Boche and Bolshevik / Experiences of an Englishman in the German Army and in Russian Prisons

by Hereward Thimbleby Price

PRINCE OSKAR

But this affair of the interview had another and more interesting sequel. One of the Kaiser’s sons, Prince Oskar, was at the time a student at Bonn. Every November the Rector of the University gave a great inauguration dinner, and the guest of highest rank present had to propose the toast of the Kaiser. Usually the Princes request some one else to do it for them, because most of them are incapable of making even the simplest speech. But, to the surprise of everybody, this year Prince Oskar rose to speak, and the wonder grew when it became obvious that the speech had been written for him by his father. In veiled language, the meaning of which, however, was clear, the interview was thrown over, and we were told to prepare for war. Now, Prince Oskar had been my pupil, and the fact that I should be present at the dinner had not escaped the attention of whoever prepared the speech. So after he had sat down, Prince Oskar tore off a corner of his menu card and sent me a note to the effect that he wished to drink my health. We accordingly raised glasses and drank to one another across the crowded hall. I still have the “scrap of paper” in my possession—a lasting testimony to the tortuous diplomacy of the Hohenzollerns.

This is, perhaps, the best place to state what I learned of the character of Prince Oskar and his associates. He had been very strictly brought up, in seclusion, somewhere in the country. So well had he been looked after that till he was twenty-one he had never been in Berlin alone. He had all the traditional piety of the Prussian Junker, the piety that made Bismarck, in applying for the hand of his future wife, write a long letter stating his religious beliefs in full. I can best illustrate his character by repeating his argument in favour of the existence of ghosts. “What I say is, with God everything is possible. If He wanted to make ghosts, He could. What is the difficulty, then? Of course there are such things as ghosts!” The ingenuous youth failed to see that by the same reasoning one could prove the existence of griffins, dragons, the unicorn, winged horses, sea-serpents, and Mrs. Harris. He was generally considered by the professors at Bonn the most intelligent Hohenzollern that had visited the University. His conversation was about country life and sport, and, above all, the army. He was a soldier through and through, and the army was his life. He often expressed a wish to die on the battlefield, shot through the heart. This wish has not been gratified. His health broke down in the first year of the war, and he was invalided. Afterwards he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces. He has distinguished himself in this position by starving his soldiers and then telling them to go to the front if they wanted anything to eat. His God was “our good old German God,” a Being as horrible as Moloch and as stupid as Mumbo-Jumbo. But at any rate Oskar was sincere, and there are no scandals about him as there are about the Crown Prince, who, to quote the German phrase, departed from Bonn like the devil, leaving a smell behind him.

Prince Oskar may be forgiven for the crudeness of his religion, because his teachers were even worse than he. At the end of the Semester he used to give a dinner to all his tutors. The chief guest was one Zorn, a Prussian who had been imported from North Germany to teach the Princes law, because the Rhinelanders were not supple enough. Zorn twice represented Germany at the Hague Conferences, and I believe he is a recognized authority on International Law. During the dinner the Prince had occasion to speak of his sister’s aptitude for mathematics. “Why,” he said, “she is quite silly; she actually loves the stuff.” Zorn immediately chimed in. “My daughter is like that; my daughter is silly too. She likes mathematics. When I get home I shall tell her how silly Her Royal Highness your sister is, and I am sure she will be most sympathetically touched to hear that Her Royal Highness is as silly as herself.” Thus are compliments paid in the Land of Culture. Afterwards we went out on to the terrace, and Zorn monopolized the conversation. He delivered two lectures, the first a warning against humour. He advised us never to make jokes in our lectures, humour and science being incompatible. He added, “I never joke.” Then he went on to prove the impossibility of doubting the existence of God. He railed against mathematicians for being atheists, although they every day assume the existence of quantities without proof. Why could they not assume the existence of God? Needless to say this champion of Prussian piety was one of the first to rush into print with a defence of Germany’s action in Belgium. I have no doubt that, if he is alive now, he is still writing pamphlets in honour of frightfulness. When we remember that their instructors, the very flower of the nation, men with European reputations for scholarship, are of such common clay, can we be surprised at what the Hohenzollerns do?

HAGUE CONFERENCES

Much of the talk that went on that night is interesting now, especially in the light of what has happened since. Zorn frankly admitted that the ill-success of the Hague Conferences was due to Germany. “Much more might have been attained,” he said, “if only we had wished.” His estimates of the English representatives are worth recording. “Fry was only a good frame to the picture. For Satow we had the greatest respect. He was a hard nut to crack. He gave us more trouble than all your men put together.” But he spoke with most admiration of Fisher. It was a curious thing, because Zorn speaks no English and Fisher apparently no German, but such was the open breeziness and cordiality of Fisher’s manner, that the two became fast friends. Then the talk wandered to the relations between France and Germany, and we skated on thin ice, because both an Englishman and Frenchman were present. But it was obvious that an attempt was being planned to draw France over to Germany’s side by representing to her that an alliance with England was not worth while, as she would only be pulling the English chestnuts out of the fire. Finally, one of the Prince’s aides, Major Graf von Dohna, gave me his impressions of the Boxer expedition. “Of course,” he said, “each army thinks its officers the best. We think ours the best, as you do yours. But there is one thing where you are undoubtedly superior to us, and that is in the relations between the officers and the men. Your officers get on with their men much better than ours do.” He deplored the English attachment to sport, saying that the Tommies, whenever they had a free moment, got out a football and began kicking it about. But the Japs spent every minute of their spare time watching the German drill, greedy to learn whatever new details they could.

MOROCCO CRISIS

To come back to where I started from. No one could deny the strong agitation going on against England, but not till after the Morocco crisis of 1911 did I think it meant war. We are now so much accustomed to the idea of war that it is hard to realize that there was a time when it seemed fantastic. Panic-mongering is a favourite sport of European Governments, and the methods employed in Germany were not so different from those of other countries. Moreover, a considerable body of public opinion was opposed to war. Those great export houses whose business depended upon England’s good-will, were especially eager to maintain friendly relations. The Kaiser and his family were unpopular in Rhineland, perhaps because this province has never been thoroughly Prussianized, perhaps for other reasons. When the Crown Prince paid a visit to Cologne, once, no preparations were undertaken to give him a grand reception, on the ground that as yet he had done nothing for Germany. Things never seemed to me to be so bad between England and Germany as they had been between England and Russia, and I imagined there would always be enough common sense in both countries to avoid the supreme folly of war. It is easy to see now that I underestimated the power of the court and rated far too high the influence of public opinion. I forgot, too, how easy it is to manufacture public opinion, when occasion demands.

In 1911 I married, got naturalized (after many fruitless endeavours to obtain a post in England), and settled down to spending my life in Germany with the full inner certainty that the peace would be kept. And then came the Morocco debates in the Reichstag, and it was obvious to every one that war was inevitable.

The Morocco crisis was admirably utilized by the German Government. It definitely swung round the great mass of public opinion against England. Its first fruits were an increase in the Naval Estimates which otherwise would have been impossible. The Government took courage and became far more cynical in its agitation than before. For instance, one year the International Yacht Races were held in Germany. Several English yachts took part and an English peer gave a cup to be competed for. The Kaiser, of course, attended and greeted the English with a speech of welcome, in which the usual platitudes were said. Immediately the German provincial papers were flooded with articles pointing out that the Kaiser was bound as host to say something nice to Germany’s guests, and that his words of friendship really meant nothing and were not to be taken seriously. The Government understood the fine art of inflaming the people’s passions and so contrived their news that everything that happened in England seemed to be a personal insult to Germany. For example, the launching of a new battleship would be announced in thick type and the ordinary Philistine reading his newspaper would somehow get the feeling that here was another sly trick of perfidious Albion. Everything that tended to the discredit of England was dragged in and made much of.