In talking with the Chancellor he almost always opened the conversation by asking if I had yet killed a "trappe." As a rule the German uses for shooting deer and roebuck a German Mauser military rifle, but with the barrel cut down and a sporting stock with pistol grip added. On this there is a powerful telescope. Many Germans carry a "ziel-stock," a long walking stick from the bottom of which a tripod can be protruded and near the top a sort of handle piece of metal about as big as a little finger. When the German sportsman has sighted a roebuck he plants his aiming stick in the ground, rests the rifle on the side projection, carefully adjusts his telescope, sets the hair trigger on his rifle and finally touches the trigger.
At the commencement of the war the Duke of Ratibor collected all these sporting rifles with telescopes and sent them to the front. These were of the same calibre as the military rifles and took the military cartridge, so they proved enormously useful for sniping purposes.
Going one day to a proof establishment to try a gun I opened by mistake a door which led to a great room where thousands of German military rifles were being fitted with telescopes. These telescopes have crossed wires, like those in a surveyor's instrument, and it is only necessary in aiming to fix the centre of the crossed wires on the game and pull the trigger. A clever arrangement enables the wires to be elevated for distant shooting.
So great is the discipline of the German people that game on these estates is seldom, if ever, touched by the peasants. There is no free shooting in Germany. The shooting rights of every inch of land are in possession of some one and the tens of thousands of game keepers constantly killing the crows, hawks, foxes and other birds and animals that destroy eggs and game make the game plentiful. The keeper has the right by law to shoot any stray dog or cat found a hundred yards from a village. I paid the head keeper a certain sum per month and in addition he received a premium called "shot money" for each bird or roebuck shot. He also received a premium for each fox or crow or hawk he destroyed, bringing, on the first of the month, the beaks and claws of the hawks, etc., to prove his claim. Foxes are very plentiful in Germany and in one winter on this estate, only twenty miles from Berlin, the keeper trapped or killed twelve foxes.
EXAMPLE OF THE COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL OFFERED FOR SALE. ON THE OBVERSE IS THE PORTRAIT OF THE CROWN PRINCE. ON THE REVERSE IS "YOUNG SIEGFRIED" ATTACKING A CHIMERA-LIKE MONSTER WITH FOUR HEADS: A BEAR FOR RUSSIA, A UNICORN FOR ENGLAND, A LION FOR BELGIUM, AND A COCK FOR FRANCE
The Emperor is very fond of fox shooting. Foxes are driven out of the forest past his shooting stand by beaters and one of the reasons why Prince Fürstenberg was such a favourite of the Emperor was that he provided him with splendid fox shooting, although it is whispered that he bought foxes in boxes in all parts of Germany and had them turned loose for the Emperor's benefit.
In the more thickly forested portions of Germany deer as well as roedeer are shot and in many districts wild boar. In Poland and in a few estates in Germany on the eastern border, moose, called elk (elch in German), are to be had. These, however, have very poor horns.
Talking to the keepers and beaters on this shooting estate gave me a very good idea of the hardships suffered in rural Germany, of the way in which the people in the farming districts are kept down by the lords of the manor and by the government, and it was from this village and the neighbouring town that I got some idea of the number of men called to arms in Germany.