What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime

by Piermarini

"The wounded had to lie for hours, and often for days, in the trenches or on the battlefield before they could be removed.

"The downpour of shrapnel bullets from the artillery gave us no time to take the wounded to the nearest Red Cross department. In such conditions cases of lock-jaw are fairly common, but luckily up to the time I left the front there were no cases of infectious disease."

"It has been said there have been some cases of cholera in your army?"

"Yes, we had a few cases, not amongst German troops, but amongst the Austrians who are fighting with us in Belgium. We have organised a few large special hospitals for such diseases, as we expect that we shall have more infectious cases when the winter is over."

"Do you have many English, French, and Russian wounded in your hospitals?"

"Not many. We don't keep them in the same hospitals with our own soldiers. Generally we send them down straight away to the concentration camps, where there are always infirmaries, and in these they are cured."

I don't know if the impression of dullness I got from this visit to Berlin is due solely to what I have seen and heard or whether it is partly due to the weather. During the five days I was there it rained without interruption. The town was completely washed by heavy showers, which hardly ever stopped.

In such weather the only thing to do was to sit and talk. In the numerous cafés women and old men were constantly talking and reading newspapers and letters from the front to each other and discussing the next German move. Apparently the wish of the whole of Germany is now the capture of Warsaw; they give to the Russian theatre of operations an importance which was formerly reserved for the western theatre. They consider the war in Flanders as a sort of siege war, refuse to believe in an offensive movement of the Allies there, and want to go for Russia before it is too late.

Berlin seems to need a sort of formula, something to shout out, an immediate object to achieve; but the newspapers engaged in supplying a popular cry seem to be rather unhappy in their choice. At the beginning of the war the cry was "To Paris"; later on "To Calais" seemed to satisfy German public opinions; now everybody shouts "To Warsaw."

The fact that the two former wishes were not fulfilled does not seem to matter much. Not only that, but every good man in the street will tell you that the march to Paris and the march on Calais are only postponed.