the wonderful organisation of workmen which was powerful enough to erect the Gewerkschaftshaus.

A question which has puzzled me since the beginning of the war is, what are the German Socialists doing? What happened to their international sympathies; what do they think of this war and of the way Germany is treating the Belgian and French population? When I asked these questions to a well-known Hamburg Socialist, the only answer he could give me was this:

"We are reduced to a very small number at the present moment; when a Socialist workman is called to arms, not only he immediately forgets all about his Socialist beliefs, but even his family, his father, and his brothers—not to mention women, who are absolutely war-mad, seem to lose all interest in what is not war. Of course, I firmly believe that as soon as the war is over the Socialist Party will become even stronger than it was before, but for the present we are so few that we don't dare to say a word, nor to criticise that which ought to be criticised."

Waiting for the resurrection of Socialism, the Labour Party is indirectly helping the common cause. Three entire floors of the Workmen's Institute have been transformed into hospitals, and nurses, doctors, sanitary appliances, etc., are supplied by the Trade Unions' League.

All shipbuilding firms, from the enormous concerns of international fame to the smallest, have been taken up by the Government, or are at least working for it.

Godeffroy, Stülchen, Weichhorst, etc., are now specially occupied in the construction of submarines. The strictest secrecy is observed about the plant, and the number of ships under construction is not known.

The enormous Vulcan Works on the other side of the town, the commercial Altona, and the still larger Blohm and Voss works, are turning out at present four battleships, and the former firm has nearly finished a new floating dock which is said to be the largest in existence. Hamburg will have altogether six large floating docks, which will certainly prove of great help in the work of rescuing damaged warships. In less than two hours they may be taken right down to the open sea, through the Elbe, and from there reach at full speed any ships too badly damaged to steam by their own means and convey them to the Hamburg dockyards.

To say that the shipbuilding concerns have been "taken up" by the Government is really inexact and superficial; nearly all of the firms have furnished the German Navy with some ships during the last few years—Blohm, for instance, is responsible for the Von der Tann, the Moltke, and the Goeben.

A Hamburg firm that specialises in lighthouses, etc., is now constructing an enormous number of searchlights, which are to be added to those already possessed by the Navy, and which are mentioned here as specially made for the attack on the British coasts. Other searchlights, almost equally powerful, but not quite so heavy, are fixed on all balloons and aeroplanes.

The unemployment plague, which is very serious all over Germany, especially among women, is worse here than anywhere else; nearly all the factories, mills, and works having been closed long since. While great activity reigns in the dockyards, the Asia and America quay, the Petroleum-Hafen, and the quays of the great steamship companies, which generally present a picturesque and busy scene, are deserted. The big ships, bereft of all their goods, have a sort of sleepy look about them, and they give the impression that not a soul is on board.

Near the Ellenzhobz-Hafen one of the large steamers of the Hamburg-America line is being converted into a Red Cross Hospital. The gilded furniture, the carpets and pictures are being taken away and deposited on the bank by a large steam crane, and the Red Cross mark has already been painted on the ship.

* * *

I would much rather not go over again my return journey. It is a sickening story of slow trains, stopped at every station, of annoyances of every kind, of hurried meals in bad railway station buffets, of hours and hours of waiting because a train was cancelled at the last minute and the next one was full of soldiers or wounded, and did not take ordinary passengers, etc.

At Bremen I am stopped as an alien enemy, insulted by a drunken crowd and taken to the police station, where I am detained the rest of the night. In the morning the inspector comes, looks at the mysterious passport I got in Berlin, apologises and releases me just in time to have missed the morning train. This identical scene is repeated at the Dutch frontier.

My mind is naturally full of recollections, recollections a little chaotic owing largely to the fact that to have taken a single note would have been very dangerous for me during the search I had to undergo.

There was certainly an enormous difference between London and Berlin after three months' war. The optimism which in Germany is very strong among the people in the street and very moderate in the army is here in London exactly in opposite proportions.

As for the economic position, the commercial possibilities and industrial crisis, no comparison is possible between the two countries; the geographical position of Britain and the action of her Fleet give her an enormous superiority over her enemies.

Signs of financial distress, it is true, are not very evident in Berlin; the increase in prices has been small, and has begun only during the last few weeks. I don't know if things will go on like this when the winter has almost paralysed the production of German foodstuffs, the reserves are exhausted, and the importation through Denmark and Holland has somehow been stopped.

It is needless to say that Germany has no Colonial contingent to put on against our Colonial troops, and that the fighting power of our enemies, owing to the strictly applied recruiting system, and to the above fact, is essentially limited, while Britain's can have no end of resources. Certainly this war will be very, very long.

The high spirit of the German nation, the decision of the Army to fight to the very last, the fact that the Kaiser knows perfectly that the débâcle would be the end of the Prussian hegemony and of his family's power, and the military education given to the German people during the whole of the last century, make of this nation an extremely difficult enemy to tame.

Endless sacrifices of comforts, of money, of life, will be needed not only from England, France, Russia, and Belgium, but from all other nations on earth who have simply been considering Germany as a huge latent danger during the last forty years.

CHAPTER III

Constantinople, October 31st, 1914.

Here I am, after all! From the large window of my room at the Tokatlian Hotel, the wonderful city, the Bosphorus, and, far away, the woods and the mosques of Scutari, look like a dream-vision in the blue, transparent light which seems to come not from the sky only but from the trees, from the sea, from everywhere.

It is midnight, and everything is perfectly quiet.

If an artist had to choose a landscape which should symbolise the perfect peace of men and things, he would choose the one on which I am now looking. And yet even here there is war!

On my way from Dedeagach to Constantinople I got news of the declaration of war by Turkey. Perhaps if I had tried to cross the Turkish frontier only a few hours later I should not have succeeded; as a matter of fact, to-day I saw any number of foreigners, English, French, Italians, Russians, and Greeks, trying to leave Constantinople by train.

Only very few of them could manage to get away, as Turkey is busy sending troops to the western frontier, and only a few seats are available for ordinary travellers.

The foreigners who could not get away to-day had to content themselves with booking seats for next week, seats which, though they had to be paid for, were not guaranteed.

The Dardanelles are closed, of course, and the only communication with the rest of Europe is this fantastic railway service. French and English people can, in theory, leave the town. Not so Russian people.

A special concentration camp has been arranged in a large old bazaar near the Odoun Kapou, and quite close to the military gaol. There is room for seven thousand prisoners, and I am afraid the young Englishmen and Frenchmen who don't get away pretty soon will have to go and keep company with the Russians.