Coming in to Oberhausen, the workmen's quarter, there were all the usual signs of trouble—deserted streets, bullet-starred walls, and broken windows. The street was blocked by a crowd that was being addressed by a speaker, from a window. The shay was surrounded by men armed with rifles and bombs; and half-starved Bavarian workmen, without sleep for days and fighting against odds, made an ugly looking crowd. They were not at first satisfied with my papers; said they, "If you are an English genosse make us a speech and if it's all right we'll let you through, if not—" It was a severer viva voce than I'd had for the Diplomatic Service, but I passed, and some of the elder men escorted the shay through the lines for fear of accidents. They promised not to draw fire from the Government machine-guns until we were across and the Würtemberg outpost was safely reached.
That afternoon was spent in Augsburg, the base of the Würtemberg Expeditionary Force, and the next stage was the fifty miles of road to Munich. No motor would go for fear of being confiscated by the Communists, and in all Augsburg there was only one fly with a pair of horses that could do it. It asked £20 for the round trip, about four times what I had with me. However, having bought an option on the fly, I had a monopoly of the transport to Munich, and had only to float a company. A merchant, an officer in mufti, probably a spy, and a charming lady in the dress of the Red Cross took the other three seats at £5 each, and I had still the seats for the return journey. These eventually brought a handsome profit that I divided between the Anti-Bolshevist League and the Communist Party.
These negotiations, and finding out what was happening in Augsburg, took the afternoon, and at dawn next morning we started over the rolling uplands for Munich. Outside Bruck we came on a score or so of Red Guards bivouacking in a barn, and nearer Munich passed through several pickets which searched for weapons, but gave no trouble. And so about two in the afternoon of Wednesday into Munich, having left Berlin Saturday evening.
The return journey was better. I had intended to leave Munich by the carriage for Augsburg on Friday, but on Thursday afternoon I heard the two parties had agreed to let a special train run for Munich merchants exhibiting at the Leipzig Fair. Having done nearly all that I came for, this chance was not to be missed. So I paid Levien, the Communist Commissioner, a farewell visit, and got a special permit from him to go by the Leipzig train. Leaving Munich about four with a train load of Munich merchants and their assistants, we went very slowly round by Landshut to Nuremberg, with nothing more sensational than searches for arms first by Red then by White Guards. The special arrived at Nuremberg about dawn, and was to wait six hours there; so finding a train was leaving for Bamberg, the seat of the Hoffmann Government, I went on there, and spent the morning in the picturesque old town, then the "Weimar" of Bavaria. Like Weimar, the station was barricaded, and a pass was required to enter the town. Like Weimar, the town was worth entering, for food was plentiful.
Having seen the Premier, I got back to pick up the Leipzig special. But the railway officials had other views, and there was no Red Guard to overrule them. My Communist permit was useless, and there was no time to get one from the Bamberg Government. So I had to see the special steam out. This might have meant a day's delay, as Bavarian passenger traffic was by now also suspended, the Bohemian coal having been cut off. I was lucky in getting on in a wooden box hitched on to a regular dachshund of a goods train, it was so long and slow. It crawled gasping up into the Thuringer Wald, and there after dark ten miles from anywhere lay down with no sign of life but an occasional sigh. After some hours a Prussian engine came down, and pulled it over the ridge, and we got clear of Bavaria at Probstcella about midnight.
Here there was a great row between the Prussian and Bavarian railwaymen. The Prussians complaining the Bavarians kept them up to all hours by being always late and the Bavarians saying it was the bad coal the Prussians sent them. Our small party, headed by some Bavarian officers, profited, because we backed the Bavarians, who in return insisted on our being taken on with the train. Behind the Prussian engine we developed a surprising turn of speed, and rattled along expecting at every station to be turned out or shunted until we got into the main line at Halle. A judicious change at a way station into a passenger train that overtook us, and three hours' standing up in a carriage with fourteen people, a large dog, two goats, and a baby, brought me to Berlin about two on Saturday afternoon.
Nor was this a unique experience. On my last journey home the locomotive broke down and had to be changed three times before we got to Hanover.
A German train with its immense but impotent engine, its ponderous but dilapidated carriages, its officials once resplendent and arrogant, now servile and seedy, its groaning crawl from one breakdown to another, is a painful picture of the German State.
And the financial position of the State railways is illustrative of the condition of State finances. Before the war the Prussian State Railways contributed to the budget a surplus of 600 million marks—now they show a deficit of 2,000 millions.
In the intervals between the crisis of its internal convulsions Germany worries feebly about its finances, much as a merchant in mortal illness may worry about his bankruptcy. But, of course, nothing has been done or could be done because the business was still closed and the chief creditor had not yet filed his claim. Now we know what Paris expects Germany to pay, and we also know something of the financial position from the statements of the Finance Ministers, Schiffer, Dernburg, and Erzberger.