_Told by Edward Lyell Fox, Special Correspondent with the Kaiser's
Armies and in Berlin_
This vivid and authentic narrative covering five months of thrilling
experience with the Kaiser's Armies in France, Belgium, Austria,
Russia and Germany, is the first hand impressions of an American
writer whose special credentials from the German Government enabled
him to go everywhere and see everything through official courtesies
not extended to other observers in the field. Mr. Fox has interviewed
the Kings of Bavaria and Saxony, the Crown Prince, General von
Hindenberg, the Governor General of Belgium, and the President of
the Reichstag. He has witnessed the campaigning at close range in
the trenches at Arras and Ypres, has lived with the German officers
at headquarters, has surveyed the battlefield from an aeroplane and
a Zeppelin and has enjoyed the unique sensations of scouting under
the sea in a submarine, and as a final unprecedented experience has
covered with an official escort the whole length of General von
Hindenberg's battle line in Russia. One chapter of his experiences is
here recorded from his book: "Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany,"
by courtesy of his publishers, _Robert M. McBride and Company_, New
York: Copyright 1915.
[1] I--STORY OF A NIGHT ON THE BALTIC SEA
In the lingering twilight, the Baltic's choppy swells turned dark and
over the bow I saw a vague gray strip of land--Germany! I was at the
gateway of war.
For two hours the railway ferry had plowed between the mines that strew
the way to Denmark with potential death, and as slowly the houses of
Warnemunde appeared in shadow against the darkening day, some one
touched my arm.
"Safe now."
He was the courier. He had traveled with me from New York to
Copenhagen, a bland, reserved young man, with a caution beyond his
years. I had come to know he was making the trip as a German courier,
and he was an American with no Teutonic blood in his veins! Knowing the
ropes, he had suggested that he see me through to Berlin.
"It's good we came over the Baltic," he remarked, "instead of making
that long trip through Jutland. We save eight hours."
"Yes," I agreed, "nothing like slipping in the back door."
And being new to it then, and being very conscious of certain letters
I carried, and of the power implied in the documents which I knew he
carried, I wondered what the frontier guard would do. During the two
hours we ferried from the Danish shore the passengers talked in a
troubled way of military search given every one at Warnemunde and I
smiled to myself in a reassuring way. Yes, they would be searched, poor
devils!... But the courier and I? I wondered if the German Lieutenant
at Warnemunde would ask us to take coffee with him. I even took out my
watch. No, it could hardly be done, for by the time the soldiers had
finished searching all these passengers the train would be leaving. Too
bad! Coffee and a chat with some other lieutenant, then.
"Yes," the courier was saying as the ferry docked and we caught, under
the glint of the sentries' rifles, a glimpse of the _Landwehr_ red and
blue, "it will be so easy here--just a formality, whereas if we had
taken the other route it no doubt would have been harder. You see," he
explained, "when a train crosses the Kiel canal a soldier is posted in
every compartment, the window shades are pulled down and the passengers
are warned not to look out on penalty of instant death. Of course that
is necessary for military reasons. Naturally the whole inspection at
that frontier is more severe because of the Kiel canal."
By this time the big boat had been made fast to a long railroad pier
and as we crossed the gang plank we made out in the bluish haze of an
arc lamp, a line of soldiers who seemed to be herding the passengers
into what appeared to be a long wooden shed newly built. Crowds are
the same the world over, so no one held back, all pushing, luggage and
passports in hand, into the frame structure built, I realized, for
purposes of military inspection.