foes.” What quarrel could France and Germany have? France had been
the dupe of England. Cartoons of the hairy, barbarous Russian and the
futile little Frenchman in his long coat, borne on German bayonets
or pecking at the boots of a giant Michael, were not in fashion. For
Germany was then trying to arrange a separate peace with both France
and Russia. France was to have Alsace-Lorraine as the price of the
arrangement. When the negotiations fell through the cartoonists were
free to make sport of the anæmic Gaul and the untutored Slav again. And
it was not alone in Germany that a responsive press played the weather
vane to Government wishes. But in Germany the machinery ran smoothest.
For the first time I knew what it was to have a human being whom I
had never seen before hate me. At sight of me a woman who had been a
good Samaritan, with human kindness and charity in her eyes, turned a
malignant devil. Stalwart as Minerva she was, a fair-haired German type
of about thirty-five, square-shouldered and robustly attractive in her
Red Cross uniform. Being hungry at the station at Hanover, I rushed
out of the train to get something to eat, and saw some Frankfurter
sandwiches on a table in front of me as I alighted.
My hand went out for one, when I was conscious of a movement and an
exclamation which was hostile, and looked up to see Minerva, as her
hand shot out to arrest the movement of mine, with a blaze of hate,
hard, merciless hate, in her eyes, while her lips framed the word,
“Englisher!” If looks were daggers I should have been pierced through
the heart. Perhaps an English overcoat accounted for her error.
Certainly I promptly recognised mine when I saw that this was a Red
Cross buffet. An Englishman had dared to try to buy a sandwich meant
for German soldiers! She might at least glory in the fact that her
majestic glare had made me most uncomfortable as I murmured an apology,
which she received with a stony frown.
A moment later a soldier approached the buffet. She leaned over
smiling, as gentle as she had been fierce and malignant a moment
before, making a picture, as she put some mustard on a sandwich for
him, which recalled that of the Frenchwoman among the wounded in the
freight shed at Calais--a simile which would anger them both.
The Frenchwoman, too, had a Red Cross uniform; she, too, expressed
the mercy and gentle ministration which we like to associate with
woman. But there was the difference of the old culture and the new; of
the race which was fighting to have and the race which was fighting
to hold. The tactics which we call the offensive was in the German
woman’s, as in every German’s, nature. It had been in the Frenchwoman’s
in Napoleon’s time. Many racial hates the war has developed; but that
of the German is a seventeen-inch-howitzer-asphyxiating-gas hate.
If hates help to win, why not hate as hard as you can? Don’t you go to
war to win? There is no use talking of sporting rules and saying that
this and that is “not done” in humane circles--win! The Germans meant
to win. Always I thought of them as having the spirit of the Middle
Ages in their hearts, organised for victory by every modern method.
Three strata of civilisation were really fighting, perhaps: The French,
with its inherent individual patriotism which makes a Frenchman always
a Frenchman, its philosophy which prevents increase of numbers, its
thrift and tenacity; the German, with its newborn patriotism, its
discovery of what it thinks is the golden system, its fecundity, its
aggressiveness, its industry, its ambition; and the Russian, unformed,
groping, vague, glamorous, immense.
The American is an outsider to them all; some strange melting-pot
product of many races which is trying to forget the prejudices and
hates of the old and perhaps not succeeding very well, but not yet
convinced that the best means of producing patriotic unity is war.
After this and other experiences, after being given a compartment all
to myself by men who glanced at me with eyes of hate and passed on to
another compartment which was already crowded or stood up in the aisle
of the car, I made a point of buying an American flag for my buttonhole.
This helped; but still there was my name, which belonged to an ancestor
who had gone from England to Connecticut nearly three hundred years
ago. Palmer did not belong to the Germanic tribe. He must be pro- the
other side. He could not be a neutral and belong to the human kind with
such a name. Only Swenson, or Gansevoort, or Ah Fong could really be a
neutral; and even they were expected to be on your side secretly. If
they weren’t they must be on the other. Are you for us? or, Are you
against us? I grew weary of the question in Germany. If I had been for
them I would have “dug in” and not told them. In France and England
they asked you objectively the state of sentiment in America. But,
possibly, the direct, forcible way is the better for war purposes when
you mean to win; for the Germans have made a study of war. They are
experts in war.
However, this rosy-cheeked German boy, in his green uniform which could
not be washed clean of all the stains of campaigning, whom I met in the
palace grounds at Charlottenberg, did not put this tiresome question
to me. He was the only person I saw in the grounds, whose quiet I had
sought for an hour’s respite from war. One could be shown through the
palace by the lonely old caretaker, who missed the American tourist,
without hearing a guide’s monotone explaining who the gentleman in
the frame was and what he did and who painted his picture. This boy
could have more influence in making me see the German view-point than
the propagandist men in the Government offices and the belligerent
German-Americans in hotel lobbies--those German-Americans who were so
frequently in trouble in other days for disobeying the _verbotens_ and
then asking our State Department to get them out of it, now pluming
themselves over victories won by another type of German.
About twenty-one this boy, round-faced and blue-eyed, who saw in Queen
Louisa the most beautiful heroine of all history. The hole in his
blouse which the bullet had made was nicely sewed up and his wound had
healed. He was fighting in France when he was hit; the name of the
place he did not know. Karl, his chum, had been killed. The doctor
had given him the bullet, which he exhibited proudly as if it were
different from other bullets, as it was to him. In a few days he must
return to the front. Perhaps the war would be over soon; he hoped so.
The French were brave; but they hated the Germans and thought that
they must make war on the Germans, and they were a cruel people,
guilty of many atrocities. So the Fatherland had fought to conquer the
enemies who planned her destruction. A peculiar, childlike _naïveté_
accompanied his intelligence, trained to run in certain grooves, which
is the product of the German type of popular education; that trust in
his superiors which comes from a diligent and efficient paternalism.
He knew nothing of the atrocities which Germans were said to have
committed in Belgium. The British and the French had set Belgium
against Germany and Germany had to strike Belgium for playing false to
her treaties. But he did think that the French were brave; only misled
by their Government. And the Kaiser? His eyes lighted in a way that
suggested that the Kaiser was almost a god to him. He had heard of
the things that the British said against the Kaiser and they made him
want to fight for his Kaiser. He was only one German--but the one was
millions.
In actual learning which comes from schoolbooks, I think that he was
better informed than the average Frenchman of his class; but I should
say that he had thought less; that his mind was more of a hothouse
product of a skilful nurseryman’s hand, who knew the value of training
and feeding and pruning the plant if you were to make it yield well.
A kindly, willing, likable boy, peculiarly simple and unspoiled, it
seemed a pity that all his life he should have to bear the brand of the
_Lusitania_ on his brow; that event which history cannot yet put in its
true perspective. Other races will think _Lusitania_ when they meet a
German long after the Belgian atrocities are forgotten. It will endure
to plague a people like the exile of the Acadians, the guillotining
of innocents in the French Revolution, and the burning of the Salem
witches. But he had nothing to do with it. A German admiral gave an
order as a matter of policy to make an impression that his submarine
campaign was succeeding and to interfere with the transport of
munitions, and the Kaiser told this boy that it was right. One liked
this boy, his loyalty and his courage; liked him as a human being. But
one wished that he might think more. Perhaps he will one of these days,
if he survives the war.
VIII
HOW THE KAISER LEADS
A prisoners’ “show” camp--Filthy conditions--Scanty fare--Racial
characteristics--“Upholding Britain’s dignity”--Russian princes
in disguise--A blind artist--A physical insult--Deadly
monotony of prison life--Drilling--Hamburg a dead city--A hate
of the pocket--The “system” at a Berlin hospital--Effects of
the war in Berlin--At the Opera--A plethora of Iron Crosses--
Immanence of the Kaiser--Imperial propaganda--The Crown Prince
marooned--Glory to the Kaiser and von Hindenburg--President of
the German Corporation--Always the offensive--“America too far
away!”
Only a week before I had seen the wounded Germans in the freight shed
at Calais and all the prisoners that I had seen elsewhere, whether
in ones or twos, brought in fresh from the front or in columns under
escort, had been Germans. The sharpest contrast of all in war which the
neutral may observe is seeing the men of one army which, from the other
side, he watched march into battle--armed, confident, disciplined
parts of an organisation, ready to sweep all before them in a charge--
become so many sheep, disarmed, disorganised, rounded up like vagrants
in a bread-line and surrounded by a fold of barbed wire and sentries.
Such was the lot of the nine thousand British, French, and Russians
whom I saw at Döberitz, near Berlin. This was a show camp, I was
told, but it suffices. Conditions at others might be worse; doubtless
were. England treated its prisoners best, unless my information from
unprejudiced observers is wrong. But Germany had enormous numbers of
prisoners. A nation in her frame of mind thought only of the care of
the men who could fight for her, not of those who had fought against
her.
Then, the German nature is one thing and the British another. Crossing
the Atlantic on the _Lusitania_ we had a German reserve officer who
was already on board when the evening editions arrived at the pier
with news that England had declared war on Germany. Naturally, he must
become a prisoner upon his arrival at Liverpool. He was a steadfast
German. When a wireless report of the German repulse at Liége came, he
would not believe it. Germany had the system and Germany would win. But
when he said, “I should rather be a German on board a British ship than
a Briton on board a German ship, under the circumstances,” his remark
was significant in more ways than one.
His English fellow-passengers on that splendid liner which a German
submarine was to send to the bottom showed him no discourtesy. They
passed the time of day with him and seemed to want to make his awkward
situation easy. Yet it was apparent that he regarded their kindliness
as a racial weakness. _Krieg ist Krieg._ When Germany made war she made
war.
So allowances are in order. One prison camp was like another in this
sense, that it deprived a man of his liberty. It put him in jail. The
British regular, who is a soldier by profession, was, in a way, in a
separate class. But the others were men of civil industries and settled
homes. Except during their term in the army, they went to the shop or
the office every day, or tilled their farms. They were free; they had
their work to occupy their minds during the day and freedom of movement
when they came home in the evening. They might read the news by their
firesides; they were normal human beings in civilised surroundings.
Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field guns,
who might walk up and down and play games and go through the daily
drill under their own non-commissioned officers. It was the mental
stagnation of the thing that was appalling. Think of such a lot for a
man used to action in civil life--and they call war action! Think of a
writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to this
fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got impatient if he
had to wait for a train that was late! Shut yourself up in your own
backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty-four hours and
see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison-camp life can be
made comfortable, no matter how many greasy packs of cards you have.
And lousy, besides! At times one had to laugh over what Mark Twain
called “the damfool human race!”
Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup
boilers. Outside were a series of railings, forming stalls for the
prisoners when they lined up for meals. In the morning, some oatmeal
and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with desiccated meal and
some bread; at night, more coffee and bread. How one thrived on this
fare depended much upon how he liked cabbage soup. The Russians liked
it. They were used to it.
“We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs,” said a
Frenchman.
Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had
worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin,
where he had a “good little business” before the war. He was stout
and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as “boys.” The French and
Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who had no
discipline. He said that all received the same food as German soldiers.
It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had fought against
you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed as the men who
were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to German soldiers
were better. But that was what the guide said.
“This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned
officers,” he explained, as he opened the door of a small shanty which
had a pane of glass for a window. Some men sitting around a small stove
arose. One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had
the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn
khaki blouse and stood very straight, as if on parade. By the window
was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall. He looked around over his
shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who
does not care to be regarded as a show. His uniform was as neat as if
he were at inspection; and the way he held his head, the haughtiness
of his profile against the stream of light, recalled the unconquerable
spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom I had seen on the road during
the fighting along the Aisne. Only a regular, but he was upholding
the dignity of Britain in that prison camp better than many a member
of Parliament on the floor of the House of Commons. I asked our guide
about him.
“A good boy, that! All his boys obey him, and he obeys all the
regulations. But he acts as if we Germans were his prisoners.”
The British might not be good boys, but they would be clean. They were
diligent in the chase in their underclothes; their tents were free of
odour; and there was something resolute about a Tommy who was bare to
the waist in that freezing wind, making an effort at a bath. I heard
tales of Mr. Atkins’ characteristic thoughtlessness. While the French
took good care of their clothes and kept their tents neat, he was
likely to sell his coat or his blanket if he got a chance in order to
buy something that he liked to eat. One Tommy who sat on his stray tick
inside the tent was knitting. When I asked him where he had learned to
knit, he replied: “India!” and gave me a look as much as to say, “Now
pass on to the next cage.”
The British looked the most pallid of all, I thought. They were not
used to cabbage soup. Their stomachs did not take hold of it, as one
said; and they loathed the black bread. No white bread and no jam!
Only when you have seen Mr. Atkins with a pot of jam and a loaf of
white bread and some bacon frizzling near by can you realise the
hardship which cabbage soup meant to that British regular who gets
lavish rations of the kind he likes along with his shilling a day for
professional soldiering.
“You see, the boys go about as they please,” said our guide. “They
don’t have a bad time. Three meals a day and nothing to do.”
Members of a laughing circle which included some British were taking
turns at a kind of Russian blind man’s buff, which seemed to me about
in keeping with the mental capacity of a prison camp.
“No French!” I remarked.
“The French keep to themselves, but they are good boys,” he replied.
“Maybe it is because we have only a few of them here.”
Every time one sounded the subject he was struck by the attitude of the
Germans toward the French, not alone explained by the policy of the
hour which hoped for a separate peace with France. Perhaps it was best
traceable to the Frenchman’s sense of _amour propre_, his philosophy,
his politeness, or an indefinable quality in the grain of the man.
The Germans affected to look down on the French; yet there was
something about the Frenchman which the Germans had to respect--
something not won by war. I heard admiration for them at the same time
as contempt for their red trousers and their unpreparedness. While we
are in this avenue, German officers had respect for the dignity of
British officers, the leisurely, easy quality of superiority which they
preserved in any circumstances. The qualities of a race come out in
adversity no less than in prosperity. Thus, their captors regarded the
Russians as big, good-natured children.
“Yes, they play games and we give the English an English newspaper to
read twice a week,” said our affable guide, unconscious, I think, of
any irony in the remark. For the paper was the _Continental News_,
published in “the American language” for American visitors. You may
take it for granted that it did not exaggerate any success of the
Allies.
“We have a prince and the son of a rich man among the Russian
prisoners--yes, quite in the Four Hundred,” the guide went on.
“They were such good boys we put them to work in the cookhouse. Star
boarders, eh? They like it. They get more to eat.”
These two men were called out for exhibition. Youngsters of the first
line they were and even in their privates’ uniforms they bore the
unmistakable signs of belonging to the Russian upper class. Each
saluted and made his bow, as if he had come on to do a turn before the
footlights. It was not the first time they had been paraded before
visitors. In the prince’s eye I noted a twinkle, which as much as said:
“Well, why not? We don’t mind.”
When we were taken through the cookhouse I asked about a little
Frenchman, who was sitting with his nose in a soup bowl. He seemed too
near-sighted ever to get into any army. His face was distinctly that of
a man of culture; one would have guessed that he was an artist.
“Shrapnel burst,” explained the guide. “He will never be able to see
much again. We let him come in here to eat.”
I wanted to talk with him, but these exhibitions are supposed to be all
in pantomime; a question and you are urged along to the next exhibit.
He was young and all his life he was to be like that--like some poor,
blind kitten!
The last among a number of Russians returning to the enclosure from
some fatigue duty was given a blow in the seat of his baggy trousers
with a stick which one of the guards carried. The Russian quickened his
steps and seemed to think nothing of the incident. But to me it was
the worst thing that I saw at Döberitz, this act of physical violence
against a man by one who has power over him. The personal equation
was inevitable to the observer. Struck in that way, could one fail to
strike back? Would not he strike in red anger, without stopping to
think of consequences? There is something bred into the Anglo-Saxon
nature which resents a physical blow. We courtmartial an officer for
laying hands on a private, though that private may get ten years in
prison on his trial. Yet the Russian thought nothing of it, or the
guard, either. An officer in the German or the Russian army may strike
a man.
“Would the guard hit a Frenchman in that way?” I asked. Our guide said
not; the French were good boys. Or an Englishman? He had not seen it
done. The Englishman would swear and curse, he was sure, and might
fight, they were such undisciplined boys. But the Russians--“they are
like kids. It was only a slap. Didn’t hurt him any.”
New barracks for the prisoners were being built which would be
comfortable if crowded, even in winter. The worst thing, I repeat,
was the deadly monotony of the confinement for a period which would
end only when the war ended. Any labour should be welcome to a
healthy-minded man. It was a mercy that the Germans set prisoners to
grading roads, to hoeing and harvesting, retrieving thus a little of
the wastage of war. Or was it only the bland insistence that conditions
were luxurious that one objected to?--not that they were really bad.
The Germans had a horde of prisoners to care for; vast armies to
maintain; and a new volunteer force of a million or more--two millions
was the official report--to train.
While we were at the prison camp we heard at intervals the rap-rap
of a machine gun at the practice range near by, drilling to take
more prisoners, and on the way back to Berlin we passed on the road
companies of volunteers returning from drill with that sturdy march
characteristic of German infantry.
In Berlin we were told again that everything was perfectly normal.
Trains were running as usual to Hamburg, if we cared to go there.
“As usual” in war time was the ratio of one to five in peace time. At
Hamburg, in sight of steamers with cold boilers and the forest of masts
of idle ships, one learned what sea power meant. That city of eager
shippers and traders, that doorstep of Germany, was as dead as Ypres,
without a building being wrecked by shells. Hamburgers tried to make
the best of it; they assumed an air of optimism; they still had faith
that richer cargoes than ever might come over the sea, while a ghost,
that of bankruptcy, walked the streets, looking at office windows and
the portholes of the ships.
For one had only to scratch the cuticle of that optimism to find that
the corpuscles did not run red. They were blue. Hamburg’s citizens
had to exhibit the fortitude of those of Rheims under another kind of
bombardment: that of the silent guns of British dreadnoughts far out of
range. They were good Germans; they meant to play the game; but that
once prosperous business man of past middle age, too old to serve,
who had little to do but think, found it hard to keep step with the
propagandist attitude of Berlin.
A free city, a commercial city, a city unto itself, Hamburg had been
in other days a cosmopolitan trader with the rest of the world. It
had even been called an English city, owing to the number of English
business men there as agents of the immense commerce between England
and Germany. Every one who was a clerk or an employer spoke English;
and through all the irritation between the two countries which led
up to the war, English and German business men kept on the good
terms which traffic requires and met at luncheons and dinners and in
their clubs. Englishmen were married to German women and Germans to
Englishwomen, while both prayed that their governments would keep the
peace.