Part 25 (1/2)

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.