In July, the committee called the National Committee for an Honourable Peace was formed with Prince Wedel at its head. Most of the people in this League were friends of the Chancellor, and one of the three real heads was the editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, the Chancellor's organ. It was planned that fifty speakers from this committee would begin to speak all over Germany on August first, but when they began to speak their views were so dissimilar and the speeches of most of them so ridiculous that the movement failed.
In August, I spent two Saturdays and Sundays at Heringsdorf, a summer resort on the Baltic. Before going there I had to get special permission from the military authorities through the Foreign Office, as foreigners are not allowed to reside on the coast of Germany. Regulations that all windows must be darkened at night and no lights shown which could be seen from the sea were strictly enforced by the authorities.
There are three bathing places. In each of them the bath houses, etc. surround three sides of a square, the sea forming the fourth side. Bathing is allowed only on this fourth side for a space of sixty-five yards long. One of these bathing places is for women and one for men, and the third is the so-called Familienbad (family bath) where mixed bathing is allowed. German women are very sensible in the matter of their bathing costumes and do not wear the extraordinary creations seen in America. They wear bathing sandals but no stockings, and, as most of them have fine figures but dress badly, they appear at their best at Heringsdorf. Both sea and air seemed somewhat cold for bathing. On account of their sensible dress, most of the German women are expert swimmers.
I noticed one very handsome blonde girl who sat on her bathing mantle exciting the admiration of the beach because of her fine figure. She suddenly dived into the pockets of the bathing mantle and produced an enormous black bread sandwich which she proceeded to consume quite unconsciously, after which she swam out to sea. No healthy German can remain long separated from food; and I noticed in the prospectus of the different boarding-houses at Heringsdorf that patrons were offered, in addition to about four meals or more a day, an extra sandwich to take to the beach to be consumed during the bathing hour.
There is a beautiful little English church in Berlin which was especially favoured by the Kaiser's mother during her life. Because of this, the Kaiser permitted this church to remain open, and the services were continued during the war. The pastor, Rev. Mr. Williams, obtained permission to visit the British prisoners, and most devotedly travelled from one prison camp to another. Both he and his sister, whose charitable work for the British deserves mention, were at one time thrown into jail, charged with spying.
I at first attended the hybrid American church, but when, in 1915, I think, the committee hired a German woman preacher I ceased to attend. The American, the Reverend Dr. Crosser, who was in charge when I arrived in Berlin left, to my everlasting regret, in the spring before the war.