Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany

by Edward Lyell Fox

M. L'Aryesse was in alarm; it would never do to take a picture. What if his friends should see it! He began wringing his hand and then nervously running his fingers through his hair. To think of such a specimen of his work being photographed and published in America. But the photographer assured him that the statue was wonderful, and in an incredibly short time a flashlight powder boomed in the room and the job was done.

From the studio we walked up to the end of the street and entered a shed where a swarm of roughly-clad prisoners divided into groups were standing around a post pulling at something. They were braiding straw. One of them exhibited a round mat made of braided straw about five inches in diameter, which, it appeared, were mats to put in the hoofs of the horses to keep out the snow.

And again you marveled at the German system, this obvious weeding out of men who knew how to braid straw and putting them to work making a winter supply for the army horses. These men were the worst type of Belgians from the Antwerp slums and from the farms. One black-haired, evil-looking fellow had two yellow bands sewn to the sleeve of his coat, the badge of their spokesman and officer.

This black-haired gentleman was known as Lulu. Lulu was very proud of his rank. I doubted at first whether the man had a forehead; his black hair hung low; he was of the type—and there were many more in that room like him—of the hereditary criminal. Our gunmen would look like saints in comparison with this apache of the slums. Through an interpreter I was permitted to talk to the Belgians, and I chose the mildest looking man of them all. He said that he was perfectly satisfied to be where he was. The other men in the room nodded assent. This puzzled me a little, for they looked sullen enough to be unafraid to speak their minds even in the presence of a gray coated Prussian officer. But the Belgian explained, "Here we have a place to sleep, we get food, and we are not in danger of being killed."

Another black-browed fellow volunteered his story. "When the war began I was a reserve. I was told to hide my uniform and shoot at the Germans whenever I got a chance. Then I was called into regular service, and I put on my uniform and fought in the ranks. After that, with hundreds of my comrades, I was told to put on my civilian clothes again and go back home or any place where I could hide and take shots at any stray German soldiers I could see."

This seemed to me to be a confirmation of the German charges, that soldier civilians had been making war upon them.

At the other extremity of the street I found the other feature of the camp. Here were the Turcos. Dressed in outlandish costumes I saw some still wearing the burnooses of their tribes, others natty little, light blue, gold-embroidered jackets, some with the red fez, others with turbans, a motley collection that did not look at all the terrible Turco we had heard about. It happened to be what Captain Stutterheim called "Lice day," and thoroughly enjoying it the Turcos were standing in the street beating their blankets.

The leader of the Belgians was Lulu; but the Turks had a handsome gentleman who looked as if he would cut your throat for two cents, who answered to the name of Jumbo. Like Lulu, Jumbo was very proud of the two yellow stripes sewn on his arm. It was Lulu who posed his comrades for the photographer, arranging them with a nice sense of values. And when I looked the length of that line, glanced from one brutish face to another, I need no other confirmation of the statement that out of two hundred Turcos at the Zossen camp one in every four had been captured with ghastly trophies in his possession. The same charge of savagery has been made against the Turk, but from everything I can learn about the Turkish soldier—and here in Berlin I have talked to three American correspondents who have traveled with Turkish armies—there is a vast difference between the German trained Turkish soldier, and the French Turco.

Presently we selected a grinning, black villain and the most dapper Frenchman in the camp. All his comrades roared with laughter when they understood, and the whole procession came up the camp street as if they were going to a workman's Sunday picnic. Nicely posed, they made a splendid picture, which provoked the Baron's "Allies!" and roars of deep-throated Germanic laughter.

Possibly with a stage-manager's instinct to relieve the setting, the Captain walked us a short distance to a model little hospital camp in the pine woods. The surgeon in charge amazed us by saying that fifty per cent. of the captured French soldiers were tubercular. After walking with the wounded through the pines, we returned to the camp. We passed Frenchmen busy at landscape gardening. It seemed incredible. On every camp street they had made a long box design of evergreen and lettered to read the name of the company and the regiment.