Most of the people I met in Berlin willingly admitted that the methods of war of their troops in Belgium and France were very wrong, but they invariably concluded: "If this is the only way to give Germany her definite position of queen of the world, you perfectly understand that the life of a few thousand men, the pillage of a few cities, the tears of a few women, cannot be an obstacle worth considering."
They don't admit for a moment that success will perhaps not crown and, to a certain extent, justify their deeds; they don't consider the possibility of disaster. If they have the worst of the struggle it will certainly not be for lack of self-confidence.
Only the military circles seem to realise fully how terribly strong is the enemy Germany is fighting, and how very small are her chances in the long run. But they keep their sentiments and feelings as secret as possible, and, helped by their wonderfully organised Press, they manage to keep alive the Berlin public's illusions.
During my short stay in Berlin, thanks to a few acquaintances in the military world and to a fair knowledge of the German language, I managed to mix with different classes of people, from the man in the street to the officers of the cavalry regiment still in Berlin for the drill of the 1914-15 recruits; from a very well-known writer on military science to the working people unemployed on account of the war crisis.
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At about nine o'clock on the morning after my arrival I woke up still tired after a late night in the gayest circles of Berlin. I had been to one of the numerous cabarets, which are the equivalent in Berlin of the London night club. The gay life of the German capital was being carried on just as in peace time. Students, officers, viveurs, and the indispensable feminine element, among which the French was, as usual, much in evidence (Dumas used to say, "Le demi-monde n'a pas de patrie!"), were crowding into the large, brightly-lighted rococo room, trying hard to dance one-steps and maxixes with the latest Paris or London swing.
I was looking at my Baedeker map, trying to refresh my memory of Berlin topography, when the waiter shouted at the door, "Ein Herr wünscht Sie zu sprechen!" I did not know who the early visitor could be, so I finished dressing as quickly as possible, and went out into the corridor.
A man was standing there waiting for me; he stepped in without saying a word, and, when in the room, asked me where I came from and what my business was in Berlin. I showed him my passport. He said he would see to that afterwards; meanwhile he had to examine my luggage.
The man, I knew later on, was a police-inspector; he looked at all I had with me, and copied into a pocket-book my address and the address of my tailor, which he discovered on a small piece of white silk inside the breast pocket of one of my jackets. He then took possession of a few very innocent papers and letters, and looked underneath the lining of my hat, opened the alarm clock to see if something was concealed in the case, and was very much puzzled by a black box, which he opened most carefully, with the result that he found a manicure set.
Then he asked me to follow him to the police station. A taxi was waiting, and we reached the sombre building after a long drive. There I had to undergo a second cross-examination. I was asked to give all the references I could in Berlin, and after three hours' detention, I was finally released, having promised to report myself every morning to the police-station, and not to leave the Kaiserhof Hotel without letting them know about it.