"You ought to know the English very well," said the countess. "Do you
think they really mean to starve us out?"
"They will if the military situation demands this, madame," I replied.
"Your people will make a mistake if they overlook the tenacity of that
race. I am speaking from actual experience on the South African plains.
You need expect no let-up from the English. They may blunder a great
deal, but they always have the will and the resources to make good their
mistakes and profit by them, even if they cannot learn rapidly."
The countess had thought as much.
I gained a good insight into German food production a few days later,
while I was the guest of the countess on an estate not far from Berlin.
The fields there were being put to the best possible use under intensive
farming, though their soil had been deprived of its natural store of
plant nutriment centuries ago.
I suppose the estate was poor "farmland" already when the first crops
were being raised in New England. But intelligent cultivation, and,
above all, rational fertilizing methods, had always kept it in a fine
state of production. The very maximum in crops was being obtained almost
every year. Trained agriculturists superintended the work, and, while
machinery was being employed, none of it was used in departments where
it would have been the cause of a loss in production--something against
which the ease-loving farmer is not always proof.
The idea was to raise on the area all that could be raised, even if the
net profit from a less thorough method of cultivation would have been
just as big. Inquiry showed that the agrarian policy of the German
government favored this course. The high protective tariff, under which
the German food-producer operated, left a comfortable profit margin no
matter how good the crops of the competitor might be. Since Germany
imported a small quantity of food even in years when bumper crops came,
large harvests did not cause a depression in prices; they merely kept
foreign foodstuffs out of the country and thereby increased the trade
balance in favor of Germany.
Visiting some small farms and villages in the neighborhood of the
estate, I found that the example set by the scientifically managed _Gut_
of the countess was being followed everywhere. The agrarian policy of
the government had wiped out all competition between large and small
producers, and so well did the village farmers and the estate-managers
get along that the _Gut_ was in reality a sort of agricultural
experiment station and school farm for those who had not studied
agriculture at the seats of learning which the bespectacled
superintendents of the countess had attended.
I began to understand why Germany was able to virtually grow on an area
less than that of the State of Texas the food for nearly seventy million
people, and then leave to forestry and waste lands a quarter of that
area. There was also the explanation why Germany was able to export
small quantities of rye and barley, in exchange for the wheat she could
not raise herself profitably. The climate of northern Germany is not
well suited for the growing of wheat. If it were, Germany would not
import any wheat, seeing that the area now given to the cultivation of
sugar-beets and potatoes could be cut down much without affecting home
consumption. As it is, the country exported before the war almost a
third of her sugar production, and much of the alcohol won from potatoes
entered the foreign market either in its raw state or in the form of
manufactured products.
But the war had put a crimp into this fine scheme. Not only was the
estate short-handed and short of animal power, but in the villages it
was no better. Some six million men had then been mobilized, and of this
number 28 per cent. came directly from the farms, and another 14 per
cent. had formerly been engaged in food production and distribution
also. To fill the large orders of hay, oats, and straw for the army, the
cattle had to be kept on the meadows--pastures in the American sense of
the word are but rarely found in overcrowded Europe--and that would lead
to a shortage in stable manure, the most important factor in
soil-fertilizing.
The outlook was gloomy enough and quite a contrast to the easy war
spirit which still swayed the city population.
Interviews with a goodly number of German government officials and men
connected with the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture confirmed the
impressions I had gained in the course of my food investigation. For the
time being, there was enough of everything. But that was only for the
time being.
Public subsistence depends in a large measure on the products of animal
industry. There is the dairy, for instance. While cows can live on
grass, they will not give much or good milk if hay and grass are not
supplemented by fat-making foods. Of such feed Germany does not produce
enough, owing to climatic conditions. Indian corn will not ripen in
northern Europe, and cotton is out of the question altogether. In the
past, Indian corn had been imported from Hungary, Roumania, and the
United States mostly, and cotton-seed products had been brought in from
the United States also. Roumania still continued to sell Indian corn
during the first months of the war, but Great Britain had put
cotton-seed cake and the like under the ban of contraband. If the
bread-basket was not as yet hung high, the crib certainly began to get
very much out of reach.
One day, then, I found that every advertisement "pillar" in the streets
of Berlin called loudly for two things--the taking of an animal census
throughout Prussia, and the advice that as many pigs as possible should
be killed. Poor porkers! It was to be wide-open season for them soon.
Gently, ever so gently, the Prussian and other German state governments
were beginning to put the screws on the farming industry--the thing they
had nursed so well. No doubt the thing hurt. But there was no help.
Animal feed was discovered to be short. The authorities interfered with
the current of supply and demand for the first time. Feed Commissions
and Fodder Centrals were established, and after that the farmer had to
show cause why he should get the amount of feed he asked for. The
innovation recoiled on the lowliest first--among them the pigs.
Into them and upon them had been heaped a great deal of fat by
purposeful feeding with an ulterior motive. The porkers stood well in
the glory for which they are intended. But the lack of fattening feed
would soon cause them to live more or less on their own stores of fat.
That had to be prevented, naturally. By many, a butchered
two-hundred-pound porker is thought to be better than a live razorback.
The knife began its deadly work--the slaughter of the porcine innocents
was on.
To the many strange cults and castes that exist we must add the German
village butcher. He is busy only when the pork "crop" comes in, but
somehow he seems to defy the law that only continued practice makes
perfect. He works from November to February of each year, but when the
next season comes he is as good as before, seemingly.
But in 1914 the village butcher was busy at the front. Thus it came that
men less expert were in charge of the conservation of pork products. The
result could have been foreseen, but it was not. The farmers, eager not
to lose an ounce of fat, and not especially keen to feed their
home-raised grain to the animals, had their pigs butchered. That was
well enough, in a way. But the tons of sausages that were made, and the
thousands of tons of pickled and smoked hams, shoulders, sides-of-bacon,
and what not, had been improperly cured in many cases, and vast
quantities of them began to spoil.
It was now a case of having no pigs and also no pork.
The case deserves special attention for the reason that it is the first
crevasse that appeared in the levee that was to hold back the high-flood
of inflated prices and food shortage.
The affair of the porkers did not leave the German farmers in the best
frame of mind. They had needlessly sacrificed a goodly share of their
annual income. The price of pork fell to a lower level than had been
known in twenty years, and meanwhile the farmer was beginning to buy
what he needed in a market that showed sharp upward curves. To this was
being added the burden of war taxation.
But even that was not all. Coming in close contact with the Berlin
authorities, I had been able to judge the quality of their efforts for
the saving of food. I had learned, for instance, that the Prussian and
other state governments never intended to order the killing of the pigs.
The most that was done by them was to advise the farmers and villagers
to kill off all animals that had reached their maximum weight and whose
keep under the reduced ration system would not pay.
Zealous officials in the provinces gave that thing a different aspect.
Eager to obey the slightest suggestion of those above, these men
interpreted the advice given as an order and disseminated it as such.
The farmer with sense enough to question this was generally told that
what he would not do on advice he would later be ordered to do.
I was able to ascertain in connection with this subject that all which
is bad in German, and especially in Prussian, government has rarely its
inception in the higher places. It is the _Amtsstube_--government
bureau--that breeds the qualities for which government in the German
Empire is deservedly odious. At any ministry I would get the very best
treatment--far better, for instance, than I should hope to get at any
seat of department at Washington--but it was different when I had to
deal with some official underling.
This class, as a rule, enters the government service after having been
professional non-commissioned officers for many years. By that time the
man has become so thoroughly a drill sergeant that his usefulness in
other spheres of life should be considered as ended. Instead of that,
the German government makes him an official. The effect produced is not
a happy one.
It was a member of this tribe who once told me that I was not to think.
I confess that I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I heard that.
The case has some bearing on the subject discussed here, and for that
reason I will refer to it briefly.
At the American embassy at Berlin they had put my passport into proper
shape, as they thought. A Mr. Harvey was positive that such was the
case. But at the border it was found that somebody was mistaken. The
Tenth Army, in whose bailiwick I found myself, had changed the passport
regulations, and the American embassy at Berlin seemed not to have heard
of the change.
A very snappy sergeant of the border survey service wanted to know how I
had dared to travel with an imperfectly viséd passport. There was
nothing else to say but that I thought the passport was in order.
"_Sie haben kein Recht zu denken_" ("You have no right to think"),
snarled the man.
That remark stunned me. Here was a human being audacious enough to deny
another human being the right to think. What next?
The result of some suitable remarks of mine were that presently I was
under arrest and off for an interview with the _Landrat_--the county
president at Bentheim.
The _Landrat_ was away, however--hunting, as I remember it. In his stead
I found a so-called assessor. I can say for the man that he was the most
offensive government official or employee I have ever met. He had not
said ten words when that was plain to me.
"Ah! You _thought_ the passport was in order," he mocked. "You _thought_
so! Don't you know that it is dangerous to _think_?"
There and then my patience took leave of me. I made a few remarks that
left no doubt in the mind of the official that I reserved for myself the
right to think, whether that was in Germany or in Hades.
Within a fortnight I was back in Berlin. I am not given to making a
mountain out of every little molehill I come across, but I deemed it
necessary to bring the incident at Bentheim to the attention of the
proper authorities.
What I wanted to know was this: Had the race which in the past produced
some of the best of thinkers been coerced into having thinking
prohibited by an erstwhile sergeant or a _mensur_-marked assessor?
Of course, that was not the case, I was told. The two men had been
overzealous. They would be disciplined. I was not to feel that I had
been insulted. An eager official might use that sort of language. After
all, what special harm was there in being told not to think? Both the
sergeant and the assessor had probably meant that I was not to surmise,
conclude, or take things for granted.
But I had made up my mind to make myself clear. In the end I succeeded,
though recourse to diagrams and the like seemed necessary before the
great light dawned. That the German authorities had the right to watch
their borders closely I was the last to gainsay. Nor could fault be
found with officials who discharged this important duty with all the
thoroughness at their command. If these officials felt inclined to warn
travelers against surmise and conjecture, thanks were due them, but
these officials were guilty of the grossest indecency in denying a
rational adult the right to think.
Those who for years have been hunting for a definition of militarism may
consider that in the above they have the best explanation of it. The
phrase, "You have no right to think," is the very backbone of
militarism. In times of war men may not think, because militarism is
absolute. For those that are anti-militarist enough to continue thinking
there is the censorship and sedition laws, both of which worked smoothly
enough in Germany and the countries of her allies.
The question may be asked, What does this have to do with food and such?
Very much, is my answer.
The class of small officials was to become the machine by which the
production, distribution, and consumption of food and necessities were
to be modified according to the needs of the day. This class was to
stimulate production, simplify distribution, and restrict consumption.
No small task for any set of men, whether they believed in the God-given
right of thinking or not.
It was simple enough to restrict consumption--issue the necessary
decrees with that in view, and later adopt measures of enforcement. The
axiom, You have no right to think, fitted that case well enough. But it
was different with distribution. To this sphere of economy belongs that
ultra-modern class of Germans, the trust and _Syndikat_ member--the
industrial and commercial kings. These men had outgrown the inhibitions
of the barrack-yard. The _Feldwebel_ was a joke to them now, and,
unfortunately, their newly won freedom sat so awkwardly upon their minds
that often it would slip off. The class as a whole would then attend to
the case, and generally win out.
A similar state of affairs prevailed in production. To order the farmer
what he was to raise was easy, but nature takes orders from nobody, a
mighty official included.