"You were a victim," Esternaux then began, "of our just and universal rage over the treacherous and treasonable action of England in stabbing us in the back. Never, as long as they live, will Germans forgive the perfidy of the British Government in betraying the common blood in favor of uncivilized Pan-Slavism. It is the most criminal faithlessness in the world's history--this taking advantage of our difficulties to vent long pent-up spite against the merely dangerous German commercial rival." Herr Esternaux did not mention Belgium, though the flow of his righteous indignation was increasing from phrase to phrase. "Race treason! That is what has fired the German soul to its depths! That is what caused last night's unseemly demonstrations. Nobody condones mob fury less than the German Government, but it is explained, if not justified, by what has happened. Of one thing the world may be sure--with whatever bitterness we make war on our Russian and French foes, it will be nothing--it will be child's-play--compared to the spirit of revengeful rancor and holy wrath in which we shall fight the English race-traitors. That was the temper of the Berlin mob last night. It is the temper in which we are going to war with Great Britain. It is the temper in which we shall wage the struggle with her to the bitter end. Make no mistake about that." I had listened, on the authoritative premises of the Imperial German Government, to perhaps the first official proclamation of the hate and frightfulness programme so far uttered. Gott strafe England! How graphically succeeding events were to bear it out!
After Legationsrat Esternaux had fired this high-explosive, he ushered me out, and I knocked on Legationsrat Heilbron's door, fifteen yards farther down the passageway. Fur-mittens and ear-muffs are not de rigueur in northern Germany in midsummer, but I should have worn them that afternoon of August 5, for the reception awaiting me at Heilbron's hands was of arctic frigidity. It was a vastly changed Heilbron from the obliging functionary who had pressed upon me, forty-eight hours previous, copies of the German White Paper, in order that I might spread the official truth about "how the Fatherland had worked to prevent the war" broadcast in England and the United States. It was also a strangely less courteous Legationsrat than the one (Esternaux) whose presence I had just quitted.
"Herr Legationsrat," I began, "I have come to ask you for an Ausweiskarte. You know, I suppose, of my little experience last night. I am quite willing to take my chances with the mob, but I ought to have something to protect me from the excesses of the police."
"Mobs are mobs," he rejoined. "I can do nothing for you."
"That is strange," I interposed. "Surely you know that the American Ambassador has arranged for my remaining in Germany?"
"I know nothing about that whatever," said Heilbron.
"Well, Legationsrat Esternaux does," I retorted, "because he told me so not five minutes ago, and he said you would issue the necessary credentials."
Heilbron, who like all German bureaucrats has the backbone of a crushed worm in the presence of superior authority, or the mere suggestion of it, now reached for his telephone-receiver and asked to be connected with somebody in the Foreign Office. He repeated the object of my call to whomever was at the other end of the line, nodded in assent to something apparently said to him, then turned to me:
"It is just as I thought. The Foreign Office can do nothing for you. If you want credentials, you must apply to the police."
"But, Herr Legationsrat," I persisted, "there can be no objection to your giving me something which will insure me ordinary safety at such a time as this. After all, I'm an American."