THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW
The handling of the always difficult question of the eternal
feminine was firmly tackled by the German Government almost
immediately after the outbreak of war.
To understand the differences between, the situation here and in,
Germany it is necessary first to have a little understanding of the
German woman and her status. With us, woman is treated as
something apart, something on a pedestal. In Germany and in
Austria the situation is reversed. The German man uses his home as
a place to eat and sleep in, and be waited upon. The attitude of
the German woman towards the man is nearly always that of the
obedient humble servant to command. If a husband and wife are out
shopping it is often enough the wife who carries the parcels. In
entering any public place the middle-class man walks first and the
wife dutifully follows. When leaving, it is the custom for the man
to be helped with his coat before the woman. Indeed, she is
generally left to shift for herself.
Woman is the under sex, the very much under sex, in Germany,
regarded by the man as his plaything or as his cook-wife and nurse
of his children; and she will continue to be the under sex until
she develops pride enough to assert herself. She accepts her
inferiority without murmur; indeed, she often impresses one as
delighting in it.
It is no dishonour for a girl of the middle or lower class to have
a liaison with some admirer, particularly if he is a student or a
young officer; in fact, it is quite the proper thing for him to be
welcomed by her parents, although it is perfectly well understood
that he has not the slightest idea of marrying her. The girls are
doing their part to help along the doctrine of free love, the
preaching and practice of which are so greatly increasing in the
modern German State.
After marriage the woman's influence in the world is nearly zero.
The idolatry of titles is carried to an extreme in Germany which
goes from the pathetic to the ludicrous. One does not address a
German lady by her surname, as Frau Schmidt, but by her husband's
title or position, as Frau Hauptmann (Mrs. Captain), Frau Doktor,
Frau Professor, Frau Bakermeister (Mrs. Bakershopowner), or even
Frau Schornsteinfegermeister (Mrs. Master Chimneysweep), although
her husband may be master over only some occasional juvenile
assistant. In military social functions, and they are of daily
occurrence in garrison towns, Mrs. Colonel naturally takes
precedence in all matters over the wives and daughters of other
members of the regiment. Contemplate the joyful existence of a
vivacious American or British girl, accustomed to the respectful
consideration of the other sex, married to a young lieutenant and
ruled over by all the wives of his superior officers!
To try to marry money is considered praiseworthy and correct in
German military circles. In Prussia a lieutenant in peace times
receives for the first three years 60 pounds a year, from the
fourth to the sixth year 85 pounds, from the seventh to the ninth
year 99 pounds, from the tenth to the twelfth year 110 pounds, and
after the twelfth year 130 pounds a year. A captain receives from
the first to the fourth year 170 pounds, from the fifth to the
eighth year 230 pounds, and the ninth year and after 355 pounds.
Thus it is that no young lady, however ugly, need be without an
officer husband if she has money enough to buy one. If he has not
a private income, the Government forbids him to marry until his pay
is sufficient. That point is seldom reached before he is
thirty-five years of age. Marriage helps him out of the
difficulty, and since the army is so deified in the Fatherland that
the highest ambition of nearly every girl is to marry an officer,
his opportunity of trading shoulder-knots for a dowry is excellent.
The efforts of some women to increase their fortune sufficiently to
enable them to invest in a military better-half are pathetic from
an Anglo-Saxon point of view. One woman who requested an interview
with me said that as I was an American correspondent I might be
able to advise her how she could dispose of a collection of
autographs to some American millionaire. She explained that her
financial condition was not so good as formerly, but she was
desperate to better it as she was in love with an officer, who,
although he loved her, would have to marry another if she could not
increase her income. The autographs she showed me were from Prince
Henry of Prussia, Prince Bulow and other notables, and most of them
were signed to private letters.
Take the story of Marie and Fritz, both of whom I knew in a
garrison city in eastern Germany. Nothing could illustrate better
the difference between the German attitude and our own on certain
matters. She was a charming, lovable girl of nineteen engaged to
an impecunious young lieutenant a few years older. They moved in
the best circle in the _Garnisonstadt_.
Two years after their engagement her father lost heavily in
business and could no longer afford to settle 5,000 pounds on her
to enable them to marry.
It mattered not; theirs was true love, and they would wait until
his pay was sufficient,
All went well until another girl, as unattractive as Marie was
charming, decided that she would try to buy Fritz as a husband.
After four months of her acquaintance he found time at the end of a
day's drill to write a few lines informing the young lady, nine
years of whose life he had monopolised, of his intention to marry
the new rival. Life became black for Marie, the more as she
realised that she and Fritz had only to wait a little longer and
his pay would be sufficient.
How would Fritz be regarded in this country, and how was he
regarded according to German standards? That is what makes the
story worth telling. With us such a man as Fritz would have been
cut socially and there would have been great sympathy for the sweet
girl whose years had been wasted. But on the other side of the
Rhine women exist solely for the comfort of men. In militaristic
Germany Fritz lost not an iota of the esteem of his friends of
either sex; as for Marie, she had failed in a fair game, that was
all. The girl's mother even excused his conduct by saying that he
was ambitious to get ahead in the army. Like most of her sex in
Germany she has been reared to venerate the uniform so much that
anything done by the man who wears it is quite excusable. Indeed,
Marie's mother still listens with respectful approval at
_Kaffeeklatsch_ to Fritz's mother when she boasts of what her son
is doing as a major over Turkish troops.
German women have many estimable qualities, but a proper amount of
independence and pride is noticeably foreign to their natures. Is
it surprising that the American girl of German parents requires
only a very brief visit to the Fatherland to convince her that the
career of the _Hausfrau_ is not attractive.
On the whole, the efforts of the German woman have almost doubled
the national output of war energy. Except in Berlin few are idle,
and these only among the newly-rich class. The women of the upper
classes, both in Germany and Austria, are either in hospitals or
are making comforts for the troops. Women have always worked
harder in Germany and at more kinds of work than in Britain or the
States, and what, judging by London illustrated papers, seems to be
a novelty--the engagement of women in agricultural and other
pursuits--is just the natural way of things in Germany. It should
always be remembered, when estimating German man-power and German
ability to hold out, that the bulk of the work of civil life is
being done by prisoners and women. A German woman and a prisoner
of war, usually a Russian, working side by side in the fields is a
common sight throughout Germany.
It is the boast of the Germans that their building constructions
are going on as usual. I have myself seen plenty of evidence of
this, such as the grading of the Isar at Munich, the completion of
the colossal railway station at Leipzig, the largest in Germany,
the construction of the new railway station at Gorlitz, the
complete building since the war of the palatial Hotel Astoria at
Leipzig, also two gigantic new steel and concrete palaces in the
same city for the semi-annual fair, the erection of a new
Hamburg-America Line office building adjacent to the old one and
dwarfing it. The slaughter-house annexes, contracted for in days
of peace, continue their slow growth, although Berlin has no
present need for such extension in these half-pound-of-meat-a-week
times.
The construction of the Nord-Sud Bahn of the underground railway,
for linking up the north and south sections of Berlin has proceeded
right along, the women down in the pit with picks and shovels doing
the heavy work of navvies. That department of the German
Government whose duty it is to enlighten Neutrals is not too proud
of the fact, surprisingly enough. An American kinematograph
operator, Mr. Edwards, of Mr. Hearst's papers, was desirous of
taking a film of these women navvies--heavy, sad creatures they
are. The Government stepped in and suggested that, although they
had no objection to a personally conducted and posed picture--in
which the women would no doubt smile to order--they could not
permit the realities of this unwomanly task to be shown in the form
of a truth-telling moving picture.
German authorities are utilising every kind of woman. The social
evil, against which the Bishop of London and others are agitating
in England, was effectively dealt with by the German authorities,
not only for the sake of the health of the troops, but in the
interests of munitions. Women of doubtful character were first
told that if found in the neighbourhood of barracks or in cafes
they were liable to be arrested, and when so found were immediately
removed to their native places, and put into the nearest cartridge
filling or other shop. The double effect has been an increased
output of munitions for the army and increased health for the
soldier, and such scenes as one may witness in Piccadilly or other
London streets at night have been effectively squelched by the
strong Prussian hand, with benefit to all concerned.
I am not speaking of German morals in general, which are notorious.
I merely state the practical way the Germans turn the women of the
street into useful munition makers.
The lot of the German woman has been much more difficult than the
lot of her sister in the Allied countries, for upon her has fallen
the great and increasing burden of the struggle to get enough to
eat for her household. In practically all classes of Germany it
has been the custom of the man to come home from his work, whether
in a Government office, bank, or factory, for his midday meal,
usually followed by an hour's sleep.
The German man is often a greedy fellow as regards meals. For him
special food is always provided, and the wife and children sit
round patiently watching him eat it. He expects special food
to-day. The soldier, of course, is getting it, and properly, but
the stay-at-homes, who are men over forty-five or lads under
nineteen, still get the best of such food as can be got.
Exceptions to the nineteen to forty-five rule are very few indeed.
National work in Germany means war work pure and simple, and now
the women are treated exactly as the men in this respect, except
that they will not be sent to the front.
In January, 1917, Germany at length began formally to organise the
women of the country to help in the war. Each of the six chief
army "commands" throughout the Empire now has a woman attached to
it as Directress of the "Division for Women's Service." Hitherto,
as in England, war work by women has been entirely voluntary. The
Patriotic Auxiliary Service (Mass Levy) Law is not compulsory so
far as female labour is concerned. German women, however, having
proclaimed that they regard themselves liable for national service
under the spirit if not the letter of the law, it has finally been
decided to mobilise their services on a more systematic basis than
in the past.
None of the countless revolutions in German life produced by the
war outstrips in historical importance this official linking up of
women with the military machine. Equally striking is the fact that
the directresses of Women's Service, who hold office in Berlin,
Breslau, Magdeburg, Coblenz, Konigsberg, and Karlsruhe, are all
feminist leaders and promoters of the women's emancipation
movement. The directress for the Mark of Brandenburg (the
Berlin-Potsdam district) is an able Jewess named Dr. Alice Salomon,
who is one of the pioneers of the German women's movement. The
main object of the "Women's Service" Department is to organise
female labour for munitions and other work from which men can be
liberated for the fighting line.
I have nothing but praise and admiration for the way in which the
German women have thrown themselves into this struggle. Believing
implicitly as they have been told--and with the exception of the
lower classes, after more than two years of war, they believe
everything the Government tells them--that this war was carefully
prepared by "Sir Grey" (Lord Grey of Fallodon), "the man without a
conscience," as he is called in Germany, they feel that they are
helping to fight a war for the defence of their homes and their
children, and the cynics at the German Foreign Office, who
manufacture their opinions for them, rub this in in sermons from
the pastors, novels, newspaper articles, faked cinema films,
garbled extracts from Allied newspapers, books, and bogus
photographs, Reichstag orations by Bethmann-Hollweg, and the rest
of it, not forgetting the all-important lectures by the professors,
who are unceasing in their efforts all over Germany.
To show how little the truth of the war is understood by the German
women, I may mention an incident that occurred at the house of
people of the official class at which I was visiting one day. The
eldest son, who was just back from the Somme trenches, suffering
from slight shell-shock, brought home a copy of a London
illustrated paper, which had been thrown across the trenches by the
English. In this photograph there was a picture of a long
procession of German prisoners captured by the English. The
daughter of the house, a well-read girl of nineteen, blazed up at
the sight of this photograph, and showed it to her mother, who was
equally surprised. The son of the house remarked, "Surely you know
the English have taken a great many prisoners?"
His mother, realising her mistake, looked confused, and simply
said, "I didn't think." In other words, the obvious fact that
Germans were sometimes captured had never been pointed out to her
by the Government, and most Germans are accustomed to think only
what they are officially told to think.
While there are an increasing number of doubters among the German
males as to the accuracy of statements issued by the Government, in
the class with which I mostly came into contact in Germany, the
women are blindfold and believe all they are told. So strong, too,
is the influence of Government propaganda on the people in Germany
that in a town where I met two English ladies married to Germans,
they believed that Germany had Verdun in her grasp, had annihilated
the British troops (mainly black) on the Somme, had defeated the
British Fleet in the battle of Skagerrak (Jutland), and reduced the
greater part of the fortifications, docks, and munition factories
of London to ruins by Zeppelins.
Their anguish for the fate of their English relations was sincere,
and they were intensely hopeful that Britain would accept any sort
of terms of peace in order to prevent the invasion which some
people in Germany still believe possible.
At the beginning of the war the click of the knitting needle was
heard everywhere; shop-girls knitted while waiting for customers,
women knitted in trams and trains, at theatres, in churches, and,
of course, in the home. The knitting is ceasing now for the very
practical reason that the military authorities have commandeered
all the wool for the clothing of the soldiery. A further reason
for the stoppage of such needlework is the fact that women are
engaged in countless forms of definite war work.
Upon the whole it is beyond question that the German women are not
standing the losses as well as the British women. I have been
honoured in England by conversations with more than one lady who
has lost many dear ones. The attitude is quieter here than in
Germany, and is not followed by the peace talk which such events
produce in German households.
What surprises me in England is the fact that the word "peace" is
hardly ever mentioned anywhere, whereas in any German railway train
or tramcar the two dominant words are Friede (peace) and Essen
(food). The peace is always a German idea of peace--for the
extreme grumblers do not talk freely in public--and the food talk
is not always the result of the shortage, but of the great
difficulty in getting what is to be obtained, together with the
increasing monotony of the diet.
It must not be supposed, however, that the life of feminine Germany
is entirely a gloomy round of duty and suffering. Among the women
of the poor, things are as bad as they can be. They are getting
higher wages than ever, but the food usury and the blockade rob
them of the increase.
The middle and upper classes still devote a good deal of time to
the feminine pursuits of shopping and dressing. The outbreak of
war hit the fashions at a curious moment. Paris had just abandoned
the tight skirt, and a comical struggle took place between the
Government and those women who desired to be correctly gowned.
The Government said, "In order to avoid waste of material, you must
stick to the tight skirt," and the amount of cloth allowed was
carefully prescribed. Women's desire to be in the mode was,
however, too powerful for even Prussianism. Copies of French
fashion magazines were smuggled in from Paris through Switzerland,
passed from dressmaker to dressmaker, and house to house, and
despite the military instructions and the leather shortage, wide
skirts and high boots began to appear everywhere,
This feminine ebullition was followed by an appeal from the
Government to abandon all enemy example and to institute new German
fashions of their own making. Models were exhibited in shop
windows of what were called the "old and elegant Viennese
fashions." These, however, were found to be great consumers of
material, and the women still continued to imitate Paris.
The day before I left Berlin I heard an amusing conversation in the
underground railway between two women, one of whom was talking
about her hat. She told her friend that she found the picture of
the hat in a smuggled fashion paper, and had it made at her
milliner's and she was obviously very pleased with her taste.
The women in the munition factories, who number millions, wear a
serviceable kind of uniform overall.
The venom of the German women in regard to the war is quite in
contrast to the feeling expressed by English women. They have read
a great deal about British and American women and they cordially
detest them. Their point of view is very difficult to explain.
When I have told German women that in many States in my country
women have votes, their reply is, "How vulgar!" Their attitude
towards the whole question of women's franchise is that it is a
form of Anglo-Saxon lack of culture and lack of authority.
The freedom accorded to English and American girls is entirely
misunderstood. A Dutch girl who, in the presence of some German
ladies, expressed admiration for certain aspects of English
feminine life, was fiercely and venomously attacked by that
never-failing weapon, the German woman's tongue. The poor thing,
who mildly expressed the view that hockey was a good game for
girls, and the fine complexions and elegant walk of English women
were due to outdoor sports, was reduced almost to tears.
The intolerance of German women is almost impossible to express. I
know a case of one young girl, a German-American, whose parents
returned to Hamburg, who declined to repeat the ridiculous German
formula, "Gott strafe England," and stuck to her point, with the
result that she was not invited to that circle again.
To the cry "Gott strafe England" has been added "Gott strafe
Amerika," the latter being as popular with the German women as the
German men. The pastors, professors, and the Press have told the
German women that their husbands and sons and lovers are being
killed by American shells. A man who ought to know better, like
Prince Rupert of Bavaria, made a public statement that half of the
Allies' ammunition is American. After the British and French
autumn offensive of 1915 the feeling against America on the part of
German women became so intense that the American flag had to be
withdrawn from the American hospital at Munich, although that
hospital, supported by German-American funds, has done wonderful
work for the German wounded.
Arguments with German women about the war are absolutely futile.
They follow the war very closely after their own method, and
believe that any defeats, such as on the Somme or Verdun, are
tactical rearrangements of positions, dictated by the wisdom of the
General Staff, and so long as no Allied troops are upon German soil
so long will the German populace believe in the invincibility of
its army. I am speaking always of the middle and upper classes,
who are on the whole, but with increasing exceptions, as intensely
pro-war as the lower classes are anti-war.
The modern German Bible is the _Zeitung_ (the rough translation of
which is "newspaper") and German women are even more fanatical than
the men, if possible, in their worship of it.
On one occasion, when I candidly remarked that von Papen and Boy-Ed
came back to the Fatherland for certain unbecoming acts, some of
which I enumerated, a Frau Hauptmann jumped to her feet and, after
the customary brilliant manner of German argument, shrieked that I
was a liar. She declared that their _Zeitung_ had said nothing
about the charges I mentioned, therefore they, were not true. She
furthermore promised to report me to Colonel ------ at the
_Kriegsministerium_ (War Office), and she kept her word.
The neglect, and, in some cases refusal, to attend the British
wounded by German nurses are a sign both of their own intensity of
feeling in regard to the war and their entirely different
mentality. Again and again I have heard German women say, "In the
event of a successful German invasion of England the women will
accompany the men, and teach the women of England that war is war."
Their remarks in regard to the women of my own country are equally
offensive. Indeed, States that Germany regards as neutral, and who
are treated by the officially controlled German Press with a
certain amount of respect, are loathed by German women. Their
attitude is that all who are not on their side are their enemies.
American women who are making shells for the British, French, and
Russians are just as much the enemies of Germany as the Allied
soldiers and sailors. One argument often used is that to be
strictly neutral America should make no munitions at all, but it
would not be so bad, say the Germans, if half the American
ammunition went to Germany and half to the Allies.
I lost my temper once by saying to one elderly red-faced Frau,
"Since you have beaten the British at sea, why don't you send your
ships to fetch it?" "Our fleet," she said, "is too busy choking
the British Fleet in its safe hiding places to afford time to go to
America. You will see enough of our fleet one day, remember that!"
Summing up this brief and very sketchy analysis of German
femininity in the war, I reiterate views expressed on previous
visits to Germany, that German women are not standing the anxiety
of the war as well as those of France and Britain.
They have done noble work for the Fatherland, but the grumblings of
the lower third of the population are now such as have not been
heard since 1848. German officials in the Press Department of the
Foreign Office try to explain the unrest away to foreign
correspondents like myself, but many thinking Germans are surprised
and troubled by this unexpected manifestation on the part of those
who for generations have been almost as docile and easily managed
as children.