CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW

A little, bent old woman, neat, shrivelled, with clear, healthy eye and keen intelligence, was collecting acorns in the park outside the great Schloss, the residence of von Oppen, a relative of the Police President of Berlin.

I had walked long and was about to eat my picnic lunch, and stopped and spoke with her. We soon came to the one topic in Germany--the war. She was eighty-four years of age, she told me, and she worked for twelve hours a day. Her mother had seen Napoleon pa.s.s through the red-roofed village hard by. She well remembered what she called "the Bismarck wars." She was of the old generation, for she spoke of the Kaiser as "the King."

"No," she said, "this war is not going like the Bismarck wars--not like the three that happened in 1864, 1866, 1870, within seven years when I was a young woman." She was referring, of course, to Denmark, Austria, and France. "We have lost many in our village--food is hard to get." Here she pointed to the two thin slices of black bread which were to form her mid-day meal. She did not grumble at her twelve hours' day in the fields, which were in addition to the work of her little house, but she wished that she could have half an hour in which to read history.

Her belief was that the war would be terminated by the Zeppelins.

"When our humane King really gives the word, the English s.h.i.+ps and towns will all be destroyed by our Zeppelins. He is holding back his great secret of destruction out of kindness."

The remark of that simple, but intelligent old woman as to the restraint imposed by the Kaiser upon the Zeppelins const.i.tuted the universal belief of all Germany until the British doggedly built up an air service under the stress of necessity, which has brilliantly checked the aerial carnival of frightfulness. People in Great Britain seem to have no conception of the great part the Zeppelins were to play in the war, according to German imagination. That simple old peasant lady expressed the views that had been uttered to me by intelligent members of the Reichstag--bankers, merchants, men and women of all degrees. The first destruction of Zeppelins--that by Lieutenant Warneford, and the bringing down of LZ77 at Revigny, did not produce much disappointment. The war was going well in other directions. But the further destruction of Zeppelins has had almost as much to do with the desire for peace, in the popular mind, as the discomfort and illness caused by food shortage and the perpetual hammerings by the French and British Armies in the West.

It should be realised that the Zeppelin has been a fetish of the Germans for the last ten years. The Kaiser started the wors.h.i.+p by publicly kissing Count Zeppelin, and fervently exclaiming that he was the greatest man of the century. Thousands of pictures have been imagined of Zeppelins dropping bombs on Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England, and the Grand Fleet. For a long time, owing to the hiding of the facts in England of the Zeppelin raids, even high German officials believed that immense damage had been done. The French acted more wisely. They allowed full descriptions of the aeroplane and Zeppelin raids in France to be published, and the result was discouraging to the Germans. I remember studying the British Zeppelin communiques with Germans. At that time the London Authorities were constantly referring to these raids taking place in the "Eastern counties," when the returned Germans knew exactly where they had been. The result was great encouragement. Nothing did more to depress the Germans than the humorous and true accounts of the Zeppelin raids which were eventually allowed to appear in the English newspapers.

The Germans have now facts as to the actual damage done in England.

They know that the British public receive the Zeppelins with excellent aircraft and gun-fire. They know that anti-aircraft preparations are likely to increase rather than decrease, and while, for the sake of saving the nation's "face," it will be necessary that Zeppelins be further used, the people who are directing the war know that, so far as land warfare is concerned, they are not a factor.

There have been more mishaps than have been published; more wounded and damaged Zeppelins than the Germans have ever announced. I was informed that the overhauling and repair of many Zeppelins after a successful or unsuccessful raid was a matter, not of days, but of weeks. There was great difficulty in obtaining crews. Most of them are sailors, as are the officers. There have been suppressed mutinies in connection with the manning of the Zeppelins.

Count Zeppelin, who, up to a year ago, was a national hero, is already regarded by a large section of the population as a failure.

The very house servants who subscribed their pfennigs and marks in the early days to help conduct his experiments now no longer speak of him with respect. They have transferred their admiration to Hindenburg and the submarines.

The majority of Germans of all cla.s.ses believe what they are officially instructed to believe, no more, no less. The overmastering self-hypnotism which leads the present-day German to believe that black is white, if it adds to his self-satisfaction, is one of the most startling phenomena of history. But what of Ballin, Heineken, von Gwinner, Gutmann, Thyssen, Rathenau, and other captains of industry and finance? Some of them have expressed opinions in interviews, but what do they _really_ think?

I am not going to indulge in any guesswork on this matter. I am simply going to disclose some important statements made at a secret meeting attended by many of the business directors of the German Empire. The meeting was for the purpose of discussing actual conditions in a straightforward manner, therefore no member of the Press, German or foreign, was present.

In striking contrast with custom when the war is discussed, nothing was said of _Kultur_, of German innocence or enemy guilt, of an early and victorious peace, of British wars.h.i.+ps hiding always in safety, or of the omniscience and infallibility of the Supreme Military Command.

The little circle of Germans who have displayed such brilliant organising ability in commerce and industry are practical men, who look at the war and the days to follow the war in the cold light of debit and credit. This being the case, the honest opinions expressed by Arthur von Gwinner, President of the Deutsche Bank, are worthy of serious consideration. His chief points were:--

1. The belief cherished by the ma.s.s of the nation that a Central Europe Economic Alliance will amply compensate us for any shortcomings elsewhere, and enable us to sit back and snap our fingers at the rest of the world is too absurd to be entertained by serious men. Our trade, import and export, with Austria-Hungary was as great as it could be for many years to come, and it was only a small part of our total trade. After the war, as before, the bulk of our trade must be with countries now neutral or enemy, and we must seriously consider how to hold and add to this trade in the future.

2. The solution of the labour problem will be vital in the work of reconstruction. We must make every provision in order to forge rapidly ahead immediately after the close of the war.

_No German, except for necessary reasons of State, should be allowed to leave the country for a number of years after the war_.

3. Before the war 3,000,000 Russians came to us every year at harvest time. These must continue to come.

4. We have done wonderful work in scientific agriculture, but the limit of productivity of the soil has undoubtedly been reached.

5. Do not place too much hope in an early war between the United States and j.a.pan.

6. There is great rejoicing over the sinking of enemy s.h.i.+ps. It should also be remembered, however, that we are not paying any dividends at present.

In the discussion which followed the statements of Herr von Gwinner and from various channels of reliable information which I made use of in Germany, I found a serious view taken of these and other topics, of which the great body of Germans are quite unaware.

Take the labour problem, for example. For years Germany has recognised the necessity of a rapid increase of population, if a nation is to smash rivals in industry and war. Not for a moment during this struggle has Germany lost sight of this fact. Many times have I heard in the Fatherland that the a.s.surance of milk to children is not entirely for sentimental but also for practical reasons. Official attempts are being made at present to increase the population in ways which cannot be discussed in this book.

"You get yourself born and the State does all the rest" was an accurate a.n.a.lysis of Germany before the war; but the State looks after everything now.

When men go home on leave from the army, married or single, they are instructed in their duty of doing their part to increase the population so that Germany will have plenty of colonists for the Balkans, Turkey and Asia in the great economic development of those regions. To impress this they argue that Germany and France had nearly the same number of inhabitants in 1870. "See the difference to-day," says the German. "This difference is one of the chief causes of our greatly superior strength."

Working girls in Dresden have not only been encouraged but quietly advised to serve the State "by enabling Deutschland to achieve the high place in the world which G.o.d marked out for it, which can only be done if there are a sufficient number of Germans to make their influence felt in the world." They have been told not to worry, that the State will provide for the offspring. In fact, societies of G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers are growing all over Germany. They do not necessarily have to bring up the child in their own home; they can pay for its maintenance. Thus the rich woman who does not care to have many children herself is made to feel in ultra-scientific Germany that she should help her poorer sister.

The Germans treat the matter very lightly. In Bremen, for example, where the quartering of Landsturmers (the oldest Germans called to military service) among the people resulted in a large batch of illegitimate children, I found it the custom, even in mixed society of the higher circles, to refer to them jokingly as "young Landsturmers."

A serious consideration of what Germany, or any other belligerent, will do _after_ the war is usually of little value, as conditions after the war depend upon what is done _during_ the war. The amount of freedom which the German people attain in the next few years is in direct proportion to the amount of thras.h.i.+ng administered to their country by the Allies. Perhaps they will have something to say about the frontier regulations of Germany; but a.s.suming that the training of centuries will prevent their hastily casting aside their docility, it is extremely probable that few, if any, Germans will be allowed to leave Germany during the first years of reconstruction.

This will disappoint several million Germans. Despite the snarling rage displayed everywhere in the fatherland, except in diplomatic circles, against the United States, I heard an ever-increasing number of malcontents declare that, immediately after the close of war, they would go to the States to escape the burden of taxation.

One hears two words--_Friede_ (peace) and _Essen_ (food)--constantly. The third word I should add is _Steuern_ (taxes). It is all very well to sit by some neutral fireside reading Goethe or Schopenhauer, while listening to the _Meistersinger von Nurnberg_, or the "Melody in F," and lull yourself into the belief that the Germans are a race of idealists.

This touch is used to a considerable extent in German propaganda.

Any one familiar, however, with conditions in modern Germany knows that Germans are ultra-materialistic.

I have heard them talk of the cost of the war from the very beginning. They gloated over the sweeping indemnities they would exact. After they realised the possibilities of State-organised scientific burglary in Belgium they were beside themselves in joyful antic.i.p.ation of what Paris, London, and a score of other cities would yield. When the war became a temporary stalemate, I heard it said, particularly by army officers, that Germany was taking no chances with the future, but was exacting indemnities now from the occupied districts. When taxes rose and food shortage increased, the possibility that the Germans themselves would have to pay some of their own costs of the war in various forms of taxation determined a rapidly growing number to seek a way out by emigrating at the first opportunity.

As Herr Ballin said, "The world will find us as strongly organised for peace as we were organised for war." The labour problem, however, not only now, but for the days of reconstruction, is viewed very seriously, how seriously may be gathered from the fact that there is so much apprehension that Russia may refuse to allow her workers to go to Germany for some years after the war, that nearly everyone at the secret conference mentioned above was in favour of making concessions at the peace conference, should Russia insist. Indeed one Rhinelander was of the opinion that it would be worth while giving up Courland to get an unlimited supply of labour.

In the meantime the Germans have not been idle in other directions.

Until Hindenburg called up his immense levies in the late summer, Germany exported steel building materials and coal to contiguous neutral countries, but she can no longer do this. Nevertheless, she did make elaborate preparations to "dump" into Russia on a colossal scale immediately after the resumption of intercourse.

Immense supplies of farming implements and other articles of steel have been stored in the Rhineland, Westphalia, and Silesia, ready for immediate s.h.i.+pment to Russia, thus enabling Germany to get ahead of all rivals in this field.

Germans also derive comfort from the fact that their s.h.i.+ps will be ready at once to carry cargoes and pa.s.sengers, while so many of those of the Allies will be used for the transport of troops after the close of the war, and must then rent.

With such plans for "getting the jump" on compet.i.tors it is only natural that I saw more and more irritability on the part of the financial men with each month of the war after last April.

Von Gwinner's remark about the improbability of war between j.a.pan and the United States in the near future would, if known to the German people, cause still another keen disappointment, since one of their solaces has been the thought that they would soon have an opportunity of reaping a munition harvest themselves.

When Germany tried to make a separate peace with Russia, j.a.pan was also approached--how far, I do not know. The Wilhelmstra.s.se still maintains a j.a.panese department, and any possible thread, however light, which may be twisted from a Tokyo newspaper to show that perhaps j.a.pan may be won over, is pounced upon most eagerly.

Germany, j.a.pan, and Russia was the combination whispered in Berlin at the time of the unsuccessful attempt to separate the Allies.

Absolute governments have certain advantages in war. They have also disadvantages. When things are not running smoothly in Germany the Germans worry more than do the English when things are not going well in England. When the German leaders began to disagree as to the best methods to conduct the war, the effect upon the people was demoralising. Only their gullibility saved them from complete dismay, Month after month the great struggle raged, under the surface for the most part, but occasionally boiling over.

Would it be to the best interests of Germany to go the limit with the submarines or not? Not once did I hear the subject discussed on ethical grounds. Some remarks made to me by Doctor Stresemann, one of the powerful rational Liberals behind the mammoth industrial trust in Germany, and the most violent apostle of frightfulness in the Reichstag, aptly express the sentiment in favour of unrestricted submarine warfare. He and the rest of the men behind Tirpitz had fought and lost in the three Committee a.s.semblies called to discuss U-boat policy in 1916.

As the day set for the September meeting of the Reichstag approached I noticed that Herr Stresemann was growing more and more excited. "This war is lasting too long," he declared to me in great agitation. "The Kaiser's most glaring fault is that of trying to fight Great Britain with one foot in the grave of chivalry. If the Chancellor continues to sway him, we will wreck the Chancellor at all costs. The only way to win this war is to publish again, and this time enforce, the decree of February 4th, 1915, warning all neutrals to keep out of the submarine zone."

"But, according to the '_Suss.e.x_ Ultimatum,' that will cause a break with the United States," I said.

"We cannot let that deter us," he declared. "Britain is the keystone of our enemies. If she falls they all fall. We must attack her where she is vulnerable. _We must starve her out_. As for America, we have little to fear from her. In the first place, although she may break off diplomatic relations, she will not enter the war if we are careful not to sink _her_ s.h.i.+ps. As American s.h.i.+ps play a small part in the carrying trade to England, we can thus refrain from sinking them--although we naturally should not proclaim this.

"In the second place, if America does declare war upon Germany, it would have little effect. The war will be over before she can organise after the manner of Great Britain. Herr Helfferich (former Minister of Finance and now Vive-Chancellor) feels that we should do everything possible to keep America out, inasmuch as thereby we shall be in a better position to conclude commercial treaties after the war. Herr Helfferich exerted powerful influence in the meeting at Great Headquarters at the time of the Suss.e.x Crisis. But our duty to ourselves is to win the war. If we starve out England we win, no matter how many enemies we have. If we fail, another enemy, even the United States, would not make our defeat more thorough. We are justified, for our existence is at stake. The only way we can escape defeat is by a successful U-boat war against England. That would change defeat into overwhelming victory. I am absolutely confident; that is why the slow methods of the Chancellor make me so angry. It will take at least half a year to bring England to her knees, and with our increased privations he may wait too long. But we shall compel him; we shall compel him."

Herr Stresemann later requested me not to publish these statements--at least, not until a decision had been reached. I did, however, lay the matter before the American Emba.s.sy in London as soon as I arrived in England, since my investigations in Germany left no doubt in my mind that she would play two great cards--one, to work for peace through negotiation; the other, the last desperate recourse to the submarine.

As I write (January 21st, 1917) I am convinced that it is only a question of time until Germany is reduced to this last desperate resort. The men, who will decide that time will be Hindenburg and Batocki. The successful siege of Germany is a stupendous though not impossible task.

On the other hand, the human system is a very elastic piece of mechanism, and modern man, far from being the degenerate which some admirers of cave-man hardihood have pictured him, is able to undergo a tremendous amount of privation. Besieged cities have nearly always held out longer than the besiegers expected. In the besieged city the civilian population is for the most part a drag on the military, but in besieged Germany the civilian population, reinforced by slave labour from Belgium, France and Poland, continues working at high pressure in order to enable the military to keep the field. Fat is the vital factor. The more munitions Germany heaps up the more fat she must use for this purpose, and the less she will have for the civil population, with a consequent diminution of their output of work. Germany simply cannot burn the candle at both ends. It is my personal opinion that Verdun marks the supreme culmination of German military offensive in the West, and the West is the decisive theatre of war. If that is Hindenburg's opinion, then he realises that another colossal German offensive in the West would not bring a victorious peace. There remains only the alternative of building up a defensive against the coming Allied attacks--an alternative depending for its success upon sufficient food for the ma.s.s of the people. Thus the U-boat decision clearly rests upon the Chief of Staff and the Food Dictator, since their advice to the Imperial Chancellor and the All Highest War Lord must be determinative. When the day comes for Germany to proclaim to the world that she will sink at sight all s.h.i.+ps going to and from the ports of her enemies, that day will be one of the great moments of history. Germany's last card will be on the table. It will be war to the knife. Either she will starve Great Britain or Great Britain, will starve her.