VIOLET R. MARKHAM “ That which was to be done by war and arms in Latium has now been fully accomplished by the bounty of the gods and the valour of the soldiers. The armies of the enemy have been cut down.... It now remains to be considered how we may keep them in the observance of perpetual peace.... Ye can therefore ensure to yourselves perpetual peace so far as the Latins are concerned, either by adopting severe or conciliatory measures. Do ye choose to take harsh measures against people who

“Here then will we begin the story: only adding thus much to that which hath been said, that it is a foolish thing to make a long prologue and to be short in the story itself.” WATCHING ON THE RHINE WATCHING ON THE RHINE July 1919...

Four a.m. : the slowly moving engine comes to a standstill with a jolt which wakes me from the uneasy half-sleep of a train journey. I lift a corner of the blind and look out. It is the grey hour before the dawn, when night still wrestles with morning for the possession of the coming day. A ruined building lit up by a station flare stares at me stark and desolate. In the quarter light a long street of battered houses is also dimly visible. Lille! We have come through the worst of the devastated

During the war we thought and talked with anguish daily of that line of trenches stretching from Switzerland to the sea where men suffered and died. Even the most unimaginative were stirred to emotion by stories of the strange semi-subterranean existence which modern conditions of warfare had imposed on the armies of Europe. To-day another line stretches for a distance nearly as great along the banks of the Rhine, but the men composing it are no longer compelled to dwell as troglodytes. The Germ

In the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, where, after the manner of German collections, pictures and antiques, both good and bad, jostle each other with small regard to quality, a series of modern frescoes execrable in colour and design decorate the main staircase. The artist has been at pains to cover the walls with various incidents, allegorical and otherwise, in the long history of Cologne. The final fresco is the most entertaining of the series. It represents the scene in 1842 when Frederick William

If the Dom is the central point of the religious life of Cologne, the Dom Platz is no less the central point of official and ceremonial life in the town. During the last eighteen months the massive towers of the cathedral have looked down on strange and, to German eyes, unwelcome scenes. It is all part of the German temperament to have a great affection for reviews, and parades, and processions. What is obvious and pompous makes a real appeal. When in old days the Uhlans clattered down the stree

Every billet has its crab. To that rule there is, I believe, no exception. The crab may be physical or moral, but the crab exists. Conquerors and conquered come up against each other in a peculiarly intimate way when sheltered by the same roof. Stop and reflect on the conditions under which we English live in German houses, and the marvel is not that friction sometimes arises, but that friction is not chronic. Under the terms of the Peace Treaty the German authorities in the Occupied Areas are b

Christmas-time in Germany! I am haunted by the recollection of the beautiful passage in Mr. Clutton Brock’s Thoughts on the War , a book which many of us read when no improbability seemed greater than that of spending Christmas in Cologne in the wake of a British Army of Occupation: “Forget for a moment the war and wasted Belgium and the ruins of Rheims Cathedral, and think of Germany and all that she means to the mind among the nations of Europe. She means cradle songs and fairy stories and Chr

One of the real advantages of life in Cologne is the charm of the surrounding neighbourhood. Not that the neighbourhood to which I refer is near at hand or very accessible except by train or by motor car. Cologne lies in the centre of a great fertile plain, through which the Rhine flows nobly in that last stage of its career before entering the mud flats of Holland. At a distance varying from ten to fifteen miles the plain east and west is bounded by a chain of low hills broken up, especially on

Long ago in Winnipeg I remember finding two young French girls in the immigrants’ reception camp. I inquired if they had come to Canada alone. Whereat the elder with a fine gesture replied, “O non, nous ne sommes pas seules, mais mon père est allé en ville acheter des terres.” In a spirit no less spacious and confident we set out one fine afternoon to find a fishing. The Army of Occupation is desperately interested in fishing; so, like the “terres” of which my Winnipeg friend spoke, good fishing

To the traveller passing from the devastated regions of France to the hills and valleys of the Rhineland, there is something almost scandalous in the impression of wealth and solidity conveyed by the latter country. “These people have not suffered in the war at all,” said an English woman in Cologne to me indignantly; “look at the worldwide misery they have provoked; look at the state of France, and then see how lightly the Germans themselves have escaped: everything intact and their country unt

Since writing the above impressions of the Saar in April 1920, there has been serious trouble in that area. A dispute arose at the end of July between the Governing Commission and the German permanent officials, as to the conditions of service under which these officials should be taken over. Security of tenure is a matter of jealous concern to the Germans, for it is no secret that France is very anxious to see the last of some of the existing Prussian officials. The latter are no less determine

There is something grim and forbidding about the name of Metz. The tragedy of shame and defeat with which it was connected during the Franco-Prussian War hangs round it like a sombre garment. I for one associated it always in my thoughts with a dark menacing fortress, the very stones of which cried aloud the tale of France’s humiliation and the ruthless might of her conquering foe. Historical events have the power of lending their own colour to the names of localities where great dramas have pla

Never have I appreciated more fully than during the months I have lived in Germany the many advantages of an island people. No more detestable fate can exist than to be a border state of mixed population, snatched as the chances of fate and history may dictate from one domination to another. With the unhappy example of Ireland before our eyes, we are not lacking in experience of the difficulties which arise from the presence of two races and two religions in one country. When to these internal d

German political life is in the main a sealed book to the British public. Many people take but a tepid interest in the politics of their own country. To grapple with the intricacies of parties and programmes in a foreign land is an effort quite beyond the will or the power of the average citizen. Yet Germany plays, and is bound to play for years to come, so dominant a part in every calculation and forecast made by her neighbours, that it is of considerable importance to try and realise what forc

German political organisation differs widely from anything with which we are familiar. The small constituencies represented by one or two members have no existence here. The country is divided into large electoral areas, and each party has a list of candidates qualified for the position by the votes of their respective supporters. On polling day you are implored to vote, therefore, not for a person but for a list, the list being headed by the name of the leading candidate. A definite quota of vo

One outstanding impression which I have carried away from political meetings in Germany is the easy life of a German parliamentary candidate. So far as I could judge, these happy individuals saunter through a campaign with relative ease and leisure. Instead of a hectic evening spent in rushing from one meeting to another, candidates sit for hours listening to one another’s oratory. The absence of heckling and questions makes the delivery of long political treatises, which are but mildly challeng

Polling day came and went. Despite a certain amount of nervous chatter beforehand of disturbances and riots, the elections took place in complete tranquillity. Not a dog barked through the length and breadth of Germany. In Cologne, at least, no one would have suspected that any event of importance was taking place. The ordinary Sunday crowds promenaded peacefully, as is their habit, to and fro along the Rhine. The Independent Socialists, with singular delicacy and nice feeling, plastered the out

It is, I fear, true that national hatreds are in the main created and kept alive by the educated and upper classes. Working men and women throughout the world, absorbed as they are in daily toil and often preoccupied about the next meal, have no leisure for the cultivation of abstract sentiments. With a greater simplicity of outlook they take people and things as they find them and do not theorise about their faults. The scholastic attitude as regards hatred is an ironical commentary on some of

Personally I am under considerable obligations to August Lomberg, Rektor in Elberfeld. His Präparationen zu deutschen Gedichten for the purposes of instruction in schools has been a lantern to my way and a light unto my path on the somewhat rugged slopes of the German Parnassus. August Lomberg’s is the hand which has stayed my often stumbling feet when I first aspired to Goethe and Schiller, deities sitting enthroned aloft and remote. Guides to poetry are irritating books in one’s own language.

It is probable that at no moment in the history of the world has a spirit of disillusion been so widespread and so profound as at the present time. Not only apparently have the high ideals which sustained us during the war evaporated completely, but they have yielded place to a sullen exasperation and ill-will dangerous in its temper and purpose. Moral war-weariness has sapped mind and body to such an extent that no powers of resilience remain. Suspicion as between class and class and nation and