Germany In War Time - free ebook by Mary Ethel McAuley

GERMANY IN WAR TIME

WHAT AN AMERICAN GIRL SAW AND HEARD BY MARY ETHEL McAULEY CHICAGO THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 1917 COPYRIGHT BY THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 1917 DEDICATION TO MY MOTHER WHO SHARED THE TRIALS OF TWO YEARS IN GERMANY WITH ME...

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PREFATORY NOTE.

This book is the product of two years spent in Germany during the great war. It portrays what has been seen and heard by an American girl whose primary interest was in art. She has tried to write without fear or favor the simple truth as it appeared to her....

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GETTING INTO GERMANY IN WAR TIME.

Now that America and Germany are at war, it is not possible for an American to enter the German Empire. Americans can leave the country if they wish, but once they are out they cannot go back in again. Since the first year of the war there has been only one way of getting into Germany through Denmark, and that is by way of Warnemünde. After leaving Copenhagen you ride a long way on the train, and then the train boards a ferry which takes you to a little island. At the end of this island is the D

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SOLDIERS OF BERLIN.

Berlin is a city of soldiers. Every day is soldiers' day. And on Sundays there are even more soldiers than on week days. Then Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse and the Tiergarten are one seething mass of gray coats—gray the color of everything and yet the color of nothing. This field gray blends with the streets, the houses, and the walls, and the dark clothes of the civilians stand out conspicuously against this gray mass. Soldiers Marching Through Brandenburg Gate. When I first came to Berlin

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THE WOMEN WORKERS OF BERLIN.

The German women have filled in the ranks made vacant by the men. Nothing is too difficult for them to undertake and nothing is too hard for them to do. The poor German working women! No one in all the war has suffered like these poor creatures. Their men have been taken from them, they are paid only a few pfennigs a day by the government, and now they must work, work like a man, work like a horse. The German working woman is tremendously capable in manual labor. She never seems to get tired and

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GERMAN "SPARSAMKEIT."

When the blockade of Germany began, no one believed that she could hold out without supplies from the outside world; that in a short time her people would be starving and that she would be out of raw material. During the few months before the blockade was declared, Germany had shipped into her ports as much cotton, copper, rubber and food as was possible. After the blockade started much stuff was obtained from Holland and Scandinavia. From the very first days of the war Germany set to work to ut

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THE FOOD IN GERMANY.

In Germany I sometimes had to go to three or four different stores before I could get a spool of silk thread. Leather is so expensive that only the upper-class burgher will be able to have real leather shoes this winter; and starch is twenty marks a pound. But after all, no German will go to work with an empty dinner pail. The German Food Commission is the most uncanny thing in all the world. Like magic it produces a substitute for any article that is scarce, it has everything figured out so tha

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WHAT WE ATE IN GERMANY.

Reading over the food restrictions, one does not get a very clear idea of what we really ate in Germany, so I have made out a menu that was possible in the month of April, 1917. April is, of course, one of the hardest months of the year because it is just before the green vegetables come in and the winter supplies are gone. In this month, however, we could buy canned goods which were forbidden during the winter months, and each person was allowed two and one-half pounds of canned goods a week. T

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HOW BERLIN IS AMUSING ITSELF IN WAR TIME.

When war was first declared all the theaters and amusement places in Berlin were closed, and it was not until after Christmas of that year that they were opened again. Now everything is open except the dance halls, for dancing is prohibited during the war. The famous resort " Palais de Danse " is closed up and its outside is all covered with posters asking for money for the Red Cross. The theaters in Berlin are very well attended. As many times as I went to the opera, which was quite often, ever

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THE CLOTHES TICKET.

It has been said that the sign Verboten was the most seen sign in Germany, but now that sign has a rival in Ohne Bezugsschein , which means "without a clothes ticket." All the store windows are decorated with these cards and merchants are pushing forward these articles because they are more expensive than the articles which require a card, and most people would rather pay a few marks more than go to the trouble of getting a card. Along in May, 1916, there were rumors of a ticket for clothes, but

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MY TYPEWRITER.

It is not only clothes that are getting scarce in Germany, but every kind of manufactured articles as well. Many articles of furniture cannot be bought at all now, even second-hand, and the prices for things still in stock are enormous. A German girl I know was going to be married, and she wanted twin brass beds. She tried all over Dresden but could not get two single brass beds alike. She could not even order them, because she was told by the merchants that they were not being made any more. A

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MOVING IN BERLIN.

When you move from one place to another in Berlin it takes just about three days to get all the food cards in order again. Here is what you would have to do if you move from one suburb of Berlin to another, say from Charlottenburg to Wilmersdorf. This is for all foreigners—even neutrals. First you go to the Portier or janitor of the building where you live in Charlottenburg, and he gives you three green slips which you fill out. These slips tell your name, age, occupation, religion, nationality,

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WHAT THE GERMANS READ IN WAR TIME.

"Gobble! Ah a gobble!" That is what it sounds like when you hear the newspaper sellers crying out their wares on Potsdamer Platz in the evening. But this is really not what they are saying. They are saying, Abendausgabe or "Evening Edition." It is a pretty sight, the Potsdamer Platz—cabs rattling along, jingling street-car bells, the square black with civilians and gray with soldiers, wagons drawn up to the sidewalks loaded down with bright-colored fruit and vegetables, women selling flowers—vio

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PRECAUTIONS AGAINST SPIES, ETC.

SOLDATEN! Vorsicht bei Gesprächen! Spionengefahr! This sign is hanging in every street car, train coupé, restaurant, store and window with a war map in Germany, and it warns the soldiers to be careful in their speaking, that dangerous spies travel about. Germany is trying to prevent things that she does not wish known from becoming known by locking them up even in the mouths of her soldiers, and if she were as clever at concealing her tactics abroad as she is at home, Zimmermann's famous letter

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PRISONERS IN GERMANY.

Every thirtieth person in Germany is a war prisoner. Every fifth man is a Russian. In Germany there are now nearly 2,000,000 prisoners of war. In the summer of 1916 the Central Powers held 2,658,283 prisoners, and of this number 1,647,225 were held in Germany. This was before Roumania fell, and then the number was greatly increased. They have 150 large prison camps and five hundred small prison camps in Germany, and there are hundreds of places where the working prisoners live. The largest camps

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VERBOTEN.

In Germany nowadays— It is verboten to throw rubbish on the side walks and streets. It is verboten to spit in public places. It is verboten for children and nurse girls to occupy all the benches in the parks. Places must be left for old people. It is verboten for children to play in the halls of apartment houses. There are sand-boxes in the rear for them. It is verboten for you to play your piano in an apartment after ten o'clock at night. Other people might want to sleep. It is verboten to make

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THE MAIL IN GERMANY.

In Germany, when a crowd of Americans got together, we had but two topics of conversation—the food and the mail. The mail between Germany and America came pretty regularly until February, 1916. Since that time it is only a few straggling letters that have gotten there at all. Even before America went into the war, letters addressed to Germany direct were held, but most people had a Holland or Scandinavian address, and they had their letters relayed to them. But even many of these letters did not

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THE "AUSLÄNDEREI"

In Germany, one evening last winter I heard a German count give a lecture on the Ausländerei . He started out by saying that for years the German people had been suffering from a disease called Ausländerei , which means that they have always been too fond of all that is foreign, that they have been ashamed of being Germans, and that they have tried to copy the manner, modes and customs of other nations instead of sticking to their own national ideals. He went into detail, beginning with the fore

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WAR CHARITIES.

Almost every day is tag day in Berlin. You can't poke your head out of the door without a collection-box being shoved at you. Boys and girls work at this eternally. They go through the trains and the cafés and restaurants, not one at a time but in steady streams. You may be walking along a very quiet street and you will see a lady come smiling toward you. Apparently she is empty-handed, but just as she comes up to you, she whisks a box out from behind her muff or newspaper and politely begs a mi

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WHAT GERMANY IS DOING FOR HER HUMAN WAR WRECKS.

The word "cripple" is a word that hurts, and in Germany when one speaks of the men who have lost arms, legs, or eyes, they say Kriegsbeschädigte , which means hurt or damaged by the war. It has a softer sound. Even now, with the war not over, plans have been carried out for these men and many more plans are being made. Skilful doctors and makers of artificial limbs are contriving all sorts of ways to make various kinds of arms and legs that are suited for all kinds of work that a crippled man mi

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WILL THE WOMEN OF GERMANY SERVE A YEAR IN THE ARMY?

The greatest question before the German women is not, Shall they have the right to vote? but, Would it not be better for them if they had one year's special training by the Government as do the men when they serve their time in the army? Compulsory military service has been a fine thing for men in the countries where it is enforced, and this is especially so of Germany where the men are inclined to be fond of studies rather than of sports and exercise. It makes them physically stronger, they are

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THE KAISERIN AND THE HOHENZOLLERN PRINCESSES.

The most popular man in Germany is the Kaiser, and the Kaiserin is the most popular woman. William II may have his critics, but no one can deny that in him Augusta Victoria has found what she considers an ideal husband. The only domestic tyranny that I heard of his engaging in is, that every birthday he gives the Kaiserin twelve hats for a present. These hats he picks out himself, and she has to wear them. From the pictures one sees of the Kaiserin wearing a hat one does feel that he is a sort o

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A STROLL THROUGH BERLIN.

When you start your stroll through Berlin, you begin at Friedrichstrasse Station, for everything begins there and ends there for that matter. Here is the elevated that takes you all around the city, and the long-distance railway that takes you all around the world. From the station you hurry down two squares of Friedrichstrasse, and there you are right on Unter den Linden, the heart of Berlin. Linden trees! Linden trees! But they are all bare now, and the lights from the other side of the street

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A TRIP DOWN THE HARBOR OF HAMBURG.

My most unique experience in Germany was my trip down the Harbor of Hamburg, for strangers are absolutely forbidden near the docks, and foreigners poking around are arrested. My trip was made just by chance. An American girl and I took a trip up to Hamburg Christmas week last year. I was offered letters of introduction to people there, but I said we didn't want them, that we were going only for fun, and we didn't want to be bothered by meeting strange people. I had been in Hamburg once several y

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THE KRUPP WORKS AT ESSEN.

Standing in the main square before the town hall of Essen is a large bronze monument, representing not a king, nor yet a hero, but a man clad in a simple citizen's coat. His right hand rests on an anvil, and his penetrating eyes are overhung by a thinker's brow. The granite pedestal bears the name of "Alfred Krupp." Long ago England knew the process of making cast steel, but she carefully kept it a secret. In 1800 Friedrich Krupp, the father of Alfred, began to experiment. He worked early and la

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MUNICH IN WAR TIME.

No matter what you want to do in Germany if you are a foreigner, even a neutral, you have to go to the police. If you want to take a trip, the first thing that you do is to go to the police and ask them if you are allowed to go where you want to go, and then if you are allowed to go you must return to the police exactly twenty-four hours before you start and get your passport stamped. Then you take your bread card, your butter card, your meat card and your potato card to the bread commission. Th

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FROM BERLIN TO VIENNA IN WAR TIME.

You would naturally think that it would be a very easy matter to go from Berlin to Vienna in war time, because Germany and Austria are allies, and that it would be as easy as traveling around Germany; that all you would have to do would be to pack your trunk, go down to the station, buy your ticket and get on the train. Of course you must do all these things, but you must do a great many other things before you do that. The first thing that you do is to go to the police where you are registered

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VIENNA IN WAR TIME.

Scene Along the Danube. I had never realized the wonderfulness of the German food card system until I went to Vienna. In Germany you can buy at a reasonable price your allotted ration of food, and the poor people are just as well off as the rich, but in Vienna the rich people have everything and the poor people are in great need because of the lack of food regulations, and while there is an abundance of food it is so dear that the poor cannot afford to buy. And Vienna is not like Berlin—there ar

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SOLDIERS OF VIENNA.

I had been in Vienna, and each time I had thought that the most wonderful and exquisite things were the Viennese officers. They have always seemed to me like dainty paper dolls which had just stepped out of a fashion plate. I had imagined that in war time they would look less spick and span—but no indeed, they looked just the same, real war having made no difference. The Austrian officer is of only one type. He is very tall, very slender and very graceful, and he is mostly rather dark than light

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WOMEN WARRIORS.

Perhaps in no other war have there been so many women warriors as in this one. In Russia, in Galicia, in Hungary, in Serbia, and in Montenegro, countless women have gone out to fight. They have served in the trenches, in the mountain passes and on ships. They have suffered hardships the same as the men, enduring the cold, the wretched food and the strenuous work without a murmur. Each one of the women has had love of country and fireside in her heart, but in most cases it was love for her husban

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HOW AMERICANS WERE TREATED IN GERMANY.

"Wilson Breaks with Germany!" So announced the B. Z. am Mittag at noon on Sunday February 5, 1917. It was a very cold day, almost the coldest of that long cold winter. The chills were running up and down my spine in our cold apartment, but this headliner froze me stiff. "Wilson Breaks with Germany." That is a typical German headliner. They never say "America" in the German papers, but always "Wilson," and it is Wilson that gets the blame for everything and never the American people. The Monday a

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I LEAVE GERMANY, JULY 1, 1917.

It is easier to cross the frontier going out of Germany than any other frontier in Europe. This statement includes neutral Denmark where they nearly tore my clothes off me searching for gold. You are not allowed to take any gold out of Denmark. There are two reasons why the German frontier is easy to cross. One is, that most people who come out of Germany are anxious to come out, and they are afraid to hide anything for if it was found they would be sent back and held. The second reason is that

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