What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime

by Piermarini

We who belong to nations numbered, since a more or less long time, among the great Powers, love our country and our independence in a different way from that of the subject of a small nation. We love it, as a matter of fact, without thinking and without speaking very much about it; we know she is in a position to defend herself if attacked, and that she is able to make other nations respect her.

But a Dutchman, like a native of all little States, loves his country and cherishes her independence with the tender and anxious feeling we feel for a person we might easily lose. He knows how difficult is the position of his country, and the example of what happened to Belgium has made him even more thoughtful about it.

The bygone sympathy for Germany was not of a very demonstrative sort, and was inspired in the Dutch population by the undeniable affinity of race, as well as by the never-completely-extinguished jealousy of Belgium and the ill-feeling against England due to the Transvaal War.

But a distinction has to be made; if the Dutch people were rather inclined towards Germany on account of her activity, her commercial prosperity, and her wonderful development (which, indirectly, has done a lot of good to Holland—intermediary and natural channel between Germany and the sea), they felt the opposite sentiments towards Prussia. "Prussia" means, in Holland, the military caste, the Hohenzollern system, the competition in armaments, the general predominance of the soldier over the civilian.

This Holland could never like. She belongs to the hen type, and not to the eagle type. She will fight if she is forced to do so, and fight well too, but she leads a useful existence, and does not understand nor appreciate the system of life of the other bird and his mania for space, for dominion, for prey.

Then came the war, and Holland had to arm, and the refugees began to pour in from the Belgian frontier, and with them their tales of horror; then the action of England protecting the weak against the strong captured the sympathies of the Dutch public; the rudeness and clumsiness of the German Government, its system of war, its campaign of paid articles in the Dutch papers and spies all over the Dutch country, its unfortunate diplomatic conduct, did the rest.

Each time I visited Holland during this war I received the impression that England had acquired, and Germany lost, some more friends.

In the meantime, the Government proceeded to look after the defensive works, and the mobilisation, which was thought at the beginning of the war to be a temporary measure, became a permanent thing. In Holland, before the war, a soldier or an officer was a curiosity. I remember that during my first visit, years ago, I wanted to see the different uniforms of the Dutch Army, but could never manage to do so, so scarce were the soldiers. Even at the Hague one used to see very few officers, and I remember asking a Dutch friend, "Where do you keep your army, please?" To which he answered, "I am not quite certain if we have one!"

Now soldiers are everywhere, and good, solid, sturdy soldiers they look too. I saw them drilling in the grounds near Haarlem, on the long straight avenue that leads to Scheveningen, in the narrow lanes which run by the side of the canals, and I received the most favourable impression.

But the element Man is necessarily of secondary importance in the defence of a country like Holland. The only effective system of protecting her well-developed frontiers is by fortifications, and to this Holland has turned her attention long since. During the last forty years the Dutch Government has carried out, at great expense, the construction of a line of forts, complete with channels, blockhouses, and redoubts, all along the German and Belgian frontiers.