April 3—It is reported from Königsberg, East Prussia, that along a line of 150 miles, and for a distance varying from five to fifty miles from the Russian border, there is nothing but ruins as the result of the Russian invasion; thousands of women and children are stated to have been carried off to Russia; it is learned that spotted fever has been introduced into concentration camps by Russian prisoners, but spread to the German civil population has thus far been prevented; skilled artisans, urgently needed in various lines of industrial work, are being granted furloughs from the front.
April 6—Postal officials suspend parcel post service to Argentina and several other South American countries and to Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italian colonies, and Dutch West Indies; Press Bureau of the French War Office gives out figures, compiled from official German sources, showing that the Germans have lost 31,726 officers in killed, wounded, and missing since the beginning of the war, out of a total of 52,805 who started in the war; General von Kluck is recovering from his wound and has been decorated by Emperor William.
April 8—Germans are mourning Captain Otto Weddigen of submarines U-9 and U-29, it being now accepted as a fact that the U-29, his last command, has been lost.
April 9—Official list shows that on March 1 there were in Germany 5,510 pieces of captured artillery.
April 12—The Government is making reprisals for the treatment of captured German submarine crews in England, having imprisoned thirty-nine British officers in the military detention barracks.
April 13—Germany is detaining freight cars belonging to Italian lines; semi-official statement says the passengers and crew of the steamer Falaba were given twenty-three minutes to leave the ship and were shown as much consideration as was compatible with safety to the submarine; according to a dispatch from Switzerland, there is an alarming increase of madness in the German Army.
April 14—It is reported from Switzerland that Emperor William last month paid a visit to Emperor Francis Joseph.
April 15—Several thousand parcel post packages mailed from Germany for the United States have been returned to the senders by Swiss postal authorities, because the French and British Governments have given notice that parcels addressed to German citizens in the United States will be seized whenever found on shipboard; the Reichsbank's statement up to April 15 shows an increase in gold of $2,000,000.
April 17—Ten British officers have been placed in solitary confinement in Magdeburg as a measure of reprisal for the treatment accorded captured German submarine crews by Great Britain; a letter from Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, former Colonial Secretary of Germany, who has for some time been in the United States, is read at a pro-German mass meeting in Portland, Me.; it suggests the neutralization of the high seas in time of war and makes various other proposals, which are regarded in some quarters as a possible indication that Germany is willing to discuss terms of peace; because of a shortage of rubber, the Government is arranging a special campaign to collect rubber in all shapes throughout the empire.
April 19—The second officer and some of the crew of the German converted cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, now interned at Newport News, reach Copenhagen on their way to Germany; it is stated in the Copenhagen report that they are provided with false passports describing them as Swedish subjects.