CHAPTER V MY SECOND WAR-TIME VISIT TO BERLIN
December 22.
I am just back from my second war-time trip to Berlin. It is about ten weeks since I was last in the German capital, and during the interval a big change has come over the city.
Less cheering, less flag-waving, less enthusiasm; the Berliners still tell you that everything is going on all right, the papers are still very optimistic, the short official bulletins keep very dark any bad news and magnify what is good, but the atmosphere is different and one feels the change in almost everything.
I arrived in Berlin on the day the German Pacific Squadron was sunk by British ships. Since the sinking of the Emden nobody in Germany dared hope for any better destiny for the other ships on the high seas. They realised that all they could expect was to cause as large a loss of life as possible on the English vessels before going to their fate.
The news of the affair off the Falkland Islands greatly impressed Berlin.
It had not been expected that the British naval authorities would act so quickly and at one blow demolish a force whose destructiveness had given the people to hope that a longer life was in store for it.
A remarkable thing is that, though Berlin got to know of the destruction of the four ships only through English sources, the Berlin papers printed it before it was published in London.
The Lokal-Anzeiger gave the news in a few lines as sent by a special correspondent in London. It was only last Tuesday, when I saw the English papers in Switzerland, that I realised that the Lokal-Anzeiger had been able to print the news in Berlin before the Press Bureau had given it out in London.
In this case the fact has no importance, but does it not show that Germany has still a wonderful information service and telegraph wire or wireless communication with London?
Since last Sunday it was known in Berlin that some sort of raid was to be attempted on the eastern shores of Britain, and that this first appearance of the German fleet would be followed by numerous other visits in different parts of the English, Scotch, and Irish coasts.
Then one fine day Germany might attempt to disembark a few thousand men, who, of course, would be killed or taken prisoners, but it is thought in Berlin that such a landing will stop England sending troops to the Continent and probably force her to recall some of the troops she has already sent there.
My informant said that the Germans would probably make their first appearance on the British coast very soon and that afterwards a regular programme of raids, both by sea and by air, was to be carried out.
I am sorry I was not in Berlin when the news of the bombardment of Scarborough was served out to the good Berlin people. The papers will no doubt have magnified its effects to cheer up the population, which seems to need it badly.
Most people there seem very keen on bringing the war to English territory, and if this was not done before it was only because it was feared that such a raid would act as a tonic on recruiting, or even give the last blow to England's traditional form of voluntary recruiting.
Now, however, the desire to attack British shores has become more and more pronounced, as the continuously increasing figures of Lord Kitchener's Army, regularly sent to Germany by her informers, have dispelled the illusion that the mass of British people were indifferent to the war.
Though ignorant people seemed to believe in a probable German invasion of one or another part of England, in military circles in Germany it is realised that it is absolutely impossible, and the raids which will take place on the British coast are only meant to plunge the population into panic and to force the British Government to keep troops in England instead of sending them to the Continent.
The feelings of the capital are very complex; disillusion caused by the campaign in France lasting so long without any apparent progress, sorrow for the enormous number of lives lost, hate for every nation on earth save Turkey, and especially for Great Britain.
At first everybody was absolutely certain that the German Army would take all things by storm, that its superiority was sufficient to smash any resistance in a few weeks. Now, however, the Berlin people are beginning to realise that they have been deceived in this respect.
I don't mean to say that Berlin's people, at least the people in the street, realise that things are going badly nor that they are giving up hope—that would not be true. They still believe in a final victory for Germany, but they don't seem to be as certain as they were before. They are getting rather tired of the length of the war.
I can confirm everything that has been written about the hate of England. England is called the "jealous, cowardly country," and all sorts of insulting names, unjustified either by historical or political precedents. What is absolutely certain is that Russia and France are not hated half as much as the English are.
Curiously enough, this hate, which is very moderate in the military class, and not too strong among commercial and industrial people, who have always considered Great Britain as one of their best customers and who are longing to start trading with her again when the war is over, reaches the highest possible degree of violence amongst the upper classes, the sedentary men of the laboratories, the "Professoren," pride and, in former times, amusement of Germany herself.
"We have been very humane up to now; we have not killed half the men we could; we have not destroyed half the towns it would have been easy for us to destroy," said to me a quiet-looking little man with gold-rimmed spectacles and a white beard, who has for years occupied a high position at the foreign office, "but if we ever manage to reach England in force we shall respect nothing. We shall fully justify that name of Hun which British papers seem so fond of giving us."
This official, who belongs to a class of people who should really know how things are, is so blinded by hate for England that he cannot even detect the monstrosity of this statement.
I always thought the spy mania in England exaggerated, but now I am absolutely persuaded that even those Englishmen who recognise this peril do not realise the lengths to which it goes.
They have been suspecting waiters and servants, while the spies are in high social positions; they have contented themselves with searching the houses of German barbers and grocers whilst neglecting the heads who collect and forward to Berlin the information gathered by more humble satellites.
It is very sad to have to say such things, but I think the most dangerous spies still in England are not Germans, whether naturalised or not, but are people belonging to neutral countries—even to countries actually fighting Germany—and subjects of Great Britain herself.
I would not have written this if I was not sure of it; the diplomat from whom I got the information assured me that there are some English and French of both sexes who come regularly to Berlin or to frontier towns through neutral countries and have conversations with officials and then return.
The restrictions as to luggage and passports, both in France and in England, are not half as severe as they should be; they are even slacker than at the beginning of the war. I know personally of a number of stolen American passports under the shelter of which German spies are now travelling, and an Italian Consul with whom I happened to travel a few days ago said he had discovered two fellows with false Italian passports almost perfectly imitated.
In Berlin I heard people, well-informed people, saying that in every English town of importance, on every spot of strategical value on the British coast, Germany has got a few friends keeping their eyes open and ready to receive an eventual German raid and to lend their friends as strong a hand as possible.
* * *
The first morning I woke up in Berlin I could not help feeling a bit nervous. The small hotel I had chosen in the Tiergarten was a few minutes away from the Kaiserhof theatre of my rather unpleasant adventures during my first war-time visit to Berlin.
I knew that some quotations from my newspaper articles had appeared in the German papers, and I was certain that the police, who, in Berlin, are wonderfully well organised, had managed to identify the man who had written them with the man who had awakened their vigilance a week before the articles appeared.
It was true that this time I had entered Germany through Switzerland, and that they would never think that a British newspaper correspondent would take the trouble to go all that way round. I could not help realising, however, how awkward my position would be if I were to meet face to face in a Berlin street one of the men who had arrested me two months before.
The little dreary devil who hides himself at the bottom of every human being's mind impelled me to go straight down the Leipziger-place to Wilhelmstrasse, and from there to the Linden, the very parts of Berlin where danger for me was greatest.
I was impressed by one great change at once; two months ago the streets were full of soldiers idling about amongst the slow-moving crowd. Now I had to walk half-an-hour before I met a single military uniform, and that was worn by a wounded soldier. Evidently the contingent of troops which had been kept waiting in Berlin had been poured on to the Russian frontier.
As a protest against French and English fashions, the German dressmakers are trying to make German ladies adopt all-German fashions; the shop windows are full of dummies dressed in impossible clothes of stiff, cheap-looking materials. The ladies' hats are in the flat, round shape of the Bavarian peasant woman.
Some of the shops show what they call evening gowns, and touch the extreme of bad taste with curious creations of a half-religious, half-pantomime-like character. But I have never seen anyone wearing these horrors.
Horse vehicles were much scarcer. When the war broke out Germany thought she could get any amount of horses out of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, but these nations could only send a few thousand animals, and Germany was in a terrible plight, as she needed immediately about twenty thousand. Then she tried to get horses from Austria and Hungary, but owing to the food and the bad quality of the water the greater part of these animals fell sick or died. Lastly, Germany had to take for military purposes all the horses she could find in Germany and Belgium—even those which had formerly been judged unfit for military service.
Taxi-cabs have reappeared in fairly large numbers.
The shortage of petrol, arising from the Russian occupation of Galicia, has been a very severe blow for Germany, especially when one considers that the enormous special reservoirs constructed in all the German ports for the storage of large quantities of the precious liquid were expecting large supplies when the war broke out—supplies which were never delivered.
All the petrol left in the country was seized by the Government for the use of military motor-cars, aeroplanes, and Zeppelins. Lately the rather serious situation was cleverly dealt with by extracting from coal in a new, cheap and quick way a liquid called benzol, which is a fairly good substitute for petrol, but which smells horribly when used and requires a lot of work to keep the engines clean.
The coal from which benzol has been extracted is converted into coke, and now German railways, works, and private householders are using solely this kind of fuel. The supply of coal is not plentiful, but up to now sufficient, thanks to the strict economy observed by the German people.
Berlin street illumination has been very much reduced on this account, while in some other German towns it has been completely suppressed.
The number of temporary hospitals has increased enormously. I counted more than thirty houses in Unter den Linden alone over which the Red Cross flag flew. These house hospitals depend partly on the large hospitals for support, and are partly kept up by private charity.
As most of the trained nurses are at the front, there is generally only an old nurse as matron, and under her command a number of ladies do all the work without the help of servants. The large hospitals have no more room for new beds. Doctors are very scarce, and those left seem to be working very hard.
Owing to the German habit of keeping ambulances right in the firing line the losses amongst doctors have been enormous, and fresh ones are continually required for active service.
I had occasion to talk to a doctor who was just back from the front for the purpose of organising a new Red Cross column for work in Poland.
"We try to operate as little as possible," he said. "During the last two months we have not made a single amputation, as we believe that it is a crime to take even a finger from a man if it is not absolutely indispensable to do so.
"The wounded are in enormous numbers, most of them suffering from wounds caused by their being struck by shrapnel or scraps of shell. It is almost impossible to deal with such cases immediately, and we send them back, after temporarily bandaging them, to Germany. During the last fights on the Yser and near Ypres even the rifle wounds were often infected.
"The wounded had to lie for hours, and often for days, in the trenches or on the battlefield before they could be removed.
"The downpour of shrapnel bullets from the artillery gave us no time to take the wounded to the nearest Red Cross department. In such conditions cases of lock-jaw are fairly common, but luckily up to the time I left the front there were no cases of infectious disease."
"It has been said there have been some cases of cholera in your army?"
"Yes, we had a few cases, not amongst German troops, but amongst the Austrians who are fighting with us in Belgium. We have organised a few large special hospitals for such diseases, as we expect that we shall have more infectious cases when the winter is over."
"Do you have many English, French, and Russian wounded in your hospitals?"
"Not many. We don't keep them in the same hospitals with our own soldiers. Generally we send them down straight away to the concentration camps, where there are always infirmaries, and in these they are cured."
I don't know if the impression of dullness I got from this visit to Berlin is due solely to what I have seen and heard or whether it is partly due to the weather. During the five days I was there it rained without interruption. The town was completely washed by heavy showers, which hardly ever stopped.
In such weather the only thing to do was to sit and talk. In the numerous cafés women and old men were constantly talking and reading newspapers and letters from the front to each other and discussing the next German move. Apparently the wish of the whole of Germany is now the capture of Warsaw; they give to the Russian theatre of operations an importance which was formerly reserved for the western theatre. They consider the war in Flanders as a sort of siege war, refuse to believe in an offensive movement of the Allies there, and want to go for Russia before it is too late.
Berlin seems to need a sort of formula, something to shout out, an immediate object to achieve; but the newspapers engaged in supplying a popular cry seem to be rather unhappy in their choice. At the beginning of the war the cry was "To Paris"; later on "To Calais" seemed to satisfy German public opinions; now everybody shouts "To Warsaw."
The fact that the two former wishes were not fulfilled does not seem to matter much. Not only that, but every good man in the street will tell you that the march to Paris and the march on Calais are only postponed.
The almost unlimited confidence of German people in their army has certainly been shaken during the last few months, and though nobody will frankly admit that things are going badly, I have observed a difference between the way they used to talk and the way they talk now.
I do not want to be misunderstood; if a Berliner is asked directly, "Do you think you are going to win?" the answer will come pat, "Yes, we are certain of it." But if you go on talking you will detect from the way in which the man tries to avoid certain subjects, and how he sighs when some others—namely, the Navy and the Crown Prince—come into the discussion, that the beautiful assurance of former days is gone, and that some small cracks in the war organisation begin to be evident even to his eyes. He begins to doubt the prestige of the German army, the destiny of the German race, and the perfection of the military organisation of his country. It is not a question of colour, but of shade, and it is evident that something has changed.
As for the officers, the men of the upper classes, and the people who have realised since the beginning of the war how hard was the task Germany had undertaken, they go ahead in their military, diplomatic, or simply private work, not daring to look too far. They prefer to die, to disappear before the downfall of their country. It is impossible not to admire them. Most of the officers of Bavarian or Silesian descent are fighting for those who have formerly been their oppressors, and for the supremacy of that Prussia which has killed the independence of their country.
Yet they are sacrificing themselves in a war about the final result of which very few entertain illusions.
The officers and non-commissioned officers who were injured at the beginning of the campaign, and who are so mutilated that they would be of no use at the front, are drilling the new recruits, or making themselves as useful as they can. But practically none have left the army or even taken a temporary leave.
A friend of mine whom I visited in hospital ten weeks ago has now had his foot amputated. But his spirit is not crushed, and he is now drilling recruits at a fortress near Stettin.
Everybody feels Germany cannot waste a single man. Most young men who had been refused for physical imperfections in former years have now been accepted. The fact that most classes of the Landsturm have not been called up yet does not mean that there is no need for them, but only that they are composed of men who, on account of their age and lack of experience and fitness would be of no practical efficiency on the battlefield.
I saw in Berlin some sturdy, strong-looking chaps who looked quite fit to bear arms still in mufti and attending to their usual professions. I asked an officer the reason of this astonishing fact.
"Don't you believe it," he answered me smiling; "such fellows follow an employment which must be covered even in wartime, namely, a job in one of the war-office departments, or else they are not as fit as they look and for some reason or other would be of no use to the army. Besides that, all fit men are as keen on serving in the army as we are in taking them up."
To one who knows how reserved and silent German people generally are, at least with foreigners, about their Government, their diplomacy, and especially about the sacred person of their Emperor, the free way in which they discuss them now is really astounding.
"Our army has been a success," said the same officer to me when asked what he thought of the conduct of the war, "but our diplomacy has proved un ratage complet; everything has been arranged clumsily before the war broke out, and managed still more clumsily since then. Our diplomats seem busy making mistake after mistake; we have lost the sympathies of all countries on earth, even of those who were formerly our friends. If we are to have peace on favourable conditions, our arms must win it on the battlefield, because our diplomacy will not be able to. After Algeciras our diplomacy seems to have lost completely even the bluff qualities which marked her last success."
The Kaiser now begins to be discussed, and I heard more than once this definition of His Imperial Majesty: "A man good enough in peace-time, but hardly capable of bearing the responsibilities or of carrying out alone and successfully the task he has lately undertaken."
The English cartoonists show us every German soldier weighed down by a large iron cross hanging from his neck; in real life the thing is just as bad as in caricature. One often sees groups of fifteen or twenty men every one of whom shows the large square piece of blackened tin hanging from the third button-hole of his grey-green uniform. It is as though the iron cross, instead of being a decoration, was an indispensable accessory of the uniform.
I have seen two battalions of the new recruits coming back from drill to their barracks on the Spree; some of the soldiers did not look more than sixteen, they were headed by a very old captain of the Landsturm and accompanied by a few officers—all old men (I have seen a lieutenant who was probably sixty-five).
Those who were not aged were suffering from recent wounds. A lieutenant who had evidently been struck by a bullet in the knee, limped painfully at their side, leaning on a stick, his right sleeve hanging empty from his shoulder. He was the only one in the column who smiled cheerfully, and the crowd in the streets looked at him with admiration, while some old men raised their hats.
A curious crowd indeed, this of Berlin. Women and children composed a very large part of it, and the number of people in mourning was really astonishing, far more than I saw in Paris or Vienna. Some people were wearing a white and red armlet or a band crosswise with the number of the regiment to which the man who died used to belong. An old lady was wearing the band with the number of a regiment repeated three times on it. She had lost three sons who were all in the same regiment.
The proprietress of the hotel at which I was staying had lost a son in France and another was lying wounded in a hospital in Belgium.
"The one who died," she said, "had been in England for over four years, and was here taking a holiday when the war broke out. He always used to say that he liked England better than his own country, and yet he had to go. He was killed by an English bullet."
Her story was interrupted by an unrestrained sob, and she went on: "The one in Belgium is very, very bad, and they say that (even should he live) he will be blind for life. I have got two more sons fighting down there. God knows if they will ever come back," concluded the poor woman, crying hopelessly.
The mothers, whether they be English or German, whether they sit in a factory or work in a mill, are always the first to bear the privations of war. Yet in Germany they are bearing these privations nobly indeed. The courage of their women is an example to the world.
* * *
The few police agents still to be seen in the streets of Berlin are standing outside military and public buildings. They are old men already out of service, called back as substitutes for the policemen, who were all converted into soldiers and sent to the front. Naturally the police service, which was one of the best in the world, has lost most of its efficiency—luckily for me perhaps!
In the Tiergarten large posters hang on the trees, saying that owing to the mobilisation of the police force for active service, the lovers of romantic walks at night (one of Berlin's favourite pastimes) will have to look after themselves, and that the corporation has not enough men to carry on a service of police after midnight.
The first effect of this is the enormous number of beggars in Berlin streets—women and children, and old and crippled men—standing at the street corners, or sitting in long rows on the outer steps of churches, and telling long tales of husbands, fathers, sons at the war, of miseries of every kind. Even about this, the Berlin Corporation, always fond of giving tips to the public, has issued another proclamation, which reads:—
Don't give anything to people in the streets asking for help. Nobody starves in Berlin. There are free distributions of bread, soup, and potatoes in all quarters of the town. The money you can spare for charity should be sent to the Relief Committee; this will ensure that such institutions are kept going. The beggars are only trying to make money out of your sympathy, and their tales of misfortune, in most cases, are absolutely false.
Unemployment seems to have increased enormously, especially for women, owing to the fact that most manufacturers have closed down their works, either for lack of raw material or for lack of demand. In some other industries where women cannot take the place of men workers are badly needed. I have been told that unemployment is even greater in the northern towns. The toy-making and fancy goods industries are almost entirely stopped, as the stores are full of goods prepared for the usual exportation, which is, this year, entirely paralysed.
Paper, wool, metal, and wooden industries no longer receive their usual supplies of raw material; and though articles manufactured of these are badly needed, the works have had to close.
Metals have increased enormously in price, and all the reserves of so-called noble metals, and also of nickel, etc., were requisitioned by the military authorities. Such metals are indispensable in the making of new guns, and also for repairing the old ones put out of action by long usage. Lead is also very much dearer than usual, and everybody is instructed to take down old gas and water pipes and to bring them to special depôts, at which the metal is bought by weight at standard prices, to be forwarded to military works, where it is converted into bullets.
As for copper, a few old mines which had been given up forty years since because they did not pay when the metal could be imported freely, have been reopened with success and give employment to some of the out-of-work folk.
Bread, except in the Zucker-Baeckereien, which are not forced to sell at standard prices, is getting very scarce, and all bakers study every possible way to make it as heavy and as economic as possible.
Wheat and other cereals, all equally scarce, have been seized by the Government, which lets the different bakers have so much a week and gives instructions about bread substitutes and the methods of making them as healthful and nourishing as possible. The Government also recommends the baker to make his wares as little appetising as possible so that people should not eat too much out of Feinsmecherei—gluttony.
The last quality, if not the other two, is certainly prominent in the German bread I have seen.
Though bread is not the most important part of the daily food of the German population, and though in many provinces potatoes have almost completely taken its place, yet the problem is very serious, and Germany tries to face it in all possible ways. Large quantities of wheat have been imported from Roumania, and potatoes, dried peas, etc., from Switzerland.
Through Holland, Germany still gets a certain amount of fruit, beef, and cheese. Special stores have been arranged for the preservation in good condition of perishable goods for a fairly long time.
Good Munich beer is now a luxury obtainable only in a few high-class establishments. The materials, which usually come from Russia, are naturally all stopped; moreover, the strong young fellows who generally work in the large breweries are now at the front. It would not be surprising in a few months to see Germany reduced to drinking aerated waters.
Upon reflection I think I must be wrong, however, for there is now in Germany plenty of champagne—champagne of German make, which is sold at very low prices, and excellent French champagne of the best brand, sold a lot cheaper than it was ever possible to buy it, even in France.
A large shop in Unter den Linden displayed a window full of "Mumm," "Clicquot," "Pommery," and practically all other first-class champagnes at five marks (five shillings) a bottle. In the middle of the window was a large poster saying that here was a unique opportunity, and that every Berliner must have on his Christmas dinner table a bottle of good French champagne to drink the health of the Kaiser. This is probably the first effect of the wholesale sack of Rheims. To obtain such a noble result even the shelling of the cathedral was not too much.
I was struck by the enormous number of children in the street. The first time I observed this I thought that I was near a school and that the children were just coming out; later on I saw that it was the same everywhere. I very often saw a lady with ten or twelve children, as though she were taking a whole school for a walk.
The explanation is that children from the towns and villages near the Russian frontier have been sent to Berlin; a great number have arrived also from Galicia. The schools are all closed, and the children thus left free all day long.
* * *
I have said that the Berliners have been taken by a sort of mania which makes them detest everybody on earth who has not the great fortune to be born a German subject. I was not quite right.
If, besides the enemy she is fighting, Germany loathes Italy for having deserted her and also for having taken Valona (the Albanian port which Germany meant to offer Italy as a bribe for neutrality), America for supporting Belgium and sending ammunition to the Entente, Austria for not doing well enough, etc., she has still a place in her well-protected heart for one tender love. The lucky country which occupies this position is Turkey. Everyone in Berlin talks of the Turks as the best soldiers in the world (always excepting the Germans, of course). Enver Pasha is considered one of the best servants of the Kaiser.
Turkey has taken the place of Italy in the defunct Triple Alliance. In the streets of Berlin I saw quite a number of fez, only a few of them worn by Turks. The others were worn by children or by the plump beauties of the German capital, amongst whom the fez is perhaps even more popular than is the "Tipperary" cap over here.
Everybody seems to have great hopes in Turkish co-operation. There is a little disappointment over Egypt, Algeria, and Tunis, because they have not awakened yet; but it is hoped that they will do so in a few weeks. I don't believe that military circles are as optimistic as are the general public about Turkish help.
An officer told me that the action of the fleets in the Black Sea had to be postponed owing to damage to two of the units of the Turco-German Fleet. The transport of Turkish troops from Asia Minor to Egypt had been promised in an endeavour to make a Pan-Islamic war, but it would be very difficult to carry out such a scheme. He said it was not unlikely that a certain contingent of Turkish troops, especially cavalry, would be brought to Germany next spring.
Curiously enough, this love for Turkey is not extended to Austria, which country, after all, has already made the biggest sacrifices in this war.
I saw many wounded Austrian officers in Berlin. Apparently more Austrian troops will arrive shortly in Germany. It seems that more cavalry is urgently needed for the operations in the East.
One evening I was sitting in my stall at the Lessing Theater, where a boring "1870" drama had been revived; in front of me were two Austrian officers, while at my side some German people were discussing the war. They were speaking loudly about the battle in Galicia, and passed many untactful remarks, evidently meant to be heard by the Austrians. They carried this to such a length that the two officers left their seats and walked out.
Listening to other people's conversations is certainly the best way of getting unsophisticated impressions of what they think, as when they know they are talking to a foreigner their Chauvinism makes them speak in a more optimistic way.
"We cannot keep on for ever racing our troops from west to east; if we do not obtain a success now in Flanders, I don't know what will happen afterwards when England sends her new troops," said one of the theatre-goers.
"Don't be frightened," said another, "she will want to keep too many soldiers at home to defend her own coasts. I think the danger is now on the eastern side, and that we had better go ahead there as far as possible; who knows if we leave the Russians alone, how many men they will concentrate there?"
"Well, I only hope it will soon be over, otherwise we shall all be ruined," said an old man, evidently belonging to the shopkeeper class.
"It will all be over in a year."
"In six months."
"You are wrong, it will be over in four months. The war cannot last more than that; the Tribunal of Brunswick having to call a witness in a case, and the witness being at the front, decided that the witness being detained by an engagement of uncertain duration, the cause should be called again in four months. Evidently the war cannot last longer than that."
Everybody laughed at this typically German joke, but I am afraid the Brunswick magistrate will have to adjourn the case for many a four months, even if the Court has not to renounce the witness completely.
The night life of Berlin, which had struck me so much ten weeks ago, may be considered now as dead. The cabarets are closed, not by the police, but from the lack of male customers. Of the theatres only the Lessing, the Schiller, and the Neues Schauspielhaus are still open; the music-halls have reduced their prices and are arranging special patriotic shows to attract the public, but their efforts do not seem to have succeeded, and almost every week some of them close to reopen no more.
The great amusement of Berlin is the cinema, where really wonderful pictures are shown. Most of the pictures are faked; but they are so cleverly done that the public does not doubt for a second that it is seeing real battles, and tries to pick out relatives amongst the soldiers in the pictures represented as fighting at the front.
There are wonderful dramas full of English and French spies, traitors, and rascals, and of German heroes—all very much appreciated.
The show is generally closed by slides showing, under the title "What We Have Achieved," photos of Brussels occupied by the Germans, of the ruins of French and Belgian towns, of destroyed bridges and shelled cathedrals. The audience cheer loudly at each picture.
* * *
"Ist Gott neutral?" I read this astonishing question printed in red letters half a foot high on numerous posters stuck on the walls all over Berlin just as if it was the most ordinary question, such as "Is Holland neutral?"
At first I took it for one of those complicated swear-words one so often hears in Southern Italy. I looked naturally for the answer.
The answer was given by P. Samuel at the Circus, the very theatre at which Max Reinhardt produced his cumbersome "Miracle."
P. Samuel was a name perfectly unknown to me, but I learned that its owner is a preacher of large fame in Berlin. I decided to go to his lecture.
The enormous hall was filled by over 5,000 people. Evidently, thought I, P. Samuel is a celebrity. In a powerful, low-pitched voice he started to speak amidst perfect silence. I listened.
God is not neutral! He is with the Germans. That is why He has placed them in the middle of Europe. After this war they will be for ever the first nation of the earth. But they must go back to Christ; the bankruptcy of materialism is complete. How could a materialist explain a phenomenon like the present war? The name of Idealist which has covered the whole nation from the beginning of this war has been superb; but an Idealism without religion must lead to final disaster.
The victory of our arms is certain. Since Frederick the Great Germany has attributed to God the habit of being on the strongest side; now we can say that He is behind our guns. But even if they are not the strongest, God is with us all the same. He gave us our genius, our culture, our art, our music; He gave us the mission to make us teach it to the whole world.
The victory is certain, but we must afterwards be worthy of it.
At this moment it was that I really saw a new Berlin, a Berlin unsuspected, a Berlin I did not know, a Berlin which is really a creation of the war.
Five thousand people had come to this theatre to hear that God is not neutral. After the preacher had finished the people sang:—
A safe stronghold our God is still,
A trusty shield and weapon;
He'll help us clear from all the ill
That hath us now o'ertaken.
The ancient prince of Hell
Hath risen with purpose fell;
Strong mail of craft and power
He weareth in this hour;
On earth is not his fellow.
After that a sudden extraordinary and fascinating thing happened. The preacher, with his strong, calm voice invited the audience to pray with him; Pater noster.... The men stood, the women knelt down with the children, struck by a sort of mystic terror.
"Vater unser der du bist im Himmel...."
Five thousand people of all classes, of all social conditions, everyone with a father or a brother or a husband to pray for, recited the Paternoster in the theatre.
They recited it in a low voice, like the murmur of a quiet river.
Then there was a short silence followed by the benediction, recited by the black-bearded monk, and the crowd walked out quietly.
I walked out with the others, and I found myself a little distance from one of the smartest concert-halls in Berlin, in which a certain Professor Blüthner was to deliver a lecture, the title of which had attracted my attention when I had seen it announced in the morning newspapers; it was, "Us, Italy, and England."
As I was just in time I stepped in.
The audience was very select, the five marks admission being devoted to the fund for soldiers fighting at the front. Most of what is left of Berlin society was there.
With polished words the lecturer served out to his hearers the most astonishing theory: England took part in the struggle, not in defence of Belgian neutrality, but in fear of Italy becoming a great Mediterranean Power.
How? The explanation, according to the lecturer, was simple.
The Anglo-French Naval Convention imposed on France the necessity of keeping her fleet in the Mediterranean. If England had kept neutral she would have allowed France to bring her fleet out to protect her defenceless coast; but in that case Italy would have been master of the situation in the Mediterranean.
That is why England preferred to declare war. Clever and simple, this explanation, is it not? What will Italy do?
Mr. Blüthner knows quite well.
Italy, he is quite certain, will decide to join Germany before long. Is she not the motherland of Machiavelli, and Machiavelli, we all know, was decidedly against any form of neutrality. Neutrals, said the lecturer, will be hated by the beaten nations at the end of the war and despised by the victors.
Therefore Italy will join the German side, and the old ideal of the German Empire (as wrote Bernhardi) will again come to life in a federation of Germany, Austria, and Italy.
I wonder if, in a few months' time, this delightful Mr. Blüthner will be of the same opinion?