CHAPTER II POTSDAM AND HAMBURG
For my trip to Potsdam I had a bright, sunny morning. Potsdam, the favourite residence of the Kaiser, and one of the most intensely Prussian towns of Prussia, owing to the enormous number of barracks, military buildings, and academies she has in proportion to her size, attracted me for two reasons.
First, I knew any amount of military drill was daily going on in the large drill grounds, and that Potsdam, the cradle of the Prussian Army, would be specially interesting to see in war time.
Secondly, the only concentration camp in the immediate vicinity of Berlin in which British prisoners are kept is Doberitz, quite close to Potsdam.
Potsdam gave me straight away the impression of being absolutely full of soldiers. The regular garrison has gone to the front, of course, but the first classes of the Landsturm, just called to arms, are drilling day and night in the grounds of the artillery barracks.
Some of the new guns (for the Russian frontier, I learn) are being tested, and the military academy has been converted into a huge hospital. The ugly, pretentious little town, full of copies of old Italian and French buildings, seemed to be populated by an extraordinary number of people in mourning, probably owing to the fact that Potsdam being a garrison town, quite a number of officers' families reside there.
The entrance to the castle of Sans Souci, to the New Palace, and to the Marble Palace is verboten. I asked the reason of this, and I was told that the buildings are now being devoted to military purposes.
I was losing all hope of being able to see something of interest when the noise of a powerful engine made me look over my head. A gigantic Zeppelin was performing different evolutions, dropping and rising again hundreds of feet, changing the direction, and pointing a massive nose now to the earth, now to the sky.
I could see from the stability planes and from the shape of the tail that it was one of the very latest models; also a sort of silvery paint, probably the aluminium varnish which has been in use for years in the Italian aerial fleet, had been adopted instead of the old grey or copal varnish. I easily managed to find out that this was the first test of a new machine, that two airships exactly alike were being equipped in the flying grounds on the west side of the town, and that old Count Zeppelin himself was looking after the operations.
From morning to sunset there was an enormous activity in the whole of the aerial park. Over a hundred aeroplanes of the Taube type were under construction, and I was told that in every one of the German towns which possesses aeroplane works, flying machines are being built in large numbers. Apparently the idea is not only to supply machines in place of those lost or damaged on the frontiers, but to have a very large number of aeroplanes ready for next spring.
The figures I heard varied very much, but a well-informed officer said that Germany will have in March-April over a thousand new machines, and that the engines of the whole air-fleet are already finished. I asked what was Germany's object in getting such an enormous number of machines ready, but I could only get the answer, "You wait and see!"
As for the balloons, the largest workshops are in Posen and Hanover.
The hangars erected at Potsdam are only four, but they are very large, and a new system of concrete has been used in place of wood or corrugated iron.
The new Zeppelin seems very agile, considering its huge volume. The cigar-like shape seems to me to be thicker than the old model, and the distance between the gondolas carrying the engines and the body of the airship has been very much reduced.
A kind old lady lent me her good field-glasses, and I could see that the crew numbered over a dozen, and that a general in uniform was on board. The new airship did not, for the moment, show any number or mark of any kind. After a few more evolutions the Zeppelin disappeared, concealed by the trees of the Brauhausberg.
I gave back the glasses to the old lady who lent them to me, and she said that she was a widow of a captain who died in the 'seventies near Sedan, and had now two sons and two sons-in-law at the front. "They are at the right wing fighting the Englishmen, at the place of honour. Do you know England at all?" she asked me, and then went on without giving me time to answer her question.
"Oh, I do hate that country! She had no business to come into this war, and without her we should at this time be in Paris. Our fleet would have destroyed the French fleet, and everything would be over."
I asked her if any of her relations had been wounded.
"Yes," she answered, "one of my sons last month. He was sent back here for two weeks, but now he has recovered and has gone to the front again."
I could not help admiring the old lady; she was only thinking of the success of the campaign, and very little of the danger that her sons might never come back. The German woman has remained, in this way, the wife of the fierce, barbarous warrior of Attila, in peace time counted as a slave, or at best as a nurse for the children, but ready to buckle the breast-plate of her man and to kiss him good-bye with dry eyes when the moment for fighting comes. In peace-time one has the impression that this type of woman has disappeared from Germany, and that her place has been taken by the provincial type—sentimental up to her wedding-day, practical after, or by the coquettish city type of woman, who tries to copy the Parisienne or the Viennese, and only succeeds in being the caricature of a smart woman, handicapped as she is by a certain clumsiness of body and spirit.
Now her country is at war, the German woman has become again the descendant of the Valkyrie, of the wife of the mediæval warrior, of the nursing woman of the 1870's.
This war, sweeping away the paint of more or less real culture, of social convention, of borrowed ways and manners, brings to the surface the wild qualities of men but also the good ones of women.
I asked the old lady to whom I was talking if she did not feel terribly anxious and upset about her sons, and she answered:—
"I really haven't time to think much about them. Everybody is so busy just now. We have got miseries of all kinds—wounded, refugees from the Russian frontiers, lonely children to look after—and everybody is trying to do his very best in helping the country."
I asked her the way to Doberitz, and having crossed by the ferry boat a small branch of the Havel, I went on in the direction of the village. In a very large field at the back of the Potsdam's cavalry barracks I saw a couple of thousand horses arranged in large circles of about one hundred each, round huge piles of saddles.
A number of reservists were busy showing some of the animals, and cleaning and looking after some others. The horses, seen in the distance, seemed perfectly fresh, and some of them looked exceptionally fine. They seemed to belong mostly to the Hungarian type, and had long hairy manes and tails, and strong muscles in their legs.
I was very astonished, as I had read, and not in English papers only, that the German Army was short of horses, and that the full cavalry contingent was at the frontier.
Those horses, I learnt, were a fresh supply, just received from Austria and Hungary, as the southern Allies apparently have got many more horses than soldiers to ride them.
Other very large depôts of horses, which will be ready for military service in a month or so, were at the south side of Berlin and Eisleben and Leipsig. The Government are also trying to get horses from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, but the steps taken in this direction don't seem to have given very good results.
Germany is trying to get horses from everywhere, even at very high prices, but, like the aeroplanes, not so much for immediate use, but to have them ready for next spring. It is fully realised that cavalry at the present moment, with winter frosts and conditions prevailing, would be of hardly any use.
After a fairly long walk on the muddy road I reached Doberitz and asked for the concentration camp. I was told that it depended on whether I wanted to see the new or the old one. The new one consists of large temporary constructions, which are being erected on the manœuvring grounds on the Spandau road, and which will not be complete for some time. The old one is at the extreme west side of the town, and is really a large, lofty country house, with large green houses attached, and a chapel, formerly inhabited by Carmelite nuns, standing in a spacious garden. Only about two hundred English prisoners are kept there, but many French prisoners are quartered in another building half a mile distant. The large concentration camps are not here, but in the North of Germany. The Tommies (I don't know if there are any officers quartered with them) are made generally useful; they cut wood for the trenches, sew and prepare sacks for the same purpose, and anyone who has ability to do extra work receives a small payment for it, with which he can purchase tobacco, etc.
I asked if it was possible to talk with the prisoners, but was told that not even German people are allowed to do so, and that no permission to enter the camp was ever accorded, whatever the reasons.
I thought it would be useless, and probably dangerous, for me to try and get in, and I had to be content with walking close to the long, white wall which separates the grounds of the old convent from the main road. I heard voices talking in the purest Cockney accent, laughter, and popular English songs hummed at the other side.
At the south of Doberitz there is a small hill less than 100 ft. high, covered with thick vegetation. From its summit I managed to get a good look into the Concentration Camp.
Forty or fifty British soldiers, in khaki trousers and shirt-sleeves, were smoking and sitting about outside the main entrance of the house. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and they were evidently enjoying their after-dinner rest.
Two seemed to be in rather friendly conversation with one of the German soldiers who were looking after them, and another was listening to an old officer who was giving him some instructions.
I noticed that the Tommy stood at attention, as though he were in front of a British officer, and that, when the German went among the soldiers, they saluted him in the regular manner. All along the inside of the high wall of the garden Prussian soldiers were walking up and down as stiff as if they were mounting guard at the Imperial Palace.
"What would I give," I said to myself, "to be able to talk to them, to give them fresh news from England, to take home their letters. A scrap of paper with their names only would probably be enough to bring happiness to hundreds of English families which are now mourning them as dead. It seemed ridiculous not to be able to get somehow into contact with those men who were only four or five hundred feet distance from me."
Of course, it couldn't be done, and I walked sadly down the little hill thinking of the poor young fellows, probably worried by false news about the war and forced to prepare material for the trenches which will stop their pals' bullets and protect their gaolers.
* * *
The few days I had decided to spend in Berlin coming to an end, I set out upon the return journey through Hamburg, in which town I wanted to see as much as possible of Germany's naval preparations. Though I fully realised that it would be much better to have gone to Kiel for this purpose, or even better to Wilhelmshaven, I did not attempt such a journey because of the terribly slow railway communications, and also because of the improbability of getting anywhere near the arsenals.
Hamburg, the largest town in Germany after Berlin, the oldest shipbuilding city in Europe (she was already rich and powerful when Glasgow was unknown and Liverpool was but a small fishing village), is probably the most representative town in the whole of Germany.
Here the prosperity of Germany after the proclamation of the Empire shows itself in a mighty way; the words of August Bebel have found the right kind of soil, and have produced the wonderful organisation of workmen which was powerful enough to erect the Gewerkschaftshaus.
A question which has puzzled me since the beginning of the war is, what are the German Socialists doing? What happened to their international sympathies; what do they think of this war and of the way Germany is treating the Belgian and French population? When I asked these questions to a well-known Hamburg Socialist, the only answer he could give me was this:
"We are reduced to a very small number at the present moment; when a Socialist workman is called to arms, not only he immediately forgets all about his Socialist beliefs, but even his family, his father, and his brothers—not to mention women, who are absolutely war-mad, seem to lose all interest in what is not war. Of course, I firmly believe that as soon as the war is over the Socialist Party will become even stronger than it was before, but for the present we are so few that we don't dare to say a word, nor to criticise that which ought to be criticised."
Waiting for the resurrection of Socialism, the Labour Party is indirectly helping the common cause. Three entire floors of the Workmen's Institute have been transformed into hospitals, and nurses, doctors, sanitary appliances, etc., are supplied by the Trade Unions' League.
All shipbuilding firms, from the enormous concerns of international fame to the smallest, have been taken up by the Government, or are at least working for it.
Godeffroy, Stülchen, Weichhorst, etc., are now specially occupied in the construction of submarines. The strictest secrecy is observed about the plant, and the number of ships under construction is not known.
The enormous Vulcan Works on the other side of the town, the commercial Altona, and the still larger Blohm and Voss works, are turning out at present four battleships, and the former firm has nearly finished a new floating dock which is said to be the largest in existence. Hamburg will have altogether six large floating docks, which will certainly prove of great help in the work of rescuing damaged warships. In less than two hours they may be taken right down to the open sea, through the Elbe, and from there reach at full speed any ships too badly damaged to steam by their own means and convey them to the Hamburg dockyards.
To say that the shipbuilding concerns have been "taken up" by the Government is really inexact and superficial; nearly all of the firms have furnished the German Navy with some ships during the last few years—Blohm, for instance, is responsible for the Von der Tann, the Moltke, and the Goeben.
A Hamburg firm that specialises in lighthouses, etc., is now constructing an enormous number of searchlights, which are to be added to those already possessed by the Navy, and which are mentioned here as specially made for the attack on the British coasts. Other searchlights, almost equally powerful, but not quite so heavy, are fixed on all balloons and aeroplanes.
The unemployment plague, which is very serious all over Germany, especially among women, is worse here than anywhere else; nearly all the factories, mills, and works having been closed long since. While great activity reigns in the dockyards, the Asia and America quay, the Petroleum-Hafen, and the quays of the great steamship companies, which generally present a picturesque and busy scene, are deserted. The big ships, bereft of all their goods, have a sort of sleepy look about them, and they give the impression that not a soul is on board.
Near the Ellenzhobz-Hafen one of the large steamers of the Hamburg-America line is being converted into a Red Cross Hospital. The gilded furniture, the carpets and pictures are being taken away and deposited on the bank by a large steam crane, and the Red Cross mark has already been painted on the ship.
* * *
I would much rather not go over again my return journey. It is a sickening story of slow trains, stopped at every station, of annoyances of every kind, of hurried meals in bad railway station buffets, of hours and hours of waiting because a train was cancelled at the last minute and the next one was full of soldiers or wounded, and did not take ordinary passengers, etc.
At Bremen I am stopped as an alien enemy, insulted by a drunken crowd and taken to the police station, where I am detained the rest of the night. In the morning the inspector comes, looks at the mysterious passport I got in Berlin, apologises and releases me just in time to have missed the morning train. This identical scene is repeated at the Dutch frontier.
My mind is naturally full of recollections, recollections a little chaotic owing largely to the fact that to have taken a single note would have been very dangerous for me during the search I had to undergo.
There was certainly an enormous difference between London and Berlin after three months' war. The optimism which in Germany is very strong among the people in the street and very moderate in the army is here in London exactly in opposite proportions.
As for the economic position, the commercial possibilities and industrial crisis, no comparison is possible between the two countries; the geographical position of Britain and the action of her Fleet give her an enormous superiority over her enemies.
Signs of financial distress, it is true, are not very evident in Berlin; the increase in prices has been small, and has begun only during the last few weeks. I don't know if things will go on like this when the winter has almost paralysed the production of German foodstuffs, the reserves are exhausted, and the importation through Denmark and Holland has somehow been stopped.
It is needless to say that Germany has no Colonial contingent to put on against our Colonial troops, and that the fighting power of our enemies, owing to the strictly applied recruiting system, and to the above fact, is essentially limited, while Britain's can have no end of resources. Certainly this war will be very, very long.
The high spirit of the German nation, the decision of the Army to fight to the very last, the fact that the Kaiser knows perfectly that the débâcle would be the end of the Prussian hegemony and of his family's power, and the military education given to the German people during the whole of the last century, make of this nation an extremely difficult enemy to tame.
Endless sacrifices of comforts, of money, of life, will be needed not only from England, France, Russia, and Belgium, but from all other nations on earth who have simply been considering Germany as a huge latent danger during the last forty years.