Advertising by train is nothing particularly new. I have seen it done in Canada and the United States of America; but advertising victory by train is about the most convincing method of spreading the splendid news that I have ever encountered. Everybody who has seen the Balkan-Zug will tell everybody else that they have done so, not once, but many times. These persons in turn will tell others, embroidering the story somewhat, and so the ball will go on for ever rolling. The Balkan-Zug is photographed and described in countless journals, and it appears on myriads of post-cards. I have never seen such enthusiasm in England except in connection with some famous football player, the idol of a crowd numbering fifty or sixty thousand persons. It would be invidious to draw a comparison between German and English methods in this respect.
At Buda Pesth the Publicity Train divided itself into two parts. Another beflagged locomotive appeared, like a bridegroom seeking his bride: in this case it was only half a bride. One half of the train goes to Berlin and the other half to Vienna. As it was my object to get to England as speedily as possible, in order to give my account of the Kaiser’s health and King Ferdinand’s famous Banquet to The Daily Mail, I determined to go to Vienna. I was one of the very few of the passengers going to the Austrian capital. The officers and the flying men proceeded to Berlin. Those of us who had come from Constantinople were looking forward to somewhat improved food, which we hoped to obtain in Vienna. As yet the newly-opened line to Constantinople has had time merely to take the Balkan-Zug and the military trains carrying army supplies, men, and munitions for the Baghdad, the Caucasus, or the Egyptian ventures, possibly for all. My last glimpse of the Berlin half of the Balkan-Zug was of the still hysterical mass of people endeavouring to buy the little flags worn by the passengers. Later, in Vienna, I was offered 20 kronen (about 16s.) for mine, but I refused it. Subsequently I was offered a much larger sum.
During the journey to Vienna I talked with a Turkish gentleman and his wife and daughter. I was greatly amused to hear that, although the women had left Constantinople veiled and dressed in Eastern costume, as soon as they crossed the border both put on European clothes and dropped the veil. They expressed the opinion that now the Germans had opened up Turkey with the famous railway, the state of semi-starvation in Constantinople would cease. Personally, I had doubts, which I tactfully refrained from expressing.
I had seen Germany in war time and been in several of its principal towns, and I knew that, whatever the German newspapers may tell to the world, there is no surplus food in any part of the country that I had visited. The old Turkish gentleman was shrewd and kindly, and he expressed his regret at the closing of all the French schools in Constantinople. He volunteered the information that, in order that his son should not absorb the principles of German militarism, he had sent him to be educated at a school in French Switzerland.
Vienna gave the train what the newspapers call a rousing reception. Even the official mind gave way before it, and the Custom House officers and other functionaries spared us the usual examination and interrogation. Not even our passports were examined. I came to the conclusion that there was great virtue in being a traveller by the first Balkan-Zug running from Constantinople to Vienna. Knowing, however, the ways of the military authorities in the war zone, and that later on I should be obliged to prove my arrival in Vienna, I insisted on having my papers stamped by the military authorities at the railway station.
At Vienna tickets were collected from the passengers as they left the station. I had determined to make a great effort to retain mine, of all my papers the most important next to my passport. As I was about to pass through the barrier, an official held out his hand for my ticket. I explained to him that as I had been a passenger on the Balkan Express I was anxious for sentimental reasons to retain it. I gilded my remarks with a tip of five kronen, which seemed to satisfy him, as he very kindly tore off a portion of the ticket and returned to me the remainder. But for this official venality I should not have been able to reproduce this valuable evidence in this volume.
My journey from Vienna to Constantinople by way of Bucharest had occupied five days. The opening of the direct Vienna-Constantinople line reduces this to two nights and two days—50 hours, to be exact. Even now the train arrives at the various stations with remarkable punctuality, always within five minutes of the scheduled time, which in itself is a triumph for German organisation.