THE GERMAN PEOPLE IN WAR
With the declaration of war the ultimate power in Germany was
transferred from the civil to the military authorities.
At five o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, and immediately after
the declaration of a State of War, the Guard of the Grenadier
Regiment Kaiser Alexander, under the command of a Lieutenant with
four drummers, took its place before the monument of Frederick
the Great in the middle of the Unter den Linden. The drummers
sounded a ruffle on their drums and the Lieutenant read an order
beginning with the words "By all highest order: A State of War
is proclaimed in Berlin and in the Province of Brandenburg."
This order was signed by General von Kessel as Over-Commander
of the Mark of Brandenburg; and stated that the complete power
was transferred to him; that the civil officials might remain
in office, but must obey the orders and regulations of the
Over-Commander; that house-searchings and arrests by officials
thereto empowered could take place at any time; that strangers
who could not show good reason for remaining in Berlin, had
twenty-four hours in which to leave; that the sale of weapons,
powder and explosives to civilians was forbidden; and that civilians
were forbidden to carry weapons without permission of the proper
authorities.
The same transfer of authority took place in each army
corps--_Bezirk_, or province or district in Germany; and
in each army corps district or province the commanding general
took over the ultimate power. In Berlin it was necessary to create
a new officer, the Over-Commander of the Mark, because two army
corps, the third and the army corps of the guards, had their
head-quarters in Berlin. These army corps commanders were not
at all bashful about the use of the power thus transferred to
them. Some of them even prescribed the length of the dresses
to be worn by the women; and many women, having followed the
German sport custom of wearing knickerbockers in the winter sports
resorts of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Generalkommando, or
Headquarters for Bavaria issued in January, 1917, the following
order: "The appearance of many women in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
has excited lively anger and indignation in the population there.
This bitterness is directed particularly against certain women,
frequently of ripe age, who do not engage in sports, but nevertheless
show themselves in public continually clad in knickerbockers. It
has even happened that women so dressed have visited churches
during the service. Such behaviour is a cruelty to the earnest
minds of the mountain population and, in consequence, there are
often many disagreeable occurrences in the streets. Officials,
priests and private citizens have turned to the Generalkommando
with the request for help; and the Generalkommando has, therefore,
empowered the district officials in Garmisch-Partenkirchen to
take energetic measures against this misconduct; if necessary
with the aid of the police."
I spent two days at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February, 1916.
Some of the German girls looked very well in their "knickers,"
but I agree with the Generalkommando that the appearance of some
of the older women was "cruelty" not only to the "earnest mountain
population" but to any observer.
These corps commanders are apparently responsible direct to the
Emperor; and therefore much of the difficulty that I had concerning
the treatment of prisoners was due to this system, as each corps
commander considered himself supreme in his own district not
only over the civil and military population but over the prison
camps within his jurisdiction.
On the fourth of August, 1914, a number of laws were passed,
which had been evidently prepared long in advance, making various
changes made necessary by war, such as alteration of the Coinage
Law, the Bank Law, and the Law of Maximum Prices. Laws as to
the high prices were made from time to time. For instance, the
law of the twenty-eighth of October, 1914, provided in detail
the maximum prices for rye in different parts of Germany. The
maximum price at wholesale per German ton of native rye must
not exceed 220 marks in Berlin, 236 marks in Cologne, 209 marks
in Koenigsberg, 228 marks in Hamburg, 235 marks in Frankfort a/M.
The maximum price for the German ton of native wheat was set at
forty marks per ton higher than the above rates for rye. This
maximum price was made with reference to deliveries without sacks
and for cash payments.
The law as to the maximum prices applied to all objects of daily
necessity, not only to food and fodder but to oil, coal and wood.
Of course, these maximum prices were changed from time to time,
but I think I can safely state that at no time in the war, while
I was in Berlin, were the simple foods more expensive than in
New York.
The so-called "war bread," the staple food of the population,
which was made soon after the commencement of the war, was composed
partially of rye and potato flour. It was not at all unpalatable,
especially when toasted; and when it was seen that the war would
not be as short as the Germans had expected, the bread cards
were issued. That is, every Monday morning each person was given
a card which had annexed to it a number of little perforated
sections about the size of a quarter of a postage stamp, each
marked with twenty-five, fifty or one hundred. The total of these
figures constituted the allowance of each person in grammes per
week. The person desiring to buy bread either at a baker's or in
a restaurant must turn in these little stamped sections for an
amount equivalent to the weight of bread purchased. Each baker
was given a certain amount of meal at the commencement of each
week, and he had to account for this meal at the end of the week
by turning in its equivalent in bread cards.
As food became scarce, the card system was applied to meat, potatoes,
milk, sugar, butter and soap. Green vegetables and fruits were
exempt from the card system, as were for a long time chickens,
ducks, geese, turkeys and game. Because of these exemptions the
rich usually managed to live well, although the price of a goose
rose to ridiculous heights. There was, of course, much underground
traffic in cards and sales of illicit or smuggled butter, etc.
The police were very stern in their enforcement of the law and
the manager of one of the largest hotels in Berlin was taken to
prison because he had made the servants give him their allowance
of butter, which he in turn sold to the rich guests of the hotel.
No one over six years of age at the time I left could get milk
without a doctor's certificate. One result of this was that the
children of the poor were surer of obtaining milk than before
the war, as the women of the Frauendienst and social workers
saw to it that each child had its share.
The third winter of the war, owing to a breakdown of means of
transportation and want of laborers, coal became very scarce.
All public places, such as theatres, picture galleries, museums,
and cinematograph shows, were closed in Munich for want of coal.
In Berlin the suffering was not as great but even the elephants
from Hagenbeck's Show were pressed into service to draw the coal
carts from the railway stations.
Light was economized. All the apartment houses (and all Berlin
lives in apartment houses) were closed at nine o'clock. Stores
were forbidden to illuminate their show windows and all theatres
were closed at ten. Only every other street electric light was
lit; of the three lights in each lamp, only one.
As more and more men were called to the front, women were employed
in unusual work. The new underground road in Berlin is being
built largely by woman labour. This is not so difficult a matter
in Berlin as in New York, because Berlin is built upon a bed
of sand and the difficulties of rock excavation do not exist.
Women are employed on the railroads, working with pickaxes on
the road-bed. Women drive the great yellow post carts of Berlin.
There were women guards on the underground road, women conductors
on the tramways and women even become motor men on the tramcars.
Banks, insurance companies and other large business institutions
were filled with women workers who invaded the sacred precincts
of many military and governmental offices.
A curious development of the hate of all things foreign was the
hunt led by the Police President of Berlin, von Jagow (a cousin
of the Foreign Minister), for foreign words. Von Jagow and his
fellow cranks decided that all words of foreign origin must be
expunged from the German language. The title of the Hotel Bristol
on the Unter den Linden disappeared. The Hotel Westminster on
the same street became Lindenhof. There is a large hotel called
"The Cumberland," with a pastry department over which there was
a sign, the French word, _Confissérie_. The management was
compelled to take this sign down, but the hotel was allowed to
retain the name of Cumberland, because the father-in-law of the
Kaiser's only daughter is the Duke of Cumberland. The word
"chauffeur" was eliminated, and there, were many discussions as
to what should be substituted. Many declared for Kraftwagenfuhrer
or "power wagon driver."
But finally the word was Germanised as "Schauffoer." Prussians
took down the sign, _Confektion_, but the climax came when
the General in command of the town of Breslau wrote a confectioner
telling him to stop the use of the word "_bonbon_" in selling
his candy. The confectioner, with a sense of humour and a nerve
unusual in Germany, wrote back to the General that he would gladly
discontinue the use of the word "_bonbon_" when the General
ceased to call himself "General," and called the attention of
this high military authority to the fact that "General" was as
much a French word as "_bonbon_."
Unusual means were adopted in order to get all the gold coins
in the country into the Imperial Bank. There were signs in every
surface and underground car which read, "Whoever keeps back a
gold coin injures the Fatherland." And if a soldier presented
to his superiors a twenty mark gold piece, he received in return
twenty marks in paper money and two days leave of absence. In
like manner a school boy who turned in ten marks in gold received
ten marks in paper and was given a half holiday. Cinematograph
shows gave these patrons who paid in gold an extra ticket, good
for another day. An American woman residing at Berlin was awakened
one morning at eight o'clock by two police detectives who told
her that they had heard that she had some gold coins in her
possession, and that if she did not turn them in for paper money
they would wreck her apartment in their search for them. She,
therefore, gave them the gold which I afterwards succeeded in
getting the German Government to return to her. Later, the export
of gold was forbidden, and even travellers arriving with gold
were compelled to give it up in return for paper money.
While, of course, I cannot ascertain the exact amounts, I found,
nevertheless, that great quantities of food and other supplies
came into Germany from Holland and the Scandinavian countries,
particularly from Sweden. Now that we are in the war we should
take strong measures and cut off exports to these countries which
export food, raw material, etc. to Germany. Sweden is particularly
active in this traffic, but I understand that sulphur pyrites
are sent from Norway, and sulphuric acid made therefrom is an
absolute essential to the manufacture of munitions of war.
Potash, which is found as a mineral only in Germany and Austria,
was used in exchange of commodities with Sweden and in this way
much copper, lard, etc. reached Germany.
Early in the summer of 1915, the first demonstration took place
in Berlin. About five hundred women collected in front of the
Reichstag building. They were promptly suppressed by the police
and no newspaper printed an account of the occurrence. These
women were rather vague in their demands. They called von Buelow
an old fat-head for his failure in Italy and complained that the
whipped cream was not so good as before the war. There was some
talk of high prices for food, and the women all said that they
wanted their men back from the trenches.
* * * * *
Early summer brought also a number of cranks to Berlin. Miss Jane
Addams and her fellow suffragists, after holding a convention
in Holland, moved on Berlin. I succeeded in getting both the
Chancellor and von Jagow to consent to receive them, a meeting to
which they looked forward with unconcealed perturbation. However,
one of them seems to have impressed Miss Addams, for, as I write
this, I read in the papers that she is complaining that we should
not have gone to war because we thereby risk hurting somebody's
feelings.
* * * * *
On July twenty-seventh, 1915, I reported that I had learned that
the Germans were picking out the Revolutionists and Liberals
from the many Russian prisoners of war, furnishing them with
money and false passports and papers, and sending them back to
Russia to stir up a revolution.
* * * * *
A German friend of mine told me that a friend of his who manufactured
field glasses had received a large order from the Bulgarian
Government. This manufacturer went to the Foreign Office and
asked whether he should deliver the goods. He was told not only
to deliver them but to do it as quickly as possible. By learning
of this I was able to predict long in advance the entry of Bulgaria
on the side of the Central Powers.
* * * * *
Even a year after the commencement of the war there were reasonable
people in Germany. I met Ballin, head of the great Hamburg American
Line, on August ninth. I said to him, "When are you going to
stop this crazy fighting?" The next day Ballin called on me and
said that the sensible people of Germany wanted peace and that
without annexation. He told me that every one was afraid to talk
peace, that each country thought it a sign of weakness, and that
he had advised the Chancellor to put a statement in an official
paper to say that Germany fought only to defend herself and was
ready to make an honourable peace. He told me that the Emperor at
that time was against the annexation of Belgium.
* * * * *
In calculating the great war debt built up by Germany, it must
not be forgotten that German municipalities and other political
districts have incurred large debts for war purposes, such as
extra relief given to the wives and children of soldiers.
* * * * *
In November, 1915, there were food disturbances and a serious
agitation against a continuance of the war; and, in Leipzig,
a Socialist paper was suppressed.
* * * * *
The greatest efforts were made at all times to get in gold; and
some time before I left Germany an advertisement was published
in the newspapers requesting Germans to give up their jewelry for
the Fatherland. Many did so: among them, I believe, the Empress
and other royalties.
* * * * *
In December, 1915, a prominent banker in Berlin said to me that
the Germans were sick of the war; that the Krupps and other big
industries were making great sums of money and were prolonging
the war by insisting upon the annexation of Belgium; and that
the Junkers were also in favour of the continuance of the war
because of the fact that they were getting four or five times
the money for their products while their work was being done by
prisoners. He said that the _Kaufleute_ (merchant middle class)
will have to pay the cost of the war and that the Junkers will
not be taxed.
* * * * *
In December, butter became very scarce and the women waiting
in long lines before the shops often rushed the shops. In this
month many copper roofs were removed from buildings in Berlin.
I was told by a friend in the Foreign Office that the notorious
von Rintelen was sent to America to buy up the entire product of
the Dupont powder factories, and that he exceeded his authority
if he did anything else.
In December, on the night of the day of the peace interpellation
in the Reichstag a call was issued by placards for a meeting
on the Unter den Linden. I went out on the streets during the
afternoon and found that the police had so carefully divided
the city into districts that it was impossible for a crowd of
any size to gather on the Unter den Linden. There was quite a
row at the session in the Reichstag. Scheidemann, the Socialist,
made a speech very moderate in tone; but he was answered by the
Chancellor and then an endeavour was made to close the debate.
The Socialists made such a noise, however, that the majority gave
way and another prominent Socialist, Landsberger, was allowed
to speak for the Socialists. He also made a reasonable speech
in the course of which he said that even Socialists would not
allow Alsace-Lorraine to go back to France. He made use of a
rather good phrase, saying that the "Dis-United States of Europe
were making war to make a place for the United States of America."
* * * * *
The banks sent out circulars to all holders of safe deposit boxes,
asking them to disclose the contents. This was part of the campaign
to get in hoarded gold.
* * * * *
In January, 1916, we had many visitors. S. S. McClure, Hermann
Bernstein, Inez Milholland Boissevain--all of the Ford Peace
Ship--appeared in Berlin. I introduced Mrs. Boissevain to Zimmermann
who admired her extremely.
* * * * *
In January, 1916, I visited Munich and from there a Bavarian
officer prison camp and the prison camp for private soldiers,
both at Ingolstadt. I also conferred with Archdeacon Nies of
the American Episcopal Church who carried on a much needed work
in visiting the prison camps in Bavaria.
* * * * *
The American Colony in Munich maintained with the help of friends
in America, a Red Cross hospital under the able charge of Dr.
Jung, a Washington doctor, and his wife. The nursing was done by
American and German girls. The American Colony at Munich also fed
a number of school children every day. I regret to say, however,
that many of the Americans in Munich were loud in their abuse of
President Wilson and their native country.
* * * * *
In March, 1916, I was sounded on the question of Germany's sending
an unofficial envoy, like Colonel House, to America to talk
informally to the President and prominent people. I was told that
Solf would probably be named.
* * * * *
In 1916, the importation of many articles of luxury into Germany
was forbidden. This move was naturally made in order to keep
money in the country.
* * * * *
A Dane who had a quantity of manganese in Brazil sold it to a
Philadelphia firm for delivery to the United States Steel Company.
The German Government in some way learned of this and the Dane
was arrested and put in jail. His Minister had great difficulty
in getting him out.
* * * * *
Liebknecht, in April of 1916, made matters lively at the Reichstag
sessions. During the Chancellor's speech, Liebknecht interrupted
him and said that the Germans were not free; next he denied that
the Germans had not wished war; and, another time, he called
attention to the attempts of the Germans to induce the Mohammedan
and Irish prisoners of war to desert to the German side. Liebknecht
finally enraged the government supporters by calling out that
the subscription to the loan was a swindle.
* * * * *
After the _Sussex_ settlement I think that the Germans wished
to inaugurate an era of better feeling between Germany and the
United States. At any rate, and in answer to many anonymous attacks
made against me, the _North German Gazette_, the official
newspaper, published a sort of certificate from the government
to the effect that I was a good boy and that the rumours of my
bitter hostility to Germany were unfounded.
* * * * *
In May, 1916, Wertheim, head of the great department store in
Berlin, told me that they had more business than in peace times.
* * * * *
Early in June 1 had two long talks with Prince von Buelow. He
speaks English well and is suspected by his enemies of having
been polishing it up lately in order to make ready for possible
peace conferences. He is a man of a more active brain than the
present Chancellor, and is very restless and anxious in some
way to break into the present political situation.
* * * * *
In June, the anonymous attacks on the Chancellor by pamphlet
and otherwise, incensed him to such a degree that he made an
open answer in the Reichstag and had rather the best of the
situation. Many anonymous lies and rumours were flying about
Berlin at this period, and even Helfferich had to deny publicly
the anonymous charges that he had been anonymously attacking
the Chancellor.
* * * * *
In July, the committee called the National Committee for an
Honourable Peace was formed with Prince Wedel at its head. Most
of the people in this League were friends of the Chancellor, and
one of the three real heads was the editor of the
_Frankfurter Zeitung_, the Chancellor's organ. It was planned that
fifty speakers from this committee would begin to speak all over
Germany on August first, but when they began to speak their views
were so dissimilar and the speeches of most of them so ridiculous
that the movement failed.
* * * * *
In August, I spent two Saturdays and Sundays at Heringsdorf,
a summer resort on the Baltic. Before going there I had to get
special permission from the military authorities through the
Foreign Office, as foreigners are not allowed to reside on the
coast of Germany. Regulations that all windows must be darkened
at night and no lights shown which could be seen from the sea
were strictly enforced by the authorities.
There are three bathing places. In each of them the bath houses,
etc. surround three sides of a square, the sea forming the fourth
side. Bathing is allowed only on this fourth side for a space
of sixty-five yards long. One of these bathing places is for
women and one for men, and the third is the so-called Familienbad
(family bath) where mixed bathing is allowed. German women are
very sensible in the matter of their bathing costumes and do
not wear the extraordinary creations seen in America. They wear
bathing sandals but no stockings, and, as most of them have fine
figures but dress badly, they appear at their best at Heringsdorf.
Both sea and air seemed somewhat cold for bathing. On account
of their sensible dress, most of the German women are expert
swimmers.
I noticed one very handsome blonde girl who sat on her bathing
mantle exciting the admiration of the beach because of her fine
figure. She suddenly dived into the pockets of the bathing mantle
and produced an enormous black bread sandwich which she proceeded
to consume quite unconsciously, after which she swam out to sea.
No healthy German can remain long separated from food; and I
noticed in the prospectus of the different boarding-houses at
Heringsdorf that patrons were offered, in addition to about four
meals or more a day, an extra sandwich to take to the beach to
be consumed during the bathing hour.
* * * * *
There is a beautiful little English church in Berlin which was
especially favoured by the Kaiser's mother during her life. Because
of this, the Kaiser permitted this church to remain open, and
the services were continued during the war. The pastor, Rev. Mr.
Williams, obtained permission to visit the British prisoners,
and most devotedly travelled from one prison camp to another.
Both he and his sister, whose charitable work for the British
deserves mention, were at one time thrown into jail, charged
with spying.
* * * * *
I at first attended the hybrid American church, but when, in
1915, I think, the committee hired a German _woman_ preacher
I ceased to attend. The American, the Reverend Dr. Crosser, who
was in charge when I arrived in Berlin left, to my everlasting
regret, in the spring before the war.
* * * * *
Poor Creelman, the celebrated newspaper correspondent, died in
Berlin. We got him in to a good hospital and some one from the
Embassy visited him every day.
The funeral services were conducted in the American Church by
the Rev. Dr. Dickie, long a resident of Berlin, whose wife had
presented the library to the American church. The Foreign Office
sent Herr Horstmann as its representative.
* * * * *
While to-day all royalties and public men pose for the movies,
Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria and his family are probably the first
royalties to act in a cinematograph. In 1916, there was released
in Berlin a play in which Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, his wife
and two daughters by a former wife appeared, acting as Bulgarian
royalties in the development of the plot.
* * * * *
The difference between von Jagow and Zimmermann was that von
Jagow had lived abroad, had met people from all countries and
knew that there was much to learn about the psychology of the
inhabitants of countries other than Germany. Zimmermann, in the
early part of his career, had been consul at Shanghai; and, on
his way back, had passed through America, spending two days in
San Francisco and three in New York. He seemed to think that
this transcontinental trip had given him an intimate knowledge
of American character. Von Jagow, on the other hand, almost as
soon as war began, spent many hours talking to me about America
and borrowed from me books and novels on that country. The novel
in which he took the greatest interest was "Turmoil," by Booth
Tarkington.
* * * * *
I think there must have been a period quite recently when the
German Government tried to imbue the people with a greater degree
of frightfulness, because all of us in visiting camps, etc. observed
that the _landsturm_ men or older soldiers were much more merciful
than the younger ones.
* * * * *
Alexander Cochran, a New York yachtsman, volunteered to become a
courier between the London Embassy and ours. On his first trip,
although he had two passports (his regular passport and a special
courier's passport), he was arrested and compelled to spend the
night on the floor of the guard-room at the frontier town of
Bentheim. This ended his aspirations to be a courier. He is now
a commander in the British Navy, having joined it with his large
steam yacht, the _Warrior_ some time before the United States
entered the war. In the piping times of peace he had been the
guest of the Emperor at Kiel.
* * * * *
A British prisoner, who escaped from Ruhleben, was caught in a
curious manner. Prisoners in Ruhleben received bread from outside,
as I have explained in the chapter on prisoners of war. This bread
is white, something unknown in Germany since the war. The escaped
prisoner took with him some sandwiches made of the bread he had
received in Ruhleben and most incautiously ate one of these
sandwiches in a railway station. He was immediately surrounded
by a crowd of Germans anxious to know where he had obtained the
white bread, and, in this way, was detected and returned to prison.
* * * * *
On our way out in September, 1916, we were given a large dinner
in Copenhagen by our skilful minister there, the Hon. Maurice
F. Egan, who has devoted many years of his life to the task of
adding the three beautiful Danish islands to the dominions of the
United States. He is an able diplomat, very popular in Copenhagen,
where he is dean of the diplomatic corps. At this dinner we met
Countess Hegerman-Lindencron, whose interesting books, "The Sunny
Side of Diplomatic Life" and "The Courts of Memory," have had
a large circulation in America. In Copenhagen, too, both on the
way out and in, we lunched with Count Rantzau-Brockedorff, then
German Minister there. Count Rantzau is skilful and wily, and not
at all military in his instincts; and, I should say, far more
inclined to arrive at a reasonable compromise than the average
German diplomat. He is a charming International, with none of the
rough points and aggressive manners which characterise so many
Prussian officials.
* * * * *
In judging the German people, we must remember that, while they
have made great progress in the last forty years in commerce
and chemistry, the very little liberty they possess is a plant
of very recent growth. About the year 1780, Frederick the Great
having sent some money to restore the burned city of Greiffenberg,
in Silesia, the magistrates of that town called upon him to thank
him. They kneeled and their spokesman said, "We render unto your
Majesty in the name of the inhabitants of Greiffenberg, our humble
thanks for the most gracious gift which your Majesty deigned to
bestow in aid and to assist us in rebuilding our homes.
"The gratitude of such dust as we, is, as we are aware, of no
moment or value to you. We shall, however, implore God to grant
your Majesty His divine favours in return for your royal bounty."
Too many Germans, to-day, feel that they are mere dust before
the almost countless royalties of the German Empire. And these
royalties are too prone to feel that the kingdoms, dukedoms and
principalities of Germany and their inhabitants are their private
property. The Princes of Nassau and Anspach and Hesse, at the
time of our Revolution, sold their unfortunate subjects to the
British Government to be exported to fight the Americans. Our
American soil covers the bones of many a poor German peasant
who gave up his life in a war from which he gained nothing.
* * * * *
When Frederick the Great, the model and exemplar of all German
royalties; died in 1786, he disposed of the Kingdom of Prussia
in his will as if it had been one of his horses. "I bequeath
unto my dear nephew, Frederick William, as unto my immediate
successor, the Kingdom of Prussia, the provinces, towns, palaces,
forts, fortresses, all ammunition and arsenals, all lands mine
by inheritance or right of conquest, the crown jewels, gold and
silver service of plate in Berlin, country houses, collections
of coins, picture galleries, gardens, and so forth." Contrast
this will with the utterances of Washington and Hamilton made
at the same time!
In the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg, serfdom was not abolished
until 1819.
* * * * *
The spies and the influencers of American correspondents made
their headquarters at a large Berlin hotel. A sketch of their
activities is given by de Beaufort in his book, "Behind the German
Veil."
* * * * *
Among the American correspondents in Berlin during the war great
credit should be given to Carl W. Ackerman and Seymour B. Conger,
correspondents of the United and Associated Presses respectively,
who at all times and in spite of their surroundings and in the
face of real difficulties preserved their Americanism unimpaired
and refused to succumb to the alluring temptations held out to
them. I do not mean to imply that the other correspondents were
not loyal, but the pro-Germanism of many of them unfortunately
gave the Imperial Foreign Office and the great general staff a
wrong impression of Americans. It is the splendid patriotism
under fire of Ackerman and Conger that deserves special mention.