Read Ebook: What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime by Piermarini

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 936 lines and 58253 words, and 19 pages

"Just a pleasure trip," was the answer, which perhaps did not satisfy him completely.

He looked again at the passport, which was in perfect order, at the half-a-dozen seals, signatures, and Consulate stencils, Italian, Dutch, and German, which have occupied, during the last two weeks almost all the room left for the purpose on the dirty-looking, official piece of paper, and concluded philosophically, giving it back to me: "After all, some folk have got curious hobbies."

Well, I really don't know if to go to Berlin from England in war time just to know what's going on is a curious hobby or not. But, when two weeks ago I read in some London newspaper wonderful stories of starvation and symptoms of panic in the German capital, and in some others that things in Berlin were going on just as usual, I thought the only way to know the truth about it was to go there myself.

I was warned that I should get into trouble, be arrested, kept prisoner, treated as a spy, etc., and the few persons who knew of my journey thought it was a very foolish thing to do. As a matter of fact, the trip was carried out without much difficulty.

Here is a summary of it: three days from London to Berlin ; three days in Berlin ; three days from Berlin to Amsterdam, the only exciting diversion being a short arrest at Stendal. I would not exactly recommend an elderly lady to leave her easy chair in her Kensington sitting-room to start off on such a journey. But I enjoyed every moment of the trip.

"What is then the present condition of Berlin? Did you find out the truth about what's going on there?" Everybody keeps asking me these questions.

The answer cannot be given in a few words. Berlin, on the surface, is as usual; the life did not appear to me at first sight much different from what I saw during my last visit four years ago. London has changed her habits more on account of the war than Berlin.

The theatres in the German capital are mostly open, the crowds in the street do not look much different from the peace-time crowds, the food-stuff prices are very little higher than usual. The women driving taxi-cabs, the starving queue outside the butchers' shops in the morning, and the potatoes sold at high price--these exist only in the dreams of newspaper correspondents.

Everything seems pretty normal. The enthusiasm for the Emperor, for the Army, for the Fatherland is as strong as ever. The confidence of the people, fed on false news, on fantastic reports, on gigantic illusions, is unbounded. These people have a keen relish and delight in the fact, as they admit at once, that the whole world is against them; they seem to be proud of their isolation and despise infinitely their only allies, the Austrians.

One hears in the street people talking like this: "We are bound to win; it is fatal and it is ridiculous to see a few decrepit nations trying to stop God's Will," or "We are the only race of dictators; we will have the whole world at our feet and impose our laws on every nation"; and very often this more simple and utilitarian, "When I will be able to get a concession for a maize plantation in Algeria ..." or "When, next year, we shall start ostrich farming in South Africa," ... etc.

Most of the people I met in Berlin willingly admitted that the methods of war of their troops in Belgium and France were very wrong, but they invariably concluded: "If this is the only way to give Germany her definite position of queen of the world, you perfectly understand that the life of a few thousand men, the pillage of a few cities, the tears of a few women, cannot be an obstacle worth considering."

They don't admit for a moment that success will perhaps not crown and, to a certain extent, justify their deeds; they don't consider the possibility of disaster. If they have the worst of the struggle it will certainly not be for lack of self-confidence.

Only the military circles seem to realise fully how terribly strong is the enemy Germany is fighting, and how very small are her chances in the long run. But they keep their sentiments and feelings as secret as possible, and, helped by their wonderfully organised Press, they manage to keep alive the Berlin public's illusions.

During my short stay in Berlin, thanks to a few acquaintances in the military world and to a fair knowledge of the German language, I managed to mix with different classes of people, from the man in the street to the officers of the cavalry regiment still in Berlin for the drill of the 1914-15 recruits; from a very well-known writer on military science to the working people unemployed on account of the war crisis.

At about nine o'clock on the morning after my arrival I woke up still tired after a late night in the gayest circles of Berlin. I had been to one of the numerous cabarets, which are the equivalent in Berlin of the London night club. The gay life of the German capital was being carried on just as in peace time. Students, officers, viveurs, and the indispensable feminine element, among which the French was, as usual, much in evidence , were crowding into the large, brightly-lighted rococo room, trying hard to dance one-steps and maxixes with the latest Paris or London swing.

I was looking at my Baedeker map, trying to refresh my memory of Berlin topography, when the waiter shouted at the door, "Ein Herr w?nscht Sie zu sprechen!" I did not know who the early visitor could be, so I finished dressing as quickly as possible, and went out into the corridor.

A man was standing there waiting for me; he stepped in without saying a word, and, when in the room, asked me where I came from and what my business was in Berlin. I showed him my passport. He said he would see to that afterwards; meanwhile he had to examine my luggage.

The man, I knew later on, was a police-inspector; he looked at all I had with me, and copied into a pocket-book my address and the address of my tailor, which he discovered on a small piece of white silk inside the breast pocket of one of my jackets. He then took possession of a few very innocent papers and letters, and looked underneath the lining of my hat, opened the alarm clock to see if something was concealed in the case, and was very much puzzled by a black box, which he opened most carefully, with the result that he found a manicure set.

Then he asked me to follow him to the police station. A taxi was waiting, and we reached the sombre building after a long drive. There I had to undergo a second cross-examination. I was asked to give all the references I could in Berlin, and after three hours' detention, I was finally released, having promised to report myself every morning to the police-station, and not to leave the Kaiserhof Hotel without letting them know about it.

I must say that the Police Commissair behaved quite decently, and apologised for the trouble he was forced to give me. He even offered me a bad cigar and a worse cup of coffee, which I couldn't refuse, and for which I was certainly more annoyed with him than for the arrest itself.

I stepped out of the decrepit building and found myself in a narrow, tortuous street of old Berlin, without the slightest idea of the direction I had to go to reach the modern part of the city.

After some wandering in narrow streets and irregular squares, which reminded me of some old Flemish town much more than of modern Berlin, I was lucky enough to find a taxi to drive to the post office. I began to ring up some of my old friends in Berlin. In four cases I was unlucky; three were at the front; one had gone to America last year, and though called to arms could not, or did not, trouble to come back. My fifth call was for a lieutenant friend in a cavalry regiment. I had not seen him for years. His sister answered the call, and when I asked for Otto she said, "Why, don't you know he is in hospital? He has been wounded in Belgium, and has been back over five weeks now."

She offered to take me to see him in an hour's time, and so it was that I managed to get into a German military hospital. I lunched in a large restaurant, in which the places of the waiters called to the colours had been taken by Kellnerinnen. To judge from the food I had the cook's place must have been taken by a shoemaker.

I was rather surprised to find that the hospital was a luxurious private house. I learned afterwards that the proprietor, a wealthy officer, had equipped it as an emergency nursing home for officers, and offered it to the Government. There was no difficulty in being admitted, as my friend was quite out of danger, his wounds being a light one in the face and a serious one in the knee-cap. The little white camp beds were arranged in two lines on both sides of a large sitting-room. The nurses were ladies of the best Berlin society, and seemed to add to the skill of a perfect nurse the tactful ways of a lady of quality.

After the natural surprise of my friend at our meeting in such extraordinary circumstances, he told me how he had been wounded at the very beginning of the campaign, practically without being able to do any fighting. He said that the Germans only realised that they would have to fight in Belgium when they were already on Belgian soil. The cavalry, marching in front without any artillery support, received the most serious shock. The German Government was so sure that the intimidation of Belgium would be successful that the siege guns had been sent in the direction of the French frontier.

I asked him what he thought of the position of his country at the present moment. He smiled sadly and said:

"Here, in the hospital, we only know what the newspapers say; and, of course, they are very optimistic. We officers know perfectly what our forces and the forces of our enemies are. It is certain that we are going to struggle to the very last. You know how I, personally, love France; but, of course, I will go to fight again as soon as I am better--if I am ever in condition to fight."

He said this sadly, showing me his leg, which perhaps will be crippled for ever. And he concluded in French, the language we used to speak at a time we both thought an officer was only a kind of sportsman who wore a uniform. "Enfin m?me si c'est un suicide il faut l'faire et on va l'faire!" He gave me some introductions to officers still in Berlin, and we parted; our last word was au revoir.... Where and when we shall meet again, what our country will be then, the blood of how many thousand men will be wasted before that day is in the hands of a mysterious future.

I devoted the rest of my afternoon to a long walk through the town.

Processions of unemployed like we used to see during the great coal strike in some cities in the North of England were coming from the east part of the town. Women and children were in very large numbers, but there was also any number of men, old, crippled, or somehow unfit for military service. Unemployment is really the most striking symptom of the war in Berlin.

Many manufacturers have had to stop their works owing to the lack of raw material. The wool, silk, leather, and cotton industries are almost completely paralysed. Other works have been stopped because Germany cannot get any fuel. All the reserves of coal have been taken up by the Government for naval and military purposes. Also the toy, furnishing, and fancy trades have had to be completely stopped, as there are no customers for such goods.

Under the patronage of Kronprinzessin Cecilie, who, by the way, is very popular during this war, a movement has been started to assist the unemployed. But the crowd of out-of-works seems to increase daily, and the twenty thousand free dinners given away every afternoon by the relief committee don't seem enough for the innocent victims of the war.

Down the endless Friedrichstrasse I saw a company of a few hundred boys still in civilian clothes, marching stiffly, and trying to keep the compass-like Prussian step. Officers and sergeants in uniform were with them. Some of the recruits did not look more than fifteen or sixteen. Most of them, with large gold or tortoiseshell spectacles, represented the classical type of the German Gymnasium and Lyceum.

The crowd cheered the boys, and they marched away as stiff as possible, without even turning their eyes to the people in the street. An old man explained to me that they were boys a few months short of seventeen, who want to be perfectly ready when, in February, they will be accepted in the army as volunteers. There are apparently over fifty thousand boys of this class, who intend to volunteer as soon as the military authorities will allow them to do so.

To get out of the Sunday crowd I walked along the Spree. Here is one of the largest barracks in Berlin. I wonder how many men of the Kaiser Alexander Garde Grenadiers will come back to their beautiful home. It seems to have been one of the regiments most severely cut up in France lately.

I walked down to the Lustgarten, just in time for the service.

The large church was full of people. The crowd of over two thousand perhaps was chiefly composed of women and old men. I noticed that an extraordinary number were in mourning.

The dark crowd contrasted curiously with the aggressive bright gold of the dome lighted by a number of electric lamps.

The minister began his sermon. As I was right at the back of the church I missed at first most of his words, but, little by little, I began to understand better.

"We don't know how many of our sons have lost their lives up to now," he said, "but be sure that they have found the way which leads straight to eternal happiness. He who dies in war for his country and for the Kaiser is certain of the sight of God. The Lord has put a sword in the hands of our Kaiser. He knows where and how to strike in this war. Glory on our sons who have died; they died like heroes, all of them, and every mother, every sister, every wife, must be proud to have lost the man they love in such a noble way. Be sure that our soldiers have never done anything less than noble. They are fighting in a treacherous country, but they are fighting for a right, holy cause, and they are bound to win."

I felt like shouting at him: "Malines, Rheims, Louvaine, Termonde! What do you say of these? Is that the way the favourites of God should fight! Is that the way to fight for civilisation?"

I could not stand it any more, and walked out. In front of me was the Schloss-Br?cke, with huge groups illustrating the education, life, and glorification of the warrior. This is one of the many proofs of how Germany has been preparing her children for war for generations and generations. I thought of the sentence, "The war into which we have been driven," I had just heard from the priest's lips, and I wondered if that man of God, in the House of God, was lying, knowing that he did so, or if he, too, was simply consumed utterly by the mad wave of military exaltation which seemed to have covered the whole of Germany.

Sitting round a large corner table at the Caf? F?rstenhof with huge glasses of beer in front of us and a good after-dinner cigar, the reticence of the two officers who were in my company melted away slowly. Even the latest German atrocities will not make me deny the wonderful convivial effect of a large glass of blonde cervogie.

"Spies!" said one of the two young fellows, who looked like bursting out of his tight green-grey tunic every time he laughed. "Why should we worry about spies? All the men and women, especially women, who were supposed to be spying for Russia in Germany and Austria were playing a double game.

"Russia was persuaded they were spying for her, and they were spying for us instead. A few useless and fantastic reports sent to St. Petersburg were good enough to put them in the confidence of generals and archdukes, and so they could get for us very important secrets. France never had a proper secret service worth talking about, and the few attempts of England in this direction were so clumsily done that it was really pathetic to see how the poor chaps got into trouble for sending home information and plans they could easily have copied from railway maps and tourist books.

"We are the only nation on earth who know how to organise a secret service!"

"You seem most proud of your spies," I remarked.

"Spies is a very ridiculous word; Napoleon used to have spies; we have informants. They mix with all classes of society; they manage to get everywhere, from the Royal Palace to the small country shop, from the barracks canteen to the Premier's house.

"Be certain that nine-tenths of those who have been arrested as our emissaries in France, England, and Russia, have nothing to do with it, and that most of the real ones are still doing their job, and doing it jolly well too.

"We know everything that happens in England," he continued, after swallowing half his glass of beer. "We know the exact number and destination of the troops sent from Britain to the Continent; we know of everyone who goes in or out of England, and also of his business and of his intentions."

"Oh, do you?" I could not help exclaiming, and I nearly burst out laughing.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet