Somewhere in Germany,
April 1st, 1916.
I had just partaken of the frugal breakfast to which I had been invited General Headquarters and was in the act of helping my distinguished host, Feldmarschall von und zu Grosskopf-Esel, to remove some fragments of sauerkraut from his ears, when a superbly-mounted orderly dashed up and handed me a missive bearing the significant superscription, "General Staff." I must confess that to me the messenger's manner seemed sufficiently deferential. Not to my friend the Major-General, who, with a sudden and well-placed kick in the stomach, sent the unfortunate despatch-bearer hurtling down the steps. It was not for me to inquire what the trouble was, and I mention the incident as one more illustration of the iron discipline that has driven the gallant troops of the Fatherland to victory on all fronts.
Imagine my gratification on finding that the letter was an invitation to inspect on the following morning the latest Zeppelin sheds at —— and to be a passenger on board one of the new airships that was scheduled to pay a surprise visit to the fortress of London that same evening, weather permitting.
Punctually at seven on the following morning I found von und zu Grosskopf-Esel waiting for me in the huge twenty-cylinder roadster which the General Staff customarily places at the disposal of American newspaper correspondents. Within the hour we were at ——, where I was turned over to the good offices of Herr Ober-Leutnant von Dachswurst, of the Imperial Flying Corps, who immediately conducted me to the shed from which (when the weather is propitious) the aerial monsters depart upon their errands of doom.
I had expected to see two, or at most three, Zeppelins in the great shed. Imagine my astonishment on beholding no fewer than a hundred huge engines of destruction tugging impatiently at their moorings. I was speechless. But the Ober-Leutnant read my thoughts. "What would you say," he asked, smiling drily, "if I were to tell you that Germany to-day possesses no fewer than one hundred such fleets of airships as you see before you?" So overcome was I that I scarcely had the strength to ask him why, up to that time, attacks had been usually carried out with two or three ships only. He smiled still more at enigmatically. "You must not ask me that," he said, "or at least you must first ask the Grand Admiral why his five hundred submersible battle cruisers are still at anchor in Kiel Harbour, or the General Staff why five million of Germany's finest veteran troops are still doing the goose-step in the Potsdam Thiergarten, or Herr Helfferich why the rate of exchange has not been corrected by releasing some small portion of the ten thousand billion marks that lie in the Imperial treasury at Spandau! Be patient," he added. "Our perfidious enemies will bite the dust whenever it suits our glorious leaders to say the word."
I muttered something about the enormous German casualty lists. The Ober-Leutnant smiled more enigmatically than ever. "A ruse to deceive our enemies," he said. "Would it surprise you to know that up to date the total German losses on all fronts amount to seventeen killed and ninety-one wounded and missing, while our material losses have so far been confined to three field guns left over from the Franco-German War and five dozen cases of collapsible sausage rolls?"
It was incredible, yet I could not but accept the statement as true, and have in fact had ample opportunity since of verifying the assertions of the gallant officer.
"But come," he said; "it is time we were on board."
The Zeppelins that were actually selected to conduct the proposed operations were housed in another shed, and thither we repaired. We were greeted at the gangway by the famous Captain Sigismund von Münchhausen, a gruff but hearty old mariner, who immediately escorted me into his cabin and insisted on my enjoying a cigar and a glass of schnapps with him. Once again I was struck with that almost Oriental charm of manner which seems to lift the German Higher Command above the plane occupied by the rest of the Occidental world.
It was no doubt my impatience that caused me to interrupt the gallant Captain's delightful flow of racy anecdote to ask when we should start. My host smiled enigmatically. "By now," he said, "we should be somewhere over the Dogger Bank."