THE LIE ON THE FILM
At the end of an absorbingly interesting reel showing the Kaiser
reviewing his troops, a huge green trade-mark globe revolved with a
streamer fluttering _Berlin_. The lights were turned on and the
operator looked over his assortment of reels.
An American had been granted permission to take war films in
Germany in the autumn of 1914, to be exhibited in the United
States. After he had arrived, however, the authorities had refused
to let him take pictures with the army, but, like the proverbial
druggist, had offered him something "just as good." In London, on
his return journey home, he showed to a few newspaper
correspondents the films which Germany had foisted upon him.
"The next film, gentlemen, will depict scenes in East Prussia," the
operator announced.
Although I had probably seen most of these pictures in Germany, my
interest quickened, for I had been through that devastated province
during and after the first invasion. Familiar scenes of ruined
villages and refugees scudding from the sulphur storm passed before
my eyes. Then came the ruined heap of a once stately church tagged
_Beautiful Church in Allenburg Destroyed by the Russians_. The
destruction seemed the more heinous since a trace of former beauty
lived through the ruins, and you could not view this link of
evidence against the Russians without a feeling of resentment.
This out-of-the-way church was not architecturally important to the
world as is Rheims Cathedral, to be sure, but the destruction
seemed just as wanton.
The next picture flashed on the screen showed a Russian church
intact, with the simple title, _Russian Church at Potetschiki_.
The moral of the sequence was clear. The German Government, up to
the minute in all things, knows the vivid educative force of the
kinema, and realises the effect of such a sequence of pictures upon
her people at home and neutrals throughout the world, It enables
them to see for themselves the difference between the barbarous
Russians and the generous Germans.
The reel buzzed on, but I did not see the succeeding pictures, for
my thoughts were of far-off East Prussia, of Allenburg, and of the
true story of the ruined church by the Alle River.
Tannenberg had been fought, Samsanow had been decisively smashed in
the swamps and plashy streams, and Hindenburg turned north-east to
cut off Rennenkampf's army, which had advanced to the gates of
Konigsberg. The outside world had been horrified by stories of
German crime in Belgium; whereupon Germany counter attacked with
reports of terrible atrocities perpetrated by the Russians, of boys
whose right hands had been cut off so that they could never serve
in the army, of wanton murder, rapine and burnings. I read these
stories in the Berlin papers, and they filled me with a deep
feeling against Russia.
One of the most momentous battles of history was being fought in
the West, and the Kaiser's armies were in full retreat from the
Marne to the Aisne, but Berlin knew nothing of this. Refugees from
East Prussia with white arm-bands filled the streets, Hindenburg
and victory were on every tongue, Paris was forgotten, and all
interest centred in the Eastern theatre of war.
That was in the good old days when the war was young, when armies
were taking up positions, when the management of newspaper
reporters was not developed to a fine art, when Europe was
topsy-turvy, when it was quite the thing for war correspondents to
outwit the authorities and see all they could.
I resolved to make an attempt to get into East Prussia, and as it
was useless to wait for official permission--that is, if I was to
see things while fresh--I determined to play the game and trust to
luck.
Danzig seemed the end of my effort, for the railroad running east
was choked with military trains, the transportation of troops and
supplies in one direction and prisoners and wounded in the other.
By good fortune, however, I booked passage on a boat for Konigsberg.
The little steamer nosed its way through a long lock canal amid
scenery decidedly Dutch, with old grey windmills dotting broad fiat
stretches, black and white cows looming large and distinct on the
landscape, and fish nets along the waters edge. To the right the
shore grew bolder after we entered the _Frishes Haff_, a broad
lagoon separated from the Baltic by a narrow strip of pasture land.
Red sails glowed in the clear sunshine, adding an Adriatic touch.
Cumbersome junk-like boats flying the Red Cross passed west under
full sail. Germany was using every man at her disposal to
transport wounded and prisoners from the battle region which we
were drawing near.
A smoky haze ahead indicated Konigsberg. The mouth of the Pregel
bustled with activity, new fortifications were being everywhere
thrown up, while indistinct field-grey figures swarmed over the
plain like ants. We glided through forests of masts and rigging
and slid up to a pier opposite great sagging warehouses behind
which the sun was setting.
As I picked up my bag to go ashore, a heavy hand fell on my
shoulder and I was asked to wait until we were boarded from the
police boat which was puffing alongside. My detainer, a government
inspector, a man of massive frame with deep set eyes and a shaggy
black beard, refused to say more than that the police wished to see
me. They had been signalled and were coming to the boat expressly
for that purpose.
American ammunition had not begun to play its part in German public
opinion at that time, and, moreover, America was being hailed
everywhere in Germany as a possible ally against Japan. Therefore,
although only a few days previously Russian guns had been booming
less than a dozen miles away, and Konigsburg was now the base
against Rennenkampf, my presence was tolerated, and I finally
managed to get lodgings for the night after I had found two hotels
turned into hospitals,
I spent the following day trying to obtain permission to pass the
cordon of sentries outside the city, but I received only the advice
to go back to Berlin and apply at the _Auswartiges Amt_ (Foreign
Office). I did not wish to wait in Berlin until this campaign was
over; I wished to follow on the heels of the army through the
ruined land and catch up to the fighting if possible. American
correspondents had done this in Belgium. I myself had done it with
the Austrians against the Serbs, and I succeeded in East Prussia,
but not through Berlin.
I was well aware that Germany was making a tremendous bid for
neutral favour. I had furthermore heard so much of Russian
atrocities that I was convinced that the stories were true;
consequently I decided to play the role of an investigator of
Muscovite crime. I won Herr Meyer of the Wolff Telegraph Bureau,
who sent me along with his card to Commandant von Rauch, who at
first refused to let me proceed, but after I had hovered outside
his door for three days, finally gave me a pass to go to Tapiau,
the high-water mark of the Russian invasion.
That night, "by chance," in the _Deutscher Hof_, I met the
black-bearded official who had arrested me on the boat, and I told
him that I had permission to go to Tapiau next morning. When he
became convinced, that I was a professional atrocity hunter who
believed that the Russians had been brutal, his hospitality became
boundless, and over copious steins of Munich beer he described the
invaders in a manner which made Gladstone's expose of the Turks in
Bulgaria, the stories of Captain Kidd, and the tales of the Spanish
Inquisition seem like essays on brotherly love. He was
particularly incensed at the Russians because they had destroyed
Allenburg, for Allenburg was his home. One of the stories on which
he laid great stress was that a band of Cossacks had pillaged the
church just outside of Allenburg on the road to Friedland, after
they had driven sixty innocent maidens into it and outraged them
there.
A train of the _Militar-Personenzug_ variety bore me next morning
through a country of barbed wire, gun emplacements and fields
seamed with trenches to Tapiau, a town withered in the blast of
war. Two ruined bridges in the Pregel bore silent testimony to the
straits of the retreating Germans, for the remaining ends on the
further shore were barricaded with scraps of iron and wood gathered
from the wreckage.
Landsturm guards examined my pass, which was good only for Tapiau
and return. I decided to miss the train back, however, and push on
in the wake of the army to Wehlau. Outside of Tapiau I was
challenged by a sentry, who, to my amazement, did not examine my
now worthless pass when I pulled it from my pocket, but motioned me
on.
The road ran through eye-tiring stretches of meadows pockmarked
with great shell holes full of black water. I came upon the
remains of an old brick farmhouse battered to dust in woods which
were torn to splinters by shell, bullet and shrapnel. The Russians
had bombarded Tapiau from here, and had in turn been shelled in the
trenches which they had dug and chopped in the labyrinth of roots.
Among the debris of tins, cases, knapsacks and cartridge clips were
fragments of uniforms which had been blown off Russian bodies by
German shells, while on a branch above my head a shrivelled human
arm dangled in the light breeze of September.
I left the sickening atmosphere of the woods behind and pushed on
to Wehlau, a primitive little town situated on the meadows where
the Alle flows into the Pregel. Here my troubles began. Soldiers
stared at me as I walked through crooked, narrow streets unevenly
paved with small stones in a manner that would bring joy to the
heart of a shoe manufacturer. The sun sank in a cloudless blaze
behind a line of trenches on a gentle slope above the western shore
when I entered the _Gasthof Rabe_, where I hoped to get a room for
the night.
I had no sooner crossed the threshold, however, than I was arrested
and brought to the Etappen-Commandant in the Pregelstrasse. I
fully expected to be placed under arrest or be deported, but I
determined to put up the best bluff possible. A knowledge of
Germans and their respect for any authority above that invested in
their own individual selves led me to decide upon a bold course of
action, so I resolved to play the game with a high hand and with an
absolute exterior confidence of manner.
Instead of waiting to be questioned when I was brought into the
presence of the stern old officer, I told him at once that I had
been looking for him. I informed him that Herr von Meyer and
Commandant Rauch in Konigsberg were in hearty sympathy with my
search for Russian atrocities, but although I succeeded in quieting
any suspicions which the Commandant may have entertained, I found
winning permission to stay in Wehlau an exceedingly difficult
matter.
Orders were orders! He explained that the battle was rolling
eastward not far away and that I must go back. To add weight to
what he said he read me a set of typewritten orders which had come
from Berlin the day before. "Journalists are not allowed with the
army or in the wake of the army in East Prussia. . . ." he read, in
a tone which indicated that he considered the last word said.
But I had become so fascinated with this battle-scarred, uncanny,
out-of-the-way land that I resolved to try every means to stay. I
declared that on this particular mission I was more of an
investigator than a journalist, that I had the special task
(self-imposed, to be sure) of investigating Russian atrocities;
that if Berlin reports were to be given credence abroad they must
be substantiated by some impartial observer. If Germany would
supply the atrocities, I would supply the copy. That she wished to
do so was evidenced by the permissions granted me by Herr von Meyer
of the Wolff Telegraph Bureau and Commandant Rauch of the capital
of the devastated province. (I had passed beyond the point where I
was told that I could go, but at any rate their names carried
weight.) Would it not seem strange if the Commandant at Wehlau had
me sent back after these great men had set their seal of approval
upon my investigations? After Germany had made such grave charges
against the Russians, how would it impress American readers that
the German Commandant at Wehlau could not make good and had sent me
back?
Then, as a finishing stroke, I pulled my passport from my pocket
and showed Berlin's approval of me stamped impressively in the
right-hand corner. This vise was not at all unique with me. It
had been affixed to the passports of thousands of Americans of all
grades, and was merely to ensure passage from Germany into Holland.
As I did not wish to impose upon the time of the Commandant I did
not burden him with these extraneous details while he feasted his
eyes on the magic words: _Gesehen, Berlin_. Mount Olympus, Mecca,
Imperial and Ecclesiastical Rome all rolled into one--that is
authoritative Berlin to the German of the province.
"Gesehen, Berlin" he repeated with reverence, carefully folded the
passport and deferentially handed it back to me. I saw that I was
winning, so I sought to rise to the occasion.
"And now, Herr Commandant," I began, "can you suggest where I may
best begin my atrocity work tomorrow? Or first, would it not be
well for me to get a more complete idea of the invasion by seeing
on the map just what routes the Russians took coming in?"
He unfolded a large military map of peerless German accuracy and
regaled me for more than half an hour with the military features of
the campaign.
"Just tell me the worst things that the Russians have done," I
began, "and I will start investigating them tomorrow."
Then he anathematised the Russians and all things Russian, while
his orderly stood stiffly and admiringly at attention and the other
officers stopped in their tracks.
"First you should visit the ruins of the once beautiful old castle
at Labiau destroyed by the beasts," he thundered. "And they also
wantonly destroyed the magnificent old church near by."
He followed with an account of the history of the castle, and it
was clear that he was deeply affected by the loss of these
landscape embellishments which he had learned to love so much that
they became part of his life, and that their destruction deeply
enraged him against the enemy. Though I saw his point of view and
sympathised with him, I questioned him in the hope of learning of
some real atrocities. It was useless. Although he made general
charges against the Russians, he always reverted, when pinned down
to facts, with a fresh burst of anger, to the castle and church of
Labiau as his pet atrocity.
The orderly had just been commanded to take me on a search for
quarters for the night, when an automobile horn tooted beneath the
window. Heavy steps on the stairs; a Staff Officer entered the
room, looked surprised to see me, and asked who I was. The
Commandant justified his permission to let me remain by eulogising
the noble work upon which I was engaged, but though the Staff
Officer's objections were hushed, he did not enthuse over my coming.
With intent to convince him that I was already hard at work I told
him of the terrible destruction of the castle and church at Labiau,
which I would visit on the following day.
"I have a sergeant below who was there, and I will have him come
in," he said.
The sergeant entered, clicked his heels at attention; a doughty old
warrior, small and wiry, not a civilian thrust into field-grey, but
a soldier, every inch of him, a Prussian soldier, turned to stone
in the presence of his superior officers, his sharp clear eyes
strained on some point in space directly ahead. He might have
stepped out of the pages of the Seven Years' War.
Nobody spoke. The pale yellow light of the oil lamp on the
Commandants desk fell on the military faces, figures and trappings
of the men in the room. The shuffling tramp of soldiers in the
dark street below died away in the direction of the river. I felt
the military tenseness of the scene. I realised that I was inside
the German lines on a bluff that was succeeding but might collapse
at any moment.
Feeling that a good investigating committee should display
initiative I broke the silence by questioning the little sergeant,
and I began on a line which I felt would please the Commandant,
"You were at Labiau during the fighting?" I asked.
"I was, sir!"
He did not move a muscle except those necessary for speech. His
eyes were still rigid on that invisible something directly ahead.
He clearly was conscious of the importance of his position, as
informant to a stranger before his superior officers.
"I have heard that the beautiful old castle and the magnificent old
church were destroyed," I continued.
"You know of this, of course?"
"Ja, ja, that is true! Our wonderful artillery knocked them to
pieces when we drove the Russians out in panic!"
The sergeant was not the only one looking into space now. The
Staff Officer relieved the situation by dismissing him from the
room, whereupon the Commandant sharply bade the orderly conduct me
to my night lodgings.
"No Iron Cross for the little sergeant," I reflected, as we
stumbled through the cooked old streets in the dark. Is it any
wonder that the German Government insists that neutral
correspondents be chaperoned by someone who can skilfully show them
what is proper for them to see, and let them hear that which is
proper for them to hear?
Everywhere in rooms lighted by oil lamps soldiers sat talking,
drinking and playing cards. They were under every roof, and were
also bivouacked on the flats along the river. In all three inns
there was not even floor space available. The little brick town
hall, too, was crowded with soldiers.
At the pontoon bridge we were sharply challenged by a sentry. The
orderly answered and we passed on to a crowded beer hall above
which I was fortunate to secure a room. By the flickering light of
a candle I was conducted to a dusty attic furnished with
ferruginous junk in one corner and a dilapidated bed in another.
No such luxuries as bed clothing, of course; only a red mattress
which had not been benefited in the least by Russian bayonet
thrusts and sabre slashes in the quest of concealed treasure. I
could not wash unless I would go down to the river, for with the
blowing up of the bridges the water mains had also been destroyed.
The excellent organisation of the Germans was in evidence, however,
for during my stay I witnessed their prompt and efficient measures
to restore sanitation, in order to avert disease.
I went downstairs and entered the large beer room, hazy with
tobacco smoke, and filled for the most part with non-commissioned
officers. They, like everybody else in the room, seemed to have
heard of my arrival. I joined a group at a long table, a jovial
crowd of men who chaffed good naturedly one of their number who
said he wished to be home with his wife and little ones. They
looked at me and laughed, then pointing at him said, "He is no
warrior!"
But it was their talk about the Russians which, interested me most.
There was no hate in their speech, only indifference and contempt
for their Eastern enemy. Hindenburg was their hero, and they drank
toast after toast to his health. The Russian menace was over, they
felt; Britain and France would be easily smashed. They loved their
Army, their Emperor, and Hindenburg, and believed implicitly in all
three.
They sang a song of East Prussia and raised their foaming glasses
at the last two lines:
"Es trinkt der Mensch, es sauft das Pferd,
In Ostpreussen 1st das umgekehrt."
While they were singing a man in civilian clothes entered,
approached me with an air of authority, and announced in a loud
tone of voice that he had heard that I had said that I had come to
East Prussia in search of Russian atrocities.
"My name is Curtin," I began, introducing myself, although I felt
somewhat uneasy.
"Thomas!" was all he said.
"Good Heavens!" I thought. "Is this man looking for me? Am I in
for serious trouble now?"
Instead, however, of _Thomas_ being an interrogation as to my first
name, it was his simple introduction of himself--a strange
coincidence.
Although he was addressing his remarks to me, he exclaimed in a
tone which could be heard all over the room that he was Chief of
Police during the Russian occupation of Wehlau for three weeks, and
took great pride in asserting that he was the man who could tell me
all that I wished to know. He was highly elated because the
Russians had employed him, given him a whistle and invested him
with authority to summon aid if he detected any wrong-doing. They
had furthermore paid him for his services. Although he now
roundly tongue-lashed them in general terms, there was no definite
personal accusation that he could make against them.
He told me of a sergeant who went into a house, ordered a meal and
then demanded money, threatening the woman who had served him. A
lieutenant entered at this moment, learned the particulars of the
altercation, and struck the sergeant, whom he reproved for
disobeying commands for good conduct which had come from
Headquarters. "Just think of such lack of respect among officers,"
Thomas concluded. "One officer striking another for something done
against a person in an enemy country. That is bad for discipline.
Such a thing would never happen in the German Army."
The moral of the story as I saw it was quite different from what he
had intended it to be.
A few days later I was again in the crowded beer hall when Herr
Thomas entered. He liked to be in the limelight, and had a most
extraordinary manner of apparently addressing his conversation to
some selected individual, but carried it on in a tone which could
be heard throughout the entire room. The Russian whistle which he
still wore, and of which he was very proud, threatened to become a
millstone about his neck, for returning refugees were accusing him
of inefficiency during his reign, since they asserted that the
Russians had stolen their goods from under his very nose.
After he had hurled the usual invectives against the invaders for
my benefit, two splendid looking officers, captain and lieutenant,
both perfect gentlemen, said that they hoped that I would not
become so saturated with this talk that I would write unfairly
about the Russians. They added that they had been impressed by the
Russian officers in that region and the control which they had
exercised over their men.
Early next morning I met the big man with the black beard who was
either on my trail or had encountered me again by chance. When I
said that I was going to Allenburg, of the destruction of which I
had heard so much, he practically insisted that I go with him in
his carriage. A mysterious stranger in brown was with him, who
also assisted in the sight-seeing.
We road through a gently undulating farming and grazing country to
the Alle River, where we boarded a little Government tug which
threaded its way through dead cows, horses, pigs, dogs, and now and
then a man floating down the stream. Battered trenches, ruined
farmhouses, splintered woods, the hoof marks of Russian horses that
had forded the stream under German fire, showed that the struggle
had been intense along the river. The plan of battle formed in my
mind. It was clear that the Germans had made the western bank a
main line of defence, which, however, had been broken through.
"Just wait until we reach Allenburg," said the man in brown, "and
you will see what beasts the murdering Russians are. Wait until
you see how they have destroyed that innocent town!"
According to the course of the battle and the story of the Russian
destruction of Allenburg, I expected to find it on the western
bank, but to my great surprise it is on the eastern, with a
considerable stretch of road, separating it from the river. We
left the boat and walked along this road, on each side of which lay
willows in perfect rows where they had been skilfully felled by the
Russians. This sight evoked new assaults from my guides upon "the
beasts" whom they accused of wanton and wilful violation of the
arboreal beauty which the Allenburgers had loved.
I put myself in the place of the citizens of Allenburg, returning
to their little town devastated by war; I understood their feelings
and I sympathised with them. I was seeing the other side of
Germany's page of conquest. The war map of Europe shows that she
has done most of the invading, and during all the days I spent in
the Fatherland I never heard a single word of pity for the people
of the regions overrun by her armies--except, of course, the
Pecksniffian variety used by her diplomats. It was now any rare
privilege to return with German refugees to _their_ ruined country,
and they vied with one another when they talked to me in the
presence of my guides in accusing the Russians of every crime under
the sun. The war had been brought home to them, but in the
meantime other Germans had brought the war home even more forcibly
to the citizens of Belgium and northern France, but the thing could
not balance in the minds of those affected.
I was conducted to a combination home and chemist's shop, the upper
part of which had been wrecked by a shell. The Russians had looted
the place of chemicals and had searched through all the letters in
the owner's desk. These they had thrown upon the floor instead of
putting them back neatly in the drawers.
My guides laid great stress on such crimes, but I took mental note
of certain other things which were not pointed out to me. The
beasts--as they always called them--had been quartered here for
three weeks, but not a mirror had been cracked, not a scratch
marred the highly polished black piano, and the well-stocked,
exquisitely carved bookcase was precisely as it had been before the
first Cossack patrol entered the city.
The owner viewed his loss philosophically. "When we have placed a
war indemnity upon Russia I shall be paid in full," he declared in
a voice of supreme confidence.
My guides never gave me an opportunity to talk alone with the few
civilians in the place, and at the sausage and beer lunch the
conversation was based on the "wanton destruction by the beasts of
an innocent town."
After they had drunk so much beer that they both fell asleep I
slipped quietly away and went about amid the ruins. I came upon
human bodies burned to a crisp. Heaps of empty cartridge shells
littered the ground, which I examined with astonishment for they
were Russian, not German, shells, and must have been used by men
defending the town.
I met a pretty girl of seventeen drawing water at a well, who had
remained during the three weeks that the Russians were there to
care for her invalid father, and had not suffered the slightest
insult. Yet all my informants had told me that the Russians had
spared none of the weaker sex who had remained in their path.
Further investigations had revealed that the Russians had not fired
a shot upon the town, but that the Germans had destroyed it driving
them out.
I entered a little Roman Catholic church in the undamaged section
of the town and noted with interest that nothing had apparently
been disturbed--this the more significant since the Russians hold a
different faith.
I walked back towards the river and strolled through the neat,
well-shaded, churchyard to the ruins of the large church, the
dominating feature of the town. It was clear from what was left
that the lines of the body and the spire had been of rare beauty
for such an insignificant place as Allenburg.
"Too bad!" I remarked to a white-haired old man who was sitting on
a bench mournfully contemplating the ruins.
"Sad, so sad!" he said in a voice full of grief. "And it seems
sadder that it had to be done by our own people," he added.
"Were you here during the fighting?" I asked.
"I was," he answered. "I would rather die than leave this place,
where I was born and where I have always lived."
I returned to the anxious guides add told them that I had visited
the ruins of the church.
"A destruction which could serve no military purpose," declared the
man in brown. "You see the methods of the people Germany is
fighting."
I expressed a desire to seek only one more thing, the church on the
road to Friedland which had been destroyed by the Russians after
the sixty maidens had been driven into it. We went to it, but,
alas! it had not been disturbed in the least. I somehow felt that
my guides saw the lack of destruction with genuine regret. The big
man with the black beard was at a loss to reconcile the story he
told me at Konigsberg with the actual facts found on the spot.
"Somebody must have made a mistake," was all he said.
My last view of Allenburg was from across the river with the long
rays of the setting sun burnishing the ruins of the once beautiful
church, the church I saw months later on the screen in the London
display room, the church that has been shown all over the world as
evidence of Russian methods in war.
I went all through East Prussia studying first hand the effects of
the great campaign. My luck increased from day to day. I secured
a military pass to visit all hospitals in the XXth Army Corps,
which aided my investigations not a little. The prejudice which I
had against the Russians died in East Prussia. It was buried
forever the following winter when I was with the Russian Army in
the memorable retreat through the Bukowina. In East Prussia I was
in an entirely different position from a man investigating
conditions in Belgium, for I was in the German's own country after
he had driven out the invader. I tried to see some youth whose
hand had been cut off, but could not find a single case, although,
everybody had heard of such mutilations. The fact that no doctor
whom I questioned knew of any case was sufficient refutation, since
a person whose hand had been cut off would need something more than
a bandage tied on at home.
When the Russians entered the province they struck yellow and black
posters everywhere announcing that it was annexed to Russia. In
view of this the Russian officers were instructed to restrain their
men and to treat the natives well. Isolated cases of violence, for
the most part murder and robbery of the victim, had occurred where
men had broken away from restraint, but they were surprisingly few.
After I returned to Berlin I met an American correspondent who was
in East Prussia when I was. His sympathies were pro-German, but he
was an, open and fair-minded man, who, like me, had left Berlin
with a deep feeling against the Russians, thanks to the excellent
German propaganda. "I went especially to get some good stories of
Russian atrocities," he said. "I thought that every mile would be
blood-marked with evidence, but I came back defeated. Some petty
larceny and robbery, a Red Cross flag torn to shreds by a Russian
shell, two old men murdered and robbed by Cossacks, and a woman in
the hospital at Soldau, who had been outraged by five Cossacks, was
all that I could find, even though I was aided by the German
Government."
My own first-hand investigations convinced me that it would be
difficult for any army in the world to conduct a cleaner campaign
than Russia conducted in her first invasion of East Prussia. I
remind the reader that I am speaking of the _first_ invasion, for I
have no personal knowledge of the second. Subsequently in Germany
when. I spoke of the matter I was always told that it was the
_second_ invasion which was so bad. Perhaps! But I had been
fooled when Berlin cried wolf the first time.
By a stroke of fortune while in East Prussia I became "assistant"
for two days to a Government moving picture photographer who had a
pass for himself and assistant in those happy days of inexactitude.
We formed the kind of close comradeship which men form who are
suffocated but unhurt by a shell which kills and maims others all
about them. That had been our experience. He had, moreover, been
over much of the ground covered by me behind the front.
"I am instructed to get four kinds of pictures," he explained.
"(1) Pictures which show German patriotism and unity. (2) Pictures
which show German organisation and efficiency. (3) Pictures which
show evidence of humanity in the German Army. (4) Pictures which
show destruction by the enemy. Some of my pictures are kept by the
_Kriegsministerium_ for purposes of studying the war. The greater
part, however, are used for propaganda both at home and abroad.
Furthermore, I must be careful to keep an accurate record of what
each picture is. The pictures are then arranged and given suitable
titles in Berlin,"
I thought of all this in the London display-room when the familiar
picture of the ruined church flashed before my eyes with the title
_Beautiful Church at Allenburg Destroyed by the Russians_--a
deliberate lie on the film.
I have nothing to say against the Germans for knocking their own
town to pieces or against the British and French for knocking
French towns to pieces. That is one of the misfortunes of war.
The point is, that the propaganda department of the Wilhelmstrasse
fully understands that people who do not see the war, especially
neutrals, are shocked at the destruction of churches. The Germans
have been taught an unpleasant lesson in this in the case of
Rheims. Therefore they answer by falsifying a film when it suits
their purpose with just as little compunction as they repudiate
promises.
"A little thing!" you might say.
That adds to its importance, for it is attention to detail which
characterises modern Germany. It is the subtle things which are
difficult to detect. The Government neglects nothing which will
aid in the ownership of public opinion at home and the influencing
of neutrals throughout the world.