Boche and Bolshevik / Experiences of an Englishman in the German Army and in Russian Prisons

by Hereward Thimbleby Price

CONTENTS

CHAPTER		PAGE
	Preface	[v]
I.	Manufacturing Public Opinion	[1]
II.	Lies and Spies	[15]
III.	The Treatment of the English in Germany	[28]
IV.	In the Army	[37]
V.	The German Army in the Field	[55]
VI.	In Captivity	[95]
VII.	Siberia	[128]
VIII.	Camouflage	[150]
IX.	Human Nature	[169]
X.	Propaganda	[189]
XI.	The Dictatorship of the Proletariat	[207]
	Appendix: What Bolshevism means	[235]
	Index	[245]

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BOCHE AND BOLSHEVIK

CHAPTER I
MANUFACTURING PUBLIC OPINION

When war broke out I was picking late cherries in our garden near the Rhine. A boy came by with the news on a flysheet. I ran and bought a paper and then told our gardener’s wife. Her face went pinched and white, for she was the mother of many sons; but she only pulled her shawl a little tighter round her shoulders, and then, with the immemorial stoicism of the peasant, turned to her work again. She remembered the days of “seventy,” when, as she often used to tell us, the regimental bands had to play their loudest in order to drown the sobs of the women as the troops marched to the station.

No such memories haunted the bulk of the German people. The whole of Bonn was delirious with joy at the declaration of war. They were absolutely certain of victory, and already treated foreigners, and especially Englishmen, with withering contempt. They seemed to be glad to throw off the mask they had been wearing for years. The Great Day had arrived when Germany was to reach a pinnacle of glory unattained by any other nation in history. She was to become the arbitress of the destinies of the whole human race. This, at any rate, was the feeling that chiefly struck foreign observers. But I do not think we shall ever do justice to the Germans until we realize that for most of them the war came as a surprise. To the very last they thought the crisis would pass over as so many others had done. I can best illustrate the prevailing mood by what happened to myself. The day before Germany was declared in a state of war, I bade good-bye to my students for the term, and said I hoped no war would prevent us from meeting again in October as usual. I was answered by a loud burst of laughter. Yet even while I was speaking a detachment of troops was marching past the University in order to take up a [position guarding] the bridge across the Rhine. The intoxication of the Germans at the opening of hostilities was the natural reaction from the long years of strain and preparation for war, and it was the more violent because it was so unexpected.

DOCTRINE OF WAR

It is difficult for Englishmen to understand how all those years the Germans lived in the shadow of war. Every student of German affairs knows that the Government controlled the organs of public opinion and with what fine cunning and persistence it infected the national mind with its doctrine of war. I am concerned here only to give a few instances of how the poison worked. When I came back to Bonn from my first summer vacation in 1905, my chief asked me what people in England were saying about the war. “What war?” I answered. “Why,” he said, “the war between England and Germany.” So accustomed had they become to the idea of this war, that long before it broke out, they spoke of it as something present and real. Extremely instructive were the antics of the German Government after the publication of the interview with the Kaiser in the Daily Telegraph in 1908. It will be remembered that the German people were furious because in this interview the Kaiser denied that the German Fleet was to be used against England, alleging it was for use against Japan. The nation felt it had been tricked, because it would not have spent so much money to provide against a war with Japan. To allay the excitement, the Government sent round an article to the little provincial papers, intimating that the Kaiser’s interview was a well-intentioned effort to befool the English. Then it went on to say in so many words: our fleet is not intended to be used against Japan, it is intended to be used if England should ever introduce Protection and Colonial Preference. Our fleet must be so strong that England would never dare to embark on such a policy. This article did not, of course, appear in the leading journals, because then it would have attracted too much attention in England. As it is, it appears to have gone unnoticed.

PRINCE OSKAR

But this affair of the interview had another and more interesting sequel. One of the Kaiser’s sons, Prince Oskar, was at the time a student at Bonn. Every November the Rector of the University gave a great inauguration dinner, and the guest of highest rank present had to propose the toast of the Kaiser. Usually the Princes request some one else to do it for them, because most of them are incapable of making even the simplest speech. But, to the surprise of everybody, this year Prince Oskar rose to speak, and the wonder grew when it became obvious that the speech had been written for him by his father. In veiled language, the meaning of which, however, was clear, the interview was thrown over, and we were told to prepare for war. Now, Prince Oskar had been my pupil, and the fact that I should be present at the dinner had not escaped the attention of whoever prepared the speech. So after he had sat down, Prince Oskar tore off a corner of his menu card and sent me a note to the effect that he wished to drink my health. We accordingly raised glasses and drank to one another across the crowded hall. I still have the “scrap of paper” in my possession—a lasting testimony to the tortuous diplomacy of the Hohenzollerns.

This is, perhaps, the best place to state what I learned of the character of Prince Oskar and his associates. He had been very strictly brought up, in seclusion, somewhere in the country. So well had he been looked after that till he was twenty-one he had never been in Berlin alone. He had all the traditional piety of the Prussian Junker, the piety that made Bismarck, in applying for the hand of his future wife, write a long letter stating his religious beliefs in full. I can best illustrate his character by repeating his argument in favour of the existence of ghosts. “What I say is, with God everything is possible. If He wanted to make ghosts, He could. What is the difficulty, then? Of course there are such things as ghosts!” The ingenuous youth failed to see that by the same reasoning one could prove the existence of griffins, dragons, the unicorn, winged horses, sea-serpents, and Mrs. Harris. He was generally considered by the professors at Bonn the most intelligent Hohenzollern that had visited the University. His conversation was about country life and sport, and, above all, the army. He was a soldier through and through, and the army was his life. He often expressed a wish to die on the battlefield, shot through the heart. This wish has not been gratified. His health broke down in the first year of the war, and he was invalided. Afterwards he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces. He has distinguished himself in this position by starving his soldiers and then telling them to go to the front if they wanted anything to eat. His God was “our good old German God,” a Being as horrible as Moloch and as stupid as Mumbo-Jumbo. But at any rate Oskar was sincere, and there are no scandals about him as there are about the Crown Prince, who, to quote the German phrase, departed from Bonn like the devil, leaving a smell behind him.

Prince Oskar may be forgiven for the crudeness of his religion, because his teachers were even worse than he. At the end of the Semester he used to give a dinner to all his tutors. The chief guest was one Zorn, a Prussian who had been imported from North Germany to teach the Princes law, because the Rhinelanders were not supple enough. Zorn twice represented Germany at the Hague Conferences, and I believe he is a recognized authority on International Law. During the dinner the Prince had occasion to speak of his sister’s aptitude for mathematics. “Why,” he said, “she is quite silly; she actually loves the stuff.” Zorn immediately chimed in. “My daughter is like that; my daughter is silly too. She likes mathematics. When I get home I shall tell her how silly Her Royal Highness your sister is, and I am sure she will be most sympathetically touched to hear that Her Royal Highness is as silly as herself.” Thus are compliments paid in the Land of Culture. Afterwards we went out on to the terrace, and Zorn monopolized the conversation. He delivered two lectures, the first a warning against humour. He advised us never to make jokes in our lectures, humour and science being incompatible. He added, “I never joke.” Then he went on to prove the impossibility of doubting the existence of God. He railed against mathematicians for being atheists, although they every day assume the existence of quantities without proof. Why could they not assume the existence of God? Needless to say this champion of Prussian piety was one of the first to rush into print with a defence of Germany’s action in Belgium. I have no doubt that, if he is alive now, he is still writing pamphlets in honour of frightfulness. When we remember that their instructors, the very flower of the nation, men with European reputations for scholarship, are of such common clay, can we be surprised at what the Hohenzollerns do?

HAGUE CONFERENCES

Much of the talk that went on that night is interesting now, especially in the light of what has happened since. Zorn frankly admitted that the ill-success of the Hague Conferences was due to Germany. “Much more might have been attained,” he said, “if only we had wished.” His estimates of the English representatives are worth recording. “Fry was only a good frame to the picture. For Satow we had the greatest respect. He was a hard nut to crack. He gave us more trouble than all your men put together.” But he spoke with most admiration of Fisher. It was a curious thing, because Zorn speaks no English and Fisher apparently no German, but such was the open breeziness and cordiality of Fisher’s manner, that the two became fast friends. Then the talk wandered to the relations between France and Germany, and we skated on thin ice, because both an Englishman and Frenchman were present. But it was obvious that an attempt was being planned to draw France over to Germany’s side by representing to her that an alliance with England was not worth while, as she would only be pulling the English chestnuts out of the fire. Finally, one of the Prince’s aides, Major Graf von Dohna, gave me his impressions of the Boxer expedition. “Of course,” he said, “each army thinks its officers the best. We think ours the best, as you do yours. But there is one thing where you are undoubtedly superior to us, and that is in the relations between the officers and the men. Your officers get on with their men much better than ours do.” He deplored the English attachment to sport, saying that the Tommies, whenever they had a free moment, got out a football and began kicking it about. But the Japs spent every minute of their spare time watching the German drill, greedy to learn whatever new details they could.

MOROCCO CRISIS

To come back to where I started from. No one could deny the strong agitation going on against England, but not till after the Morocco crisis of 1911 did I think it meant war. We are now so much accustomed to the idea of war that it is hard to realize that there was a time when it seemed fantastic. Panic-mongering is a favourite sport of European Governments, and the methods employed in Germany were not so different from those of other countries. Moreover, a considerable body of public opinion was opposed to war. Those great export houses whose business depended upon England’s good-will, were especially eager to maintain friendly relations. The Kaiser and his family were unpopular in Rhineland, perhaps because this province has never been thoroughly Prussianized, perhaps for other reasons. When the Crown Prince paid a visit to Cologne, once, no preparations were undertaken to give him a grand reception, on the ground that as yet he had done nothing for Germany. Things never seemed to me to be so bad between England and Germany as they had been between England and Russia, and I imagined there would always be enough common sense in both countries to avoid the supreme folly of war. It is easy to see now that I underestimated the power of the court and rated far too high the influence of public opinion. I forgot, too, how easy it is to manufacture public opinion, when occasion demands.

In 1911 I married, got naturalized (after many fruitless endeavours to obtain a post in England), and settled down to spending my life in Germany with the full inner certainty that the peace would be kept. And then came the Morocco debates in the Reichstag, and it was obvious to every one that war was inevitable.

The Morocco crisis was admirably utilized by the German Government. It definitely swung round the great mass of public opinion against England. Its first fruits were an increase in the Naval Estimates which otherwise would have been impossible. The Government took courage and became far more cynical in its agitation than before. For instance, one year the International Yacht Races were held in Germany. Several English yachts took part and an English peer gave a cup to be competed for. The Kaiser, of course, attended and greeted the English with a speech of welcome, in which the usual platitudes were said. Immediately the German provincial papers were flooded with articles pointing out that the Kaiser was bound as host to say something nice to Germany’s guests, and that his words of friendship really meant nothing and were not to be taken seriously. The Government understood the fine art of inflaming the people’s passions and so contrived their news that everything that happened in England seemed to be a personal insult to Germany. For example, the launching of a new battleship would be announced in thick type and the ordinary Philistine reading his newspaper would somehow get the feeling that here was another sly trick of perfidious Albion. Everything that tended to the discredit of England was dragged in and made much of.

ENGLAND INCAPABLE

The vagaries of the Suffragettes and the dangers of the Irish situation were Heaven-sent gifts for the Germans. When the Germans were accused of ravaging Belgium, they answered with a detailed calculation, proving, to their own satisfaction at any rate, that they had not destroyed half so much as the Suffragettes. The political situation was exploited so as to make the Germans believe that the English were incapable of any great effort. They could not even control their women! How could they face the Germans, then? Every month the reviews proved that the British Empire would fall to pieces at the first touch of war. At the same time the blame for the enmity between England and Germany was entirely thrown on England. England wanted all the German colonies. England wanted German trade. England wanted a war so as to divert public attention from the Suffragettes and the wild Irish. Germany desired nothing so much as to live in peace, only her wicked neighbours would not let her. The Lichnowsky Memoirs had not yet been published, and Dr. Mühlon was still an official at Krupp’s.

Conversations, that I was able to enjoy from time to time with official persons, threw a lurid light on all this agitation. The building of strategic railways all converging on the Belgian frontier was a matter of frequent discussion. I remember at a wedding-breakfast in 1913 sitting at the same table with a young lieutenant of artillery who had just been commanded to a munition factory near Bonn. He looked pale and worn-out, and explained that the factory was working day and night. Germany was two years ahead of France and Russia in its preparations and, as soon as it was ready, would go to war. We asked when that would be. “When the changes in the Kiel Canal and Cologne railway station are finished,” he answered. “At present our new Dreadnoughts cannot pass through the canal, and we cannot mobilize our troops quickly enough with Cologne station as it is.” He was the best of prophets. The rebuilding of the canal and of the station were both finished in July, 1914, and in that month Germany declared war.

SURPRISE OF WAR

But, you will say, how in the face of these facts can you declare that the war took the German people by surprise? Well, we all know that we are going to die, but we should be surprised to die just now. For the Germans, the war was a watched pot that had forgotten to boil. The newspapers were managed with exquisite cleverness during the crisis preceding the outbreak of hostilities. The German Government was going to proclaim war. Very well, then, they said, let us represent the matter as if peace were fairly certain, and as if the only obstacles in the way are the contumacy of a petty country like Serbia and the corrupt ambitions of the Russian Grand Dukes. On the very day war was declared, the Cologne Gazette solemnly assured the Belgian people that the stories as to German intentions of invading Belgium were only British or French inventions. “You want to know how many soldiers there are in the great camps near the Belgian frontier? We can assure you there are none at all. These camps are quite empty.” The German people believed that a great struggle for peace was going on, in which, owing to the fear of the German sword, the peace-makers were getting the upper hand. They were led to believe that the German Emperor had so generously embraced the cause of Peace, that the balance of chances inclined against War. Peace was dangled before their eyes like a fair apple, attainable, but tantalizingly just out of reach. And then when war did come, the German people turned with all the fury of disappointment, not upon their own Government, but upon Russia for supporting Serbia, and upon France and England for joining her. They had been taught ever since they were little boys at school that the righteous development of Germany was being thwarted at every turn by England, who had managed to hem them in with a ring of foes. With a deep breath of relief they drew the sword, confident in their ability to hew down whoever stood in their way. “Better an end to horror, than a horror without end,” says the German proverb, and in this spirit they went to war. But even Germans can be tricked too often. I do not think we need take much thought about how to punish the Kaiser and the other criminals responsible for this war. We need only hand them over to their nation, confident that the people whom they have so long befooled and fed with lies will know how to deal with them. Nothing is less likely than that the German people will forgive those who, avec un cœur léger, plunged them into the frightful catastrophe that befell them. I must apologize for insisting at such length upon the insincerities and crooked ways of the German Government, but I do insist, because at the present time it is necessary to understand quite clearly the kind of people with whom we have to deal. And while explaining how the German people were misled, I am offering no excuse for the spirit in which they conducted the war, once it began. The Government may have ordered the atrocities in the first place, but the nation has always set the seal of its approval on the actions of the Government after the deed, and so the nation has made itself jointly responsible.

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CHAPTER II
LIES AND SPIES

War having finally broken out, the Government, of course, did not relax its hold on the Press. The early days brought a fine crop of fantastic inventions. The utmost was done to heighten the people’s illusions. The semi-official telegrams declared that England would remain true to its time-honoured principle of making money out of other people’s difficulties and abstain from taking part. This was at a time when Germany had already sown mines in English waters, arrested every English sailor in Germany, and cut the Jamaica cable. Japan was said to be about to conclude an alliance with Germany. A Frenchman was alleged to have poisoned wells in Alsace-Lorraine. While the Government invented the absurd story of a French aeroplane having been seen over Nuremberg before the war broke out, they quite concealed the fact that in the early days of the war French aeroplanes really did visit Coblenz. My authority is a priest who nearly lost his life from the shrapnel of the German air defences. The Government did not even spare its own citizens. A circumstantial report appeared in all the newspapers to the effect that the innkeeper Nicolai, of Cochem, and his son had been put to death for trying to blow up a railway tunnel on the Moselle. The affair created a sensation, because Nicolai was known far and wide for the excellence of his wines. The report was allowed to run for some time, and then the public were told that there had indeed been some charge of the sort against Nicolai, but upon investigation it had been withdrawn. And if you ask why a simple private citizen should be libelled in this way, the answer is easy—it was to heighten the prevailing spy-fever by suggesting that spies were to be found everywhere, in the least likely places.

SPIES

For from the beginning the Government began a merciless campaign against foreign spies, and let it be known that the whole country was swarming with French and Russian agents in disguise. The mob was given to understand that they had practically a free hand in dealing with any of these agents they should meet. A frenzied spy-mania sprang up and no Frenchman or Russian was safe in the streets. In a certain hospital at Bonn twenty foreigners were being treated at the same time as a result of the injuries inflicted by the mob. In Cologne, at a particular street corner, fifty men were mobbed in one day. I myself saw one such scene. An unfortunate Russian had been recognized in the street, and the police had come up just in time to save his life and were trying to get him to the police-station. The people all the while surged round from every direction, brandishing their sticks and uttering that peculiar mob-yell which is more blood-curdling to listen to than the howl of a pack of wolves. It is true that by such methods a certain number of spies were detected; but a far larger number of innocent persons suffered, and those mostly Germans. The mob thought a spy would be likely to try and disguise himself by putting on some sort of uniform, so they set upon anybody in official dress whose looks did not please them. One friend of ours, who was wearing an old Landsturm uniform, from which some buttons were missing, was three times hauled by the mob to the police-station. Another friend was a nurse, wearing the regulation cap and veil, and she was taken so often to the police-station that at last the officer lost all patience and drove the mob forth with such curses as only a German can swear. The priest who told me about the air-raid on Coblenz, in addition to nearly being killed by stray shrapnel, was attacked by hooligans, and but for the timely arrival of the police would have been robbed of all he possessed. The most amusing case (from a non-German point of view) was that of a member of the Reichstag on his way to the historic session at the Royal Palace on August 4. He was a little stout man with a peaked imperial beard, and he was wearing some sort of unfamiliar Court uniform that looked more French than German. The mob set upon him, threw him to the ground, and by the time the police intervened had all but kicked him to death.

I may add two stories of how real spies were detected—and this owing to the neglect of the merest trifle. The bridge over the Rhine at Bonn is very carefully watched, and every vehicle must be accompanied across by a soldier. A motor-car was once being thus conveyed, with two officers in it, when something unfamiliar about them attracted the attention of the guard. He looked at them more closely, and discovered that with the uniform of the artillery they were wearing the spiked helmets of the infantry. (Artillery helmets end in a ball.) He had the car stopped, and it transpired that the two men were officers in the French Army on a special mission to the interior of Germany. They were tried and shot the same day.

The other instance is of an oversight equally trivial. A lady was travelling in the train from Aix-la-Chapelle to Cologne, when her attention was caught by the label of a London tailor sewn in another lady’s jacket which was dangling from the rack. The owner of the jacket was continually running into the next compartment to have a talk with a wounded officer, whose arm was in a sling. “She was like a nervous rabbit,” my informant said. When the train pulled up in Cologne station a detachment of soldiers was waiting on the platform, and they at once arrested the wounded officer. He was an English spy, and his bandages were full of maps and other incriminating documents. (The names of all persons in uniform who board a train are registered, and by the time they reach their destination it is known whether they are bona fide travellers or not. A telegram does the rest.) It was obvious that the wearer of the English jacket was also a spy working together with the man who had been arrested. At first the German lady could not bring herself to give information which must inevitably cost the life of a woman. She hesitated a long time, but in the end duty to the Vaterland prevailed, and she told the authorities. Meanwhile, however, the Englishwoman had left the station and was speeding away in a taxi. But the soldiers rushed out and sounded a peculiar signal, at which every vehicle within hearing is bound to stop and wait further orders. The Englishwoman had not got far enough away, she was arrested, and she, no doubt, suffered the extreme penalty.

To return from this digression. The German Government worked on the feelings of the people, not only through the spy mania, but in all sorts of crooked and underhand ways. It was given out that Rhineland was going to be invaded by the French through Belgium, and that in this flat country the French would have an easy time. For the first week or two of the war people in Rhineland were distinctly nervous. Learned professors used to discuss what would happen if the French came to Bonn, whether any one would be left alive, or any building would survive their fury. It seems ridiculous, when one looks back upon it, but it all served the purpose of the Government very well. It directed the rage of the people against the foreign enemy and away from their own rulers, and it heightened the “Kriegsstimmung.” In time the Government could play upon the people just as they liked. I remember once that reports appeared in the Dutch papers that 600 men a day were joining Kitchener’s Army in London, and 2000 a day in the whole of England. The German newspapers reported that only 600 men from the whole of London had joined, and from all England only 2000. (This was in September.) The people were immensely relieved, they thought that England was already sorry she had joined in the war, and would only put up a half-hearted fight. I was spending the evening with acquaintances when the news arrived, and a bottle of wine was immediately fetched up from the cellar to celebrate it. In this connection I need scarcely refer to the speech of John Burns that was specially forged, except to say that some German books still refer to it as that “much-disputed” speech, and then proceed to quote large extracts from it.

SIR EDWARD GREY

Especial pains were taken to vilify Sir Edward Grey. A story appeared in the Cologne Gazette that at a dinner-party in July, 1914, Sir Edward Grey had been speaking of the troubled political situation in England, and had finished up, “Only a war can save us now.” Another story was that at the critical moment in the negotiations he had telegraphed to Petrograd the one word “Now.” Russia had immediately mobilized, and so made war inevitable. Or another method of attack was employed. It was put about that Grey was only a nincompoop, a weak man, the tool of others cleverer than himself, and the real villain of the piece was Nicholson. It was my favourite joke to ask the Germans who this Nicholson was. Grey was the best-hated man in Germany. The curses heaped on his head, however, only used to amuse me, specially as they always pronounced his name to rhyme with “cry.”

LIES

Extraordinary care was taken to write up the navy. Germany’s honour was felt to be especially concerned here, and defeat was doubly bitter, because it came from the hands of Britain. I was in Kiel during the war, and heard a great deal about the magnificent espionage system of England. I was informed that the English Admiralty knew beforehand down to the smallest unit what ships composed the German Fleet that fought at Dogger Bank. Their spies watched the Kiel Canal and managed to convey the news to the English Admiralty before the ships were well out to sea. While at Kiel they had few illusions as to England’s naval strength, it was different in the country at large. Reverses were never admitted, and the German people thought that their fleet really never had been defeated. Heligoland Bight, Dogger Bank, and even the Falkland Islands were thought to be glorious victories. It is true that no German ships survived the battle of the Falkland Islands; but a report appeared in all the German papers saying that the English had already been completely beaten in this battle when the Japanese appeared, and it was they who polished off Von Spee. Losses were concealed in the most ridiculous way. The Friedrich Carl sank in full view of the Russians, and its loss was announced in their official bulletins. Yet the German Government never let their own people know of it. This policy of secrecy was carried too far, and sometimes irritated the fleet. Once a cruiser was badly injured in the Baltic, but she managed to make her way to Kiel, steering backwards, and all the time dodging submarines and mines. It was a superb piece of seamanship. The Government never said a word about it, for the simple reason that they did not want the public to know how strong the enemy was in the Baltic. But the men concerned were inclined to grumble, because they felt the public did not honour them as they deserved. There is a great deal more I could say on this subject, but what I know I learned under conditions that make it impossible for me to break silence. Enough to say that the tactics of the Government were successful. The confidence of the nation in the German Fleet—and also of many neutrals—remained unbounded. A favourite saying among the German soldiers was, “We overrated many things, but the English Navy most of all; it has done nothing.”

The successes of the army were written up in much the same way. For instance, the winter battle at the Masurian Lakes was so announced as to appear three battles instead of one. First, part of the results were announced, then more, and then finally a complete account was given, but this was done in such a way that the people believed that three victories had been gained; and, as a matter of fact, the houses in Bonn were beflagged three times. One habit of the Germans is interesting to note at this particular moment. Whenever the Russians retreated, systematically destroying everything as they went, the German General Staff held up holy hands of horror. The Kaiser sent a special telegram about the “terrible but beautiful” sight of the ring of burning villages round Warsaw. The Germans forgot to say that these villages consisted for the most part of wooden huts, easily rebuilt, and that not much of beauty or value was destroyed. It is interesting to note, too, just now, what measures of revenge the Germans took. Once in retreat the Russians were unable to bring away their stores of bread, so, in order to make them unfit for human food, they drenched them with petroleum. Hindenburg comes along, and is informed of it. “How thoughtful of the Russians!” he exclaimed. “We’ll give it to their prisoners to eat.” Which was done, with the result that many of them died. When the day of reckoning comes, and the criminals are brought before the bar, Hindenburg must not be forgotten. He is an East Prussian, and has conducted the war with a cruelty possible only to one of his race.

GERMAN PRINCES

The most impudent forgeries in the German papers are the speeches attributed to the Kaiser. The utmost has been done to enhance his position in the eyes of the world and of his own subjects. When the war broke out, tradition demanded that he should address the Berlin crowd from the balcony of his palace. The German papers report him as having told the crowds to go home and pray. But the correspondent of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant wrote that the Kaiser said nothing of the sort, and that his speech was full of the most “drastic expressions.” The Kaiser and his family were presented to the people in a cloud of lies. When the Germans bombarded Scarborough, it was put about that Prince Henry (the Kaiser’s brother) had been very much against it, the idea being to insist on the chivalry of his nature. But he is a Prussian of the Prussians, a very Hindenburg of the sea. Allied papers have been inclined lately to jeer at the Kaiser, because none of his sons have fallen in action. This is a little unfair. One son at least has been wounded. Prince Eitel Fritz has gained the admiration of all his men by his desperate bravery. An N.C.O., who has fought under him, told me he seemed to seek death. Another N.C.O., who had been in the thick of it at Verdun, told me the Crown Prince was popular as a soldier, and had the knack of getting the most out of his men. The other German Princes have, on the whole, shown themselves worthy of their great positions, and have been an inspiration to their men. The Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, of the Bonn Hussars, was renowned as a daring patrol-rider. These things I know from soldiers themselves, not from newspapers trying to write up the cause of absolutism. The Kaiser’s family has not had an altogether easy time of it during the war. Many are known to be English in their sympathies, and it was even said to be fashionable in Court circles to speak German with an English accent. A sister of the Kaiser lives at Bonn, and for an unfortunate remark she made she had to undergo the rebuke of plebeians. At the beginning of the war there was a great rush of Bonn women to be nurses. They adopted a most unbecoming uniform, the veil in particular being a monstrous black thing that reminded you of a funeral mute. The Princess said they ought to have a prettier veil, “like those they have in England.” The reply was priceless. She was informed, “We are all good Germans here, your Royal Highness.”

THE CENSORSHIP

In one direction the censorship exercised a healthy influence. When war broke out, the German hatred of the enemy found the coarsest and most disgusting expression. For instance, the Bonner Zeitung (a newspaper written by the professors for the professors of the University), reporting the shooting of a Russian lady for espionage, added: “And now the carrion of her carcase is rotting in its well-deserved grave.” (I disdain to render the original more exactly.) Picture-postcards and flysheets were issued in thousands, in which all the resources of the filthiest imagination in Europe were employed to vilify the enemy. But one day they disappeared like magic from the shop-windows, and the newspapers took on a cleaner tone. After the news of the destruction of Louvain came, the papers were inclined to exult and glorify the deed. But a sign from the Government was enough to keep their enthusiasm within bounds. It is the habit to laugh at the Germans for their slavish press, but I am certain they would not have held out so long as they have done under any other system. Only in England is it possible for the populace to be daily fed with wild stories of the incompetence, stupidity, or treachery of the Government, and yet to continue to prosecute the war with undiminished vigour.

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CHAPTER III
THE TREATMENT OF THE ENGLISH IN GERMANY

It is curious how much sympathy there was for England even months after the beginning of the war. Ladies whom we knew had always had their dresses made in London, and asserted their intention of doing so again as soon as the war was over. Others, who were strongly attracted by the freedom of English life, still felt the charm in spite of all that had happened. And when they were in the company of people they could trust, they used to say how much they were longing for the war to end in order that they might resume the pleasant relations which had been broken off. They never doubted that the English would meet them halfway. Such of my students as were in England when war was declared were loud in praise of the courtesy with which they had been treated. Communication was possible with England through Holland, and these students were still receiving letters breathing assurances of friendship. The German Government had at the very beginning laid their hands on the personal possessions of all Englishmen who had left Germany. I tried in vain to rescue the property of my friends who had fled at the outbreak of war. The War Office had been there before me. On the other hand, the officials in England were not so quick. My students were getting their effects sent out to them through Holland without any hindrance.

ENGLISH TRADE

It was curious to notice how things English had risen in public estimation when once they were hard to get. Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, for instance, ruled the German market in time of peace. No German biscuit can be compared with them for a minute. An officer we knew wrote home asking his mother to send him out some biscuits. She trudged all over Bonn in search of Huntley and Palmer’s. At one shop they offered her German ones, saying they were just as good. She flared up at once. “Do you think,” she said, “I would send German biscuits to my son at the front?” Finally the indomitable old lady managed to get a tin of English biscuits, and she sent them off. All the mourning crêpe, arm-bands, and so on, worn in Germany were imported from England, even long after war was declared. A merchant told me that the Germans could not manufacture it, they simply had to have English crêpe! Jokes were often cut at the expense of the business instincts of the English; they got up a war to kill German soldiers in order to sell mourning to their mothers and wives. I could hear of nothing else being imported from England except English books. All the new publications on the English market arrived regularly and could be inspected at the University Library. Even the little propaganda booklets of the Clarendon Press were there. I subscribed to the Morning Post through a Dutch bookseller and for nearly a year received every number, except the one describing the attack on Scarborough. That was suppressed.

Although I had nothing to complain of, Englishwomen married to Germans were subject to the bitterest persecution. Coffee parties would be formed, to which they would be invited, and then each guest present in turn, by those little stabs that women know so well how to inflict, would see how she could torture the “Engländerin.” A certain “Professorenfrau” we knew wanted to try the same tactics on me. She made the most extravagant efforts to convert me to her way of thinking. When everything else had failed she even visited the members of my household and suggested they should make my life a hell to me until they had brought me round to the German point of view. Then she tried to entrap me. She was putting on the usual pose, asserting that Germany had never expected that England would make war on her and that nothing had surprised her more.

A VIRAGO

“Well, then,” I assured her, “how do you explain the fact that four days before the declaration of war Germany arrested all the English sailors in the country, even those in little sailing vessels far up the Rhine, as well as other Englishmen she thought it desirable to keep?” I gave her the names of acquaintances of mine who were put in the common jail without being accused of anything—and this before the declaration of war. She refused to believe it, and requested me to give her a written statement over my signature. This was the trick always played by German agents on Belgians in neutral countries. If they made a written declaration and signed their names to it, their families in Belgium would suffer for it; while if they refused—then they were branded as liars. I, of course, refused, and the woman broke out into a storm of abuse. I have never seen a more horrible figure, even among the drunken viragos of Whitechapel. At last, fearing for my eyes, as her fingers were obviously itching to be at me, I bowed, and left the room as hastily as was consistent with dignity.

But though I never took any trouble to conceal my English sympathies—in fact, they were notorious—I had nothing to complain of except from this woman. It is with especial pleasure that I record that my relations with my students were never so cordial as in this last Semester. My correspondence was censored from early days, and the essays my students sent me all went through the Censor’s hands. This caused some hindrance to the work, but they simply thought it a good joke that the Censor should have to read their essays. (Letters addressed to me were always censored; letters addressed to my wife never were. It is a curious example of the limitations of official intelligence.) My colleagues and other friends, when they discussed the war with me, were quite fair, and seemed only interested in discovering the English point of view. Some of my acquaintances were good enough to inform me, with all the exactness and conscientiousness of German pedantry, what they thought of England, and then to add they did not want that to interfere with our relations. If I laughed at their clumsiness, I valued their good will. The professors of English throughout Germany were the bitterest. They did not help their countrymen to understand England at all. One man told me he was going to learn to speak English with an American accent and insist on his students doing the same. Another spent his time translating a Dutch book, proving that Germany was superior in material resources to the whole of the British Empire.

Of course, although private friendships might remain unaltered, it was dangerous to speak English in public. Americans had an especially bad time. An acquaintance of mine had a tankard of beer emptied over his head for speaking English in a Bavarian restaurant. The populace used to invent the absurdest rumours about the English people living in Bonn. They were all spies, they were all going to be arrested, they were all living in cellars, not daring to show their faces. The soldiers who were quartered on us from time to time used to bring a budget of these tales about me and amuse the servants with them.

ENGLISH TRADE

The Government began their campaign against English trade at once. The Sunlight Soap Works passed into German hands in the first days of the war. What the terms were I never heard, but as it was a forced sale they could not have been generous. English insurance companies are popular in Germany, because they can be relied on to pay up. Holders of English policies were informed that they could change over into German companies, who thus acquired the bulk of the English business in Germany. The Government also tried to bring about an international agreement by which, in future, the lengths of sewing cotton should be given in metres and not in yards. They thought in this way to strike at the English control of the market. Certain companies, like Singer’s Sewing Machine, were the objects of bitter and unscrupulous attacks in the press, and they, no doubt, lost a great many of their customers.

Englishmen in business were cheated in all sorts of underhand ways. One man I knew was taken to Ruhleben and left his wife (a German woman) in charge of the business. All her assistants combined to render her life insupportable, and finally she had to give up the attempt to carry on. As a result, foreseen of course, the business was sold at a heavy loss. Another friend of mine had an especially tragic experience. For some years he had been the chemical director of a German factory, staying on there more out of friendship to the proprietor than for what he was making out of it. He was on his holidays in England all that fateful July before the war broke out, and on the 31st he received a wire from the factory, imploring him to return. He did so, and as soon as he arrived was informed that his salary had been reduced by one-half. He protested, and was curtly told he must economize and must cut down the number of his servants—one was quite enough in time of war. Then, in November, he was interned in Ruhleben. His firm promptly dismissed him and refused to pay his salary any longer, although he had the usual contract providing for six months’ pay in lieu of notice. In December the German Government let him go back to Bonn for a few days to see if he could regain his position. Those Englishmen who were kept on in their old posts were being released from Ruhleben. His firm would not take him, they had other ends in view. He had in his possession a book containing a number of chemical formulæ. These formed practically his stock-in-trade and were extremely valuable. Some were old family secrets handed down from father to son, others were the results of his own independent research. The firm tried to cajole him out of his formulæ, but, failing in that, started an action at law against him for the possession of the book. He knew nothing about it till one day a representative of the firm appeared at Ruhleben, and in the same breath informed him of the action, that he had lost it, and that he must deliver up the book for some time. He did so. Whether he ever got it back again I do not know. In any case his firm was in possession of all his secrets without paying him a penny for them. It throws a curious light on “German efficiency”—and in chemistry, too!—that they have to resort to such measures to steal an Englishman’s knowledge. I need scarcely comment on the difference between German and English ideas of justice. In Germany, the Englishman condemned in his absence, unheard; in England, every German, even Krupp, represented by the best counsel money can buy, and his case carefully and patiently listened to.

INJUSTICE

One other instance of ill-treatment I add. It is rather important and I have not seen it referred to in any publication, although some of the victims must already be in England. It is asserted that when war broke out there was a sort of agreement between the English and German Governments to the effect that male subjects of military age in either country should be free to return home up to August 11. After that date they would not be allowed to leave the country. Now, it was easy for Germans to leave England—the trains were running, and the Dutch service of ships was working just as in peace time. In Germany it was quite different. Twenty-four hours after the declaration of war the whole of the railways were taken over by the military authorities and used solely for the purposes of mobilization. Englishmen, therefore, who happened to be in Germany, had to stay just where they were. But some enterprising Englishmen in Cologne endeavoured to charter a Dutch steamer in order to go down the Rhine on her to Rotterdam. After protracted negotiations they succeeded. But they had to face so many difficulties that they did not reach Wesel, the last big place in Germany on the Rhine, till midnight of August 11. As they had exceeded their time, they were all taken prisoners and sent to Sennelager. No preparations had been made to receive them, there were no huts or buildings to shelter them, there were not even any tents. To make matters worse, the rain came down in a steady downpour for two days. They themselves were wet through to the skin, and even their good leather suit-cases were sodden and the contents ruined by the rain. After a little while the Englishmen were sent back home again until it was time for them to go to Ruhleben.

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CHAPTER IV
IN THE ARMY

Before I became naturalized I went into the question of military service with especial care. An old friend of mine had for many years been at the head of a Recruiting Department. I went to him and laid the case before him, and he assured me categorically that in no event should I ever be called upon to serve in a war against England. Other people I consulted confirmed what he had said, and their testimonies removed the chief obstacle in my mind to naturalization. When the war broke out, no one ever dreamed that untrained men of my age, even Germans, would be called up. People remembered the days of 1870, which seemed such a tremendous war, when not even all the men available were sent to the front. But as the winter of 1914 deepened and the strain on Germany’s resources of man-power grew more and more severe, it became evident that no one of military age would escape service. At the beginning of March, 1915, all the able-bodied men of Germany were called up for medical inspection. I was examined and declared fit for the infantry. So, indeed, was every one else who was sound on his legs, including one-eyed men. A friend of mine who could not see across the room without his glasses was sent into the infantry, his eyes not even being looked at. Most of the other men were sent to the artillery, and one very bandy-legged man to the airship division. There was a general laugh at this; the man’s legs were curved like a barrel, and it was certain that to walk the length of a Zeppelin would be the limit of his powers. The number of absolute rejections was infinitesimal. Afterwards, however, a few obtained a respite of some months. The municipalities seemed to find it easy to get exemption for their cases. For instance, one man was released because he was the janitor to the new municipal Girls’ School. Even an English tribunal could scarcely have found a more trivial reason than that. Heads of large and important businesses managed to get off, but there was no exemption for the small man, even though military service meant for him absolute ruin. Bribery was frequent, and I knew of many cases where a timely present secured the transference of a soldier from the much-dreaded infantry to an artillery regiment. The German non-commissioned office staff are generally to be bought, except where an educated man happens to be appointed.

ALSATIANS

As soon as I was declared fit for the infantry, I took what steps I could to avoid military service. I protested to the Oberkommando at Coblenz, giving them the full details of my history. The Rector of the University supported my protest with a very vigorous letter. As a result I was ordered to a regiment at Cassel, where Alsatians were being trained, who were destined like myself for the Russian front. If the Alsatians we had are typical of their race, then Germany’s cause is hopeless in the two provinces. Our Alsatians could be divided into two classes—the talkative, who were few, and the reserved, who were many. The talkative oozed patriotism, they were bubbling over with it, and were so obviously insincere that the Germans thought of them only with contempt. By far the greater part were taciturn, gloomy, and hard. No exception could be taken to anything they did or said, but they were obviously with us but not of us. They never joined in singing our songs, except “O Strassburg,” and that they used to sing with wonderful pathos. One little Alsatian was the butt of all our N.C.O.s. He was only half-witted, and had been sent into the interior of Germany because he was considered dangerous in Alsace. He was so stupid that he could never learn the simplest thing, and he was always going off to sleep wherever he might happen to be. Our instructors, with the brutality of the peasant, used to find in him a source of endless jokes. It was interesting to watch the other Alsatians while this was going on. They would go white and tremble with suppressed emotion, and their eyes would flash dangerous fire. Afterwards, when they were sure that they were alone, they would gather round their unfortunate countryman and do their best to comfort him. When the poor man arrived at the front, he was at once sent back to the garrison as unfit for service in the field. Soldiers who fought in France in August, 1914, told me that their reception in Alsace was quite different from what it was in Germany. All along the railway line down to the boundary of Alsace they had been welcomed by cheering crowds, and gifts had been showered upon them at every station. But the moment they entered Alsace, everything was changed. They were met with cold looks and a dogged, sullen silence. The Alsatian regiments at the very beginning of the war were thrown across to the Russian front. The general testimony was that they did brilliant service there, and I could only gather one instance of desertion en masse.

LUSITANIA

My military career was rather abnormal, because at the very beginning I sprained my leg badly and had to go to hospital for six weeks. It was an interesting experience, because here I met soldiers from all fronts and learned a great deal about the war. We were miserably fed, and but for supplies from home would have starved. There was a curious comradeship among us. The working men used to come and say to me, “It isn’t so bad for us, this starvation, but it must be awful for you. You are not used to it.” While I was there, the news of the sinking of the Lusitania came. A scene ensued that I shall never forget. Some one was reading all about it from a newspaper. First the bare news, at which there was some excitement, not much; then an account of the ammunition destroyed, at which there were cheers; and then the announcement of the deaths of women and children. The whole room went mad with delight; cheers, mingled with roars of laughter as at a good joke, were loud and long. The very horror of the massacre increased their satisfaction at it. A few French prisoners of war were being treated in the same hospital. We were forbidden to speak to them, and they always took their walks when we were indoors. But at some risk I managed to smuggle in French newspapers to them, especially one containing the announcement that Italy had declared war. They were obviously more cheerful after receiving these papers, and wanted to express their thanks, but I had to make them signs not to take any notice of me. The Germans at that time were said to be mollycoddling their French prisoners and trying to make them hate the English. At Freiburg a French prisoner of war used to give lectures at the University. He was conducted to his lecture-room by sentries with fixed bayonets, who waited outside the door, and then took him back again at the conclusion of the lecture.

I was kept far too long at the hospital. I enjoyed the opportunity of taking walks in the beautiful parks of Cassel, and, as I was not seriously ill, I could go to the theatre as often as I liked. From time to time the doctor asked me if my foot still troubled me. To a question so naif there could be only one answer. One early learns to play the old soldier. Finally, however, he sent me back to the regiment with a recommendation that I should have an easy time of it for a week or so. For a whole fortnight I was employed on “Innendienst,” that is to say, I worked in the barracks itself. Every morning we would go up to the lumber-room and fold blankets. When we had folded all that there were to be folded, the sergeant would come along, kick them all to the ground, and we had to do it over again. It was not malice on his part, but necessity. He had to find work for us, and that was all he could do. My companions were working-men, and they were very much amused because I wanted to work and objected to doing nothing all day. They were always quoting a proverb—

“Wer Arbeit hat und sich nicht drückt,

Der ist verrückt.”

(“Who has got work and does not shirk,

He is a fool.”)

The whole art of life, not only of these working-men but of all other German working-men I met, could be summed up in that proverb. The mere fact of being idle afforded an exquisite pleasure to these people. The sergeant in time took pity on me and dispensed me from the necessity of coming at all. And so my poor feet, which were supposed to be too weak for marching, used to carry me over hill and dale, by forest and meadow, through all the surroundings of Cassel. By the time I had finished, I was “some” malingerer.

TRAINING

It would take me too long to detail all the delightful accidents that befell me. Suffice it to say that it was not till the middle of July that I began my full training, and on the 17th August I was sent to the front. At that time I had never been on patrol, or dug a trench, or seen a bomb. I had fired about ten rounds of live ammunition, and I scarcely knew one end of the bayonet from another. It is true that when I came out of hospital I had to go to a bayonet class. I had never been there before, and of course could not handle a bayonet properly. The instructor shouted, “Here, you there, you know nothing about bayonets, go back to the ranks.” He was only a country policeman, and it did not seem to strike him that the less I knew the more he had to teach me. Once the lieutenant in his tour of inspection invited me to have a fencing match with him. I suppose he thought that as an educated man I would have learnt my drill, and that we should give the company a high-class exhibition of fencing with the bayonet. Instead of which, I went for him like a wild cat and chased him round the quad. He came back, panting and tired, but quite good-natured, and he seemed rather to have enjoyed the experience.

I had never been taught any of those thousand and one things which are so necessary in the field. I could not roll my mantle, the N.C.O. had to do that for me, when I set out for the front. I had only once taken a rifle to pieces and cleaned it. All this means little to the layman, perhaps, but the soldier will read it with a grim smile. The fact was all the corporals said, “You’ll not go out with us, you are too far behind. You must wait and get trained with the next lot.”

I had tried to get transferred to a stretcher-bearer corps, but the sergeant-major said I must first finish my training, and that would take me three months yet. The same day he reported me as fit to go to the front. I protested to the captain that I was quite untrained, and he only answered, “You have been reported to me as fit to go to the front, and to the front you must go.”

Much has been written about the severe discipline of the German Army, but I noticed very little of it. The feeling which ruled among the officers was, here are people who are about to face death and unheard-of privations for the Fatherland, we must treat them well while they are still at home. Punishments were rarely given, except for gross disobedience. All sorts of things were winked at, which in times of peace would have brought us days of arrest. We had one fiery little lieutenant, who was continually losing his temper and inflicting on us extra drill, but we always ignored him, and so did the corporals, whose business it would have been to stay behind and superintend the drill. Some of the sergeants were abominably lazy. They would march us into the forest, select a likely place, tell us to lie down, and then wander about picking wild raspberries, first placing a sentry to see what the captain was doing. Suddenly a hoarse stage-whisper would be heard, “Herr Feldwebel, der Herr Hauptmann kommt!” (Sergeant, the Captain is coming), and the Feldwebel would roar in his best “command-voice,” “Sprung, auf, marsch, marsch,” and we would disappear into the depths of the forest. Once when we were idling like this by the side of a grassy lane, the General Commanding the Corps rode by. The silence became electric, we expected a great storm, and our expectations were heightened when he suddenly stopped his horse and ordered one of the men to rise and come to him. But the Great Man only pointed out that a strap was wrongly buckled, and then rode on.

Mr. Wells has made much in “Mr. Britling” of the stupid mistakes committed by the officers training English troops. Ours were no better. Nearly all our sham fights went wrong. One night we had orders to attack a certain party, but not finding them, marched away home. The “enemy,” meanwhile, had received no orders of any sort, so they remained on the “field of battle” for hours. Finally they took their courage in both their hands and marched home too. Such mistakes were always being committed. I do not say that our officers were especially stupid. It is only that blunders are inseparable from any form of human activity. Those made by English officers, which so much excite Mr. Wells, could be paralleled in any European country during the war. In one thing the English War Office did not blunder—that is, when they refused the offer of Mr. Wells’s services as a soldier, until they had got the younger men trained.

The spirit of the men was excellent. They were keen to learn what it was necessary to know; but as our curriculum was so meagre that it could be mastered in a month, they did not see why they should bother too much about repeating things they could do already. One aspect of military life bored us intolerably. With the idea of enlivening our existence, games were introduced, such as blind-man’s buff, hunt-the-slipper, and similar drawing-room fooleries. The men got so tired of these that they preferred to go to the front to do a man’s work. I need hardly say that such games as football were never heard of. We had, of course, all kinds of gymnastics, which would have been very good if carried out properly. But here discipline was at its slackest. One of the exercises, for example, was to climb a steep boarding fifteen feet high and then drop down on the other side as best one could. Those who were afraid were allowed to indulge their luxury of fear, no constraint being put on them whatever. A rage of disgust and contempt used to fill me at times when I saw how perfunctorily we were trained. The men were still intensely patriotic and confident of a quick and crushing victory. Drink and drabbing were looked down upon as unsoldierly by the majority of the men, but in this I think we were exceptional. From all that I could hear of other recruiting depôts, the war served with the majority of soldiers as an excuse for throwing restraint to the winds. The Government was on its guard, and in certain towns—for instance, Cologne—sentries were posted at the entrances to disreputable streets, and no soldier was allowed to pass. But in our depôt the soldiers were nearly all over thirty, and they were mostly married men. There was among them an exalted feeling of devotion to the Fatherland and of comradeship. When the call came to go to the front, many volunteered who could successfully have pleaded some physical ailment as an excuse for staying at home. I am proud to recall my association with these troops. We were a real band of brothers. Rich and poor, high and low, educated and uneducated, all mingled together on terms of simple and unaffected equality. I did not find it so afterwards. At the front and in captivity social distinctions played a great part in embittering the relations between the “kameraden.” It is true that in order to take your place in this society, you had to employ rather drastic methods. I remember once having a quarrel with the two soldiers who shared my locker with me. They were going off on a week’s holiday, and insisted on taking the key with them. It is no good being a gentleman in cases like this. I simply called them every bad name I could lay my tongue to, and in the army you learn some bad names. After I had finished (which was not soon), they handed me the key with every appearance of respect, and whenever afterwards trouble appeared to be brewing for me, they used to say, “Here, you leave that man alone: he is our friend.”

BARRACKS

Their patriotism is the more to be wondered at, because there is no doubt they were made to endure much hardness. For the first ten days of our training we all had to live in barracks. I shall never forget this time; not even the squalor of a Russian prison has left such an impression on my mind. There were far more soldiers than beds, so some of us had to sleep on mattresses on the floor. At the beginning there were many men with infectious diseases. The man who slept next to me was in an advanced state of tuberculosis, and he coughed all night. On the other side of this man was a soldier suffering from syphilis. We complained about his being put with us, and the doctor only shrugged his shoulders and answered that his was not a very infectious case. However, he was at last taken to hospital for treatment. We were never certain of getting the same bedding every night, and we were supposed to share washhand-basins. My first serious quarrel came when I insisted on washing myself under the tap. This was felt as a reflection on my partners in the washhand-basin.

The food was miserably insufficient for an active open-air life, and most of the men had to get supplies from home. Tea and coffee were dark slops scarcely to be distinguished from one another. On the other hand, the bread and sausage supplied were excellent—the best to be got in Germany at that time. We used to receive two loaves of bread a week, and when I took mine home the servant-girls all along the streets used to offer to buy them from me. We were paid about sixpence a day, but out of this we had to buy blacking, brushes, polishing materials, and several other odds and ends. We had two meals a day—dinner about twelve, and supper, a very light meal, at seven. Besides, coffee was supplied first thing in the morning. I am certain that no soldier who confined himself to the rations supplied could have held out for a week. After the first ten days those who could afford it received permission to live out.

TRAINING

We used to get up every morning at five or six o’clock. Then there would be a march to the drill-ground, some four miles away, and we would do our exercises and be home by eleven or twelve. We never practised any attacks in massed formation, we were always sent forward in open lines. One of our officers had captured a Russian position by making the men crawl towards the enemy one at a time. He had taken the position with the loss of only eight wounded. We used to curse this officer from the bottom of our hearts. Crawling is terribly hard work, especially when you are in full kit, and still more so when you have to go through whatever mud, dirt, or puddles lie in your way. So many lives had been lost at the front by people being afraid to dirty their uniforms, that we were told to get ours very dirty. And to have a foul-mouthed peasant of a corporal shouting insults at you while you are wriggling in the mud, makes you feel a very worm.

From eleven to two we were free. From two to three we had “instruktion,” that is to say, some portion of the Infantryman’s Manual was explained to us. Four times out of five the subject was the duty of patrols. We were supposed to know all this off by heart. Patrols were considered so important that everything else was subordinated to them in “instruktion.” Generally the instructor was so tired of the subject that he used to amuse us by stories of the war, or of the pranks he used to play when he was a young recruit twenty years before. If everything else failed, the half-witted Alsatian was dragged out and tortured to make a German holiday. After “instruktion” came two hours more. These were employed either in the drawing-room games I have already mentioned, or in gymnastics, or in sighting-exercises; that is to say, for two hours on end we had to practise sighting our rifles in the three positions—standing, kneeling, lying. I have seen the way the Russian soldier was taught these things, and I should say the Russian was beyond comparison better trained than the German. The Russian targets were much better, much more like the real thing, and much more care was taken. Sometimes the route-march and the exercises took place at night, in which case we had a slack morning. All our marching was made to assimilate as near as possible to war conditions. Our knapsacks were filled with sand, and the weight of our equipment was about what we had to bear in the field (75 lbs.). Our great lack was in service rifles. Most of us had rifles captured from the Russians, and great big heavy things they are, too. For some time, indeed, I had a rifle which bore the date 1820, and had probably been made in England. The strain of these exercises was severe, and I must confess that I was never so tired at the front as I was sometimes at home.

In one respect they had the advantage of probably any army in the world—in the songs they sang. Not only was the whole wealth of the German “Volkslied” open to us, but the special soldiers’ songs, “O Strassburg,” or “Ich hatt’ ein’ kameraden,” are all of good quality, while one (“Die drei Lilien”) is superb. These songs provided me with unforgettable experiences. I have already mentioned how the Alsatians used to sing “O Strassburg.” It seemed as if they could express themselves in no other way but by singing that. Although I had lived in Germany for many years, I never understood what a “Volkslied” was till I heard the soldiers sing. They were all peasants, and the impulse which created the ballad never seems to have died out in their class. They sang “Die drei Lilien,” a ballad of high imaginative power, with the most intimate understanding. Indeed, every time they sang one of the old songs it seemed like a fresh creation. And all the while new songs are being composed, and the various joys and woes of a soldier’s life are receiving an expression that is nearly always striking and effective. The stuff composed during the war itself, however, was beginning to show the influence of the music-hall and was getting to be desperately vulgar.

SERGEANT-MAJOR

I think we should all have been a very happy family if it had not been for the company sergeant-major. This personage is the greatest power in the company. He may be rude to the captain, but the captain dare not be rude to him; for if he is, things begin to go wrong in the company, headquarters get to know of it, and the reprimand falls, not on the company sergeant-major, but on the captain. Our man took a special pleasure in making us feel his power. His great sport was to get men sent to the front. He would make the lives of the other N.C.O.s such a hell to them that in wild desperation they would volunteer for active service long before their time. His favourite trick with the rank and file was to spoil their Sundays. The captain would sign our leave-tickets for Sunday, but as soon as his back was turned, the sergeant-major would take them all and throw them into the waste-paper basket. If the captain was away, he would fix a parade for 2.30 on Sunday afternoon. Punctually to time he would send some one to see if we were all there; but the great man himself would not appear till an hour or two later. Then we might be sent home, but far too late for the married men to collect their wives and children and get to their favourite coffee-garden in the suburbs. And all this was done with such an [insolent expression of mocking pity] on his face, that I sometimes wondered that we did not club him with our rifles. If he ever went to the front at last, I am certain he was shot in the back by his own men before he had been there long.

My experiences allowed me to test the real estimation in which a soldier is held. On duty we all had to wear the same sort of uniform. When we were off duty we could wear a better sort, if we chose, made for us by our own tailor. Going home through the streets in my dirty service uniform taught me a good deal. All well-dressed people gave me a very wide berth. I got home, bathed and changed into my private uniform. It would be ungallant to say what a difference it made. But in time of war I would allow no flapper on the streets of a garrison town except in a strait waistcoat and a muzzle.

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CHAPTER V
THE GERMAN ARMY IN THE FIELD

I intend in this chapter to relate what I heard about the course of the war from the soldiers themselves. I came to know much that was interesting, and I think that most of what I have to say will be new to English readers.

The German soldier was trained in time of peace to be good at marching and in attack. A resolute and aggressive spirit was cultivated by every means known to such students of the psychology of war as the Germans have always proved themselves to be. Defensive measures were almost completely ignored. The digging of trenches, for example, was practised only once or twice in a soldier’s two years of training. Long forced marches under the conditions of actual warfare were frequent, and every year a number of men died through neglecting the precautions enjoined upon them as necessary in these marches. Even accuracy in shooting was made less of than endurance on the road. The soldiers were, moreover, deliberately made to go about their duties mechanically and to acquire the habit of doing things without asking the reason why. I remember that some German soldiers were much amused when they heard that English officers gave themselves the trouble at manœuvres to explain to their men exactly what was taking place. Although this system of training was the rule, it was not universal in Germany. General von Haeseler was strongly opposed to it. Himself impatient of authority, he endeavoured to instil into his soldiers a spirit of responsibility and self-reliance. After the war broke out, the High Command saw how much better results had been achieved by French and English methods of developing the individual soldier, and Haeseler’s ideals were adopted throughout Germany. Our instructors used rather to bore us by continually harping on “individual responsibility,” and reminding us that the fate of the army depended on the private soldier’s ability to stand alone and act for himself when no officer was present.

At the beginning of the war, then, Germany had an army of good marchers, overflowing with aggressive spirit, its great masses trained to work together with mechanical perfection. She threw the bulk of the army against France and used two small portions of it to conquer Belgium and to hold the Russians in check. For the first three weeks of the war Germany was only bluffing in Belgium and Russia. Less than forty thousand men sufficed to take Liége. The town was won not so much by the big artillery as by the marching power of the infantry. Tunnels and bridges had been blown up and the line, wherever possible, destroyed. It was a race against time, in which the railway could not be used. The soldiers had to press forward by forced marches, and they described to me how, in order to lighten their steps, they threw away everything they could spare—knapsacks, bread bags, mantles, and trenching tools. Some even got rid of their tunics and marched in their shirt-sleeves. For miles and miles the roads were lined with the cast-off effects of the German soldiers. Many men could not keep up and fell fainting or dying by the wayside. Whatever opposition they encountered had to be crushed at once, regardless of cost. The slaughter was immense, one regiment being reduced to five hundred men by the time Liége was taken. In this case, at any rate, the training which the German soldier had received was justified by results. At the beginning of the war nothing seemed too wild and impossible for the German soldier to attempt. The tradition of audacity engendered in the army was always bringing in splendid prizes. At Namur, a lieutenant and four men bluffed into surrender the principal fort with its entire garrison.

BELGIUM

The system had other aspects. I do not intend to discuss the terrorization of Belgium here, except to say that the worst allegations of the Allies are fully borne out by the tales the German soldiers relate to one another. Man after man has told me how, when he was in Belgium, he used to fill Feldpostpakete with jewellery and send them home. Looting was frequent, unashamed, and not reproved by those in command. The tales of murder were just as numerous. Children knee-high were killed, women and girls driven into a house, which was then set on fire, and they were deliberately burned alive. The Germans had a peculiar liking for humiliating their victims before killing them. The condemned were nearly always made to dig their own graves. I heard one particularly touching story of a girl. She had shot a German officer; the reason was not stated, but it may be guessed. She was sentenced to be executed next morning. When she came out to her death, her face showed that she had spent the night in dreadful agony of soul. And yet the soldiers insulted her and clubbed her with their rifles before shooting her. Educated men used to feel shame at times. One such wrote home to his mother in a fit of remorse and described how, before shooting a French officer, he had made him put on his coat inside out. His mother was beside herself. “How could my son,” she said, “do a thing like that?”

Another man told me about his experiences at Louvain. I give his words exactly. “We were sitting round the table in our room. Suddenly shots fell and some bullets whizzed past our heads and buried themselves in the wall opposite. The lieutenant said, ‘Put out the light, somebody.’ This we did. ‘Go out into the street, and wherever you see a Belgian or wherever you see a light in a house, shoot.’” The tale speaks for itself. The lieutenant had not the slightest evidence that the shots had come from the Belgians. This same soldier told me that from the first they had orders to give no quarter to the English.

FRANCE

I heard similar tales of rapine, arson, and murder in France. One army corps, I think it was the tenth, was especially famous for its record in these things. Villages were burned as a matter of course, without any military reason. Sheer savage lust of destruction was the motive and nothing else. The men of this corps were proud of what they had done and were regarded by the others with envy.

It was interesting to speak with those who had been at the Marne. They were unanimous in asserting that they had not been defeated, but had retired of their own free will. Some even spoke of having spontaneously retreated ninety kilometres in one day. The general opinion in the German Army was that the failure on the Marne was due to the Saxons. They could not march so well as the Prussians. The pace had been too much for them, so they had given up and left their comrades in the lurch. Others accounted for it by saying that just in the nick of time the Italians let the French know that they need not guard the Italian frontier. Whereupon all the army corps in the South of France were suddenly thrown into the battle and their appearance turned the scale. But of Joffre as a factor that counted in the battle of the Marne there was never a word.

There were many complaints at the beginning of the war about the quality of the reserve officers. From not one but from several regiments I used to hear strange stories about the difficulties these men got their regiments into. On a certain occasion in the Vosges, the Germans had to retire, and their commander, an officer of the reserve, thought it a great thing to lead them into a kind of little pocket or basin in the forest. The French, however, knew these hills perfectly, and were well aware that that was the only place where troops could find shelter. They swept it with a storm of shell and left scarcely a man alive. In the early days the mortality among the subalterns was horrible. Later on they were not expected to lead their company to the attack, but to go behind the first line or “wave.”

We used to have rare thrills in Bonn during the great fights. Officers were able to telephone straight from the field of battle to their families at home. You might sit in your study and exchange the time of the day with a friend in the trenches. It was not allowed officially, but it was done. Officers might telegraph if there was any important business to settle. So families in Bonn were continually receiving this sort of telegram: “Buy 10,000 war stock,” “By all means sell the house.” This did not mean that the Frau Hauptmann was to engage in these transactions really; it only meant that on the date the wire was dispatched, its sender was alive and well.

RUSSIA

The Russian campaigns, like the Belgian, were won by bluff and good marching. In August, 1914, East Prussia was held by only a thin screen of troops, mostly Landsturm. But in order to deceive the enemy, trenches were dug and filled with dummy machine-guns and with scarecrows wearing the spiked helmets of the German infantry. In another district a division was employed for some time simply in marching between two points. In the daytime it marched from A to B, at night it entrained and was sent back to A, changed the numbers on its helmets and shoulder-straps and marched to B again. The Russians were thus led to believe that certain parts of the line were strongly held and that at other points a great concentration of troops was taking place. But for this they would have attempted a breakthrough and might really have reached Berlin. They were still more elaborately fooled at the winter battle of the Masurian Lakes. Here the Germans wanted to lure the Russians a second time into this dangerous territory. One would have thought it impossible, but the trap was set with masterly cunning. Reports appeared, not so much in the German as in the neutral papers, that East Prussia was being evacuated and that the peasants were leaving their homesteads and villages and fleeing westwards in a wild panic. The Germans, it was hinted, were so occupied in France that they could not spare any troops for the Russian front. Meanwhile, whatever forces the Germans had, seemed to be concentrated opposite Warsaw. The Russians fell headlong into the trap and lost the flower of what was left of their old army. Neither battle of the Masurian Lakes could have been won except for the marching powers of the German infantry. While the enemy was held in front, it was necessary to march round with extreme swiftness and take him in the rear before he could begin to move his armies out of the trap. The soldiers who took part in this battle told me that the forced marches tried them beyond anything they had experienced in the war.

On the whole, the German training found its best justification in Russia. Here the conditions were exactly those for which it had been devised. The enemy was superior in numbers, and he was to be overawed by German dash, enterprise, and mobility. The principle in Russia was to go for the enemy wherever you found him, and to count neither his numbers nor your losses. The Russian morale was badly shaken. Our servant at Irkutsk, who had fought against the Germans, used to wake us by shouting in his dreams, “The Germans are coming. Run! Run!” In time the Germans came to despise the Russians so much that they neglected the most obvious precautions. Our regiment once advanced to the attack without even reconnoitring the ground. When halfway across to the enemy’s positions, they were suddenly held up by a sunken ditch. They had to go forward as best they could, and the leading company alone lost eighty killed.

But with all their dash the Germans would have been lost without their superiority in artillery. They had plenty of guns and plenty of ammunition, and could always batter the Russian trenches to pieces before attacking. The Russians, on the other hand, could only fire a limited number of shells per day, and were practically helpless against a bombardment. Most people will remember that some time in October or November, 1914, Hindenburg was surrounded by the Russians. He afterwards broke the ring, taking 12,000 prisoners with him. He owed his release solely to the heavy artillery, to which the Russians could not reply. One man who took part in the battle said to me, “We began to batter a sector of the Russian line at eight o’clock in the morning, and by the evening we were through.”

The system of attack in massed formation, common to both the Germans and the Austrians, was most heartily disliked by the younger officers. They used to protest against it, but in vain. On one occasion a regiment had received an order to attack, and its adjutant telephoned to headquarters, “Attack impossible. Clear field of fire.” He received the answer, “Doesn’t matter. Go forward.” He did so, and not a man came back, except the wounded. Sometimes the men themselves took matters into their own hands. We were once attacking a Russian village, and were met by a hurricane of shrapnel and bullets. Fifteen times the bugle sounded the charge, and fifteen times not a man stirred from where he lay. At last the artillery came up, and the Russians retired. The losses entailed by mass attacks were staggering. At the first battle of Ypres the Germans lost 120,000 men. As I have mentioned, when I was trained, the Germans were beginning to see reason, and were taught to go forward in open formation.

In the Austrian Army, while things were similar, discipline was looser and protest more easy. One officer, when ordered to a hopeless attack, refused point blank. “Very well, then,” said the general, “if you don’t attack, I shall turn the guns on you.” The officer replied that if the general did that, he would order his men to right-about-turn and take the guns. The general gave in, and the officer received neither reprimand nor punishment.

RED CROSS

The worst organized part of the German Army was the Red Cross work. From all I could hear, it seems that the German Red Cross arrangements badly broke down in the first year of the war. At first I thought the complaints I heard were exaggerations, but the same story came from every part of the front. The stretcher-bearers were all said to be cowards, for ever lurking about in the rear, not daring to face a bullet. Besides they were selfish thieves, and they drank all the cognac themselves, which they were supposed to reserve for the wounded. “Why,” the soldiers used to say, “even the Russians have organized their Red Cross better than we. Their stretcher-bearers do go forward with the soldiers in the front line.” These complaints received some confirmation from the fact that a cavalry lieutenant of my acquaintance was transferred to the medical corps in order to organize the stretcher-bearers and see if he could not get them to face the music of the shells. Wherever I went at the front, the stretcher-bearers were treated with contempt by the other soldiers. What I say does not apply to the doctors, I never heard anything against them.

Again, at the beginning, the distribution of comforts left much to be desired. At one time on the French front you could buy a horse for two cigars. Later on the supply of tobacco was improved. Of religious work, or Y.M.C.A. work, there was comparatively little. The Germans had a brilliant idea for fighting venereal disease. When a soldier fell ill, they sent his nearest relative a postcard to the effect that your son (husband, brother, as the case might be) was at “Hospital No. so-and-so, suffering from so-and-so.” Shame kept many straight, when nothing else would have prevailed.

The accounts which the Germans gave of their enemies were interesting. They freely admitted that the French and English were better at flying than they. Of Russian aviators they thought nothing. On the other hand, every one had the greatest respect for the Russian artillery. It was the universal opinion that the Russian artillerymen were the smartest in the war. One German officer said to me, “If we had the Russian artillery we should be in Kieff by now.” At a certain point on the Russian front we had half a battery—two guns—opposed to us. Yet so quickly did the Russians fire them off, boom, boom, boom, boom, that we thought they had a battery of four guns. And when the statements of prisoners placed it beyond a doubt that there were only two guns, our artillery were lost in wonder, and said that they themselves could not attempt such a thing. Of the Russian troops, the Cossack enjoyed a great reputation as a scout, but he was a poor fighter. The Austrians, who were in the disastrous retreat from Rava Ruska, told me wonderful tales of the Cossack cleverness in scouting. They would scarcely come within a kilometre of the position, and yet they would have noticed exactly how it ran, and the Russian artillery would soon confirm the accuracy of their reconnoitring. The Germans had an unbounded admiration for the French soldiers. It was the fashion to pity the French for having such a splendid army, but such a poor Government.

ENGLISH ARMY

But, of course, I was chiefly interested in hearing their views about the English troops. Before they met them, the Germans were full of contempt. English soldiers were hirelings, and certainly could not stand up to such troops as the Germans. A week’s fighting sufficed to bring round their opinion to the exact opposite. Every English private, they said, fights like a sergeant and shoots like Buffalo Bill. In every branch of warfare they used to acknowledge the superiority of the Old Army. “Each single Englishman has to be dug out separately,” they said. When Russians were captured, whole armies at a time, they used to get impatient. “What is the use of that,” they said. “A thousand Russians are equal to ten Frenchmen and one Englishman.” Our colonel, in a speech he made to the regiment in May, 1915, said, “In a few months, perhaps weeks, we shall have finished with the Russians, but,” and here he turned to me, “I don’t think we shall ever get finished with your country.” I need scarcely say that I altogether dissociate myself from this estimate of Russian and French troops. The battles which broke the Austrian front at Rava Ruska in 1914, and the victories of Brusiloff in 1916, were among the most brilliant operations in the war. The French soldier it would be impertinent for me to praise, except perhaps to say that this war has added fresh glory to an army which already had the most splendid traditions of any in Europe.

GERMAN PRISONS

And finally comes the subject of the treatment of prisoners. The evidence as to Russian prisoners is conflicting. Cossacks received no quarter; they were always killed. I have heard many vile stories on this point; let one suffice. Once two hundred Cossacks were caught and told to line up with their faces to Russia. They were very glad, and thought they were going to be exchanged. Then, without a word being said, a machine-gun was turned on them from behind, and they were all shot. There are stories of great cruelty to other Russian prisoners, Hindenburg being especially prominent in this. When Russian prisoners were quarrelling in their barracks, he had the artillery turned on them, “to quiet them,” as he said. For further stories of this kind I need only refer to the official papers of the Tsar’s Government. On the other hand, I know that the Germans wanted to keep the Russian workmen in Germany after the war in order that they should take the place of the men Germany had lost on the battlefield. The Russian labourers were said to learn quickly, and to do a good day’s work when under German direction. Employers had the strictest orders to show every kindness to their Russian prisoners. I had a talk with an escaped prisoner of war, and he had nothing but good to say of his treatment in Germany. He praised the order, punctuality, and cleanliness of German life, and was determined to go back there after the war. It is possible that those prisoners who were willing to work were better treated than the others who stayed in the camps. A doctor who had lived in the prison camps, and who had been exchanged, gave the most terrible account of the treatment which the Russians received there. He said they were worst treated of all, because the Russian Government were so slow in taking reprisals; while the English were the best treated, because our Government were the promptest in reprisals. This referred to the year 1916, while Mr. Asquith was still Prime Minister.

The Germans used captivity for political purposes. They would throw French, Belgian, and English together, and then issue gleeful reports that these “Allies” were always fighting. From my experience of prison life I know exactly how this was done, because the Russians tried the same methods on us. You have only to pamper the French and to starve the English, and the mischief is done. A starving man is an irritable man, and it takes a slight thing to make him an angry one.

With regard to the treatment of English prisoners I have no first-hand information. From the very beginning rumours were rife in Bonn that they were being badly used. These stories were told with great satisfaction, as if it were right to do so. The Germans themselves used to relate how English prisoners were incited by cruelty to revolt so as to have an excuse for shooting them. German soldiers used to tell me how naïve the English soldiers were. “When they were taken prisoners they wanted to shake hands and be friends. And they had just been killing our men, too. We always used to give them a good drubbing with the butt-end of our rifles. It is what they deserved for killing Germans.” Let me add that at Cassel I met a German soldier who had been captured by the English and exchanged. He was full of gratitude for the kindness he had received. His captors gave him of their best before passing him on to the rear. When their transport reached Southampton station, a Red Cross nurse asked the officer if she might be allowed to give them some refreshment, and permission was readily granted. At Netley he had been much better off than at Cassel. There had been plenty to eat and drink, and, what was more, you could always help yourselves too.

The German is an inordinately vain man, and he likes to impress people (“imponiren,” he calls it). The English soldiers refused to be impressed. Their hard, indomitable temper filled the Germans with envy and despair, and the more brutal among them went to the utmost lengths in the endeavour to break the spirit of our men. I only once saw an English prisoner. It was at Cassel. He had been taken ill on a working-party, and was walking back to his camp. As he passed through our ranks, he bore himself with downcast eyes indeed, but with such pride and dignity that we all seemed to be mere recruits, and he the only true soldier present.