Watching on the Rhine

by Violet R. Markham

Already a hundred questions beset my mind as Cologne Cathedral comes into sight. There is something typically German about the unwieldy appearance of the Kölner Dom crowned with its preposterous spires. Many years had passed since I was last in Cologne. As the line ran through the clean, well-built suburbs, I remembered vaguely an hotel on the Dom Platz, and a general impression of tall, robust men drinking beer and eating large meals. From a dusty shelf in memory’s cupboard came the recollection of some careless remark made to an English friend—I hoped there would never be war between England and Germany, because judging by the physique of the men, war with them would be no trifling affair....

The train has drawn up in the fine Haupt Bahnhof. Two W.A.A.C. administrators, courteous and businesslike, examine tickets and visas. A large German standing meekly, hat in hand, before the fair-haired English girl stamping his pass is eloquent as to some lessons taught by the Occupation. Amazing is the scene which breaks on the traveller on emerging from the railway station. Khaki-clad soldiers swarm in every direction. Soldiers, soldiers; they overflow the railway station, the square, the Hohenzollern bridge. The Dom rises grim and protesting from a sea of khaki. Government lorries lumber down the streets; the square in front of the Excelsior Hotel, where a modest Union Jack over the door proclaims the presence of G.H.Q., is crowded with cars. Every branch of the service is here in force. Uniformed women on whom the Boche gazes with peculiar annoyance are common. Selected W.A.A.C. administrators are carrying on responsible work of various kinds. Searching German women passengers whose clothes are found to be stuffed with sausages must have its humours as well as its drawbacks.

The W.R.A.F. is here as a force. Army nurses in red and grey and the blue of the V.A.D.’s vary the monotony of the prevalent mustard colour. Here and there one sees the blue headdress of a British Empire Leave Club worker, the girls who do much for the entertainment of Thomas Atkins in a foreign town. Y.M.C.A., Church Army, and half a dozen other organisations are all to the fore. Atkins must be a much-amused man with so many willing workers to cater for his needs. This is the Army of Occupation as it came up from the fields of victory over 200,000 strong. Large numbers of troops are quartered, not only in Cologne, but throughout the occupied area and the bridgehead. But demobilisation has already laid its hand on this great force. The sluices are drawn and civilian life will shortly reclaim the lads who crowd the town and area. It is a wonderful sight to have seen, a wonderful moment in history to have experienced. The German goes about his work in the middle of this English crowd apparently as unconcerned as his fellow-countrymen at Aachen and Düren. But what at heart is he thinking of it all? What actions and reactions are likely to result from this strange assembly of people thrown together by the compelling force of the sword on the banks of the Rhine?

CHAPTER II
COLOGNE AND THE OCCUPATION

During the war we thought and talked with anguish daily of that line of trenches stretching from Switzerland to the sea where men suffered and died. Even the most unimaginative were stirred to emotion by stories of the strange semi-subterranean existence which modern conditions of warfare had imposed on the armies of Europe. To-day another line stretches for a distance nearly as great along the banks of the Rhine, but the men composing it are no longer compelled to dwell as troglodytes. The German word for Armistice, “Waffenstillstand,” literally “the standing still of the weapons,” expresses very graphically the conditions under which the Armies of Occupation live. The line has moved east from the horrors and desolation of devastated France to the rich provinces of the left bank of the Rhine. Cannons are silent; bombs drop no more. But the weapons, though standing still, are there, and determine the strange existence which we Allies lead among a conquered people.

Along the line of the Rhine, therefore, lie the armies of the conquering powers in a peace their guns have ensured and maintain. The French hold the southern end with their headquarters at Mainz, and Wiesbaden, most attractive of spas, as a centre of refreshment in the lighter moments of life. Next come the Americans at Coblenz, then the English at Cologne, finally the Belgians in the north. As time has gone on the English occupation has become smaller and smaller, while the French has increased proportionately. Nobody quite knows what position the Americans hold at Coblenz, for America has not signed the Peace Treaty, and her forces remain in theory entirely independent of obligations which apply to the signatory powers. But, thanks to the wise and statesmanlike guidance of the American Commander-in-Chief, General Allen, an anomalous position has in practice worked without friction.

As for the life we lead in Occupied Germany, certainly during the early days very few people at home were able to appreciate the measure of its comfort and security. On returning to England for the first time on a visit from Cologne, I was met by many anxious inquiries from friends and relatives. Was it really safe for me to be in such a place? Of course I never walked about the town alone? Did the Germans spit at me? Perhaps out of fear they repressed that natural inclination, but of course they were as insolent as they dared under the circumstances? Had we machine guns at every street corner ready to fire? Others in the same breath, both militant and inconsequent—of course I never spoke to the brutes, but naturally I laid it across them if I did ... it was to be hoped I had lost no opportunity of rubbing in their enormities. Two pictures out of many rose before my mind as I listened to these remarks....

A hot August evening in Cologne. A large crowd fills the Zoological Gardens, where an open-air concert is being held. Singers from Cologne and other opera houses have given us selections of German, French, and Italian music in a spirit entirely catholic. Equally catholic is their reception by the large and appreciative cosmopolitan crowd. In front of the open-air stage, Germans, French, English, and Americans sit side by side at little tables drinking beer or Rhine wine. The music is heard in complete silence, even Thomas Atkins compelled thereto by the genius loci. On the terrace of the neighbouring restaurant dinner is proceeding. Numerous German families, the girls in muslin frocks and summer hats, are out together for the evening. At a table next to ours a small group of men, unmistakably soldiers, are dining together. They are all in plain clothes, but two of them wear in their buttonholes the minute, scarcely visible black-and-white ribbon of the Iron Cross. The German prima-donna sings the well-known air from La Bohème. She is loudly applauded by all present, by no one more energetically than by a French officer sitting near me. As darkness comes on, illuminations add their gaiety to the scene, pink and white lights shining among the dark leaves. A peaceful, happy gathering, with laughter, and music, and beer—the music and the beer both of excellent quality. Forget for a moment that the uniforms are khaki, not grey, put back the clock five years, and who would suspect the tragic bonds of blood and strife in which the company are united? Is the war a dream or a nightmare? Is Europe white with the bones of the millions who have died; is Germany itself staggering on the edge of ruin and starvation? If so, how can this musical fête, this peaceful bourgeois gathering, be possible; the enemies of yesterday eating and drinking and applauding side by side as though nothing had happened? What does it all mean? What is one doing there oneself?...

Again: near the house in which we live a chronic fair goes on every afternoon. Swing-boats, roundabouts, shooting-galleries, all the various side-shows of an English country feast are here. Drinks, ice-cream, and refreshments are no less to the fore. Music, that monotonous braying music which always accompanies a merry-go-round, goes on mechanically for many hours. Here Thomas Atkins gathers in force. The thrifty Boche, in fact, has created the whole fair for his entertainment at a modest price. It is characteristic of the race that they not only accept the British Occupation with entire acquiescence, but endeavour by every means in their power to turn it to good account. Notices in English explain the nature of the side-shows. All prices are marked in plain figures. Reprehensible though it may be, Gretchen not infrequently is to be seen on the roundabouts and in the swing-boats with the said Thomas. Picture-postcards, trinkets, souvenirs, are all for sale. The shooting-galleries are crowded by soldiers still anxious to let off their piece in a more harmless fashion than on the scarred battle-line far away to the west. The Germans are out to amuse, the English to be amused. Perfect good temper animates both buyers and sellers. Introspection is hardly the hall-mark of the soldier in the ranks, and the English lads who lounge about from booth to booth never give a thought to the amazing situation in which they find themselves. Many of them on demobilisation leave Cologne with real regret. It is a clean, decent place, with more than decent beer. After all Fritz is not such a bad fellow.... In the long and varied history of Britain’s rule overseas has the Pax Britannica ever held sway under conditions so strange as these? As darkness falls the fair is lit up by great flares, and the scene grows more and more animated. Cologne, with large resources in the shape of a cheap fuel supply in its immediate neighbourhood, is well off both as regards light and heat. But at last all is silent. Curfew has rung for the Germans, the Last Post for the English. That desperate tune repeated for hours by the merry-go-round is mercifully at an end for the night. To-morrow it will all begin again, and so on day after day....

What are we to make of the civility of these people among whom we live as conquerors? How can it be reconciled with their arrogance and brutality when they had the upper hand in France and Belgium? These middle-class families, these quiet, respectable working-class people enjoying their simple pleasures, what part did they take in the insults heaped on prisoners and captives? Did these parents and children rejoice and cheer when submarines sent other women and children to their deaths? What kind of conscience do they carry for the war? How can they outwardly at least bear so little grudge against the people who have beaten them? With whom does the responsibility for the war rest? During the struggle many of us would have vowed Burke was at fault in his great axiom that you cannot indict a nation. Germany seemed to us then to be the very spirit of wickedness incarnate. Here face to face it seems more difficult. What baffling chameleon-like quality do these people possess, that they can outrage the conscience of the whole world and yet give one the impression that as individuals many of them are kindly, decent folk?