Herr Dittmann then gave a terrible account, some of it unfit for reproduction, of the treatment in prison of two girls of eighteen whose offence was that on June 27th they had distributed invitations to working women to attend a meeting of protest against the procedure in the case of Herr Liebknecht. He observed that they owed it entirely to themselves and to their training if they had not been ruined physically and morally in their "royal Prussian prison." When they were at last released they were informed that they would be imprisoned for the rest of the war if they attended any public meeting. Herr Dittmann proceeded:—

"Here we have police brutality in all its purity. This is how a working-class child who is trying to make her way up to knowledge and Kultur is treated in the country of the promised 'new orientation,' in which (according to the Imperial Chancellor) 'the road is to be opened for all who are efficient.' These are the methods by which the spirit of independence is systematically to be billed. That is the reason for the arrests of members of the Socialist party who stand on the side of determined opposition. You imagine that by isolating the leading elements of the opposition you can crush the head of the snake."

Herr Dittmann's next case was that of Dr. Meyer, one of the editors of Vorwaerts, who was arrested many months ago. He is suffering from tuberculosis, but is not allowed to go to a sanatorium. Another Socialist journalist named Regge, father of six children, has been under arrest since August, his only offence being that he has agitated against the militarist majority. Herr Dittmann then dealt at length with the Socialist journalist named Kluhs, who has been in prison for eight months, also for his activity on behalf of the Socialist minority against the majority, and was prevented from communicating with his dying wife or attending her funeral,

Herr Dittmann gave the details of three cases at Dusseldorf and one at Brunswick, and then explained how the military authorities in many parts of Germany are deliberately offering Socialists the choice between silence and military service. A well-known trade union official at Elberfeld, named Sauerbrey, who had been declared totally unfit for military service because he had lost several fingers on his left hand, was arrested and charged with treason. He was acquitted, but instead of obtaining his freedom he was immediately called up and is now in training for the front. Herr Dittmann said that this case had caused intense bitterness, and added:—

"The Military Command at Munster is surprised that the feeling in the whole Wupper Valley is becoming more and more discontented, and the military are now hatching new measures of violence in order to be able to master this discontent. One would think that such things came from the madhouse. In reality they represent conditions under martial law, and this case is only one of very many."

Herr Dittmann gave several instances of men declared unfit for service who had been called up for political reasons, and he ended his speech as follows:—

"In regard to all this persecution of peaceful citizens there is a regular apparatus of agents-provocateurs, provided by officials of all kinds, and the apparatus is growing every day. If these persecutions were stopped a great number of these agents and officials could be released for military service. In most cases they are mere shirkers, and that is why they cling to their posts and seek every day to prove themselves indispensable by discovering all sorts of crimes. Because they do not want to go to the trenches other people must go to prison. Put an end to the state of martial law, and help us to root up a state of things which disgraces the German name."

The Alsatian deputy, Herr Haus, said that Alsace-Lorraine is suffering more than any other part of the country, and that more than 1,000 persons have been arrested without any charge being brought against them. Herr Seyda, for the Poles, said that the Polish population of Germany suffers especially from the system of preventive arrest.

In his contemptuous reply, which, showed that the Government was confident that it had nothing to fear from the majority in the Reichstag, Herr Helfferich said:—

"The institution of the dictator comes from ancient Rome, from the classical Republic of antiquity. (Laughter.) When the State was fighting for its existence it was found necessary to place supreme power in the hands of a single man, and to give this Roman dictator authority which was much greater than the authority belonging to preventive arrest and martial law. The whole development proceeds by way of compromise between the needs of the State and the needs of protection for the individual. The results vary according to the particular level of civilisation reached by the particular State. (Socialist cries of 'Very true.') We are not at the lowest level. When one considers the state of things in Germany in peace time we can be proud. (Socialist interruptions.) I am proud of Germany. I think that our constitutional system before the outbreak of war and our level of Kultur were such as every German could be proud of. ('No, no.') I hope that we shall soon be able to revert to those conditions."

Herr Helfferich went on to argue that repression in Germany is really much milder than in France, England, or Italy; and for the debate on the censorship, which followed the debate on preventive arrest, he came armed with an account of the Defence of the Realm Acts. When he enlarged upon the powers of the British Government he was interrupted by cries of "It is a question not of theory but of practice," and the Socialist leader Herr Stadthagen made a scathing reply. He said:—

"Even if everything in England is as Herr Helfferich described it, the state of things is much better there than in Germany. Herr Helfferich stated the cases in which arrest and search of dwellings may take place, but those are cases in which similar action can be taken in Germany in time of peace under the ordinary criminal law. The Englishman has quite other rights. He has the right to his personality, and, above all, the officials in England, unlike Germany, are personally responsible. When we make a law, that law is repealed by the Administration. That is the whole point, but Herr Helfferich does not see it, and he does not see that we live in a Police State and under a police system. Did it ever occur to anybody in England to dispute the right of immunity of members of parliament? Did it ever occur to anybody in England to go to members of the Opposition in Parliament and demand that they should resign their seats on pain of arrest? Or has anybody in England been threatened with arrest if he does not withdraw a declaration against the committee of his party? Two newspapers have been suppressed in England because they opposed munitions work. I regret this check upon free criticism in England, but what would have happened in Germany? In Germany there would undoubtedly have been a prosecution for high treason. In England, moreover, the newspapers are allowed to reappear, and that without giving any guarantees. In Germany we are required to give guarantees that the papers shall be conducted by a person approved of by the political police. Herr Helfferich employs inappropriate comparisons. I will give him one which applies. The political police in Germany is precisely what the State Inquisition was in Venice."

An interesting point in the censorship debate was the disclosure of the fact that the local censors do what they please. Herr Seyda protested against the peculiar persecution of the Poles. He remarked that at Gnesen no Polish paper has been allowed to appear for the past two years.

But as significant as anything was Herr Stadthagen's account of the recruiting for the political police. He said that the police freely offer both money and exemption from military service to boys who are about to become liable for service. He gave a typical case of a boy of seventeen. The police called at his home and inquired whether he belonged to any Socialist organisation and whether he had been medically examined for the Army. A police official then waylaid the boy as he was leaving work and promised him that, if he would give information of what went on in his Socialist association, he could earn from 4 pounds to 4 pounds 10 shillings a month and be exempt from military service.

There is a peculiar connection between censorship and police. The evil effect of the censorship of their own Press by the German Government is to hypnotise the thousands of Government bureaucrats into the belief that that which they read in their own controlled Press is true.

No people are more ready to believe what they want to believe than the governing class in Germany. They wanted to believe that Great Britain would not come into the war. They had got into their heads, too, that Japan was going to be an ally of theirs. They wrote themselves into the belief that France was defeated and would collapse.

Regarding the Press, as they do, as all-important, they picked from the British Press any articles or fragments of articles suitable for their purpose and quoted them. They are adepts in the art of dissecting a paragraph so that the sense is quite contrary to that meant by the writer.

But the German Government goes further than that. It is quite content to quote to-day expressions of Greek opinion from Athens organs well known to be subsidised by Germany. Certain bribed papers in Zurich and Stockholm, and one notorious American paper, are used for this process of self-hypnotism. The object is two-fold. First, to influence public opinion in the foreign country, and, secondly, by requoting the opinion, to influence their own people into believing that this is the opinion held in the country from which it emanates. Thus, when I told Germans that large numbers of the Dutch people are pro-Ally, they point to an extract from an article in De Toekomst and controvert me.

These methods go to strengthen the hands of the police when they declare that in acting severely they are only acting against anarchistic opinions likely to create the impression abroad that there is disunity within the Empire.

Never, so far as I can gather, in the world's history was there so complete a machine for the suppression of individual opinion as the German police.

The anti-war demonstrations in Germany range all the way from the smashing of a few food-shop windows to the complete preparations for a serious crippling of the armies in the field by a general munition strike.

Half-way between were the so-called "Liebknecht riots" in Berlin. The notices summoning these semi-revolutionary meetings were whispered through factories, and from mouth to mouth by women standing in the food lines waiting for their potatoes, morning bread, meat, sugar, cheese, and other supplies. Liebknecht was brought to secret trial on June 27th, on the evening of which demonstrations took place throughout the city. I was present at the one near the Rathaus, which was dispersed towards midnight when the police actually drew their revolvers and charged the crowd.

The following evening I was at an early hour in the Potsdamer Platz, where a great demonstration was to take place. It was the second anniversary of the murder at Sarajevo. The city was clearly restless, agitated; people were on the watch for something to happen. The Potsdamer Platz is the centre through which the great arteries of traffic flow westward after the work of the day is done. The people who stream through it do not belong to the poorer classes, for these live in the east and the north. But on this mild June evening there was a noticeably large number of working men in the streets leading into the Platz. I was standing near a group of these when the evening editions appeared with the news that Liebknecht had been sentenced. A low murmur among the workmen, mutterings of suppressed rage when they realised the significance of the short trial of two days, and a determined movement toward the place of demonstration.

I hurried to the Potsdamer Platz. The number of police stationed in the streets leading into it increased. The Platz itself was blue with them, for they stood together in groups of six, ten and twelve. I went along the Budapester Strasse to the Brandenburger Tor, through which workmen from Moabit had streamed at noon declaring that they would strike. They had been charged by the mounted police, who drove them back across the Spree. There was a blue patrol along the Unter den Linden now. A whole army corps of police were on the alert in the German capital.

I returned to the Potsdamer Platz. It was thick with people now—curious onlookers. There were crowds of workmen in the adjacent streets, but they were not allowed to approach too near. Again and again they tried, but, unarmed, they were powerless when the horses were driven into them, I saw a few of the most obstinate struck with the flat of sabres, and on others were rained blows from the police on foot. Nobody hit Back, or even defended himself.

There was practically no violence such as one expects from a mob. It was something else which impressed me. It impressed my police-lieutenant friend, also. That was the dangerous ugliness in the workmen. Hate was written in their faces, and the low growl in the crowd told all too plainly the growing feeling against the war.

The Government realised this. They had already seen that the unity they had so artificially created could only be held by force. They had used force in the muzzling of Liebknecht, and quietly they were employing a most potent force every day, the force of preventive arrest.

In July there was agitation for the great munition strike which was to have taken place on the day of the second anniversary of the war. The dimensions of the proposed rising were effectually concealed by the censorship. The ugly feeling in the Potsdamer Platz had taught the Government a lesson.

No detail was neglected in the preparations against the strike. There was a significant movement of machine-guns to all points of danger, such as the Moabit district of Berlin, and Spandau, together with countless warnings against so-called "anarchists." Any workman who showed the slightest tendency to be a leader in a factory group was taken away. The expressions of intention not to work the first four days of August became so strong that the Press issued a warning that any man refusing to work would be put into a uniform, and he would receive not eight or more marks a day as in munition work, but three marks in ten days. Even the Kaiser supplemented his regular anniversary manifestoes to the armed forces of the Empire and the civilian population with a special appeal to the workmen.

I was up and ready at an early hour on the morning of August 1st. Again the city was blue with police. But this time they were reinforced. As I walked through streets lined with soldiers in the workingmen's quarters, I realised the futility of any further anti-war demonstrations in the Fatherland.

I stood in the immense square before the Royal Palace, and reflected that two years ago it was packed with a crowd wild with joy at the opportunity of going to war. There was unity. I stood on the very spot where the old man was jeered because he had said, "War is a serious business, young fellow."

On August 1st, 1916, there were more police in the square than civilians. On Unter den Linden paced the blue patrol. There was still unity in Germany, but a unity maintained by revolver, sword and machine-gun.



CHAPTER XVI

POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA

In his speech to the Senate President Wilson, said: "No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognise and accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from the consent at the governed. . . . No nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful."

The realisation of these admirable sentiments presents infinite problems in various sections of Europe, but nowhere, perhaps, more than in Austria-Hungary. In his heterogeneous collection of peoples, the old Emperor had to make a choice between two courses in order to hold his thirteen distinct races together in one Empire. He could have tried to make them politically contented through freedom to manage their own affairs while owing allegiance to the Empire as a whole, or he could suppress the individual people to such an extent that he would have unity by force.

He chose the second course. With the Germans dominant in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary, other nations have been scientifically subjugated. As in the case of the procedure of "Preventive Arrest" in Germany, the authorities seek to work smoothly and silently, with the result that only an occasional echo reaches the outside world.

The description of the relations of the various peoples and the "Unity-Machine" employed would fill a large book. Control of public opinion has been the first action of the rulers of the Dual Monarchy. In peace time, not only were the suppressed nations, such as the Czechs, Slovaks, Rumanians, Luthenians, Poles, Slovenes, Italians, but all the citizens of Austria-Hungary, denied the right of free speech and freedom of the Press. Some of the regulations by which the Government held absolute sway over its subjects are:

(1) No newspaper or other printing business could be established until a heavy deposit was made with the police for the payment of fines, such fines to be arbitrarily imposed by the police—in whom is vested extraordinary power—when anything political was written which did not please them. They are difficult to please, I may add.

(2) A complete copy of each edition must be sent to the police before it was put on sale. "Good" editors whose inspiration was of a nature to enable them to interpret the wishes of the Government, sometimes received a dispensation from this formality.

(3) No club might hold a private meeting. A representative of the police must be present. This rule was often extended even to friendly gatherings in private homes in such places as Bohemia.

(4) No political meeting might be held without a permit, and a representative of the police must be present. Often he sat on the platform. It is amusing for the visitor from a free country to attend a political meeting where the chairman, speaker and policeman file up on the stage to occupy the three chairs reserved for them. The policeman may be heard by those in the front rows continually cautioning the speaker. If he thinks the speaker is talking too freely he either intervenes through the chairman and asks him to be moderate or dismisses the meeting.

These regulations, I again remind the reader, were in force in peace time. It is easy to see how an extension of them effectually checks attempts of the Czechs (Bohemians) and other peoples to legislate themselves into a little freedom.

When I came to England early in the war from Austria-Hungary and Germany I heard many expressions of hope that the discontented races in the Empire of Francis Joseph would rebel, and later expressions of surprise that they did not. Englishmen held the opinion that such races would be decidedly averse from fighting for the Hapsburgs. The opinion was correct, and nobody knew this better than the Hapsburgs themselves.

Like the German Government in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, the Austrian Government has endeavoured to mislead public opinion in foreign countries as to the state of mind of the Czechs by false information and to conceal the true military and political situation from the population at home. Austria's first problem at the outbreak of war—a problem which has been worked out to the last detail—was rapidly to move the soldiers of the subjugated races from their native lands. Since the Bosnians, for example, are of the Serbian race, they were mobilised secretly in the middle of July and sent out of Bosnia. I saw 30,000 moved through Trieste several days before war was declared on Serbia. A German acquaintance, with great shipping interests, enthusiastically indiscreet at sight of them, exclaimed to the little group of which I was one: "A wonderful system—a wonderful system! The Bosnians could not be trusted to fight the Serbs. But we Germans can use them if they prove troublesome to Austria," he continued excitedly. "We can send them against the French. We will tell them that if they do not shoot the French, we will shoot them." I thought this a rather curious conversation for July 25th, 1914.

Less than fortnight later I saw two Bohemian regiments arrive at Prasso, Transylvania, the province farthest removed from their homes, to be garrisoned in a region, the population of which is Rumanian, Hungarian and Saxon. I was told later that the Rumanians who had left the garrisons at Prasso had gone to Bohemia. As I observed these initial steps in the great smooth-running Austro-Hungarian military machine, I was impressed with the impossibility of revolution. With the soldier element scientifically broken up and scattered all over the country, who could revolt—the women and children?

The Slav soldiers of Austria-Hungary desert to Russia at every opportunity. The fact that she now has upwards of 1,200,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners is sufficient refutation of the sugar-coated propaganda describing how all the peoples who make up Austria-Hungary rushed loyally and enthusiastically to arms to the defence of their Emperor and common country. This is perfectly true of the politically dominant races, the Germans and the Magyars, but the "enthusiasm" I witnessed among the subjugated races consisted chiefly of sad-faced soldiers and weeping women.

The Bohemians have given most trouble. One German officer who was sent to Austria to help bolster up her army told me that he didn't worry over the desertion of Bohemians singly and in small groups. He expected that. But he did take serious exception to the increasingly popular custom of whole battalions with their officers and equipment passing over to the Russian lines intact.

The story of the Bohemian regiment trapped in the Army of Leopold of Bavaria is generally known in Austria. When the staff learned that this regiment planned to cross to the Russians on a certain night, three Bavarian regiments, well equipped with machine-guns, were set to trap it. Contrary to usual procedure, the Bohemians were induced by the men impersonating the Russians to lay down their arms as an evidence of good faith before crossing. The whole regiment was then rounded up and marched to the rear, where a public example was made of it. The officers were shot. Then every tenth man was shot. The Government, in order to circumvent any unfavourable impression which this act might make in Bohemia, caused to be read each day for three days in the schools a decree of the Emperor, condemning the treachery of this regiment, the number of which was ordered for ever to be struck from the military rolls of the Empire.

During the terrific fighting at Baranowitchi in the great Russian offensive last summer, at a time when the Russians repeatedly but unsuccessfully stormed that important railway junction, some Prussian units found their right flank unsupported one morning at dawn, because two Bohemian battalions had changed flags during the night. The next Russian attack caused the Prussians to lose 48 per cent. of their men.

This was the final straw for the Staff of Leopold's Army. An Order was issued explaining to the troops that henceforth no more Czechs would have the honour of doing first line duty, since their courage was not of as high a degree as that of the others. I found that the Prussians, despite their depleted state, actually believed this explanation, which filled them with pride in themselves and contempt for the Czechs.

But the German officers in charge of reorganising the Austro-Hungarian Army were not content to let Bohemians perform safe duties in the rear. Consequently, they diluted them until no regiment contained more than 20 per cent.

The authorities have been no less thorough with the civilian population. From the day of mobilisation all political life was suspended. The three parties of the Opposition, the Radicals, the National-Socialists, and the Progressives, were annihilated and their newspapers suppressed. Their leaders, such men as Kramarzh, Rasin, Klofatch, Scheiner, Mazaryk, Durich, the men who served as guides to the nation, were imprisoned or exiled. This is surely a violation of the principle that Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, for all these men were the true representatives of the people. The fact that the Government was obliged to get rid of the leaders of the nation shows what the real situation in Bohemia is.

The Czech deputies who were considered dangerous, numbering forty, were mobilised. They were not all sent to the front; some were allowed temporary exemption; but the Government gave them to understand that the slightest act of hostility towards the Monarchy on their part would result in their being called up immediately and sent to the front.

The fetters of the Press were drawn more tightly. Even the German papers were not allowed into Bohemia. For some months, two or three enterprising editors used to send a representative to Dresden to read the German and English papers there. At present three-quarters of the Czech papers and all the Slovak newspapers have been suppressed. The columns of those which are still allowed to appear in Bohemia and Moravia are congested by mandates of the police and the military authorities, which the editors are compelled to insert. Recently the Government censorship has been particularly active against hooks, collections of national songs, and post-cards. It has even gone so far as to confiscate scientific works dealing with Slav questions, Dostoyevski's novels, the books of Tolstoi and Millioukoff, and collections of purely scientific Slav study and histories.

The Government, however, have had to proceed to far greater lengths. By May, 1916, the death sentences of civilians pronounced in Austria since the beginning of the war exceeded 4,000. Of these, 965 were Czechs. A large proportion of the condemned were women. The total of soldiers executed amounts to several thousands.

Is it not peculiar that among people which the Viennese propaganda represents as loyal, hostages are taken in Bohemia, and condemned to death, under the threat of execution if a popular movement takes place? The people are told of this and are given to understand that the hostages have hopes for mercy if all is quiet.

Not only have the authorities confiscated the property of all persons convicted of political offences and of all Czechs who have fled from Austria-Hungary, but a system has been established by which the property of Czech soldiers who are prisoners in Russia is confiscated. The State profits doubly by this measure, for it further suppresses the allowances made to the families of these soldiers. In order to terrorise its adversaries through such measures, the Government instructs the Austrian newspapers to publish long lists of confiscations and other penalties.

After a time, however, the Austrian Government practically abdicated in favour of the Prussians and now undertake to carry out the measures of Germanisation dictated by Berlin. The rights in connection with the use of the Czech language in administration, in the Law Courts and on the railways, rights which were won by the desperate efforts of two generations of Czech politicians, have been abrogated. The management of the railways has been placed in the hands of Prussian military officials; the use of the Czech language has been suppressed in the administration, where it had formerly been lawful. The Czechs have been denied access to the Magistrature and to public offices where they had occasionally succeeded in directing the affairs in their own country.



CHAPTER XVII

SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES

A comprehensive account of the German system of espionage would need something resembling the dimensions of a general encyclopaedia, but for the present I must endeavour to summarise the subject in the course of a chapter.

Spying is just as essential an ingredient of Prussian character as conceit, indifference to the feelings of others, jealousy, envy, self-satisfaction, conceit, industry, inquisitiveness, veneration for officialdom, imitativeness, materialism, and the other national attributes that will occur to those who know Prussia, as distinct from the other German States.

Prussian men and women hardly know the meaning of the word "private," and, as they have Prussianised to a great or less degree all the other States of the Empire, they have inured the German to publicity from childhood upwards.

In the enforcement of food regulations the hands of the Government in Germany are strengthened by certain elements in the German character, one of which is the tendency of people to spy upon each other. Here is a case. Last Easter the customary baking of cakes—a time-honoured ceremony in Germany—-was forbidden all over Prussia from April 1 to 26. A certain good woman of Stettin, whose husband was coming home from the trenches, thought that she would welcome her soldier with one of the cakes of which German men and women are so fond. She foolishly displayed her treasure to a neighbour, who had dropped in for gossip. The neighbour cut short the interview, went home to her telephone, called up the police and, as she put it, did her duty. I suppose from the German point of view it is the duty of people to spy in each other's houses. From an Anglo-Saxon point of view it is something rather like sneaking at school.

With these elements in their character, it is natural that the Germans should be past masters in the art of espionage. It does not follow that they are equally successful in the deductions formed from their investigations in foreign matters, but they are so egoistical and so literal, so fond of making reports, so fond of seeing things only from their own point of view, that, while they may be successful in obtaining possession by spying, purchase, or theft, of the plans, say, of a new battleship, they are not able to form an accurate estimate of the character and intentions of the people among whom they may be spying.

Their military spying is believed to be as perfect as such work can be, marred occasionally by the contempt they feel for other nations in military matters. I presume that there is not much difference in the systems of various nations except that the German military spying is probably more thorough.

It is also true that Germans of social distinction will often take positions far beneath their rank in order to gather valuable information for their Government. The case of the hall porter in the Hotel des Indes, the most fashionable hotel in The Hague, is a notorious example. He is of gentle birth, a brother of Baron von Wangenheim, late German Ambassador to Constantinople.

In one of the most luxurious dining-saloons on one of the most luxurious of the great German liners—I promised my trustworthy informant not to be more definite—the man who was head-waiter during the year preceding the war impressed those under him with being much more interested in some mysterious business ashore than in his duties aboard ship. He threw most of his work on subordinates, who complained, though unsuccessfully, to the management. Unlike other head-waiters and chief stewards, he was never aboard the ship when it was in port. He was the only German in the dining-saloon, and he seemed to have great influence. He conversed freely with influential passengers of various nationalities.

The liner was in the English Channel eastward bound, when news came that Germany had declared war upon Russia. What little interest he had previously displayed in his duties now vanished completely, and he paced the deck more and more impatiently as the vessel neared Cuxhaven. He was one of the first to go ashore, but before leaving he turned to two of the stewards and exclaimed, "Good-bye. I am going to Wilhelmshaven to take command of my cruiser."

In general, the work of military attaches of all countries is added to by more or less formal reports by officers who may be travelling on leave. But German military spying goes much farther than this, for inasmuch as most Germans have been soldiers, the majority of Germans travelling or resident in a foreign country are trained observers of military matters and, often act as semi-spies.

The system of "sowing" Germans in foreign countries, as I have heard it called in Germany, and getting them naturalised, was begun by Prussia before the war of 1866 against Austria. It was so successful under the indirect auspices of the Triumvirate—Moltke, Roon, and Bismarck—that it was developed in other countries. Thus it is that, while there are comparatively few Frenchmen, for example, naturalised in England, many German residents go through this more or less meaningless form just as suits their particular business or the German Government, double nationality being regarded as a patriotic duty to the Fatherland.

There are, as a rule, three schools of German espionage in other countries—the Embassy, the Consulates, and the individual spies, who have no connection with either and who forward their reports direct to Germany.

There is a fourth class of fairly well-paid professional spies, men and women, of all classes, who visit foreign countries with letters of introduction, who attend working-men's conventions, scientific, military, and other industrial congresses, receiving from 40 pounds to 100 pounds monthly by way of pay. The case of Lody, whom the British caught and executed, was a type of the patriotic officer spy. But his execution caused no real regret in Germany, for he was regarded as a clumsy fellow, who roused the vigilance of the British authorities, with the result, I was informed in Germany, of the arrest and execution of several others, mostly, it is said, Dutch, South American, and other neutrals.

The atmosphere of spying in business is a subtle and comparatively modern form of German espionage, and has developed with the remarkable rise of German industry in the last quarter of a century. It fits in admirably with the Consular spy system, and links up Germans, naturalised and otherwise, in a chain which binds them together in a solidarity of workers for the cause. The Deutsche Bank and the Hamburg-Amerika Line were very potent engines of espionage.

Nor does the "Viktoria Insurance Company of Berlin" limit its activities to the kind of business suggested by the sign over the door. A "Special Bureau" in the Avenue de l'Opera, Paris, consisted of German Reserve officers who spent a half-year or more in France. As soon as one of these "finished his education" he was replaced by another Reserve officer. Their duties took them on long motor-trips through eastern France, strangely enough to localities which might be of strategic importance in the event of war. It is not without significance that all the clerks of the "Special Bureau" left for Germany the day of mobilisation.

Many of the semi-spies of the German commercial, musical, and theatrical world are, from their point of view, honest workers and enthusiastic for German Kultur. They recently fastened upon England, because the Germans for many years have been taught to regard this country as their next opponent.

They are now as industrious in the United States as they were in England before the war, because those Germans who think they have won the war believe that the United States is their next enemy. How active they have been in my country may be gathered from the revelations concerning Bernstorff, von Papen, Boyed, Dumba, the officials of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, and many others, whose machinations have been revealed by the New York World and other journals.

It is the duty of the German Minister and his staff in any foreign country, and particularly in countries likely to become hostile, to get as close as possible to members of Governments, members of Legislatures, leaders of thought and society, and members of the Press, especially the first and the last in this category. Count Bernstorff in the United States did exactly what Prince Lichnowsky did in Britain before the war, and, if I may say so, did it a great deal more successfully, though it is the plea of the Prince's defenders that he succeeded in making very powerful and permanent connections in Great Britain,

Our American Ambassadors, on the other hand, confine their attention to strictly ambassadorial work, attend to the needs of travelling Americans, and communicate with their Government on matters vital to American interests.

The excellent German Consular system, which has done so much to help German trade invaders in foreign countries, is openly a spy bureau, and is provided in almost every important centre with its own secret service fund. Attached to it are spies and semi-spies, hotel-keepers, hairdressers, tutors, governesses, and employees in Government establishments, such as shipbuilding yards and armament factories. It is a mistake to suppose that all these are Germans. Some, I regret to say, are natives of the laud in which the Germans are spying, mostly people who have got into trouble and with whom the German agents have got into touch. Such men, especially those who have suffered imprisonment, have often a grudge against their own country and are easily caught in the spy net.

Part of the system in England before the war was a commercial information bureau resembling the American Bradstreets and the English Stubbs, by which, on payment of a small sum, the commercial standing of any firm or individual can be obtained. This bureau, which had its branches also in France and Belgium, closed its activities immediately prior to the war, the whole of the card-indexes being removed to Berlin.

It is the German boast, and I believe a legitimate one, that they know England better than do the English. Their error is in believing that in knowing England they know the English themselves.

At the outset of the war, when the Germans were winning, Herr Albert Ulrich, of the Deutsche Bank, and chief of their Oil Development Department, speaking in perfect English, told me in a rather heated altercation we had in regard to my country that he knew the United States and Great Britain very thoroughly indeed, and boasted that the American submarines, building at Fore River, of which the Germans had secured the designs, would be of little value in the case of hostilities between Germany and the United States, which he then thought imminent.

It is typical of German mentality that when I met him in Berlin, fifteen months later, he had completely altered his time as to the war, and his tone was, "When is this dreadful war going to end?" This, however, is by the way. Herr Ulrich is only an instance of the solidarity of Pan-Germanism. An English or American banker visiting a foreign country attends to his affairs and departs. A German in a similar position is a sort of human ferret. An hotel with us is a place of residence for transient strangers. The Hotel Adlon and others in Berlin are excellent hotels as such, but mixed up with spying upon strangers; Herr Adlon, senior, a friend of the Kaiser's, assists the Government spies when any important or suspicious visitor registers. The hotel telephones or any other telephones are systematically tapped. German soldiers are granted special leave for hotel service—that is to say, hotel spying.

When Belgium and France were invaded, German officers led their men through particular districts to particular houses with certainty, with knowledge gained by previous residence and spying. I know an officer with von Kluck's army who received the Iron Cross, First Class, for special information he had given to von Kluck which facilitated his progress through Belgium.

Any German spies who may be working in England to-day have no great difficulty in communicating with Germany, though communication is slow and expensive. They can do so by many routes and many means. As it is impossible to isolate Great Britain from Europe, it is equally impossible to prevent the conveyance of information to the enemy with more or less rapidity. Agents of the various belligerent Powers are plentiful in Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the United States. So far as the maritime countries are concerned, ships leave and enter daily. It is quite impossible to control the movements of neutral sailors and others engaged in these vessels. To watch all the movements of all those men would require a detective force of impossible dimensions. That information comes and goes freely by these channels is notorious. That all the sailors are legitimate sailors I do not believe, and as a matter of fact I know that they are not.

The transmission of documents via Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway has been rendered difficult, but not always impossible. Cabling and telegraphing have been made very risky.

Judging by the impatience manifested in certain quarters in Berlin at delay in getting news of Zeppelin raids, for example, I believe that the steps taken to delay communication between England and Germany have been effective, and delay in spy work is very often fatal to its efficiency. The various tentacles of the German spy system, its checks and counter-checks, whereby one spy watches another; whereby the naval spy system has no connection with the military spy system, and the political with neither, greatly mars its utility.

Take one great question—the question that was all-important to Germany as to whether Great Britain would or would not enter the war in the event of an invasion of Belgium or declaration of war against France. I was informed on good Berlin authority that from every part of Great Britain and Ireland came different reports. So far as London was concerned, Prince Lichnowsky said "No." Baron von Kuhlmann was non-committal. As a result Lichnowsky was disgraced and von Kuhlmann continued in favour.

It is common knowledge in Berlin, and may be elsewhere, that the most surprised person in Germany at Great Britain's action was the Kaiser, whose violent and continual denunciations of Great Britain's Government, of King Edward, and King George, are repeated from mouth to mouth in official circles with a sameness that indicates accuracy.

All the ignorance of Great Britain's intentions in 1914 is to me the best proof that the German minute system of working does not always produce the result desired.

As one with Irish blood in my veins, I found that Germany's Irish spy system (largely conducted by hotel waiters and active for more than five and twenty years) had resulted in hopeless misunderstanding of Irish affairs and Irish character, North and South.

German spies are as a rule badly paid. The semi-spies, such as waiters, were usually "helped" by the German Government through waiters' friendly societies. It was the duty of these men to communicate either in writing or verbally with the Consul, or with certain headquarters either in Brussels or Berlin, and it is only in accordance with human nature that spies of that class, in order to gain a reputation for acumen and consequent increase of pay, provided the kind of information that pleased the paymaster. That, indeed, was one of the causes of the breakdown of the German political spy system. A spy waiter or governess in the County of Cork, for instance, who assiduously reported that a revolution throughout the whole of Ireland would immediately follow Great Britain's entry into the war, received much more attention than the spy waiter in Belfast who told the authorities that if Germany went to war many Irishmen would join England. Ireland, I admit, is very difficult and puzzling ground for spy work, but it was ground thoroughly covered by the Germans according to their methods.

The military party in Germany, who are flaying von Bethmann-Hollweg for his ignorance of the intentions of Britain's Dominions and of Ireland, never cease to throw in his teeth the fact that he had millions of pounds (not marks) at his hack to make the necessary investigations, and that he failed. That and his lack of the use of ruthlessness, his alleged three days' delay to mobilise in 1914, are the principal charges against him—charges which, in my opinion, may eventually result in his downfall.

The great mob of semi-spies do not derive their whole income from Germany, nor are they, I believe, all actually paid at regular intervals. The struggling German shopkeeper in England was helped, and I have no doubt is still helped, by occasional sums received for business development—sums nominally in the nature of donations or loans from other Germans. The army of German clerks, who came to England and worked without salary between 1875 and 1900, received, as a rule, their travelling money and an allowance paid direct from Germany, or, when in urgent need, from the Consul in London or elsewhere. Their spying was largely commercial, although many of them formed connections here which became valuable as Germany began to prepare directly for war with Britain. They also helped to spread the knowledge of the English language which has enabled Germany to analyse the country by means of its books, Blue-books, statistical publications, and newspapers. They also brought back with them topographical and local knowledge that supplemented the military spy work later achieved by the German officers who came to live here for spying purposes, and the great army of trained spy waiters, who are not to be confused with the semi-spies in hotels, who drew small sums from Consuls.

One of the finest pieces of spy work achieved by Germany was the obtaining by a German professor of a unique set of photographs of the whole of the Scottish coast, from north to south. Those photographs showing every inlet and harbour, are now at the Reichs-Marine-Amt (Admiralty) in the Leipsigerplatz. They have been reproduced for the use of the Navy. I do not know how they were obtained. I know they are in existence, and they were taken for geological purposes.

Thefts of documents from British Government Departments are not always successfully accomplished by German agents, I was told. Some of the more astute officials are alleged, especially by the Naval Department, to have laid traps and supplied the spies with purposely misleading designs and codes.

Assiduous fishing in the troubled waters around the Wilhelmstrasse—waters that will become more and more troubled as the siege of Germany proceeds—renders the gathering of information not so difficult as it might appear.

By sympathising with the critics of the German Foreign Office in the violent attacks upon the Government by the non-official Social Democrats, a sympathetic listener can learn a great deal.

One thing I learned is that, beyond question, the German spy system, in that misty period called "after the war," will he very completely revised. The huge sums of money mentioned in the Reichstag as having been expended on secret service have, so far as England is concerned, proved of no political value, and the topographical and personal knowledge gained would only be of service in case of actual invasion and the consequent exactions of ransoms from individuals, cities, and districts.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE

The state of affairs in Alsace-Lorraine is one of Germany's moat carefully hidden secrets.

In the first months of the war I heard so much talk in Germany—talk based upon articles in the Press—of how the Alsatians, like the rest of the Kaiser's subjects, "rushed to the defence of the Fatherland," that I was filled with curiosity to go and see for myself if they had suddenly changed. I could hardly believe that they had, for I had studied conditions in the "lost provinces" before the war.

Still, the Wilhelmstrasse propaganda was convincing millions that the Alsatians received the French very coldly when they invaded the province to Mulhouse, and that they greeted the German troops most heartily when they drove back the invader. Indeed, Alsatian fathers were depicted as rushing into the streets to cheer the German colours, while their wives and daughters "were so beside themselves with joy that they hung upon the necks of the brave German Michaels, hailing them as saviours."

A pretty picture of the appreciation of the blessings of German rule, but was it true?

Some months later in Paris, when I stood in the Place de la Concorde before the Monument of Strassburg, covered with new mourning wreaths and a British flag now added, I felt an irresistible yearning to visit the closely guarded region of secrecy and mystery.

On my subsequent trip to Germany I planned and planned day after day how I could get into Alsace and go about studying actual conditions there. When I told one American consul that I wished to go to Strassburg to see things for myself, he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair and reminded me that not an American or other consulate was allowed in Alsace-Lorraine, even in peace time. When I replied that I was determined to go he looked grave, and said earnestly: "Remember that you are going into a damn bad country, and you go at your own, risk."

It is extremely difficult for Germans, to say nothing of foreigners, to enter the fortress-city of Strassburg. Business must be exceedingly urgent, and a military pass is required. A special pass is necessary to remain over night.

How did I get into Strassburg in war-time?

That is my own story, quite a simple one, but I do not propose to tell it now except by analogy, in order not to get anybody into trouble.

During my last voyage across the ocean, which was on the Dutch liner Rotterdam, I went into the fo'castle one day to talk to a stowaway, a simple young East Prussian lad, who had gone to sea and had found himself in the United States at the outbreak of war.

"How on earth did you manage to pass through the iron-clad regulations at the docks of Hoboken (New York) without a permit, and why did you do it?" I asked.

"I was home-sick," he answered, "and I wanted to go back to Germany to see my mother. I got on board quite easily. I noticed a gentleman carrying his own baggage, and I said to him, 'Can I carry your suitcases on board, sir?'"

Once on board his knowledge of ships told him how to hide.

Having myself stood for more than two hours on the quay in a long and growling queue of passengers, I could not but be amused by the simple device by which this country youth had outwitted the stringent war embarkation regulations of war-time New York. He was in due course taken off by the British authorities at Falmouth, and is now probably enjoying the sumptuous diet provided at the Alexandra Palace or the Isle of Man.

Well, that is not exactly how I got into Strassburg, but I got in.

Night had fallen when I crossed the Rhine from Baden. I was conscious of an indescribable thrill when my feet touched the soil so sacred to all Frenchmen, and I somehow felt as if I were walking in fairyland as I pushed on in the dark. I had good fortune, arising from the fact that a great troop movement was taking place, with consequent confusion and crowding.

On all sides from the surrounding girdle of forts the searchlights swept the sky, and columns of weary soldiers tramped past me on that four-mile road that led into Strassburg. I kept as close to them as possible with some other pedestrians, labourers returning from the great electric power plant.

Presently I was alone on the road when suddenly a soldier lurched from the shadows and accosted me. I let him do the talking. But there was no need to be alarmed; he was only a drunken straggler who had got separated from his company and wanted to know whether any more troops were coming on.

I had already passed through two cordons of functionaries outside, and felt little fear in Strassburg itself, so long as I was duly cautious. I had thought out my project carefully. I realised that I must sleep in the open; for, unprovided with a pass it was impossible for me to go to an hotel. Thankful that I was familiar with my surroundings I wended my way to the beautiful park, the Orangerie, where I made myself comfortable in a clump of bushes and watched the unceasing flash of searchlights criss-cross in the sky until I fell asleep.

Next day I continued my investigations, but in Alsace as elsewhere my personal adventures are of no importance to the world unless, as in some instances, they throw light on conditions or are necessary to support statements made, whereas the facts set down belong to the history of the war. Therefore I shall here summarise what I found in the old French province.

The Germans have treated Alsace-Lorraine ruthlessly since the outbreak of war is no part of the Empire is the iron hand so evident. In Strassburg itself all signs of the French have disappeared. Readers who know the place well will remark that they were vanishing before the war. Externally they have now gone altogether, but the hearts and spirit of the people are as before.

What I saw reminded me of the words of a Social Democrat friend in Berlin, who told me that the Prussian Government determined, at the beginning of the war that they would have no more Alsace-Lorraine problem in the future.

They have, therefore, sent the soldiers from these two provinces to the most dangerous places at the various fronts. One Alsace regiment was hurled again and again at the old British Army on the Yser in November, 1914, until at the end of a week only three officers and six men were left alive. Some of the most perilous work at Verdun, was forced upon the Alsatians.

The Prussian authorities deliberately retain with the colours Alsatians and Lorrainers unfit for military service, and wounded men are not allowed to return to their homes.

In the little circle to which I was introduced in Strassburg I talked with one sorrowing woman, who said that her son, obviously in an advanced state of tuberculosis, had been called up in spite of protests. He died within three weeks. Another young man, suffering from haemorrhage of the lungs, was called up. He was forced to stand for punishment all one winter's day in the snow. In less than two months a merciful death in a military hospital released him from the Prussian clutch.

The town of Strassburg is a vast hospital. I do not think I have ever seen so many Red Cross flags before. They waved from the Imperial Palace, the public library, the large and excellent military hospitals, the schoolhouses, hotels, and private residences. The Orangerie is thronged with convalescent wounded, and when hunger directed my steps to the extensive Park Restaurant I found it, too, converted into a hospital. Even the large concert room was crowded with cots.

The glorious old sandstone Cathedral, with its gorgeous facade and lace-like spire, had a Red Cross flag waving over the nave while a wireless apparatus was installed on the spire. Sentries paced backwards and forwards on the uncompleted tower, which dominates the region to the Vosges.

The whole object of Prussia is to eliminate every vestige of French influence in the two provinces. The use of the French language, whether in speech or writing, is strictly forbidden. To print, sell, offer for sale, or purchase anything in French is to commit a crime. Detectives are everywhere on the alert to discover violations of the law. All French trade names have been changed to their German equivalents. For example, the sign Guillaume Rondee, Tailleur, has come down, and if the tradesman wants to continue in his business Wilhelm Rondee, Schneider, must go up. He may have a quantity of valuable business forms or letter-heads in French—even if they contain only one French word they must be destroyed. And those intimate friends who are accustomed to address him by his first name must bear in mind that it is Wilhelm.

Eloise was a milliner at the outbreak of the war. Today, if she desires to continue her business, she is obliged to remove the final "e" and thus Germanise her name.

After having been fed in Berlin on stories of Alsatian loyalty to the Kaiser, I was naturally puzzled by these things. If Guillaume had rushed into the street to cheer the German colours when the French were driven back, and Eloise had hung upon the neck of the German Michael, was it not rather ungrateful of the Prussians subsequently to persecute them even to the stamping out of their names? Not only that, but to be so efficient in hate that even inscriptions on tombstones may no longer be written in French?

Alsace-Lorraine is to be literally Elsass-Lothringen to the last detail.

The truth of the matter is that the Alsatians greeted the French as deliverers and were depressed when they fell back. This, as might be expected, exasperated Prussia, for it was a slap in the face for her system of government by oppression. Thus, at the very time that the Nachrichtendienst (News Service) connected with the Wilhelmstrasse was instructing Germans and neutrals that the Alsatians' enthusiastic reception of German troops was evidence of their approval of German rule, the military authorities were posting quite a different kind of notice in Alsace, a notice which reveals the true story.

"During the transport of French prisoners of war a portion of the populace has given expression to a feeling of sympathy for these prisoners and for France. This is to inform all whom it may concern that such expressions of sympathy are criminal and punishable, and that, should they again, take place, the persons taking part in them will be proceeded against by court-martial, and the rest of the inhabitants will be summarily deprived of the privileges they now enjoy.

"All crowding around prisoners of war, conversations with them, cries of welcome and demonstrations of sympathy of all kinds, as well as the supply of gifts, is strictly prohibited. It is also forbidden to remain standing while prisoners are being conducted or to follow the transport."

The result of the persecution of the French-speaking portion of the population has been a boomerang for Prussia. The Germans of the region, most of whom never cared much for Prussia, are now bitterly hostile to her, and thus it is that all citizens of Alsace, whether French or German, who go into other parts of Germany are under the same police regulations as alien enemies.

In order to permit military relentlessness to proceed smoothly without any opposition, the very members of the local Parliament, the Strassburg Diet, are absolutely muzzled. They have been compelled to promise not to criticise at any time, or in any way, the military control; otherwise their Parliament will be closed. As for the local Councils, they are not allowed to discuss any political questions whatsoever. A representative of the police is present at every meeting to enforce this rule to the letter.

The people do not even get the sugared Reichstag reports, as does the rest of Germany. These are specially re-censored at Mulhouse. The official reports of the General Staff are often days late, and sometimes do not appear at all. In no part of the war zone is there so much ignorance about what is happening at the various fronts as in the two "lost provinces."

Those who do not sympathise with Germany in her career of conquest upon which she so joyfully and ruthlessly embarked in August, 1914, may well point to Alsace-Lorraine as an argument against the probability of other peoples delighting in the rule which she would force upon them.

She has become more intolerant, not less, in the old French provinces. It will be recalled that by the Treaty of Frankfurt, signed in March, 1871, they became a "Reichsland," that is, an Imperial Land, not a self-governing State like Bavaria, Saxony, or Wurttemberg. As Bismarck bluntly and truly said to the Alsatian deputies in the Reichstag: "It is not for your sakes nor in your interests that we conquered you, but in the interests of the Empire."

For more than forty years Prussia has employed every means but kindness to Germanise the conquered territory. But though she has hushed every syllable of French in the elementary schools and forced the children to learn the German language and history only; though freedom of speech, liberty of the Press, rights of public meeting, have been things unknown; though even the little children playing at sand castles have been arrested and fined if in their enthusiasm they raised a tiny French flag, or in the excitement of their mock contest cried "Vive la France!"; though men and women have been fined and thrown into prison for the most trifling manifestations that they had not become enthusiastic for their rulers across the Rhine; and though most of the men filling Government positions—and they are legion—are Prussians, the Alsatians preserve their individuality and remain uncowed.

Having failed in two score of years to absorb them by force, Prussia during the war has sought by scientific methods carried to any extreme to blot out for ever themselves and their spirit.

To do the German credit, I believe that he is sincere when he believes that his rule would be a benefit to others and that he is genuinely perplexed when he discovers that other people do not like his regulations. The attitude which I have found in Germany towards other nationalities was expressed by Treitschke when he said, "We Germans know better what is good for Alsace than the unhappy people themselves."

The German idea of how she should govern other people is an anachronism. This idea, which I have heard voiced all over Germany, was aptly set forth before the war by a speaker on "The Decadence of the British Empire," when he sought to prove such decadence by citing the fact that there was only one British soldier to every 4,000 of the people of India. "Why," he concluded, "Germany has more soldiers in Alsace-Lorraine alone than Great Britain has in all India."

That is a bad spirit for the world, and it is a bad spirit for Germany. She herself will receive one great blessing from the war if it is hammered out of her.



CHAPTER XIX

THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW

The handling of the always difficult question of the eternal feminine was firmly tackled by the German Government almost immediately after the outbreak of war.

To understand the differences between, the situation here and in, Germany it is necessary first to have a little understanding of the German woman and her status. With us, woman is treated as something apart, something on a pedestal. In Germany and in Austria the situation is reversed. The German man uses his home as a place to eat and sleep in, and be waited upon. The attitude of the German woman towards the man is nearly always that of the obedient humble servant to command. If a husband and wife are out shopping it is often enough the wife who carries the parcels. In entering any public place the middle-class man walks first and the wife dutifully follows. When leaving, it is the custom for the man to be helped with his coat before the woman. Indeed, she is generally left to shift for herself.

Woman is the under sex, the very much under sex, in Germany, regarded by the man as his plaything or as his cook-wife and nurse of his children; and she will continue to be the under sex until she develops pride enough to assert herself. She accepts her inferiority without murmur; indeed, she often impresses one as delighting in it.

It is no dishonour for a girl of the middle or lower class to have a liaison with some admirer, particularly if he is a student or a young officer; in fact, it is quite the proper thing for him to be welcomed by her parents, although it is perfectly well understood that he has not the slightest idea of marrying her. The girls are doing their part to help along the doctrine of free love, the preaching and practice of which are so greatly increasing in the modern German State.

After marriage the woman's influence in the world is nearly zero. The idolatry of titles is carried to an extreme in Germany which goes from the pathetic to the ludicrous. One does not address a German lady by her surname, as Frau Schmidt, but by her husband's title or position, as Frau Hauptmann (Mrs. Captain), Frau Doktor, Frau Professor, Frau Bakermeister (Mrs. Bakershopowner), or even Frau Schornsteinfegermeister (Mrs. Master Chimneysweep), although her husband may be master over only some occasional juvenile assistant. In military social functions, and they are of daily occurrence in garrison towns, Mrs. Colonel naturally takes precedence in all matters over the wives and daughters of other members of the regiment. Contemplate the joyful existence of a vivacious American or British girl, accustomed to the respectful consideration of the other sex, married to a young lieutenant and ruled over by all the wives of his superior officers!

To try to marry money is considered praiseworthy and correct in German military circles. In Prussia a lieutenant in peace times receives for the first three years 60 pounds a year, from the fourth to the sixth year 85 pounds, from the seventh to the ninth year 99 pounds, from the tenth to the twelfth year 110 pounds, and after the twelfth year 130 pounds a year. A captain receives from the first to the fourth year 170 pounds, from the fifth to the eighth year 230 pounds, and the ninth year and after 355 pounds.

Thus it is that no young lady, however ugly, need be without an officer husband if she has money enough to buy one. If he has not a private income, the Government forbids him to marry until his pay is sufficient. That point is seldom reached before he is thirty-five years of age. Marriage helps him out of the difficulty, and since the army is so deified in the Fatherland that the highest ambition of nearly every girl is to marry an officer, his opportunity of trading shoulder-knots for a dowry is excellent.

The efforts of some women to increase their fortune sufficiently to enable them to invest in a military better-half are pathetic from an Anglo-Saxon point of view. One woman who requested an interview with me said that as I was an American correspondent I might be able to advise her how she could dispose of a collection of autographs to some American millionaire. She explained that her financial condition was not so good as formerly, but she was desperate to better it as she was in love with an officer, who, although he loved her, would have to marry another if she could not increase her income. The autographs she showed me were from Prince Henry of Prussia, Prince Bulow and other notables, and most of them were signed to private letters.

Take the story of Marie and Fritz, both of whom I knew in a garrison city in eastern Germany. Nothing could illustrate better the difference between the German attitude and our own on certain matters. She was a charming, lovable girl of nineteen engaged to an impecunious young lieutenant a few years older. They moved in the best circle in the Garnisonstadt.

Two years after their engagement her father lost heavily in business and could no longer afford to settle 5,000 pounds on her to enable them to marry.

It mattered not; theirs was true love, and they would wait until his pay was sufficient,

All went well until another girl, as unattractive as Marie was charming, decided that she would try to buy Fritz as a husband. After four months of her acquaintance he found time at the end of a day's drill to write a few lines informing the young lady, nine years of whose life he had monopolised, of his intention to marry the new rival. Life became black for Marie, the more as she realised that she and Fritz had only to wait a little longer and his pay would be sufficient.

How would Fritz be regarded in this country, and how was he regarded according to German standards? That is what makes the story worth telling. With us such a man as Fritz would have been cut socially and there would have been great sympathy for the sweet girl whose years had been wasted. But on the other side of the Rhine women exist solely for the comfort of men. In militaristic Germany Fritz lost not an iota of the esteem of his friends of either sex; as for Marie, she had failed in a fair game, that was all. The girl's mother even excused his conduct by saying that he was ambitious to get ahead in the army. Like most of her sex in Germany she has been reared to venerate the uniform so much that anything done by the man who wears it is quite excusable. Indeed, Marie's mother still listens with respectful approval at Kaffeeklatsch to Fritz's mother when she boasts of what her son is doing as a major over Turkish troops.

German women have many estimable qualities, but a proper amount of independence and pride is noticeably foreign to their natures. Is it surprising that the American girl of German parents requires only a very brief visit to the Fatherland to convince her that the career of the Hausfrau is not attractive.

On the whole, the efforts of the German woman have almost doubled the national output of war energy. Except in Berlin few are idle, and these only among the newly-rich class. The women of the upper classes, both in Germany and Austria, are either in hospitals or are making comforts for the troops. Women have always worked harder in Germany and at more kinds of work than in Britain or the States, and what, judging by London illustrated papers, seems to be a novelty—the engagement of women in agricultural and other pursuits—is just the natural way of things in Germany. It should always be remembered, when estimating German man-power and German ability to hold out, that the bulk of the work of civil life is being done by prisoners and women. A German woman and a prisoner of war, usually a Russian, working side by side in the fields is a common sight throughout Germany.

It is the boast of the Germans that their building constructions are going on as usual. I have myself seen plenty of evidence of this, such as the grading of the Isar at Munich, the completion of the colossal railway station at Leipzig, the largest in Germany, the construction of the new railway station at Gorlitz, the complete building since the war of the palatial Hotel Astoria at Leipzig, also two gigantic new steel and concrete palaces in the same city for the semi-annual fair, the erection of a new Hamburg-America Line office building adjacent to the old one and dwarfing it. The slaughter-house annexes, contracted for in days of peace, continue their slow growth, although Berlin has no present need for such extension in these half-pound-of-meat-a-week times.

The construction of the Nord-Sud Bahn of the underground railway, for linking up the north and south sections of Berlin has proceeded right along, the women down in the pit with picks and shovels doing the heavy work of navvies. That department of the German Government whose duty it is to enlighten Neutrals is not too proud of the fact, surprisingly enough. An American kinematograph operator, Mr. Edwards, of Mr. Hearst's papers, was desirous of taking a film of these women navvies—heavy, sad creatures they are. The Government stepped in and suggested that, although they had no objection to a personally conducted and posed picture—in which the women would no doubt smile to order—they could not permit the realities of this unwomanly task to be shown in the form of a truth-telling moving picture.

German authorities are utilising every kind of woman. The social evil, against which the Bishop of London and others are agitating in England, was effectively dealt with by the German authorities, not only for the sake of the health of the troops, but in the interests of munitions. Women of doubtful character were first told that if found in the neighbourhood of barracks or in cafes they were liable to be arrested, and when so found were immediately removed to their native places, and put into the nearest cartridge filling or other shop. The double effect has been an increased output of munitions for the army and increased health for the soldier, and such scenes as one may witness in Piccadilly or other London streets at night have been effectively squelched by the strong Prussian hand, with benefit to all concerned.

I am not speaking of German morals in general, which are notorious. I merely state the practical way the Germans turn the women of the street into useful munition makers.

The lot of the German woman has been much more difficult than the lot of her sister in the Allied countries, for upon her has fallen the great and increasing burden of the struggle to get enough to eat for her household. In practically all classes of Germany it has been the custom of the man to come home from his work, whether in a Government office, bank, or factory, for his midday meal, usually followed by an hour's sleep.

The German man is often a greedy fellow as regards meals. For him special food is always provided, and the wife and children sit round patiently watching him eat it. He expects special food to-day. The soldier, of course, is getting it, and properly, but the stay-at-homes, who are men over forty-five or lads under nineteen, still get the best of such food as can be got. Exceptions to the nineteen to forty-five rule are very few indeed. National work in Germany means war work pure and simple, and now the women are treated exactly as the men in this respect, except that they will not be sent to the front.

In January, 1917, Germany at length began formally to organise the women of the country to help in the war. Each of the six chief army "commands" throughout the Empire now has a woman attached to it as Directress of the "Division for Women's Service." Hitherto, as in England, war work by women has been entirely voluntary. The Patriotic Auxiliary Service (Mass Levy) Law is not compulsory so far as female labour is concerned. German women, however, having proclaimed that they regard themselves liable for national service under the spirit if not the letter of the law, it has finally been decided to mobilise their services on a more systematic basis than in the past.

None of the countless revolutions in German life produced by the war outstrips in historical importance this official linking up of women with the military machine. Equally striking is the fact that the directresses of Women's Service, who hold office in Berlin, Breslau, Magdeburg, Coblenz, Konigsberg, and Karlsruhe, are all feminist leaders and promoters of the women's emancipation movement. The directress for the Mark of Brandenburg (the Berlin-Potsdam district) is an able Jewess named Dr. Alice Salomon, who is one of the pioneers of the German women's movement. The main object of the "Women's Service" Department is to organise female labour for munitions and other work from which men can be liberated for the fighting line.

I have nothing but praise and admiration for the way in which the German women have thrown themselves into this struggle. Believing implicitly as they have been told—and with the exception of the lower classes, after more than two years of war, they believe everything the Government tells them—that this war was carefully prepared by "Sir Grey" (Lord Grey of Fallodon), "the man without a conscience," as he is called in Germany, they feel that they are helping to fight a war for the defence of their homes and their children, and the cynics at the German Foreign Office, who manufacture their opinions for them, rub this in in sermons from the pastors, novels, newspaper articles, faked cinema films, garbled extracts from Allied newspapers, books, and bogus photographs, Reichstag orations by Bethmann-Hollweg, and the rest of it, not forgetting the all-important lectures by the professors, who are unceasing in their efforts all over Germany.

To show how little the truth of the war is understood by the German women, I may mention an incident that occurred at the house of people of the official class at which I was visiting one day. The eldest son, who was just back from the Somme trenches, suffering from slight shell-shock, brought home a copy of a London illustrated paper, which had been thrown across the trenches by the English. In this photograph there was a picture of a long procession of German prisoners captured by the English. The daughter of the house, a well-read girl of nineteen, blazed up at the sight of this photograph, and showed it to her mother, who was equally surprised. The son of the house remarked, "Surely you know the English have taken a great many prisoners?"

His mother, realising her mistake, looked confused, and simply said, "I didn't think." In other words, the obvious fact that Germans were sometimes captured had never been pointed out to her by the Government, and most Germans are accustomed to think only what they are officially told to think.

While there are an increasing number of doubters among the German males as to the accuracy of statements issued by the Government, in the class with which I mostly came into contact in Germany, the women are blindfold and believe all they are told. So strong, too, is the influence of Government propaganda on the people in Germany that in a town where I met two English ladies married to Germans, they believed that Germany had Verdun in her grasp, had annihilated the British troops (mainly black) on the Somme, had defeated the British Fleet in the battle of Skagerrak (Jutland), and reduced the greater part of the fortifications, docks, and munition factories of London to ruins by Zeppelins.

Their anguish for the fate of their English relations was sincere, and they were intensely hopeful that Britain would accept any sort of terms of peace in order to prevent the invasion which some people in Germany still believe possible.

At the beginning of the war the click of the knitting needle was heard everywhere; shop-girls knitted while waiting for customers, women knitted in trams and trains, at theatres, in churches, and, of course, in the home. The knitting is ceasing now for the very practical reason that the military authorities have commandeered all the wool for the clothing of the soldiery. A further reason for the stoppage of such needlework is the fact that women are engaged in countless forms of definite war work.

Upon the whole it is beyond question that the German women are not standing the losses as well as the British women. I have been honoured in England by conversations with more than one lady who has lost many dear ones. The attitude is quieter here than in Germany, and is not followed by the peace talk which such events produce in German households.

What surprises me in England is the fact that the word "peace" is hardly ever mentioned anywhere, whereas in any German railway train or tramcar the two dominant words are Friede (peace) and Essen (food). The peace is always a German idea of peace—for the extreme grumblers do not talk freely in public—and the food talk is not always the result of the shortage, but of the great difficulty in getting what is to be obtained, together with the increasing monotony of the diet.

It must not be supposed, however, that the life of feminine Germany is entirely a gloomy round of duty and suffering. Among the women of the poor, things are as bad as they can be. They are getting higher wages than ever, but the food usury and the blockade rob them of the increase.

The middle and upper classes still devote a good deal of time to the feminine pursuits of shopping and dressing. The outbreak of war hit the fashions at a curious moment. Paris had just abandoned the tight skirt, and a comical struggle took place between the Government and those women who desired to be correctly gowned.

The Government said, "In order to avoid waste of material, you must stick to the tight skirt," and the amount of cloth allowed was carefully prescribed. Women's desire to be in the mode was, however, too powerful for even Prussianism. Copies of French fashion magazines were smuggled in from Paris through Switzerland, passed from dressmaker to dressmaker, and house to house, and despite the military instructions and the leather shortage, wide skirts and high boots began to appear everywhere,

This feminine ebullition was followed by an appeal from the Government to abandon all enemy example and to institute new German fashions of their own making. Models were exhibited in shop windows of what were called the "old and elegant Viennese fashions." These, however, were found to be great consumers of material, and the women still continued to imitate Paris.

The day before I left Berlin I heard an amusing conversation in the underground railway between two women, one of whom was talking about her hat. She told her friend that she found the picture of the hat in a smuggled fashion paper, and had it made at her milliner's and she was obviously very pleased with her taste.

The women in the munition factories, who number millions, wear a serviceable kind of uniform overall.

The venom of the German women in regard to the war is quite in contrast to the feeling expressed by English women. They have read a great deal about British and American women and they cordially detest them. Their point of view is very difficult to explain. When I have told German women that in many States in my country women have votes, their reply is, "How vulgar!" Their attitude towards the whole question of women's franchise is that it is a form of Anglo-Saxon lack of culture and lack of authority.

The freedom accorded to English and American girls is entirely misunderstood. A Dutch girl who, in the presence of some German ladies, expressed admiration for certain aspects of English feminine life, was fiercely and venomously attacked by that never-failing weapon, the German woman's tongue. The poor thing, who mildly expressed the view that hockey was a good game for girls, and the fine complexions and elegant walk of English women were due to outdoor sports, was reduced almost to tears.

The intolerance of German women is almost impossible to express. I know a case of one young girl, a German-American, whose parents returned to Hamburg, who declined to repeat the ridiculous German formula, "Gott strafe England," and stuck to her point, with the result that she was not invited to that circle again.

To the cry "Gott strafe England" has been added "Gott strafe Amerika," the latter being as popular with the German women as the German men. The pastors, professors, and the Press have told the German women that their husbands and sons and lovers are being killed by American shells. A man who ought to know better, like Prince Rupert of Bavaria, made a public statement that half of the Allies' ammunition is American. After the British and French autumn offensive of 1915 the feeling against America on the part of German women became so intense that the American flag had to be withdrawn from the American hospital at Munich, although that hospital, supported by German-American funds, has done wonderful work for the German wounded.

Arguments with German women about the war are absolutely futile. They follow the war very closely after their own method, and believe that any defeats, such as on the Somme or Verdun, are tactical rearrangements of positions, dictated by the wisdom of the General Staff, and so long as no Allied troops are upon German soil so long will the German populace believe in the invincibility of its army. I am speaking always of the middle and upper classes, who are on the whole, but with increasing exceptions, as intensely pro-war as the lower classes are anti-war.

The modern German Bible is the Zeitung (the rough translation of which is "newspaper") and German women are even more fanatical than the men, if possible, in their worship of it.

On one occasion, when I candidly remarked that von Papen and Boy-Ed came back to the Fatherland for certain unbecoming acts, some of which I enumerated, a Frau Hauptmann jumped to her feet and, after the customary brilliant manner of German argument, shrieked that I was a liar. She declared that their Zeitung had said nothing about the charges I mentioned, therefore they, were not true. She furthermore promised to report me to Colonel ——— at the Kriegsministerium (War Office), and she kept her word.

The neglect, and, in some cases refusal, to attend the British wounded by German nurses are a sign both of their own intensity of feeling in regard to the war and their entirely different mentality. Again and again I have heard German women say, "In the event of a successful German invasion of England the women will accompany the men, and teach the women of England that war is war." Their remarks in regard to the women of my own country are equally offensive. Indeed, States that Germany regards as neutral, and who are treated by the officially controlled German Press with a certain amount of respect, are loathed by German women. Their attitude is that all who are not on their side are their enemies. American women who are making shells for the British, French, and Russians are just as much the enemies of Germany as the Allied soldiers and sailors. One argument often used is that to be strictly neutral America should make no munitions at all, but it would not be so bad, say the Germans, if half the American ammunition went to Germany and half to the Allies.

I lost my temper once by saying to one elderly red-faced Frau, "Since you have beaten the British at sea, why don't you send your ships to fetch it?" "Our fleet," she said, "is too busy choking the British Fleet in its safe hiding places to afford time to go to America. You will see enough of our fleet one day, remember that!"

Summing up this brief and very sketchy analysis of German femininity in the war, I reiterate views expressed on previous visits to Germany, that German women are not standing the anxiety of the war as well as those of France and Britain.

They have done noble work for the Fatherland, but the grumblings of the lower third of the population are now such as have not been heard since 1848. German officials in the Press Department of the Foreign Office try to explain the unrest away to foreign correspondents like myself, but many thinking Germans are surprised and troubled by this unexpected manifestation on the part of those who for generations have been almost as docile and easily managed as children.



CHAPTER XX

THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN

Essen, the noisiest town in the world, bulks largely in the imagination of the Entente Allies, but "Essen" is not merely one city. It is a centre or capital of a whole group of arsenal towns. Look at your map of Germany, and you will see how temptingly near they are to the Dutch frontier. Look at the proximity of Holland and Essen, and you will understand the Dutch fear of Germany. You will grasp also the German fear, real as well as pretended, that the battle of the Somme may one day be accompanied by a thrust at the real heart of Germany, which, is Westphalia—Westphalia with its coal and iron and millions of trained factory hands.

I saw when in Germany extracts from speeches by British politicians in which the bombing of Essen by air was advocated. Perhaps the task would have been easier if the bombing had come first and the speeches afterwards. Forewarned, forearmed; and Essen is now very much armed.

All German railroads seem to lead to this war monster. Attached to almost every goods train in Germany you will see wagons marked "Essen—special train." Wagons travel from the far ends of Austria and into Switzerland, which is showing its strict neutrality by making munitions for both sides.

On the occasion of my second visit to Essen during the war I arrived at night. It was before the time of the bombing speeches, and, though it was well into the hours when the world is asleep, the sky glowed red with a glare that could be seen for full thirty miles. My German companion glowed also, as he opened the carriage window and bade me join him in a peep at what we were coming to. "This is the place where we make the stuff to blow the world to pieces," he proudly boasted. "If our enemies could only see that the war would be over."

I suggested that Essen was not the only arsenal. There were, for instance, Woolwich, Glasgow, Newcastle, Creusot, and in my own strictly neutral country Bethlehem, Bridgeport, and one or two other humble hamlets. He brushed aside my remarks, "But we have also here is this very region Dortmund, Bochum, Witten, Duisburg, Krefeld, Dusseldorf, Solingen, Elberfeld and Barmen."

As we approached nearer, freight trains, military trains and passenger trains were everywhere. Officers and soldiers crowded the station platforms, and though it was night the activity of these Rhenish-Westphalian arsenal towns impressed me with the belief that unless the British blockade can strictly exclude essentials, such as copper and nickel, especially from their roaring factories, the war will be needlessly protracted.