floor back, after locking three steel partitions behind us. We finally
came to the cell rooms and the guard rang for the key. After a time, a
hoary relic of the Napoleonic days shuffled in and with great ceremony
produced the fatal steel and turned the lock. Whereupon I entered and
automatically the door was closed behind me. This cell was about five
feet wide and eight feet long. The bed, or rather the bunk, folded up
against the wall and was locked. It couldn’t be opened, although I tried
many times. The walls were blank and bare and at the rear was a high
barred window with a slanting projection which made it even impossible
to look out. The door was massive steel and one look at it convinced me
that I was in a real cell in a real jail and I was a real jail bird. Not
having had a great deal of experience with jails, I naturally thought it
was a horrible place, although I am told it was really a very nice jail,
as far as jails are concerned, but at that, it was damp, musty and cold.
At the door was an electric push button and since there were no
telephones or servants in attendance, I naturally supposed this was to
call the attendant. Practically exhausted from my fever and the long
walk, I sat down on a wobbly old stool and stared at the wall, gradually
getting physically weaker, but seemingly mentally more alert. In a
moment I began to chill and I realized that I would have to lie down.
The bed was locked. The cold stone floor was not inviting so I tried to
ring the buzzer and I buzzed intermittently for about five minutes.
There was no response. It was a desperate situation. I had to lie down
and still I must have some covers, so I wedged a match in the buzzer in
order that it would keep on buzzing until some one answered. Then from
sheer exhaustion and faintness I fell to the floor. This continued
buzzing soon brought the attendant up and, believe me, he was very, very
peeved. He came in, snatched the match from the push button and began to
swear and make some furious ejaculations which I couldn’t understand and
it wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. In reply to my insistent
demands that he unlock the bed at once, he did nothing but say, “Nein,
Nein, Seben Heur,” that is, “No, not until seven o’clock.” I asked him
to send for the prison officer but he insisted that the officer would
not come up. I told him that I was an officer myself and that I was sick
and had a right to see an officer. He did nothing but slam the door in
my face. Something told me I was on my last leg and I must soon get out
of that place or something would happen that I would never remember. So
summoning every ounce of my remaining strength, shivering and chilly, I
took my note book and wrote an official protest couched in language not
proper for publication, addressing it to the Spanish Minister. It was a
last hunch. When I finished, I again put a match in the buzzer. This
time the old boy was certainly fierce but he had nothing on me. I was in
the same condition myself. Like two tigers we came together. He
cautiously opened the door for he knew from my previous attitude that I
was liable to make a jump at his throat. Reaching his hand back to his
hip so that if I started anything he could draw his gun, he demanded to
know what I meant by ringing the buzzer again. Insane with rage and
raging fever, I shook my fist in his face and said, “For the Officer,”
whereupon I madly slapped myself on the chest and said, “Ich bin ein
Officeren Amerikaner,” which, if correct, is to say, “I am an American
Officer and must be treated as such.” Reluctantly and disgustedly, he
took the paper and started to pull the door shut again. I staggered
forward to impress upon him the fact that I needed medical attention at
once. Too late, the door was closed. Whether from pure anger or from
actual exhaustion, I don’t know, but for some reason I simply went down
to take the count.
I was awakened by some one shaking me. Dazed, I got up. Three hours had
elapsed. With head swimming, I looked around. Before me was the prison
attendant, the Sergeant interpreter of the Camp and the Commanding
Officer of the Camp with whom I had had the set-to that morning. It was
another court but this time the ceremony on my part was lacking for I
sat on the stool. The Captain straightened and again stood stiffly at
attention, while the Sergeant interpreted: “I, Antonio Mark
Snicklefritz, Captain Commanding the Prison Camp at Landshut, am
directed by the General Commanding the German Military District of
Münich to inform you, Elmer Haslett, Oberleutnant, Air Service, American
Army, that the General has decreed that you be released from solitary
imprisonment until further orders.” As expected, the “further orders”
never came.
XIII
“COMING OUT”
The modern débutante looks forward with no little anxiety to her “Coming
Out.” It is naturally quite an event for, veritably, she is imprisoned,
as it were, by the conventions which do not permit her to take her place
among the friends of the inner circle until she has been formally
presented by her “coming out.”
So, the prisoners of war, even after the Armistice, were withheld from
their friends until the “coming out,” which consisted of the formalities
of turning the prisoners over to their friends. Naturally, it was quite
an event. But, believe me, no débutante could possibly anticipate her
“coming out” with the keenness and anxiety that the American prisoners
of war could theirs. We, too, had planned it all—of course, not so much
as to the clothes we would wear, but more especially as to the things we
would eat.
Several days previous to the signing of the Armistice, we heard that the
people of Bavaria had revolted, and that the will of the “Soldiers and
Workmen” was paramount. Although locked in the confines of a prison
camp, the proverbial little bird told us that something was in the
air—indeed, one felt it in the atmosphere—for, if a new republic was
formed, they were certainly not the enemies of the United States, so we
would indeed soon be “coming out.”
The regulation cap of the German officer and soldier is adorned by two
buttons in the front center—the top and larger button having the colors
of the Imperial German Government in the form of a miniature cocarde,
while the lower and smaller button is made up of the colors of the
German State from which the officer or soldier hails. Thus, all the
soldiers at our camp had the large German button and the smaller one of
green and white, the colors of the State of Bavaria.
One day, around the first of November, we noticed that all the officers
and soldiers of the camp, including the hardboiled Prussian Captain, had
taken off the prominent German button. Then there was a definite
certainty that the revolution was on. We did not know how loyal to the
new Government the soldiers were going to be, and we were rather
concerned as to what the attitude of the new Bavarian Republic would be
toward us, for we had heard nothing about our release. All sorts of
rumors began floating around that camp—some to the effect that the
soldiers and workmen were coming up to mob us for being Americans,
others, more popular, that they were coming up to release us, others
that we were going to die of slow starvation on account of the shortage
of food, and still others that we were going to be sent to Switzerland
for protection.
With all these things before us, a vigilance committee was formed, and
we all got together and had a meeting. “Jimmy” Hall, being the senior
officer present, automatically became chairman. So, the big question was
“For whom would we declare?”—the old German régime or the new Bavarian
revolutionary party. Naturally, on such a momentous subject, we had
quite a number of bursts of oratory, and a lot of arguments were laid
down on both sides of the question, but, at the same time, neither of us
knew anything about either of them. We viewed it from an economical and
military phase, but most of all, for the present at least, we looked at
it from the standpoint of “things to eat.”
But judged by the solemnity and seriousness of the conference, the
destiny of the world was seemingly at stake, so we asked one bird, who
was sort of a jay, what he thought about it. “Mr. Chairman,” he said
seriously, “I make a resolution that we declare that we are for the
party that gets us out of Germany the fastest, and we don’t give a damn
which one it is.” At that, the meeting almost ended in a riot, though in
my mind the jay had absolutely the correct solution. Finally, it was
decided that we would leave our fate to the council of three—the three
most influential prisoners in camp, the controllers of the food supply,
namely, the Red Cross Committee.
Shortly, conditions began to get real tense around there, and we
actually didn’t know what was going to happen for, about our camp, the
prison authorities had hoisted the red flag of Socialism. The few days
during which that flag stayed there were the only days of my life that I
have not been a Republican—I was a Socialist like all the rest of our
boys, from force of circumstances.
Amid all this excitement, we were summoned together, and the official
representative of the new revolutionary party came up to address us.
Amid the quietness of death, the great man announced to us that he was
now the great representative of the Great Revolutionary Party, and that
the Great People of the Greater State of Bavaria had had a greatest
revolution—not a bloody revolution like the Russians, but a quiet,
orderly revolution, for realizing that the old government had failed to
take care of the needs of the common people, the soldiers and the
workmen of Bavaria had gotten together and had overthrown the monarchy.
The outcome had been the ideal democratic form of government—a
Republic—and the revolution had been entirely successful, for the
soldiers and workmen were in complete authority and command and the old
régime had been entirely displaced. “Indeed,” he said, “everybody
realized the inevitable and made no attempt to stop the onward movement,
and such a thing as mob violence or shooting has been unheard of.”
He had just started on his next sentence when, down in the town, a
machine gun sputtered. We had been hearing pot shots occasionally for
some time. So we all began to laugh. It was a rather embarrassing
situation, and the old boy immediately modified his statement to the
effect that in rare instances there had been a little shooting. Then he
went on and blabbered about fifteen minutes more as to the aims of the
new Government, what it had in mind, how it wished especially to be the
friend of America and the good things it was going to do for the
prisoners, and, as a Republic, the prisoners would, of course, be
released. Here was the one thing that interested us, so, at this with
one voice the prisoner colony responded, as if to a yell leader, “When!”
The great man was almost taken off his feet by the anxious débutantes
anticipating the “coming out.”
“Of course,” he went on graciously, “those are details that will have to
be arranged later.” Our release may have been simply regarded as a
detail to him, but we held it much more important. In fact, the
situation looked so serious to us that only the continual talk of the
general armistice kept the bunch from attempting a wholesale “coming
out.”
Finally, the armistice came, and that day was the greatest of my whole
life—not so much for the reason that I would soon be released, but
because I was in a position to observe the Germans in absolute misery. I
have heard a lot of people say that their arrogance was not affected by
the armistice, but that is all bunk. They were humiliated to the
extreme—they whined around like a pen of stuck pigs—they thought the
terms of the armistice were terrible, inhumane, and impossible. As
usual, they blamed it all on England. I could have stayed there for
months just enjoying their misery in crying over the terrible terms laid
down.
I was getting good and sick of the Germans, as such, for they had worked
some good gags on us at that camp at Landshut. They took all our
clothes, including shoes, to have them fumigated in order, as they said,
to safeguard the health of the camp, and, as a substitute, they issued
us old Russian prisoner uniforms. For shoes, they gave us some toy paper
bedroom slippers, which could be bought in an American novelty store for
a dime. To our surprise, in a few days these clothes were returned to
us, unfumigated, in fact, untouched except thoroughly searched. It was
the typical shell game under the guise of Kultur, for, at the end of the
month, we found that we had been charged three dollars for the said
shoes, and, since the Germans controlled the prisoners’ exchequer, the
transaction would not permit of any argument.
Another time, I was soaked outright. The officer at my previous prison
camp at Karlsruhe gave me a receipt for my fast dwindling purse. When I
presented this receipt at Landshut, the authorities stated that they had
no record of it, but that, if I would turn over this receipt to them,
they would send it to Karlsruhe for verification. Like a boob, I turned
the receipt over, and I have never seen it or the money since. I
demanded the money several times afterwards, but demands, when a
prisoner, do not carry a great deal of pull.
Shortly after the armistice, the orders came for us to be taken to
another camp, preparatory to our “coming out.” Our Red Cross food supply
had been running short for some time, and, just the way things always
happen, a carload of food arrived for us the day we started for the new
camp. On our trip, they sent the customary number of guards along,
including the sergeant interpreter of the camp, whose name was Kapp, and
who was in charge of the party. The railways were congested, as they
usually were in Germany, so Herr Kapp sat in our compartment, and his
presence eliminated the necessity of the objectionable guards.
Herr Kapp was a well-to-do German of the middle class, an artist by
profession, well educated, and about forty years old. The only objection
I had to Kapp was that, like most other Germans, he was an habitual
liar. However, he tried to be a good fellow, which was decidedly in his
favor, and there was one other good thing about him—his unusually good
sense of humor.
Realizing the uniqueness of our position, which happens only once in a
couple of centuries, namely, being a member of the victorious army about
to pass from the hands of the enemy, I sought to engage Herr Kapp in
honest, frank conversation, since there could now be no reason for
deceptions. After a while, he opened up, so I asked him when he
considered the German cause was at its best. He said that it was
undoubtedly in the early part of the War, when the Germans were at the
gates of Paris. I asked him when he thought the tide had turned, and he
said that the German people realized, on July 18, 1918, when the Allies
attacked between Château-Thierry and Soissons, that thereafter Germany
was fighting the War on the defensive.
“What,” I asked, “was the attitude of the German people toward their
prospects of victory when America entered the War?”
“Well,” he calmly replied, “to a large number of the common people who,
of course, read the Governmental propaganda, they only considered it as
a big bluff, for they reasoned that it would be impossible for America
to transport her army overseas. You see,” he went on, “the reports of
the sinking of allied ships by our submarines had been greatly
exaggerated, and the general public honestly thought that America could
do no more harm as a belligerent than she could as a neutral, for she
was so unprepared that, before she could possibly raise an army, the Von
Tirpitz U-boat warfare would have brought the Allies to their knees.
But,” he continued emphatically, “to us educated and thinking Germans,
we quite well knew that, when America declared war, it was all over for
us unless we succeeded in capturing Paris, which, of course, would
paralyze the French Railway System, and cut off the Allies’ means of
transportation and supply to the front. This was the reason for our big
spring drive. It was a last hope, and we banked everything on its
success. America won the war for the Allies.”
“Herr Kapp,” I said, “do the German people realize that America entered
the war from purely unselfish reasons—only as a matter of principle—and
that they expect to gain nothing materially?”
“Oh,” he laughed sarcastically, “how could any nation make the sacrifice
that America was prepared to make and yet expect to gain nothing
material from it. That is not to be expected. But,” he continued, “the
truth of the matter is this. Your President had made us so many
promises, so many speeches in which he stated that he was the friend of
the German people that, when it came to the worst, we took him up—for
the German people expected that he would make good on some of his
utterances, but, when the terms of the armistice were made public, they
knew that either Wilson had been overruled, or that the German people
had been a bunch of suckers and had bitten the wrong bait.”
“But at that,” he emphasized, “the Germans feel no natural animosity
toward the Americans, but they hate the French and despise the English.”
Kapp told us that our destination was Villingen, which was a prison camp
in the State of Baden. The journey was very slow on account of the
congestion, so the day before we arrived there, as we were sidetracked
at one town, Kapp left us to call Landshut on the long distance. When he
returned, we knew that something was terribly wrong—he was as pale as a
ghost. Poor old Kapp! I never saw a man so nervous and upset. He acted
like a rooky after being bawled out by a drill sergeant, and he fidgeted
and twisted like an old maid about to say the words “I do.” Finally, I
summoned enough courage to ask him what it was all about, for I thought
perhaps that hostilities had been resumed.
“Anything wrong, Herr Kapp?” I asked.
“Wrong!” he ejaculated bitterly. “Hell, everything’s wrong!”
“What do you mean?” we all anxiously asked, for his attitude was just
cause for alarm.
“Well,” he went on, “I have just called Landshut and they are
demobilizing the camp to-day, and the men are all going to their homes.”
“What’s the matter with that?” I inquired, for this was to my mind the
natural thing to do.
“Oh, my,” he said, surprised at our lack of understanding, “That car of
Red Cross food arrived for you prisoners, and the rest of the camp
officials will hook it all before I get back to get my share.”
All the way on the journey, Kapp had talked about the very nice girl he
knew in Villingen, and that he was surely going to visit her for a few
days before he returned to Landshut. So, as we were pulling into
Villingen, I told Kapp that I certainly hoped he would have a pleasant
visit with his girl friend at Villingen.
“Visit nothing,” he came back emphatically, “I’m going to turn you
prisoners over to the authorities here and take the first train back to
Landshut. There may yet be a little of that Red Cross food left.”
Villingen was a real prison camp—believe me it was, compared to those we
had been in. They had real spring mattresses, a prisoners’ orchestra, a
couple of pianos, a library, a tennis court, hand-ball court,
basket-ball court, nice place to walk in, and a nice kitchen where
prisoners could cook their own recipes, and best of all, they had quite
a lot of Red Cross food, even butter. I regretted a plenty that all my
prison life had not been spent at that camp, for it was the best I had
seen.
When we got to Villingen, we received a fresh supply of rumors as to
just when we were going to be released. With all this anticipation, the
days were unusually long, for every day was filled with added promises
which the Germans never fulfilled. So, after we had been there a few
days, I began to think we never were going to get out if we waited for
the help of the Germans. So, I decided to have my own “coming out.”
I tried to escape for three nights straight, even getting so far as to
breaking the lock on an abandoned gate and cutting the barbed wire
enclosing the windows, but something always went wrong. Every time we
had to run on account of being discovered by the guards. The fourth day,
an American Artillery colonel, who was the senior officer of the
prisoners, called a meeting and stated that the Germans had turned the
government of the prisoners over to him, and, as commanding officer, he
forbade any more attempts to escape. I thought then and I think now that
the Colonel was entirely without his rights. The armistice did not
affect our status of prisoners, for there was still a state of war, and,
as long as there is a state of war, to my mind there is a corresponding
duty on the part of all prisoners to return to their own forces; and no
superior officer, regardless of rank, has the right to excuse the
failure of any prisoner to perform this duty, and certainly not to
forbid even attempting the performance. This Colonel stated that, as
commanding officer, he had given the parole of all the prisoners. This
was again absolutely the assumption of rights not his own. This
assumption of our personal privileges as men and soldiers was the only
thing that kept several of us from again trying to escape, for a man’s
word of honor is too serious a thing to permit juggling with, even when
given away without his consent.
Finally, the orders came to leave, and one bright morning they assembled
us, the Air Service officers being last—probably because that was where
we stood in the estimation of the American Artillery colonel. The German
officer in charge of the camp came out and made a speech about the great
friendship of the German and American people, in which he said that the
Allies and Germans were both victorious—Germany’s victory being in that
she had found a new Republic. But it was not a time for speechmaking—it
was a time for action for us, and, like a bunch of race horses, we pawed
the earth to get a head start for that train.
To our surprise, they had first-class coaches to carry us out of
Germany, although they had taken us in and moved us around in everything
from cattle cars to third and fourth class coaches.
We got to Constanz, on the border of Switzerland, and, of course,
expected to change trains and go right ahead. To our disappointment, we
found that the Americans had not made any preparations to carry us
through Switzerland, and we had to wait at Constanz a couple of days
until the Americans showed some speed. Believe me, I damned America
right, left, laterally, and longitudinally for their lack of
preparation. I afterwards was very sorry and found that it was not the
fault of the Americans at all. But I was mighty peeved to be forced to
eat “Bully Beef” in Germany on Thanksgiving.
I think it was about five o’clock, on the morning of the thirtieth of
November, that we crossed the border, and believe me I never want to
hear such pandemonium again as those two hundred American prisoners gave
as we were pulled out of Germany, and were actually again in the hands
of friends. We had shaken hands with our hostess at the “coming out,”
for I didn’t see a single house along our railroad all through
Switzerland from five in the morning until midnight that did not have
the American flag waving. Everywhere were men, women and children madly
waving handkerchiefs and flags as that train went by.
I felt as if I were in heaven. It was wonderful of Switzerland, but, of
course, it was the fact that we represented the Great America which
caused the demonstration as they had a sincere respect for our
friendship.
At Berne, the ladies of the American Red Cross met us and served us hot
roast chicken. Take it from me, it was good. Everyone had a ravenous
appetite. When we were filled to the brim, the boys got together and
appointed me yell leader, and we gave fifteen “raws” for the Red Cross,
the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army, Switzerland, Berne, the Allies, and
the U.S.A. The natives thought perhaps that we were lunatics, but those
who understood America knew it was the only immediately available way we
had of expressing our appreciation. So we repeated our performance at
Lucerne, and at Lausanne, and at Geneva.
Hours meant nothing to the austere Swiss on that night, for when we
pulled into Geneva at 11 P. M., there was the same tremendous crowd,
with American flags, good cheer, and things to eat. All the way along,
even from the first, it was the same. At one little town where we
stopped for the engine to get water, there was only one little store
near the railroad, but the Swiss man who ran it gave us every bit of
wine he had in there, which was about thirty bottles, and then began to
feed us cookies. He could speak nothing but German, which was “Alles for
den Amerikaner,” meaning “Everything for the Americans.” And he seemed
pleased to have the opportunity to do it. In that part of Switzerland,
they speak German, but, of course, around Lausanne and Geneva, French is
the common tongue.
But it was a real “coming out.” In fact, it was Cæsar’s Triumphal March,
Woodrow Wilson’s entrance into Paris, and Pershing on Fifth Avenue, all
combined, for we were the King Bees when it came to Swiss chocolate, and
they certainly handed it out. I became so ill that I could barely
navigate, but it all seemed so much like a dream that I continued to
consume chocolate whether I wanted to or not for fear the dream would
end.