Under whatever form constituted, the alliance of the Balkan States is essential to the existence of the countries of Southeastern Europe.

To begin with, a Balkan congress must be called together, which should deal principally with the question of organizing a common network of communication, both on rail and water, strictly Balkan in character, which would contribute to a specific political purpose, and at the same time assure to the Balkan countries the monopoly of East Indian trade.

IN CASE OF WAR.

From the Government organ, Independance Roumaine, of May 18, 1915.

It is most essential that, should neutral countries decide to enter the European war, their first duty should be that of asking beforehand explicit and definite guarantees from the powers that solicit their assistance. Without such guarantees not one of the Balkan States would be willing to enter the war, because there is not a statesman who in like circumstances would plunge his country into an action which, on the face of it, is only an adventurous enterprise.



Portsmouth Bells

[From Punch.]

A lazy sea came washing in Right through the Harbor mouth, Where gray and silent, half asleep, The lords of all the oceans keep, West, East, and North and South. The Summer sun spun cloth of gold Upon the twinkling sea, And little t.b.d.'s lay close, Stern near to stern and nose to nose, And slumbered peacefully. Oh, bells of Portsmouth Town, Oh, bells of Portsmouth Town, You rang of peace upon the seas Before the leaves turned brown.

A grayish sea goes sweeping in Beyond the boom today; The Harbor is a cold, clear space, For far beyond the Solent's race The gray-flanked cruisers play. For it's oh! the long, long night up North, The sudden twilit day, Where Portsmouth men cruise up and down, And all alone in Portsmouth Town Are women left to pray. Oh, bells of Portsmouth Town, Oh, bells of Portsmouth Town, What will ye ring when once again The green leaves turn to brown?



The Wanderers of the Emden

Odyssey of the German Raider's Survivors Told by Captain Muecke, Their Leader

By Emil Ludwig

Special Correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt.

El Ula, (via Damascus,) May 7, 11:40 P.M., (Dispatches to the Berliner Tageblatt.)—The Emden caravan arrived here tonight. In advance, Captain Muecke. We were sitting in high expectation when suddenly some Arabs burst in upon us, calling out "They're here!" A small caravan climbed down from the hills; I ran to meet it. A big, blonde fellow had already dismounted, and laughed heartily at my welcome. Completely rigged out in full tropical garb and with an involuntarily full beard and the bluest of seamen's eyes, he stood beside his white camel.

"Bath or Rhine wine?" was my first question.

"Rhine wine," the decided answer.

Then we sat down together in the station master's room, and without more ado Muecke began to narrate his Robinson Crusade by water and land. Between times he opened letters. "Have I the Cross?" he suddenly exclaimed, as he found newspapers that brought him the news that he had been decorated with the Iron Cross, First Class, a Bavarian and a Saxon order. He laughed, got red in the face, and was happy as a child over Christmas presents. "It's really too much," he said, "but I am most pleased over the Saxon order; my father also wore it." In between he asked questions about Captain Mueller's fate, about the Carpathians and the Dardanelles, and then threw in scraps about the Emden and the Ayesha. Presently another caravan was reported. "I must ride out to meet my men," he said, and we approached a big caravan. Thirty Bedouins, with the Turkish flag at the head of the column; then, all mixed up, sturdy German blond sailors in disguise, with fez or turban, all on camels, among them dusky, melancholy looking Arabs. "Children!" their Captain called out to them, "you've all got the Cross, and you, Gyssing, have a Bavarian order to boot." "Hurrah!" resounded through the red desert. The German flag was raised. Handshaking all around.

"Children, here is Paradise; come, here flows champagne! And here, these are real railroad tracks!"

"How soon do you want to travel?" a Turkish Major asked.

"In three hours, as quick as possible, through night and day," Captain Muecke replied. Even before he had reported his safe arrival to his parents at home, he files a telegraphic request for a new command before the enemy. Never have I seen so much modesty alongside so much glory as among these fifty Emden men.

"Have you papers here?" one of them asks.

"A heap."

"How is it with Germany?" comes a voice from the crowd.

That's what they all want to know. The men bathe, and then look happily at the special train in the desert.

THE SURVIVORS.

TABUK, (via Damascus,) May 8, noon.—They're still asleep. Last night the joy lasted a long while. But I couldn't help admiring the discipline, which did not break down even on that well-deserved joy day. Earnestness, the basic characteristic of the soldier, lay under all their merriment. As the engine was reported to be ready to start, Muecke called out: "All abroad! Youngsters, only once in my life do I command a railroad train." Then he and the officers sat down among the sailors. At every station they made jokes, because they were real stations that followed one another automatically and without the danger of adventures!

But all have only one wish—to get quickly back to Germany. Muecke wants to shorten all the festivities in his honor; he longs for nothing more than a command in the North Sea. I go down the aisle of the cars and watch them sleeping—comrades held together by the bonds of nine months on seas and desert, and I think how young they all are. None of them over 30, and their commander only 33. Of the officers, only Lieutenant von Gyssing was on the Emden. Wellman joined the party at Padang, Dr. Lang and Lieutenant Gerdts were taken over from the steamer Choising. This steamer of the North German Lloyd, the third and last ship to carry the expeditionary corps of the Emden, took over the men and provisions on Dec. 16, and on the same evening the Ayesha was sunk. On Jan. 9 they left this ship, too, before Hodeida, in the hope of being able to take the overland route through Arabia. After the loss of two months, on March 17, they again had to take a small sailboat of 75 feet length and beat about the Red Sea amid new adventures. All are in good health and spirits; they're astonished, however, and laugh, because they see themselves featured as heroes in the papers.

CRUISE OF THE EMDEN.

OASIS OF MAAN, 620 Kilometers South of Damascus, May 9.—As we ride through Arabia, Muecke and Lieutenant Gyssing, the only returning Emden officers, narrate:

"We on the Emden had no idea where we were going, as on Aug. 11, 1914, we separated from the cruiser squadron, escorted only by the coaler Markomannia. Under way, the Emden picked up three officers from German steamers. That was a piece of luck, for afterward we needed many officers for the capturing and sinking of steamers, or manning them when we took them with us. On Sept. 10 the first boat came in sight. We stop her. She proves to be a Greek tramp, chartered from England. On the next day we met the Indus, bound for Bombay, all fitted up as a troop transport, but still without troops. That was the first one we sunk. The crew we took aboard the Markomannia. 'What's the name of your ship?' the officers asked us. 'Emden! Impossible. Why, the Emden was sunk long ago in battle with the Ascold!'

"Then we sank the Lovat, a troop transport ship, and took the Kabinga along with us. One gets used quickly to new forms of activity. After a few days capturing ships became a habit. Of the twenty-three which we captured, most of them stopped after our first signal. When they didn't, we fired a blank shot. Then they all stopped. Only one, the Clan Mattesen, waited for a real shot across the bow before giving up its many automobiles and locomotives to the seas. The officers were mostly very polite and let down rope ladders for us. After a few hours they'd be on board with us. We ourselves never set foot in their cabins, nor took charge of them. The officers often acted on their own initiative and signaled to us the nature of their cargo; then the Commandant decided as to whether to sink the ship or take it with us. Of the cargo, we always took everything we could use, particularly provisions. Many of the English officers and sailors made good use of the hours of transfer to drink up the supply of whisky instead of sacrificing it to the waves. I heard that one Captain was lying in tears at the enforced separation from his beloved ship, but on investigation found that he was merely dead drunk. But much worse was the open betrayal which many practiced toward their brother Captains, whom they probably regarded as rivals. 'Haven't you met the Kilo yet? If you keep on your course two hours longer, you must overhaul her,' one Captain said to me of his own accord. To other tips from other Captains we owed many of our prizes. I am prepared to give their names," Captain Muecke added.

"The Captain of one ship once called out cheerily: 'Thank God, I've been captured!' He had received expense money for the trip to Australia, and was now saved half the journey!

"We had mostly quiet weather, so that communication with captured ships was easy. They were mostly dynamited, or else shot close to the water line. The sinking process took longer or shorter, according to where they were struck and the nature of the cargo. Mostly the ships keeled over on their sides till the water flowed down the smokestacks, a last puff of smoke came out, and then they were gone. Many, however, went down sharply bow first, the stern rising high in the air.

"On the Kabinga the Captain had his wife and youngster with him. He was inclined at first to be disagreeable. 'What are you going to do with us? Shall we be set out in boats and left to our fate?' he asked. Afterward he grew confidential, like all the Captains, called us 'Old Chap,' gave the Lieutenant a nice new oilskin, and as we finally let the Kabinga go wrote us a letter of thanks, and his wife asked for an Emden armband and a button. They all gave us three cheers as they steamed away. 'Come to Calcutta some time!' was the last thing the Captain said, 'and catch the pilots so that those [unprintable seaman's epithet] fellows will feel something of the war, too.'

"A few days later, by Calcutta, we made one of our richest hauls, the Diplomat, chock full of tea—we sunk $2,500,000 worth. On the same day the Trabbotch, too, which steered right straight toward us, literally into our arms.

"But now we wanted to beat it out of the Bay of Bengal, because we had learned from the papers that the Emden was being keenly searched for. By Rangoon we encountered a Norwegian tramp, which, for a cash consideration, took over all the rest of our prisoners of war. Later on another neutral ship rejected a similar request and betrayed us to the Japanese into the bargain. On Sept. 23 we reached Madras and steered straight for the harbor. We stopped still 3,000 yards before the city. Then we shot up the oil tanks. Three or four burned up and illuminated the city. They answered. Several of the papers asserted that we left with lights out. On the contrary, we showed our lights so as to seem to indicate that we were going northward; only later did we put them out, turn around, and steer southward. As we left we could see the fire burning brightly in the night, and even by daylight, ninety sea miles away, we could still see the smoke from the burning oil tanks. Two days later we navigated around Ceylon, and could see the lights of Colombo. On the same evening we gathered in two more steamers, the King Lund and Tyweric. The latter was particularly good to us, for it brought us the very latest evening papers from Colombo, which it had only left two hours before.

"Everything went well, the only trouble was that our prize, the Markomannia, didn't have much coal left. We said one evening in the mess: 'The only thing lacking now is a nice steamer with 500 tons of nice Cardiff coal.' The next evening we got her, the Burresk, brand-new, from England on her maiden voyage, bound for Hongkong. Then followed in order the Riberia, Foyle, Grand Ponrabbel, Benmore, Troiens, Exfort, Grycefale, Sankt Eckbert, Chilkana. Most of them were sunk; the coal ships were kept. The Eckbert was let go with a load of passengers and captured crews. We also sent the Markomannia away because it hadn't any more coal. She was later captured by the English together with all the prize papers about their own captured ships. All this happened before Oct. 20; then we sailed southward, to Deogazia, southwest of Colombo. South of Lakadiven on Deogazia some Englishmen came on board, solitary farmers who were in touch with the world only every three months through schooners. They knew nothing about the war, took us for an English man-of-war, and asked us to repair their motor boat for them. We kept still and invited them to dinner in our officers' mess. Presently they stood still in front of the portrait of the Kaiser, quite astounded. 'This is a German ship!' We continued to keep still. 'Why is your ship so dirty?' they asked. We shrugged our shoulders. 'Will you take some letters for us?' they asked. 'Sorry, impossible; we don't know what port we'll run into.' Then they left our ship, but about the war we told them not a single word.

"Now we went toward Miniko, where we sank two ships more. The Captain of one of them said to us: 'Why don't you try your luck around north of Miniko? There's lots of ships there now?' On the next day we found three steamers to the north, one of them with much desired Cardiff coal. From English papers on captured ships we learned that we were being hotly pursued. The stokers also told us a lot. Our pursuers evidently must also have a convenient base. Penang was the tip given us. There we had hopes of finding two French cruisers.

"One night we started for Penang. [A graphic narrative of this raid on Penang from the special correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES, who was ashore there, appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY of March, 1915.] On Oct. 28 we raised our very practicable fourth smokestack—Muecke's own invention. As a result, we were taken for English or French. The harbor of Penang lies in a channel difficult of access. There was nothing doing by night, we had to do it at daybreak. At high speed, without smoke, with lights out, we steered into the mouth of the channel. A torpedo boat on guard slept well. We steamed past its small light. Inside lay a dark silhouette; that must be a warship! But it wasn't the French cruiser we were looking for. We recognized the silhouette—dead sure; that was the Russian cruiser Jemtchug. There it lay, there it slept like a rat. No watch to be seen. They made it easy for us. Because of the narrowness of the harbor we had to keep close; we fired the first torpedo at 400 yards. Then to be sure things livened up a bit on the sleeping warship. At the same time we took the crew quarters under fire, five shells at a time. There was a flash of flame on board, then a kind of burning aureole. After the fourth shell, the flame burned high. The first torpedo had struck the ship too deep because we were too close to it, a second torpedo which we fired off from the other side didn't make the same mistake. After twenty seconds there was absolutely not a trace of the ship to be seen. The enemy had fired off only about six shots.

"But now another ship, which we couldn't see, was firing. That was the French d'Ibreville, toward which we now turned at once. A few minutes later, an incoming torpedo destroyer was reported. He mustn't find us in that narrow harbor, otherwise we were finished! But it proved to be a false alarm; only a small merchant steamer that looked like a destroyer, and which at once showed the merchant flag and steered for shore. Shortly afterward a second one was reported. This time it proved to be the French torpedo boat Mousquet. It comes straight toward us. That's always remained a mystery to me, for it must have heard the shooting. An officer whom we fished up afterward explained to me that they had only recognized we were a German warship when they were quite close to us. The Frenchman behaved well, accepted battle and fought on, but was polished off by us with three broadsides. The whole fight with both ships lasted half an hour. The commander of the torpedo boat lost both legs by the first broadside. When he saw that part of his crew were leaping overboard, he cried out: 'Tie me fast; I will not survive after seeing Frenchmen desert their ship!' As a matter of fact, he went down with his ship as a brave Captain, lashed fast to the mast. Then we fished up thirty heavily wounded; three died at once. We sewed a Tricolor, (the French flag), wound them in it and buried them at sea, with seamen's honors, three salvos. That was my only sea fight. The second one I did not take part in."

Muecke, who had been recounting his lively narrative, partly like an officer, partly like an artist, and not trying to eliminate the flavor of adventure, now takes on quite another tone as he comes to tell of the end of the Emden:

"On Nov. 9 I left the Emden in order to destroy the wireless plant on the Cocos Island. I had fifty men, four machine guns, about thirty rifles. Just as we were about to destroy the apparatus it reported, 'Careful; Emden near.' The work of destruction went smoothly. The wireless operators said: 'Thank God! It's been like being under arrest day and night lately.' Presently the Emden signaled to us, 'Hurry up.' I pack up, but simultaneously wails the Emden's siren. I hurry up to the bridge, see the flag 'Anna' go up. That means 'Weigh anchor.' We ran like mad into our boat, but already the Emden's pennant goes up, the battle flag is raised, they fire from starboard.

"The enemy is concealed by the island and therefore not to be seen, but I see the shells strike the water. To follow and catch the Emden is out of the question; she's going twenty knots, I only four with my steam pinnace. Therefore, I turn back to land, raise the flag, declare German laws of war in force, seize all arms, set up my machine guns on shore in order to guard against a hostile landing. Then I run again in order to observe the fight. From the splash of the shells it looked as if the enemy had fifteen-centimeter guns, bigger, therefore, than the Emden's. He fired rapidly, but poorly. It was the Australian cruiser Sydney."

"Have you heard?" Muecke suddenly asked in between, "if anything has happened to the Sydney? At the Dardanelles maybe?" And his hatred of the Emden's "hangman" is visible for a second in his blue eyes. Then he continues:

"According to the accounts of the Englishmen who saw the first part of the engagement from shore, the Emden was cut off rapidly. Her forward smokestack lay across the ship. She went over to circular fighting and to torpedo firing, but already burned fiercely aft. Behind the mainmast several shells struck home; we saw the high flame. Whether circular fighting or a running fight now followed, I don't know, because I again had to look to my land defenses. Later I looked on from the roof of a house. Now the Emden again stood out to sea about 4,000 to 5,000 yards, still burning. As she again turned toward the enemy, the forward mast was shot away. On the enemy no outward damage was apparent, but columns of smoke showed where shots had struck home. Then the Emden took a northerly course, likewise the enemy, and I had to stand there helpless gritting my teeth and thinking: 'Damn it; the Emden is burning and you aren't on board!' An Englishman who had also climbed up to the roof of the house, approached me, greeted me politely, and asked: 'Captain, would you like to have a game of tennis with us?'

"The ships, still fighting, disappeared beyond the horizon. I thought that an unlucky outcome for the Emden was possible, also a landing by the enemy on Keeling Island, at least for the purpose of landing the wounded and taking on provisions. As, according to the statements of the Englishmen, there were other ships in the neighborhood, I saw myself faced with the certainty of having soon to surrender because of a lack of ammunition. But for no price did I and my men want to get into English imprisonment. As I was thinking about all this, the masts again appear on the horizon, the Emden steaming easterly, but very much slower. All at once the enemy, at high speed, shoots by, apparently quite close to the Emden. A high, white waterspout showed among the black smoke of the enemy. That was a torpedo. I see how the two opponents withdrew, the distance growing greater between them; how they separate, till they disappear in the darkness. The fight had lasted ten hours.

"I had made up my mind to leave the island as quick as possible. The Emden was gone; the danger for us growing. In the harbor I had noticed a three-master, the schooner Ayesha. Mr. Ross, the owner of the ship and of the island, had warned me that the boat was leaky, but I found it quite a seaworthy tub. Now quickly provisions were taken on board for eight weeks, water for four. The Englishmen very kindly showed us the best water and gave us clothing and utensils. They declared this was their thanks for our 'moderation' and 'generosity.' Then they collected the autographs of our men, photographed them and gave three cheers as our last boat put off. It was evening, nearly dark. We sailed away. After a short address, amid three hurrahs, I raised the German war flag on 'S.M.S. Ayesha.'"

NARRATIVE CONTINUED.

DAMASCUS, May 10.—"The Ayesha proved to be a really splendid ship," Muecke continued, and whenever he happens to speak of this sailing ship he grows warmer. One notices the passion for sailing which this seaman has, for he was trained on a sailing ship and had won many prizes in the regattas at Kiel. "But we had hardly any instruments," he narrated, "we had only one sextant and two chronometers on board, but a chronometer journal was lacking. Luckily I found an old 'Indian Ocean Directory' of 1882 on board; its information went back to the year 1780.

"At first we had to overhaul all the tackle, for I didn't trust to peace, and we had left the English Captain back on the island. I had said: 'We are going to East Africa.' Therefore I sailed at first westward, then northward. There followed the monsoons, but then also long periods of dead calm. Then we scolded! Only two neutral ports came seriously under consideration: Batavia and Padang. At Keeling I cautiously asked about Tsing-tao, of which I had naturally thought first, and so quite by chance learned that it had fallen. Now I decided for Padang, because I knew I would be more apt to meet the Emden there, also because there was a German Consul there, because my schooner was unknown there, and because I hoped to find German ships there and learn some news. 'It'll take you six to eight days to reach Batavia,' a Captain had told me at Keeling. Now we needed eighteen days to reach Padang, the weather was so rottenly still.

"We had an excellent cook on board; he had deserted from the French Foreign Legion. But with water we had to go sparingly, each man received three glasses daily. When it rained, all possible receptacles were placed on deck and the main sail was spread over the cabin roof to catch the rain. The whole crew went about naked, in order to spare our wash, for the clothing from Keeling was soon in rags. Toothbrushes were long ago out of sight. One razor made the rounds of the crew. The entire ship had one precious comb.

"As at length we came in the neighborhood of Padang, on Nov. 26, a ship appeared for the first time and looked after our name. But the name had been painted over, because it was the former English name. As I think, 'You're rid of the fellow,' the ship comes again in the evening, comes within a hundred yards of us. I send all men below deck. I promenade the deck as the solitary skipper. Through Morse signals the stranger betrayed its identity. It was the Hollandish torpedo boat Lyn. I asked by signals, first in English, then twice in German: 'Why do you follow me?' No answer. The next morning I find myself in Hollandish waters, so I raise pennant and war flag. Now the Lyn came at top speed past us. As it passes, I have my men line up on deck, and give a greeting. The greeting is answered. Then, before the harbor at Padang, I went aboard the Lyn in my well and carefully preserved uniform and declared my intentions. The commandant opined that I could run into the harbor, but whether I might come out again was doubtful."

"On the South Coast," interjected Lieutenant Wellman, who at that time lay with a German ship before Padang and only later joined the landing corps of the Emden, "we suddenly saw a three-master arrive. Great excitement aboard our German ship, for the schooner carried the German war flag. We thought she came from New Guinea and at once made all boats clear, on the Kleist, Rheinland, and Choising, for we were all on the search for the Emden. When we heard that the schooner carried the landing corps, not a man of us would believe it."

"They wanted to treat me as a prize!" Muecke now continued. "I said, 'I am a man of war,' and pointed to my four machine guns. The harbor authorities demanded a certification for pennant and war flag, also papers to prove that I was the commander of this warship. I answered, for that I was only responsible to my superior officers. Now they advised me the most insistently to allow ourselves to be interned peacefully. They said it wasn't at all pleasant in the neighborhood. We'd fall into the hands of the Japanese or the English. As a matter of fact, we had again had great luck. On the day before a Japanese warship had cruised around here. Naturally, I rejected all the well-meant and kindly advice, and did this in presence of my Lieutenants. I demanded provisions, water, sails, tackle, and clothing. They replied we could take on board everything which we formerly had on board, but nothing which would mean an increase in our naval strength. First thing, I wanted to improve our wardrobe, for I had only one sock, a pair of shoes, and one clean shirt, which had become rather seedy. My comrades had even less. But the Master of the Port declined to let us have not only charts, but also clothing and toothbrushes, on the ground that these would be an increase of armament. Nobody could come aboard, nobody could leave the ship without permission. I requested that the Consul be allowed to come aboard. This Consul, Herr Schild, as also the Brothers Baeumer, gave us assistance in the friendliest fashion. From the German steamers boats could come alongside and talk with us. Finally we were allowed to have German papers. They were, to be sure, from August. Until March we saw no more papers.

"Hardly had we been towed out again after twenty-four hours, on the evening of the 28th, when a searchlight appeared before us. I think: 'Better interned than prisoner.' I put out all lights and withdrew to the shelter of the island. But they were Hollanders and didn't do anything to us. Then for two weeks more we drifted around, lying still for days. The weather was alternately still, rainy and blowy. At length a ship comes in sight—a freighter. It sees us and makes a big curve around us. I make everything hastily 'clear for battle.' Then one of our officers recognizes her for the Choising. She shows the German flag. I send up light rockets, although it was broad day, and go with all sails set that were still setable, toward her. The Choising is a coaster, from Hongkong for Siam. It was at Singapore when the war broke out, then went to Batavia, was chartered loaded with coal for the Emden, and had put into Padang in need, because the coal in the hold had caught fire. There we had met her.

"Great was our joy now. I had all my men come on deck and line up for review. The fellows hadn't a rag on. Thus, in Nature's garb, we gave three cheers for the German flag on the Choising. The men on the Choising told us afterward 'we couldn't make out what that meant, those stark naked fellows all cheering!' The sea was too high, and we had to wait two days before we could board the Choising on Dec. 16. We took very little with us; the schooner was taken in tow. In the afternoon we sunk the Ayesha and we were all very sad. The good old Ayesha had served us faithfully for six weeks. The log showed that we had made 1,709 sea miles under sail since leaving Keeling. She wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the ship, on which I could practice my old sailing manoeuvres. The only trouble was that the sails would go to pieces every now and then because they were so old.

"But anyway she went down quite properly, didn't she?" Muecke turned to the officer. "We had bored a hole in her; she filled slowly and then all of a sudden plump disappeared! That was the saddest day of the whole month. We gave her three cheers, and my next yacht at Kiel will be named Ayesha, that's sure.

"To the Captain of the Choising I had said, when I hailed him: 'I do not know what will happen to the ship. The war situation may make it necessary for me to strand it.' He did not want to undertake the responsibility. I proposed that we work together, and I would take the responsibility. Then we traveled together for three weeks, from Padang to Hodeida. The Choising was some ninety meters long and had a speed of nine miles, though sometimes only four. If she had not accidentally arrived I had intended to cruise high along the west coast of Sumatra to the region of the northern monsoon. I came about six degrees north, then over Aden to the Arabian coast. In the Red Sea the northeastern monsoon, which here blows southeast, could bring us to Djidda. I had heard in Padang that Turkey is allied with us, so we would be able to get safely through Arabia to Germany.

"I next waited for information through ships, but the Choising did not know anything definite, either. By way of the Luchs, the Koenigsberg, and Kormoran the reports were uncertain. Besides, according to newspapers at Aden, the Arabs were said to have fought with the English. Therein there seemed to be offered an opportunity near at hand to damage the enemy. I therefore sailed with the Choising in the direction of Aden. Lieutenant Cordts of the Choising had heard that the Arabian railway now already went almost to Hodeida, near the Perim Strait. The ship's surgeon there, Docounlang, found confirmation of this in Meyer's traveling handbook. This railway could not have been taken over by the Englishmen, who always dreamed of it. By doing this they would have further and completely wrought up the Mohammedans by making more difficult the journey to Mecca. Best of all, we thought, we'll simply step into the express train and whizz nicely away to the North Sea. Certainly there would be safe journeying homeward through Arabia. To be sure, we hadn't maps of the Red Sea; but it was the shortest way to the foe, whether in Aden or in Germany.

"Therefore, courage! Adenwards!

"On the 7th of January, between 9 and 10 o'clock in the evening, we sneaked through the Strait of Perim. That lay swarming full of Englishmen. We steered along the African coast, close past an English cable layer. That is my prettiest delight—how the Englishmen will be vexed when they learn that we have passed smoothly by Perim. On the next evening we saw on the coast a few lights upon the water. We thought that must be the pier of Hodeida. But when we measured the distance by night, 3,000 meters, I began to think that must be something else. At dawn I made out two masts and four smokestacks; that was an enemy ship, and, what is more, an armored French cruiser. I therefore ordered the Choising to put to sea, and to return at night.

"The next day and night the same; then we put out four boats—these we pulled to shore at sunrise under the eyes of the unsuspecting Frenchmen. The sea reeds were thick. A few Arabs came close to us; then there ensued a difficult negotiation with the Arabian Coast Guards. For we did not even know whether Hodeida was in English or French hands. We waved to them, laid aside our arms, and made signs to them. The Arabs, gathering together, begin to rub two fingers together; that means 'We are friends.' We thought that meant 'We are going to rub against you and are hostile.' I therefore said: 'Boom-boom!' and pointed to the warship. At all events, I set up my machine guns and made preparations for a skirmish. But, thank God! one of the Arabs understood the word 'Germans'; that was good.

"Soon a hundred Arabs came and helped us, and as we marched into Hodeida the Turkish soldiers, who had been called out against us, saluted us as allies and friends. To be sure, there was not a trace of a railway, but we were received very well, and they assured us we could get through by land. Therefore, I gave red-star signals at night, telling the Choising to sail away, since the enemy was near by. Inquiries and determination concerning a safe journey by land proceeded. I also heard that in the interior, about six days' journey away, there was healthy highland where our fever invalids could recuperate. I therefore determined to journey next to Sana. On the Kaiser's birthday we held a great parade in common with the Turkish troops—all this under the noses of the Frenchmen. On the same day we marched away from Hodeida to the highland."

A PATH OF TRIUMPH.

DAMASCUS, May 10.—The Arabian railway was today transformed into a German Via Triumphalis—military receptions, flowers, flags at the stations, and a feast in the great rug-carpeted tent. Then once more straight through the desert and in the midst of 1,000 curious glances stood these cheerful and serious men and youths, unembarrassed, friendly, plain; amid them always the tallest, Muecke, who conceals his impatience to get to Germany behind every courteous phrase. The German builder of the railway, the German Consul, the German bank director, and officials came riding to meet them. Finally they had garlanded the machine, decked with the Turkish and the Emden's flag. Thus the German train rode into this splendid green and white oasis, into the old city of Arabian fairy tales, Arabian weapons, Arabian powers, all of which are no more fantastic than the adventures which the fifty homecomers told on the journey.

The Wali was waiting and the commanding General; militia by hundreds stood in rows, presenting arms with white gloves; music played in march time they well knew; softly howling Dervishes with their high hats stood in orderly traditional rows and played their wild flute notes, and the long man and his blond, young officers, all in their fantastic Arab headdress, the aghal, came out first; they came with their guns in their right hands.

Now Muecke gave orders to the landing corps of S.M.S. Emden. They marched in rhythmic step. The Turkish company took the Germans into its midst, saw them marching in the dazzling sunlight, these blue-eyed youths of yesteryear, now dressed in khaki and fez, many of them yellow from the malaria from which they had recovered; and as, amid the applause of the Turkish soldiers, they marched into the seraglio I could understand the amazement of the crowd. I have seen men of spirit and men of determination and courage, but I have found few at the same time so modest, so uncorruptible by fame, as these German soldiers. Can there be a greater temptation to lead young officers astray than that of being gazed at with admiration as strange adventurers celebrated as heroes, received as Princes? But not a face changed its expression. If German heroes often lack the handsome intoxication, they are, therefore, shielded also against the seductions of fame. Grateful and well trained they quietly refused the words of praise; and surrounded by the roar of applause, they thought only of their bath for today and their return home for tomorrow.

In the great hall Muecke sat in the centre, between the wall and the Commander, then the officers, and around them the forty-four mates, superior mates, sailors, firemen. At one pillar stood the color bearer with his flag. They took dainty coffee cups into their big hands, and told one another that the Turks were very good to them. None of them wishes to extend the feasts that are everywhere being prepared for them. All want to return to Germany; and when I saw them march away, the German men beneath the Arabian sun, I saw fame and achievement like shadows floating over them. I was seized by pity for those who were at the goal, whose great hour was the way to the goal, and they knew it not. Behind the little comfort company there floated three figures—the three German soldiers whose bodies lie mouldering in the desert.

A FIGHT WITH BEDOUINS.

Damascus, May 11.

Concerning his further experiences, Lieut. Capt. von Muecke told this story:

"Two months after our arrival at Hodeida we again put to sea. The time spent in the highlands of Sana passed in lengthy inquiries and discussions that finally resulted in our foregoing the journey by land through Arabia, for religious reasons. But the time was not altogether lost. The men who were sick with malaria had, for the most part, recuperated in the highland air.

"The Turkish Government placed at our disposal two 'sambuks' (sailing ships) of about twenty-five tons, fifteen meters long and four meters wide. But, in fear of English spies, we sailed from Jebaua, ten miles north of Hodeida. That was on March 14. At first we sailed at a considerable distance apart, so that we would not both go to pot if an English gunboat caught us. Therefore, we always had to sail in coastal water. That is full of coral reefs, however."

"The Commander," Lieutenant Gerdts said, "had charge of the first sambuk; I of the second, which was the larger of the two, for we had four sick men aboard. At first everything went nicely for three days. For the most part I could see the sails of the first ship ahead of men. On the third day I received orders to draw nearer and to remain in the vicinity of the first boat, because its pilot was sailing less skillfully than mine. Suddenly, in the twilight, I felt a shock, then another, and still another. The water poured in rapidly. I had run upon the reef of a small island, where the smaller sambuk was able barely to pass because it had a foot less draught than mine. Soon my ship was quite full, listed over, and all of us—twenty-eight men—had to sit on the uptilted edge of the boat. The little island lies at Jesirat Marka, 200 miles north of Jebaua. To be sure, an Arab boat lay near by, but they did not know us. Nobody could help us. If the Commander had not changed the order a few hours before and asked us to sail up closer, we would probably have drowned on this coral reef—certainly would have died of thirst. Moreover, the waters thereabouts are full of sharks, and the evening was so squally that our stranded boat was raised and banged with every wave. We could scarcely move, and the other boat was nowhere in sight. And now it grew dark. At this stage I began to build a raft of spars and old pieces of wood, that might at all events keep us afloat.

"But soon the first boat came into sight again. The commander turned about and sent over his little canoe; in this and in our own canoe, in which two men could sit at each trip, we first transferred the sick. Now the Arabs began to help us. But just then the tropical helmet of our doctor suddenly appeared above the water in which he was standing up to his ears. Thereupon the Arabs withdrew; we were Christians, and they did not know that we were friends. Now the other sambuk was so near that we could have swam to it in half an hour, but the seas were too high. At each trip a good swimmer trailed along, hanging to the painter of the canoe. When it became altogether dark we could not see the boat any more, for over there they were prevented by the wind from keeping any light burning. My men asked 'In what direction shall we swim?' I answered: 'Swim in the direction of this or that star; that must be about the direction of the boat.' Finally a torch flared up over there—one of the torches that were still left from the Emden. But we had suffered considerably through submersion. One sailor cried out: 'Oh, pshaw! it's all up with us now; that's a searchlight.' The man who held out best was Lieutenant Schmidt, who later lost his life. About 10 o'clock we were all safe aboard, but one of our typhus patients, Seaman Keil, wore himself out completely by the exertion; he died a week later. On the next morning we went over again to the wreck in order to seek the weapons that had fallen into the water. You see, the Arabs dive so well; they fetched up a considerable lot—both machine guns, all but ten of the rifles, though these were, to be sure, all full of water. Later they frequently failed to go off when they were used in firing.

"Now we numbered, together with the Arabs, seventy men on the little boat, until evening. Then we anchored before Konfida, and met Sami Bey, who is still with us. He had shown himself useful even before in the service of the Turkish Government, and has done good service as guide in the last two months. He is an active man, thoroughly familiar with the country. He procured for us a larger boat, of fifty-four tons, and he himself, with his wife, sailed alongside on the little sambuk. We sailed from the 20th to the 24th unmolested to Lith. There Sami Bey announced that three English ships were cruising about in order to intercept us. I therefore advised traveling a bit overland. I disliked leaving the sea a second time, but it had to be done."

"Lith is, to be sure, nothing but this," said Muecke, with a sweeping gesture toward the desert through which we were traveling, "and therefore it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. We remained aboard ship so long. We marched away on the 28th. We had only a vague suspicion that the English might have agents here also. We could travel only at night, and when we slept or camped around a spring, there was only a tent for the sick men. Two days' march from Jeddah, the Turkish Government, as soon as it is received news about us, sent us sixteen good camels.

"Suddenly, on the night of April 1, things became uneasy. I was riding at the head of the column. All our shooting implements were cleared for action, because there was danger of an attack by Bedouins, whom the English here had bribed. When it began to grow a bit light, I already thought: 'We're through for today'; for we were tired—had been riding eighteen hours. Suddenly I saw a line flash up before me, and shots whizzed over our heads. Down from the camels! Form a fighting line! You know how quickly it becomes daylight here. The whole space around the desert hillock was occupied. Now, up with your bayonets! Rush 'em!... They fled, but returned again, this time from all sides. Several of the gendarmes that had been given us as an escort are wounded; the machine gun operator, Rademacher, falls, killed by a shot through his heart; another is wounded; Lieutenant Schmidt, in the rear guard, is mortally wounded—he has received a bullet in his chest and abdomen.

"Suddenly they waved white cloths. The Sheik, to whom a part of our camels belonged, went over to them to negotiate, then Sami Bey and his wife. In the interim we quickly built a sort of wagon barricade, a circular camp of camel saddles, rice and coffee sacks, all of which we filled with sand. We had no shovels, and had to dig with our bayonets, plates, and hands. The whole barricade had a diameter of about fifty meters. Behind it we dug trenches, which we deepened even during the skirmish. The camels inside had to lie down, and thus served very well as cover for the rear of the trenches. Then an inner wall was constructed, behind which we carried the sick men. In the very centre we buried two jars of water, to guard us against thirst. In addition we had ten petroleum cans full of water; all told, a supply for four days. Late in the evening Sami's wife came back from the futile negotiations, alone. She had unveiled for the first and only time on this day of the skirmish, had distributed cartridges, and had conducted herself faultlessly.

"Soon we were able to ascertain the number of the enemy. There were about 300 men; we numbered fifty, with twenty-nine guns. In the night, Lieutenant Schmidt died. We had to dig his grave with our hands and with our bayonets, and to eliminate every trace above it, in order to protect the body. Rademacher had been buried immediately after the skirmish, both of them silently, with all honors.

"The wounded had a hard time of it. We had lost our medicine chest in the wreck; we had only little packages of bandages for skirmishes; but no probing instrument, no scissors were at hand. On the next day our men came up with thick tongues, feverish, and crying 'Water! water!' But each one received only a little cupful three times a day. If our water supply was exhausted, we would have to sally from our camp and fight our way through. Then we should have gone to pot under superior numbers. The Arab gendarmes simply cut the throats of those camels that had been wounded by shots, and then drank the yellow water that was contained in the stomachs. Those fellows can stand anything. At night we always dragged out the dead camels that had served as cover, and had been shot. The hyenas came, hunting for dead camels. I shot one of these, taking it for an enemy in the darkness.

"That continued about three days. On the third day there were new negotiations. Now the Bedouins demanded arms no longer, but only money. This time the negotiations took place across the camp wall. When I declined, the Bedouin said: 'Beaucoup de combat,' (lots of fight.) I replied:

"'Please go to it!'

"We had only a little ammunition left, and very little water. Now it really looked as if we would soon be dispatched. The mood of the men was pretty dismal. Suddenly, at about 10 o'clock in the morning, there bobbed up in the north two riders on camels, waving white cloths. Soon afterward there appeared, coming from the same direction, far back, a long row of camel troops, about a hundred; they draw rapidly near by, ride singing toward us, in a picturesque train. They were the messengers and troops of the Emir of Mecca.

"Sami Bey's wife, it developed, had, in the course of the first negotiations, dispatched an Arab boy to Jeddah. From that place the Governor had telegraphed to the Emir. The latter at once sent camel troops, with his two sons and his personal surgeon; the elder, Abdullah, conducted the negotiations; the surgeon acted as interpreter, in French. Now things proceeded in one-two-three order, and the whole Bedouin band speedily disappeared. From what I learned later, I know definitely that they had been corrupted with bribes by the English. They knew when and where we would pass and they had made all preparations. Now our first act was a rush for water; then we cleared up our camp, but had to harness our camels ourselves, for the camel drivers had fled at the very beginning of the skirmish. More than thirty camels were dead. The saddles did not fit, and my men know how to rig up schooners, but not camels. Much baggage remained lying in the sand for lack of pack animals.

"Then, under the safe protection of Turkish troops, we got to Jeddah. There the authorities and the populace received us very well. From there we proceeded in nineteen days, without mischance, by sailing boat to Elwesh, and under abundant guard with Suleiman Pasha in a five-day caravan journey toward this place, to El Ula, and now we are seated at last in the train and are riding toward Germany—into the war at last!"

"Was not the war you had enough?" I asked.

"Not a bit of it," replied the youngest Lieutenant; "the Emden simply captured ships each time; only a single time, at Penang, was it engaged in battle, and I wasn't present on that occasion. War? No, that is just to begin for us now."

"My task since November," said Muecke, "has been to bring my men as quickly as possible to Germany against the enemy. Now, at last, I can do so."

"And what do you desire for yourself?" I asked.

"For myself," he laughed, and the blue eyes sparkled, "a command in the North Sea."

CAPTAIN MUECKE'S REPORT.

The impressive scene when the intrepid survivors of the Emden crew ended their long and perilous wanderings over the sea and through the desert, and reported once more to their superior naval officer for duty, is described in a dispatch from Constantinople, published in the Berlinger Tageblatt of May 25. The account, written by Dr. Emil Ludwig, the special correspondent whom the paper had sent to meet the Emden men as they emerged from the desert, and filed under date of May 24, reads:

Now the Emden men have at last reached Europe. The many feasts which the German colonies and the Turkish authorities insisted on preparing for the heroes on their way through Asia Minor, in Adana, Tarsus, Bosanti, Konia, and Eskishehir, have improved the condition of the crew, half of whom are still suffering from malaria or its consequences. The officers, to be sure, pressed forward. When the train today drew near to Constantinople, the cordiality and enthusiasm waxed to a veritable Whitsuntide fraternizing with the Turks.

The Chief Mayors delivered addresses at every station, or children recited poems amid the Turkish sounds of which only the words "Allaman" (Germans) and "Emden" were intelligible to us. One little child was specially courageous, and recited in German. The flags were wreathed with laurel, and prettily dressed little children brought up to the crew great baskets full of cherries and the first strawberries; but the eyes of the sailors hung more fondly upon beer and tobacco, which they received in large quantities. Even at those stations where the train whizzed past without stopping, Oriental applause floated up to us, and everywhere stood honorary reception committees.

When we at last drew near Haidar-Pasha, the final station of the railroad on the Asiatic side, the railway station seemed to be transformed into a festive hall. Lieut. Capt. von Muecke ordered his men, who had only now transformed themselves again into blue lads, since navy uniforms had been sent to them on the way, to step up, and he led them up to a group of navy officers who, with Admiral Souchon at their head, remained quietly standing.

Then this young "triumphator," who even a moment ago stood amid cheers and a shower of acacia blossoms, bowing and shaking hands on the platform, the man who for fourteen days has been the one man wherever stopped, now steps up in military order to the little Admiral and lowers his sword:

"Beg to report most obediently, Herr Admiral, landing corps of the Emden, 44 men, 4 officers, 1 surgeon."

Admiral Souchon received the announcement just as a daily report. Only then did he press the Lieutenant Captain's hand, bid him welcome, and marched along the front of the company.

No sooner had the column with the Emden flag appeared at the entrance of the station than there burst from 10,000 throats a rousing "Hurrah!" On a torpedo boat that had been waiting for them the crew crossed the Bosporus, in which all ships had decked themselves with flags, and landed on the wide park-like point of the seraglio. There, surrounded by new countless crowds, were the Ministers Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey, the German Ambassador, Freiherr von Wangenheim, and Marshal von der Golz Pasha, the combined navy corps of officers, General Bronsart von Schellendorf, all waiting their arrival.



Amid the strains of the German national anthem, played by the Turkish military band, Lieut. Capt. von Muecke, together with the War Minister, Enver Pasha, paced along the long German and Turkish fronts. Then he led forth his forty-four men and marched, amid new ovations, all through Stamboul, across the great bridge to Galata, to the deck of the steamship General, at the head of his little band, now grown epic, amid the cheers of Byzantium, on which he and his officers had never set foot before—always in the clear blue and sunlight of this war-heavy Whitsuntide day.

But nothing stirred me more deeply on the whole journey than that cold official report of the man who was being celebrated, before his Admiral, and I saw in that lowered swordpoint the symbol of the old and incorruptible Prussian spirit.



Civilization at the Breaking Point

By H.G. Wells.

[Copyright, 1915, by THE NEW YORK TIMES Company.]

The submarine and aircraft have put a new proposition before the world. It is a proposition that will be stated here as plainly and simply as possible. These two inventions present mankind with a choice of two alternatives, or, to vary the phrase, they mark quite definitely that we are at the parting of two ways; either mankind must succeed within quite a brief period of years now in establishing a world State, a world Government of some sort able to prevent war, or civilization as we know it must break up into a system of warring communities, perpetually on the warpath, perpetually insecure and engaged in undying national vendettas. These consequences have been latent in all the development of scientific warfare that has been going on during the last century; they are inherent in the characteristics of the aircraft and of the submarine for any one to see.

They are so manifestly inherent that even before this war speculative minds had pointed out the direction to which these inventions pointed, but now, after more than three-quarters of a year of war, it is possible to approach this question, no longer as something as yet fantastically outside the experience of mankind, but as something supported by countless witnesses, something which the dullest, least imaginative minds can receive and ponder.

What the submarine and aircraft make manifest and convincing is this point, which argument alone has never been able to hammer into the mass of inattentive minds, that if the human intelligence is applied continuously to the mechanism of war it will steadily develop destructive powers, but that it will fail to develop any corresponding power of decision and settlement, because the development of the former is easy and obvious in comparison with the development of the latter; it will therefore progressively make war more catastrophic and less definitive. It will not make war impossible in the ordinary meaning of the word, the bigger the gun and the viler the lethal implement the more possible does war become, but it will make war "impossible" in the slang use of five or six years ago, in the sense, that is, of its being utterly useless and mischievous, the sense in which Norman Angell employed it and so brought upon himself an avalanche of quite unfair derision. No nation ever embarked upon so fair a prospect of conquest and dominion as the victorious Germans when, after 1871, they decided to continue to give themselves to the development of overwhelming military power. And after exertions unparalleled in the whole history of mankind their net conquests are nothing; they have destroyed enormously and achieved no other single thing, and today they repeat on a colossal scale the adventures of Fort Chabrol and Sidney Street, and are no better than a nation of murderous outcasts besieged by an outraged world.

Now, among many delusions that this war has usefully dispelled is the delusion that there can be a sort of legality about war, that you can make war a little, but not make war altogether, that the civilized world can look forward to a sort of tame war in the future, a war crossed with peace, a lap-dog war that will bark but not bite. War is war; it is the cessation of law and argument, it is outrage, and Germany has demonstrated on the large scale what our British suffragettes learned on a small one, that with every failure to accomplish your end by violent means you are forced to further outrages. Violence has no reserves but further violence. Each failure of the violent is met by the desperate cry, the heroical scream: "We will not be beaten. If you will not give in to us for this much, then see! We will go further." Wars always do go further. Wars always end more savagely than they begin. Even our war in South Africa, certainly the most decently conducted war in all history, got to farm burning and concentration camps. A side that hopes for victory fights with conciliation in its mind. Victory and conciliation recede together. When the German—who is really, one must remember, a human being like the rest of us, at the worst just merely a little worse in his upbringing—when he finds he cannot march gloriously into Paris or Warsaw, then, and only then, does he begin to try to damage Paris and Warsaw with bombs, when he finds he cannot beat the French Army and the British fleet, then, and not till then, does he attack and murder the slumbering civilians of Scarborough and Dunkirk, and lies in wait for and sinks the Lusitania. If war by the rules will not bring success, then harsher measures must be taken; let us suddenly torture and murder our hated enemies with poison gas, let us poison the South African wells, let us ill-treat prisoners and assassinate civilians. Let us abolish the noncombatant and the neutral. These are no peculiar German iniquities, though the Germans have brought them to an unparalleled perfection; they are the natural psychological consequences of aggressive war heroically conceived and bitterly thwarted; they are "fierceness"; they are the logical necessary outcome of going to war and being disappointed and getting hit hard and repeatedly. Any military nation in a corner will play the savage, the wildcat at bay, in this fashion, rather than confess itself done. And since the prophetic Bloch has been justified and the long inconclusiveness of modern war, with its intrenchments and entanglements, has been more than completely demonstrated, this is the way that every war in the future is likely to go. Fair and open conquest becoming more and more out of the question, each side will seek to cow, dismay, and subjugate the spirit of the other, and particularly the spirit of the noncombatant masses, by more and more horrible proceedings. "What do you think of that?" said the German officer, with a grin, as he was led prisoner past one of our soldiers, dying in agonies of asphyxiation. To that point war brings men. Probably at the beginning of the war he was quite a decent man. But once he was committed to war the fatal logic of our new resources in science laid hold of him. And war is war.

Now there does not appear the slightest hope of any invention that will make war more conclusive or less destructive; there are, however, the clearest prospects in many directions that it may be more destructive and less conclusive. It will be dreadfuller and bitterer; its horrors will be less and less forgivable; it will leave vast sundering floods of hate. The submarine and the aircraft are quite typical of the new order of things. You can sweep a visible fleet off the seas, you can drive an invading army into its own country, but while your enemy has a score of miles of coast line or a thousand square miles of territory left him, you cannot, it seems, keep his aircraft out of your borders, and still less can you keep his submarines out of the sea. You can, of course, make reprisals, but you can not hold him powerless as it was once possible to do. He can work his bloody mischief on your civil life to the very end of the war, and you must set your teeth and stick to your main attack. To that pitch this war has come, and to that pitch every subsequent war will come. The civil life will be treated as a hostage, and as it becomes more and more accessible, as it will do, to the antagonist it will be more and more destroyed. The sinking of the Lusitania is just a sign and a sample of what war now becomes, its rich and ever richer opportunities of unforgettable exasperation. Germany is resolved to hurt and destroy to the utmost, every exasperated militarism will come naturally to such resolves, and only by pain and destruction, by hurting, shaming and damaging Germany to the point of breaking the German spirit can this inflamed and war-mad people be made to relinquish their gigantic aggression upon the world. Germany, that great camp of warriors, must be broken as the Red Indians and the Zulus were broken, if civilization is to have another chance, and its breaking cannot be done without unparalleled resentments. War is war, and it is not the Allies who have forced its logic to this bitter end.

Unless this war does help to bring about a lasting peace in the world, it is idle to pretend that it will have been anything else but a monstrous experience of evil. If at the end of it we cannot bring about some worldwide political synthesis, unanimous enough and powerful enough to prohibit further wars by a stupendous array of moral and material force, then all this terrible year of stress and suffering has been no more than a waste of life, and our sons and brothers and friends and allies have died in vain. If we cannot summon enough good-will and wisdom in the world to establish a world alliance and a world congress to control the clash of "legitimate national aspirations" and "conflicting interests" and to abolish all the forensic trickeries of diplomacy, then this will be neither the last war, nor will it be the worst, and men must prepare themselves to face a harsh and terrible future, to harden their spirits against continuing and increasing adversity, and to steel their children to cruelty and danger. Revenge will become the burden of history. That is the price men will pay for clinging to their little separatist cults and monarchies and complete independencies, now. The traffic and wealth of our great and liberal age will diminish, the arts will dwindle and learning fade, science will cease to advance, and the rude and hard will inherit the earth. The Warpath or the World State; that is the choice for mankind.

This lesson of the submarine which destroys much and achieves nothing has ample support in history. There never was so blind a superstition as the belief that progress is inevitable. The world has seen the great civilization of the Western empire give place to the warring chaos of the baronial castles of the ninth and tenth centuries; it has seen the Eastern empire for 500 years decay and retrogress under the militarism of the Turk; it has watched the Red Indians, with rifles in their hands, grimly engage in mutual extermination. Is it still a blind world, doomed to blunder down again from such light and order and hope as we were born to, toward such another millennium of barbaric hates and aimless wars? That is no mere possibility; it is the present probability unless men exert themselves to make it impossible. It is quite conceivable that ours is the last generation for many generations that will go freely about the world, that will have abundance of leisure, and science and free speech and abundant art and much beauty and many varied occupations. We stand about in our old haunts and try to keep on with our old ways of living and speculate when the war will be "over," and when we shall be able to go back to everything just as it was before the war. This war and its consequences will never be "over," and we have not even begun to realize what it has cost us.

The course of human history is downward and very dark, indeed, unless our race can give mind and will now unreservedly in unprecedented abundance to the stern necessities that follow logically from the aircraft bomb and the poison gas and that silent, invisible, unattainable murderer, the submarine.



"Human Beings and Germans"

By Rudyard Kipling.

Addressing 10,000 persons at a recruiting rally in Southport, England, on June 21, 1915, Mr. Kipling spoke as reported in the subjoined cable dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

The German went into this war with a mind which had been carefully trained out of the idea of every moral sense or obligation, private, public, or international. He does not recognize the existence of any law, least of all those he has subscribed to himself, in making war against com-[Transcriber's Note: Text missing from original.] and children.

All mankind bears witness today that there is no crime, no cruelty, no abomination that the mind of man can conceive which the German has not perpetrated, is not perpetrating, and will not perpetrate if he is allowed to go on.

These horrors and perversions were not invented by him on the spur of the moment. They were arranged beforehand. Their outlines are laid down in the German war book. They are part of the system in which Germany has been scientifically trained. It is the essence of that system to make such a hell of countries where their armies set foot that any terms she may offer will seem like heaven to the people whose bodies she has defiled and whose minds she has broken of set purpose and intention.

So long as an unbroken Germany exists, so long will life on this planet be intolerable, not only for us and for our allies, but for all humanity.

There are only two divisions in the world today, human beings and Germans, and the German knows it. Human beings have long ago sickened of him and everything connected with him, of all he does, says, thinks, or believes.

From the ends of earth to the ends of the earth they desire nothing more greatly than that this unclean thing should be thrust out from membership and memory of the nations.

We have no reason to believe that Germany will break up suddenly and dramatically. She took two generations to prepare herself in every detail and through every fibre of her national being for this war. She is playing for the highest stakes in the world—the dominion of the world. It seems to me that she must either win or bleed to death almost where her lines run today.

Therefore, we and our allies must continue to pass our children through fire to Moloch until Moloch perish.

In Belgium at this hour several million Belgians are making war material or fortifications for their conquerors. They receive enough food to support life, as the German thinks it should be supported, (by the way, I believe the United States of America supplies a large part of that food.) In return they are compelled to work at the point of the bayonet. If they object, they are shot. They have no more property and no more rights than cattle, and they cannot lift a hand to protect the honor of their women.

There has been nothing like the horror of their fate in all history.

If Germany is victorious, every refinement of outrage which is within the compass of the German imagination will be inflicted on us in every aspect of our lives. Realize, too, that if the Allies are beaten there will be no spot on the globe where a soul can escape from the domination of this enemy of mankind.

There has been childish talk that the Western Hemisphere would offer a refuge from oppression. Put that thought from your mind. If the Allies were defeated Germany would not need to send a single battleship over the Atlantic. She would issue an order, and it would be obeyed.

Civilization would be bankrupt, and the Western world would be taken over with the rest of the wreckage by Germany, the receiver.

So you see that there is no retreat possible. There are no terms and no retreat in this war. It must go forward, and with those men of England, who are eligible for service but who have not yet offered themselves, the decision of war rests.

This is, for us, in truth a war to death against the power of darkness with whom any peace except on our own terms would be more terrible than any war.



Garibaldi's Promise.

By KATHERINE DRAYTON MAYRANT SIMONS, JR.

O Loveland of the Poets, In the hour of your pain, Does Garibaldi's promise To your heroes hold again?

There were fisher lads among them, In the shirt of peasant red, And mountaineers from Tyrol, When Garibaldi said:

"I have no prayer to make you, For to God alone I kneel! I have no price to pay you, For your wage is Austrian steel!

"There is naught of knightly emblem For the honor of the brave, And the only land I grant you Will be length to mark your grave!

"I promise cold and hunger In the stead of drink and meat! I promise death, my brothers, Shall be yours before defeat!"

O Sweetheart of the Nations, In the hour of your pain, Does Garibaldi's promise To Italia hold again?



The Uncivilizable Nation

By Emile Verhaeren.

The Belgian poet whom Maurice Maeterlinck preferred should rank among the Immortals of the French Academy when that honor was bestowed upon himself, has contributed to Les Annales the following account of Germany and the German people. The translation is that appearing on June 11 in The Suffragette of England.

Life is not a means; life is an end. That is what we must tell ourselves in order really to live in this world. Hence the obligation to perfect life, to make it high and beautiful, to make a masterpiece of it. Hence too our contempt and hatred for those who wish to tarnish life, either by their thoughts or by their deeds.

Germany behaves as though it were the most backward among nations. And indeed it is in spite of appearances essentially feudal. There is perhaps a German culture, but there is no German civilization.

One may be well informed and yet be hardly civilized. A sense of duty to humanity, a sense of pride, a sense of liberty are independent, certainly not of intelligence, but are independent of mere knowledge of accumulated facts.

The German professor is a walking library. He collects, he arranges, he comments. Arrangement and discipline with him take the place of everything else, and they inculcate in him the spirit of dependence and of servility. It is perhaps because he classifies so much that he is so dully submissive. Everything according to his view is an ascending or descending scale. Everything is in its compartment.

How, then, can we be surprised if everything becomes materialized and the mind of each Teuton can lay claim to be nothing more than a sort of stiff and dingy compartment, in a sort of social chessboard.

It has already been said: The German invents almost nothing. He works upon the inventions of other people. In order to invent he would have to possess the spirit of rebellion against that which is. He is incapable of that spirit. He is a being who always accepts.

But as soon as a new discovery has been made by others the German gets hold of it. He examines it patiently. He turns and returns it this way, that way, and every way. He, as it were, criticises it. He thus succeeds in augmenting its power. Moreover, he wishes that it shall serve a practical purpose and be classified accordingly, just as he himself serves and is classified in life.

Never have the Germans opened up a great road in science. They open up only bypaths. Leibnitz and Kant joined their paths to the royal high road of Descartes. Haeckel would hardly have existed if Darwin had not existed. Koch and Behring are dependent upon the labors of Pasteur.

This second-hand science is excellent as a means of attracting mediocre minds. To work, each in his little corner, at solving some secondary question, and to believe one's self a somebody when one is hardly anybody, flatters the universal vanity. All the little provincial universities of Germany can live in the illusion that they are full of learned men—thanks to the German conception of what is learned and serious!

It is a system of regimenting in great barracks of laboratories. It is the absolute negation of the spirit of initiative of spontaneity and it is above all the negation of the spirit of protest and revolt.

If the German people had been truly civilized they would never have maintained silence before the assassination of Belgium. Even among those whose ideas are contrary to the existing political order in Germany, none has risen up against this crime admitted and proclaimed at the beginning of the war in full Parliament by the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg himself. The universal astonishment at such a silence was so great that even today the world has not recovered from it. Apart from Liebknecht the whole of German Social Democracy is dishonored: it is desired to expel the German Socialists from the International Socialist Movement. They excuse themselves; they aggravate their fault. They say:

"We should have been arrested and imprisoned." The world replies:

"Are they then afraid of dying?"

In the German Socialist Party everything has been reduced to method and organized as in the German universities and the German Army.

There were I know not how many Socialist electors; German Socialism was thought to be already triumphant and invincible. People said: "They are Germany!"

The German Socialists were held up as an example to all the democracies of the earth.

Those who swore by the German Socialists affirmed that they would devour Kaiserism when it should become necessary. But last August in one hour in the Reichstag it was the German Socialist Party that was devoured!

When recently certain German Socialists visited the Maison du Peuple of Brussels they expressed astonishment that the Socialists of Belgium should attach so much importance to the invasion of their country.

"When then binds you to your country?" they asked.

"Honor," was the reply.

"Honor! Honor! that is a very bourgeois ideal," interrupted the Germans.

Yet a true civilization has as its framework precisely honor. Honor is not a bourgeois ideal, but an aristocratic ideal. It was slowly created by the flower of humanity throughout the centuries. When force becomes educated, force opposes itself. It limits and incloses itself. It becomes intelligent and tempered by reserve and by tact. Brutal force thus changes into moral force, power becomes justice.

The more a nation lends itself to such a change, the more it rises from the material plane toward the spiritual plane. The more it enshrines in its institution respect for humanity as a whole, the greater and more civilized it becomes. Such a nation remains faithful to its pledged word; neither interest nor even necessity moves it to commit felony. It loves to protect and not to oppress those who are weaker than itself. It has at heart the work of propagating throughout the world certain principles of social life which certainly are utopian, but are yet beautiful to have before the eyes and in the heart, in order to live not only for the present, but also for the future.

These admirable principles which may never be put wholly into practice, but toward which we must try to grow always nearer, are the expression of the deepest human generosity. They are the radical negation of brutal and primitive force; they incline the world toward a unanimous and serene peace. They have based on faith the infinite perfectibility of conscience. Only a nation of a high degree of civilization can conceive of relations so perfect between human beings and cherish dreams so great.

Germany was never capable of this. The individual German is the least subtle and the least susceptible to education of any in the world.

It has been my lot to take part in certain European capitals in a number of reunions where English, French, Italians, and Germans came together and conversed. They were all, I was assured, distinguished people, of whom their respective nations might be proud. Now, the German was rarely to be seen in an excellent attitude. He was at once embarrassed and arrogant. He lacked refinement. His politeness was clumsy. He was as though afraid of seeming not to know everything. The most eccentric taste seemed to him the best taste. To him to be up to date was to be up to the minute. He would have been wretched if any one in his presence had claimed to be up to the second.

As soon as he had the chance to speak and got a hearing, he inaugurated, as it were, a course of lectures. Clearness was not at all necessary to him. One rarely understood precisely what he meant. The fastidiousness and subtlety which led others to seek perfection in phrase and thought had little attraction for him. With what heaviness the German diplomat discusses matters at the council table! With what clumsiness the German conqueror plants himself in a conquered country! While France, at the end of half a century, makes herself beloved in Savoy, at Mentone, and at Nice, while in the space of two centuries she assimilates Lille and Dunkirk and Strasburg and Alsace; while England in a few decades unites to her Egypt and the Cape, Germany remains detested in Poland, Schleswig, and in Alsace-Lorraine. Germany is essentially the persona ingrata everywhere it presents itself. It knows only the methods that divide, and not those which unite. Germany makes proclamations that act upon the mind as the frost acts upon plants. Germany knows neither how to attract nor how to charm nor how to civilize, because she has no personal and profound moral force.

Europe under the successive spiritual hegemonies of Athens, Rome, and Paris remained the most admirable centre of human development that has ever been.

Under German hegemony Europe would move toward a sort of gloomy and hard organization under which everything would be impeccable, arranged only because everything would be tyrannized over from above.

For the true Germany—we have today the sad but immovable conviction of this—was never that of Goethe, of Beethoven, nor of Heine. It was that of implacable Landgraves and fierce soldiers.

For thousands of years Germany has let loose its hordes upon Europe; Vandals, Visigoths, Alains, Franks, Herules. Germany continues to do this at the present day. It is Germany's terrible and sinister function.

Only let us not deceive ourselves as to this point in future, Germany is the dangerous nation because it is the uncivilizable nation, because its castles, its fields, and its barracks have remained the inexhausted, and perhaps the inexhaustible, reservoirs of human ferocity.

EMILE VERHAEREN.



Retreat in the Rain.

By O.C.A. CHILD.

Those Uhlans now are working in too near, Their carbines crackle louder every shot. I say! our chaps a-plodding in the rear Are getting it—and most uncommon hot! It's not much fun retreating in the night, Through all this mess of rain and reeking slime— It seems to me this boot's infernal tight! I must have hurt me when I slipped that time. Whew! that was close and there's a fellow gone! I know too well that heavy, sickening thud; It's bitter hard that we must keep right on And leave our wounded helpless in the mud. My foot hurts so that I can hardly see— I'll have to stop for just a breathing space. What's that? It's blood!—those fiends have got me now! It's double time and I can't stand the pace! I'll use my rifle as a crutch. But, no! I'll stand and fight; they have me sure as day! It's death for death—then I will meet it so And make a Uhlan pay the price I pay. And here they come! Great God, they're coming fast— Are almost on me! Ah, I got that one! Just one more shot—a good one for the last! Those iron hoofs have crushed me—I am done!



War a Game for Love and Honor

By Jerome K. Jerome

The chivalrous spirit of the present conflict informs this article, which appeared originally in The London Daily News under the title "The Greatest Game of All: The True Spirit of War," and is here reproduced by special permission of Mr. Jerome.

War has been described as the greatest of games. I am not going to quarrel with the definition. I am going to accept it. From that point of view there is something to be said for it. As a game it can be respectable; as a business it is contemptible. Wars for profit—for gold mines, for mere extension of territory, for markets—degrade a people. It is like playing cricket for money. A gentleman—man or nation—does not do such things. But war for love—for love of the barren hillside, for love of the tattered flag, for love of the far-off dream—played for a hope, a vision, a faith, with life and death as the stakes! Yes, there is something to be said for it.

Looked at practically, what, after all, does it matter whether Germany or Britannia rules the waves? Our tea and our 'baccy, one takes it, would still be obtainable; one would pay for it in marks instead of shillings. Our sailor men, instead of answering "Aye, aye, Sir," in response to Captain's orders, would learn to grunt "Jawohl." Their wages, their rations would be much the same.

These peaceful Old World villages through which I love to wander with my dogs; these old gray churches round which our dead have crept to rest; these lonely farmsteads in quiet valleys musical with the sound of mother creatures calling to their young; these old men with ruddy faces; these maidens with quiet eyes who give me greeting as we pass by in the winding lanes between the hedgerows; the gentle, patient horses nodding gravely on their homeward way; these tiny cottages behind their trim bright gardens; this lilliputian riot round the schoolhouse door; the little timid things in fur and feather peering anxious, bright-eyed from their hiding places! Suppose the miracle to happen. Suppose the weather-beaten board nailed to the old beech tree warning us in faded lettering as we pass beneath it of the penalties awaiting trespassers were to be superseded by a notice headed "Verboten!" What essential difference would there be—that a wise man need vex his soul concerning? We should no longer call it England. That would be all. The sweep of the hills would not be changed; the path would still wind through the woodland. Yet just for a name we are ready to face ruin and death.

It certainly is not business. A business man would stop to weigh the pros and cons. A German invasion! It would bring what so many of us desire: Conscription, tariff reform. It might even get rid of Lloyd George and the Insurance act. And yet that this thing shall not be, Tory Squire and Laborer Hodge, looking forward to a lifelong wage of twelve-and-six-pence a week, will fight shoulder to shoulder, die together, if need be, in the same ditch. Just for a symbol, a faith we call England. I should say Britain.

Can we explain it even to ourselves? Thousands of Germans come over to England to live. They prosper among us, take their pleasures with us, adapt themselves to our English ways, and learn to prefer them. Thousands of Englishmen make their homes in German cities; find German ways of living, if anything, suit them better. Suddenly there arises the question, shall English ways of life or German ways of life prevail: English or German culture—which shall it be? And the English who have lived contentedly in Germany for years hasten back to fight for England, and the desire of every German in England is to break up his pleasant home among us and fight to bring all Europe into German ways of thinking.

Clearly the definition is a right one. It is just a game.

Just as all life is a game; joy and sorrow the zest of it, suffering the strength-giving worth of it. Till Death rings his bell, and the game is over—for the present. What have we learned from it? What have we gained from it? Have we played it to our souls' salvation, learning from it courage, manhood? Or has it broken us, teaching us mean fear and hate?