its belligerent attitude at the first conference at Kiel, manifested
an increasing amenability to reason with every day that passed, as a
consequence of which the work of the Allied Commission was pushed to a
rapid completion. The search of the warships was completed in a couple
of days, and the decision to limit the inspection of air stations to
those west of Rügen reduced the visits of this character to three, all
easily reached by destroyers. Of the town of Kiel, nothing was seen at
close quarters, visits in that vicinity being limited to the dockyard,
ships in the harbour, and the seaplane station of Holtenau, near the
entrance to the canal.
Although the Allied ships under embargo hardly arrived at Kiel for
inspection at the rate promised, there was little to indicate that the
Germans were endeavouring to evade their promise of doing everything
possible to facilitate the return of these to the Tyne at the earliest
possible moment. The _City of Leeds_, a powerfully engined little
packet which had been on the Hamburg-Harwich run before the war,
furnished the only glaring instance of deliberate bad faith. The German
Shipping Commission, declaring that her crew had ruined her engines
and boilers by pouring tar into them when she was seized, claimed
that she had been quite useless since that time, and disclaimed any
responsibility for reconditioning her. On inspection by the Allied
Shipping Commission, the statement that the engines had been damaged by
anything but use and neglect was proved to be absolutely false. Why the
Germans should have told so futile a lie was not fully explained, though
as a possible reason it was suggested that some private party, desiring
to keep the ship in his hands, had made a false report of her condition
to the Shipping Commission.
The arrival and departure of Allied prisoners of war was one of the
most interesting features of the week in Kiel. The most of these were
British--picked up by one or another of the destroyers at this or that
port touched at--but there was one large party of French, from a camp
near Kiel, and several Belgians, Serbs, and Italians from heaven knows
where. These were all made as comfortable as possible in the _Hercules_,
and dispatched to England in the next mail destroyer. Except for a
man now and then who was suffering from a neglected wound, they were
in fairly good condition, a fact, however, which did not lessen their
almost rapturous enjoyment of the heaping pannikins of "good greasy
grub" (as one of them put it) that was theirs for the asking at any
hour of the day they cared to slip up to the galley. Their delight in
the band, in the ship's kinema, in "doubling round" for exercise in the
morning, in anything and everything in the life in this their halfway
station on the road home was a joy to watch.
Some of the British prisoners came from the same towns or counties
as did men of the ship's company, and the exchange of reminiscences
often went on far into the night. Passing across the flat between
the ward-room and the commission-room late one evening, I heard a
Lancastrian voice from a roll of blankets on the deck protesting to a
bluejacket in the hammock above that "Jinny X----" of Wigan didn't have
yellow hair when he (the owner of the voice) used to know her, and that,
in fact, he'd always thought her rather a "shy 'un."
"Thot was afore she worked in a 'T.N.T.' fact'ry," replied the
"hammock," with an intonation suggesting that he felt that was
sufficient explanation of both changes.
A good deal of rivalry developed between the four escorting destroyers
in the matter of picking up prisoners, and to hear their officers
discussing their "bags" or "hauls" when they foregathered at night in
the ward-room of the _Hercules_ reminded one of campers drifting in at
the end of the day and yarning of the ducks they had shot and the fish
they had caught. "If we could have waited another half-hour twenty more
were coming with us," claims _Venetia_. "But even with those," replies
_Vidette_, "you would not have been anywhere near our sixty-nine."
It was this latter "bag," indeed, which proved the record one of the
"season," both in numbers and "quality," for it consisted entirely of
non-commissioned officers from a camp near Hamburg.
[Illustration: H. M. S. "HERCULES" AND H. M. S "CONSTANCE" IN KIEL LOCKS]
The same cringing attempts at ingratiation and conciliation which had
been so much in evidence in the attitude of the civil population toward
parties from the Commission when they met in streets or stations seem
also to have been consistently practised in the case of prisoners about
to be repatriated. Although the German takes naturally and easily
to this kind of thing, just as he did to his _schrecklichkeit_ and
general brutalities, there was much in the way he went about making
himself pleasant to returning prisoners that bore the marks of official
inspiration. Several men who came to the _Hercules_ brought copies of
circular letters in English which, after pointing out that they had
invariably been treated with the greatest courtesy and consideration
possible under the very trying circumstances Germany found herself in
on account of the blockade, hoped that they would bear no ill will away
with them, and that the years to come might bring them back to Germany
under happier circumstances. The screeds really had much the tone of an
apologetic country host's farewell to guests whom he has had to keep on
short commons on account of being snowed in or a breakdown on the line.
One of the best of them was addressed to "English Gentlemen," and went
on as follows:--
"You are about to leave the newest, and what we intend to make the
freest, republic in the world. We very much regret that you saw so
little of what aroused our pride in the former Germany--her arts,
sciences, model cities, theatres, schools, industries, and social
institutions, as well as the beauties of our scenery and the real soul
of our people, akin in so many things to your own.
"But these things will remain a part of the new Germany. Once the
barriers of artificial hatred and misunderstanding have fallen, we hope
that you will learn to know, in happier times, these grander features of
the land whose unwilling guests you have been. A barbed wire enclosure
is not the proper place from which to survey or judge a great nation.
There will be no barbed wire enclosure in the Germany to which you will
return a few months hence. In the meantime we feel that we can count
upon you, forgetting the unpleasanter features of your enforced sojourn
with us, to exert your influence to reunite the bonds of friendship
and commerce which were bringing our countries ever closer and closer
together before their unfortunate severance by the sword of war, and
upon the knitting up again of which the future of both so greatly
depends.
"Three cheers for peace and good will to all mankind!"
Rather a delicate little touch, that "bonds of commerce" one!
Unfortunately, the language in which most of the prisoners described the
state of mind which this kind of thing left them in is not quite suited
for publication. It was one of the mildest of them--a London cockney
who seemed never quite to have got back all the blood he lost when his
thigh was ripped open with shrapnel at the assault on Thiepval--who said
that "Jerry" never would get over being surprised when "a bloke called
'im a b----y blighter arter 'e'd tried to shove a _ersatz_ fag on you
an' 'oped you w'udn't be bearin' 'im any 'ard feelin's in the years to
come."
The attitude that German girls and women appear to have adopted
toward Allied, and especially British, prisoners from the time the
armistice went into force is not a pleasant thing to write of, and I
confine myself to a single observation which an old sergeant of the
"Contemptibles"--one of the sixty-nine that the _Vidette_ brought from
Hamburg--made on the subject. It was one of the most witheringly biting
characterizations of a nation I have ever heard fall from the lips of
any man. He had been telling me in a humorous sort of way of "raspberry
leaf tea," _ersatz_ coffee of various kinds, paper sheets, and various
and sundry other substitutes, and then, switched off to the subject by a
question regarding a statement a German officer had been heard to make
about the relations of prisoners and women of the country, he spoke of
the ways of the girls of Hamburg since the armistice.
"There is no doubt," he said, "that the young of both sexes have been
getting more and more shameless in their morals ever since the beginning
of the war, but it is only since we were practically set free by the
armistice that the state of things has come home to prisoners. I don't
think that there are very many British prisoners--certainly no man that
I know personally--who have had anything to do with these young hussies;
but that is not the fault of the girls, for they have pestered us only
less in our camp than upon the street. It's principally because we have
a bit of money now, and sometimes a bit of food that isn't _ersatz_. I
don't think I'm exaggerating very much, sir, when I say that fifty per
cent. of the girls of the lower classes in Hamburg would sell themselves
for a cake of toilet soap or a sixpenny packet of biscuits. _Ersatz_
food and _ersatz_ women! By God, sir, Germany's a country of substitutes
and prostitutes, and it's glad I am to be seeing the last of it!"
I have yet to hear the Germany of today summed up more scathingly than
that.
Speaking of the moral degeneracy of Germany, a poster found by a
member of the Commission in a train by which he was travelling sheds
an interesting light on the subject. It was addressed to the "Youth of
Wilhelmshaven and Rüstringen" by the Council of Workmen and Soldiers,
and the following is a rough translation.
"The German youth has been a witness of the great liberating act of
the German Revolution. It has witnessed how the fetters of the old
_régime_ were burst and Freedom made her entry into the stronghold of
reaction, the Prussian military state. And it is the youth of today
which will reap the fruits of this great change. It will one day find
as an accomplished fact all that for which the best of the people have
sacrificed themselves.
"Therefore the most serious duties are laid upon the youth of today, to
which it is becoming increasingly necessary to draw their attention.
Complaints are unfortunately increasing of late that the youth is
lapsing more and more into moral anarchy, which carries with it the
most serious dangers for the future. Revolution does not mean disorder,
but a new order. Remember that the whole future of Germany depends upon
you; you are the trustees of the future. Be conscious of the great
responsibility which rests today upon your young shoulders.... You must
now learn to be equal to the task which awaits you. Obey your teachers
and leaders. That is the first demand made upon all today.
"We expect, therefore, that you take this warning to heart, and that we
may not be forced to take stronger measures against those among you who
either cannot or will not submit!"
* * * * *
There was a suggestion of power and strength in the name itself, and
in setting out to inspect the Great Belt Forts there were few in the
party who had not visions of uncovering the secrets of something very
much in the nature of a Baltic Gibraltar or Heligoland. "Number One"
or the "International" sub-commission turned out in full strength
in anticipation of what had generally been regarded as the crowning,
as it was the concluding, event of the visit. The very protestations
of the Germans only whetted their interest the keener, for it was a
precisely similar line to one they had taken in the matter of the visit
to Tondern, where there _had_ been something worth seeing. "Look out
for surprises in connection with the 'Great Belt' inspection," was the
word, and every one in any way entitled to attach himself to what was to
be the last party landed before the return of the Commission to England
made arrangements to do so.
Brave with swords, bright with brass hats, aglitter with aiguillettes
was the imposing line of French, British, Italian, American and Japanese
officers who filed across from the _Hercules_ to the _Verdun_ an hour
before dawn on the morning of December 16. An hour after darkness
descended, wet with rain, bespattered with mud, ashiver with cold, those
same officers straggled back to the _Hercules_ again. This is the order
in which one of them summed up the day's observation: "The most notable
event of the inspection," he said as he warmed his chilled frame before
the ward-room fire, "was the sight of the first pig we have clapped eyes
on in Germany; the next so was meeting a Hun with enough of a sense of
humour to take us three miles round by a muddy road and over ploughed
fields and deep ditches to a point he could have reached by a mile of
comparatively dry railway track; and the third was a drive through ten
miles of Schleswig countryside that was beautiful beyond words, even in
the pelting rain. The Great Belt Forts? Oh, yes, we saw them. They were
five holes in the ground on top of one hill, four holes in the ground on
the top of another fifteen miles away, and a dozen or so ancient guns
dumped into the hold of a tug. But--let's talk about the pig."
There is not much that I can add to the succinct summary of the
inspection of the forts of the "Baltic Gibraltar." What the
sub-commission saw--or rather failed to see--there went a long way
toward confirming the impression (which had been growing stronger ever
since the arrival of the _Hercules_ at Wilhelmshaven) that Germany had
depended upon mines rather than guns for the defence of her coasts.
The porker mentioned was the one I alluded to in an earlier chapter as
just failing to win the officer sighting it the pool which was to go
to the first man who saw a pig in Germany, because an Irish-American
member of the party had testified that it had "died from hog cholera
an hour before it had been killed." The lovely stretch of farming
country driven through showed many signs of its Danish character, and at
several windows I even saw the red-and-white flag of the mother country
discreetly displayed. This region, of course, falls well north of the
line that is expected to form the new Danish boundary.
* * * * *
At the final conference with the German Naval Armistice Commission,
which was held in the _Hercules_ on the morning of the 17th,
Admiral Goette and his associates, in striking contrast to their
belligerent attitude at the first meeting in Kiel, proved thoroughly
docile and conciliatory. All of the important points at issue were
conceded--including the surrender of submarines building and the
delivery of the _Baden_ in place of _Mackensen_--and tentative
arrangements were made for future visits of special Allied Commissions
whenever these should be deemed necessary to insure the enforcement
of the provisions of the armistice. Work on the reconditioning of
all Allied merchant ships was to be given precedence over everything
else. Considering that he had no trumps either in his hands or up his
sleeve, Admiral Goette played his end of the game with considerable
skill. Such futile attempts at "bluffing" as he made were invariably
traceable to pressure exerted upon him from the "outside," probably
Berlin. Personally, in spite of the severe nervous strain he was under
(the effects of which were increasingly noticeable at every succeeding
conference), he deported himself with a dignity compatible with his
heavy responsibilities. The same may be said of Captain Von Müller,
which is perhaps as far down the list as it would be charitable to go in
this connection.
* * * * *
Weighing anchor at noon of the 18th, the _Hercules_ was locked through
into the canal in good time to see in daylight that section which
had been passed in darkness in coming through from the North Sea. A
rain, which turned into soft snow as the afternoon lengthened, was
responsible for rather less frequent and numerous crowds of spectators
than on the previous passage. The ubiquitous Russian prisoner was
still much in evidence. An especially pathetic figure was that of a
lone _poilu_--still in horizon blue, with the skirts of his bedraggled
overcoat buttoned back in characteristic fashion--whom I sighted just
before dark. Leaning dejectedly on his hoe in a beet-field, he watched
the _Hercules_ pass without so much as lifting a finger. Most likely the
unlucky chap took her for a German, for the rapturous demonstrations
with which a score of his comrades signalized their arrival aboard a few
days before showed very clearly how a French prisoner would greet a
British ship if he knew her nationality.
The _Hercules_ went into her lock at Brunsbüttel an hour before
midnight. The _Regensburg_, which had preceded her through the canal,
was already in the adjoining lock, and in attempting to pass on the
light cruiser _Constance_ and three British destroyers at the same
operation the canal people made rather a mess of things. There was
a savage crashing and tearing of metal at one stage, followed by a
considerable flow of profanity in two languages. When, the next morning
in the Bight, a signal of condolence was made by the _Hercules_ to
one of the destroyers following in her wake on the "messy" state of
its nose, the reply came back. "Don't worry about my nose. You ought
to see the _Regensburg_. I've got a piece of her side-plating on my
forecastle!" That was the second time the unlucky _Regensburg_ had come
to grief in locking through at Brunsbüttel with the ships of the Allied
Naval Commission.
Owing to the fog, the Germans were unable, or unwilling, to send a ship
to take off their pilots from the _Hercules_ and escorting destroyers
after the outer limits of the mine-fields had been passed, and it became
necessary as a consequence to carry them on to Rosyth. The change of
air and food incidental to their personally conducted tour to Scapa
(to await the next German transport home) was evidently a by no means
disagreeable prospect to them, judging by the way they took the news.
The steward who reported that the pilot he was looking after had been
"stowing away grub like he expected a long continuance of the blockade,"
may have stumbled upon the reason for their philosophic attitude.
We found the Firth of Forth as we left it--wrapped in fog. There was
just enough visibility to make it possible to find the gates in the
booms and the main channel under the bridge. The historic voyage came to
an end when the _Hercules_, after tying up to the _Queen Elizabeth's_
buoy for a few hours, went into the dry dock at two-thirty in the
afternoon of the 20th. The Commission left for London the same evening
in a special train provided by the Admiralty.
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Spelling in "dialect" passages not changed.
German nouns printed in lower-case have not been changed to upper-case.
Inconsistently-spaced abbreviations have not been changed.
The following three typographical errors were corrected by referencing a
later edition of this book:
Page 90, paragraph ending: "Liverpool or Liverpool?" ended with a comma
and closing quote.
Page 144 "the latter being" was printed as "the later being".
Page 287: "model cities" was printed as "model cites".
End of Project Gutenberg's To Kiel in the 'Hercules', by Lewis R. Freeman