ROYALTY'S RECREATION
I had a shooting estate about twenty miles from Berlin, one that
I could reach by automobile in forty-five minutes from the door
of the Embassy. Because of the strict German game laws I had
better shooting there than within two hundred miles of large
cities in America.
There seemed to be something to shoot there almost every day of
the year. On the sixteenth of May the season opened for male
roe--a very small deer. About the first of August the ducks,
which breed in northern Germany, can be shot. These were mallards
and there were about two thousand or more on a lake on my
preserve. We usually shot them by digging blinds in the oat
fields, shooting them after sunset as they flew from the lake to
feed in the newly harvested grain. The season for Hungarian
partridge opened on August 20th. These were shot over dogs in the
stubble and in the potato fields. After a few weeks partridges
became very wild and we then shot them with a kite. When we had
put up a covey out of range and marked where they went down in a
potato patch or field, perhaps of lucern or clover, a small boy
would fly a kite made in the form of a hawk over the field. This
kept the partridges from flying and they would lie while the dogs
pointed until we put them up.
By October 1st pheasants could be shot; English pheasants become
wild. These roosted in the trees at night and so escaped the
plentiful foxes. Later on came shooting at long ranges, after
they had collected in bands, of the female roedeer and also the
hare shooting. Rabbits were shot at all times, and in November
and December and January on foggy days it was not difficult to
get a wild goose.
The hares were shot in cold weather, after the snow was on the
ground, by walking in line of ten or fifteen beaters with two or
three guns at intervals along the line and later, when the hares
were very wild and the weather very cold, by what is called by
the Germans "kessel-jagd" or kettle-hunt. For this hunt the head
keeper would collect a number of beaters, as many as a hundred,
from the neighboring towns and villages, mostly small boys and
old men. On the great, flat plain the keeper would send out his
beaters to the right and the left, walking in a straight line at
about twenty-yard intervals. After each side had gone perhaps
half a mile they would then turn at right angles, walk a mile,
and then turn at right angles until the two lines met, so that
perhaps a square mile of territory would be enclosed by the
beaters with the ten to fifteen men with guns at intervals in the
line. When the square had been formed the head keeper blew a
blast on his bugle and all turned and walked slowly towards the
centre and the hares were shot as they attempted to break through
the line.
On one day just before I left Germany, I and members of the
Embassy shot more than two hundred hares on one of these hunts.
The German hare is an enormous animal with dark meat, almost
impossible to distinguish from venison.
After these hare drives, besides, of course, paying the beaters
their regular wages, I used to hold a lottery, giving a number of
these hares as prizes or distributing hares to the magnates of
the village, such as the pastor, the school teacher, the
policeman and the postmaster.
When we were shooting in the summer and autumn the peasants were
working in the fields and one had to be very careful in shooting
roebuck with a high-powered rifle. It is customary to hunt
roebuck on these flat plains from a carriage. In this way a
bullet, travelling at a downward angle, if the buck is missed,
strikes the ground within a short distance. If one were to shoot
lying down, kneeling or standing, the danger to peasants in the
fields would be very great. The pheasants were sometimes shot
over dogs, but usually as the beaters drove small woods. A
pheasant driven and flying high makes a difficult mark. One
getting up before the dogs is almost too easy a shot.
We shot the rabbits by using ferrets, little animals like weasels
wearing little muzzles and bells upon their necks. In the woods
where the rabbits had their holes four or five ferrets would be
put in the rabbits' holes and it was quite difficult to shoot
rabbits as they came out like lightning, dodging among the trees.
In the early spring the "birkhahns" were shot, a variety of black
and white grouse. There were some blinds or little huts of twigs
erected near places where the ground was beaten hard and on these
open, beaten spots early in the morning the "birkhahns" waltz,
doing a peculiar backward and forward dance in some way connected
with their marriage ceremonies. There were also on this estate
numbers, at times, of a curious bird found only in Spain,
Roumania, Asia Minor, and these plains of the Mark of Brandenburg,
a large bustard called by the Germans "trappe." These birds were
very shy and hard to approach. Although I had several shots at
them with a rifle at four or five hundred yards I did not succeed
in getting one.
In talking with the Chancellor he almost always opened the
conversation by asking if I had yet killed a "trappe." As a rule
the German uses for shooting deer and roebuck a German Mauser
military rifle, but with the barrel cut down and a sporting stock
with pistol grip added. On this there is a powerful telescope.
Many Germans carry a "ziel-stock," a long walking stick from the
bottom of which a tripod can be protruded and near the top a sort
of handle piece of metal about as big as a little finger. When
the German sportsman has sighted a roebuck he plants his aiming
stick in the ground, rests the rifle on the side projection,
carefully adjusts his telescope, sets the hair trigger on his
rifle and finally touches the trigger.
At the commencement of the war the Duke of Ratibor collected all
these sporting rifles with telescopes and sent them to the front.
These were of the same calibre as the military rifles and took
the military cartridge, so they proved enormously useful for
sniping purposes.
Going one day to a proof establishment to try a gun I opened by
mistake a door which led to a great room where thousands of
German military rifles were being fitted with telescopes. These
telescopes have crossed wires, like those in a surveyor's
instrument, and it is only necessary in aiming to fix the centre
of the crossed wires on the game and pull the trigger. A clever
arrangement enables the wires to be elevated for distant
shooting.
So great is the discipline of the German people that game on
these estates is seldom, if ever, touched by the peasants. There
is no free shooting in Germany. The shooting rights of every inch
of land are in possession of some one and the tens of thousands
of game keepers constantly killing the crows, hawks, foxes and
other birds and animals that destroy eggs and game make the game
plentiful. The keeper has the right by law to shoot any stray dog
or cat found a hundred yards from a village. I paid the head
keeper a certain sum per month and in addition he received a
premium called "shot money" for each bird or roebuck shot. He
also received a premium for each fox or crow or hawk he
destroyed, bringing, on the first of the month, the beaks and
claws of the hawks, etc., to prove his claim. Foxes are very
plentiful in Germany and in one winter on this estate, only
twenty miles from Berlin, the keeper trapped or killed twelve
foxes.
[Illustration: EXAMPLE OF THE COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL OFFERED FOR
SALE. ON THE OBVERSE IS THE PORTRAIT OF THE CROWN PRINCE. ON THE
REVERSE IS "YOUNG SIEGFRIED" ATTACKING A CHIMERA-LIKE MONSTER
WITH FOUR HEADS: A BEAR FOR RUSSIA, A UNICORN FOR ENGLAND, A LION
FOR BELGIUM, AND A COCK FOR FRANCE]
The Emperor is very fond of fox shooting. Foxes are driven out of
the forest past his shooting stand by beaters and one of the
reasons why Prince Fürstenberg was such a favourite of the
Emperor was that he provided him with splendid fox shooting,
although it is whispered that he bought foxes in boxes in all
parts of Germany and had them turned loose for the Emperor's
benefit.
In the more thickly forested portions of Germany deer as well as
roedeer are shot and in many districts wild boar. In Poland and
in a few estates in Germany on the eastern border, moose, called
elk (elch in German), are to be had. These, however, have very
poor horns.
Talking to the keepers and beaters on this shooting estate gave
me a very good idea of the hardships suffered in rural Germany,
of the way in which the people in the farming districts are kept
down by the lords of the manor and by the government, and it was
from this village and the neighbouring town that I got some idea
of the number of men called to arms in Germany.
By a custom dating from the devastating wars of the Middle Ages
there are practically no farms in Germany, but inhabitants of the
agricultural districts are collected in villages and the few
farms have, characteristically, a military name. They are called
"vorwerk" or outposts. In the village on my estate there are
almost exactly six hundred inhabitants, men, women and children,
and of these at the time I left Germany one hundred and ten had
been called to the Colours. In the neighbouring town of
Mittenwalde, of almost three thousand inhabitants, over five
hundred had joined the army. At the commencement of the war the
population of the German Empire was about 72,000,000, or
something over, and applying these same proportions it will be
seen what a vast army was created.
In the industrial districts where men are required for munition
work perhaps not as great a proportion has been called. The name
of the village on my estate was Gross Machnow, the road from
Berlin to Dresden ran through it and only a few miles east was
the shooting place of Wusterhausen where the favourite shooting
box of the father of Frederick the Great was and where he was
accustomed to hold his so-called tobacco parliament, when, with
his cronies, over beer and long pipes, the affairs of the nation
were discussed with great freedom.
The horse races in Germany are excellent. There are several
tracks about Berlin. The Hoppegarten, devoted almost exclusively
to flat racing; the Grunewald, the large popular track nearest to
Berlin where both steeplechases and other races are held; and
Karlshorst, devoted exclusively to steeplechasing and hurdle
racing.
The jockey club of Berlin is the Union Club, which owns the
Hoppegarten track. Its officers are men of the highest honour and
in no country in the world are the races run more honestly, more
"on the level," than in Germany.
Nothing makes for mutual international understanding more than
sport. Even during the most bitter crises between Germany and
America I felt that I could go absolutely alone to the crowded
race tracks and, while I know the Germans differed emphatically
with the American views of the war, the gentlemen in charge of
the races and the members of the Union Club treated me with the
kindest consideration and the most graceful courtesy.
* * * * *
I am sorry that I never attended any of the Court hunts which
took place in the vicinity of Potsdam. A pack of hounds is kept
there and boars hunted. The etiquette is very strict and no one,
not presented at court, can appear at these hunts. As I did not
have an opportunity to present my letters of credence until a
month or more after my arrival in Berlin in the autumn of 1913,
the winter rains had set in before I was eligible for the hunts
and in addition I had not taken the precaution to order the
necessary costumes.
* * * * *
The first time that a man appears at one of these hunts he must
wear a tall silk hat, a double-breasted red coat, with tails like
a dress coat, white breeches and top boots. After he has once
made his appearance in this costume he may, thereafter,
substitute for it a red frock hunting coat, white breeches and
top boots and a velvet hunting cap, the same shape as the caps
worn by the jockies. There are no jumps on these hunts. When the
boar has been brought to bay by the dogs, the right to despatch
him with a long hunting knife is reserved for the most distinguished
man present. If a royalty is present at one of these hunts he
distributes small sprigs of oak leaves to every one at the hunt,
cherished ever after as valued souvenirs.
When I first arrived at Berlin, having brought horses with me
from America, I used to ride every morning in the Tiergarten.
Because so many Germans are in the army, riding is a very
favourite sport and in peace times the Tiergarten is crowded with
Berliners. Most of the riding was done between seven and ten in
the morning. The early rising is compensated for, however, by the
siesta after lunch, a universal custom.
Shooting is almost more of a ceremony than a sport. The letters
exchanged between Emperor William and Czar Nicholas, lately
discovered in the Winter Palace, show what a large part shooting
played in their correspondence. One or the other is continually
wishing the other "Weidmanns-Heil," which is the German
expression for "good luck" as applied to shooting. All royalties
must ride and keep in practice, especially because of military
service. Indeed, all the sports of the Kaiser and his people
converge toward a common object--military efficiency and war.