Press and government in the Entente countries were sure that Germany and
Austria-Hungary could be reduced by hunger in some six months after the
outbreak of the European War. The newspapers and authorities of the
Central Powers made sport of this contention at first, but sobered up
considerably when the flood of contraband "orders in privy council"
began to spill in London. At first conditional contraband became
contraband. Soon non-contraband became conditional contraband, and not
long after that the British government set its face even against the
import into Germany of American apples. That was the last straw, as some
thought. The end of contraband measures was not yet, however. It was not
long before the neutrals of Europe, having physical contact with the
Central Powers, were to find out that they could not export food to
Germany without having to account for it.
Small wonder then that already in September of 1914 it was asserted that
the elephants of the Berlin Zoo had been butchered for their meat. I was
then stationed at The Hague, as correspondent for an American
telegraphic news service, and had a great deal to do with the "reports"
of the day. It was my business to keep the American public as reliably
informed as conditions permitted.
I did not publish anything about the alleged butchering of elephants and
other denizens of the Berlin zoological establishments, knowing full
well that these stories were absurd. And, then, I was not in the
necessary frame of mind to look upon elephant steak as others did. Most
people harbor a sort of prejudice against those who depart from what is
considered a "regular" bill of fare. We sniff at those whom we suspect
of being hippophagians, despite the fact that our hairier ancestors made
sitting down to a fine horse roast an important feature of their
religious ceremonies. I can't do that any longer since circumstances
compelled me once to partake of mule. Nor was it good mule. Lest some be
shocked at this seeming perversity, I will add that this happened during
the late Anglo-Boer War.
The statement, especially as amended, should serve as an assurance that
I am really qualified to write on food in war-time, and no Shavianism is
intended, either.
Food conditions in Germany interested me intensely. Hunger was expected
to do a great deal of fighting for the Allies. I was not so sure that
this conclusion was correct. Germany had open-eyedly taken a chance with
the British blockade. That left room for the belief that somebody in
Germany had well considered this thing.
But the first German food I saw had a peculiar fascination for me, for
all that. Under the glass covers standing on the buffet of a little
restaurant at Vaalsplatz I espied sandwiches. Were they real sandwiches,
or "property" staged for my special benefit? It was generally believed
in those days that the Germans had brought to their border towns all the
food they had in the empire's interior, so that the Entente agents would
be fooled into believing that there was plenty of food on hand.
Vaalsplatz is the other half of Vaals. The two half towns make up one
whole town, which really is not a whole town, because the Dutch-German
border runs between the two half towns. But the twin communities are
very neighborly. I suspected as much. For that reason the presence of
the sandwiches in Vaalsplatz meant nothing. What assurance had I that,
when they saw me coming, the sandwiches were not rushed across the
border and into Germany, so that I might find the fleshpots of Egypt
where the gaunt specter of famine was said to have its lair?
This is the manner in which the press agents of starvation used to work
in those days. And the dear, gullible public, never asking itself once
whether it was possible to reduce almost overnight to starvation two
states that were not far from being economically self-contained,
swallowed it all--bait, hook, line, and sinker.
My _modus operandi_ differed a little from this. I bought three of the
sandwiches for ten pfennige--two and a quarter cents American--apiece,
and found them toothsome morsels, indeed. The discovery was made, also,
that German beer was still as good as it always had been.
My business on that day took me no farther into Germany than the
cemetery that lies halfway between Vaalsplatz and Aix-la-Chapelle. There
I caught on the wing, as it were, the man I was looking for, and then
smuggled him out of the country as my secretary.
I had seen no other food but the sandwiches, and as I jumped from the
speeding trolley-car I noticed that they were digging a grave in the
cemetery. Ah! Haven of refuge for a famine victim!
I said something of that sort to the man I was smuggling into Holland.
Roger L. Lewis looked at me with contempt and pity in his eyes, as the
novelist would say.
"Are you crazy?" he asked. "Why, the Germans have more food than is good
for them. They are a nation of gluttons, in fact."
With Mr. Lewis going to London I could not very well write of the
sandwiches and the grave in the cemetery. These things were undeniable
facts. I had seen them. But the trouble was that they were not related
to each other and had with life only those connections they normally
have. The famine-booster does not look at things in that light, though.
Four weeks later I was in Berlin. The service had sent me there to get
at the bottom of the famine yarns. There seemed to be something wrong
with starvation. It was not progressing rapidly enough, and I was to see
to what extent the Entente economists were right.
In a large restaurant on the Leipzigerstrasse in Berlin I found a very
interesting bill of fare and a placard speaking of food. The menu was
generous enough. It offered the usual assortment of _hors-d'oeuvre_,
soup, fish, _entrée_, _relevée_, roasts, cold meats, salads, vegetables,
and sweetmeats.
On the table stood a basket filled with dinner rolls. The man was
waiting for my order.
But to give an order seemed not so simple. I was trying to reconcile the
munificence of the dishes list with the legend on the placard. That
legend said--heavy black letters on white cardboard, framed by broad
lines of scarlet red:
+--------------------------------------------+
| |
| SAVE THE FOOD! |
| |
| The esteemed patrons of this establishment |
| are requested not to eat unnecessarily. Do |
| not eat two dishes if one is enough! |
| |
| THE MANAGEMENT. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------+
It was my first day in Berlin, and having that very morning, at
Bentheim, on the Dutch-German border, run into a fine piece of German
thoroughness and regard for the law, I was at a loss what to do under
the circumstances. While I knew that the management of the restaurant
could not have me arrested if I picked more than two dishes, I had also
ascertained that the elephant steak was a fable. I was not so sure that
ordering a "regular" dinner might not give offense. That is the sort of
feeling you have on the first day in a country at war. I had seen so
many war proclamations of the government, all in heavy black and red on
white, that the restaurant placard really meant more to me than was
necessary.
I asked the waiter to come to my assistance. Being a native of the
country, he would know, no doubt, how far I could go.
"You needn't pay any attention to that sign, sir!" he said. "Nobody does
any more. You can order anything you like--as many dishes as you
please."