Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

by Malcolm V. Hay

The price of this excellent dinner was 1 m. 75, including a cup of coffee. This was at a time when Germany was reported in our papers to be suffering from shortage of food supplies. The menu offered a great variety of dishes, and the only evidence of scarcity to be noticed was the small-sized ration of bread with which I was served.

After the coffee, and cigars! the Red Cross official came in to say that it was time to take places in the train. This time we had no longer the luxury of a first-class carriage, but still there was plenty of room, as we had a whole coach consisting of four or five third-class compartments. The men said they had been given a very good dinner, for which no payment was demanded.

Just before the train started our party was increased by the addition of a sentry. The men had all settled down to sleep in the different compartments, and the new arrival shared a carriage with me.

He was of a very different type from the soldiers who had guarded us on the other journey—a young man, probably of good position, and certainly of good education, very fat, unhealthily so, quite bald, and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles; he spoke with a North German accent, very difficult for us to understand. He desired nothing better than conversation, and told me all about his own adventure with the army that marched on Antwerp, where he had contracted typhoid fever which had left him bald and short-sighted. He was now condemned to transport work for the duration of the war, and did not hesitate to say to me that the prospect was distinctly disagreeable. We both agreed that war was unpleasant for every one concerned.

Our ultimate destination was Flushing, but my friendly fellow-traveller only expected to go with us as far as Osnabrück, at which town we could not hope to arrive before midday of the day after next. The train we were now in contained a number of wounded Germans. They came along the corridor during the night and made friends with our party. Some of them could speak a little English. Like all the other German soldiers I have heard discussing the war, these men expressed great reluctance to return to the front, and were hopeful that the war would speedily be terminated. This is probably the normal attitude of every soldier on both sides.

The German soldier is oppressed by the unexpected duration of the war. He is apparently victorious on all fronts, and still the war drags on. When he goes home on leave there is not much to cheer him up. Every one seems to be in mourning, and all his friends of military age are away. There is one thing only that enables him to face the hardships of war with unquestionable courage. From childhood he has been taught that the highest virtue in a man is loyalty to his Kaiser and the Fatherland.

German patriotism finds its expressions in personal loyalty to the Kaiser, and devotion to the Fatherland which is almost fanatical. Some people would say that conscription has played a large part in the development of this national religion of patriotism, but the history of the German people can hardly be brought to support such a proposition. Nor does the mere fact that patriotism is taught in the schools provide a sufficient explanation.

The source of a flourishing, vigorous patriotism may often be discovered from a study of economic conditions. That patriotism is affected by economic conditions must at once be admitted. In a State, for example, where the majority of the population are slaves, patriotism will be confined to the slave-owners, who will fight vigorously to prevent their slaves being captured by foreign slave-owners. An agricultural country, where the majority of its inhabitants are owners of the soil they till, affords the most favourable environment for the growth of patriotic sentiment. The Serbians are without doubt the most patriotic people that history has ever known, and Serbia is a country almost entirely devoted to agriculture, where the great majority of the inhabitants are owners of the soil, so that, in the mouth of a Serbian peasant the words "my country" refer to something more than an abstraction.

But German patriotism stands likewise on a sound economic basis, for Germany possesses an enormous agricultural population, the greater proportion of whom are owners of the soil—the figures, according to last available statistics, being 86 per cent of the total population of the country. Starting with these favourable conditions, the German Government worked hard during peace-time to strengthen by education and discipline the instinctive patriotism of the citizens. Loyalty to the Kaiser and Fatherland, respect for the army, the duties of a citizen to the State, are lessons that the German child is taught at school.

In addition to the economic and educational, there is a third factor—and most essential of all—in which Germany is by no means wanting. This third factor is the influence of history and tradition.