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AN UNCENSORED DIARY
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AN
UNCENSORED DIARY
FROM THE
CENTRAL EMPIRES
BY
ERNESTA DRE^CER BULLITT
GABDisrCiTT NewYobe
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1917
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Copyright, 1917^ by
DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & COBIPANY
AU rights resened, induding that of
trandation into foreign languaget,
induding the Scandinavian
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FOREWORD
The portion of my diary, which is published in
this book, was written without thought of publica-
tion. Remembering how greatly the diary, which
my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Drinker kept
during the Revolution, had interested her descend-
ants, I recorded for my great-grandchildren my ex-
periences last summer in Germany, Austria, Hungary,
and Belgium.
When publishers asked for the diary a century be-
fore I had expected, I did not attempt to polish
loose-jointed English or to suppress any but personal
incidents. The pages of the book stand as written
within the lines of the Central Powers.
The character referred to as "Billy,** throughout
the diary, is my husband, William C. Bullitt.
Eri^esta Drinker Bulutt.
Philadelphia, January 17, 1917.
359926 ^ ,
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CONTENTS
PAGB
Foreword v
CHAPTBR
I. Germany 3
II. Belgium 117
in. Austria and Hungary 157
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I ._.
CHAPTER I
GERMANY
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I
GERMANY
Copenhagen^ May H, 1916.
Once upon a time, a thousand years ago, before
the war, one went abroad with no more preparation
than a steamer ticket and an American Express
check or two. Two days ago, we imdertook to go
from Holland to Denmark, via Germany. Before
daring to approach Bentheim, the German frontier,
we were equipped with passports, thrice vised; a
special letter of identification from the Department
of State, birth certificates, letters to the frontier
authorities from Count BemstorflF and the German
Minister at The Hague, eighty-seven other letters of
introduction, two letters of credit, and a Philadelphia
police card.
We entered Germany at six in the afternoon laden
with the milk of human kindness. We were broad-
minded before we touched Germany. We — ^particu-
larly Billy — ^were ready to understand Germany.
Billy said he could see their point of view perfectly.
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A young man got into the compartment. When
we passed the first German mile-post, the young
man opened conversation by explaining how much
he hated America, because she was selling muni-
tions to the AUies. He never smiled. Neither did
any one else on the train. Nor did any one in the
deserted Hamburg station; nor any one in the empty
Atlantic Hotel. Billy, being of a chameleon-like
nature, had become solemn. He did little things as
if they were important, and he began to order me
around and look as if he expected me to carry my
own suit-case.
In the Atlantic Hotel we asked to have supper
served in our room, and were told no food could be
had. True, it was midnight, but this was Ham-
burg's greatest hotel. Once upon a time that was
the hour for light and gaiety. I tried to look
pathetic and rich. The waiter "fell,'* and brought
us two blood oranges. We feared to go to sleep
lest we talk indiscreetly. That a dictograph was
hidden in the heater was a certainty, in Billy's
mind.
Early the next morning we were awakened and de-
scended to an empty breakfast room. A blond and
brainless waiter, aged seventeen, asked for our order.
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"CoflFee, milk, oranges, bacon and scrambled eggs,
chocolate, rolls, and butter," said Billy, confidently
and glibly. The blond one retired to take coimsel
with a plainclothes man in a derby hat. Returning
to us, he said:
"There are no more oranges, there is no milk, nor
is there bacon; the chocolate is made with water and
we do not have rolls. You can have eggs, but you
cannot have them scrambled — ^to-day is the day when
we boil eggs. Will you have four or six, sir?"
"Four," said Billy, humbly.
The youth darted away to have the order coimter-
signed by the man in the derby hat, and witnessed by
two under-secretaries. We waited. I looked out of
the window into the courtyard. There were no
plants in it, the flower beds were empty, and the
fountains were dry. The rain knocked faintly on the
window pane.
Oiu" depleted order came, but without sugar for the
coflFee. The waiter looked distracted when we asked
for it and managed, after ten minutes* parley with his
superior officers, to get two lumps.
The taxi which took us to the station was another
memento mori. It had evidently been rejected for
military service because of limg trouble. As we
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crept through the door of the station, we met two
girls who were smiling — ^smiling! On the train we
met only solemnity, and the whispered comment,
"Americans." Billy was losing some of his broad-
mindedness.
At WarnemUnde we became "Number 36." At
the upper end of a board shed we were left to shiver
while the other passengers on the train, beginning
with Number 1, disappeared through a sliding door.
There were guards all about to keep one from walking
anywhere one looked as if one wanted to go. Each
time the door slid back we saw tnmks, boxes, and
passengers in various stages of disruption.
"Thirty-six," called the Sergeant at the door. We
entered without fear, for our baggage was innocent as
a nun, and the seals of the other frontier were un-
broken upon its hinges.
A young man in field gray began the examination.
He had been, before the war, a goatherd, I believe, or
maybe a chimney sweep; but he had the mark of
thoroughness upon him. I should like to make a law
that no American customs' inspector be allowed to go
to Germany in war time. It would teach him things
about examining luggage he never ought to know.
This soldier fell upon our trunks — ^he made no dis-
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tinction between the soiled clothes bag and my white
satin dress. As he went, he gathered speed. He
whipped my blouses inside out, explored the feet of
stockings, captured a piece of soap, delved between
the bristles of a toothbrush, thumped the sides of my
trunk, bent up my shoes and threw them upon my
evening dresses, then fetched up on my underclothes.
A pink silk garment was held up and shaken. The
oflBcer in charge cried out "combination," smiled
aflFectionately at me, and came to superintend our un-
packing. Billy presented our letters to the civil and
military authorities from the German Ambassador and
the Minister in Holland. The officer pocketed them.
"These are to the civil and military authorities. I
am a military authority, therefore I shall keep the
letters — ^they are to me," said he.
"Don't you think that is a trifle idiotic?" asked
Billy.
Visions of a firing-squad floated across the bare
wall. But the oflBcer merely tinned upon his heel,
while Billy remarked to me that junkers always
thumbed their noses at reason.
Then began a period of confiscation. Books,
writing paper, visiting cards, pencils fell under the
embargo. Billy bore these losses with fortitude, but
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when his eleven tubes of hair tonic were placed among
the other things, his manhood was undone, and they
led him away bleating helplessly to be stripped. I
was put in the charge of a female in a red flannel
blouse, who looked at the soles of my feet, felt in my
hair, pried open the back of my watch, evacuated the
inside of my hat, plumbed the depths of my fountain
pen, examined my clothes, and then succumbed to the
mysteries of my letter of credit.
I reached the outside worid first. Billy was still in
the hands of his explorer. I wondered if they were
washing his back with acid for traces of secret writing.
The boat whistle blew and still Billy did not come.
Every one was on board when he came running down
the wharf, his necktie flying, his shoe-laces undone.
An aged ticket-taker stood on the ferry-boat at the
end of the gang-plank.
"Are you a German or a Dane?" I demanded.
"A Dane," replied the aged man.
"Thank God!" cried L
May 23d.
Denmark is hospitable, inexpensive, and friendly.
We have seen the Egans frequently. They have been
more than kind. Mr. Egan has been in Denmark
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eleven years — a longer period than any other diplo-
mat in our service to-day has ield a post. By com-
mon consent, he is the most popular diplomat in Den-
mark. The other Ministers keep dashing in and out,
getting advice from Mr. Egan. He is one of the few
diplomats we have who really fits his post.
We have gathered, in the course of many conversa-
tions here, some interesting facts, one really import-
ant one: the proposed purchase of the Danish West
Indies by the United States, which may go through in
a short while now. Denmark is called "the whisper-
ing gallery of Europe," and there is a good deal of in-
formation to be picked up there. I say "we"
gathered some facts, but I had nothing to do with it.
Billy had a few pearls bestowed upon him, which he
promptly transferred to me. I find diplomats are not
given to putting their trust in women. Billy is,
fortunately, a newspaper man, and not a diplomat. I
can imagine nothing worse than being married to a
man who only tells you the things which he thinks
he safely may, or the things he would tell anyone —
which amounts to the same thing.
Among the other qualities of a perfect diplomat
which Mr. and Mrs. Egan possess, they have that of
never making a "break." Therefore, they gave us
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(principally me) what we needed — advice as to caution
in speech, behaviour, facial expression, and etiquette,
also warning us against writing anything down on
paper. It*s going to be hard on me. I never was
bom to be indefinite. I am practising conversing
diplomatically.
"Mrs. Bullitt, Verdim has been taken and Paris
is about to surrender."
"Really? How curious. Battles are so interest-
ing, aren't they?"
"Mrs. Bullitt, if it were not for American ammu-
nition, the war would have ended in six months."
"Yes, battles are dangerous, aren't they?"
Whereas, I might mention our Spanish war and cer-
tain famous German mimition factories. So, the
crest of idiotic amiability being reached, we move on
to the weather.
We oughtn't to stay here any longer, but we can't
get up the courage to attack the frontier again, and
every one tells us we won't get anything to eat in
Germany — a fact substantiated by our own twenty
hours' experience. Besides this, we're enjoying our-
selves, which is a perfectly good reason for staying
anywhere.
Count Szechenyi, the Austro-Hungarian Min-
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ister, thinks it would be a good plan for us to go to
Vienna and Pest, as so little has been seen of them
during the war. He has very kindly written to
people there that we are coming. I played tennis
with him this afternoon at the club, he in his sus-
penders and monocle, and I in street clothes, with a
pair of borrowed tennis shoes two inches too long on
my feet, and a racket like a spoon, as a means of de-
fence, in my hand. We have lived here so much as we
live at home that I shan't write any more of Denmark.
We dined at the Egans' last night. Mrs. Egan is
famous for her dinners, and Mr. E's wine is supposed to
be very fine, though I couldn't tell old Port from beer.
Hotel Esplanadey Berlin^ May 29th.
Act of Caution No. 1 :
I left what diary I had written in Denmark, where
I'm sure of its neutraUty not being violated.
Evidently when we crossed the frontier before, they
left undone a good many things which they might
have done, but they weren't guilty of slouching on
the job this time, and I'll bear testimony to it at the
Golden Gate. They kept our passports as souve-
nirs. It was as much as I could do to keep Billy from
going to our Embassy at half -past eleven at nighty
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when we got to Berlin. I must say I should have
liked to wrap up in the American flag and sleep on
Mr. Gerard's doorstep myself. The inspection this
time was really too disgusting to repeat. I decided
that, if I ever again heard any one say: "It's our
orders," I should kill him. Orders apparently mean:
Be as nasty to the man who can't hit you back as your
imagination will allow. An inspection at the frontier
in war time is quite just — all one asks is to be treated
with courtesy. Did we love the German military
after this, and where is Billy's reasonableness now?
We lunched at the Embassy the day after we got
here. Mrs. Gerard is charming and Mr. Gerard one
of the most amusing men I ever met. Brusque, frank,
quick-witted, a typically judicial mind, and a typi-
cally undiplomatic manner, he is the last person in
the world whom a German would understand. His
dry, slangy American humour, his sudden lapses into
the comic in moments of solemnity, his irreverence
for the great, shock the worthy German. That he
treats the Emperor in any other way than as a busi-
ness acquaintance is most unlikely.
What the Gerards, or the other members of the
Embassy, do goes over Berlin in ten minutes. Pack-
ing has been their favourite indoor sport all winter.
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If , wishing to be prepared against a rainy day, they
hastily stow away a few articles of value and con-
venience in a trunk, preparatory to making a hur-
ried journey — as they imagine often they will do —
the fact is known by every one in the city in half
an hour. ^
The Embassy is filled with Harvard secretaries,
whose lips, as Mr. Egan says, are still wet with the
milk of Groton. The ballroom is bulging with
stenographers. Never did the world see its few re-
maining diplomats so overworked. Instead of com-
ing down and reading the papers for two hours a day,
they now all work mornings, afternoons, and some-
times evenings.
June 2d.
We have been here a week. We have given up the
romantic idea of starving, and are managing to exist
on four-course meals. Billy says he's not going to be
the first to complain of the high price of caviar and
p&U de foie gras. This deprivation, and the re-
moval of the English word "lift** from the elevator
door, are the most striking signs of the war we have
seen, so far. One does have to have bread cards and
there*s scarcely any butter, and next week we shall
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get egg and meat cards, but as these are handed to
one by the early morning waiter, it's not an in-
convenience.
Helflferich and Batocki have taken over the food
supply so I don't suppose any more swine slaughter-
ings a la Delbriick will go on. After all, a blockaded
nation can't afford again to kill 350,000 pigs at once,
because they've underrated the potato supply and
think the pigs will eat up what's left.
I had eggs and a glass of milk to-day, neither of
which they say can be bought. Really, to the un-
initiated, it looks as if Berlin could go on indefinitely
with England's fleet strung around her neck — ^but the
eye of the paying guest is deceived. The bread,
butter, and meat lines are long. Women stand hoiu-s
to get their weekly allowance of a walnut size of but-
ter for each one in their family; children are happy,
but thrive not, on jam and artificial honey. Many
women wash their clothes but once in two weeks
because, they say, it saves soap to do more at one
time. You feel you're asking a great favour if you
borrow the soap in a friend's house to wash your
hands.
I dropped in for supper, imexpectedlyj the other
night at a friend's flat; they said they had all they
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could get to eat that day without paying half their
yearly income for it. The fare was some large white
balls which tasted like boiled dough, some Uttle
stewed primes, and fried potatoes as a luxury. They
scared me when they said the dough balls were a
favourite German dish. You feel like saying: "I'll
come to dinner if you'll first tell me what I'll have to
eat. If my food's worse than yours, you win!"
Housekeepers are only allowed half a pound of meat
per person a week, and cream may be got by a
doctor's prescription only. Coflfee is half something
else, and tea is dried strawberry leaves. "Did you
ever imagine," they ask one, "that they would make
so good a drink?"
When I came over here, I decided that, by way of
keeping myself occupied, I would look about to see
what the women in Germany were doing during the
war. I started with the refugees' department of the
Red Cross. Having talked with a number of
refugees from France, the result is that my illusions
as to French chivalry have had a sad blow. The
stories they have told me of their personal expe-
riences I see no reason to doubt. One girl was gover-
ness in a French family. The war broke out and
orders to intern all Germans were issued. At ten
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A. M. the girl was put in a cattle car labelled: "6
chevaux ou 36 personnes.^* It is on such freight cars
as this that detachments of the French army are
conveyed toward the front. There were in the car
fifty-six people, counting little children. Thirteen
hours later they arrived at their station. During
this time they had been given neither water nor food.
On leaving the car, they had an hour's walk to the
concentration camp. Many were by this time in a
sad state of hunger and fatigue. For beds they were
given straw to he upon. It rained and they became
wet. The sanitary apphances were imspeakable.
In the morning they were given a small pitcher of
water for washing. My friend begged for a larger
bowl, which was brought her. Shortly after, she saw
it being used for cooking and she did not know
whether to give up washing, or eating, in the future.
At eleven o'clock, they were given some unappetizing
soup, which was the first food they had had in twenty-
five hours.
Mme. Kahres, another acquaintance of mine, is a
German woman who hved in France twenty years.
She loved the coimtry dearly and speaks French like a
native. When war broke out, she said she would
stay and continue her work among the poor. She
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said that she, and the other German women, were
addressed in the streets as Grosse espSce de cochon
prussienne^ and other less complimentary epithets.
One man, who was ordered to take her passport
picture, shook his fist in her face, called her a Prussian
pig, and said that the sooner all of her filthy brood
were dead, the better. She is the gentlest soul im-
aginable and had said nothing to occasion this out-
burst. The poor woman left the sputtering photog-
rapher, her knees shaking with rage and a pathetic
helplessness. Her accoimt of the concentration camp
to which she was sent was no more pleasing, nor in-
dicative of gallantry or politeness, than many others.
"As to the lack of food in the camps, the over-
crowding, and absence of bedding," she said, "I can
only excuse the French by saying they lost their
heads. For the rest, their treatment of us cannot be
excused." She was greatly surprised that in Amer-
ica we had escaped hearing these stories of the French
concentration camps. The women and children
were kept in them for three months and then sent
back to Germany. Neither the Enghsh nor the Ger-
mans and Austro-Himgarians interned women and
children.
We lunched at the Legation on Tuesday.
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Countess is nice, but a little impressive. I'd
forgive that if she didn't speak English with an accent
and call a dinner jacket a "smoking" (pronouncing it
smocking). American women are too adaptable.
So many of them who live abroad, or marry foreigners,
become so like the women of the country in which
they live that one scarcely knows they are American.
An exception is old Mme. de Hagerman-Lindencrone,
of "The Courts of Memory" fame, who is as Ameri-
can as on the day the good Lord made her, in spite of
a lifetime spent in the company of emperors, queens,
and princes of the blood. I told Baron Roeder that
I delighted in Mme. de Hagerman's frank remarks
about every one. He said she was certainly delight-
ful but that she wasn't his notion of "frank," as she'd
never in her life been known to say anything that got
her into trouble.
The papers have come, announcing a great Ger*
man sea victory. They say the English have lost a
tonnage of 132,400 and the Germans 28,000 tons.
Berlin takes it calmly, few flags are out and there is no
public rejoicing. Perhaps a few more people smile.
This city is the gloomiest place I ever expect to have the
misfortime of seeing. Billy says the atmosphere is
like a mercury bath.
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June 3d.
To-day, the flags are all out for the naval victory,
even the trams and buses are decorated. The Ger-
mans didn't wish to celebrate until they were quite
sure. They've made one or two mistakes, so they
were cautious this time. The school-children take a
real interest in German victories. They get a holi-
day on the strength of one, and they measure the vic-
tory only by the length of their holiday. The joy is
slightly adulterated by having to go to school first and
listen to a careful explanation of what they are about
to celebrate. Their fondness for Hindenburg is quite
immoderate. In the eyes of German children, a
campaign against the Russians is a most praise-
worthy imdertaking.
The great wooden statue of Hindenburg, encased in
geranium plants and scaffolding, had many nails
driven into it to-day. The statue is an imsightly
thing, but it seems to appeal to the Berliners to buy a
nail for the benefit of the Red Cross, climb the
scaffolding, and hanuner it in.
This morning I went to the Central Laboiu* Ex-
change. Frfiulein Dr. IQausner is head of the
women's department, and as there is now scarcely
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any men's department, she is practically nmning the
whole thing. Dr. Klausner was villainously dressed.
She wore her hair short, and acted with an energy I
have rarely seen, but spoke with an intelligence which
made me feel as if I'd better go back and begin with
kindergarten again. In the Labour Exchange there
is a big room divided into three sections: for skilled,
semi-skilled, and unskilled workers. Before the war
they averaged 200 appUcations a day in the women's
department, and these women were given jobs in
Berlin. In the first months of the war, from 3,000 to
10,000 women came every day, demanding jobs any-
where in Germany. In August, they were sent out on
agricultural work, and the first of September they were
called to the munition factories and to making army
equipment and preparing food for the armies. Two or
three himdred were sent out of Berlin daily. Many
thousand women had been thrown out of work by the
closing of the luxury factories in the first days of the
war. It is impossible to tell how many more women
are working now than before the war, as there
are no statistics yet, and many women are not
registered who are now attending to their husbands'
businesses. The Berlin Laboiu* Exchange fills from
three to five himdred places a day, and has de-
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An Uncensored Diary 21
mands exceeding that by from one thousand to four
thousand.
At first, Berlin sent to the provinces only those
women whose children could be taken care of by rel-
atives. Later, wages became high enough to enable
women with one or two children to take them with
them. The munition factories pay the highest
wages. The average wage for these women now is
about eight marks a day. In Germany, as in the
other warring countries, there is little the women are
not doing. Stiu^dy peasant girls pave the streets, dig
ditches, lay pipes. Women drive the mail wagons
and delivery wagons, deliver the post, work in open
mines, work electric walking cranes in iron foundries,
sell tickets and take tickets in railway stations, act as
conductors in the subway — in fact, they do every-
thing, from running their husbands' businesses and a
large family to running a tramcar.
Every sort of a job is to be obtained at the Labour
Exchanges, all that I have mentioned as well as
places for servants, governesses, shop-girls, hotel and
restaurant servants. A record is kept of each person.
Germans have a genius for card catalogues and
records; they know where their applicants go, what
they do, how they behave, etc. Since the war, the
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Berlin Exchange has been running workshops, which
I shall see another day. As the Exchanges know
where in Germany labour is scarce and where plenti-
fid, they keep the pressure equalized.
We went to the theatre last night with Lithgow
Osborne. Theatres and operas have been running
full blast since the war. What we saw was an ex-
quisite pantomime. Afterward we went to Richard's
for supper. I was introduced to the famous German
drink of the cafe-goer, champagne, with a peach in
the bottom of the glass. Peaches cost only about a
million dollars an ounce here, but still . . . After
a while, we heard an angry bellowing from a German
in the next room to us. Evidently the man had a
grievance of a trying nature, for he continued to roar
while waiters ran in and out. From the din we
gathered that he had kissed a lady with whom he had
been supping, and the fair one was then promptly put
out of the restaiu-ant. With that, the man stamped
up and down and declared loudly that it was an
accident which might have happened to any gentle-
man. And they say these are emancipated days for
the German woman!
Limched with the Jacksons. Mr. Jackson was Sec-
retary of the Embassy here for years. He is pro-
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German and is very popular in the country. The
Germans trust him, Baron von Mumm told me.
Baron and Baroness Roeder were there and Countess
GStzen. I asked Baron Roeder what he did and he
said he was Master of Ceremonies at Court, and
official introducer, and a lot of other things. He is
about seventy-five, but he says he is going to the
front if the war keeps up much longer. Already he
has offered himself three times. His chief irritation
against England is being cut off from his London
tailor. Every German I meet out of uniform tells the
same sad tale. The old gentleman said he thought
the naval victory was due principally to Zeppelins.
The Bltichers joined us for coffee. Coimt BlUcher
looks like the pictures of his famous grandparent.
Princess said that his father is a dreadful old
gentleman, fights with everyone, his son included, all
the time. As the old Prince is eighty-five, the rela-
tions had better run around and turn the other cheek
before it's too late.
June Jiih.
The English papers arrived in Germany to-day and
announce that the German victory was scarcely a
victory at all, and the Post even had the audacity to
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call it an English victory. Both sides declare loudly
that they were greatly outnumbered, each one in-
sisting that the whole enemy fleet was engaged. Now,
no one supposes, even in Germany, that the British
blockade is broken, nor the fleet really weakened, but
the Germans obviously, unless they are the most un-
conscionable liars, have sunk a far greater tonnage
than the English. Also I have heard, from diplomats
here, that the English Government is furious with
Admiral Beatty for engaging such a superior force
without waiting for reinforcements. The Germans
want to know, if it is an English victory, why the Ger-
mans were the last on the spot and picked up the
English sailors.
We motored out to the military hospital at Buch
with Dr. Rodiger and a boor of a magistrate. There
are 2,000 soldiers there now, and the place is beauti-
fully equipped and runs as smoothly as a giant engine.
I was particularly interested in the baths, where men
who are paralyzed from spinal woimds are kept sub-
merged night and day up to their chins. One man
whom I saw walking around had been in a bath nine
months. It might look like any hospital were it not
for the exercising rooms with their intricate machines,
where stiffened and wounded .muscles are patiently
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exercised and brought back to life. There are work-
shops where men are tau^t new trades, if their
injuries are such as to prevent their continuing their
old ones.
We saw the place from garret to cellar. If they
start to take you over a building in this coimtry,
they don't do it casually. Theatre, kitchens, wards,
operating rooms, with a dissertation on each. The
band was playing "Un pen d'amour." Every Ger-
man band plays "Un peu d'amour" — ^it's dreadful.
After lunching with the doctors, we saw the Old
People's Home, took a look from behind the fence at
the insane asylum — a most beautiful set of buildings
— and looked over the central heating, washing, and
baking plants for the whole settlement — ^hospital,
home, and asylum. How strong was the contrast be-
tween this old people's home and some of the alms-
houses I have seen in America. Here in the country
outside Berlin were 1,100 aged Germans living in
handsome modem buildings, surrounded by gardens
and lawns. The horror of going to the almshouse is
gone, in this country. The inmates live in the
homes free and have their old-age pensions as spend-
ing money. Berlin takes care of 8,000 old people in
this way.
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Billy says the Gennans are the most moral people
in the world when it comes to dealing with Germans,
and the most immoral in their dealings with the rest
of the world. It's quite true. A (Jerman would
weep with pain if he saw our almshouses or our slum^
or realized that we didn't have federal workmen's
compensation — ^and didn't carry out the law when we
do have it in a State — or that we don't always pro-
tect machinery for the workers. They hold the
point of view, which religious sects are growing out of:
Anything that added to the glory of God used to be
right — ^what adds to the glory of Germany is right.
However — ^back to our inspection of intensified
civilization. I no longer retained the use of my legs,
but the men still had strength for a large municipal
garden. I sat under a tree and ate cherries. The
garden was worked by Russian prisoners. They seem
to make clever and willing farmers. Someone told
me orders were out to capture several thousand more
Russians, as they want them for planting and the
harvest. Frenchmen won't work. They get too
homesick. Apparently the Russians make successful
garbage men, as one sees no others in Berlin. They
go without a guard.
We staggered in to Countess 's to tea late in
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the afternoon. She told me how she brought up
Hilda, her daughter. Hilda is a httle matter of
six feet high. Everyone is afraid of her, and her
mama won't let her go up in the hotel lift alone for
fear something will happen to her. As her last
offence was to refuse to let the Kaiser kiss her — ^he
being her godfather and claiming parental privileges
— ^it would seem she could take care of herself.
June 6th.
The Roeders for tea. Old Baron R. talked politics
to us.
"The Kaiser didn't want the war," he said. *^He
doesn't belong to the Jimker party and he doesn't
want annexation, nor does he believe in the Tirpitz
policy. He belongs to the Liberals and is strongly
supported by the Socialists owing to his demo-
cratic tendencies. The Ministry and the Chancellor
cannot be overthrown unless the Kaiser wishes it.
Many Germans tell us that the Chancellor will
resign if the Emperor is persuaded to adopt un-
restricted U-boat warfare again — that is the "sink
without warning" policy. Baron Roeder says that
Bethmann-HoUweg will not resign because, no
matter what any one says or thinks, as a matter of
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fact the Chancellor is responsible to the Emperor
alone and not to the people, and until the Emperor
tires of him he will stay in office.
"If he should die," continued Baron Roeder,
"and the conservative Crown Prince were to come into
power and appoint a Jimker diancellor and ministry,
it would mean the ruin of Germany and the pursuit
of a reckless policy of annexation, whidi would only
bring the country into another war. The Kaiser, and
the greater part of intelligent Germany, do not wish
to keep Belgium and northern France. They want
only two or three miles in the Vosges hills so that, if
war comes again, our armies will not have to fight their
way uphill. They will not give back Alsace-Lorraine.
For Poland and Finland, they wish autonomy imder a
German or an Austrian prince, while the Kiu'land
they would annex to Germany. Of course Germany
wants her colonies back. What she wants in Mesopo-
tamia is hard to say as yet but, if the Allies take a
share, Germany wishes her portion.'*
We said the Germans had told us: "Poland to the
vanquished. Poland would be such a trouble to
any one that she should be given away as a punish-
ment to the country acquiring her."
"True enough," said Roeder. "She would always
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side with the country who didn't own her. The
most foolish thing I have ever known is this war!"
The old gentleman waved his hands. "Everyone
is being ruined."
"Why doesn't the Government make known its
plan of evacuating Belgium then? " we asked.
"I have urged it," he answered, "but the military
party won't allow it. They say we must hold it as
hostage for our colonies, and also they say the Allies
would use all the troops they are putting against us
there, in Belgium, for something else more danger-
ous to us if they knew we were going to get out any-
way."
To crush Germany, to beat her to her knees, or to
starve her out, seems to me impossible. She gives
one the impression of amazing strength. Although
I feel that efficiency is the one crime worse than the
seven deadly sins put together, and the only thing no
one should ever be forgiven for, I realize that it is a
terrible weapon. It isn't "in" any other country to
fight a war the way the Germans are doing it. Food
is going to be low and everyone is going to feel it,
but they are not going to get to the starvation point,
they are too careful to allow it. Imagine people in
New York paying any attention if they were ordered
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not to serve milk before eleven o'clock on three days
in the week, or if they were told not to cook with fat,
even if they had it, on two days in the week! They
would get up particularly early in order to be able
to do both.
It's foolish to talk of ruining Germany. She is
too valuable to be ruined. And Germany doesn't
want to rule the world. She's nothing compared to
England when it comes to that. Bemhardi fright-
ened everyone outside Germany. The Germans
haven't read his book. It is unfortunate for Ger-
many that she started her colonial policy when it
had been out of fashion for a year or two — everyone
else having got what they wanted most — ^but it's
rather natural, and not a new idea for her tq want
colonies.
I wish I knew how this war started — ^just now, I
believe that Germany was in the grip of a false
nightmare. She believed the world was against her
and about to pounce upon her neck. Therefore
she armed and prepared herself to such an extent as
no one had ever seen. Possessed of this conviction,
she jumped first into this war, whipped into still
more violent action by the Russians mobilizing on
her frontier. If one knew whether Germany knew
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beforehand of the Austrian note to Serbia on^
would know better just how deliberately Germany
went into this. K there had been one powerful,
far-seeing man in any of the countries, the war
would not have happened. • But there is no use go-
ing over the diplomatic correspondence here.
June 7th.
We went to a secessionist exhibition to-day.
There were few pictures. The one blessing of this
war is that it has reduced the number of futurist
paintings. In another larger and saner exhibition,
we were surprised to find such a small number of war
pictures. They have painted everything but war,
and there is little horror here, and no sentimentality.
There was one picture of the fall of Maubeuge which
Billy insisted he was going to buy. It was at least
twelve by fifteen feet and I had the most dreadful
time persuading him that proud Frenchmen in red
trousers and relentless, strong-looking Germans
wouldn't do in full size in a private house.
Tea with an artist from Munich, and some others.
Major Herewarth-Bittenfeld, former Military At-
tach6 in Washington, was talking to me about the
Panama Canal.
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" It's of no use to you strategically. You don't own
the land up to it. Imagine our holding the Kiel
Canal without Schleswig-Holstein ! It's as if you were
writing a book and began at the end. Watch out
someone does not write the beginning for you!"
Apparently the Germans would be quite willing
for us to take Mexico. It sounds to them so logical.
We heard to-day the A. B. C. countries sent a note
to Germany, saying they would seize German ships
in their ports if America and Germany went to war.
I believe Brazil would do it. The Germans spend
a lot of money every year on German schools in
Brazil, but they don't seem to gain much of a footing
there.
June 8th.
Lord Kitchener and his staff have gone down on
the cruiser Hampshire. They do not report how it
was sunk. General Ellershaw was drowned with
him. The English papers have not come yet, so we
don't know how they are taking this blow across
the Channel. The papers are always five or six days
late and it is hard to get them. They are to be
foimd only in the large hotels and a few other places.
I met Countess BlUcher talking to that mad Irish-
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American, John Gaffney. He was removed from
his consulship at Mimich for being un-neutral, so
now he is in a white rage at the President. He says
he is the only American who has been fair to the
Germans and that he never was un-neutral. Both
Countess Blttcher and Gaffney were in a great state of
mind over Casement. Gaffney says he is a hero who
sacrificed himself for his country, and Countess
BlUcher that he is a lifelong friend and therefore must
be got off from hanging, whatever he has done. She
has written a letter to England, saying Casement is
mad, in hope that it may help to save him.
"I don't fancy he will like that — coming from me,"
she said, "but it was the only thing I could think of
doing."
I asked Count BlUcher when he thought the war
would end, and he said: "When Russia is spent."
I said that sounded rather pessimistic.
"No," he said. "I think we can wear her out and
then get a port on the Baltic."
Personally, I can't quite see any one exhausting
Russia yet awhile.
I asked him why they didn't stop pounding Ver-
dun and go after Riga, but he didn't know the an-
sw^Tt All Germany professes the greatest admira-
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tion for France and says what a tragedy it is that she
is now dead and gone and useless. They might
take Verdun before they count France out.
Dined last night with Countess Gotzen. I sat
between a Spaniard and Prince Christian of Hesse.
Xhe Spaniard was a detestable little thing, and Prince
Christian had tonsihtis and thought he was going to
die, so I didn't get much entertainment out of him,
either. Xater on we changed seats and I drew a fat
and pleasant Bavarian, who had known my aunt
in America. I asked him what his name was and
he said they called him "Booby." I said I might
get to that in time but I had to have something else
to tide -me over. After a few Christian names, I
ran him down to his visiting card and Baron von
Papius.
Billy is reading finance reports. The Reichsbank
has not nearly run over the gold reserve yet. But it
issues notes on baby carriages, false teeth, and hair.
The bank must be doing the ash-man out of business.
Went to the refugee department of the Red Cross.
Frau Kahres took me about. The refugees here
now are principally from Russia and France, some
from England. The great number of East Prussians
that fled before the Russian invasion have gone back
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to their homes. The tales they told of Russian
cruelty were not to be equalled by the Inquisition.
Sisters meet the fugitives at the stations and tell
them where they can get lodgings. There has been
the greatest difficulty in finding places for the
thousands of homeless, penniless fugitives to live in.
At the Criminal Courts Building have been housed
and fed several thousands at the price of one mark a
day. The courtrooms are turned into dormitories,
and small rooms given to families. Prison cots are
used and the place is bare but it is at least a shelter.
The more well-to-do are directed to other places.
One woman took expensive rooms at a large hotel.
She dined to the tune of forty marks a meal and
bought rich furs. On former visits she had always
paid her bills, so the stores and hotel gave her credit.
The bill this time she brought to the Red Cross.
Frau Kahres questioned her in heated tones. She
said she had been the mistress of an English duke for
twenty years and could not live as the Red Cross
directed! She would die in a quiet and nice home!
She must have light and life! Mein Gottl What
did they expect of her? Wasn't the life of a refugee
hard enough as it was?
All refugees report to this department. They
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give their histories, and work is found for them. If
they are ill, the doctor examines them. Old people
and sick people are often sent to the mountains, where
the department keeps two small hotels and lodging
rooms. The women knit and sew here and the men
work at boot-making and the like.
In the refugee building in Berlin is a much over-
worked dentist. There has been a terrible run on
false teeth; everyone wants them for nothing when
they have the chance. The dentist now has instruc-
tions to supply only the ones heeded.
"I tell the people,*' said Frau Kahres, "that I
want new ones myself, but I do not get them now in
war time." Maybe the refugees have heard of the
bank notes issued on this article.
The Chancellor has left oflF fighting the Conserva-
tives about annexation, and Batocki talks about
food. He urges the people not to expect too much.
I don't imagine they do, as I saw meat lines on every
block in the north of Berlin this morning, and a po-
liceman for each meat shop. The women looked
patient enough.
Had tea with Countess Sehr-Thoss, an American.
She is charming. When I admired an old painting on
her drawing-room wall, she said: "Yes. I bought
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that with 2,000 marks sent me by my old uncle to
buy eggs. He wrote he heard in America we were
paying five dollars apiece for eggs and thought I
might not be able to afford them ! "
The Duchess of Croy came bounding in, looking
most exuberant and American. I liked her, she is so
unaffected.
Count Rodem, Secretary of the Treasury, says
England is spending $20,000,000 a day; France,
$12,000,000; and Germany $14,000,000 on the war.
The Germans admit, in what Billy calls **a piece
of reptile press," the loss of two more ships, dread-
noughts. This brings their losses up to 60,000 tons.
June 9th.
Went this morning to a Jugendheim in Charlotten-
burg. Charlottenburg is even more model and pro-
gressive and socially reformed than the rest of Ber-
lin, so I spent an hour, under the tutelage of Frau
Keller, in being impressed with it. This Jugendheim
is a combination nursery, kindergarten, school,
and training school for household servants, baby-
nurses, and kindergarten teachers. Working moth-
ers bring their children here at eight in the morning
and fetch them away at six in the evening. The
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babies are bathed and dressed in clean clothes, and
are napped and fed and doctored. Learning is made
so pleasant that the children attack anything from
walking to geography with equal zest. In one
room, a number of pink-clad infants were having a
riotously good time rolling about the floor. As
soon as the children are old enough, they are taught
to use their hands at some game. They sit on little
painted chairs at a low table and play with coloured
paper and crayons. At the proper hour they are
fed with nulk or soup, at another hour they go into
a garden to play, then they come back and take a
nap on a rope mat swung in the air. The children are
divided into small groups, each with a teacher and a
separate room, the object being to give them individ-
ual attention and not bring them all up alike. Still
older children, besides having regular lessons, work
at making baskets, building and furnishing little
houses, using the wood of cigar boxes. Anything
to make them use their hands well. I should have
liked to play a long time with the children, but my
guide understood I came there to inspect, so she saw
that I did it.
A record of each child is kept and visits paid in the
homes by the teachers. They find out whether the
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children shall be allowed to come to school and
whether the family is able to pay. The girls who are
learning to teach children, after the manner of this
school, all pay — they being of a more well-to-do class.
Many of them live in the building as in a sort of
boarding school and the prices are low. One pays
for the year's board and lodging from 1,000 to 1,800
marks. Downstairs is a central cooking station,
where lunch is prepared and sent out to 2,000 children
in Charlottenburg. Luncheon is always in the form
of soup, diflPerent each day, and particularly different
in that it's made from a doctor's prescription instead
of a cook-book. There is no doubt about these
children getting the proper number of calories per
spoonful! This school is run by private funds, with
a small municipal subsidy, and is the largest of eigh-
teen in Charlottenburg.
Many children are sent to the country in the
summer by the municipality. Those wishing to go
must first be examined by a doctor and only the ones
are chosen who seem run down and to need a change.
This year they expected the percentage to be much
higher than usual, but Frau Rathenau, of the Nation-
aler Frauendienst, told me they were greatly astonished
to find it practically the same. This does not look
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as if the children of Berlin were starving. Many
more children are sent out, however, for the authori-
ties wish them to have the food which is more easily
obtained in the country. Even the peasants in
Germany seem to wish to do their part to help in the
war. They have oflFered to take children into their
homes, girls in particular, as they say boys are a
nuisance. Letters are sent home by the youngsters
full of excitement over eggs and butter and milk.
Between the State and the City, a soldier's wife
gets $14 a month for each child. When peasants
take a child to hve with them, the peasant and not
the mother gets the money. It is an astonishing
race. I cannot help but admire.
June 10th.
Went last night to Wansee to dine with the
Hahns, catching the train in our customary manner
as it moved out of the station. Hahn is about
twenty-six years old, large and preoccupied, with
the weight and fate of nations upon his heavy
shoulders. His mouth is large and his brown eyes
ringed with black. The back of his head is flat and
Prussian, and his intensity shows in his voice and
excitable hands, Hahn's mother is Polish, hand-
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some, emotional, and friendly. She walked arm in
arm with me around her garden and told me of her
two sons in the war. Neither of them is an officer, as
the family is Jewish and they won't give Jews com-
missions. The youngest boy went out at seventeen,
when the war began, and tears came into Frau Hahn's
eyes when she said she had no word from him for a
week.
Just then the maid brought two letters. "Oh,
you have brought me luck!" she cried. "From
both my boys!" and she kissed the envelopes.
The eldest son, our friend, is working on his own
hook at anything he can do to help secure peace.
They say he has influence. Hahn believes peace
could have been made a year ago and thinks it only
madness not to speak out frankly now. Bethmann-
Hollweg, he says, is a brilliant man but, believing
himself only a representative of the people, follows,
instead of leading, public opinion. Hahn is liberal
indeed. He wishes to see his countrymen out of
Belgium and northern France with all possible
speed. He wishes Germany had never taken Alsace-
Lorraine, but now that they have, says for psycholog-
ical reasons, they cannot be given up. (Of course
coal mines may be psychological, but it's a new name
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for them.) He would give bade the northern paxt of
Schleswig-Holstein, where some 100,000 Danes are
living. He would have the Finns and Poles, and per-
haps the White Russians, autonomous, each nation-
ality under its own prince. He wishes an alliance
between America, Germany, England, and France
in order that Russia may be kept from squeezing the
life out of all of them at some future date.
"If Russia could be broken up into smaller states,
the world would be safe," said he.
A doctor and several musicians are the only
Germans I have seen who wish to carry ruthlessness
to the bitter end, and the Hahns are the other extreme.
They would divide up the world, most of Germany
included, and hand autonomy around on a platter.
Hahn took a sick Englishman out of prison camp
and kept him for six months in his house.
The real flaw in the minds of all Germans to whom
we have talked is the fact that none of them believe
that any nation can be depended on to keep its word,
and not to break a treaty. They simply do not
expect it — ^for which of course they have more than
one reason.
We went sailing after dinner. I really admire the
Germans now for the clever way in which they reef
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a sail, simply by working a little crank at the jaws of
the boom and winding the canvas around the boom.
The jib reefs the same way. It only takes a second
and one does not have to take in the sail. I must rig
my boat this way; it would add at least ten years to
my life, as I get caught in a hurricane about three
times a week all sunmier and break my fingers to
bits tying nettles.
Saw Frfiulein Marelle and Fraulein SchulhoflF, of
the Lyceum Club, this morning. They were telling
us stories of the invasion of East Prussia. FrSulein
Marelle's first cousin owns large estates there and
has kept her supplied with news. By a miracle, his
castle and land were left untouched. He says he
cannot understand it. He stayed there himself and
was ready to defend his place against the whole
Russian army. They destroyed everything up to his
territory, and then stopped.
One lady, whom Frfiulein Marelle knows, a Frau
von Bieberstein, had her chateau cut to ribbons. Her
tapestry chairs were sliced up with knives, her china
and mirrors broken, her beautiful chapel knocked to
pieces, her beds ripped up and the feathers scattered
from garret to cellar. It was rather queer to hear
this tale from a German woman after Mme. Huard's
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tale of the wreck of her chdteau in northern France
by the Germans.
They told me, too, of a nurse, a friend of theirs,
who had gone to Russia. There she found, among
other things, a carload of children, eighty in number,
all dead of starvation. The Russians had put them
in the car, sidetracked it, and forgotten it. Some
other cars were found containing 200 people, all dead
but one child in its mother's arms. The nurse saw
the Czarina and told her of these, and many other
things, and she said the Empress biu'st into tears.
Well she might!
The Germans are told that if the Russians get into
East Prussia again, they are to send the women away
immediately — ^those who stay are all outraged.
This same cousin writes Fraulein Marelle that the
German army is planting grain right up to the firing
line.
The Germans have a novel and highly effective
way of restoring their destroyed property in East
Prussia. The Russians did not leave one stone upon
another, where they found several together, and I
imagine that, when they found a single stone, this
they rolled away. Every destroyed village or town
in East Prussia is adopted by some German city, or
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community. The foster parent calls itself god-
mother of the destroyed district it picks out, and
undertakes to rebuild and re-stock its godchild.
The guardianship is to last indefinitely until all is
quite right again. Berlin took the district of Ortels-
burg and its thirty-two villages under her wing.
Unlike the old woman who lived in a shoe, she knows
just what to do for the 1,100 children in the district.
She sends architects to build up the houses, bed-
clothing — ^two sets for each bed — wearing apparel,
and so on. The clothes are sent through the Lyceum
Club. The good ladies belonging to the Club had
proved themselves so capable in provisioning one
village that Berlin handed them 12,500 marks, and
said : " Take charge of this for the city." So energetic
were they, that they even sent toys and books to the
children for Christmas.
The members of this Lyceum Club are all writers,
painters, or musicians. Their object before the war
was to help on the struggling genius, and encourage
the arts. There are Lycemn Clubs in London, Paris,
and Berlin. Since the war, their object has been to
help foreigners in their cities, be they friends or
enemies. Paris, they tell me, is falling somewhat
short in loving her enemies, but London is doing
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nobly. Fraulein Schulhoflf told me her dear friend,
Mrs. Asqnith, was even being censured in the Press
as a traitress, for giving so much assistance to the
wives and daughters of her enemies. The Berlin
Lyceum Club now works in cooperation with the
Nationaler Frauendienst.
June 11th.
We got six London Times from Kirk. The differ-
ence with which the announcements of the sea fight
are made in EngUsh and in German newspapers is
curious. The English have headUnes: "Six British
cruisers sunk" — "Heavy losses." "Eight destroy-
ers sunk." The Germans have no headlines, par-
ticularly they do not thrust their sunken ships upon
the eye as do the English. The loss of the Liitzow,
the largest ship in their fleet, was not announced until
four days after the rest, and that in small type at the
end of a long column summarizing the British losses.
The Russian offensive seems to be of some worth.
They claim 480 captured officers and 25,000 men.
At least they must have some fraction of that
number.
Dinnier at the Esplanade to-night was really too
awful. We had neither meat nor bread cards, so
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were reduced to a dish called: "lost eggs/' and as-
paragus. The eggs were lost in some dreadful vege-
table and the asparagus was that fat white and taste-
less stuff they grow here. Billy remarked that the
saiLce hollandaise must have been diflScult to make
without either butter, eggs, or oUve oil, and his tea,
he said, reminded him of when his nurse used to stick
her finger in a cup of hot water and tell him to
"drink his tea. Dearie." I had apricots for dessert
and ate a great number; that they had begun to
ferment was no longer a drawback — ^at least they
tasted of something.
They are going to oblige one to have cards for
clothes now. Billy says he wants to know how the
city authorities are going to know when he needs a
new undershirt.
June IStk.
No German teacher as yet, which makes things
difficult, for I have to go all over the city by myself.
I can ask the way to a certain street, and can say
danke fieldmouse for their answer, but can never,
under any circumstances, understand what they say,
and have to go on asking until someone points.
Went to tea with Mrs. Oppenheim. She, like
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many other American women with German hus-
bands, is more violently pro-German and anti-
English than the Germans themselves. Americans
seem wihappy miless they can go to extremes. I
admired a cat she had — the most peculiar animal it
was.
"Yes,** she said. **He is Siamese.'*
"But where did you get him; here?" I asked.
"No," she answered most reluctantly, "I am
afraid Lord Kitchener gave him to me."
"Well, after all," said I, "he iaiight have come
from a more unworthy source!"
"I do not know," she said.
I asked her why she didn't keep it in a barbed-wire
cage and feed it prisoner's rations.
Later I remarked that I found an old wooden set-
tee she had, charming.
"I regret to say," said she, "that it is English."
I told her that, if it worried her, I would buy all
her English furniture at half price. "If you are
really loyal," I added, "you will give it to me!"
She did not mind my laughing at her about the cat
and the furniture, but she really was quite serious
about them.
Her sixteen-year-old daughter bobbed to me and
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kissed my hand. I must say it is a shock when they
doit.
Agatha Grabish called this morning. She has been
to East Prussia. One old woman she talked to said
she had stayed for the first Russian invasion.
"Why?" Agatha asked her.
"Well," she said, "my bread was baking when the
others started to go, and I didn't want to leave it.
But I might just as well have," she added, "because
the Russians came in and ate it all up as soon as I
took it out of the oven."
We went to the Zoo to see the holiday crowd.
Every soldier who had a sweetheart, and every
mother and father with a child was there. I am
sure they must be skimping dreadfully on the meat
for the lions and tigers — the poor beasts were so
thin, all their bones were sticking out, while those
disgusting hippopotami, that feed on hay, looked as
if they would explode if they ate another mouthful.
June IJith.
Went to see Frau Levi Rathenau this morning,
to learn about the Nationaler Frauendienst.
The German woman in wartime is not primi-
tive. Neither is she simply an excellent and useful
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creature carrying six bundles and a baby as she walks
beside a tightly uniformed and empty-handed hus-
band, nor one who naturally offers the only arm-
chair and sofa cushion to her lord and master or
silently seeks the upper berth in a sleeping car. To
persons who have this view of German woman-
hood it is a shock to see women at the heads of
numberless German enterprises, some of nation-wide
scope.
In Berlin the modem woman handles anything
from a large office force to a tramcar, and, un-
disputed, uses the talent for organization which is so
deeply rooted in German nature.
Every woman in Germany is fighting this war.
Not only does she send her husband out to be killed,
but she steps into his place when he has gone.
With his work to do, she has still her own — to take
care of his house and bring up his children.
Individually, this would be impossible, but collec-
tively it is possible. There are innumerable organi-
zations, war kitchens, central cooking stations, sup-
ply stations, day nurseries, kindergartens, work-
shops. Red Cross stations, refugee committees,
leagues of housewives, institutions for disabled
soldiers. The great thing is that each branch the
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women take up is systematically run and that they
work in coSperation.
The largest of these women's organizations to-day
is the Nationaler Frauendienst, or National Women's
Service League.
There is Uttle reminiscent of the American Society
Woman's Relief Committee about either Dr. Ger-
trude Baumer or Frau Levi Rathenau. Doctor
BSumer is the leader of the woman's movement of
Germany, and the names of these two women are as
f amiUar in Germany as are the names of Miss Jane
Addams and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw in America.
Neither of these ladies is at the head of the Service
League because she is a rich man's wife or because
it is rather the vogue this year to be interested in
social work.
Their office is like the railroad magnate's office
in a modem drama. At an appointed hour one is
ushered in, through several rooms of clerks and
stenographers. Doctor Bfiumer is at a large table,
dictating. The inevitable telephone is at her elbow.
Handshakes. A chair is offered, sat upon, and one's
business is asked. The cigars, which come on the
stage at this moment, are omitted. The inevitable
telephone rings frequently during the interview and is
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answered with a minimum number of words. Wo-
men secretaries bring papers to be signed after rapid
and comprehensive glances at contents. Low-toned
questions are replied to after a second's efficient
thought.
"The Nationaler Prauendienst/* explained Frau
RathenaUy "was organized on July 31, 1914, by Doc-
tor Baumer and me. Oiu* object was to help neces-
sitous wives and children of our soldiers all over
Germany by giving them advice.
"We sent prominent women in every city of the
empire a programme which explained the work we
wished them to do and told them how to organize.
In Berlin we called in delegates from the big women's
clubs — ^literary, conservative, socialistic, Jewish,
Catholic, and Kberal, and founded our central com-
mittee of 80 women. Propaganda of any kind was
forbidden."
One thinks of a more famous coaUtion and wonders if
30 members are more conducive to harmony than 23.
"Wepresentedourprogramme to thecity authorities
in Berlin," Frau Rathenau continued. "They ap-
proved of our plans and consented to pay all our
office expenses. Later, when food became scarce,
they commenced giving us $20,000 a month for food.
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The rest of our money comes from private contribu-
tions.
"Our work is in three directions: First, to help the
soldiers' wives; second, to help their widows and chil-
dren; third, to aid in the question of their food supply.
"There are in Berlin 23 bureaus from which the
*Kriegsunterstu6tzung,' or war relief, is given out.
This is the allowance to which common soldiers*
wives are entitled from the city and the State; it
amounts to 30 marks a month for a woman and 14
marks for each child.
"The Nationaler Prauendienst has a branch
near each of these bureaus taking in the same dis-
trict, and the two chief women of each branch sit
on the Kriegsunterstu^tzung Committee of that
district. They know the history of every family
which gets the war pension and advise the committee
when this money is insufficient. In such cases Ber-
lin gives an added 18 marks to women without
children and lesser sums to women who receive the
14 marks from the State and city for each child.
Thus a woman with three children may get 83 marks
a month and none of it from charity."
In the first few weeks of the war hundreds of
women and girls lost their jobs through the closing
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of factories that make luxuries. Seeing advice ad-
vertised free by the Service League, they rushed to
the oflSces in hordes.
They were advised what kind of work to do and
sent to the Labour Exchange to get it. Workshops
were opened where they were taught many of the
new trades so fast opening to women. Some are
kept on in the shops and paid the regular wage, while
many go out to the factories. Women who have
taken over their husbands' businesses receive expert
advice.
Wives come and ask advice for all manner of
household matters — how to cook in the new cooking
boxes; how to cook at all without butter, flour, or fat;
what to do with their children when they are good,
bad, indifferent, or sick; what to do with the children
when they are at work; how to pay their rent and
food bills now that they no longer have their hus-
bands' wages.
The women who stream in all day are taken to
tables and get individual attention. Exhaustive
and fatally correct histories of each family are kept.
They are visited in their homes and instructed there
by ladies of the Service League. They cannot ask
help outside their own district. No chance is there
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for an ambitious family to gain a living by a gentle
game of graft. The Nationaler Frauendienst is hus-
band, brother, and watchful-eyed keeper to its clients.
If they need food and cannot pay for it, cards
are given out for the particular thing they want.
The stores take these and are reimbursed by the
Service League. More than $250,000 worth of food
cards had been given out up to January 1, 1916.
The Nationaler Frauendienst realized at the be-
ginning of the war that there would be trouble with
the food supply. They asked the Government if
they might run a campaign to teach the women how
to manage with shortened rations. The Govern-
ment refused on the ground that it would frighten
the people.
Soon, whether it frightened them or not, they had
to know the truth and learn to economize.
The Government permitted the Service League
to ask all the cooks in Berlin to a meeting in the
Reichstag (The Parliament Building). By this
strategic move each cook instantly felt herself to be
as important as Von Bethmann-HoUweg or any one
else in the empire. They were convinced after an
hour's talk that, of course, the army was important,
but that they were really the ones to win the war
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and that to wish for anythmg more than potato
flour and glucose with which to cook was the height
of absurdity. The only wonder was, if tea could
be made so successfully from strawberry leaves,
why they had never known it before!
The housewives were next treated to an attack
of eloquence. They came to meetings all over the
city and learned new methods of housekeeping.
They learned, for instance, that to bake cake with
either flour or eggs was the eighth of the deadly sins.
The numbers of women, and men, too, who seek
advice in the oflSces of the Nationaler Frauendienst
give some idea of the size of the league. In Berlin
alone, in January, 65,000 persons came; in May,
49,000; the greater number coming naturally in
the hard winter months. In the district of Nordring,
which is composed entirely of working people, 800
persons come to the oflSce a week.
The Nationaler Frauendienst is organized all over
Germany in virtually the same manner as in Berlin.
A description of its work in Berlin suffices as a de*
scription of its work in every city. It does little
work in the country except to send children from the
city to holiday camps.
The number seeking advice from the Service
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League might deal a blow to the idea that there is a
new independent German woman were it not for
the fact that it is from women they get the advice.
There is none of the I-don't-know-I'U-go-home-and-
ask-Alec spirit about those in charge. A visit to
them moves at about the same speed as a visit to
Charles Schwab in the central oflSce of the Bethlehem
Steel Company.
June 17th.
"General Moltke drops dead," on the front page of
the newspaper, and "Czemowitz falls," under him.
Even though this is the third time for Czemowitz,
there is still some interest shown in the evacuation.
It strikes me that, for a country which everyone said
was dead and gone, and which they had begun to
divide up and partition around, the Russians are
doing pretty well.
I still venture to go about and meet "The Wo-
men" (capital letters) of Germany. They attain a
terrifyingly high pitch of intelligence but they are
most unbeautiful. Their definition of clothes is, I
presume, "A modest covering for the body, sufl5-
cient to protect it from the cold." Some of them
dress in a sort of new art way but few of them seem to
imagine that dressing well would detract nothing
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from their intellectuality of appearance — on which
they concentrate so heavily — ^and that it might add
several cubits unto their charm.
There was a mass meeting of Germany's most
distinguished women at the Esplanade the other
night — ^Dr. Gertrude BSumer, Dr. Lisa Salomon,
and the rest. Doctor Bfiumer looks like a wonderful
woman. There is a powerful compelling quietness
about her which is magnetic. She was at the same
table at which I was, and although she said nothing,
1 felt she was quite capable of taking Bethmann-
Hollweg's place any time he wanted a rest.
Some of the people would talk munitions in the
most tactless manner. What fault is it of mine, I*d
like to know, if du Pont and Mr. Schwab send shells
and gunpowder. Baron Roeder said that, when he
hears his coimtrymen spitting about munitions, he
says: "Well, my dear fellow, you know the United
States tried to get us to agree in The Hague Con-
vention, that we would not supply munitions to
belligerents, and we refused, so here we are now
hoist by our own petard, so to speak, and there is no
use your making a noise about it!'*
Of course the Germans never supplied munitions to
any one, oh, no. They didn't make any money out
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of the Spanish-American war, nor the Boer war, nor
the Russo-Japanese war, and they didn't sell muni-
tions to the Turks when they pretended to be friends
with the Greeks, and they never thought of supplying
Mexico with shells or gims, did they? . . . No
indeed, never I
Billy has been seeing bankers lately, to try and
find out about the finances of the country. He
talked to Havenstein, President of the Reichsbank,
two hours yesterday, and with Von Gwinner, Direc-
tor of the Deutsche Bank, one hour. I asked him
how they treated him.
"Von Gwinner saw through me," he said, laughing.
"He asked me to tea, but Havenstein called out all
the geheimraths in his employ and set them to making
statistics for me ! '*
Havenstein said peace would never be permanent
until England was ready -to recognize conunercial
competition on the basis of who worked the best,
and he declared that whatever else the war was it was
a blessing for German banking. This it is — appar-
ently; but not really, of coiu-se. Money never cir-
culated so freely; men are not hoarding it as they are
said to be doing in France; and with every industry
running full tilt a great deal of money is being made.
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A copy of the Dresdnerbank's yearly report got
into France, and the French declared that never had
such a colossal he been invented by the Germans as
this. It was utterly impossible, said they, that Ger-
man finances could be in such a visibly flourishing
condition.
Billy met Mr. Gerard in the street, just after he
had seen Havenstein and Von Gwinner. B — said
they had talked very frankly, and Mr. Gerard asked
him if they had shown him the printing-press where
they made the money.
June 20th.
Billy and I went to see Zimmermann in the Foreign
OflSce. He, with Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Von Jagow,
Helfferich, and Falkenhayn, are running Germany.
Zinunermann is a large, blond man. His forehead is ex-
ceptionally high and his cheeks much scarred by sword
slashes. He is genial, calm, and although the busiest
man in the Empire, quite unhurried.
"I have just been seeing some bankers,'* said he.
"We are negotiating another loan for our Turk-
ish friends. Those people are always in need of
money.'*
Billy said it was a great imposition for us to take up
his time, as he was probably very busy. He laughed
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and declared he was glad to see us. I told him he
was like Disraeli, who said he was not "unusually
busy to-day" but "usually busy."
Billy asked if the U-boat war was likely to be
resumed.
"That depends on Wilson," answered Zimmer-
mann. " If he pushes England into obeying interna-
tional law, we will not resume it. If he goes on
doing nothing, as he has for some time, I cannot
answer for what our military and naval authori-
ties will do."
I said that Wilson was not likely to move a foot
before the elections, and would Germany be willing
to wait xmtil November?
Zimmermann shrugged his heavy shoulders. " That
is a long time," said he. "We have enough subma-
rines now/' .
Altogether, he sounded rather ominous on thii|
subject, but very likely he wishes American news-
paper men to circulate the idea that Germany will
do something drastic if Amenca does not insist upon
England's introducing a few of the elements of
legaUty into her blockade, or at least insist that the
neutral mails shall arrive at their destination.
I asked him if he didn't think the war was going on
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and on because no one would speak frankly of peace,
and he said, "y^>" '^ut that Germany had said all
she could.
"All that is done if we mention peace," said he,
"is for everyone to shout: *The Germans are beaten;
they can't go on any longer/ "
Billy asked him whether peace could not be made
now if the biggest men from each country were
brought together,
"Ah!" said Zimmermann. "If it were possible to
have a small, absolutely secret meeting, then we
probably could make peace now, but how is that to be
managed? We cannot speak out frankly to the
whole world, and how can one negotiate except
pubhcly?"
We asked him whether Germany looked for a long
peace after the war, and whether it would be on the
grounds of great military strength and strong boxmd-
aries, or on the basis of an international conciliatory
body, or a treaty?
He answered that nothing short of a United States
of Europe would amount to anything, and seemed
to possess the usual German skepticism of treaties.
"We will have to have a United States of Eiu*ope
some day, to enable us to compete economically with
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America. That may come in eighty or one hundred
years, but not in our lifetime. If you would really
develop your natural resources, we in Europe would
be helpless."
I asked him why the men in the Government gave
to American newspaper men interviews that either
said nothing, or said things which were misunder-
stood.
Zimmermann answered that there was a great howl
if they didn't give interviews, and that of course they
did not know how to manage public opinion in Amer-
ica, so they depended upon the newspaper men to put
things so that Americans would xmderstand pro-
perly.
It struck me that it was a rather risky business for
Von Bethmann-Hollweg, or Zimmermann, to trust
their similes and figures of speech in the hands of Von
Wiegand. Look what he did in publishing the
Chancellor's remark about "the map of Europe as
it stands to-day." If he didn't understand what that
meant, he should have said so and "permitted him-
self to remark" something more sensible and less
subservient to the Chancellor than he did.
Went to a war kitchen — ^the one run by Americans.
It would be rather irritating to our anti-German na-
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tion to know that the American kitchen was the best
in Berlin and that all food there was free!
June 2Sd.
I went to several kitchens yesterday — Miidestands-
kiicheny they are called. A man named Abraham
started them in the beginning of the war. They
are all over the city, for children and for adults.
Abraham poses as a philanthropist, but they say his
charity is of the paying kind, and he is hated accord-
ingly. I do not see, however, how he can make
much money; people come to his kitchens in thou-
sands and they pay only si^y pfennigs (fifteen cents)
for soup, a rich-looking stew, and a great plate of
barley and cherries, or some other sweet. The
restaurants almost pay for themselves, for the food is
sold them at cost by the city, and most of the ser-
vice is volxmtary work by ladies who wish to help.
Whatever the cost is, it is borne by private individ-
uab, spiured on by Father Abraham. One sees, not
only middle-class people eating in the kitchens, but
some quite poor people as well, and also some who
look of the upper middle class. I went with an old
American lady missionary; she is a spry old thing
of seventy years, who works her head oflF for the
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Germans and finds it vastly humorous that they
call her the "high well-bom-collector-of-old-clothes-
for-the-poor."
Went to Frau Plotow's to tea. She is another
lively septogenarian. I liked her a great deal, but
her cake did not have any sugar in it — ^that's a pleas-
ant little surprise one has nowadays. Several people
came to tea with me the other day and it was quite
awkward when I discovered that the cakes I had
bought tasted like wrapping paper. Mais: Qu^est
ce qu'on vevtf — c^est la guerre.
Frau Plotow took me to her Mnderhort, or rather
her madchenhorty as it is only for girls. This one,
like most of the kinderhorty is in a school building.
Working mothers leave their children for the day,
paying a small sum, or nothing, to have their little
girls fed, exercised, taught, and disciplined. This
madchenhort is one of a series of twenty-five run
by private individuals. The city gives them the
schoolrooms; the teachers pay for their light and heat;
the food and other expenses are private. In peace
time, children come to the mSdchenhort after school
hours and stay until six or six-thirty. Owing to the
fact that many school buildings are now turned into
barracks, the other schools must run two sets of
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children, one in the morning and one in the after-
noon, so the kindergartens also have two sessions.
There are many societies which support kinderhorts.
The number of children left da^Jy in all the kinder-
horts is more than double what it was in peace time.
An institution that appeals to me, particularly, in
the German schools is the row of shower-baths in the
cellar, where every child gets a thorough scrubbing
once a week, head and all, with tooth-brushes hang-
ing in neat rows on the wall, to be used daily xmder
the eagle eye of the superintendent. When children
get to America, I suppose they feel it is an infringe-
ment of their inalienable right to be dirty> if any
one suggests soap to them.
The school yard is treeless and grassless, so the
girls of the madchenhort society are marched out to
gardens to play. They dance and sing and play
delightfid games, but they are all so good I don't
see how they can really enjoy themselves. The
bows and curtsies one gets are in strong contrast
to the insults hurled at one by American public-
school children. A German child does not seem
to know what being really "fresh," and glorying in
the act, means — which is one of the few blessings of
German discipline.
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The madchenhort society also occupies itself, as
does every third person in Berlin apparently, with
sending children to holiday camps in the summer-
time.
June 22d.
It is rather hard for me to find out how the war is
taught in the schools, as I don't speak German, but
as far as I can tell, it varies in different schools.
They are not allowed to speak of peace, but the
teachers read the newspapers to the pupils. Of
course what they read depends on the newspapers
they take. In only one school I know of do the chil-
dren go through a short hate ceremony. When the
teacher says: "Goft strafe England^** the pupils an-
swer: "6rott strafe es.^^ They are still taught English
and French but they are not allowed to use a word
of either language outside of their lesson.
Baron von Mumm has asked us to dinner, through
his secretary, through a stenographer with the me-
dium of a typewriter. I call that using the third
person with a vengeance. Since everyone is so
formal here, we thought we might as well do as the
Romans do, and be sHghtly annoyed instead of
amused, so we didn't answer. His secretary called
up to know if we were coming, and Billy asked him
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what Frieherr von Mumm meant by asking us in that
manner. The secretary said: "Excellenz never sent
out his own invitations in war time/* We forgave
him as grandly as possible and consented to go —
as if we'd miss the chance of getting an extra
dinner with meat; I'd go even if I were ordered
to.
June 261k.
The Mexican situation is growing very serious.
I do not relish the thought of having my brothers go
out to fight those treacherous half-breeds, but I am
now afraid I shall see them do it.
We dined with the Winslows last night. A German
officer there, Lieutenant Merton by name, declared
it would take 500,000 men to quiet the Mexicans,
and a million and a half men to conquer the country.
Unlike most Germans, he thinks we would be most
imwise to keep it. He said that we would have
to keep an enormous police force there, since we were
so cordially hated that revolutions would be inces-
sant. I said it would be almost as much trouble as
India to the British, and he said: "" Certainly, as
the Mexicans are a filthy lot."
Lieutenant Merton had just come from Bel-
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gium, where he was one of Von Bissing's aides-de-
camp. He said the General quite considered him-
self King of Belgium for the time being — which
he virtually is — ^and lived and acted as such.
Merton says Von Bissing sympathizes so greatly
with the conquered country that he is doing every-
thing possible to help it along and, he laughingly
added, that he believed the General was so jealous
for its welfare that he would even defend it against
Germany. The Lieutenant told us that many Ger-
mans were greatly shocked by the levity of the Bel-
gians. They think that printing such post-cards as:
"Qiii est le vainqueurf Uamoufy^ most xmseemly
on the part of a conquered people.
Merton speaking about coming back to civilization
from six months in the trenches: he said an automo-
bile made him so nervous he couldn't stand it, and that
a tramcar crossing the street at the same time he did
was too terrifying a thing to be borne, while as for
eating at a table with the proper implements and in
civilized company, that was much worse than six
months' shell fire. He dined with Von Bissing his
first night back from the front, and he declared he
was so shy and clumsy that the old gentleman kept
patting his knee and telling him: "Never mind, my
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boy, they are all like this when they come from the
firing-line, paralyzed with fright at the sight of glass
and china."
We went to our ConsiJ-General*s, Mr. Lay's, after
dinner, to dance. Most of the Embassy were there,
and several Germans, but they would play cards in-
stead of dancing. Of course it was rather hot, as
we had to keep the blinds shut for fear of the poUce
catching us dancing in war time.
June 87th.
Yesterday was a strenuous day — ^too strenuous in
fact. I got to the Central Labour Exchange at nine
o'clock in order to go through the workshops. They
have taught 10,000 women to make soldiers* suppUes
here. There are about 200 women who sew in the
building and some 4,000 who get work from the Ex-
change and take it home. The wages are paid ac-
cording to piecework but none are allowed to make
more than fifteen marks a week. This is because the
demand for work from the Exchange workshops is so
great and because they wish to make this work only
a temporary thing, to teach the women and to tide
them over until another job can be found for them.
These workshops have filled 7,000,000 marks' worth
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of contracts since the war; they were almost entirely
orders from the military, for helmet caps, cartridge
cases, and sand bags. The Exchange has one or two
men in its employ, and it was rather interesting to
me to see that, while the women could cut out only
ten patterns at a time, the men, using a sharp knife,
could cut out forty. The shops pay all their expenses
and even make money. They are anxious to make
this a centre for giving out home work after the war,
and the money earned will be devoted to doing this.
Every employee is of course insured. Accident
insurance is paid half by employer and half by
employee; accidents, two thirds by the worker and
one third by the employer: the State pays the doctor,
medicine, and hospital bills when the insurance is
needed.
In 1915, the Central Labour Exchange of Berlin
foxmd work for 95,953 women, while all the Ex-
changes secured jobs for 738,138 women. The
women'si divisions are always nm by women in every
Exchange in Germany.
Saw the Oscar-Helene Heim, a hospital for crippled
children, in the afternoon. It was a horrid effort
to get there. First, a long, hot trip in the subway —
abomination of desolation — ^and then a scorching
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walk through a shadeless sandy wheat*field to the
great home among the pine trees. Naturally, the
Germans, being Germans, would build a thing like
this in the country, instead of planting it in the city,
in our usual happy manner. They are too sensible
by half, these people.
The children lie in beds out under the trees, or
in the sun. When they can walk, they play in
sand-pits or use the swings in the garden. A dozen
or so two- and three-year-olds were rolling in the
sand pit in abbreviated one-piece bathing suits,
and browning their little twisted limbs in the healing
sunshine. When they grow older, they have school,
half an hour at a time, and then play. The Director
said his children, crippled and sick though they were,
learnt faster than other children because he mixes
play so generously with study.
There are some eighty soldiers recovering here,
who lack Umbs. These men are taught trades, and
when they leave, are able to earn the wages of any
tailor, blacksmith, basket-weaver or wood-carver in
the land. It is really most surprising to see the dex-
terous way in which the men work. Most of the
soldiers are rather lazy and Wurtz said they were a
bad influence; for my part, I was glad to hear that
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someone at least did not make the most of every
moment.
In the halls and children's rooms are many
bright pictures of fairy tales and animals, and for-
eign lands, and for the men, pictures of all the great
cripples who have ever lived. For Wurtz, the Herr
Director, told us it was very good for the men to hear
about what others like themselves had been able
to accomplish. Wurtz seemed to me one of the
kindes(t men I ever met. The children flock after
him and call him "Papa." They clung about my
skirts and said "Mama, Mama, show us thy Uttle
watch."
After this, I went to Baroness von Bissing's to tea.
Oh, welcome was the hour and her comfortable chair!
She is small, with finely chiselled features; her move-
ments are quick, like those of a highly bred animal,
and she is rather excitable.
We sat down to tea arid cherry tarts and I asked
her when she was next going to Belgium. She can,
of course, go whenever she likes, but is never there
officially, as no German officer may take his wife to
Belgium. The General, being so strict a gentleman,
will not break the rule even for himself, and so
Baroness von Bissing and her children must live
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alone in Germany, and he with his 150 aides-de-camp
in his palace in Brussels.
"It is very hard to be without my husband and my
eldest son," she said.
"Where is your boy?" I asked.
"He was taken prisoner by the French, wounded in
six places. When he got well, they took him to
prison and put him in solitary confinement in a little
tiny cell with no work to do and no one with whom he
can speak. He may not even look out of the cell
window, for they painted it white. Twice a day he
is taken for a walk by his guards — ^and this all be-
cause the French thought we did not treat Delcasse's
son properly. Now, because they took my boy, and
another, we have put six of their men in solitary con-
finement. We will see where these reprisals will
bring us; I am sorry they must be, but we have more
captured men than they.
"Why did they put Delcasse's son in prison in the
first place?" I asked.
"Because he was an impertinent boy and called his
officers * dirty dogs of Prussians,' " she answered.
I can imagine that, properly and fluently to insult
one's captors, might almost be worth the price.
"I fear for my son's mind," she said. "Soli-
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tary confinement has such terrible effects some-
times."
This, alas, is too true. My German teacher's
friend found her brother in a Russian prison, quite
mad from two years' solitude.
The conversation turned to Essen and the Krupps.
Baroness von Bissing said she and her husband
were going next week to Bertha Krupp von Bohlen's
latest baby's christening — the General is to be god-
father.
"I like to go to Essen," continued she, "because
cannon and such things interest me."
I questioned her more and she told me she used to
invent cannon and that she had several times tried
to get patents for these remarkable works of her im-
agination.
"But did you know anything about such things?"
I asked.
"No," she said; "but I had the intention to turn
a cannon into an automobile, or an automobile into
a cannon, as I thought it would be very convenient
in war."
I agreed that it might, indeed, and laughingly
told her she looked less like an inventor of cannon
than almost any one I could think of.
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""I told old Herr Ej*upp about my cannon/' she
went on, "one time when I was visiting there, and
he asked me if I would like to see the ones he was
making. I said that, as I knew he would not even
let the Royal Princesses into that shop, I should
be quite contented to see the rest of the works. But
not at all; the old gentleman took me in and I was
the first woman to see his cannon being made."
We skipped from topic to topic as lightly as ga-
zelles. From Essen we jumped to the Allies* note
to Greece. We both agreed it quite outdid Austria's.
I asked her if Germany had seen that note, and
she said she didn't know, and she wanted to know
what difference it would make anyway if Germany
had.
"What would Wilson, that dear man Wilson, have
done if his son had gone into Mexico and been mur-
dered by some villainous person there? Wouldn't
he have said something severe to them?"
I thought it rather an appropriate simile.
The Germans apparently hate Wilson and Roose-
velt equally — ^the one for what they say are his pro-
Ally tendencies, and the other for having turned
against his former friends and insulted them, after
accepting their hospitality.
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•'Serbia and Montenegro are full of people that
need to be punished^ but Italy — ^Italy!" — ^said Frau
von Bissing, with her pretty nose in the air — "is a
nasty little dog that has done something dirty and
must be kicked out!" She emphasizes her words so
heatedly when in earnest, that I never can help
laughing.
"Now tell me about your work, Baroness,** I said.
She modestly answered she did not do much but
supplement the work of other people — which isn't
true at all.
The organization which Baroness von Bissing started
is somewhat on the line of the work of the Nationaler
Frauendienst, only the Von Bissing affair, instead
of working for all the soldiers' families, concentrates
on the wounded and their dependents. She noticed,
while working in the hospitals, that the soldiers were
often in need of advice and that they seemed to want
someone to whom they could talk about their wor-
ries. Cause enough there is for any German to
worry when he thinks of the domestic wife or sweet-
heart he left behind him, driving a great dray
about the dty streets, or jumping about in her dark-
blue blooniers in a subway train, taking gentlemen's
tickets*
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"We are afraid our women will grow too fond of
their new life and not want to stay at home and have
families/* said the Baroness. "We must make de-
pendence sweet to them again." Of course, I took
intense joy in this last statement. I asked if they
had any idea of polygamy after the war, and she said
"No"; that Germany was too religious a State for
that — the Church parties were too strong to allow
it.
"We shall have to do everything by education.
We have no other means. One of our tasks now in
my work is to have our women and girls talked to,
and to make them understand that they will not
have crippled children if their husband or lover
comes back from the war lacking an arm or a
leg."
"How about illegitimacy? Will you sanction
that?" I asked.
"No," she said. "We could not do that either, or
we would destroy the moral foundations of our
coimtry, but we are at this moment trying to get
a bill through, which will make it easier for the
mothers of illegitimate children, and harder for the
fathers.
"I wish to have sex hygiene taught in the schools.
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but that will take some time, as the teachers must
first be taught," she said.
I do not doubt that Germany will, as the Baronin
says, be able, through education, to work quite as
effectively toward the repopulation of her country as
she worked through polygamy after the Thirty Years'
War.
"We wish very much to make our men religious
again; they seem to have lost this in their trench
life," she said, sadly. "So the clergymen in Ger-
many are working with our organization."
We turned back to the invasion of Belgium.
"England is a disgusting hypocrite," said my hos-
tess emphatically. "France is not so bad; we do not
hate her, but England is in this war solely for
money. It is a pleasant Httle joke of theirs, about
our invading Belgium first, but I know that the Eng-
lish and French were there before us.^
Now, if the wife of the Governor of Belgium believes
this so earnestly, one may imagine how firmly the rest
of Germany believes it.
"I have seen in Antwerp," the lady went on, "a
great house, seven stories high, which was so filled
with English hospital supplies that we have not used
them all up yet."
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"The war, as we hear it from the German side," I
said, " is not the same war at all. It is quite another.
When aceoimts conflict so radically, what is a poor,
bewildered American to do? "
"When you are prone to judge us harshly, remem-
ber we have had the English censor to deal with for
two years, and that there are seventy-five corres-
pondents in the Allied coimtries to twelve for the
Central Powers. Add to this the facts that England
controls the cable service of the world and shows an
insatiable curiosity concerning other people's mail."
I left soon after this, taldng with me voluminous
pamphlets on her work. There is no lack of literature
and reports on things in Germany. I am sure, if I
lived here long, I should get the pamphlet habit. One
might write on the ancient cab horses here and what
they are capable of on two fistsf ul of chopped straw
a day, or on the evil effect on one's temper of riding in
a flat-tired taxicab; I don't think any one has written
up these yet.
June S5th.
Went to the PesUdozzi-Froehel House. I'd shied
off for a long while on account of its name; I thought
it would surely be dreadful. It's not, except that
it's even more exemplary than their other institu-
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tions. It's a combination kindergarten and school
for children up to about fourteen, and a teachers'
training school. I never saw anything like it! Poor
children may get taken care of and Montessoried for
nothing, just as carefully as if they lived on Fifth
Avenue. K need be, they may even spend the night
there, which many of the very little ones do. Coimt-
ing the girls who are in training, the teaching force is
brought up to eighty for about two himdred and
twenty children. There is apparently nothing, from
cleaning windows to nursing children, the teachers do
not learn. They live in the building imtil they are
qualified to go out to another school and take charge.
The children adore it. They have gardens and
pet animals and are taught everything in such a de-
lightful way. It is quite like the Jugendheim in
Charlottenburg, which I described before, only on a
larger scale. The numbers of children have, of course,
greatly increased since the war. The matron told
me that there were enough such places in Berlin to
accommodate any child whose mother wished it to go.
They are not all quite like the Pestalozzi-Froebel
House certainly, but on that order. I should imagine
that the refining infiuence of such schools must, and
cannot but be, great, there is so much individual at-
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tention given and such stress laid on daintiness and
cleanliness and politeness.
July 1st.
Went to the Von Gwinners' to lunch. It was Von
Gwinner who put through the Bagdad Railway
scheme. The house is large, but there is a life-size
marble statue of a woman playing a violin in the
drawing-room. He has a beautiful garden.
Von Gwinner said the victor in this war would be
the nation which declared bankruptcy two weeks after
all the rest. He expects they will all be taxed to the
verge of poverty when the war is over, but believes
Germany can hold out the longest. The eldest Miss
von Gwinner is a delightful girl and one of the best
informed and most intelligent women IVe met here.
Dined with Baron von Mumm Tuesday night at the
Automobile Club. He is a fraud, and Count Montjelas
with him, and I hope to see them both soon to tell
them so. There was a crowd in the Leipziger Platz
when I got there, and the two men were standing at
the window. I asked what it was and they said:
"Nothing, nothing, only the usual people going
home from work.'* Now, whether they knew or not,
I am not sure, but it really was the Socialists pub-
licly demonstrating their disapproval of the im^
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prisonment of Liebknecht for two years and a half.
That shows what a Berlin riot is. I looked on and
never knew it!
WeVe heard from Freiherr von B that there
was a really recognizable one in Dusseldorf . All the
women went to the City Hall and demanded more
meat and potatoes. The Mayor stuck his shaved head
out of the window and tried to calm them with tales
of beans and peas, but they shouted they did not
want them, they wanted potatoes and, when he said
he hadn't any, they smashed all the windows that
couldn't resist brick.
"That's just like the poor," said Von B , "they
won't eat anything except potatoes."
Dined with the Bocklins last night. Baron Bocklin
is back for a few days from headquarters on the west-
em front. He says that Verdim will fall in about two
weeks. What a 14th of July for the French! We
asked the same eternal questions about the duration
of the war.
"The English and ourselves have just reached our
maximum strength," he said. "The others have all
passed it."
Of course, I hate to dispute with Von Falkenhayn
and BScklin, but I do not think the English have
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reached their maximum strength. Baron B5cklin
thinks they will be able to secure strategic frontiers on
the west, and Kurland on the east. Apparently
the Baltic Provinces, up to the Peipus Lake, are
waiting with longing to be imder German dominion.
Only 10 per cent, of the population is German.
^^Ah, but that is the educated percentage, you
know."
Yes, I do know, and I wonder how Russia will like
having a German Gibraltar on the Baltic, and
whether she will enjoy moving her capital to Moscow,
which would be the inevitable outcome of having the
Germans so near Petrograd.
Baron B5cklin showed us pictures he'd taken on the
front. In one little house in Belgium, which he'd
made his headquarters, a woman sneaked in on him
one night when he was sleeping. He heard her and,
jumping up, caught her by the throat. She had a
long knife in her hand. As Bocklin was taking it from
her, a man crawled out from imder his bed with a
gim, but was covered by the sergeant who came to
Bocklin's rescue. The Baron let both assassins go, in-
stead of having them shot as he had the right to do,
Bdcklin's mother was an American, and his grand-
mother an Englishwoman.
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Heard a delightful story about Mr. Gerard from
Mrs. . She said that to tease Countess
B he asked her why she hadn't married
some nice stockbroker in New York, who could have
provided her with much better-looking clothes, and
more of them, than Coimt B . She went home
in a rage and told the Count, who also became furi-
ous and they both told all Berlin that Mr. Gerard
was so anti-German that he disapproved of German-
American marriages. Mrs. Gerard implores her
husband to save his jokes for those who have a sense
of humour but he says, no matter what resolutions he
makes. Countess B is more than he can resist,
and his remarks grow always worse instead of better.
July 6th.
Just back from three days in Hamburg. We went
there with the dreariest possible recollections of the
place — ^rain, cold, no food, and no people. This time,
fortified with letters of introduction brought us by
that most amiable of women. Countess Gotzen, we
met with kindness and the fatted calf. Our rooms
looked over the water where were sail-boats and white
swans, and many willow trees and roses on the banks
of the lake, and from behind the end of the harbour.
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a great gray Zeppelin swam toward us and around
and aroimd in the still morning.
The waiter who brought our breakfast wore the
iron cross. I am sure he deserved it, for he was both
frozen and shot to pieces in Russia.
"For what," I asked him, "are those two small pills
in that dish?"
"Saccharin, gnadige frau/^ said he.
I did not know it was so horrid sweet, and ruined
my coflfee.
That night we went to the Max Warburgs* to dine.
They are very delightful people; their house is large
and nice, their sense of humour a joy to find, and be-
sides that, Mrs. Warburg was well dressed and wore
— oh, wonder of wonders in a German woman — silk
stockings. Mr. Warburg is one of the biggest bank-
ers of Germany, and is certainly the nicest. He de-
clared American business men and American finan-
ciers to be the most charming and the most unin-
formed men in the world.
"They know nothing of international affairs, not
one thing," said he. "And they do not even know
their own coimtry thoroughly. We wonder over
here how they can possibly get along with such little
knowledge of the affairs of the world." He said he
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told his brother, Mr. Paul Warburg, that it's easy
enough for him to be a big man in America, where
there is so little competition, but just let him come
to Germany and try it. One may think America
is work-mad, but it seems a shiftless, lazy place after
Germany.
Mr. Warburg says he does not see the end of the
war but believes firmly that Germany will not be
beaten. The harvest, which everyone had been say-
ing would be so marvellous, he says will be good but
not first class, and if the sim does not soon shine, it
will not even be good. Well, harvest or no harvest,
we were given a most royal dinner — ^roast beef, our
first in Germany, and many coiu*ses. We even had
nectarines from their hot-house in the coimtry , and the
most glorious big strawberries with plenty of sugar.
I think the Germans are amazingly broad-minded.
They think we are their enemies, and yet they are
polite to us — ^frontier oflScials and petty oflScials al-
ways excepted — ^and it's not politics either with the
private individuals.
The next morning, Mrs. Aufschlager sent her car-
riage for me. She is the wife of the man who sup-
plies most of Germany's powder, but she has only one
pair of horses and an ancient coachman I^f t her now«
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"And before," she said, "I used to tire out two pairs
of horses and my chauffeur every day."
I can well believe it, for two mornings with her
left me panting for breath; and she is no longer
young. We went everywhere. The women in Ham-
burg are almost surpassing the women in Berlin in the
amount of rehef work they do. They have Frauen-
vereine and kriegshUfe, and kriegshiichen and Kinder-
fiirsorge, and Red Cross organizations as thick as
grass all over the city. It's no use describing what
each does; suffice it to say that the kitchens feed
about one fifth of the population each day — ^in the
schools, in restaurants, or if the women wish to fetch
their food, in the homes. The price for a huge bowl
of food is 30 pfennigs, or even 20 pfennigs. If they
are too poor, they get it for nothing. More and more
kitchens are started each day. Some people want
home cooking to be forbidden entirely until after the
war. The kitchens will all stop then and home cook-
ing be encouraged as much as possible. Of course,
many of the school children will still get their
lunches, as they have for years, and there will be
cheap restaurants, but everywhere they say they do
not want to have central cooking a permanent in-
stitution.
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There is one thing in Hamburg which they have not
in Berlin. This is the systematic collecting and mak-
ing over of old clothes. I have not seen anything
which has made me feel more the pressingly economical
rSgime under which the people are living than the large
building given up to the regeneration of old clothes.
Except for the horses which pull the vans full of cast-
oflF wearing apparel up to the store-room door, all the
brain work and hand work is done by women. First,
everything is fumigated, then sorted, pressed, ripped
up, washed, ironed, or dyed; men's trousers made into
little giris' skirts, children's coats, boys' clothes. Old
things are renovated, if not entirely transformed, and
out of the left-over pieces are made patch quilts for
the soldiers. Woollen things are treasured, an old
glove, or cap, or shawl may be torn to pieces and
woven anew. The ingenuity with which every rag
is used is astonishing. I thought of my dear mother
and wished she might be there to see, only I knew she
would then be more convinced than ever that I was a
wasteful, extravagant girl. The girls who do the
work are paid, but the ladies in charge give their
services free to the Hamburg Kriegshilfe.
When the clothes are old no more, but quite new
and resplendent, they are sent to another large build-
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ing, also rent free, where they are given away. This
is the central and largest of sixty-five workshops run
by the kriegshilfe. New clothes are made here, and
mihtary supplies. In the sand-bag department I saw
piles and piles of bags made out of some Canton
flannel stuff, brightly patterned.
"Why do you use this nice goods instead of sack-
cloth?" I asked.
"Oh,*' said the ladies, "we had quantities of that
brought in from Poland."
"Stolen!" I cried.
"No! " was the horrified chorus. "It is booty."
Now the difference was a fine distinction I suppose
I should have been able to make, but I did not think I
would dispute it, so left them still animatedly dis-
cussing the Amerikanerin who did not know mo-
rality from what she called "swiping."
The army supplies are paid for but all the rest is
given away, and not a pfennig to pay. Thirty thou-
sand families get their clothes here for nothing ! There
are the usual investigations made first, so that people
may not get more than they need. Before a woman's
baby is bom, she is given the proper outfit for it: al-
together, it seemed to me, that it was better to be
poor in Hamburg than proud somewhere else.
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We drove to the station where the trains of wounded
come in and saw them making ready with food
and stretchers and flowers and a band of music to re-
ceive some men from Russia. These exchange
woimded do not look so badly as the men straight
from the front, as clean clothes are given them at the
frontier. We went, too, to the shipyards in the free
port. One drives through a white-tiled tunnel under
the river to get there and Frau Auf schlager was much
amused at me for taking such an interest in it.
Evidently she thought we had tunnels under every
brook in America. The shipyards are busy but the
great storehouses in the port show no sign of life at all.
Every barge and crane lies idle in the harbour, while
the English battleships crouch at the German gate.
Went to the Warburgs' to tea and saw their de-
lightful children. Mr. Warburg, they say, is the real
brains of the Hamburg-American Line, and not
Ballin. Billy was talking to Ballin to-day. The
interview would be rather sensational if printed in our
papers, but would give, I think, a false impression of
Germany. For instance, he said Germany must have
either the largest fleet in the world, or Antwerp and
Calais. He believes in no treaties and has no hope of
peace being made soon.
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Pined at a restaurant up the lake with Mr. Mor-
gan, our Consul-General. Mr. Reidemann, head of
the Standard Oil in Germany, was there, and his
American sister-in-law; also Count Quadt, the Prus-
sian Minister. We got to talking American politics,
and the Germans to commenting on the deplorable
ignorance of our representatives and congressmen.
"Yes, indeed," Mr. Morgan said. "Do you know
what happened when one of our congressmen pro-
posed to import twenty-five gondolas to put on the
river in Washington? Another congressman, who
was of an economical turn of mind, got up and said:
* Why not import a male and a female, and let nature
do the rest?' " Billy and I roared and the Germans
were horrified that we could laugh at our Government
so. Reidemann began wondering where all the swans
in Hamburg had gone, in order to change the subject,
and Mr. Morgan said they'd all been eaten and that it
was an outrage as they were very rich, having been
left a fortune for food by an old lady. Reidemann,
thinking Morgan was quite serious about the eating,
vehemently denied such cannibalism, and then won-
dered why I laughed at him.
"How's the Standard Oil, Mr. Reidemann?" I
asked; "are you bankrupt yet?"
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"Certamly not," said he. "Go home and relieve
the minds of the company, and tell them I have not
rained them yet. We have immense wells in Ru-
mania and get all the oil we want."
"Then, why in the world are they using gasolene
made out of coaJ?" said I. "Is it for the pleasure
they take in this new discovery?"
"They cannot aflfdrd the trains for transport," said
Reidemann. This did not sound as if business was so
very flourishing to me. I asked him if they would
use the coaJ product after the war, and he said "No."
When we were ready to go home, I stepped out on
the balcony over the water. The canoes were thick
below me, and I noticed one, paddled by a woman,
which was being shoved about by all the others. It
was the Foiuili of July and I saw the canoe flew the
American flag. Evidently the others were trying to
make the girl take it down, and I could hear her
angrily answering them back. Then one man came
and, taking the flag-pole in his hand, broke it off.
The girl quickly reached for his, and did the same,
then both snatched their own back. The girFs
canoe was still being shoved about and angry voices
shouted at her. She held the flag in her hand till a
man in a punt, with two other men, caught her flag
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and, tearing it off, threw it in the water and spat on it.
The girl, in a fury, struck him with the stick and he
raised his canoe paddle to her. By this time, I, who
am not an hysterical woman, was in such a rage and
fury of patriotism, that there, before everyone, I
stamped my feet and burst into angry tears. I was
so angry I could not speak. Count Quadt and the
Reidemanns had gone, but Billy and Mr. Morgan, who
had come out on the balcony for the last scene, were
swearing with rage. I went into the next room where
there were no people, for I was terribly mortified
with myself, but could not help the tears running
down my face. The head waiter followed me and
tried to console me. He did all but pat me on the
back and call me a poor darling.
" I am so sorry, madam," he said. " So very sorry.
These Germans are rude men with no manners at all.
I am a Hungarian and no one in my country would
treat a woman so. I love America, and if I could get
my passports, I would go back to-morrow!'*
If only one could have done something, but we
were too far away, and the only Americans in the
crowd. We would only have been arrested immedi-
ately. The girl came in to the American Con-
sulate in the morning. She was badly scratched
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up and still so angry she cried while telling the
Consul. Some of the women, she said, had cried
"Shame!" to the men, and others had oflfered to see
her home, but she said she wished no German near
her. . She said she had been to the police and given
the numbers of the men's boats, and they promised
her to punish the men, but advised her not to tell the
Consul-GeneraJ about the fuss. She answered that
she was on her way to his oflSce as fast as she could go.
The Consul-General demanded an apology from the
Burgomaster, and that the men be severely punished.
The apology has been made.
Went to Mrs. Reidemann's to tea, as we couldn't
go to dinner. She is fattening two pigs in a pen
by the front door and twenty convalescent soldiers in
her ballroom, so I think she is doing her share for her
adopted country. Her head huntsman had just been
killed and her six gardeners are all in the war. Her
orchid house is ruined from lack of care and she says
the garden is hopeless. It was not too far gone, how-
ever, to produce a huge bunch of pink roses for me,
each one as big as a cabbage. The next day, when
we came home to Berlin, they were too full blown to
bring with me, but I did bring the poimd of butter
Mrs. Aufschlager gave me and the twenty-four lumps
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of sugar, and a piece of cake Mr. Morgan sent wrap-
ped up in a newspaper. The newspaper hurt Billy's
feelings, but I would have that sugar.
Jtdy 7th.
The Allied oflfensive seems very heavy. As Mr.
Morgan said the other night: "The Germans are
getting vicious; they got a crack in the eye in Austria,
and another by the French on the west, and the
English are biting their heels." The confidence and
placidity of the people, as a whole, under this, the
worst fighting of the whole war, are remarkable. All
I have seen them do was to take it out on one lone
woman in a canoe.
Jtdy 11th.
Lunched with Baron von Pritwitz, Baroness B6ck-
lin, Herr Horstmann, and another man from the
Foreign OflSce. We were at Hillers, and the men felt
rather fed up on war and politics — which they well
may be considering that the rain is likely to ruin
the harvest, and the Russians still seem as enthusi-
astic as ever about taking prisoners, while the French
and English manage to cause considerable annoyance
— so, for these reasons, we carried on a conversation
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An Uncensored Diary 97
one might have translated into any language with
equal propriety. We decided that the Friedlanders,
who own all the coal mines in Germany, must ask us
all to the country in order that I may show them how
to ride on a board behind a motor-boat. Billy and I
don't know the FriedlSnders, but apparently they
won't notice that.
Horstmann then said he'd heard I needed clothes
and was going home unless I got some quickly, so he'd
made engagements with three of the largest dress-
makers in Berlin for me! I was supposed to have a
German lesson, but what was I to do? They all four
marched me down to Alfred Marie's and com-
manded the models to stand forth. I can say I never
expected, when I came to Germany a serious-minded
woman seeking information on the "woman ques-
tion," to go dress hunting with Von Jagow's secre-
tary, and two more men from the Foreign OflBce. I
had nothing to say about the clothes; Horstmann knew
a great deal more about it than I, so I came away
with a hat and a black-and-white dress chic enough to
ruin my reputation in Berlin.
I went to see Abraham's kitchens to-day. All the
women there thought the dear man was too good to
live much longer. He has twenty-nine mittlestanda-
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hicheriy which feed 36,000 people three plates twice a
day for sixty pfennigs, soldiers fifty pfennigs; forty-
four hinderkuchen which supply 24,000 children soup
once a day, usually for nothing, the State oaying
eighty-one pfennig; and he has thirty-five kinderhorts
in schools or in his kitchens, which take care of 3,000
children from three until six o'clock. The kinder-
horts and the kinderkiiche he had before the war, but
with far fewer children. Also he has one day nursery
for babies, and I should say that is a rather good job
for any gentleman. Abraham has no end of women
under him. They do all the actual work. He is the
head brains of the Kinder-Volkskuchen-Vereiny and
I think deserves immense credit for the work he does.
Some of the kitchens pay for themselves, and the rest
is given by charity. More kitchens are being opened
by him daily. They scorn the gidash cannoneriy which
the city runs in some districts, but I imagine it is
better to buy soup out of a pushcart than not to have
anything but a piece of beastly war-bread.
Jvly 12th.
Went to see Dr. Gertrude Baumer this morning.
She is, I suppose, better known than any other
woman in Germany except the Kaiserin, or the
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Crown Princess. I asked her every question it was
possible for me to think of, and she answered in
nervous, broken English. They do not know how
many new industries women have entered since the war
began, nor can they tell how many more women are
working now than before. The social insurance
statistics give an approximate idea, but naturally the
number changes from day to day as the field of their
work enlarges. There are great numbers in the
metal industries doing half-skiUed work, and also
women doing the skiUed work. They manage the
travelling cranes in iron and steel foimdries, a thing
no employer believed was possible. They do what is
called "electro-technical" work, and the employers
have discovered through this that unskilled labour
(if intelligent) may be trained to new work with great
rapidity. For instance, in the Atgemene-Eledrici"
tiits Gesellschaft there are 17,000 men and 17,000
women all doing the same work. Women work at
mining also, but only in the open mines. They are
not allowed underground. They dig the coal and also
load the cars. In the iron foimdries they do not
work directly at the blast furnaces, but near them.
Apparently, they are unable to stand the heat. As
yet, the women seem to have suffered no ill effects
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from their work in the iron industries, the mines, and
the munition factories, but undoubtedly they will
if permitted to work long at these trades. The em-
ployers find them intelligent, but far more nervous
than men. Noise and heat they are particularly
unable to stand, and of course the lifting of heavy
weights such as they must handle in the munition
factories is injurious. The employers declare they
wish to keep women in the industries which they have
entered, and it will be quite a fight to prevent their
going on working in many of them. There were a
number of industries in which women were forbidden
to work before the war, but since 1914 they have come
into many which no one had ever thought of putting
a ban upon, as it had occurred to no one that a woman
was ever likely to enter upon such a career. I must
confess I never expected to see a woman sitting in a
glass cage and managing an electric crane, which
swung buckets of molten metal, or red-hot blocks of
iron and steel through the air.
Now that all bans are oflf, and women may work a
twelve-hour day and overtime, and at night on an
eight-hour shift, and in industries where before they
were forbidden by law or custom, they are feeling very
emancipated, but after the war, those enlightened
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An Uncejw^f»^ .Vicar^ • •*. ', - • . : ' 101
beings, who try to care for the health of women, will
endeavour to get laws passed forbidding their working
at mining, or munition making, or in foimdries.
Night work will be forbidden, and the ten-hour day
reestablished. There is little hope of an eight-hour
day for women for a long while yet.
It is hard to compare women's wages to-day with
men's wages before the war, as many women are doing
work which no one ever did before. One cannot say
they get the same wages as men. When they step
into a man's job, they get his wages unless they work
fewer hours than he did. For piece-work, they are
paid at the same rate as the men were, but do less
work than the men did. At much of the work, the
women are new and make mistakes, so the employer
does not pay them so highly as he would a man. The
employers say that, although they are pleased with
the female labour, and wish to keep the women after
the war, their profits are not quite so high as with
male employees.
The machinery in the factories is not being changed
for the women; they work with the same tools as the
men. A few more safety devices are put in, but all
machinery was so excellently protected before the
war, little extra was necessary. If the machinery
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had been changed, there would be more likelihood of
women holding their jobs after the war.
Only from three to f om* per cent, of the women are
unionized. Those who are, are nearly all in the men's
trade unions. The only union which will not admit
them is the lithographic union. In the other unicms,
the men work to help the women along in the wage
question, the matter of hours, and so on. In this
way, they succeed better than when they try to have
their own unions.
Dr. BSumer is very anxious to get half-day work
for married women in factories after the war. They
could then continue to earn a small but much-needed
wage.
Employers are not allowed to discharge women for
child-bearing. They must give them two weeks' hoh-
day before the child's birth, and four weeks' after.
During this period, they get two thirds of their wages
from their sickness insurance. Also, they may get
their doctor and medicines free. At present, soldiers'
wives are getting 120 marks from the State for each
baby, and half a mark a day extra if they nurse the
child themselves. Dr. Baumer thinks it may be pos-
sible to keep this system after the war for all families
whose income is under 2,500 marks a year.
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As for suffrage, Doctor Baumer said that all the
Social Democrats and the Radical-Liberals are pro.
They do not have regular suffrage organizations here,
as in England and the United States, but they work
for it through other organizations, such as the Na-
tional Council of the Women of Germany, which has
600,000 members, and of which Doctor Baumer is the
head. The interest in suffrage is more a general polit-
ical interest than a professional interest or desire for
certain rights the women feel they do not have. They
are anxious for a more direct hand in the governing
of their coimtry. Women sit on the school boards all
over Germany. In Weimar they must sit on the
boards for the care of the poor; in other provinces,
they may sit on the Poor Law Board if they wish.
They are also on the conmaittees for hospitals, orphan-
ages, institutions for the protection and care of chil-
dren, the inspection of dwellings, theatres, libraries,
and markets. They even sit on the social insiu*ance
boards, though it is rather diflScult to elect them, as
the German ballot can usually manage to dodge an
unwelcome candidate. The last elections were very
favourable to the women, however.
A law has just been passed, admitting women as
teachers in the boys' schools. In the mixed schools
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they will have half women teachers, and half men; and
in the girls' schools, two thirds of the teachers will be
women. There are, with very few exceptions, no
married women schoolmistresses; the rule is that there
shall be none, but apparently this is one of the rare
cases where a German rule may be stretched. The
schools are under the jurisdiction of the different
states, while the factories and industries are under
the Empire. Thus, all the states may have different
school laws, but laws governing labour, with work-
men's compensation and insurance, are the same, and
there is a ten-hour day all over Germany for women,
instead of having eleven hours in Bavaria and eight
in Mecklenburg.
I asked if many girls were coming in from the coun-
try to the cities to work, and Doctor Baumer said
"yes." When I asked what they were trying to do to
prevent this, she said that a better school system in
the country would be the only thing. They are try-
ing to have compulsory continuation schools which
will keep the girls until the age of sixteen or eighteen,
and teach them farming and cattle raising, and I sup-
pose, cooking and sewing — ^for those evils are just as
necessary in the country as in the city.
When I wanted to know what they woidd do to
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encourage the birth rate, she repeated what she had
said about continuing the 120 mark pensions for the
mothers. They also propose to give a proportionately
larger salary to State officials with families. Since there
are more State officials than there is population — as far
as I can see — I should think this last might prove re-
munerative in oflfspring. Every one hoots at the idea
of polygamy, or soldiers getting leave, in order to go
home and beget a family. The best answer to the
leave question, they say, is the fact that many
soldiers get no leave at all. The day they are about
to start for home, an attack is made, and in the
trenches the men must stay. Evidently, the question
of what Germany is going to do to increase the birth
rate is a far more exciting matter for speculation else-
where than here.
I asked if the women had become less conventional
in their ideas about love and marriage since the war,
and Doctor BSumer declared they were far more un-
conventional. As I didn't have time to ask her more,
or rather thought the poor woman had suffered
enough from me, I left this topic in this vague state,
and came home.
Dined with the Von Kleists' — quite a large party.
I sat between M. Roland, the Spanish secretary, and
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Count Montjelas. The latter is exonerated from
the charge I made against him the other day. He
did not know there was a riot going on that night in
front of the Automobile Club. He said, when he saw
it in the papers, he knew I'd think he had lied, but he
wished me to know he knew no more than I that
night.
July 13th.
We went to the Kriegspresseamt to arrange about
going to Belgium. I was dressed for a limch party so
didn't look much like a serious-minded journalist, but
they will let me go with Billy. The first thing that the
Herr Major did was to hand me a shell made by the
Bethlehem Steel Co. I made a dreadful face, which
might have meant either: "Why didn't the wretched
thing explode," or: "What a wicked shame for
Americans to have made it."
"Don't blame me for that now," I said. "I come
from Bethlehem, but my father is only a harmless
college president and not in the Steel Company."
"Oh," cried Herr Griesel. "That grant imifersity
Lehigh ! I haf a cousin wot is married mit a professor
there. They haf sent me putiful bictures of Lehigh."
So I was saved their scorn.
We were introduced to an Excellenz Coates, who
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An Uncensored Diary 107
will guide us through Belgium. He seemed very
nice and had one blind eye, which I regretted for his
sake but thought might be useful to us, as they say
one is watched most vigilantly — ^not that I expect to
do anything very devilish, but I do hate to be imder
supervision.
Limched at the Lays'. They had a party for Prince
Christian of Hesse and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs.
Roger's mother and father. The Bliichers were to have
been there, but old Prince Bliicher chose this morning
to drop dead oflf his horse. He must have been a charm-
ing old man. Most of his life he spent trying to evade
his German taxes. He had an island off the coast of
England, on which he kept a great many kangaroos.
Perhaps he thought they added a touch of British
atmosphere to his estate. He wished to know if he
couldn't come to America and live there about a week,
in order to become an American citizen, as he foimd
his island didn't get him out of paying his German
taxes, but when told it would take even longer than a
week to become an American citizen, he gave up that
idea. He was much interested in America but said
he thought it must be dangerous to have so many
buffaloes around. And, when he heard of the lynch-
ings our peace-loving citizens occasionally like to in-
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dulge in, he suggested we let our wild Indians out to
subdue the lynchers. "That would soon put a stop
to such riots/' said the old gentleman.
July 17th.
We have seen, in a French and a German paper,
rumours of the purchase of the Danish West Indies
by the United States. I am very much interested to
know if Billy's account of transactions up to date got
home. He had it straight from . Billy
asked Ballin, when he saw him, if he had had any-
thing to do with stopping the sale before, as was be-
lieved by T. R. and Secretary Hay. Ballin said:
"No," and that his belief was, that the wife of Prince
Waldemar stopped it, being a loyal Danish woman
and not wishing her country to lose any more of its
territory.
July 17th.
Billy saw Rathenau, the most brilliant of Germany's
industrial kings. He talked so frankly that I hesitate
to write down his name. Billy first asked him when
he thought the war would end.
"At the earliest, in 1918," said Rathenau. "It
might just as well end now, for Germany is ready
now to make peace on the same terms that she will in
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1918, but I think the English will have to become far
more weary of the war than they are now before they
will be ready to talk sensibly."
Billy wanted to know what he believed the terms of
peace would be.
"In the end/' Rathenau answered, "I think peace
will be made on these terms: Germany will not keep
an inch of French or Belgian soil. Talk of our keep-
ing the Meuse forts and the crests of the .Vosges
Mountains is nonsense. We shall pay Belgium an
indemnity of say two billion marks. We shall not
call it an indemnity but we shall tie it up in the pur-
chase price which we shall pay for a strip of Belgian
Congo to connect our colonies in East and West Africa.
The purchase price will be very much more than the
land is worth. We shall not keep Kurland. The
present agitation for its retention is sentimental
idiocy. There are only 200,000 Germans there, the
rest of the population is Lithuanian and Esth.
"We shall not attempt to keep Poland, or to bring
her into the German ZoUverein. It will be better,
both for Austria and ourselves, if Poland remains
under Russian control, for the Poles are the most un-
reliable people in Europe and they will always work
against the power to which they are allied. If Russia
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keeps them, she will continue to have a difficult people
on her hands, and Poland will turn to Austria and our-
selves for support.
"The question of Serbia is harder. Bulgaria will
probably keep the part of Macedonia which she
wants, and Austria will take some Serbian territory.
Serbia will be compensated by the acquisition of
Montenegro and an outlet to the sea in Albania.
" One condition of the peace will have to be a return
to the status quo before the war in an economic way.
That is, the plans of the Paris Conference for an
economic war must be abandoned."
Billy suggested that it might be possible for the
United States, England, and Germany to make an
alliance on the basis that Germany must limit her
fleet and leave England the supremacy of the sea.
England must promise not to blockade Germany
again. The United States is to guarantee the keeping
of both agreements, in return getting the ratification
of the Monroe Doctrine by England and Germany.
The United States will guarantee the pledge of Eng-
land by agreeing to put an embargo on exports to Eng-
land if England breaks her promise. In the event of
aggression on the part of Germany, the United States
would come in on the side of England, or vice versa.
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"That is perfectly possible," said Rathenau.
" That is the peace Germany is ready to make to-day.
England probably will not be ready for it until 1918.
The great danger is that peace will be put oflF many
years longer, perhaps till 1920. This danger springs
from the even chance that Germany will recommence
the U-boat war. I consider that absolutely unneces-
sary. Moreover, it would make the war a horrible
thing. It is already the most absurd, mad thing that
has ever happened in the world. A recommence-
ment of this U-boat war would bring in Rumania, the
United States, Holland, Denmark, and Norway. It
would make us the most hated people on earth and
would prolong the war indefinitely.
"There is an even chance the Tirpitz party will
win out. The situation is this. FaJkenhayn said to
the Kaiser that he could crush the Russians, French,
and English. Now the Kaiser sees that the battles
on both fronts sweep first this way, then that way.
Falkenhayn explains: "I would do it if the fleet gave
me proper support."
"Tirpitz said his fleet was to crush England. It
has not, and his answer is that he is forbidden his
most eflPective weapon, the submarine.
" The people then ask : * Why must we go on having
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less to eat and sacrificing our children?' and the Con-
servatives answer them, that the Kaiser and Beth-
mann-HoUweg are too weak to use our greatest
weapon, the U-boat.
"With the opening of the Reichstag in the autumn,
the fight will begin again. I do not think the Con-
servatives will win then, but early in the spring, after
the people have suflfered another winter, I fear
that the submarine war party will be the stronger
and the submarine war start again in the spring of
1917. The Chancellor will then resign, and perhaps
Tirpitz, Falkenhayn, or Mackensen will take his
place.
"The Emperor is on the fence. He favours first
one party, then the other. The naval party will be
strong next spring. We are finishing from four to
five submarines a week, I know, as I make half the
engines. They will then think the blockade may be
made successful."
Billy asked if there was a chance of Austria coming
into a Zollverein. Rathenau said there was a
splendid chance, a short while ago, but the matter
was so bungled that they do not expect it now for
twenty years.
Rathenau organized German industry for war.
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The one thing the German General Staflf had neg-
lected to do was to prepare Germany against such
a blockade as the EngUsh are maintaining. Rathenau
came to Von Falkenhayn three days after war was
declared, with plans for an Industrial General
StaflF and for the conservation of raw materials.
Falkenhayn immediately put the whole matter
into Rathenau's hands.
Rathenau then demanded of the statistical bureau
that they find out what raw materials were in the
country. The bureau answered that it would take
six months. Rathenau replied that they must
furnish the information in half as many weeks.
They did! This accomplished, the order was issued
that manufacturers might use certain raw materials
only for the production of articles to be used by
the army. This obliged many manufacturers to
cease tiu-ning out what they were in the habit of
making, and to make quite a different thing. Thus
the largest piano factory in Germany inmiediately
took to making shells, and countless other fac-
tories were foried to institute quite as radical a
change.
The last thing he said was, that Prince Billow had
no chance of again becoming Prime Minister.
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July 18th.
The rains continue. In some sections of the
country the peasants are paddling around their po-
tato fields in boats» trying to save a portion of their
crops. Our maid said yesterday, in tones of utter
despair, that if the war went on much longer, there
would be no men left, and if the rain continued, there
would be no food left. Her brother, who is a farmer,
said one more week of rain and things would be very
bad.
Yesterday, when I was coming home, my tram was
halted by a marching regiment. The band at its
head was playing, each soldier wore a bimch of
flowers in his belt, and by this token one knew they
were bound for the front. Mixed in the ranks, and
walking by the soldiers' sides, were many others.
Young girls marching to the station with their
brothers, sweethearts, or husbands; old men and
women trudging by their sons imtil the last moment;
little children holding their fathers' free hands, and
wishing they might be big enough to carry the gun on
his other shoulder. Four of the women in my tram
began to sob. The men going out were not their men,
or the women would have been there in the crowd
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walking with them, but each of the women wore
black. The men were not even of my people, but the
hideous, tragic foolishness of the thing this swinging
column symbolized, and the sorrow of the weeping
women near me, brought the hot tears smarting to
my eyes.
Mrs. Gerard told me yesterday, when I was there
at tea, that one woman whom she knew had lost her
five sons, and then, poor soul, died of a broken heart.
1 1 seems to me the German people are about ready to
.'^ top the war.
Lunched at Hillers with Herr Horstmann, the
1 >uchesse d'Aremberg, and Count Pejacsevich. I be-
lieve the d'Arembergs date their family from before
Adam, some time. The Duchesse d' Aremberg was nSe
] rincess de Ligne and one would suppose, from the
^ cmbination, she would be rather anti-German in her
sentiments. The Due d'Aremberg, when the war
l>roke out, held a commission in the German army,
as his family is so international. Much to the dis-
gust of the Belgians, who consider him a prince of
their soil, d'Aremberg kept his commission, and
marched with the invading army into his own country.
£ven the Germans thought he would ask for a post on
the General StaflF and, in this way, have an excuse not
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actually to go to war. The Palais d'Aremberg, in
Brussels, is now housing 200 wounded soldiers, whom
the Duchesse told me to go and see. The Duke
does not dare to show himself in Belgium, while the
Duchesse only attempted to go back to her palace
after a year and a half. All their superb art treasures
they have taken from Brussels to their castle in
Westphalia, so I shall, unfortunately, not see them.
My lady herself is now d'un certain dgcy with dyed
yellow hair and painted eyelashes. Her pearls are
beautiful, her rings extraordinary, and she wore a
light blue silk hat with velvet streamers. I arrived
at the restaurant first. Then the men cried: "Here
comes the Duchess ! " and this vision appeared. Her
voice, like that of all French women, was a delight,
but she has not the fascination of some of her coun-
trywomen.
She gave me the address of some dressmakers, and
a place where one may buy very delirious lingerie.
The sample she showed me was a piece of Brussels
point lace with a square of linen in the middle about a
square inch in size. She called it a handkerchief and
advised my buying some. I said the ones I used
usually cost 12^ cents and had my name written on
them in ink— so she hates me.
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n
BELGIUM
Brussels^ July 21st
Leaving Berlin on a night train is a hopeless nui-
sance in war time. There are almost no cabs» so one
must order one hours ahead and, if it comes, as ours
did, one must go and sit an eternity in the railroad
station. There we met Exeellenz Coates waiting, as
he was destined to do for the next week, for the Bui-
litts to arrive. On Billy's attempting to tip the
porter, Exeellenz interrupted: "Excuse me," said he.
"You are now the guests of the German Govern-
ment," and the porter received a portion of his own
good tax money back from the hands of its collector.
I must say oiu: surprise was great; we had not ex-
pected this. When one travels as the guest of the
government, things are luxurious and easy. One goes
first class and one is treated with marked respect, par-
ticularly if one has an Exeellenz in uniform along;
soldiers, who are everywhere, form into stiflf lines of
salute, and smile instead of scowl. I shall never cease
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to be amused at the way in which a man is trans-
formed upon the approach of an oflBcer into a rigid,
staring object, ferocious of eye and terrifying of as-
pect. I do not remember having seen American
soldiers salute, but I am sure they are temperment-
ally incapable of any such performance as the Ger-
man soldier automatically undertakes on the average
of thirty times a minute.
After a night's journey, we got to Cologne. The
station was swarming with men infeldgrau. Most of
the imiforms were dirty and worn, and the men's
boots were muddy up to their knees. They were eat-
ing at tables on the platforms, or squatting on the floor
by their kit; companies were getting into trains, or
standing about the waiting rooms. They looked
healthy and sunburned. Where they had come from,
and where they were going, one did not know, for the
German army moves secretly and ceaselessly.
We saw the cathedral during oiu: hour's wait.
Soldiers were here, too, on their knees before some
favourite saint, or stalking about with heads in the air
looking at the great columns springing toward the
roof. A severe gentleman in a red robe told us to
sit down, and it delighted my soul to walk about with
Coates and not do it. I have become so cowed diuring
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my six weeks in Berlin that, if a German ragamuffin
ordered me to move on, I should undoubtedly do it
immediately.
Shortly after leaving Cologne, we got into Belgian
territory. From the border to close upon Louvain
one could not tell from the train that Belgium had
ever been invaded, were it not for the German sen-
tries by the railroad track, and the soldiers in the rail-
road stations. The coimtry is covered with grain
fields and vegetable gardens, all under strenuous cul-
tivation. Many cattle are grazing and the villages
look quite as in normal times. On approaching
Louvain, one begins to see destroyed villages, burned
chateaux, and half -demolished factories. Brussels it-
self, which we reached at three in the afternoon, is not
touched, as it was surrendered peacefully. Soldiers
of the moth-eaten Landstium class spread themselves
pretty successfully over the city, beginning with the
entrance to the railroad station. Before one enters a
train, a soldier examines one's passport, and then an-
other takes the tickets. Before one leaves the sta-
tion, passports must be shown again. There is an
exit from the stations for **Militar personertf^' which
we may go through when with Coates. I had be-
come so courageous by the time we reached Brussels,
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that I suggested our choosing the exit marked : '^ Kein
Ausgang,** as the fever to break rules was strong upon
me, having been six weeks in Germany. This could
not be managed, however.
At the Hotel Astoria we were given a bedroom,
sitting-room, and bath, accompanied by a Belgian
valet, who showed signs of joy when he learned we
were Americans. He confided to me that his little
girl had been lost since the beginning of the war, and
that he had spent all the money which he had saved up
for his old age in travelling around trying to find her.
"And after the war," he continued, sadly, "I
shall have no money left to go to France and hunt
for her there."
The Belgians are now perfectly well behaved under
German rule. Any sign of disrespect is fined heavily.
Belgian policemen salute German oflScers, Belgian
storekeepers and restaurants have Grermans as
constant customers, but all social communication is
entirely cut off; the line is drawn here absolutely
and finally.
Americans are very popular. One has only to
say, on entering a shop, that one comes from the
U. S. A., and smiles greet one from behind counters
like a sunrise, K we are with a German officer.
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their attitude is quite different, poKte, unsmiling,
and cold, although the German oflScers treat them
with perfect courtesy. Billy went into a little shop
to buy chocolate the day we arrived. The Major
and I stayed outside and looked in the window.
The proprietress scowled, and handed over a cake
of suchard. Suddenly her face was transformed.
Billy had told her he was an American.
"OA, les AmSricains /" she cried, "we are so grate-
ful for everything that you have done for us!"
We went the afternoon of our arrival in Brussels to
the press oflSce, where we met Count Harrach and
Baron Falkenhousen. Harrach is in charge of the
press in Belgium. He is a man of the type it would
be weU to have many of in any country. We both
like him immensely. By vocation, he is a sculptor,
but he seems to have switched from marble busts to
newspaper editing and press censoring with little
trouble.
We dined at the Epatde de Mouton: Coates,
Harrach, Billy, and I. Harrach told us of the
entrance of the German army into Malines.
"I came in ahead in a military automobile," he
said. "The town was deserted, and silent. Every
citizen had fled. It was like some city in a fairy
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tale. Shops open, wares displayed, homes looking
quite normal, but not a soul anywhere. The silence
was startling in its intensity. I drove straight to the
church, where I knew there were two Rubens pic-
tures. These I wished to take to some safe place,
but they were gone; the Belgians had taken them out
of their frames and hidden them or taken them with
them in the flight.
"In a bookshop I entered was a row of red morocco
volumes, which I wished very much to take as
souvenirs, but I did not, as I thought the example
would be bad for my troops, who were forbidden to
take a thing under the threat of a heavy pimishment.
"Malines was between the Belgian and German
firing lines, so few shells fell on the town. We could
hear them go whistling overhead with a long, sharp
scream; shrapnel alone burst in white pu£Ps above our
heads and fell like hailstones in the streets. By
keeping close to the walls, one was out of danger.
But what I shall always carry vividly in mind was
the fact that my chauffeur and I were the only souls
in the large town of Malines until my troops came
in a short while after."
Since Harrach described the city, we have been there
ourselves. Now the people have come back and life
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seems quite normal. There is very little destruction.
An odd shell fell here and there and blew up the
house in that spot. Across the Place from the
cathedral, most of the destruction took place. Here,
half a block is knocked to pieces. The windows of
the cathedral are nearly all shattered as a result of
the vibration. Some few shells came through the
roof, or the walls, and the holes have since been filled
up with brickwork. The main part of the building
is not greatly damaged. It looks, however, a good
deal pounded up, and artificially antiquated.
We wished very much to see Cardinal Mercier,
Archbishop of Malines, but were not allowed by the
Major. Naturally, it would be rather contrary to
German interests to have one of the most famous
of Belgian patriots give us a few of his views on
German occupation, so we understood perfectly
their not wishing us to talk to him. The Germans
told us quite frankly that they had not brought us
here to talk to Belgians.
We dined, the evening of oiu* trip to Malines, with
Harrach, Falkenhousen, Doctor Rieth, Count and
Countess Mengerson, Baron von Lancken, and
several other men in the house now occupied by these
men of the "press."
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We were given a most excellent dinner and
enjoyed ourselves immensely. The food in Belgium
is still good and apparently plentiful. It seems like
a land of luxury and ease compared with Germany.
I asked Count Mengerson to whom the house be-
longed, and he told me to a Belgian who detested
the Germans immeasurably.
"We have made an inventory," said Von Lancken,
"of everything in the house and shall replace any-
thing which we break."
The next day a government motor called for us
to take us on a tour of Brussels, under the guidance
of the agreeable young man named Rieth, who had
been at dinner the night before.
First, taking up what the Germaiis are doing
for Belgium in the way of relieving the industrial
situation, they showed us the SpUzen Centrale,
or the central biu-eau for lace. The lace industry,
in which fifty thousand Belgian women had been
employed, was almost completely paralyzed by the
outbreak of the war, all exports being stopped.
Governor von Bissing is sincerely anxious that the
Belgians be enabled to gain a livelihood and so, under
the encouragement of the government, 10,000
women have again taken up the work. At first, they
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were so suspicious they would not be employed by the
Germans, nor would they trust them to sell their lace.
Their wages now amount to two marks fifty a day,
slightly more than they earned at lace making before
the war. There is also a blouse shop, which the
Germans conduct. The work from the lace Cen-
trale and from the blouse workshops is sold
almost exclusively to Germans, as it is run by
Germans.
Then there are several cigar factories conducted
by the government, and a large sack factory. This
factory is a special pet of Von Hissing's. In the sack
factory, 400 women are employed. They make mail
sacks, and sand bags for the German army, 400,000 in
all every day. Social insurance is carried on accord-
ing to the German plans, and a day nursery is near by
for the children of the workers — ^admirably run, as are
all such German institutions. As we were watching
the babies being fed by the nurses in charge, one of
our officer guides said:
*^Yes, these are the German barbarians who eat
little children."
They refer very often, in a laughing way, to the
reputation they have abroad, and in America.
They laugh, but still I think it rankles a little.
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The cigar factories are three in number, the prod-
ucts also going to the German army.
The Germans continue their benevolences in the
shape of an industrial exhibition. A Frau von Huen,
who had come from Germany to help run the thing,
said to us, with amazing frankness:
"Yes; you know the Belgians were underbidding
us in the markets of the world because they produce
so cheaply. Their wages are low, and they spend far
less than we in protective measures for the employees.
Also their social insurance expenses are far below ours,
as they only have accident insurance. We hope, by
showing the Belgians the safety devices we use on
machines, our model villages for employees in big
factories, by explaining our system of insurance,
with our many sanatoria and hospitals, that the
Belgians will also demand them, and so raise the
price of production in their country."
The German Red Cross does not do very extensive
work in Belgium for the Belgians. It does help
some in giving employment to women, sock knitting,
and the making of some other simple things for the
German army, and also the encouragement of the
lace industry. One notices that, with the exception
of the lace making, the other products of Belgian
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labour, paid by Germany, go to the German army.
There are, however, no Belgians making mimitions,
or cannon, or firearms, for their conquerors.
Most of the industry in the country is paralyzed
and there are thousands out of work.
July 24th.
To describe thoroughly the relief work which the
Belgians are doing for themselves, through the
National Committee and through the American Com-
mittee for Relief in Belgium (the C. R. B.) would take
a month; one would have to write a book on the sub-
ject and repeat what has been told many times of the
splendid and thorough work of ravitaiUement done
through our American organization. The C.R.B.
takes care of the food question in such a way that
literally everyone in Belgium may eat, if not all he
wants, at least enough to keep him from starving.
That is their great work. The importation of food
and its fate hang continually in the balance. England,
in spite of all proofs and pledges to the contrary,
is ever in an uneasy state of suspicion for fear some
of the food may go to Germany or the German army.
General von Bissing has pledged himself to see that
the army of occupation is fed from his own country.
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and also that no food imported by the C. R. B, goes
over the border. This order is carried out in the
incomparable manner of all German orders. Still
the English continue to watch the operations of the
C. R. B. and send in complaints with a regularity
that bores the Committee not a little.
With the Germans, they also have their troubles.
The C. R. B. wished cattle for northern France,
which is devoid of all animal food. The cattle
were bought and paid for in Holland. As they were
about to come over the border, the German Govern-
ment forbade it, saying: "Any extra cattle Holland
has to sell come to us.'*
Most of the food the C. R. B. imports is sold, the
profit going to more relief work. Their cry for
funds is continual. I was amazed at the small
proportion of money which has been giVen by
Americans. The Belgians themselves give the most,
the English give a considerable amount, and from
France each month a mysterious check comes for
4,000,000 francs. There are only forty-five Ameri-
cans working in Belgium for the C. R. B., and 25,000
Belgians on the National Committee.
Mr, Hoover, the head of the C, R. B., is considered
by Belgium, and by the Committee, the greatest
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American alive to-day, and they fully expect him to
go home and move to the White House when the
war is over. The Germans also think him a man
worthy of the highest praise, and cannot believe that
he did not hold some distinguished post in his own
country before coming to the aid of another country
which, but for his genius for organization, his tact,
and his perseverance, would have starved and been
without clothes.
The C. R. B. is in close cooperation with the Bel-
gian National Committee. Everything the C. R. B.
doesn't do, which is quite considerable, the National
Committee attends to — ^pensions for all those out of
work; soup kitchens, where a great bowl of noiuishing
soup is sold for almost nothing; the care of women
for three months before a baby is bom, and nine
months after; and food stations for debilitated
children from the ages of a week to seventeen years.
The children are examined once a week by a doctor
and the proper food prescribed for them. The food
they get free. In Brussels, 22,000 children eat daily
in the "Petites Abeilles," as they are called. As a
result of the care given babies, infant mortality has
fallen to 9.4 per 1,000 — lower than it has ever been.
(As Billy remarked, a Belgian baby has a better
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chance of living than a child bom in Philadelphia.)
But the birth rate is everywhere lower than the death
rate.
There is an increase in the number of tubercular
children, and children with rickets, in spite of the
work of the ComitS de Secours. Fat is the scarcest
article of food and tells immediately upon the health
of the children. Helping to clothe the people is an-
other branch of the ComiiS de Secours.
July 25th.
Went to Antwerp. We were met by an officer and
a military motor, both of which were at our disposal
for the day. The machine had tires and was not one
of the consumptive kind to which civilians are con-
demned in Germany, neither did it have one of those
insulting whistles that made the car, in which we
drove around Brussels, a nightmare to those who
ventured in its speed-limitless path.
Antwerp is practically intact. One bomb, dropped
from a Zeppelin, blew up fifty houses. It was in-
tended for the Government building, and struck only
across a rather narrow street. The Zeppelin aim is
rather better than one would wish for comfort. Per-
haps a himdred more houses were destroyed at this
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visit. The fighting went on around the forts, some
miles from the city. The great weakness of all Bel-
gian fortifications lay in their nearness to the cities
they protected. Forts to-day must be ten miles from
the town, and the Belgian forts were six miles or
closer — some right on the cities themselves.
In Antwerp, one splinter of a shell came through
the cathedral window and struck the centre of the
frame where Rubens' "Descent from the Cross" had
hung. By good fortune, the Belgians had taken the
picture away at the beginning of the siege.
As for the city itself, it is marvellously quiet. The
erstwhile busiest docks in Europe lie as still as the castle
of Sleeping Beauty. The store-sheds are empty , except
for a few which coatain lumber owned by neutrals;
the huge granaries are locked and deserted; the ships
lie at anchor and grow crops of barnacles on their bot-
toms. On one pier are 800 dead motor cars, smashed
by the people of Antwerp before the city surrendered.
Grass has grown up in the dockyards and between the
cobblestones on the roads about the wharves. Even
the German guards stood stiff as corpses, in rigid
salute, as we passed. The canal boats of the Ameri-
can Relief happened that day to be lying as stagnant
as the rest. In totOy the effect was not enlivening.
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This paralysis of commerce in Antwerp means great
financial loss to Germany, as well as to Belgium.
Most of the great fortunes of Antwerp are indeed
Grerman. It is ridiculous for the Belgians to speak of
refusing to let Grermany ship through Antwerp after
the war, as the city lives on German shipping.
July Slst.
Louvain we saw from a joggly dog-cart, in com-
pany with the ever-present Coates and General
Lbwenfeld, ex-Military Governor of Berlin and aide-
de-camp to the Kaiser. Coates, owing to our frenzied
expeditions about Belgium, had added fifteen years to
his sixty-two in the last few days. The unfortunate
man had orders to accompany us everywhere, and the
piu^uit of his duty nearly killed him. I felt exactly
as if I were back in Paris at school, and Billy chafed at
the surveillance, but we were both amused.
Louvain is decidedly pounded up, but it is not hor-
rible. Two years have made a difference in the dis-
orderly work of the German cannon and incendiary
department of their army. Only one fifth of the
city was destroyed, but that fifth happened to con-
tain most of the University, and the residential sec-
tion where lived Louvain's best. The City Hall, of
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extreme Gothic omateness, stands untouched amid
the ruins of the Library and surrounding buildings.
The Cathedral lacks tower, the famous chimes, and
much of the masonry, as well as interior decoration;
rubbish lies in heaps on the stone floor, which is itself
upheaved in spots. The old sexton, who showed us
around, shook his white head mournfully.
Young Doctor Rieth told us he knew the officer
well who directed the destruction of Louvain.
"He told me," said Rieth, "that he had no idea
there was a library in the town; that if he had known,
he would not have dreamed of burning it — ^he would
have saved it as he saved the City Hall by blowing up
the surrounding houses. The citizens did not speak
to my friend about the Library until the building was
too far gone to save."
I can imagine that the citizens of Louvain were,
through horror and terror, in no condition to remind
the German officer that he was destroying one of
Europe's choicest possessions.
The German point of view on the destruction of
Bdgian property is: "If they had not resisted our
men, we should have harmed nothing."
I repeatedly said that I thought it the most natural
thing in the world for civilians to shoot at them out of
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every window in the town, and asked them if they
would not, as loyal Germans, have done quite the
same if another nation had held a dress-parade in
feldgrau, with loaded cannon and machine gims in
their country.
All the deliberate damage, or frightfulness, in Bel-
gium was done in three days, and the dates were
August S4, 25, and S6. The German explanation is
this: They could not have the repetition of civilian
warfare which they met in France in 1870. That had
been much too inconvenient to the German army.
They decided, if resistance was made by the civil
population in the shape of franc-tireurs^ that the
punishment would be swift and sure. It was. Von
Bissing told Billy that the destruction of Louvain
^was really a very good thing for Brussels, as it taught
the residents what would happen there if they started
to annoy the German army! Not a stone in the dty
was touched, but one woman, of whom the world knows
well, was. We have not mentioned Miss CaveU.
During our drive about Louvain we passed the
building which held the stores of the C. R. B. The
Stars and Stripes flew from the top window. I saw
the flag and lifted Billy's hat from his head, as he was
occupied watching something in another direction.
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"There is our flag," I said pointedly to the General,
with Billy's hat in my hand. Whereupon, the
Kaiser's aide-de-camp, and Excellenz Coates, and the
officer who was showing us about, saluted like gentle-
men.
We bumped out over the cobblestones to one of the
Aremberg castles. The deacr Duchess seems to pos-
sess an unUmited number. The place was almost as
romanticasWarwick,butallfumitiu'ewasgone. There
were endless little staircases and rooms. Billy rushed
about looking for a secret door or passage. Every-
thing was named; I was particularly taken with the
Corridor des Chats.
Namur and Li6ge, which I had pictured as razed to
the ground, are intact, except for a few houses. At
Namur, the forts have been rebuilt, and the bridges,
which the Belgians themselves blew up, are recon-
structed.
At Namur the big hotel on the hill above the old
French fort is now nothing but a shell. The Belgians
directed their fire from it, and in five minutes the
German guns knocked it down like a child's house of
blocks. One can see from this height the battle-
field on the opposite hill, where the Germans charged.
We motored over there and found, in the middle of
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ripe grain fields, a ruined chftteau, the remains of a
church, and the few farmhouses about. There are
graves under the trees with small wooden crosses
above them, and flowers planted. The trees in the
wood about the chftteau which had been splintered by
cannon fire, had been cut down and taken away.
Two springs since the fighting took place had healed
the other trees. The holes in the ground were filled
up and covered with grain. It was hard to believe so
many men had fought and died here about the church
and chateau, and in the treeless meadows.
While this fight was going on, the bulk of the Ger-
man troops were marching into Namur, peacefully
and unopposed, by the road along the Meuse, high
gray cliffs shooting up from their right hand, and the
river running on their left. Only a few kilometres
over the hills, the unwitting Belgians struggled to
protect their city. They shot down a beautiful old
ch&teau of the Arembergs, in order better to direct
their fire, and fought all through the woods back from
her place up to the open field of which I spoke.
Barbed-wire entanglements still remain as witness
of the fighting in the forest.
We managed to see much of the country about
Namur that day, as the soldier who drove our gray
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government motor had learnt fearlessness in the
trenches, as well as a certain recklessness 'and disre-
gard of life that kept my heart in my mouth. We
were followed by three more motors, filled with
fat Swedish and Danish Socialists. If our car
slowed up, we could see the others beating up the
white dust on the limestone road behind us. Our
chauffeur would as soon have been captiu'ed by the
Russians as let them come up with us. Excellenz
shook his head to think that the Grerman Govern-
ment now allowed socialists, and foreigners at that,
to go touring through the country.
' At Li6ge we again went bounding about in an
automobile. Fort Loncin was the most interesting
thing to see there, as the city is scarcely touched.
The Germans attacked the fort from the middle of
the city, firing Austrian 30.6-cm. guns from a cen-
tral square. This news was rather a blow to us who
had been told of the platforms of concrete for the
guns, secretly built by the Germans before the war
miles outside of the city. Fort Loncin was not pre-
pared for an attack from the rear in this way. Their
cannon could do everything but shoot backward.
In the middle of the night, on August 14th, after
seven days' siege, the fort blew up, and when this
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volcanic explosion had quieted down to the last roll-
ing pebble, there was silence. One of the shells
had penetrated the 12-foot concrete covering of the
fort and burrowed into the powder magazine. All
those in and about the fort who had not been blown
into flying drops of blood by the explosion, were stun-
ned and senseless. Greneral Leman was picked up un-
conscious three hours later by the Germans. The
queer part is that the thing is scarcely more terrible
than an Egyptian ruin is terrible with its gigantic fal-
len monoliths. A great cannon lies turned upon its
back where it was thrown from the middle of the fort.
It does not look uncomfortable. The wide gap made by
the explosion is beginning to be covered with grass.
One knows that four hundred Belgian soldiers still lie
buried beneath the concrete boulders, but somehow the
grass and the wild red poppies conceal from the imagi-
nation the horrors the inventions of man brought in
those seven days of siege. Down one hole is a moulder-
ing skeleton, scarcely visible in the dark and rust.
In the country, one motors for miles and sees noth-
ing out of the common. Then, suddenly, there is a
village with the inside of every house scooped out.
The village two miles away is intact, then come scat-
tered ruins and odd graves by the roadside.
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As for Brussels itself, it seemed to us, who had been
in Berlin for six weeks, a gay and cheerful place. That
we saw no Belgians certainly did not detract from the
impression, though I think they are, in spite of all, a
gayer people than the Germans. In the park on
Sunday, boys and girls were playing football and
other games and shrieking with delight as they
capered about. The children romped unsubdued on
the grass, while dogs rushed up and down, barking
with an abandon no German dog would have under-
stood. Billy, Count Harrach, and I were out to-
gether for an afternoon in the woods. We stopped
and laughed, thinking, as we watched the Bel-
gians play, of how we in America had pictured them,
starving and dejected.
But this spirit of fun does not conceal the bitterness
the Belgians feel toward the war and the Germans.
The knowledge that they are a conquered people
makes them bitter, but never kills their hope. Their
confidence that the English will soon be back to rescue
them never dies. The waiters, the store people, the
barber who washed my hair, all said: "In three
months!" (They have said "three months" since
the war began.) They think the English are gods
and tell you stories of their bravery. A Belgian
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friend of Philip Flatt said that <me day he watdied
from his window a single Englishman hidden behind
bushes. The man had a pile of ammmiition and a
machine gun. He shot and shot and shot, and the
Gennans could not find him. When all his am-
munition was gone, he sat on a stump and lit his
briar pipe, smoked a while, and then crawled back
and jumped into the river.
Another Belgian watched a handful of Englishmen
behind a barricade of sand bags keep at bay a far
superior number of Germans for twelve hours. When
all their shells were fired, instead of surrendering,
they started a cricket game and, in this way, played
until all were down.
Upon Billy's appealing to Count Harrach, we were
allowed to go to tea with the Whitlocks. Diplomatic
life in Belgium to-day is one of the experiences it is
no harm to omit. If the American Diplomats at-
tempt to be tactful with Belgians about the Germans,
and say that they really are a nice lot after all, Bel-
gian doors close and hats are not lifted in the street.
Yet if they refused to see Germans or avoided them
they would shortly be requested to leave on the
grounds of being anti-German. Tact and diplomacy
have a hard life in Belgium now.
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Mrs. Kellogg was refused admittance to the
Petites Abeilles, as they said she had been there the
day before with Germans. As it happened, I was
the culprit, so things were smoothed over.
We also were allowed to lunch with the Kelloggs,
unattended. They are delightful people, heart and
soul in the C. R. B. Mr. Kellogg was much agitated
over the eflFect the 1,000,000 marks fine would have
upon American contributions.
"Every time the Belgians disobey rules and get
fined," he said, "Americans stop sending money.'*
Philip iPlatt, who was also at lunch, had, as his
chief worry that day, the knowledge that the three
young Princesses de Ligne, who are ardently working
for their country, were feeding the children in the
Petites Abeilles so fast that they nearly choked them.
The question which bothered him sorely was, who to
get to tell the three noble ladies that their attentions
would be more appreciated if they were less violent.
Berlin, August 2d.
Our last night in Brussels we dined with General
von Bisinng. The dinner, for some peculiar reason,
was given for us.
At 7:30, the gray motor, painted in three places
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with the German coat-of-anns a foot square, called
for us.
Half an hour's run and we came to the park of the
ch&teau of Trois Fontaines; a well-laid-out drive
through big trees soon brought us to the square
white chateau, with its broad stone steps leading up
from either side of the terrace to the door. The
hall was filled with officers. One very glorious look-
ing person took me in charge and introduced each
man to me. They clicked their booted heels together
and kissed my hand. This audience over, the
Governor appeared. He is seventy-two and looks
sixty. His face is stem yet not unkind. On finding
I spoke no German, he changed to careful, cor-
rect French, beginning with the not too original
question:
"How do you like Belgium?"
I said I thought it was getting along very much
better than I had had any idea of. He laughed and
oflFered me his arm to go into dinner. Billy followed
with Countess Mengerson.
Through the hall and front drawing room we
marched into the white-panelled dining room, the
parade of officers following. The servants behind
our chairs were soldiers in feldgrau. I felt as if
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one of them should stand in a comer and blow on a
bugle the order to commence eating.
I had had instructions from every oflScer in Brus-
sels to talk to the General about his sack factory and
the industrial exhibit, and the Hospital of Saint-
Giles, so I dived in without waiting to taste my soup.
As a matter of fact, it was no eflfort to tell the Gover-
nor that they had all interested me hugely, for it
was quite true. I highly approve of his giving the
people work and no one could but admire the
hospital.
"I have a great deal of sympathy for these people,
who after all were not responsible for starting the
war," said he.
"Are you going to let the cattle go to northern
France?'' I asked.
"No," said he.
"Are you the man from whom the order comes?"
"Yes, but I refused this afternoon to let the cattle
go out of Belgium."
"Why?" I a^ked.
"They don't need them in France; they have
enough to eat."
"But they have no animal food at all," I said.
"No eggs, nor milk, nor meat." Mr. Kellogg had
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said so and he knows what northern France has to
eat as well as he knows this alphabet.
"No, I cannot," said the General.
I said no more as I was afraid I might get the
C. R. B. into trouble . through meddling in their
a£Pairs. I suppose Von Bissing was afraid to let
even the 300 cows asked for go out, as a precedent
once started might be hard to stop. The French
are living on starvation rations now, or the minimum
amount possible. Most of the grain crop in northern
France will go to the Germans, as they have fer-
tilized the ground, planted and gathered the crop
themselves. They allow 100 gr. a day to each French
person.
I said I was greatly interested to hear that he,
Von Bissing, had made plans for feeding the Belgians
from their own soil if the C. R. B. had to leave and if
no other neutral country could carry on the work.
England probably wouldn't trust the Dutch, and the
Spaniards wouldn't have the business ability.
"Yes," said Von Bissing^ "I am convinced it
could be done. The people might not have enough
to eat but they would not starve."
Perhaps this might be possible if the harvest were
good, but the weather is a tricky friend.
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Count Harrach sat on my other side. Much to
my disgust, I had had to give my diary up to be
censored in the afternoon. I asked Harrach if he
had seen it.
"Yes," said he, severely. "And you have said
a numb^ of things about us which are not very
pleasant." My heart sank — what had I said?
"I never meant to say anything nasty," I said
humbly, "you have all been tremendously nice to
us and we really do appreciate it. I said wonderful
things about you, anyway, did you read that part?"
"No," he said crossly.
"I said you were one of the nicest men I'd ever
met."
"That makes no diflference. You wrote of Belgian
atrocities by our soldiers. You said that the German
officers stood on the piano of a Belgian minister with
their shoes."
"I would have said the same of my brothers if they
had done it," I insisted, still worried.
"Your brothers are not German officers. This is
not what we gave you permission to come into
Belgium for."
I said I would scratch out that part about the
piano.
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We argued for ages and I complained to Von Biss-
ing and asked if I wasn't right, until finally I gathered
that I was bemg unmercifully teased.
"In any case," Harrach finished, scathingly, "I
will not forgive you because you are a suflFragette!**
I asked Von Bissing if he approved of suffrage, and
he said: "Never! It is something terrible for
women/'
"Madame thinks the German women do nothing
but hunt their husbands' slippers and wait on them,"
Harrach explained, and he insisted that the only
reason American women were for suffrage was be-
cause they never had more than two children so had
too much time on their hands. I said my mother
had six children, but I did not add that she took not
the slightest interest in the vote.
After dinner we moved to one of the drawing
rooms. The windows looked out on a stretch of
lawn flanked on either side by high trees. At the
end of the lawn was a pond, and beyond that were
meadows and woods. On the right and left sides of
the house were gardens and terraces.
Billy talked with Von Bissing the rest of the
evening and I sat on a long lounge with Harrach, Von
Lanken, Count Mengerson and Doctor Bieth.
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"Thank heaven there are no princesses here/' said
I, "I can sit on the sofa. I don't see what right prin-
cesses have to a monopoly on comfortable furniture/'
Von Bissing had the most wonderful cigarettes.
Harrach said they came from the Kaiser. I wish I
were a friend of the Kaiser. The German substitute
for tobacco is vile.
At ten the motors were announced and we all said
good-night. With clicking heels the officers bowed
us out, the handsome aide-de-camp-en-chef po-
litely seeing us into the car; we rolled out of the park
past the lodge and the big iron gates, while the
Governor's guard, in cream-coloured uniform, stood
at salute.
"Did you have a good time?" asked Billy.
"Yes," said I, and with true regard for the impor-
tant things in life, I added: "But I had on the most
dreadful dress I own."
Harrach came back to the hotel with us and we
talked till quite late.
The Lusilania was mentioned — dangerous topic!
"It was with joy we heard of its sinking," said
Harrach, most humane of men.
"It was with horror we heard of it," said Billy.
"It was armed," said Harrach.
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"It was not," said Billy.
"Help!" thought I.
Then they both looked at each other, burst out
laughing^ and agreed to change the subject.
The point of view of the Germans in Belgium is dif-
ferent from that of the Grermans at home. In Ger-
many, the opinion of statesmen and business men
seems strongly against annexation or retaining any
hold on Belgium. The contrast of the dvil, as
against the military opinion, shows when one talks
to those now in charge in Belgium. The govern-
ment in Belgium is, of course, strictly military, from
stem old General Von Bissing down. Most of these
men fought through the country they are now ruling
and they feel diflFerently about letting it slip away.
The mildest say: "Well, in any case, it will not be as
before the war." Others want a free Belgium, "but
with some sort of supervision, you know. If she is
given absolute freedom, she would only become
England's pawn again.'* More want an indemnity,
instead of paying one themselves, as they talk of in
Berlin. The point is, they do not want to lose their
hold on the country. Some would charge Belgium
a heavier toll than she is paying now. The
$8^000,000 a month covers only half the cost of
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governing and maintaining an army in Belgium.
The man in charge of Toumai said that lO^OOO^OOO
marks of German money came into Belgium over and
above the 40,000,000 marks which were paid to Ger-
many each month.
"No other country in the world would allow that,"
said he.
"We have destroyed about $400,000,000 worth of
Belgian property,'* they say; but they do not
count the losses to Belgium through the two years'
paralysis of her industries, and the closing of her
port.
What Billy said in his article, in regard to the
Germaii attitude toward the occupation and invasion
of Belgium, as contrasted with outside opinion, I
quote:
"The Germans consider their invasion of Belgium
an ordinary act of war, and ask that their administra-
tion of Belgium should be considered as an adminis-
tration of a conquered country — ^like the administra-
tion of Serbia. The Belgians and their friends
consider the invasion of Belgium a crime; they
consider the mere fact that there is a German
administration in Belgium a continuing crime, and
they do not care about considering whether the
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administration is more or less decent, or more or less
rotten. . . .**
" From the point of view of the administration of a
conquered comitry, the Germans are giving Belgium
a decent, efl5cient, stem government."
I asked an officer if there was any supervision of the
schools by Germans.
"Unfortunately not," he answered. "We should
have it, as the Belgian schoolmasters do anything
but teach affection for the Germans. If we keep
Belgium, we shall of course supervise the schools."
In July, on the national f^te day of the Belgians,
Cardinal Mercier said Mass in the Brussels Cathedral.
Saint Gudule was crowded and still. Permission
had been given for the singing of the BrabanQonne,
The Cardinal, who knew his people and the orders
of the German Government, had sent word there was
to be no demonstration. At the end of Mass, the
great congregation took up their National Anthem.
They sang it through and, at the end, the old Cardi-
nal walked out among his priests and choir boys.
His hands were folded like the pictures of a praying
saint, his eyes looked straight before him, and tears
streamed down his face. The people, perfectly well
behaved till now, broke into cries of: " Vive le Roi J
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Vive le Cardinal Mercier /" The old man is adored
by his people. To show their affection, they dis-
obeyed his orders, for which I doubt it he thanked
them.
That evening, as his carriage drove through the
streets to the station, the holiday crowd again took
up the cry of ''Vive le Roil Vive Monseigneur le
Cardinal /" A fine of a million marks was imposed
for this celebration. The people knew they would
be fined if they did this kind of thing, but evidently
they thought it was worth the price.
At the end of a street, on which all but German
soldiers are forbidden to go, is a statue symbolizing
Belgium, free and independent. All day long the
men of Brussels walked past the street, looked up
toward the statue, and lifted their hats. The
women bowed. Each passerby wore a piece of green
ribbon, and the green meant "Hope.** . . .
A year ago, on the national fSte day, the Belgians
closed their shops. This they were forbidden to do
again under the penalty of a heavy fine. The shops
were kept open but no wares were in the windows;
the proprietor sat in his back room with his feet upon
the mantel-piece and his back to the door, smoking a
pipe.
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Berlin, August ith.
Every one congratulated us on our trip to Bel-
gium; they say it is quite unique, particularly my
having been allowed to go.
I went to the Embassy to-day to lunch. Billy
lunched with Von Pritwitz. Every time Billy has a
new idea about the war he gets a German and inflicts
it on him. This idea is that Germany's idea of peace
is on the plan of a thermometer. The height of the
mercury denotes Germany's military success — ^the
higher the mercury, the more Germany will say she
absolutely must have. Freezing point is territorial
integrity. As the mercury sinks below that, she pays
indemnities to Belgium and France; lower still, gives
back Alsace-Lorraine; then Schleswig-Holstein, her
portion of Poland, and so on down through the re-
duction of her army and navy and the paring oflf of
her territory.
Hindenburg has been given charge of the eastern
front, proving that Austria must have been feeling
rather dejected. He was in command almost two
weeks before the news came out. It must be a great
blow to Austrian pride.
I wonder if he will drive the Russians back a
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second time. When Hindenburg won the battle of
Tannenberg and drove the Russians out of East
Prussia, he was executing in reality what he had
lectured the military students about for twenty
years. In his lecture course he had called it the
"Battle of the Masurian Lakes," and none in the
world knew so well what to do in just the situation
which arose as did this retired general. He had been
refused, at the beginning of the war, as too old, and
was obliged to sit at home helpless, and read about
the Russians swarming into his country. At this
point, the Kaiser remembered Hindenburg. In the
middle of the night orders arrived that the General
in command of the eastern front had been deposed
and Hindenburg put in his place. A special train was
waiting and Hindenburg started at two in the morn-
ing and worked out his plans as he sped toward
the advancing Russian army. In three days the
enemy was in retreat and Germany was saved. Is
it a wonder the people call him: Unser Hinden-
burg f The story goes that the General who was
in command sent word to the Kaiser that he must
retreat behind the Oder. The Kaiser sent word back :
"Retire behind the Oder, but without the army,'*
and immediately sent for old Hindenburg. The
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General never plays polities. A few years ago, when
there was a general inspection of troops, they con-
ducted a sham battle. General Von Moltke managed
to get a very strong position; then the Kaiser, as a
grand finale, led an immense cavalry charge down a
plain and exposed his troops to fire from three sides.
As a grand stand play, it was magnificent. Trium-
phant, the Kaiser rode up to General Hindenburg,
the referee.
"How was that, General?" he demanded, proudly.
The General saluted.
"All dead but one. Sir," he said.
August 6ih.
We saw Mr. Hoover and Doctor Kellogg at the Es-
planade. Hoover corrected Billy's article on Belgium
and was very complimentary. He told us his only
orders from the English Government were: "Honesty
in execution, eflBciency in distribution." Considering
the C. R. B. does the largest grain business in the
world, and that only on sufferance of the British
Government, this sounds rather liberal.
Hoover and Kellogg are here negotiating for 50,000
Dutch cows for northern France. England, in order
to keep cattle out of Germany, buys half of all Dutch
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exports. This is more than England wants, so she has
agreed to let the C. R. B. have a share of the half.
The consent of the German Government now has to
be obtained. There is no reason why the Germans
should not let the cattle go to northern France, as
they could not get them for themselves, anyway.
As Holland has almost as many cows as she has
people, it will not break her heart to sell a
few.
Mr. Hoover says the lower classes in Germany are
getting 1,700 calories a day. The artisans in Bel-
gium, who are out of work, are getting about the
same — a very low rate, as 2,500 to 3,000 is normal.
August 5th.
The Berliner TageblaU has been suppressed for
several days as the result of printing quite the most
sensible article on peace that has as yet been pub-
lished. The author suggested, among other things,
that annexation was rot and that some idea of
permanent peace should come out of the war. I
wonder what jail he is in! Isn't it wonderful how
free the "press" is in Germany?
The rain has stopped and the harvest will be good,
after all.
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August 9th.
Stopped in to see Countess Gotzen. She had just
come up from lunch.
"Well," she began, "the waiter brought me a piece
of beef to-day which I couldn't recognize the cut of
for some time, and IVe been a housekeeper for
thirty years. I looked at it and I said to myself:
*Now this isn't the leg and it isn't the rib, and it
isn't the shoulder.' Then I said: *I know what
it is, it's the tail! And what's more, it isn't a cow's
tail — ^it's a horse's tail/ so I called the waiter.
*Now, waiter,' said I, *I am not complaining, this is
purely a matter of interest, but I want you to take
this piece of meat to the chef and ask him if it is not a
horse's tail.'
"In a few moments the man came back, red to
the roots of his hair, and said: ^Madam, it is a
horse's tail!'"
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m
AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY
Berlin^ August 11th.
BiLLT has gone to the eastern front. I am most
wifely depressed at having him away.
August 13th.
Had tea with Constance Minot and Countess
Bemstorff the other day. Just now she is in a great
state of nerves over the thought of going to America
to join the Ambassador. She declared she knew the
English had been lying in wait for her for two years
and were going to be as disagreeable as possible.
"They will search everjrthing I have, I know/* said
she. "They will wash my back with acid and they
will rip the lining out of everything, and I shall never
be fit to be seen again."
In vain Constance and I assured her that she would
be treated with great respect. I told her we had had
no trouble at all, and she said: "What did you do?**
I answered that we made love to the English in-
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spection officer and asked him to dinner, and asked
her why she shouldn't do the same.
"I suppose that would be the best way/* she an-
swered. Another real grievance was that everyone
had tried to give her things to bring to friends and
relatives in America.
" One woman gave me a large box. I opened it and
found a toy S^eppelin. Imagine if the English had
found that in my trunk ! They would have taken me
off the boat and hanged me, surely!" she said, with
a laugh.
Augtist 15th.
Went to Herringsdorf on the one o'clock train Sat-
urday with Lithgow Osborne and Christian Herter.
The Ambassador was in Herringsdorf with Aileen and
Lanier Winslow. Kind Mrs. Kirk had taken me all
over Berlin in the morning to try and find me a bath-
ing suit, but it was impossible to buy one without
four different kinds of permission, and there was no
time for that. I'm sure I don't see how any one ever
gets clothes any more. It would take three days to
buy a petticoat. Finally, I was reduced to borrow-
ing a bathing suit, a tight one-piece affair, and
Kirk's green bathrobe. We were met at the station
by the others and escorted in state to the Kurhaus.
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After dinner we went for a walk on the pier. I
was with the Ambassador, who kept maldng his
dry, humorous remarks about everyone. Soon a
guard turned us back.
"What's the matter?*' I asked.
"You are in Germany," replied Mr. Gerard.
"Don't forget that. They wait until they find out
that people like to do a thing, and then at once
they forbid it."
"What I'd like best, Mr. Gerard," said I, "would
be to hear you talk to the powers that be in Ger-
many. It must be rather difficult for them to
understand all your jokes."
"It is," he replied. "They can't make me out
at all here."
He makes the most glorious remarks to every
one. I heard that, apropos of the Lusitaniay the
Ambassador said to the Chancellor:
"Your argument about the Luaiiania amounts
to just this. If I were to write a note to your sister
and. say: *If you go out on the Wilhelm Platz, I
will shoot you!' and if she did go out on the Wilhelm
Platz and I shot her — that would be her fault,
wouldn't it?"
And one day when Zimmermann remarked:
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"The United States couldn't go to war with us,
because we have 500,000 trained Germans in the
United States,'* the Ambassador replied: "You
may have 500,000 trained Germans in the United
States, but don't forget that we have 500,001 lamp-
posts."
I left for Berlin the next day at 450. The others
said I was a great idiot not to wait until Monday and
go home with them, but I had a feeling Billy might
get back earlier, so I left.
The next morning Billy got back. The trip to
the front had been a great success. He went up in
an aeroplane over the Russian lines and got shot at and
had all sorts of a good time. He said the Austrian
troops, except the Hungarian Hussars, were the sad-
dest sight in the world — all old men and young boys,
while the Germans were strong-looking, healthy men.
The Germans call the Austrians Bruderherz, and while
they are fond of them, and say they are very brave,
they add : " They are now quite useless as an army."
They said that several times the Russians have com-
pletely broken through the Austrian lines, but they
were never clever enough to follow up the advantage.
The Germans have a dreadful time to keep their
allies from a continual retreat. Billy says the
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Austrian and Hungarian officers are most lovable,
and have no notion of what efficiency means. They
build a dug-out that one could knock down with a
base-ball bat, and plant flowers around any place in
which they spend a night. They always have a
great deal of music, good wine, and excellent food,
and take war far more casually than do the Germans.
The Germans told Billy that the Austrian troops had
an annoying habit of picking up in the night and
walking to the rear five or ten miles, without saying
a word to any one. I should think it would be a
trifle disquieting to wake up in the morning and find
oneself holding a point with no one near.
The Russians almost never attack the German
troops; they always make sure it*s an Austrian divi-
sion before advancing. An officer gave Billy a
photograph, taken after a Russian attack on German
trenches. One could not see the ground for the
bodies of crumpled Russians. The most ghastly
thing is that they must leave them where they fall on
the ground or tangled in the barbed wire. When the
Germans attempt to rescue them, they are shot at,
so the men lie there screaming till they die. Then
the horrible stench sickens the men in the nearest
trenches. I suppose the Germans also shoot if
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rescue is attempted, or the Russians would rescue
their own men. A Gennan spoke to Billy and said
he didn't want any lunch; he'd just gotten several
men out of their barbed wire — the poor wretches
were in a sad state. They had hung there wounded
for several days, and their gaping flesh crawled.
A German aviator told Billy that the Allies, since
the July oflFensive, have command of the air on the
western front. He said the English and American
aviators were the most daring and fearless, and never
hesitated to attack. All the reporters in Billy's party
were taken up in aeroplanes. Billy's aviator was nice,
but the others were irritated at having to take up pas-
sengers and did all sorts of dives and rapid circles,
so the poor newspaper men were almost terrified into
hysteria. Ackerman of the "United Press," after a
swoop or two, spent the rest of his flight in the
bottom of his machine with his head in his hands.
He was quite green when he reached ground, so I
don't imagine the observations he took would ever
damage any one much.
The Russian prisoners said there were no French
or Japanese oflBcers at the front. If there were any,
they advised from the background.
The only things left of Brest Litovsk are three
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churches and a new rock-garden, flowers and "ver-
boten** sign complete, built amid the ruins by the
Germans. Warsaw is much the same as ever.
Whoever spread the rumour that all children under
seven years of age were dead in Poland, prob-
ably went through Warsaw in the night. The Jews
to whom Billy spoke said they hated Germans, Poles,
and Russians equally, but at least no one shied bricks
at them under German rule.
War corresponding to-day must be a pleasant life.
You go de luxe as the guests of the government; you
are dined and wined by Generals, while a Hungarian
orchestra outside the dug-out supplies a "potato
cantata," or a "fugue to go with the beans."
Dress parades and cavalry manoeuvres are given
for your benefit, and you have automobiles and
wagons at your disposal. The only drawback is
that, if you happen to say anything either uncommon
or interesting in your story to the newspapers, it is
cut out by the censor.
August 18th.
Billy and I saw Doctor Moll this morning about
children and the birth rate. He is getting statistics
for us on infant mortality and on the birth rate.
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Infant mortality is lower than it has ever been, just
as every one told me. The health of older children,
owing to the care given them through private so-
cieties, is in some places better than formerly, and in
no place worse. There is no increase in either rickets
or tuberculosis. There was, in the beginning of the
war, an increase in tuberculosis but this was im-
mediately taken in hand. The birth rate in Berlin
is down to about 11 per 1,000.
The care given mothers of small infants I have
spoken of before, so won't repeat. Dr. Gertrude
BKumer, and others, told me that unmarried mothers
and illegitimate children get the same allowance from
the State as others, if it is proved that the father
is a soldier. Doctor Moll said that there were so many
private institutions for the care of mothers of il-
legitimate children, and for the children, that the
State assistance was usually unnecessary. The ille-
gitimacy rate is somewhat higher than before the war.
As to what would be done to increase the birth rate
after the war, the Doctor was uncertain. He con-
firmed what Doctor Bliumer told me, and added that all
families will be insured whether working in factories
or not. They will thus all have free medical care
when ill, and free attendance at childbirth for mothers.
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This will be substituted for the free medical care now
given to wives and children of soldiers.
The childless will probably not be allowed to
will more than half their money — the other half will
go to the State for the care of children. Doctor Moll
went on to say that the laws of illegitimacy will not
be radically changed. It will not be legalized.
Inheritance laws will almost certainly be the same for
illegitimate as for legitimate children. They believe
the children must not be allowed to suflFer; they must
in every way have the same protection as others.
To legalize illegitimacy would increase it greatly,
and Moll says they still believe marriage the best
status under which to rear young.
Moll said, as does everyone else, that they will
try to bring the German women again to the occupa-
tion of hau^rauy and added that, to forbid her work-
ing for her living without offering her a home and
husband as a substitute, would be unjust.
Augtist 19th.
Deliver me from eflBciency, and save me from the
hand of mine enemy, the police! Peacefully and
unobtrusively did we wish to travel to-morrow to
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Vienna, and we discover that the simplest way in
which it is to be done is to visit ten police bureaus and
a consulate, in none of which does one do anything
but wait for hours, and then get asked one's age!
K they don't ask how old you are,, they tell you you
are in the wrong bureau. The right bureau is two
miles away and there are no taxi-cabs. When you
get to the right place, they tell you it closes in five
minutes and that seventy-five people are ahead of
you, so you must come the next day, only the next
day is Sunday, so you have to wait till Monday as
the police stations are closed.
Here is what we did this morning:
1. Police station, our district, where we have
gemeldet eight times already. Told to go to
Central Police Station.
2. Ten minutes' walk.
3. Twenty minutes in subway.
4. Four flights of stairs as high as the Statue of
Liberty.
5. Room 363 — that's wrong.
6. Go to 375 — ^Policeman asks, in a growl, when
we were bom and then gives us two sheets of
foolscap written in German script. We can't
read it and he tells us to fill it out and get it
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stamped by the police in the nearest station to
our house.
7. Ride back in subway — ^no cabs anywhere.
8. Crowded police station. Wait.
9. Laborious filling out of blanks. Age asked
twice.
10. Back in subway to Alexander Platz.
11. Four flights up.
12. Long wait at end of line.
13. Age asked and a check mark put at the end of
filled out blanks. Order to go to room 365.
14. Room 365 sends you downstairs.
15. Man downstairs in room full of dossiers on
people with name beginning with B; looks up
dossier on Bullitt and asks age. Sends us up
two flights.
16. Wait in large room, like a lecture-hall, full of
people. Two policemen on platforms, writing,
pay no attention to any one who looks in a
hiu'ry.
17. Old man, with stiff joints, dares to say he will
die if he doesn't get to Vienna to-morrow.
Police tell him to sit down and come again
Monday.
18. Enter Swede, who says he has to go to Vienna
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to-morrow. Policeman asks his age. Swede
says: "What-the-Hell-d'you-wanta-know-that-
for? IVe told it nine times already to-day."
Policeman says he may be a spy. Swede says
he isn't, and that it's the damnedest system he
ever saw anywhere. Rest of the room begins
to look pleased. Policeman tells Swede to come
again Monday.
19. -We begin to wonder how long the people we
have asked to lunch will wait for us.
20. All the policemen leave the room with every-
one's papers and don't come back.
21. I say I'll never be polite to another one of them
and that I don't care if I never get to Vienna.
22. Billy says he doesn't see why I don't think it's
funny. I object to having my sense of humour
questioned, and say I'm hungry.
23. We decide to leave. Go without papers or
anything.
24. Policeman we meet says it's too late for passes
that day, anyway.
Chris Herter, Lithgow Osborne, and Herr Horst-
mann were waiting at the Bristol for us. We
poured out our woes and attempted to exagger-
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ate, but couldn't. Herr Horstmann, being most
sympathetic, said, if we*d write down an account,
he'd send in a complaint from the Foreign OflBce.
I have decided it is useless to try and be patient
with a German policeman. It doesn't do any good,
and swearing might relieve the feelings. He is too
used to having the subdued public be polite to him;
he doesn't notice it. If yovL make a noise and tell
him he is a worthless idiot, he may think you are a
superior ofl5cer and do something for you.
Billy saw HelflFerich the Vice-Chancellor in the
afternoon. Helflferich is not impressive to look at,
but he is the cleverest man in the government, and
one of the five men who run Germany. He said
Germany could go on indefinitely as far as food was
concerned, and that the harvest was from twenty-
five to thirty per cent, better than last year. The
country will be far better oflf this coming year for
food, than last year. The bread rations will probably
be increased and the cows, owing to better food, will
produce more milk.
As to peace terms, he said that one of the first
would be the abandonment of the economic war
against Germany. He said he did not like to say
much about indenmities, as it made their opponents
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foam at the mouth to hear the word, but that, if
Germany was in a military position to demand them,
at the time peace was to be concluded, they should
certainly take them. He went on to say that there
were only two ways of getting the Germans out cf
the territory they now held — one was to drive them
out; the other to buy them out. He said this war was
too complicated for the Germans to be able to say
what they wanted. He also said that they would insist
upon England's agreeing to the unhindered passage
of merchantmen in the time of war. It was, he said,
not only necessary for Germany, but for all neutral
nations as well, to insist upon such an agree-
ment.
He said it was impossible now to say whether
England and Germany could come together after
the war. Lasting peace for Germany means to him
primarily strong frontiers and a strong army and
navy, and good alliances not an international con-
ciliatory body with a sanction behind it.
We went to the Grews' in the evening. Quite a
large party. We had expected to dance, but Count
Zach, the Chancellor's son-in-law came, and Count
Sehr-Thoss, so we couldn't. Both these gentlemen
were depressed because they had just had news of the
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death of a dear friend on the eastern front. I have
spoken but little of the sorrow with which one is sur-
rounded. Brave as these remarkable people are, the
atmosphere is continually depressing.
Billy and I talked with Mr. Gerard principally.
He said, among other things, that it was a great pity
the United States didn't know more about Germany,
and that the profound state of ignorance everyone
was in at home was very dangerous — that it was im-
possible for newspaper men to get frank statements
of facts back to America, since they were blocked by
two censors, and that one of the best things to have
was more newspaper men coming in for a few months
at a time.
"I hope they will send you back again next spring,*'
he said. He asked Billy if he'd seen Helfferich, and
on B's saying "Yes," Mr. Gerard said he thought
Helfferich had done almost more than any one else to
maintain peace with the U. S. in forcing the abandon-
ment of the U-boat war.
"Helfferich knows that if the United States comes
into the war, the other neutral countries probably
will also come in, and Helfferich refuses to answer
for the state of German finances in such a case,"
Mr. Gerard added.
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Vienna, August SSd.
Vienna, yes, but it certainly wasn't through any
fault of the Berlin police that we got here. Our ex-
periences on Saturday were nothing to what we went
through when we "came again Monday." The
Swede and the old man weren't there, but the room
was full. We heard the policeman, writing at the
table on the platform, saying: *^BiUe Platz nehmen ein
augenhlick** to the guileless and unsuspecting public
as we entered. How little did they know that, at this
point, they should wait three days before any one
took further notice of them. After twenty minutes,
Billy walked to the platform to remind the police-
man we were still there. He told us to wait a little
longer, that the policeman who had oiu* papers hadn't
come in yet and the door of his room was locked. We
had come at nine o'clock. At ten we asked again.
"Yes, the man was here." At ten-thirty, another re-
minder. ^^Der Herr ist zu ein Konferenz gegangen,**
said the relentless one on the platform as he labori-
ously wrote the date on a card, preparatory to asking
his next victim's age.
"What's the matter with the man?" said Billy,
angrily. " Must we go and get another letter from the
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Foreign 0£Bce in order that someone shall pay atten-
tion to us?'
"He's not a Menschr* stormed the policeman.
"He is ein Herr I He is a high official. Don't call
him a Mensch.^*
We retired, crushed, for another half hour. Some-
one came in and whispered that our papers were lost.
The poUceman, unmoved, turned to Billy and said he
had orders not to give us our passes for three or four
days.
"Who gave you that order?" asked Billy, calmly.
No answer.
"I should like to know your name, please," said
BiUy.
Again no answer.
We made for the nearest telephone in some heat.
Doctor B5diger, in the Foreign Office, who is cer-
tainly the most obliging man in Germany, fixed the
matter up for us so that, in two hours and a half more,
we had moved up to the last room. Here, three men
and two stenographers wrote out three identical his-
tories of each of us and pasted countless numbers of
our photographs wherever there was room. This
took three quarters of an hour. An American ste-
nographer could have done all of it in ten minutes.
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My ideas of German eflScieney had received a mor-
tal blow!
The Austrian Consulate received us long after
closing hour and vis^d our passes. Smilingly, they
told us that everyone always came hours late. The
air seemed twenty times lighter there and no one
seemed to be taking life seriously.
We meldet oflf at our own police station and re-
called with horror that we should have to do the
whole thing over again when we leave for home.
The luggage examination when we entered Austria
was of a superficiality that charmed oiu' American
souls. They scrambled through the tnmks without
making a mess; they ran their hands about the lin-
ings of oiu' coats and hurriedly looked in the bottoms
of our shoes, and still we conceived a great affection
for them. When I heard a man say, as he rushed
by a guard, that he hadn't time to show his ticket,
I realized that Austria was nearer home than Prus-
sia.
The Hotel Bristol, where we are staying in Vienna,
is peopled with everything from the Wm. C. BuUitts
to the Archduke Franz Salvator. In luxury, it is the
last word. In our room you can telephone, turn on
the lights, open the door, and ring for three different
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varieties of servants from any spot in which you hap-
pen to be at the moment.
We called at the Embassy the morning we arrived
and presented our letters of introduction from the
Berlin Embassy. The Penfields were away, but Mr.
Grant-Smith and Mr. Dolbeare were most cordial.
Mr. Grant-Smith began by telling Billy that the
Austrians were the most delightful people imaginable,
and that no one ever was able to find out anything
about them or the situation. He said the Embassy
didn't know anything and nobody else did either.
That sounded rather discouraging but we didn't de-
spair. After that, everyone we met told us the same
thing: "Delightful, charming, sympathetic people,
but slow as caterpillars; it is impossible to hurry
them."
We lunched with Grant-Smith and Dolbeare that
day. Mr. Otto Bannard was also there. He is In-
spector-General of the American Red Cross, and he
was in a great state because it had taken him three
weeks to get permission to go to Belgrade, and because
the permission allowed him to stay just ten hoiu*s!
They were all anxious to know what things were like
in Berlin. We said you could get enough to eat if you
paid for it ; that the place was heavy and rather gloomy ,
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and that everything was so regulated you couldn't call
your soul your own; that they were anxious for peace
— quite sure they could never be beaten, and that they
were showing splendid bravery and energy.
We drove that afternoon. When we got into the
cab, the driver said it was forbidden to take a cab for
sight-seeing but that he would take us to a caf^ by a
long circuit and there we could drink a glass of wine
and come home by another circuit. His, not being
a Prussian conscience, was quite satisfied by this
evasion of the law. We made our detour rejoicing,
our fondness for the Viennese increasing at every
block. Vienna seemed so gay after Berlin, the
women are pretty and well dressed, the soldiers salute
and still retain a human expression, the pedestrians
look as if they took a real interest in life, and we be-
gan to feel at home. It is a common saying, that
the Austrians are pessimistic but gay, and the Ger-
mans optimistic but glum.
In the evening we dined with Green and Foster, of
the Rockefeller Relief, and Doctor Ryan, one of the
chiefs of the American Red Cross in Serbia. Ryan
has had so many adventures that he wouldn't notice
anything less than getting killed now. I asked him
if he'd seen much typhus in Serbia.
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"Yes," he said; "I had a hospital with two thou-
sand patients in it, most of them typhus cases/'
"Did your staflf get the fever?'* I queried next.
"Well, I was the only doctor," said he, "but six out
of my twelve nurses got it."
"Were you inoculated?" I still continued, blithely.
"No," he answered. "I didn't need to be — ^I had
typhus."
"Tell her about your trunk," said Foster.
"I was coming to Buda-Pesth," said Ryan obUg-
ingly , " and as I was operating all day, one of my nurses
packed my things. I had a souvenir trunk. When I
got to Pesth, the men dropped it on the platform and it
blew up. The nurse must have packed a grenade in
with the other things. It wounded three men and I
was in an awful mess."
"Did they arrest you?" asked I.
" Sure," said Ryan. " Fined me 30,000 kronen, too,
but they let me oflf, later. The men sued me for
damages, too."
BvdorPesth, August 28th.
Owing to my being seized with a fit of economy, we
travelled down here second dass. It was crowded
and smoky and hot, and Billy was considerably
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annoyed at being thus inconvenienced, but only said
he thought he'd stand up in the corridor all the way,
which of coiu'se made me feel like a horrid brute.
On arriving, we came to the Ritz, whose name is
now changed to the "Duha-palota." Here we took
rooms looking up the Danube and toward the great
hills rising from the river. On one side of the river
there are no mountains, and those on the other side
stop abruptly a mile down the river. Opposite us is
the palace, with its terraced slope some hundred feet
above the Danube. The building is large and beautiful
but it stands empty the year around, for neither King
nor Archdukes will leave Austria to visit the other
half of the kingdom, a slight the proud Hungarian
deeply resents.
One does not have to be here very long to discover
a decided bitterness toward Austria. They say that
the Hungarian troops are always put in the front
trenches and that the Hungarian losses are pro-
portionately far greater than the Austrian losses.
We find that here, as in Austria, there is no love for
the Germans. They respect and admire them and
trust them, but affection for them they have none.
Of their fondness for France, they speak continually.
They do not fight against her and they worry con-
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tinually over whether the French will hate them after
the war and not allow them to visit France.
We called on Mr. CoflSn, the American Consul-
General, that afternoon. He received ns most
cordially although we had no letter of introduction.
As far as I could make out, he had the affairs of all the
Allies to take care of.
We sent our letter from the Gerards to the Sigrays,
and that night, after dinner, they met us in the foyer
and introduced themselves. They were so very nice
and it gave one a pleasant feeling to think there was
someone in the town one knew.
The next day we lunched with them. Count
Sigray was speaking about the interned English and
French. He said one of the many inspectors came
down to Vienna one day and asked to see the interned
enemies.
"Sorry, sir," was the answer; "would you be so
good as to come another day; to-day is a race day and
they have all gone to the races, sir." That is the way
the poor forlorn interned enemies are treated in
Austria. In Hungary, the few English and French
do not seem to be suffering much from confine-
ment. Billy and I met two of them on Sunday morn-
ing on top of the highest mountain near Buda-Pesth.
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An English voice and accent telling someone ^^to
come along now, do hurry up"; and then a man in
Harris tweeds stalked out of the woods. We decided
that if we were going to be interned we'd choose
Austria or Himgary.
Coimt Sigray applied many corrosive adjectives to
the Italians.
"You know," he said, as if relating the final out-
rage, " we even have to have a special hospital for our
men who have been bitten by Italians ! They scratch
and bite so in close combat, that it's something
dreadful." Billy and I laughed and looked skeptical.
"That's true," Sigray protested. "They don't
know how to use their fists. Our men don't, either,
only they don't bite. I know a man who was riding
around a hay-stack and an enemy soldier stuck his
head up out of the hay. The Himgarian was so
startled he couldn't think of anything to do but slap
the man's face."
Later, Countess Sigray took me to the Gyula
Apponyi's. Countess Apponyi is an American girl
about my age. Her husband is the nephew of
Coimt Albert Apponyi, who, with a few other men,
runs Hungary.
I think the Hungarians are the most hospitable
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people on earth except our Southerners. Coimt
Apponyi immediately asked me what I wanted to
see and said he'd show us everything. Then they
said we must dine with them at the Park Club
that night and go on a spree afterward. Billy met
Mr. Drasche-Lazar, Tiza's secretary, that same after-
noon and promised him to dine that night at the Park
Club, so we all went together. It is a luxurious place,
equipped with every possible comfort and furnished
extravagantly with objets (Tarty good and bad.
Apponyi showed us all about and assured us the
place was built for flirtations. Here all the balls are
given in peace time.
"They used to be in private houses," said our host.
"But everyone tried to give a more gorgeous ball
than the last until no one could afford to give them at
home any more."
We dined outside on the terrace near a fountain.
The war seemed far away, and Berlin farther yet.
Later, we went to a cafS chantant and to another little
place on the same order, where they danced. I
thought of how one had to shut the windows in Ger-
many for fear of being seen dancing, and I was over-
joyed to know I was sitting in a box in a Hungarian
caf^, with four new friends who were merry and full
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of laughter and carelessness. How much nearer
the American temperament is to the Hungarian than
to the Prussian!
The Himgarians have suffered enormously in this
war; their losses have been cruel, but the lightness of
their spirit is still there. It's a quality which makes
one love them — ^this power of being able to laugh in
the midst of sorrow.
Augu9tS8th.
Coimt Apponyi came this morning to take us to see
hospitals. As I greeted him, he said:
"Well, it seems war is declared."
"No!" I cried, as my own country flashed into my
mind.
"Yes, since nine o'clock last night, Rumania has
been at war with us. When Italy declared war on
Germany yesterday, I was sure it was coming. Even
so, it is a shock when it happens."
Then Billy came down and was much excited to
hear the news. When the Central Powers sent a
warning to Rumania, Billy declared there would be
war in two weeks. It's rather queer that there was
war in just two weeks.
" There are our two allies, Italy and Rumania, now
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fighting against us," said Apponyi. ''One more or
less, what does it matter! We are now completely
surrounded. And the filthy way the swine declared
war! They sent in their declaration on Simday
evening, when they knew the Foreign Office was
closed. It's a wonder any one was there to open it.
And at the moment the declaration was due to be de-
livered, the Rumanians started firing on our troops!
It must have been impossible for hours to get word
along our line that a new war had begun. Our men
had strict orders not to fire under any conditions. It
is simply too disgusting."
Billy and I hastily agreed that it was disgusting.
One likes the Himgarians so much that a calamity to
them seems a calamity to all.
"To think," Apponyi went on, "that only the day
before yesterday, the King of Rumania told our Min-
ister that he was sure neutral relations would be pre-
served! The declaration of war was written instead
of telegraphed — ^it was in Vienna when the Rumanian
King said that to our Minister."
Every Himgarian we met that day spoke only of
the Rumanians as swine and dogs.
This makes the thirtieth declaration of war. Will
the madness never stop?
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The Hungarians say they will not let Transylvania
go until every Hungarian is killed. I cannot see ho\^
the Allies will reconcile themselves to giving all
Transylvania and Bukowina to Rumania if they
are victorious, and yet we hear they have promised it
to her. This business of bribing a nation to fall on
another's back takes away what honour there ever
was in war.
We went this morning to an invalid hospital,
where soldiers who had lost an arm or a leg were
learning to use their mechanical limbs. They formed
in a long line and went through an obstacle race,
only no one did any racing. It makes one's heart
ache to see them. They smiled and even laughed
as they tried to get around an obstacle with their
steel legs. Then they formed in a ring and kicked a
football, an excellent thing they say to teach them
balance.
We went all through the place where they make
the legs and arms. For each man they make a
working leg and a Sunday leg. The working leg has
a small wooden foot on the end about six inches long,
jointless and rounded at both ends, like a rocker.
The Sunday leg is very elaborate. It has a jointed
foot, fitted into a shoe, the leg is rounded out with
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leather and the man walks with scarcely a limp. For
the false arms, there are hundreds of different de-
vices, which the man can screw into place himself
quite simply. These devices enable him to do nearly
everything a real hand and arm can do. The outfits
are given the men by the State. The Hungarian
doctors have been so inventive in this that German
doctors continually come down here to copy the
newest instruments. As the Himgarians say, when a
German praises, they may indeed believe they have
done something. In the hospital for blind soldiers
they are also teaching the men trades. They make
carpets and brushes and baskets of all sorts. They
. learn how to typewrite, and to operate a telephone
exchange. I was surprised to learn how few blind
there were, only 240 Hungarians.
AugiLst 29th.
At ten-thirty this morning, the telephone rang.
I went.
"This is Graf Apponyi," I heard.
"Oh, hello," said I, gaily. " How are you to-day? ''
He said he had come to see Mr. Bullitt.
"What made you get up so early? " I a^ked, think-
ing it was one of the young Apponyis whom we knew.
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Billy went to the telephone and came back, saying
it was Count Albert Apponyi, and that he said he
would come back in an hour.
"I'm going to get up at six-thirty every day now
for fear the Prime Minister will also call before I'm
dressed," declared Billy.
The telephone rang again.
"Good-morning," said a man's voice in a Hungar-
ian accent.
"Good-morning," I answered amiably.
"Is that you, madame?" the voice went on.
"Well," I said, "I don't know whether it is or not."
"What?" asked the voice.
"I said I didn't know whether it was I or not.
Who do you think it is? That makes some dif^
ference."
"Mrs. Bullitt," answered the Hungarian accent.
"This is Mr. Lazar."
"Oh,'* I replied with no sign of recognition in my
tones.
"I do not think you remember me," the gentleman
said politely. "You dined with me at the Park
Club the first night you came!"
"Oh, Mr. Drasche-Lazar!" I cried, at last growing
a trifle more intelligent. Himgarian names are so
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difficulty I always have to think about them before I
recognize them. The upshot of the conversation
was that Count Tisza would see Billy in a few days.
We went downstairs and found Mr. and Mrs.
Cardeza. They are Americans from Philadelphia.
Mr. Cardeza is Mr. Penfield's secretary, and Mrs.
Cardeza is in the Red Cross. She has nursed at the
Hungarian front ever since the war began and has
done wonderful work. She has been decorated
several times. Everyone says she is as tireless as she
is fearless. Poland, she told me, was in a woeful
state.
Count Albert Apponyi came in later. He is one of
the finest people I ever met — tall, with gray hair and
a gray beard and moustache, a lean figure, and a
high-bred bony face; he looks rather like a very
aristocratic Uncle Sam, and his manners are like
Colonel Newcome's.
" I am not wanting in hospitality,'* said he. " I got
home only last night or I should have come before."
After all, one does not expect one of the busiest
men in Hungary to call on two yoimg people of whom
he never heard before, but the Hungarians are really
the most polite people I ever saw.
Billy had an interesting talk with him. He takes
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the entrance of Rumania into the war very seriously,
but says it will spur the Hungarians to harder fight-
ing. He thinks the "ungentlemanly" way in which
Rumania attacked has stirred the people to real fury.
Of Germany, he said: "One of the best things we
have in this war is the realization that our great ally
will stand by us with all his forces and be faithful
to the death. And we two, Austria and Hungary,
do not consider for one moment making a separate
peace which would save our own skins but sacrifice
our ally. Hungarians are not Italians or Rumanians.
We do not break our word."
This is a thing one feels strongly in Himgary.
They have a high sense of honour, and there are
certain things which they agree it is better to die
than do. The German point of view on such mat-
ters is rather different. For instance, this is part
of a conversation Billy had with one of the most
important officials in the German Government:
"Woidd you, in order to make a separate peace
with Russia, promise her Constantinople?" asked
Billy.
"We might," he answered.
"Would it not be rather hard to throw over the
Turks?" Billy went on.
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"No/* said the German. "We would only have
to publish full accounts of the Armenian massacres,
and German public opinion would become so in-
censed against the Turks that we could drop them as
allies."
Apponyi thinks Andr&ssy should replace Burian
as joint foreign minister. Not to have an Ambas-
sador in the United States, he declares to be abso-
lutely wrong.
"President Wilson wants one and has offered to
send a warship for him," said he.
Count Andrdssy told Billy that Apponyi himself
should be sent. Certainly America would be the
gainer if this should be, and Austria-Hungary would
be better represented than, to my knowledge, it has
ever been.
Count Apponyi has fought all his life to have
universal suffrage in Hungary, and he now says he
believes Count Tisza, who has always been against
it, will have to grant it to the men who have fought
for Hungary. Apponyi says the Austrian Parlia-
ment should be allowed to sit — it hasn't been called
since the war, and the responsibility for the Hun-
garian Parliament, as the only mouthpiece of the
government, is too great. He also said they did not
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want to annex Serbia, or to crush her mdependence,
and that the Hungarians admired Serbia's spirit
immensely. Of course, I'd like to know how greatly
the independence of Serbia was being considered
when Austria sent the note. The note was written
by Count Tisza.
Hungary declares that Russia is her great enemy,
and Count Apponyi doesn't understand why England
should apparently contemplate allowing Russia to
become larger still, since she has always considered
Russia her ultimate enemy. He does not see any
definite way in which a lasting peace may be made
from the war, although he wishes greatly it might
be. They speak of a "free Poland." It's rather
hard to know what that means, but it probably means
a free Russian Poland, with Austria-Hungary as over-
lord, or a free Russian Poland as a third part of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy — ^that is, triality in-
stead of dualism for the Empire.
August 30th.
Billy found oiu- bathroom locked this morning,
when his desires were centred on a shave. Splash-
ings were heard within. Billy rang irately for the
maid.
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"Who is in my bath tub?" demanded he.
"The Prince," said the chambermaid.
"What Prince?" a^ked Bill.
"The Prince of Thum und Taxis," answered she.
"Will yoii please throw him out of the bath tub?"
asked Bill.
"I can't," said the maid.
Billy made a dive for his clothes.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I won't have a prince in my bath tub," said he;
"Fm paying for it!"
"He got up earlier than you did," said !• "Be
reasonable."
"Don't ask me to be reasonable," he answered,
jamming his hat on his head and disappearing around
the corridor. "It would spoil the effect of the scene
I'm going to make."
In a few moments the management was to be heard
mounting the stairs with hurried feet, and the Prince
was ousted.
A party of us lunched on native dishes at a Hun-
garian restaurant. As a result, nearly everyone was
ill but myself. The youngest Apponyi brother was
there, back from the front, to attend the House of
Lords. Mrs. Cardeza said he'd been on patrol work
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all through the war, as he was such a wonderful marks-
man, having hunted all his life — ^now his game was
Russians and Serbians. He uses a telescopic sight on
his rifle and is said to be a dead shot.
September 2d.
Turkey and Bulgaria have declared war on Ru-
mania. Of course it was the only decent thing for
them to do. The refugees fron Transylvania are al-
ready pouring into Himgary, and the Rumanians are
advancing fast. On Friday night, at dinner, Coimt
Teleki, of the General Staflf, told Billy that there
were only eight thousand troops protecting the Ru-
manian border when Rumania declared war. Many
here think that they will be able to drive this new
enemy out in a few weeks; the chances of this seem
slim now.
More hospitals with Apponyi this morning. I feel
as if every man in Hungary lacked an arm or a leg, or
had a bad body-wound somewhere. We went to the
big nerve hospital, where 1,200 men were being cured
of nerve wounds. The place is crowded. Three
operations were going on in the same room at once.
Men were sitting in rows in the corridors, waiting to
be dressed; the massage rooms were full; the exercise-
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rooms, with their queer machines for exercising fin-
gers, arms, or wrists, backs, legs, or shoulders which
have become stiflf through wounds, were occupied by
men doing their often painful daily tasks. In other
rooms. X-ray treatment was being given, electric baths
taken, wounds which would not heal exposed to the
ultra-violet ray; past open doors anaesthetized men
were wheeled silently. I never saw a hospital which
appeared to be working at such speed.
We saw another hospital where nerve shock is
treated. Men come in unwounded but shaking so
they cannot stand. They are given a severe electric
shock and are able to take up their beds and
walk. These men can never go back to the front.
At the sound of the first shell, they fall to pieces
again. In still another hospital men with bad
muscle wounds were taken. In connection with this
are hot mineral baths, which the doctor told us had
great restorative powers for stiflF and helpless muscles.
After seeing all these wounded men, Billy and I
would indeed have been depressed, if we had not gone
also to the workshops in connection with the hospit-
als, where these men were learning trades. As long
as a man has one arm, I believe there is little he can-
not learn to do. Watch-makers, carpenters, sign-
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painters, tailors, architects, builders, shoe-makers,
blacksmiths, who had never done the like before, were
industriously working away. The State takes it
upon itself to see that the men get jobs. The teach-
ing is, of course, quite free. Seventy per cent, of the
men who make the orthopaedic shoes, the legs, and
arms, and body-supports for the wounded men, are
themselves invalids.
Septetiiber Sd,
We went to a sitting of the House of Lords. About
all I can intelligently say is that Hungarian is a
musical language to listen to.
I was interested to see Count Tisza, the strongest
man in Austria-Hungary to-day. It is common
knowledge that Berchtold was only a tool of Tisza's,
and that Burian, the present Foreign Minister, is
another. The Minister President is of another type
entirely from Count Apponyi — a closely built figure
with a brusque manner of speech and little considera-
tion or patience for the slow or stupid, he is a perfect
example of the "strong man."
Tisza spoke on the entrance of Rumania into the
war. He could make little excuse for the scarcity of
troops on the Rumanian border. I imagine it was be-
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cause they did not have the men, but of course Tisza
could not say that in Parliament. A leading member
of the opposition answered him, one of the many
Count Sz6chenyi's. After that, no one listened to
the speeches.
Hungarians seem to me at once the most demo-
cratic and the most snobbish of people. They shake
hands with the cook and are on friendly terms with
the coachman, yet the twenty-five or thirty families
who rule Hungary object to any addition to the
aristocracy, and resent an intrusion of the people
upon their feudal rights. The Hungarian noblemen
hate the Jews bitterly and say they are ruining every
gentleman in Hungary.
They are delightfully high-handed. One man told
me that he had been so late a few days before that he
had had to keep the train waiting two hours for him.
Another said he had been out hunting and, wishing to
get home in a hurry, had built a fire in the middle of
the railroad track, and stopped the express*
The internal affairs of Hungary are too involved to
grasp in a short while. Only those who have spent a
lifetime in the study of this conglomerate nation fully
understand the difficulties of governing the many
different peoples within their borders.
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196 An Uncensored Diary
Billy has seen Count Tisza. The interview was
startling but cannot be put down.
Vienna^ September 5th.
We lunched at our Embassy to-day. Mr. Penfield
is a most original character. Mrs. Penfield is always
doing nice things for people, and they are both ex-
ceedingly hospitable.
We leave for Berlin the day after to-morrow^ It will
be queer to be under severe regulation again. If any
one asks for a bread card here, one acts as if one were
insulted and the waiter apologizes profusely and
rushes to bring the bread. We asked them how they
could afford to serve so much food, and they said:
"Oh, we can't economize like the Germans. We will
eat until there is no more food, and then we will stop,
but we can't make ourselves miserable with thinking
about it all the time."
Berlin, September 16th.
I have been reading Wells's book, "What Is
Coming." Much of it is based on the idea that
there will be a revolution in Germany, and that the
HohenzoUems will be forced to abdicate by an en-
raged populace and a republic established. Now, if
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there is one thing there will not be in Germany, it is a
revolution. It is the last country in which such a
thing is likely to-day. The German people have
seen many a war fought on their soil, without think-
ing a dynasty must be heaved out as a result of it.
They have sacrificed their comfort, their riches, and
their sons before this. In the Thirty Years* War,
they saw their fifteen-year-old sons go out to fight,
and they stayed in their homes doing what they could
besides, to help their country. I think the outside
world still believes the Germans will awake some
day, and in wrath declare they have been made dupes
by their Emperor and led into a war which he might
have stopped had he wished.
In the first place, the outside world could not pos-
sibly convince the German people of anything their
government denied, or did not wish them to believe.
The German people know no better than the people
of any other country exactly why this war is being
fought but they think they know and they believe,
with all the strength of unalterable conviction, that
they were attacked by the whole European world.
It would be quite as impossible to convince the Bel-
gians that they were responsible for the war as it
would be to convince the Germans, and to convince a
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people that they were needlessly sacrificing them-
selves for a fictitious ideal would be the only way
to rouse them to start a movement against their
leaders.
In the second place, the German people will not try
to overthrow the HohenzoUems, for more than one
reason. The Emperor is popular. The people like a
king, and would have no use whatever for a presi-
dent. They like the glamour of a coiui; and a royal
family, and would take no satisfaction in anything
less imposing. But more important than the popu-
larity of the HohenzoUems is the fact that the Em-
peror is not the autocrat the world imagines him, and
Germany knows it. Constitutionally great as is his
power as head of the army and navy, and as King of
Prussia, he is not omnipotent. The Emperor's per-
sonality is powerfid, but so are the personalities of the
other chiefs of the Empire — ^Von Bethmann-HoUweg,
Hindenburg, Helfferich, Zimmermann, and Von
Jagow. The Emperor cannot do just as he pleases
with all of them any more than his grandfather could
do just as he pleased with Bismarck. Added to this
— which most of the world would not believe — the Em-
peror is considered by his people not in the least
warlike; they think of him as a man to whom war is
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disagreeable and far from desirable. But whatever his
people and those who know him personally think him
to be, the outside world (which does not know him)
still imagines that, single-handed and alone, with
aggressive nationalism on the brain, he led his unsus-
pecting people into a disgusting, dripping war. That
sounds wild and writes up brilliantly in the news-
papers, but it*s stale, and unrefreshing as news, when
one sees the Emperor actually has nothing like the
power his enemies believe he has.
Another thing which Wells does not take into
account is the amazing solidarity of the German
people about the essential thing, of not allowing the
Allies to win the war while they have an ounce of
strength left to prevent it. There are different
parties in Germany, certainly. There are the more
or less violent ones who shout for annexation; there
are the Tirpitzers, who blow about U-boats, and say;
"Who cares if we get into a fight with America, any-
way?" there are the saner ones, who want only terri-
torial integrity, and to these the government seems
to belong; there are the Socialists, who like Sudekum
instead of starting a revolution, are loyally support-
ing the government. Liebknecht is in jail, Bern-
stein is old and mild and gentle, and it is a simple
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200 An Uncensored Diary
matter to suppress his articles or forbid him the use of
a hall in which to speak. Taking it all in all, the Ger-
man people, not the leaders of the people, show a
imity, a solidarity, and loyalty and strength of
patriotism that it would be hard to surpass. Added
to this, they have the habit, as have no other people,
of obeying. Orders which would make a Frenchman
or an Englishman or an American snort with rage, are
carried out unquestioningly. I suppose this quality
of obeying is one of the things people mean by "Ger-
man Militarism." If the whole German army were
to be abolished, I doubt if it would speedily change
the nature of the people. If their qualities and in-
herent characteristics had not been what they are,
they could not have developed their army into the
eflBcient automaton it is. But then, I suppose, to
discuss whether the German people as they are to-
day are a result of an army, or an army the residt of
the people, is like the hen-or-the-egg problem.
Without an army, they would still be the hardest
workers, and the most thorough; their industrial life
would still be as highly organized — ^their social legis-
lation as eflBcient; reverence for the law would con-
tinue, and obedience to a superior still be the habit.
It's in the blood for the whole nation to work as an
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army; to abolish German militarism would be to put
an end to the German nation, which is certainly not
desirable.
Berlin, September 16tk.
Flags were out a week ago for the first victory over
the Rumanians. There is another reported to-night
which seems to mean a far greater victory. That
the English and French have made gains is only to be
expected, as Hindenburg's policy, like Napoleon*s,
has all along been to whip the weaker enemy first, and
hold the stronger with a weakened force. For the
few miles he loses in the west, he will probably gain
hundreds in the east — whither the great General
Headquarters have been moved.
Many say the Chancellor will be far stronger now
with Hindenburg as Chief of StaflF. Falkenhayn and
Bethmann-HoUweg worked badly together. They
say Falkenhayn was self-seeking. None say so of
Hindenburg. Hindenburg is honest, unassuming, a
brilliant general, and a loyal supporter of the
Chancellor. The separation of the military and
the political authority of the Empire is certainly
much less great as a result of Hindenburg's appoint-
ment.
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202 An Uncensored Diary
September 17th.
Have to send my diary to-morrow to the Foreign
(MBce to be censored, so I shall not be able to write
any more. All our papers have to go ahead of us to
Copenhagen by the courier from the Foreign OflBce. I
do nothing but take things down there. We have
volumes of pamphlets, all Billy's notes, books of
statistics, etc. — ^not to mention my magnum opus.
Yesterday I told Doctor ROdiger that, if he cut a word
out of it, I should come back and finish him with an
axe. He promised that it should not be touched.
Poor man, we do give him so much trouble and he is
so nice about it. As a final piece of impudence, I
handed in what was left of the box of hair tonic we
had recovered from the frontier. They are sending it !
I think the German Foreign OfBce is most obliging.
Billy has just had a second long talk with Von
Jagow. Food is getting scarcer. You are supposed
to get only one egg a week. No more butter is served
on the table, which makes breakfast rather dreary,
and milk cannot be bought for children over six years
old except by a doctor*s prescription. The city is
making plans for Mimicipal Kitchens on a large scale.
These last two weeks have produced nothing more
exciting than a series of luncheons.
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An Uncensored Diary 203
There were quite a number of people at lunch at the
Embassy yesterday. Last Sunday there were only Mr.
Horstmann, the Duke and Duchess of Croy, and our-
selves. We were late and the Ambassador rebuked
me severely. I got even with him for it yesterday,
however. •
Our very good friend Noeggerath came to say
good-bye to us. We shall miss our twenty-four hour
discussions with him.
Copenhagen, September 28th.
They behaved beautifully ^t the frontier. We
foimd all our things here from the Foreign OflSce.
It must have hurt the censor's feelings cruelly to let
my diary by. He put crosses and exclamation points
down all the margins. I wish I might have kept
a really frank diary. Billy's notes were cut to rib-
bons, and he is in a rage. Fortunately, I have in this
diary duplicates of a number of things he wants.
Billy has learned from the German Foreign Office
itself that German officials received the Austro-
Hungarian note to Serbia fourteen hours before it
was presented in Belgrade This fact has been
persistently denied by every German, official or
unofficial, we have met. The Foreign Office says
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204 An Uncensored Diary
it did not have time enough to decide what it must
do to avert the consequences the note obviously
would produce.
Must we have wars, then, because statesmen are
unable to make up their minds between eight in the
evening and ten the next morning?
Last night we went to a dinner which the Egans
gave for Mr. and Mrs. Gerard. We thought it was
going to be very small, with only one or two people
besides the de Hagermann-Lindencrones and Mrs.
Ripka, but the Swedish Minister and his wife were
there, and Mrs. Morris, the wife of the American
Minister in Stockholm, and the American attaches
here, and Count Sz^chenyi and Prince Witgenstein,
so it was quite a formal affair. All the rules of pre-
cedence were followed, Mme. de Hagermann going in
first with Mr. Egan.
The complications of social life in neutral countries
are great. I woidd not for anything be the servant
who opens the door. If a French woman comes to tea
and then one of the ladies belonging to the Central
Powers comes, the man has to say his mistress is not
at home. He has to know everyone and just what
country they come from, for none of the enemy diplo-
mats speak. A French woman and a German woman
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An Uncensored Diary 205
did get mixed up yesterday at Mrs, Totten's at tea,
but they were perfectly polite to each other. There
are special days at the tennis club for the different
countries. It's very amusing.
Now I have come to the end. I am going to
America and that is the only thing in the world that
matters to me to-day.
THE END
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