A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes

BY LADY JEPHSON
Author of 'A Canadian Scrap-Book' and 'Letters to a Débutante'
LONDON ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET M CM XV

ENGLISCHE KRIEGSFÜHRUNG ( How the Englishman makes war. )
Prefaces are rarely read, yet I have the hardihood to venture on this one because there are certain things in connection with my journal which it is necessary to explain. On returning from Germany, although urged by my friends to publish the story of my experiences, I refused, fearing to do anything which in the smallest degree might prejudice the case of those still in captivity. There came a day, nevertheless, when I read that all English people had left Altheim. The papers announced that men under forty-five had been interned at Ruhleben, and those over that age had been sent to Giessen. There seemed, therefore, no possible object in further withholding the journal, since, after all, there was nothing in it which could by any possibility affect the fate of others less fortunate than I. Accordingly I sent my manuscript to the Evening Standard , which accepted it, and published the first couple of pages. Then, in deference to the wishes of people whose relations were still at Altheim (having been sent back from Giessen), I stopped my diary. However, in view of the daily revelations in the Press as regards prisoners in Germany, I have come, after seven months, to the conclusion that nothing I can say will in any degree make the condition of prisoners there worse. Meanwhile it is of supreme interest to compare the opinions and conduct of Germans at the beginning of the war with what they express and observe now. My journal is simply a record made each day of my detention, and although it has no pretension to being literature, it is at least a truthful picture of the state of things as we in Altheim saw them at the beginning of the war. For obvious reasons the place of detention has been given a fictitious name.
Harriet J. Jephson.
These illustrations are reproduced from German newspapers.