Part 11 (1/2)

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.