What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime

by Piermarini

The Austrian colours are completely ignored. I have not seen a single Austrian flag during the whole of my stay in Berlin, and it is really curious the Olympic indifference the Prussians affect towards their ally—Germany's only friend.

A German officer whom I met later on declared to me candidly that he considered that the Austrians as allies were a drawback rather than a help.

Companies of soldiers come out from Luisenstrasse following the drums; other troops march along the Charlottenburg Chaussée through the Brandenburger Tor, on which, gilded by rays of the sun, is the Quadriga of Victory, by G. Schadov. I recollect that exactly a hundred years ago, in 1814, the heavy brass group was taken back to Berlin from Paris after seven years at the top of the arch of the Champ Elysées. How soon before its next trip to Paris?

Near one of the side colonnades a gentleman standing on a chair shouts the latest war news through a megaphone to a crowd of listeners. Everybody is anxious for news of Antwerp, because I understood it was clearly realised when that city capitulated or was taken by the Germans the besieging army would be released. Then on to Paris!

At the Pariser Platz I see wounded officers being taken into the large private houses which are used as Red Cross hospitals, and a large crowd receives them with sympathetic cheers.

One of the most remarkable things in Berlin is the number of private houses, hotels, and museums turned into hospitals; and the conclusion I came to is that the British estimates of the number of German casualties are not at all exaggerated. Berlin is a city of wounded and distressed, gay as it is on the surface; only the authorities are careful to keep this fact as dark as possible. No official list of dead and wounded is issued, and the families are generally told by means of printed letters that Hans or Fritz will not come back.

Some papers started at the beginning of the war to give lists of dead officers and men, which they drew up by means of private inquiry. Now this has been stopped, and only now and again do the papers talk of the glorious death of Captain or Lieutenant So-and-so.

The censorship in Berlin is much more strict than in London. Some newspapers have disappeared; some have reduced their dimensions; others, that tried to be coherent with their past political ideas, have been boycotted even by the section of the public which used formerly to support them.