GERMANY.
April 1—Circular of the Minister of Agriculture says that through economical use of available grain the bread supply is assured until the next harvest; it is decided to hold horse races this season, including the German Derby; 812,808 prisoners of war are now held in Germany, 10,175 being officers.
April 3—It is reported from Königsberg, East Prussia, that along a line of 150 miles, and for a distance varying from five to fifty miles from the Russian border, there is nothing but ruins as the result of the Russian invasion; thousands of women and children are stated to have been carried off to Russia; it is learned that spotted fever has been introduced into concentration camps by Russian prisoners, but spread to the German civil population has thus far been prevented; skilled artisans, urgently needed in various lines of industrial work, are being granted furloughs from the front.
April 6—Postal officials suspend parcel post service to Argentina and several other South American countries and to Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italian colonies, and Dutch West Indies; Press Bureau of the French War Office gives out figures, compiled from official German sources, showing that the Germans have lost 31,726 officers in killed, wounded, and missing since the beginning of the war, out of a total of 52,805 who started in the war; General von Kluck is recovering from his wound and has been decorated by Emperor William.
April 8—Germans are mourning Captain Otto Weddigen of submarines U-9 and U-29, it being now accepted as a fact that the U-29, his last command, has been lost.
April 9—Official list shows that on March 1 there were in Germany 5,510 pieces of captured artillery.
April 12—The Government is making reprisals for the treatment of captured German submarine crews in England, having imprisoned thirty-nine British officers in the military detention barracks.
April 13—Germany is detaining freight cars belonging to Italian lines; semi-official statement says the passengers and crew of the steamer Falaba were given twenty-three minutes to leave the ship and were shown as much consideration as was compatible with safety to the submarine; according to a dispatch from Switzerland, there is an alarming increase of madness in the German Army.
April 14—It is reported from Switzerland that Emperor William last month paid a visit to Emperor Francis Joseph.
April 15—Several thousand parcel post packages mailed from Germany for the United States have been returned to the senders by Swiss postal authorities, because the French and British Governments have given notice that parcels addressed to German citizens in the United States will be seized whenever found on shipboard; the Reichsbank's statement up to April 15 shows an increase in gold of $2,000,000.
April 17—Ten British officers have been placed in solitary confinement in Magdeburg as a measure of reprisal for the treatment accorded captured German submarine crews by Great Britain; a letter from Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, former Colonial Secretary of Germany, who has for some time been in the United States, is read at a pro-German mass meeting in Portland, Me.; it suggests the neutralization of the high seas in time of war and makes various other proposals, which are regarded in some quarters as a possible indication that Germany is willing to discuss terms of peace; because of a shortage of rubber, the Government is arranging a special campaign to collect rubber in all shapes throughout the empire.
April 19—The second officer and some of the crew of the German converted cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, now interned at Newport News, reach Copenhagen on their way to Germany; it is stated in the Copenhagen report that they are provided with false passports describing them as Swedish subjects.
April 20—A conference of German and Austrian Socialists in Vienna has agreed that after the war international treaties for limitation of armaments must be agreed upon, with a view to disarmament.
April 21—All German subjects in Switzerland are recalled by their Government; reports from The Hague declare that German Socialists are trying to get a basis on which the war can be stopped; the soldiers at the front are asking for flower seeds to plant on the graves of the slain.
April 22—During the last few days Emperor William has been visiting the German front in Alsace; he promoted Colonel Reuter of Zabern fame to the rank of Major General; the Government has sent 2,203 more maimed French officers and men to Constance, where they will be exchanged for German wounded; university courses are being conducted by Belgian professors in the prison camp at Soldau.
April 23—The Federal Council has extended until July 31 the operation of the order which provides that claims held by foreign persons or corporations which accrue before July 31, 1914, cannot be sued upon in the German courts; many newspapers comment bitterly upon the American note replying to the Bernstorff memorandum on the sale of arms to the Allies by the United States; there is rejoicing in Berlin over German gains near Ypres.
April 24—Dr. Dernburg, in address at Brooklyn, says that evacuation of Belgium depends on England's agreeing to the neutralization of the sea, free cable communications, revision of international law, and consent to German colonial expansion; interview printed in Paris quotes M. Zographos, Foreign Minister of Greece, as declaring that Greece is ready to unite with the Allies in the operations at the Dardanelles if invited to do so.
April 27—Copenhagen reports that systematic efforts are being made, under instructions from Imperial Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, to buy sufficient foodstuffs in neutral countries to last Germany for four years.
April 28—The Supreme Military Court has confirmed the sentence of death imposed on Dec. 29 on William Lonsdale of Leeds, England, a private in the British Army, for striking a German non-commissioned officer at a military prison camp at Doeberitz.
April 30—The subscriptions for three-quarters of the latest war loan have already been paid; the payments reach the total of $1,687,750,000, more than twice the amount required at this time under the stipulated conditions of the issue; German Embassy at Washington states that the Emperor of Russia has ordered prisoners of war of Czech or other Slav origin treated kindly, but prisoners of German or Magyar race treated severely.