Several chapters of this book are reprinted from the Evening News (London), to the Proprietors and Editor of which paper the author owes his grateful thanks for the permission to include them here. WHAT I SAW IN BERLIN AND OTHER EUROPEAN CAPITALS...

The golden days of the war correspondents have long since passed away; the unlimited freedom allowed to newspaper correspondents during the 1870 war, the fact that Germany could know every move, every change of front, even the exact figures of the different contingents of troops, by the simple method of getting the Paris papers, and the many instances during both the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars, in which supposed war correspondents turned out to be dangerous spies, have made the com

Since the war broke out I have visited Berlin twice; the first time at the beginning of October, the second at the end of December, 1914. It was my intention to compare in these pages the different impressions I received in the German capital during my two visits, the second made less than three months after the first; but now I see that this would almost completely destroy the sensation of sincerity and freshness, realised only when one is able to write immediately after having visited a countr

For my trip to Potsdam I had a bright, sunny morning. Potsdam, the favourite residence of the Kaiser, and one of the most intensely Prussian towns of Prussia, owing to the enormous number of barracks, military buildings, and academies she has in proportion to her size, attracted me for two reasons. First, I knew any amount of military drill was daily going on in the large drill grounds, and that Potsdam, the cradle of the Prussian Army, would be specially interesting to see in war time. Secondly

Constantinople , October 31st, 1914 . Here I am, after all! From the large window of my room at the Tokatlian Hotel, the wonderful city, the Bosphorus, and, far away, the woods and the mosques of Scutari, look like a dream-vision in the blue, transparent light which seems to come not from the sky only but from the trees, from the sea, from everywhere. It is midnight, and everything is perfectly quiet. If an artist had to choose a landscape which should symbolise the perfect peace of men and thin

December 22. I am just back from my second war-time trip to Berlin. It is about ten weeks since I was last in the German capital, and during the interval a big change has come over the city. Less cheering, less flag-waving, less enthusiasm; the Berliners still tell you that everything is going on all right, the papers are still very optimistic, the short official bulletins keep very dark any bad news and magnify what is good, but the atmosphere is different and one feels the change in almost eve

During my first visit to Berlin travel by railway was almost impossible, so slow, crowded, and irregular was the service at that time. Now it has been completely restored, and, if anything, probably better than it ever was, thanks to the small number of passengers. Even dining and sleeping cars are obtainable on the principal lines. In the train which took me from Berlin to Vienna the civilian passengers were no more than half a dozen; all the other passengers were officers and soldiers, mostly

We have become so used to regarding Switzerland as an all-the-year-round playground, and the Swiss as a race of hotel-keepers, waiters, and guides, that many people were quite surprised to learn, when Switzerland mobilised, that she could put an army of 250,000 in the field. Switzerland, which has been for centuries the battlefield of European nations, has understood that even her perpetual neutrality, guaranteed by the Powers, could not save her from the danger of an invasion if she did not boa

"What will Italy do?" The question is often repeated in the newspapers of the capitals of Europe. The interest in the attitude of Italy, the only Great European Power which has not, to the time of writing, taken a part in the war, seems to increase every day. For one who is here, in Rome, the answer can hardly be doubtful. Italy looks very much like a country getting ready for war; like a country that understands to the utmost that this is an occasion on which to fulfil her national ambition—an

Notes taken while Motoring on the Riviera. Mentone. In the southern sunshine it is a strain to realise that France is at war, that, in the north, the biggest war the world has ever seen is being fought out desperately day after day. The only unusual sight is the groups of Senegalais, the French Colonial soldiers, and the blackest niggers I have ever seen, walking at leisure on the parade with a curious movement of the arms and of the whole body, which reminds one, at the same time, of a bear in

During my war wanderings I crossed Holland several times, and each time I spent a few days there. I did this because of the difficulty of getting the signatures of the different foreign Consuls, because of the irregular service run by the Channel boats, and because I wanted to witness the change which, little by little, came over Dutch public opinion and altered the Germanophile tendencies of the early days of the war to the sympathy for the Entente of the last months. This does not mean to say

One must have known Belgium before the war, and have travelled through that rich and beautiful country in times of peace, to realise how great is the change. All that has been written up to now about what has happened there is in reality much less than the truth. Every town, large and small, every country village, one might almost say every inch of Belgian soil, bears the heavy mark of the invaders. What nobody dared to touch they have destroyed; what was believed to be protected by religion and

To penetrate into Belgium with a passport which proves, alas! too clearly that the bearer of it has been twice to Berlin, once to Constantinople, and often to Paris since the war broke out, and that he has had his passport visé at the various Consulates in London, is, as a Belgian friend told me, asking for trouble. My troubles really began before leaving Holland. The German Consul in Flushing makes all foreigners who want to go to Belgium (though there are few enough who attempt the adventure)