Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany

ls turned dark and over the bow I saw a vague gray

e way to Denmark with potential death, and as slowly the houses of Warnemu

fe

caution beyond his years. I had come to know he was making the trip as a German courier, and he was an Americ

remarked, "instead of making that long t

othing like slippin

assengers talked in a troubled way of the military search given every one at Warnemunde and I smiled to myself in a reassuring way. Yes, they would be searched, poor devils!... But the courier and I? I wondered if the German Lieutenant at Warnemunde wo

d taken the other route it no doubt would have been harder. You see," he explained, "when a train crosses the Kiel canal a soldier is posted in every compartment, the window shades are pulled down and the

a line of soldiers who seemed to be herding the passengers into what appeared to be a long wooden shed newly built. Crowds are the same the world o

e entrance through a doorway to a larger room beyond; and everywhere gleamed the glint of gun barrels, the red and blue or gray of military hats, while an increasing flow of German, punctuated with "Donnerwetter!" and "Das ist genug," was heard above the shuffle of feet and the thumping of trunks and b

ed words I had read in New York implied was the usual prelude to a German searching party-rather this soldier most courteously asked to see my wallet. I gave it to him. I would have given him anything. Our cooperation was perfect. There was no need for me to bring my exhaustive knowledge of the German language into play

d not understand English he could recognize a proper name, for the letters bore the addresses of decidedly influential men in Germany. They challenged his suspicion. Thoroughly puzzled he opened the letters and tried to read them. When he compared my passport with a letter I saw his fac

ourier to rely on, I suggested that they have a word with him. It was then that I heard an excited deluge of words and, glancing over my shoulder, I observed that the courier was thoroughly flanked and

ck that had impelled me to go to the American Legation and the German Consulate in Copenhagen for visés. That the civilian

thoughtfully observed, and opened

I would stay, for the excellent reason that not t

said, adding hopefully; "after th

could move he wrote th

em on his hand, "I must take now. If everything

ductions. You cannot tell me how long I may have to wait for them? You

n English, and to bring letters written in En

ket lay a letter I had yet to show them-a communication so important to me that I had kept it separate from the

ook the note-it was a mere letter of introduction to the Foreign Office-from my waistcoat. If the soldier's eyes had opened wide at the other addresses, the police agent's now f

riated and instantly changing his manner, he facilitated the rest of the inspection. After my baggage was examined by more

police agent cal

ast room of the long wooden shed I proceeded down the platform to the train at a pace that must have sho

tion; no doubt spies must have been caught r

er in the crowd there woul

courier? Presently, rather pale, nervous in speech, but as reserved and coo

announced. "All they left

an they have

etters and a valise. Oh, well, they'll send them on.

courier could see no m

should have paraded through, from you the

exclaimed, "that they d

e," I g

l be damne

ew minutes, but it seemed hours, before, with German regard for comfort, the train glided out of the shed. It must have been trying on my companion's good humor

with a passageway running the entire length of one side of the car-a tall, broad

nglis

ad. I hesitatingly let fall the c

an English university boy all over him. We'll

panion hastily corrupt that official whose murmured "Bitteschon" implied an un-Teutonic disregard for the fact that he

yet thirty. His eyes twinkled when he said that he supposed we

" we fina

o Petrograd," he said, perhaps avo

o any one who knew-and my word for it, those police spies do know!-he would be betrayed by his mannerisms. His accent would instantly cry

by the common experience at

erve with you, traveling i

ghed. "A neut

he was an American I looked inquiring and

? What c

k," he

accent?" I

I had quite a go at it, though; li

gan. As we drew near Lübeck, where a thirty-five minute stop was allowed for dinner in the station, and the stranger showed no signs of going back to his own compartment, I could see that the courier was becoming annoyed. Relapsing into silence he only broke it to reply to the "Dane" in monosyllables;

ness," he said, and then in an

that. B

l with us all the way through. He must have known that American company is th

lso think h

ish passport right enough. I saw it in the inspection room. But I'll bet you anythi

ought that those police spies

pected as being confedera

ably were suspected. Whereupon the book I tried to read became a senseless jumble of words and our compartment door bec

ps from the train platforms. Hurrying, we saw them go clumping down a long airy waiting room and as they approached the street their hobbling steps suddenly quickened to the sharper staccato of the canes upon w

oman was scurrying. One of the big gray-green wounded men caught her in his arm-the other arm hung in a black sling-and she clung to h

warning and turned back to our car. There remained etched in my mind the line of pallid, apprehe

oticed bridges and trestles patroled by Landwehr and outside our compartment we read the handbill requesting every passenger to aid the government in preventing spies throwing explosives from the car windows. From the conductor we learned that there had been such attempts to delay the passag

ay-green of the Regulars-a shifting tide of color swept the length of the long platforms, rising against the black slopes of countless staircases, overrunning the vast halls above, increasing, as car after

the Englishman, and it was wi

hand him the cold shoulder. Mark my words, he'll try t

Atlantic. Bluntly he was informed we were visiting friends, but nothing would do then but we must agree to meet him in, say, an hour. Not until he found it an impossi

rier nu

, "look,-the man goin

e he too disappeared into the street; but it was a face difficult to forget,

ve come down on the train from Warnemunde. I tell you it's best not to pick up with any one these

looking down on his people, loomed a bust of Wilhelm II, Von Gottes Gnaden, Kaiser von Deutschland. About him, between the flags of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, blazed the black, white and red, and there where all might read, hung the proclamation of August to the German people. We had read it through to the last line: "Forward with God who will be with us as he was with our Fathers!"-when we heard an excited inflection in the murmurings from the many tables-"Das Eiserne

the war as seen from the German side. Good, sehr gut! He had heard the Allies, especially the English,-Verflucht

l were forgotten. Of course I wanted to hear his story-the story of that little piece of metal hanging from the

nding to be busy and the nursemaids and visitors were still tossing tiny fish to the wintering gulls in the upper lake; not until the train was bringing me to Berlin did I understand what it meant. At the stations I went out and walked with t

mbling chorus of song. Pulling down the compartment window I caught the words "Wir k?mpfen Mann für Mann, für Kaiser und

moking; cigars and cigarettes had been showered upon them with prodigal hand. Most of them held their guns in one hand and packages of delicacies in the other; and they were climbing into the compartments or ha

as with a holy cause, and as I watched this man and wife I marveled at their sunny cheer. I saw that each was wonderfully proud of the other and that this farewell was but an incident in the sudden complexity of their

n; he seemed to want to put off entering the car until the last minute. He was holding a bundle of something white in his arms, something that he hugged to his f

it, the train was slipping down the tracks; the car windows filled with singing men, the long gray platform suddenly shuffling to the patter of men's feet, as though they would all run after the train as far as they could go. But the last car slipped away and the last

be proud that their little household was helping their Fatherland and their Emperor. Self? It was utterly submerged. On that station platform I realized that there is but one self in all Germany to-day and that is the soul of the nation. Nothing else matters; a sacrifice is commonplace. Wonderful? Yes. But then we Americans fought that way at Lexington; any nation can fight that way when it is a thing of the heart; and this war is all of the heart in Germany. As we walked through the station gat

gruous. It disorders life in a monstrous way. I have seen it in an instant make pictures that the gr

to a huge, cleared indentation where twenty dejected English prisoners were leveling the field for a parade ground. On the left I saw an opening in the trees; a wagon trail wound away between the pines. And then above the rattling of the prisoners' rakes I heard the distant strains of a marching song that brought a lump to my throat. Back there in

from the woods in squads of fours, all singing, tramped the young German reserves, swinging along not fifteen feet

ral von Loebell. "They've just

ee the pride in their faces, the excitement in their eyes; near enough to see the Englishmen, young lads, too, who gazed after the swinging column with a soldier

stood across the street to-day and watched the old building and the people ascending or descending the long flights of gray steps. Only I saw civilians, men alone and in groups, women with shawls wrapped around their heads, women with yellow topped boots, whose motors waited beside the curb, and children, clinging to the hands of women, all entering or leaving by the gray gate; some of the faces were happy and

a barrier between a number of gentle spoken elderly gentlemen and a vague mass of people that pressed forward. The anxious faces of all these people reminded me of another crowd that I had seen-the crowd outside the White Star offices in New York when the Titanic went down. And I became conscious that the decorations of t

me few moments and watched, although I felt like one trespassing upon the privacy of grief. I saw in a segment of the line a fat, plain-looking woman, with a greasy child clinging to her dress, a white haired man with a black muffler wr

old men they hastened off with the inquiry to one of the many filing rooms and returned wit

an elderly clerk tell the woman with the veil. "He'll

ad, and break it gently. But as he caught sight of the clerk I saw the soldier click his heels

awn, anxious faces pushing forward for their turns at the black-covered desks, I realized the heartrending sacrifice of the women of France, Bel

Berlin cafés that open when the theaters are coming out and close when the last girl has smiled and gone of

lais de Danse girls come here. Don't be in a hurry. I k

of a patriotic song. When the music began the girls left the little tables where they had been waiting for some man to smile, and swar

re the real emotions of these subjects of Germany; had the war genuine thrills for them? I had talked with

e," I told the surgeon, "and ask

n it?" he said wit

interests me. I wond

now and there are fewer every night. What do I think of this war? My officer's gone to the front

friend was

you thought it was goin

whom I had seen in the Hall of Awful Doubt; an

swarming with able-bodied men whom apparently the army did not yet need. Its summatio

lking down a side street. I see people swarming toward a faded yellow brick church. They seem fired with a zealot's praise. I go in after them and see them fall on their knees.... They are

that Thou art with us in our fight

never felt in church before. Something mysteriously big and reverent stirs all around.... Then outside in the street drums r