The aspect of Kiel became in the twinkling of an eye as funereal as Serajevo and Vienna themselves must have been in that blood-bespattered hour. Bands stopped playing, flags not lowered to half-mast were hauled down altogether, and beer-gardens emptied. "Hohenzollern weather," Teuton synonym for invincible sunshine, vanished in keeping with the drooping spirits of everybody and everything, and bleak thunder-showers intermingled with flashes of heat-lightning to complete the mise en scène. A week of gaiety unsurpassed evaporated into gloom and foreboding.
For myself it had been a week crowded with great recollections. Special correspondents telegraphing to influential foreign newspapers, particularly if they were English and American newspapers, were always persona gratissima with German dignitaries, even of the blood royal. The group of us on duty at what, alas! was to be the last Kiel Week, at least of the old sort, for many a year, were the recipients, as usual, of that scientific hospitality which foreign newspapermen always receive at German official hands. Before we were at Kiel twenty-four hours we were deluged with invitations to garden-parties at the Commanding Admiral's, to soirees innumerable ashore and afloat, to luncheons at the Town Hall, to the grand balls at the Naval Academy, and to functions of lesser magnitude for the bluejackets. Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz had left his card at my lodgings and so had Admiral von Rebeur-Paschwitz, the Chief of Staff of the Baltic Station, who will be pleasantly remembered by friends of Washington days when he was German Naval Attaché there. Captain Lohlein, the courteous chief of the Press Bureau of the Navy Department at Berlin, had equipped me with credentials which practically made me a freeman of Kiel harbor for the time being. In no single direction was effort lacking, on the part of the authorities who have the most practical conception of any Government in the world of the value of advertising, to enable special correspondents at Kiel to practise their profession comfortably and successfully. I must not forget to mention the visit paid me by Baron von Stumm, chief of the Anglo-American division of the German Foreign Office; for Stumm's opinion of me underwent a kaleidoscopic and mysterious change a few weeks later. Treasured conspicuously in my memories of Kiel, too, will long remain the call I received from Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach's private secretary, and the message he brought me from the Master of Essen. It seems less cryptic to me now than then. I sought an interview from the Cannon Queen's consort about the visit he and his staff of experts had just paid to the great arsenals and dockyards of Great Britain.
"Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach presents his compliments," said the secretary, "and asks me to say how much he regrets he can not grant an interview, as the matters which took him to England are not such as he cares to discuss in public."
I wonder how many American newspaper readers, in the hurly-burly of the fast-marching events which preceded and ushered in the war, ever knew of the little army of eminent and expert "investigators" who honored England with their company on the very threshold of hostilities? June saw the presence in London, ostensibly for "the season," of Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, accompanied not only by his plutocratic wife, but by his chief technical expert, Doctor Ehrensberger of Essen, an old-time friend of American steel men like Mr. Schwab and ex-Ambassador Leishman, and by Herr von Bülow, a kinsman of the ex-Imperial Chancellor, who was the Krupp general representative in England. With a naïveté which Britons themselves now regard almost incomprehensible, the Krupp party was shown over practically all of England's greatest weapons-of-war works at Birkenhead, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow, Newcastle-on-Tyne and Sheffield. They saw the world-famed plants of Firth, Cammell-Laird, Vickers-Maxim, Brown, Armstrong-Whitworth and Hadfield. Not with the eyes of Cook tourists, but with the practised gaze of specialists, they were privileged to look upon sights which must have sent them away with a vivid, up-to-date and accurate impression of Britain's capabilities in the all-vital realm of production of war materials for both army and navy. It was from this personally conducted junket through the zone of British war industry that Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach returned--not to Essen, but to Kiel (where he has his summer home) and to the Kaiser and von Tirpitz. It was to them his report was made. I think I understand better now why he could not see his way to letting me tell the British public what he saw and learned in England. I was guileless when I sought the interview. Let this be my apology to Herr Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach for attempting to penetrate into matters obviously not fit "to discuss in public."
During July England entertained three other important German emissaries, each a specialist, as befitted the country of his origin and the object of his mission. Doctor Dernburg came over. He spent ten strenuous days "in touch" with financial and economic circles and subjects. No man could be relied upon to bring back to Berlin a shrewder estimate of the British commercial situation. A few days later Herr Ballin, the German shipping king, crossed the channel. I recall telegraphing a Berlin newspaper notice which explained that the astute managing director of the Hamburg-American line went to England to "look into the question of fuel-oil supplies." Herr Ballin, like Doctor Dernburg, also kept "in touch" with the British circles most important and interesting to himself and the Fatherland. He must have dabbled in high politics a bit, too, for only the other day Lord Haldane revealed that he arranged for Herr Ballin to "meet a few friends" at his lordship's hospitable home at Queen Anne's Gate. Germans always felt a proprietary right to seek the hospitality of the Scotch statesman who acknowledged that his spiritual domicile was in the Fatherland.
Then, finally, came another German, far more august than Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Dernburg and Ballin--Grand-Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia. His visit fell within a week of Germany's declaration of war against France and Russia. The Prince, who enjoyed many warm friendships in England and visited the country at frequent intervals, also spent a busy week in London. He saw the King, called on with Prince Louis of Battenberg, the then First Sea Lord, and paid his respects to Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Englishmen only conjecture how he put in the rest of his time.
Perhaps an episode in the trial of Karl Lody, the German naval spy who was executed at the Tower of London on November 6, has its place in the unrecorded history of Prince Henry of Prussia's epochal visit to the British Isles. Lody confessed to his military judges at Middlesex Guildhall that he received his orders to report on British naval preparations from "a distinguished personage."
"Give us his name," commanded Lord Cheylesmore, presiding officer of the court.
"I would rather not tell it in open court," pleaded the prisoner, whom Scotland Yard, the day before, had asked me to look at, with a view to possible identification with certain Berlin affiliations.
"I will write his name on a piece of paper for the court's confidential information," Lody added. His request was granted.