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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
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER I
MY FIRST WAR-TIME JOURNEY TO BERLIN 11
CHAPTER II
POTSDAM AND HAMBURG 55
CHAPTER III
CONSTANTINOPLE 75
CHAPTER IV
BULGARIA AND GREECE 121
CHAPTER V
MY SECOND WAR-TIME VISIT TO BERLIN 142
CHAPTER VI
VIENNA 184
CHAPTER VII
SWITZERLAND 196
CHAPTER VIII
ITALY 205
CHAPTER IX
FRANCE 221
CHAPTER X
HOLLAND 240
CHAPTER XI
ANTWERP--THE DEAD CITIES OF BRABANT 259
CHAPTER XII
BRUSSELS, TOURNAI, AND THE GERMAN FRONT 284
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."