It was really remarkable to what extent in this case an indulgence became a reserve upon which the German government could draw. A good 35 per cent. of all food consumed need not be consumed and would to that measure increase the means of public subsistence available.
I am inclined to believe that the enemies of Germany overlooked this fact in the computation of elements adduced to show that, within six months from the outbreak of the war, famine would stalk the land. The Entente economists and politicians counted on actual production and consumption in times of peace and failed to realize that a determined people, whose complete discipline lacked but this one thing—economy in eating—would soon acquire the mind of the ascetic.
It was not easy to forego the pleasures of the full stomach, since in the past it had generally been overfilled. But, as the Germans say, "When in need, the devil will eat flies."
Upon this subject the Prussian and other German state governments concentrated all their efforts in November of 1914. A thousand methods of propaganda were used. "Eat less," was the advice that resounded through the empire. I do not think that, unsustained by government action, the admonition would have helped much in the long run, though for the time being it was heeded by many. It was the fact that the end of the war seemed not so imminent any longer which furnished the causa movens for the saving of food. The war spirit was still very strong and the Germans began to resent the assertion of their enemies that they would be defeated by their stomachs, as some learned university professors insisted at the time. Not the least value of the propaganda was that it prepared the German public for the sweeping changes in food distribution which were to come before long.
III
THE MIGHTY WAR PURVEYOR
Three months had sufficed to enthrone the Kriegslieferant—war purveyor. He was ubiquitous and loud. His haying season was come. For a consumer he had a government that could not buy enough, and the things he sold he took from a public that was truly patriotic and willing to make sacrifices. It was a gay time. Gone were the days in which he had to worry over foreign markets, small profits, and large turnover. He dealt no longer with fractions of cents. Contracts for thousands did not interest him. At the Ministry of War he could pick up bits of business that figured with round millions.
I attended once a funeral that was presided over by an undertaker who believed in doing things on a large scale. The man in the coffin had always earned a large salary and the family had lived up to it. There was nothing left when he died. But the undertaker and the widow decided that the funeral should be a large one. It was, and when it was over and paid for the woman was obliged to appeal to her relatives for financial aid. The activity of the war purveyor was of the same quality.
The Berlin hotels were doing a land-office business. The Adlon, Bristol, Kaiserhof, and Esplanade hotels were crowded to the attic—with war purveyors. When his groups were not locked up in conference, he could be seen strutting about the halls and foyers with importance radiating from him like the light of an electric arc. In the dining-rooms his eating could be heard when his voice was not raised in vociferous ordering in the best drill-sergeant style. Managers and waiters alike danced attention upon him—the establishment, the city, the country were his.