_For the Name of Old England_
The one great pastime of the Mecklenburg peasants was arguing about the
war with the prisoners. For us, it was impossible to avoid it. We were
placed there for the amusement of the natives as well as for toil, and
neither the utter ignorance of the subject on the part of the German
nor the ignorance of the native tongue on the part of the prisoner
furnished any immunity.
“_England, nicht gut!_” or “_England kaput!_”[6] was the usual
challenge.
New prisoners often found their rebuttal limited to a simple, but
vigorous, “Nay, nay, nay!”[7]
Older prisoners with a greater flow of language would gallantly defend
the name of old England in a tirade similar to the following:
“_Deutschland kaput! England nicht kaput! England besser! Ja! Ja!
Englische Soldaten kommen immer fester! Passe mal auf. Immer fester!_”
At first I tried serious argument, but this fell on barren ground.
They knew no facts and believed none which I asserted. For my part,
they thought it absurd that I should pretend to know anything about
the subject which they did not know,--a _Gefangener_ being a sort of
benighted heathen.
I sounded their ignorance, however, rather pointedly one evening. We
were seated at the supper-table and I found myself hotly assailed not
only by the five members of the household but a visiting aunt and uncle
as well.
“Germany is bigger than all the Allies put together,” announced Auntie.
“I don’t see what you all keep fighting for!”
“What _is_ the population of Germany?” I repeated.
They did not quite hear me.
“What _is_ the population of Germany?” I repeated.
I was looking at Auntie, but she was looking at somebody else and they
were all looking about as though they had lost something. Then someone
called on _Mutter_[8] to save the situation.
“Yes, _Mutter_ knows!” they said.
_Mutter_ suddenly decided to go into the kitchen for some more
potatoes, but she was trapped by Erna.
“Tell him, _Mutter_,” she urged.
_Mutter_ paused a moment and then:
“Joachim can tell you all right when he comes on leave!” she exclaimed
triumphantly as she went out of the door.
The Central Powers were winning again.
“Yes, and we’ve lots more hand grenades and things than you all!”
gloated Auntie.
“How many hand grenades?” I asked again statistically.
“Oh, hundreds of them!” she replied.
“Just how many soldiers have the Germans got?” I inquired a few minutes
later.
It was Erna who volunteered to reply.
“I know exactly. My brother told me and he’s an _Unteroffizier_! We’ve
six thousand and the English only three thousand! Twice as many! Why,
he saw two hundred soldiers in one town!”
This quite put the cap on it. It put an end, anyway, to any serious
discussion of the matter on my part. But talk I must, and not wishing
to see the name of England writhing in the dust, I tried to adopt
myself to the peasant style of argument. About a month thereafter you
might have found me entertaining my German companions in the fields in
this wise:
“Ha, Ha! We laugh at the Germans in London! We spit on them--the
monkeys! You’re fine _Kerls_--you black bread eaters, you cherry-leaf
smokers, you wooden-shoed pigs! Wouldn’t you look fine on the Paris
boulevard _in those_? _Was?_ _Ach_, we spit on the Germans! _Passe mal
auf_, _die Engländer_ are coming, and they shoot--So--and the Germans
will run--So--_Ja_, you’re _schön dumm_, you are!”
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Beaten.
[7] Mecklenburgish, _Ne_; German, _Nein_; English, No.
[8] Mother.