Berlin is a city of soldiers. Every day is soldiers' day. And on
Sundays there are even more soldiers than on week days. Then Unter den
Linden, Friedrichstrasse and the Tiergarten are one seething mass of
gray coats--gray the color of everything and yet the color of nothing.
This field gray blends with the streets, the houses, and the walls, and
the dark clothes of the civilians stand out conspicuously against this
gray mass.
[Illustration: _Soldiers Marching Through Brandenburg Gate._]
When I first came to Berlin, I thought it was just by chance
that so many soldiers were there, but the army seems ever to
increase--officers, privates, sailors and men right from the trenches.
During the two years that I was in Berlin this army remained the same.
It didn't decrease in numbers and it didn't change in looks. The day
I left Berlin it looked exactly the same as the day I entered the
country. They were anything but a happy-looking bunch of men, and all
they talked about was, "when the war is over"; and like every German I
met in those two years, they longed and prayed for peace. One day on
the street car I heard a common German soldier say, "What difference
does it make to us common people whether Germany wins the war or not,
in these three years we folks have lost everything." But every German
soldier is willing to do his duty.
The most wonderful thing about this transit army is that everything
the soldiers have, from their caps to their shoes, is new, except the
soldiers just coming from the front. And yet as a rule they are not
new recruits starting out, but men who have been home on a furlough or
men who have been wounded and are now ready to start back to the front.
To believe that Germany has exhausted her supply of men is a mistake.
Personally, I know lots of young Germans that have never been drafted.
The most of these men are such who, for some reason or other, have
had no army service, and the German military believe that one trained
man is worth six untrained men, and it is the trained soldier that is
always kept in the field. If he has been wounded he is quickly hurried
back to the front. By their scientific methods a bullet wound can be
entirely cured in six weeks.
[Illustration: _The Most Popular Post-Card in Germany._]
German men have never been noted dressers, and even at their best the
middle and lower classes look very gawky and countrified in civilian
clothes. You cannot imagine how the uniform improves their appearance.
I have seen new recruits marching to the place where they get their
uniforms. Most of them have on old ill-fitting clothes, slouch hats
and polished boots. They shuffle along, carrying boxes and bundles.
They have queer embarrassed looks on their faces. Three hours later,
this same lot of men come forth. They are not the same men. They have a
different fire in their eyes, they hold themselves straighter, they no
longer slouch but keep step. The uniform seems to have made new men of
them. It should be called "transform," not uniform.
At the Friedrichstrasse Station one can see every kind of soldiers at
once. There the men arrive from the front sometimes covered with dust
and mud, and once I saw a man with his trousers all spattered with
blood. The common soldiers carry everything with them. On their backs
they have their knapsacks, and around their waists they have cans,
spoons, bundles and all sorts of things. These men carry sixty-five
pounds with them all the time. In one of their bags they carry what
is known as their _eiserne Portion_ or their "iron portion." This
consists of two cans of meat, two cans of vegetables, three packages of
hard tack, ground coffee for several meals and a flask of whisky. The
soldiers are not allowed to eat this portion unless they are in a place
where no food can be brought to them, and then they are only allowed
to eat it at the command of a superior officer. In the field the iron
portions are inspected each day, and any soldier that has touched his
portion is severely punished.
[Illustration: _Schoolboys' Reserve. Berlin._]
A great many of the soldiers have the Iron Cross of the second class,
but very rarely a cross of the first class is seen. The second class
cross is not worn but is designated by a black and white ribbon drawn
through the buttonhole. The first class cross is worn pinned rather
low on the coat. The order _Pour le mérite_ is the highest honor in
the German army, and not a hundred of them have been given out since
the beginning of the war. It is a blue, white and gold cross and is
hung from the wearer's collar. A large sum of money goes with this
decoration. The second class Iron Cross makes the owner exempt from
certain taxes; and five marks each month goes with the first class Iron
Cross.
The drilling-grounds for soldiers are very interesting. Most of these
places are inclosed, but the one at the Grunewald was open, and I often
used to go there to see the soldiers. It made a wonderful picture--the
straight rows of drilling men with the tall forest for a background.
The men were usually divided off into groups, a corporal taking
twelve men to train. It was fun watching the new recruits learning
the goose-step. The poor fellows tried so hard they looked as though
they would explode, but if they did not do it exactly right, they were
sent back to do it over again. The trainers were not the least bit
sympathetic.
One day an American boy and I went to Potsdam. We were standing in
front of the old Town Palace watching some fresh country boys drill. I
laughed outright at one poor chap who was trying to goose-step. He was
so serious and so funny I couldn't help it. The corporal came over to
us and ordered us to leave the grounds, which we meekly did.
[Illustration: _Soldiers Buying Ices in Berlin. A War Innovation._]
Tempelhof, the largest drilling-ground in Berlin, is the headquarters
for the army supplies, and here one can see hundreds of wagons and
autos painted field-gray. The flying-place at Johannisthal is now
enclosed by a fence and is so well guarded you can't get within a
square of it.
[Illustration: _Looking at Colored Pictures in an Old Book-Shop._]
It is very interesting to watch the troop trains coming in from the
front. When I first went to Berlin it was all a novelty to me and I
spent a great deal of my time at the stations. One night just before
Christmas, 1915, the first Christmas I was in Berlin, I spent three
hours at the Anhalt Station watching the troops come home. They were
very lucky, these fellows, six months in the trenches and then to be
home at Christmas time! They were the happiest people I had seen in the
war unless it were the people who came to meet them.
[Illustration: _Cheering the Soldier on His Way to the Front._]
Most of the soldiers were sights. Their clothes were dirty, torn and
wrinkled. Many of them coming from Russia were literally covered with
a white dust. At first I thought that they were bakers, but when I
saw several hundred of them I changed my mind. Beside his regular
paraphernalia, each soldier had a dozen or more packages. The packages
were strapped on everywhere, and one little fellow had a bundle stuck
on the point of his helmet.
A little child, perhaps three years old, was being held over the
gate near me and all the while he kept yelling, "Papa! _Urlaub_!" An
_Urlaub_ is a furlough, and when the father did come at last the child
screamed with delight. Another soldier was met by his wife and a tiny
little baby. He took the little one in his arms, and the tears rolled
down his cheeks, "My baby that I have never seen," he said.
This night the soldiers came in crowds. Everybody was smiling, and in
between the trains we went into the station restaurant. At every table
sat a soldier and his friends. One young officer had been met by his
parents, and he was so taken up with his mother that he could not sit
down but he hung over her chair. Was she happy? Well, I should say so!
At another table sat a soldier and his sweetheart. They did not care
who saw them, and can you blame them? He patted her cheeks and he
kissed her hand.... An old man who sat at the table pretended that he
was reading, and he tried to look the other way, but at last he could
hold himself no longer, and grasping the soldier's hand he cried,
"_Mahlzeit!_"
[Illustration: _A Field Package for a German Soldier._]
We went out and saw more trains and more soldiers. A little old lady
stood beside us. She was a pale little lady dressed in black. She was
so eager. She strained her eyes and watched every face in the crowd.
It was bitter cold and she was thinly clad. At 12 o'clock the station
master announced that there would be no more trains until morning. The
little old lady turned away. I watched her bent figure as she went down
the stairs. She was pulling out her handkerchief.