CHAPTER XII

IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET

There is only one way to realise the distress in Germany, and that is to go there and travel as widely as possible--preferably on foot. The truth about the food situation and the growing discontent cannot be told by the neutral correspondent in Germany.

It must be memorised and carried across the frontier in the brain, for the searching process extends to the very skin of the traveller. If he has an umbrella or a stick it is likely to be broken for examination. The heels are taken from his boots lest they may conceal writings. This does not happen in every case, but it takes place frequently. Many travellers are in addition given an acid bath to develop any possible writing in invisible ink.

In Germany, as it is no longer possible to conceal the actual state of affairs from any but highly placed and carefully attended neutrals travelling therein, the utmost pains are being taken to mislead the outside world. The foreign correspondents are not allowed to send anything the Government does not wish to get out.

They are, moreover, regularly dosed with propaganda distributed by the _Nachrichtendienst_ (Publicity Service of the Foreign Office).

One of the books handed round to the neutrals when I was in Berlin was a treatise on the German industrial and economic situation by Professor Ca.s.sell, of the University of Upsala, Sweden.

He came upon the invitation of the German authorities for a three weeks' study of conditions. In his preface he artlessly mentions that he was enabled to accomplish so much in three weeks owing to the praiseworthy way in which everything was arranged for him. He compiled his work from information discreetly imparted at interviews with officials, from printed statistics, and from observations made on carefully shepherded expeditions. Neutral correspondents are expected to use this sort of thing, which is turned out by the hundredweight, as the basis of their communications to their newspapers. We were supplied with a similar volume on the "Great German naval victory of Jutland."

One feels in Germany that the great drama of the war is the drama of the food supply--the struggle of a whole nation to prevent itself being exhausted through hunger and shortage of raw materials.

After six months of war the bread ticket was introduced, which guaranteed thirty-eight ordinary sized rolls or equivalent each week to everybody throughout the Empire. In the autumn of 1915 Tuesday and Friday became meatless days. The b.u.t.ter lines had become an inst.i.tution towards the close of the year. There was little discomfort, however.

For seventeen months Germany laughed at the attempt to starve her out. Then, early in 1916 came a change. An economic decline was noticeable, a decline which was rapid and continuous during each succeeding month. Pork disappeared from the menu, beef became scarcer and scarcer, but veal was plentiful until April. In March, sugar could be obtained in only small quant.i.ties, six months later the unnutritious saccharine had almost completely replaced it.

Fish continued in abundance, but became increasingly expensive. A shortage in meat caused a run on eggs. In September egg cards limited each person to two eggs per week, in December the maximum became one egg in two weeks. Vegetables, particularly cabbage and turnips, were plentiful enough to be of great help.

In Berlin the meat shortage became so acute in April, 1916, that for five days in the week preceding Easter most butchers' shops did not open their doors. This made it imperative that the city should extend the ticket rationing system to meat. The police issued cards to the residents of their districts, permitting them to purchase one-half pound of meat per week from a butcher to whom they were arbitrarily a.s.signed in order to facilitate distribution.

The butchers buy through the munic.i.p.al authorities, who contract for the entire supply of the city. The tickets are in strips, each of which represents a week, and each strip is subdivided into five sections for the convenience of diners in restaurants.

Since the supply in each butcher's shop was seldom sufficient to let everybody be served in one day, the custom of posting in the windows or advertising in the local papers "Thursday, Nos. 1-500,"

and later, "Sat.u.r.day, Nos. 501-1000," was introduced. A few butchers went still further and announced at what hours certain numbers could be served, thus doing away with the long queues.

Most of the competent authorities with whom I discussed the matter agreed that the great flaw in the meat regulations was that, unlike those of bread, they were only local and thus there were great differences and correspondinng discontent all over Germany.

One factor which contributed to Germany's shortage of meat was the indiscriminate killing of the livestock, especially pigs, when the price of fodder first rose in the last months of 1914. Most of this excess killing was done by the small owners. Our plates were heaped unnecessarily. Some of the dressing was done so hurriedly and carelessly that there were numerous cases of pork becoming so full of worms that it had to be destroyed.

The great agrarian Junkers were not forced by lack of fodder to kill; consequently they own a still larger proportion of the live-stock than they did at the beginning of the war.

On October 1st, 1916, the regulation of meat was taken out of the hands of the local authorities so far as their power to regulate the amount for each person was concerned, and this amount was made practically the same throughout Germany.

First and foremost in the welfare of the people, whatever may be said by the vegetarians, is the vital question of the meat supply.

Involved in the question of cattle is milk, leather, other products, and of course, meat itself.

One German statistician told me he believed that the conquest of Roumania would add between nine and ten months to Germany's capacity to hold out, during which time, no doubt, one or other of the Allies would succ.u.mb.

At the beginning of 1917 the actual number of cattle in Germany does not seem to be so greatly depreciated as one would expect.

After a very thorough investigation I am convinced that there are in Germany to-day from three-fourths to four-fifths as many head of cattle as there were before the war.

In the spring and summer these cattle did very well, but with the pa.s.sing of the grazing season new difficulties are arising. Cattle must be fed, and unless sufficient grain comes from Roumania to supply the bread for the people and the fodder for the cattle it is obvious that there must be a wholesale slaughtering, and consequent reduction of milk, b.u.t.ter, and cheese.

All these details may seem tiresome, but they directly concern the length of the war.

To add to the shortage, the present stock of cattle in Germany was, when I left, being largely drawn upon for the supply of the German armies in the occupied parts of Prance, Belgium, and Russia, and the winter prospect for Germany, therefore, is one of obviously increased privation, provided always that the blockade is drastic.

Cattle are, of course, not the only food supply. There is game.

Venison is a much commoner food in Germany than in England, especially now there is much of it left. Hares, rabbits, partridges are in some parts of Germany much more numerous even than in England. A friend of mine recently arrived from Hungary told me that he had been present at a shoot over driven partridges at which, on three successive days, over 400 brace fell to the guns. Wherever I went in Germany, however, game was being netted.

Before the war, pork, ham, and bacon were the most popular German food, but owing to the mistake of killing pigs in what I heard called the "pork panic" the Germans are to-day facing a remarkable shortage of their favourite meat. I am convinced that they began 1917 with less than one-fourth as many pigs as they had before the war.

The Berlin stockyards slaughtered over 25,000 pigs weekly before August, 1914. During the first 10 months of the war the figure actually rose to 50,000 pigs per week in that one city alone. In one week in September last the figure had fallen to 350 pigs!

The great slaughter early in the war gave a false optimism not only to Germans, but also to visitors. If you have the curiosity to look back at newspapers of that time you will find that the great plenty of pork was dilated upon by travelling neutrals.

To-day the most tremendous efforts are being made to increase the number of pigs. You will not find much about this in the German newspapers--in fact what the German newspapers do not print is often more important than what they do print. In the rural districts you can learn much more of Germany's food secrets than in the newspapers.

In one small village which I went to I counted no fewer than thirty public notices on various topics. Hers is one:--

FATTEN PIGS.

Fat is an essential for soldiers and hard workers.

Not to keep and fatten pigs if you are able to do so is treason to the Fatherland.

No pen empty--every pen full.

These food notices may be necessary, but they are bringing about intense cla.s.s hatred in Germany. They are directed at the small farmer, who in many cases has killed all his pigs and most of his cows, because of his difficulty in getting fodder. As I have said, the great agrarian junkers, the wealthy landowners of Prussia, have in many cases more cows, more pigs, more poultry than before the war.

The facts of these great disparities of life are well known, and if there were more individuality in the German character they would lead to something more serious than the very tame riots, at several of which I have been present.

That the food question is the dominating topic in Germany among all except the very rich, and that this winter will add to the intensity of the conversations on the subject, is not difficult to understand. Most of the shopping of the world is done by women, and the German woman of the middle cla.s.s, whose maidservant has gone off to a munition factory, has to spend at least half her day waiting in a long line for potatoes, b.u.t.ter, or meat.

There is a curious belief in England and in the United States in the perfection of German organisation. My experience of their organisation is that it is absolutely marvellous--when there are no unexpected difficulties in the way. When the Germans first put the nation on rations as to certain commodities, the outside world said, "Ah, they are beginning to starve!" or "What wonderful organisers!"

As a matter of fact, they were not beginning to starve, and they were not wonderful organisers. The rationing was done about as badly as it could be done. It was arranged in such a fas.h.i.+on as to produce plenty in some places and dearth in others. It was done so that wealthy men made fortunes and poor men were made still poorer.

The inordinate greed and lack of real patriotism on the part of influential parties in both Germany and Austria-Hungary have added to the bad state of affairs. As if to make matters worse, the whole vast machine of rationing by ticket was based on the expectation of a comparatively quick and decisive victory for Germany. This led to reckless consumption and a great rise in prices. The fight that is now going on between the ma.s.ses in the towns and the wealthy land-owning farmers has been denounced in public by food dictator Batocki (p.r.o.nounced Batoski), who, in words almost of despair, complained of the selfish landed proprietor, who would only disgorge to the suffering millions in the great manufacturing centres at a price greatly exceeding that fixed by the food authorities.

All manner of earnest public men are endeavouring to cope with the coming distress, and at this point I can do no better than quote from an interview given me by Dr. Sudek.u.m, Social Democratic member of the Reichstag for Nuremberg, Bavaria. He is a sincere patriot, and a prominent worker in food organisation.

"More than a year ago," he explained, "I worked out a plan for the distribution of food, which provided for uniform food-cards throughout the entire empire. For example, everyone, whether he lived in a Bavarian village or in a Prussian city, would receive, say, half a pound of meat a week. I presented my plan to the Government, with whose approval it met. Nevertheless, they did not see fit to adopt it for three reasons. In the first place because they believed that the people might become unnecessarily alarmed.

Secondly, because our enemies might make capital out of such measures. _Thirdly, because our leaders at that time believed that the war might be over before the end of 1915_.

"But the war dragged on, and we were somewhat extravagant with our supplies--I except bread, for which we introduced cards in February, 1915--and instead of the whole Empire husbanding the distribution of meat, for example, various sections here and there introduced purely local measures, with the inevitable resulting confusion.

"Hunger has been a cause of revolution in the past," Dr. Sudek.u.m continued thoughtfully. "We should take lessons from history, and do everything in our power to provide for the poor. I have worked hard in the development of the 'People's Kitchens' in Berlin. We started in the suburbs early in 1916, in some great central kitchens in which we cook a nouris.h.i.+ng meat and vegetable stew.

From these kitchens distributing vehicles--_Gulasch-kanonen_ (stew cannons) as they are jocularly called--are sent through, the city, and from them one may purchase enough for a meal at less than the cost of production. We have added a new central kitchen each week until we now have 30, each of which supplies 10,000 people a day with a meal, or, more correctly, a meal and a half. In July, however, the work a.s.sumed greater proportions, for the munic.i.p.al authorities also created great central kitchens. Most of the dinners are taken to the homes and eaten there.

"The People's Kitchen idea is now spreading throughout Germany.

But I believe in going further, I believe in putting every German--I make no exception--upon rations. That is what is done in a besieged city, and our position is sufficiently a.n.a.logous to a besieged city to warrant the same measures. All our food would then be available for equal distribution, and each person would get his allowance."

This earnest Social Democrat's idea is, of course, perfect in theory. Even the able, hard-working Batocki, however, cannot make it practicable. Why not? _The Agrarian, the great Junker of Prussia_, not only will not make sacrifices, but stubbornly insists upon wringing every pfennig of misery money from the nation which has boasted to the world that its patriotism was unselfish and unrivalled.

The most important German crop of all at this juncture is potatoes, for potatoes are an integral part of German and Austrian bread.

The handling of the crop, to which all Germany was looking forward so eagerly, exhibits in its most naked form the horrid profiteering to which the German poor are being subjected by the German rich.

It was a wet summer in Germany. Wherever I went in my rural excursions I heard that the potatoes were poor. The people in the towns knew little of this, and were told that the harvests were good.