You would naturally think that it would be a very easy matter to go
from Berlin to Vienna in war time, because Germany and Austria are
allies, and that it would be as easy as traveling around Germany; that
all you would have to do would be to pack your trunk, go down to the
station, buy your ticket and get on the train. Of course you must do
all these things, but you must do a great many other things before you
do that.
The first thing that you do is to go to the police where you are
registered and get what they call a _Fragebogen_, which means a
question sheet. You cannot get this sheet unless you have a letter from
some important person or firm stating that it is necessary for you to
go. Your reason must be a very good one.
[Illustration: _Vienna--Along the Danube._]
You fill out your _Fragebogen_, the police look up your record
and if it is found out to be all right, they put your letter of
recommendation, your passport, the _Fragebogen_ and half a dozen
pictures of yourself in an envelope and seal it. You take this sealed
envelope to the main police station in the district in which you
live. Here the package is opened by several different men in several
different rooms, and finally, after many questions and much stamping,
you are told to write your name across your picture which has been
pasted on a card.
After you are through with the German police, you must have your
pass viséd by the Austro-Hungarian consul. Here you must go to three
different men and be "stamped" and the last man takes two more of your
pictures and pastes them on a pink card. Then you pay four marks to
another man who does some more stamping. After all these things are
done, you go back to your local police and register that you are going
away, and then, after showing your pass at the railway ticket office,
you are allowed to buy your ticket to Vienna. This was what a neutral
American had to do before we got into the war--now I doubt if an
American could go to Vienna at all.
It is a sixteen hours' ride from Berlin to Vienna with a one hour's
wait at Tetschen on the Austro-German frontier. Our first stop was
at Dresden, and like all German stations it was full of soldiers. The
ride from Dresden to Tetschen is very beautiful. It runs through the
Saxon Switzerland, a lovely country with mountains, streams of water
and little villages. How peaceful everything was! How quiet! It did not
seem like a country that was taking part in a great war.
[Illustration: _A Station in Vienna._]
At noon we reached Tetschen, a cold, dismal looking place. First we
had our baggage examined by both Austrian and German officials. These
officials are all clever men. Some of them are dressed up to look like
common soldiers, but they are all fine lawyers and criminal experts.
A soldier stood up on a box and said that any one who had any writing
about him should give it up. In my stocking I had my money and a letter
of introduction that I had brought from America and which I was going
to use in Vienna. I understood perfectly well what the soldier said,
but for some unknown reason or other I simply didn't feel like pulling
the letter out of my stocking. This was madness on my part, for I had
learned long ago that if you follow directions in Germany you don't get
into trouble, and if you don't follow them, you are sure to get into a
mess.
After this, we were taken through a gate where we gave up our passes
and they were taken away to see if the picture corresponded with the
one sent down by the German police. The men here had a dreadful time
with my name. All Germans find my name a difficult one. One soldier
here just insisted that my name was "Auley" without the "Mc," but
finally another soldier gave him a poke and said that "Mc" was a title
and that I was of royal blood.
[Illustration: _The Inside of a Polish Hut._]
Everybody who didn't have a German or an Austrian pass had to undress,
and as soon as I got into the searching-room, I gave the woman who was
to search me, the letter out of my stocking. She took it and gave it to
some one. My heart was in my mouth, for I had no idea what they would
do, and I knew if they did anything to me it would be my own fault for
not following directions.
I got a very good searching, and I had to take off all my clothes,
only when she told me to take off my shoes and I commenced to unlace
one boot she said never mind that one, to take off the other one. I
had hardly gotten dressed before there was a knock at the door of the
dressing-room and some one said I was wanted. I put on my hat and went
out, and there planked in front of the door with both legs spread out
and a long sword at his side, was a good-looking little Saxon officer
aged about twenty years.
He had a fierce look on his face as he demanded, "Why didn't you give
this up in the other room?"
"I couldn't," I answered, "it was in my stocking. You couldn't expect
me to take it out of my stocking before all those men, could you?"