A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes | Page 6

of all K?thchen announced with complacency and obvious triumph, that there had been a great victory "ganz herrlich!" and that an English Cavalry Brigade had been cut to pieces at Lunéville, and that those who were not killed had "run away"! Of course I did not believe this, but it made one terribly anxious. Then in came Miss H---- saying that two men of our little colony had been arrested and taken to the police-station, whence after examination they were to be sent to Frankfurt. At the Polizei Amt the Officials exhibited the results of their Kultur by being rude and rough to the unfortunate people arrested. A Polish woman whose son had been made prisoner sobbed and cried, whereupon the grim old inspector came into the room and said sternly: "Kein Frauen Jammer hier!" ordering her out of the room. I was in the Park Strasse and heard some Germans chuckling and saying: "Zwei Engl?nder sind verhaftet" (two Englishmen are arrested), looked round, and saw two of our little community, both service men, following each other in Einsp?nners, each surrounded by soldiers and fixed bayonets. It was anything but a pleasing sight to me!
August 25th.--The clouds are lifting, thank God! Cheering news has come that we are to be allowed to leave this delightful country in eight days' time; most likely we shall have to travel either by way of Switzerland or Denmark. Those sagacious personages in Berlin seem to imagine that the secrets of the Rhine fortresses will reveal themselves to us as we go by! What a compliment to our powers of clairvoyance!
Fraulein G---- has just been in to see me. Usually she is a most pleasant, gentle little woman, kind and charming; now she is full of scorn and hatred of England. She says the Englishmen were arrested because they were heard to say that German papers were "full of lies." "So they are," said I, "and you can go now and get me arrested too." "Oh, no," said she, "I would not tell on you!" In spite of her magnanimity I cannot think our interview was a success. We argued until I said, "If we are to remain friends, we must not discuss the war. I cannot think England wrong, and as a loyal German you think Germany right. Don't let us talk about it any more."
The "Frankfurter Zeitung" declares that no workmen in England will fight for their country, only the "mercenaries" who are well paid to risk their lives. Oh, this life is hard to bear! Such intense, frightful hatred speaks in every look, in every action of our enemies. It is consoling to remember that their own Nietzsche says: "One does not hate as long as one dis-esteems, and only when one esteems an equal or superior."
August 26th.--A chauffeur at the Bellevue was arrested to-day and taken to Frankfort. He is only twenty, a Glasgow lad, and absolutely harmless.
I am so sick of "Heil Dir im Sieger Kranz" that as the children pass my villa shouting it or "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" I go out on my balcony and retaliate by singing "Rule Britannia." Small children with flags and paper cocked hats, toy swords and tiny drums march through the streets, day after day, singing patriotic songs, whilst (poor dears!) their fathers are being slaughtered in thousands. No reverses are ever reported in the German papers, nothing but victories appear, and Germans are treated like children. If it were not for the "Corriere della Sera" we should be tempted to believe the Allies in a bad way. The "beehrte g?ste" departed this morning. At the station a band played, flags were waved, and every American man and woman was presented with a small white book which contained the telegrams which passed between the belligerent nations at the beginning of the war. Again we hear that Copenhagen is to be our destination.
[Illustration: IN POLYNESIEN (The German idea of an Australian)]
August 27th.--I saw Dr. G---- this morning. He begged me to be most careful what I said. Two patients of his (English) Levantines were talking on the Terrace, and one said to the other, "We had better shave off our moustaches, or we shall be taken for military men." They were promptly arrested, having been overheard by a spy. We are now ordered to get health certificates, which are to go to Frankfort, and be forwarded to the military authorities in Berlin. There is an idea that we may go away on Tuesday next. We have found out that our passports never went to Berlin at all, but are lying at this moment in the drawer of that old demon in the "Polizei-Amt."
August 28th.--Nothing new. The German papers, as usual, full of their victories and their piety, and their patriotism, and their "Kultur,"