How the Germans behaved to the Ambassador of France at Berlin
The German authorities behaved in similar fashion to M. Jules Cambon, the Ambassador of France at Berlin. When, armed with his passports, he asked to leave by way of Holland, the minister refused his request and sent him word by M. de Lancken, a former adviser to the German Embassy at Paris, that he would have to return to France through Austria.
“We should not recommend you,” he said, “to go through Denmark. The sea may not be safe…” M. Cambon then asked for himself and his staff a safe-conduct which would guarantee his journey through Austria, where his official position would be no protection to him. This safe-conduct was promised him. On the following morning this order was countermanded, and M. Cambon was informed that he would be brought back again to the Danish frontier. Whether the sea would be safe or not was no longer taken into consideration. His departure took place the same day. It took no less than twenty-four hours to cross the 400 kilometres which separate Berlin from Denmark. When the train got near the frontier all the blinds were lowered, and soldiers armed with revolvers beset the doors of each compartment. The passengers were warned that these soldiers would fire if they left the carriage, if they put their hands in their pockets, or if they attempted to touch their luggage.
When they were close to the frontier, a military official, Commandant de Rheinhaben, came, shamefacedly enough, and asked M. Cambon for the cost of the train by which he had travelled from Berlin. The ambassador offered a cheque on the Bleichroeder Bank, which was declined. The total expense, which amounted to 3600 marks, was demanded in gold. The Embassy staff was able to scrape together this sum. The passengers then continued their journey, with the addition to their party of a curious-looking person who, the Commandant said, was a Scandinavian merchant. M. Cambon and his companions met this curious merchant again at Copenhagen and in Norway at the time of their embarkation for England.
Moreover, as they were going through the Kiel Canal, the Germans went so far as to claim the right to search the ambassador’s luggage. And though, through the interposition of an official, he was spared this humiliation, soldiers forced themselves into the carriages and stood on guard facing the passengers, with their hands on the trigger of their revolvers; even women and children did not escape this kind of treatment and were threatened with death if they made the slightest movement.