Berlin Town (part 5 of 7)

Princess Miinster, Princess Pless, and I, all being English, had undertaken the correspondence as regards wounded and missing English, and the supply, as far as we were allowed, to officers and men of extras in the way of ''unobtainable necessaries." Princess Biron being French had done the same for the French, and Princess Isenburg and the Duchess of Croy, both being American by birth, had undertaken the French and Belgians as well, the latter principally helping the Belgians, as, her husband being partly Belgian, their sympathies were much with that country. She had even obtained permission to visit their cousin Princess Marie of Croy when she was im-- prisoned after her trial at the same time as Miss Cavell.

I wish I could add here a few of the letters we have received from and about the wounded and missing and prisoners of war. In this work all my family have helped incessantly, especially my sisters Edith and Monica, whose weekly letters have enabled us to glean an enormous amount of information for anxious relatives at home. Cecil Tempest, too, my great friend, has been an invaluable assistant. Their correspondence would almost form a book of its own. I must have received over a thousand letters from all parts of the world, and in this way one has learned so much of the sorrow and anxiety that war has brought about. One got to know the position of regiments, the districts where peasants could be depended on for information, or where doctors of the Lazaretts were humane and ready to help, or vice versa; and, last but not least, we were sometimes the sole possessors of information as to the whereabouts of some lonely English grave, which, if it had not been for the kindliness of some German officer acquaintance of ours, who went out of his way to obtain the name and particulars for us, would, maybe, have remained for ever unclaimed and unidentified.

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some society whose object will be to improve the treatment and conditions of prisoners of war in all countries before the next war. I sincerely hope that one great and important change in this branch of warfare will be that all prisoners may be held on parole.

Berlin", February 19 18. - Strikes are breaking out in different parts, leading to disturbances which have already caused the deaths of a few unfortunate policemen. They are at present only sporadic, and are hushed up as much as possible, every one, even the Socialists, dreading the responsibility of civil war. But I have the feeling mxyself that they are growing and uniting like an elastic belt which may tighten any day and make itself very disagreeably felt.

Next to us, in Tattersall's, there are fifty policemen stationed night and day, which I can't say makes one feel safer, for it rather looks as if some special demonstration were being planned for the front-door of Berlin, the Brandenburger Tor, which means our front-door too.

My old friend the Commandant of Berlin, General Kessel, is doing his best to stir up the troubled waters by stamping with his heavy foot and rattling with his iron

We are now entirely at the mercy of the military courts of justice, and after sentence has been pronounced there is no further court of appeal possible for the delinquent ; and any one who strikes is being sent off to the front at once. In the darkest days of serfdom men could not have been more in a state of slavery than we are in these days of militarism.

The Kaiser himself lives iff a constant state of fear, anonymous letters being often sent to the gentlemen-inwaiting, threatening that he will be shot. The other day there was some special service in the Dom, and we saw the motors of the Emperor and Empress flying by like lightning as they went there. A public ovation was given him when he quitted the church, but they say he

Things are not cheerful, it must be owned, and yet there is an almost insatiable craving for pleasure of any kind amongst every class of society. It is as if the longrepressed desire for amusement innate in human nature is now breaking forth stronger than ever, and as there is money enough in circulation, the theatres, cinemas, and concert halls are crowded to overflowing, utterly unlike the preceding years when tickets had to be given away to get any audience at all. Every one is anxious to forget the depression of the times and get rid of the heavy burden of sorrow and care which has so long been clogging and depressing public and private life, and "Merry Evenings" and dancing matinees are being organized everywhere, assisted by the greatest artistes of the day, to try and raise the flagging spirits of the nation.

Private dances and balls, which were so long forbidden, are again coming into fashion, and the concert-teas at the great hotels are increasing in price as the food offered decreases in quality.

Our social gatherings are somewhat monotonous, the circle of our personal acquaintances being so limited in comparison with two years ago. The American and Greek Embassies were then here; but in consequence of Germany^s "splendid isolation" of to-day we now have to depend chiefly on the representatives of the few countries which still keep up diplomatic relations. Here is a programme of our festivities last week. We had a dinner-party at the Dutch Minister's, Baron Gevers, who is looking after the interests of the British prisoners of war. Then there was luncheon at the Spanish Embassy, where the Spanish Ambassador, Ex. Polo, confided to me that they are practically living on their trunks, as any day may bring notice to leave Berlin, as America and England are doing all they can to force Spain to side with the Entente and take part in the war.

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Then there was a dinner at the Rizoffs', the Bulgarian Minister and his wife, which was rather interesting, she being rather a lovely woman, the acknowledged beauty of the diplomatic corps, and he a clever man, with an unlimited faith in Bulgaria and the Bulgarians, not to forget himself. He has just written a book in the one language he knows. It concerns the future of Europe, and he has had it translated into four languages for the benefit of "the other world" which does not speak his own. He is to a certain degree modest in his views, and IS just in his partition of Europe, for he leaves Berlin to the Austrians, and only appropriates the rest for Bulgaria.

Besides the aforementioned there are of course the Austrian Embassy, with Prince Hohenlohe as Ambassador, and his wife, the Archduchess; Count and Countess Moltke of the Danish Embassy; and Baron Essen, the Swedish Ambassador, with his newly married wife. Then there are Princess Taxis, Count and Countess Larisch, Baroness Sternburg, Count and Countess Henckel, Prince and Princess Lowenstein, and the young diplomats and secretaries of the diplomatic corps.

The great problem is how to provide for our guests, and each course is duly commented on and discussed, the origin and adventures connected with it forming the chief topic of conversation.

I may add that England is unconsciously bearing the burden of our dinners, for the food which we manage to get generally comes from Belgium, and has been sent over for the Belgians.

Herr von Jagow was here for a week, and as he was ill, he held a sort of levee in his room every evening, where my husband, Kiihlmann, and others met to discuss affairs. They all agree that Germany is in a terrible plight and, as the Empress' brother, Prince Ernst Gtinther, said at a dinner the other evening, "Germany is going to the devil.** great victory that is to mean the final triumph of the Central Powers and the speedy entry into Paris and the taking of Calais by means of the new big guns. Why this must mean the end of the war I cannot comprehend, for it has proved the tragical destiny of Germany until now, that the greater her success on the field of battle the more complicated does her political and economical

The chief theme of conversation with American friends is their ever-increasing scarcity of money, as they cannot get any from America. They tell me that if Germany cannot or will not pay the indemnity demanded of her at the end of the war, the private fortunes of German- Americans will be seized upon to pay it, and are accordingly in a great fright. In their letters from America they say they are being constantly advised to leave Germany as soon as possible, to take all their money from the banks, and on no account to deposit it in Swiss banks, but to hoard it up in the good old-fashioned stocking.

The unfortunate part of the matter for them is that no one may now leave Germany or go to Switzerland, with the exception of theatrical troupes, etc., so that if one wants to get out of the mouse-trap the only way left is to become a ballet-girl or wandering musician.

This severity about granting passports is carried to such lengths as to become ridiculous very often, and Princess Lowenstein told me that so many difficulties were being made about her getting her six-weeks'-old twins to Austria that they might be the most dangerous

The atmosphere here is growing more and more democratic, and one is forcibly reminded sometimes of Paris in the early days of the Revolution, when the people became more and more conscious of their terrible power. All outward distinctions of class and rank have to be

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The proletariat are daily growing more touchy and jealous of their rights, and the numerous parvenus who have grown rich through the war are especially detested. Finer distinctions are not always made, of course, and any one wearing a fur mantle or a specially well-made pair of boots is suspected of being a "Kriegs-Gewinner." It is no uncommon occurrence in these days of gloom and fog that the happy possessors of such things are spied out and followed, robbed of boots and furs, and forced to walk home in their stockings.

Travelling is one of the most difficult problems of the day, the trains being all over-filled, and such delays take place that one can imagine oneself back in the good old days of mail-coaches. Princess Isenburg told me that the other day she had places reserved for her in Munich for the train to Berlin, and on arriving at the station a whole hour beforehand, she found not only her own places already taken, but the whole train so overcrowded that the guard told her there was no room for her at all, and no fuss might be made as the people would make a disturbance. After a great many useless remonstrances she was able at last to persuade the station-master to help her, and he actually had to lead her through the whole station, cross the goods-yard, pass through five intervening trains, and thus ignominiously enter the train from the other side, so as not to be seen by the people.

three daughters from Leipzig to Berlin. They had taken first-class tickets, but found their compartment overcrowded, as usual. One of their neighbours, a stout gentleman looking like a "Kriegs-Gewinner" of the worst kind, seems to have been especially objectionable to her eighteen-years-old daughter, who whispered incautiously in her mother's ear, 'If we had known we had to travel with the Plebs we might just as well have gone third class." Unfortunately the stout man heard this remark, and made the most dreadful scene imaginable. He stopped the train, called in the guard, and complained.

which, however, did not appease the good man's wrath, for the whole way he continued fuming at the bad manners of the aristocracy, and not content with this he has actually brought a suit against the girl for abuse in public. Another incident which occurred but a short time ago was that of one of the Empress' ladies-in-waiting, who was forced to take a tram, the roads being too bad for the horses. The tram was full of working-men, who began abusing the Kaiser so violently that she felt herself called upon to defend him. She assured them that he was a very kind man, filled with the feeling of his great responsibility. This, however, only increased their anger, which was now turned on her, so that she had to get out of the tram to escape further abuse.

Berlin, March 191 8. - I have lately been boiling with resentment against the whole German nation, owing to their official red tape which refused to allow me to go and see my cousin Captain Trafford, en route for Holland, when he has now gone with the rest of the repatriated officers from Germany.

For the last three years I have been periodically sending in an official application to be allowed to go and visit him, as, after all, he is my first cousin and is like a brother to me. The authorities never refused me outright, always putting me off with answers either that I may see him in a few months' time, or when he goes to another camp, or when he passes through Berlin; and getting a bit tired of these evasive answers, I began asking for a more decided date to be fixed, and the answer was that they promised me he should not leave the country without my seeing him. One day in February I got a telegram saying that in three days' time he would be passing through Aachen station en route for Holland, and that I might go and see him at the station. I obtained a travelling permit, secured reserved seats for myself and maid, and filled in all sorts of forms, when an hour or so before starting I received another notice to say that the commander of the camp had exceeded his rights in giving me permission and that the military station-master would not allow me to go on the platform, as owing to the coming offensive the place was reserved for troops alone.

with a grievance, as she had just had a passport given her to go and visit her sister in Copenhagen, and within twenty-four hours of starting it was taken away. So we were suitable companions in our mutual grievances, and consoled ourselves by giving free vent to our feelings on the subject. It was one more example of over-organization; give with one hand and take away with the other. The disappointment brought on such an attack of home-sickness that I took a long time getting over it; and as my husband was absent in Vienna for a month it made it still harder. I consoled myself by picturing the relief and joy it must have been to my cousin to be "on his own" once more, able to shake off the dust of the German prison camps from his feet for ever.

My cousin in his first letter from Holland told me that the officials at Aachen station had told him I had telegraphed to say "that I was too busy to come and see him."

From all the letters I get from home I can read between the lines that a great offensive is pending in the West, but that the Entente are perfectly prepared for any emergency. So minute is their knowledge of the preparations on the German front, that the French papers are full of surprise that the enemy let week after week of the splendid March weather go by without making a move. The fact is probably that Ludendorff has to be perfectly certain of how many fresh divisions he can count on from Russia before beginning the most dangerous and uncertain adventure of the whole war. As most people say here, it is a case of "to be or not to be," and the militarists are throwing the gauntlet to fate in their own way.

The Russian Peace, although greeted with a great show of flags and ringing of bells and universal holidays for the school-children, has on the whole been received with shakes of the head and disbelief in the duration of such a treaty. Fighting still continues between the German troops and the Red Guards, and one hears horrible stories of bloodshed and anarchy. Not only are German officers and soldiers being murdered in their beds and their houses set on fire over their heads, but many great Russian magnates are being treated in the same way. The Germans here are all boasting of the future happy state of the country when it has come to know the blessings of Prussian law and order, whilst the Annexationists and Imperialists are pluming their feathers in great style, under the pretext of re-establishing public order. A German armed force now occupies territories whose populations are pre-eminently Russian, and the Commercial Treaty of 1904 has been renewed in favour of the German

At a luncheon party the other day I sat next to Dr. Solf, who gave me much interesting information. He said that half an hour before the Kanzler's speech he had gone to see him and had clearly and concisely begged him to declare the disannexation of Belgium without any conditions whatever. Hertling promised to do so, but when the moment came he limited his statement to "we will withdraw from Belgium under the condition that we receive compensation," etc., etc. He confided to me that at the last moment the military authorities had insisted on his adding this limitation.

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Solf further told me that Bethmann-Hollweg's political outlook was broader than Hertling's, but that he had not the courage of his convictions. For instance, last year, during the American crisis, the Emperor, Bethmann-Hollweg, Helfferich, and himself had been dead against the wholesale submarine warfare. They foresaw that it would eventually mean Germany's ruin. Solf's own words to Bethmann-Hollweg had been, **You disapprove of the increased submarines; Helfferich and I do so too ; let us all go to the Kaiser and beg him to stand by us in this or we will all three resign.'' Bethmann had agreed that he was right, but had not dared to take such a step

The "Lichnowsky Revelations'' are in every one's mouth. He is being condemned by most people, and even such partisans as recognize the truth of his statements agree in condemning him for disclosing State secrets in his own personal interest. It is believed that he will probably be tried for high treason, and that he will be impeached by the Herrenhaus and probably turned out of his regiment.

Of course, every one's question is how the document got out. Lichnowsky himself will be more surprised than any one at the publicity of a manuscript which he had only written for his family archives. It is said that he sent it to several private friends, amongst others to a certain Herr Wittenberg, a director of the National Bank, and brother-in-law to Harden, to quote from in a lecture he was going to give. Wittenberg seems to have indiscreetly shown it to an officer working on the General Staff, who was at the same, time an extreme religious pacifist, and who was so horrified by the information revealed, showing the deception of Bethmann-Hollweg's Government, that he thought it an act of duty to hand it over to the Press. As this man has been staying in Switzerland people are suggesting that he has been caught in NorthcHffe's nets, and that this is one of that minister's

Lately Princess M. and I have received letters from our cousins who have just been freed from their long imprisonment in Germany and sent back to England. These letters confirm my belief that there is still a great deal of unnecessary bullying and ill-treatment of imprisoned British officers going on, and that too much personal authority is accorded to the officer in command of the camp. Whilst one commander is tyrannical and incompetent in his methods, and bullies his unhappy prisoners by issuing all manner of petty irritating regulations and limitations to their manner of living, others can show tact and sympathy with the unenviable lot of the men placed under his command for the time being. One man only sees a chance for humiliating and humbling men whom he hates simply for being the enemy, whilst the others use the occasion for doing unto others as they would be done by in the same case. But one realizes how unconscious some of these bullies are at the contempt they have aroused, as we are told that during the few weeks previous to the order for exchange being issued they tried all the means in their power to be friendly and considerate towards those whom they had so grossly misused.

On receipt of the above-mentioned letters we both set our usual wheels in motion. Princess Miinster has written on the subject to Prince Max of Baden, whilst I went straight to General Friederich and asked him to investi- gate the matter. Prince Max was very .sympathetic ; but with regard to others, if the matter was not so serious one would feel inclined to smile at their naive surprise on reading the letters, and their remarks that such things .cannot be going on in a German camp. Last, but not least, I then made my way to the Dutch Legation and saw one of the staff who represents the interests of the British prisoners of war. In society we are great friends with them all, but on occasions of this sort they are apt to assume the defensive, and imply that I am criticizing their management. But by now I am hardened against snubs of this kind, and peg away at my complaints until I manage to extract a reluctant promise to send some one down to inspect and report on the particular camp in question. Of course, I rarely hear the result of the inspection; that would be too considerate an act to expect at such times ; and I am only greeted the next time we meet by a look that means, ''Do leave off interfering."

This treatment of the English in certain camps makes my blood burn, and I feel especially galled when I talk to men like Captain Ranch, who has just returned from a three years' imprisonment in England, where, as he tells me, he met with much kindness. He related how he was allowed to see friends for an hour whenever he liked, in the presence of an English officer, and that when they were first captured General French came and addressed him and his men personally, telling them they were a gallant foe and had defended themselves bravely to the last.

The scene was as brilliant as one could wish for, and gained in historical depth and meaning by the tragedies underlying the surface. Although there were 150 people present (of various nationaHties) , our large rooms were by no means overcrowded and looked charming. There was a wonderful display of jewels, and the ropes of pearls and brilliant diadems seemed to gleam with double lustre over the forced simplicity of the dresses, which certainly bear the sign of the times, thin flimsy muslins and silks being almost the only stuffs to be had. Of course, there were some magnificent robes, but they were evidently reminiscences of other times.

We began the evening with a dinner-party of twelve, our guests being the Duke and Duchess of Schleswig- Holstein, the Rizoffs, Count and Countess Oppersdorff and Count and Countess Larisch, Countess Gotzen and Count George Wedel.

As it is not etiquette to talk politics on such occasions, we mutually avoided touching on the subjects most occupying our minds, and the Duke, who took me in to dinner as his hostess, talked English the whole evening, discussing English friends, shooting in Scotland, the Kiel-week, in fact everything but the war. My husband in the meantime talked Austria to the Duchess, and Bulgaria and Montenegro to Madame RizofT, until the other guests began to arrive.

By the Duke's permission we were allowed to have English and French songs sung, which were a great success, but the chief musical attraction of the evening was a Dutch singer from the Royal Opera, Herr van de Sand en. He is a new comet in the world of music here, only having been discovered in Holland a short time ago, and so he was a revelation to us all. His rich full baritone, of immense volume and strength, enchanted every one. Baroness Sternburg was also persuaded to sing for us, and won enthusiastic applause. It is the first time she has sung before such a large gathering.

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As for the food question, which is generally a vexed one, the supper-table certainly looked very opulent with its dainty dishes and masses of blood-red tulips ; but everything was raised on our own estate, and the geese, ducks, pheasants, ham, fowls, salads, etc., could all be offered with a good conscience, and there was nothing "forbidden" on the menu. The Spanish Ambassador whispered in my ear that he only regretted one particular guest not being present at the scene. On my asking whom he meant, he replied: "Lloyd George; for if he could see that supper-table he would know how nonsensical it is to talk of Germany being starved out."

The great man of the evening, as far as rank goes, was the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. He is brother to the Empress, and I suppose still holds a secret grudge against the Prussians for having annexed his land; but cela va sans dire, he is very loyal now.

Of the women, Countess Oppersdorff looked handsomely striking in her tall fair decorative style. There is "race" written in every line of her, and she looks what she is in reality, the descendant of an ancient Ime of kings Her forefathers had the somewhat dubious pleasure ot reiening over the Poles in the good old days, when they were continually quarrelling as to who was the reigning monarch, and she holds the Prussian Court a little cheaply, maintaining that the Hohenzollerns are parvenus, and their ancestors nothing better than kmghts-errant when hers were reigning over a nation of great culture and

''^Madlme Rizoff , who is one of the undisputed beauties of this winter, hovered like a butterfly over a flowergarden, graceful, vivacious, and amiable. Her husband, the minister, looks what he probably is in his own country, a good-natured bourgeois with a slight French polisk But his young wife is surrounded by quite_ a nimbus of romance She is said to be closely related by blood to King Nikita, and has all the charm of a nymph who has lost her way in this prosaic old world of ours. She is certainly good to look at, this dainty daughter of the gods, with the wonderful sweep of neck and shoulders ; and the play of her delicate muscles when she moves her head is a thing for a sculptor to dream of, whilst her big dark, astonished-looking eyes, and black hair bound by a simple blue ribbon, suggest to you a pretty Bo-peep who is looking for her sheep in the wrong place.

The Dutch Ambassador and his wife were the centre of all eyes, for every one was trying to make out from their manner what the answer to the Dutch ultimatum was going to be. Of course, we did not touch on politics last night, but they had laughed at my anxiety the day before when, making out the programme for our Dutch singer, I had jokingly remarked that I hoped the answer to the ultimatum would at least be postponed until the following evening, as it would be so inconvenient if my Dutch friends all left before the soiree.

The Spanish Ambassador and his wife were there too, both of them vaguely wondering how many more Spanish ships Germany was going to sink by mistake, before they, too, "must fold up their tents like the Arabs and noiselessly steal away."

Looking like a vizir from the court of Haroun al Raschid masquerading in European clothes, the Turkish Ambassador wandered about from room to room, carefully steering his formidable double chin and the rest of his embonpoint through the gay throng. He is said to be very wise, and as somebody said of him, he looks as if he kept all his wisdom packed up in his inside.

The Bavarian Minister and diplomats were all present, in fact the rooms were thronged with ministers, high officials, and military potentates, with their wives. Some members of the **haute finance*' were present also, the ladies rather overdoing it in the way of jewels; one of them almost looked as if she were wearing a diamond cuirass.

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and I think there cannot have been any one wHo was not conscious of the importance of the hour. At any moment the long-expected offensive may take place, and it almost seems as if some great decision were imminent, to judge by the number of officers who have suddenly had to hurry off to their regiments at a moment's notice. And yet there we were, all apparently gay and careless, chattering away to one another as if we had not a single fear beyond how our guests were to get home again.

The evening passed very quickly, and although the music went on till after midnight, most of our guests began to disperse at about 11.30, for the electric trams and underground wait for no man, and droshkies and motors are very few and far between, and the dangers of a solitary midnight walk in Berlin are not to be underrated in these days of universal theft and robbery.

As for myself, I still feel in the Byronic mood, and wonder how many of the men who were my guests last evening I shall ever see again. There are reports circulating of the great offensive beginning already. Here is the last verse of Byron's canto, which might have been a prophecy of to-day :

Berlin, March 19 18. - The great offensive has begun, and the newspaper headings all speak of a great German victory. The whole town is being flagged and the bells are ringing. Standing at my own window, gazing sorrowfully out at the Tiergarten, which is already showing a thin veil of green in the brilliant March sunshine, I can hear some of the remarks made by passers-by, and, shall I confess it, for the first time since the outbreak of the war I am beginning to doubt, and wonder if it is in any degree possible that the Germans can reach Calais!

My soul grows sick when I read or hear the particulars of these first victorious days ; of the new long guns that are being used for the first time, and that are now bombarding Paris from the incredible distance of 150 kilometres ; of the awful effect of the devilish new gases, of whole batteries of Englishmen found dead over their guns, of the 25,000 prisoners captured and 400 guns taken, together with great stores of food and ammunition.

We hear that the English say they were taken by surprise, and that the prisoners blame their generals and complain of Haig being in England just at the critical moment.

It is a beautiful morning, one of those spring days when the world seems to have grown young and strong and full of hope in the night. Everything is brisk and vigorous and full of movement as if hurrying on to some new era of history. The flags are flying from the housetops, the branches of the trees are waving in the wind, and the high white clouds hurrying by, as if carrying the news of the great battles to other lands. The day looks as if it were rejoicing, but Nature is always callous to human suffering, and who can think of rejoicing, whether friend or foe, when such horrible suffering is being inflicted on mankind?

Our house stands in a very central position, being in the main thoroughfare connecting the two big stations, the Friedrich Strasse and the Potsdamer Bahnhof ; and there is always a great deal of traflic passing our windows. This morning I feel fascinated by the seemingly cheery life going on out there, and stand rooted to the window, trying to escape my own sad thoughts. There are the freshly equipped troops marching away staidly and soberly enough, with the small pathetic following of white- faced wpmen trying to keep pace with theif swift

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There is the newspaper-man shouting out the news in a voice that almost makes one believe that the Germans have crossed the Channel. There is the flower-girl offering her small first bunches of violets and snowdrops to women who have no thoughts of flowers, but hurry by with anxious pale faces all in one direction, and I know where, to the Kriegsministerium in the Dorotheen Strasse, where the fresh lists of casualties appear daily.

Carts filled with enormous bottles, each six in its big basket-packing, rattle by. I hate the sight of them, I know them too well; they are filled with those abominable gas-stuffs which are made in Moabit, and are now being dispatched to destroy more victims. There, too, a whole waggon-load of empty stretchers passes by, new and unstained as yet. How long before they will each be filled with some poor bleeding remnant of humanity?

There comes a troop of men in various uniforms, and bearing no weapons. They are English and French prisoners, and I feel glad inwardly, for I know that at least these mothers' sons have escaped from the further horrors of the war.

I feel a great wave of bitterness and hatred overflowing my heart, hatred for all those in this and in other countries who were the cause of this hell-being-let-loose on the earth, and I turn away from the window with an indignant sob in my throat as I hear the sound of church bells imperatively summoning the nation to rejoice, but the sound of approaching music forces me back to the window, just in time to see the returned crew of the cruiser Wolf passing by in gala procession, accompanied by a scanty but admiring escort of men and boys. At the sight of these my thoughts veer round to the naval side of the situation, and I wonder vaguely if the report that I heard yesterday is true, that England is going to make a naval attack on the sea-coast.

My husband enters the room full of the latest news just received straight from the General Staff. They have informed him that a success is certain, but that it seems to be of a local nature, and not so great as the papers make it out to be, and by no means important enough to make those in authority confident of a great ultimate victory. It seems to be true that the guns are really bombarding Paris from a distance of 120 kilometres, and that the Opera-house is partially destroyed, but this does not mean anything of a decisive nature.

A member of the General Staff here has also told him that his office in Berlin is in direct telephone connection with the General Staff at the front, and that he can hear the sound of the shooting going on through his telephone, and can also telephone personally to an aeronaut who is at that moment suspended high up in the air over the enemy's lines.

Names of the fallen keep coming in at every moment, and Princess Reuss has just had a telegram to say that her second and much beloved son has fallen in the victory.

Berlin, April 9, 19 18. - The terrible offensive is still raging, and although the quick onpush of the Germans in those first harrowing days has been checked, we still hear of the steady if slow advance of the German troops.

All these two weeks I went nowhere and would see no one. I could only sit at home wondering which member of my family would fall first, and when I should receive news of it. The anguish and suspense of waiting, knowing nothing of what is happening to one's nearest and dearest, is terrible.

I have newspapers containing the casualty lists up to March 30, and until now I have seen no names I know; so I must take hope and pick up the threads of everyday life again and quietly visit my friends once more. Through news gleaned from them and from my husband, who is continually meeting military men, I learn that the offensive has not been successful enough to justify the confidence proclaimed in all the newspapers. Everything had been staked on their breaking through the enemy's lines, and they have not done so, although they have driven the enemy back. Indeed, I hear the German troops are even being scattered and separated, owing to the French offensive at Verdun and the renewed trouble in Italy, where the Czechs have gone over wholesale to the enemy, forcing Germany to send eight army corps from the West Front to the Italian to replace them.

The so-called victories have been painted in glowing colours, for "dressing up" the war loan. Morally, too, the offensive has not made the wished-for impression on the enemy, but if anything has put new courage into them. The pacifists in England and France are fewer and have retired into the background.

We hear universally that the pluck shown by the English was almost superhuman when they were taken by surprise, and when through the failure of the Portuguese they were left to face such great odds alone. Even Ludendorff, hard stern man that he is, confessed that he would take off his hat to the English . for their absolutely undaunted bravery. He said they never lose their heads, and never appear desperate; they are always cool and courageous until the very moment of death and capture. I will put it exactly as I heard it straight from the Grosse Hauptquartier : 'The English Generals are wanting in strategy. We should have no chance if they possessed as much science as their officers and men had of courage and bravery. They are lions led by donkeys."

I wonder how much of this criticism is true. It is, of course, difficult for me to judge, but it is nevertheless interesting to hear, coming from such a quarter.

Yesterday I went to the first really smart wedding which I have seen since the beginning of the war; all the others being "Kriegstrauung." It was the Henckel-

Schaffgotsch wedding and was very beautiful. The union was such a happy one that the parents had determined to make it a scene of rejoicing for once; and the young couple certainly deserved it, for the bridegroom has been continually in action for three and a half years, and the bride's father has served in the ammunition columns since the beginning.

The ten bridesmaids at the wedding were all decked out in dresses of pink chiffon and carried bouquets of spring flowers, and each was attended (as is the custom here) by a young oflicer in uniform; and only that morning each of these youths had received notice that he was to hurry back to the front to-morrow.

I felt a little relieved the other day when a lady in an important official position came up to me and gave me some secret information. *'I may be committing a patriotic crime," she said, *'but I feel so much with you in your anxiety about your relations 'over there,' that I mean to risk it. The reverses and losses last week were not so much amongst the English as amongst the French and Americans. The Germans wish the people to believe the contrary, but the real fact is that although some English regiments were obliged to retreat, they are not the ones who made the mistakes or who have suffered most."

Last night Prince Max Taxis dined with us; he had arrived only a few hours before from St. Q'uentin. He was greatly affected by the remembrance of it. Last year, he said, it had been a flourishing town, and now it was a deserted ruin, most of the houses being absolutely razed to the ground and nothing to be seen in it but streams of prisoners passing through.

I heard to-day from Princess Miinster, who sent an extract from a letter from her husband. She writes: "He says he is back in Alsace now with the Xth army corps. He has had a most interesting time for the last ten days. He dined with the Crown Prince at his headquarters, and spent half a day with him, besides being shown round everywhere. He says: 'Your heart would have warmed with pride at the way he speaks of the English prisoners (officers and soldiers), and he never misses an opportunity of visiting the English wounded, giving them cigarettes and cheering them up.' "

Herr von Jagow has been dining and lunching with us often lately, and has explained his (Lichnowsky's) position very clearly to my husband, who has in fact been helping him to write his ^'Explanation" which appeared in the German papers last week and is being reproduced in the English papers this week.

Yesterday the case was brought before the Herrenhaus. It will be tried by his peers, and they will decide his fate. As G. tells me, the scene was most impressive. The House had been packed the whole morning for the Polish debates, but when this great "case" came on, the House was cleared and the whole affair thrashed out in camera. As most of the nobility present were either his friends or relations, it was a painful moment for them all. It seems the question to be decided is whether he will lose his seat in the Herrenhaus and be expelled from his regiment, etc., etc. He will be allowed to appeal, so the case may last another six months.

the surface between France and Austria, for all the "dementis" in the world cannot alter the fact that the royal pair in Austria have been trying to negotiate quietly with France. It has, of course, been absolutely denied officially, as such a move would be considered "disloyalty

The story runs here that it was not the Austrian Emperor but his young wife who wrote to Clemenceau, suggesting an opening of peace negotiations, and that it was quite unofficial and, so to say, without the Emperor's cognizance; but it is really just the sort of impulsive thing that a young impatient couple would do, so that I admire the effort even if it has failed to succeed.

I have been told another little interesting episode today, coming in fact from some of the Austrian relations themselves. The Austrian Empress has two younger brothers (Dukes of Parma) on the other side, as so many of us have. They are attached to the Belgian Red Cross, and, filled with an intense longing to see them, besides being probably moved by political reasons as well, she planned a little scheme for this purpose which came off most successfully and is still absolutely unknown to any one outside her own family. The two Princes actually visited her in Austria. They entered a train in Belgium in the uniform of Belgian officers, and left it in Vienna in the costume of Austrian sportsmen, and were quite unrecognized. They spent some three days in one of the royal shooting residences, and were again smuggled back to Belgium in the same manner, where they have rejoined the Belgian army.

Running through the more important subjects of the day there is always a red thread of gossip and criticism on the poor old Reichskanzler and Herr von Kiihlmann. The "Vaterlandspartei" are always at work, and do not shrink from any methods to unhorse the latter. Now they are trying an attack on his private life. It is very despicable, and one cannot help agreeing with Kiihl- mann who, a few days ago on his return from Bukarest, where he had been working at the peace negotiations, complained bitterly of the treatment he was exposed to. As he said, although he had trained himself to have the hide of a rhinoceros and to be absolutely indifferent to criticism, yet it is cutting even to the most hardened to return from such a difficult mission, where he had been doing his utmost for his country, to find that in the meantime he had become the victim of a low intrigue got up by his political antagonists to ruin him. He was alluding to reports which have been circulating here to the effect that while in Bukarest he had inaugurated "wild o.gies" with smart Roumanian ladies who were trying to influence him to make a weak peace for Germany.

Ridiculous as these reports may seem, they were so skilfully set in motion that they grew in interest from month to month and were believed by nearly every one before the source of the calumny was exposed. The alleged weakness of the peace with Roumania is that she is to be allowed to keep her guns and weapons. Germany's ally, Bulgaria, particularly resents these terms, as she says the guns will inevitably one day be directed against her.

Berlin, April 1918. - I suppose that I was feeling more than usually anxious about my family just now, and as I am a great believer in telepathy, the following is a curious instance of it. I have been undergoing a course of massage lately, and the lady who gives me the treatment, although not professing to be a clairvoyante, has at times an extraordinary gift of second sight. In the course of conversation during my treatment she said, "You are terribly worried about something, aren't you ?" "Yes," I said, "I am anxious about my brothers and brother-in-law, owing to this last offensive." Looking round the room and seeing their photographs all about, she begged me not to worry, and taking up each photo- graph in turn she told me the following, which I noted down as she said it. Holding up the photo of my eldest brother, she said he was in a distant land and had been in a hospital there, ill but not wounded. 'This one," and she took up the photo of my brother Edmund, "has a scar or sore all along one side of his face."

I knew nothing about them at the time, but about ten days after I received a letter from my mother, saying that my eldest brother was in Palestine, and had been very ill in hospital; and that Edmund, my second brother, was home on sick leave owing to an abscess on his chin and jaw caused by the unhealthy food and water in the place he had been at !

'These two," taking up the photos of my brotherin-law. Colonel Rowland Feilding, and of my brother Vincent, ''have been for the last few days in terrible danger, but it is over for them at present." Then, singling out the one of my brother, "He is lying at this moment in hospital with a broken leg. I see him fall," she continued, "with a wound or accident to his leg; I see two soldiers coming on either side of him and picking him up and supporting him under the shoulders; they half drag and half carry him across a temporary bridge, made of rafters, across a canal. ^ He is now in a hospital, where he will remain for about six weeks and then will be sent home, where he will remain in hospital for many months. He will recover, but he will limp for life."

I must confess I felt partly relieved at the thought that he and Rowland were for the moment out of danger, and just waited patiently for definite news to come. On the evening of this same day I took up a paper and read the description of the fighting that had taken place near Givenchy from the 9th to 14th April, how on the nth and 1 2th the West Lancashire Territorials had saved the situation, but that their losses had been so fearful that they had had to fall back on the "engineers of this regi- * These details were proved later to have been correct.

Berlin, April 1918 217

As I am now, thank God, in constant uncensored communication with my cousin at The Hague, who is my one link with the outer world, I hoped to gain more news through him, and telegraphed to ask if anything had happened to Vincent. On April 28 I received a wire from him saying: ''Vincent has a broken leg, and is expected to be well enough to be moved to London from France in six weeks' time." The prophetic words being thus so exactly verified almost terrified me in the contemplation of how ignorant we are of the hidden forces of Nature. Yet how grateful I was for this good news, and I think no one ever before rejoiced more at a broken leg than I did over my brother Vincent's.

At the same time it seems as if our family is not to be spared suffering in any generation, for on April 22 I received a Times of the nth, and in the list of casualties saw the name of my nephew Osmund, the only son of my eldest brother.

Berlin, April 1918. - Friends to luncheon and friends to tea; with somehow or other a feeling that perhaps these will be the last meetings of our little "auslanderische" coterie. At luncheon we were only a small party of four - our two selves, Herr von Jagow, who was pessimistic, and Princess Isenburg, who is always cheerful and in good spirits. She, as I omitted to mention before, is the American wife of Prince Karl von Isenburg-Birstein. She and her husband having generally spent a part of the year in Paris before the war, their position was a difficult one. ^

Princess Isenburg worked in the American Hospital at Munich until it was closed on America coming in. She then lived quietly at her country place, where she had a convalescent home for soldiers, and worked very hard for the French and English prisoners of war. Her work was much criticized, and she was twice denounced and had to pay a fine of 50 Mk. for her too zealous interest in the enemy. Princess I. always answers laughingly when asked her opinion of the warring countries : "I have to love them all, because I was born in America, educated and lived most of my life in France, am married to a German, and have two charming English brothersin-law!" Her husband was less diplomatic in speaking his opinions; and was consequently considered too international and cosmopolitan in his ideas to suit the taste of the German Staff. He went out as a voluntary automobilist, not having been in the army.

The Prince is often taken for one or other of his two political brothers*. The younger one. Prince Victor von Isenburg, worked for a couple of war years in the Foreign Office under Herr von Jagow. His elder, and politically better-known brother, is Prince Joseph von Isenburg, who was Military Governor of Lithuania. He has been much criticized, and succeeded in making many enemies in that country and in Poland. During luncheon this subject was discussed, and Bertha I. defended her brother-inlaw, saying that as an officer he had had to fulfil the orders given him by his superiors. General von Ludendorff and General von Eichorn. He had 800 officers under him, and could not be held responsible for the foolish way some of those under him carried these orders out. There was continual strife among the Lithuanians and Poles, hardly a Sunday passing without fights and even bloodshed in the churches. This was because the sermon was either in Polish or Lithuanian, and the people whose language was not used protested violently.

In the afternoon I had as large a tea-party as I could collect from the remnants of our now disbanded set, most of them, in fact all but myself, the American wives of German husbands, and all, needless to say, somewhat anxious and worried as to the fate of their fortunes in America. Countess Matuschka, being one of the wellknown heiresses, had no very hopeful news to give, and Princess Miguel of Braganza was much in the same posi- tion ; but as her husband is in the succession for the Portuguese throne, we laughingly told her that when everything else fails, she can persuade him to start a royalist revolution on their own in that country.

Baroness Stumm (the beautiful Constance) also came in for a moment, on her way to The Hague, where her husband has been a member of the Legation for some years. "Why live in misery here when there is so much peace and luxury to be had elsewhere" is the impression she gave us of life in a neutral country. Countess Gotzen was the last of our guests to come. She is the widow of the late Governor of East Africa and late Ambassador in Washington, and a feeling of mixed anxiety and sadness came over me as I bade her farewell ; sadness, as she was leaving Berlin for good and all shortly, and anxiety, because our present apartment here is partly furnished with some of her beautiful furniture, and in these times of threatened plunder and Bolshevism one does not like the responsibility of other people's valuables. However, she was more optimistic as regards the harmlessness of plunderers than I was. Another American recent discovery that she was under police supervision. We soon reassured her by telling her that there was nothing exceptional in that, and that we had each had our turn ; we then proceeded to compare notes on our different experiences, and on the elephantine finesse which German detectives display in what they consider the acme of secret intelligence work.

I remember one day, at luncheon at the *'Esplanade," noticing two middle-class men very badly dressed in obviously reach-me-down clothes, who sat at the next table and kept their eyes fixed on me without cessation with the offensive stare of the Berlin official which is so well known to those who have suffered from it. And on inquiring afterwards I learnt that they were two policemen in plain clothes, sent there to watch whether I displayed excessive anti-German views during the said meal. THeir habit is on such occasions to send their card in beforehand to the restaurant manager, with the words "Kriminal Detectiv So-and-so" printed on it in large letters, stating the time of arrival, and what particular form their Sherlock Holmes-like work would probably take. By this means every one is thoroughly well forewarned and forearmed, which, from our point of view, certainly has its advantages.

Berlin, May 3, 19 18. - This afternoon, among my many farewell calls before leaving for the country, I went to say good-bye to Countess Brockdorff, the dear old Ho f dame of the Empress. She is in fact a typical one, and, as they say, manages the Empress in quite the historic manner of the Hofdamen of former times, not fearing to tell Her Majesty home-truths, and not permitting her to be too ultra-Prussian, or anti-Catholic and narrowminded in her ideas, as she is inclined to be more and more each day.

The Countess is very broad-minded, and was most sympathetic about my anxiety concerning my brothers, etc. She had just returned from the memorial service for Herr von Rich tho fen, the gallant flyer, and mentioned how sad it was to see the grief of the poor parents. All Berlin had assembled to do honour to the dead hero, but this seemed little compensation to his mother for the loss of her son.

On my way home with Madame Polo, we passed the Russian Embassy, and for the first time I saw the red flag of revolution waving over it. It must be a very unpleasant sight for the Emperor when he passes down Unter den Linden, and altogether people are inclined to mistrust these freshly made Russian diplomats, who do not manage to inspire us with that feeling of security which one hopes for when a ''peace'* has been proclaimed and signed after a great war Hke this.

Berlin, May 1918 221

sailors, the only educated gentleman among them being a Socialist doctor. They refuse to associate with any one in Berlin but the most blatant SociaHsts, and one hears strange stories of their manners at meals and their habits in private life, which are more or less those that one would expect from the lowest class of Russian peasants. Privately I am inclined to believe that they are a great danger to Germany, and that they hcwe come for any other reason than peaceful ones.

The whole of the Russian prisoner affairs have been handed over to them by the Spaniards, and time will show, but I believe that they are arranging a general rising among the prisoners, instead of organizing peaceful work on peaceful terms. I may, of course, be mistaken, but I should be by no means surprised to wake up one morning and find that the signal has been given for a Russian revolution in Germany, and that we are in the midst of a great mutiny. It is an interesting question how many Germans of the lower classes would join them, for even I have noticed a growing intimacy and friendship amongst those who have come under my observation lately, not to mention the rumours one hears of German soldiers rebelling in Russia and compelling their captive officers to assume the same rank as themselves. All this tends to make one believe that there is a systematic undercurrent of action going on. I fervently wish, however, that we poor "Auslander" could get away to some neutral country before this interesting development takes place. I hear so many strange things said that I often wonder how much more is being kept back from us, and how soon it will be too late to do anything but resign oneself to an irresistible course of events.

On passing out of the dining-room at a dinner-party the other day, I heard one member of the Foreign Office whisper to another, "Well, England seems to have 'caught on.' '' *'Yes,'' said the other, "things look pretty bad." Again, at a luncheon-party a few days later I heard some one say: "It is shocking how pro-Entente the young Austrian Empress is, and what an influence she has over her husband." "Yes," was the reply, "all those who have brothers fighting on the other side are 'pro' that side; it is in their blood, it has always been so in all history, and one will never be able to eradicate it. The Empress's idea, of course, is to get one of her brothers made King of France." We can see through such remarks how the feeling is veering round, and how the tension between Austria and Germany is increasing every day.

I was amused at a little story I was told about the Austrian Emperor the other day. He and the Empress are longing for peace almost at any price, not only for reasons of humanity, but because they are both perfectly aware that Austria cannot hold out much longer, and being young and sanguine, they employ every means privately and publicly to bring about an end to the bloody strife ; besides which, just because of their youth and inexperience, they are both secretly rather afraid of their ministers, and one day when the young Emperor was having a private interview with a well-known pacifist leader from Switzerland, Czernin was suddenly announced. The Emperor hereupon, feeling like a naughty boy, had to hide the great pacifist in his dressing-room, whilst he interviewed the warlike Czernin.

They are, of course, rather like grown-up children, trying to save the world ; but one must admit their good intentions, and admire and love them all the better for their so-called "faults," which spring from such a different source from all the cold-blooded, ruthless, and cruel methods which are lauded up to the skies over here.

When trying to impress on one the perfidiousness and treachery of the young Empress, people always say she is just as pro-Italian as she is pro-French in her feelings; and a turning up of the eyes and a tightening of the lips are meant to emphasize the wickedness of the young Queen's heart at thus following the call of flesh and blood.

Krieblowitz, May 1918 223

I was told by some Germans the other day that the Austrian Generals had at last persuaded the Emperor one day to agree to the use of all the most drastic methods of warfare in order to attain their end on the Italian front, but when the young Empress came to him with tears in her eyes, and begged him not to allow beautiful Venice to be bombarded, he at once gave in and countermanded his orders, much to the rage of some of the most virulent of the Generals.

Krieblowitz, May 19 18. - Gebhard's two nephews have just written home. They say that no words can describe the horrors of what they have been through. They write that they are almost dying of starvation. They say they advanced so rapidly that no provisions could reach them, and their division was five days and nights fighting incessantly without food or even sleep at all, and those of their companies who were not killed or wounded died of exhaustion, and it is only by a miracle that they themselves are left to tell the tale. Their letter ends with the significant words: *'Send us some food somehow, as quickly as you can, or we also shall die."

Here in Krieblowitz, the peasants and village people receive the news that sometimes one sometimes even two of their sons have been killed on the same day. It has been a wholesale slaughter of late.

My maid's husband writes : "It is indescribably awful here in Laon. We live in the midst of an incessant hail of bullets. The men on each side of me were both killed yesterday, and I expect my turn to come any day. The French are shelling the town from airplanes night and day, as they know that the big gun which is bombarding Paris is near here, and they are trying to destroy that. We had been boarding and sleeping since we have been here in a large almshouse, where eighty old French women, all over seventy years of age, lived, and we soldiers had all grown fond of these old ladies. When we came back as usual last evening, we found the place in ruins, and all the old women buried beneath the debris - French flyers had done it!'*

From Trier the nuns write that so much damage has been done to their convent that now they live entirely in the cellar, and they have their chapel and have daily mass there.

Yesterday a man lunched with us who had been dining the previous week with Captain Miiller of the Emden, who had recently returned from his imprisonment in England. Miiller confided to him how much annoyed he was at the accounts of his bad treatment in England, printed in the German newspapers. He said they were absolutely untrue, and that he had been treated as a gentleman and sportsman throughout, and had made many friends there.

Instancing the single case of impoliteness he had met with, he had (in joke) related a remark made to him by a common sailor when coming over, and this had been doctored up into "ill-treatment of prisoners in England" by Boy-Ed, who used it as a means for working up the dying feeling of antagonism here. Miiller said he was so angry that he was going to insist on a contradiction being published. ''What will they think of us in England if he twists the truth, even in a matter like this ?" were his words.

I notice a great change in the people here from what they were last year. They are all ''tired of suffering," as they express it. "We want our sons and husbands back, and we want food," is all they say. And the priests and clergymen too say how difficult it is to hold them in now. Any moment they fear them breaking all control. A man whose business it is, as he puts it, to go round begging for the new war loan, told us that it is very difficult now to persuade people to subscribe, not that they have not got the money, for they have more than they know what to do with; but ^'patriotism" is dead, it does not ''catch on" any longer, and he can only get them to subscribe by exerting real pressure, and telling them that if they do not do so they will lose everything they have already invested.

''What will they say," I asked, "when they realize that all these big 'Kriegsanleihe' figures are in reality bogus, and are only the same numbers re-entered?" "Please God they never may realize it!" was his answer.

Food is growing scarcer from day to day, and we have been reduced to killing and eating our kangaroos. They have been kept here as a great curiosity and rarity for years past. Yesterday my husband received a letter from one of the provision-dealers in Breslau, saying he would give any price my husband liked to mention if he would sell him a kangaroo.

It is very difficult to turn my thoughts away from my own personal anxieties to things of more universal interest. We are expecting a bloody Whitsuntide, when the German troops will have recovered from the exhaustion following on the forced marches of the past offensive. The silence at present is ominous.

The Austrian Emperor, Kaiser Karl, is visiting the German Emperor at Great Headquarters. It is meant to patch up the inner conflicts which are growing more serious every day between the two countries. The Austrians complain thatj other nationalities are only entitled to exist in the manner Germany sees fit to allow

Clothes are growing so scarce that the men are being called upon to hand over their superfluous clothes (they are officially allowed two suits). If they do not respond willingly, compulsion will be brought into force, and we shall soon have policemen overhauling our wardrobes to see what is in them. Robbery and plunder are the order of the day, and one is practically surrounded by thieves.

Berlin, May 191 8. - Here are some impressions re? lated to me by a soldier who took part in the great offensive near Armentieres in April 19 18. - After describing the perfect organization and timing of the attack as the infantry worked forward, cutting through barbed wire, overcoming all obstacles, and with breathless haste tumbling into the first line of English trenches, he said, they found not a soul ! They had been evacuated, evidently in a hurry, for only the men were gone, everything else had been left. Stacks and stacks of food, cases of biscuits, jam, tobacco, corned beef, milk - all that a poor starved German's imagination could desire in his wildest dreams. Then clothes, mackintoshes, leather waistcoats, silk socks, books - wonderful waterproof trench boots, depots of leather goods, saddles, reins, bags; real English compact army outfit of every kind. One thing that particularly fascinated this soldier was a perfect little leather case containing twelve aluminum plates. He had not seen a plate since he had left the last town of rest! The case too looked as though a lady of fashion might go to pay calls with it ; a German soldier is not used to dainties.

The second line of trenches proved as interesting as the first, but the third line was so well defended that the retreat was sounded and we hear no more, for soon after this soldier was wounded and helped back along the line by an English ambulance-man who had been taken prisoner. Other English prisoners were on the road, mostly swearing at the war, at their bad luck, often enough too at Lloyd George and the state of affairs at home. The Germans thought tout comme chez nous, because *'state of affairs at home" conjured up the state of affairs in Germany. But when they remembered those two lines of trenches and the treasures therein, they began to think there were different kinds of ''states of affairs at home," and different degrees of suffering.

On arriving with a Lazarett-train at Essen the relief was great, for the journey had been long and wearisome. Hardly any food had there been and hard stretchers without mattresses. At one station the wounded had even had to change trains, and while standing in a Hmp hne along the platform, an ''Unteroffizier" had come along and called to the men to stand at attention. Fortunately ' there was a "Vizewachtmeister" among them, who is a grade higher, and who gave the tactful ''Unteroffizier" a piece of his mind. At Essen they were carted on stretchers to an electric train, and so taken to the hospital. The hospital was full to bursting, and men with bandaged arms and legs had to lie on straw. The men were all very sore about the officers, and there was no pretence at respect or love for them.

One man told a story of a wounded officer who had said to him, "If you don't lift me gently, I'll hit you across the mouth." 'T plunged him down then," said the man, ''wound or no wound."

The men who are convalescent have to wait on the officers, who send them running for every trifle. One had limped to town to do shopping. On his return deadtired, he was told to go again for one toothbrush ! Still, the officer might have been in need of a toothbrush, which I can understand better than the story a common soldier told of having had to scrub out a cupboard with a toothbrush, as a punishment for a small spot of dirt on it!

Imagine what a Russian pupil told me. *'Not only do we still have to report ourselves twice a week at the police station, but the people of the Russian Embassy have to go once a week. Think of that, and the red flag outside the Embassy too ! This peace is a pure farce."

The Roumanians also have ..still to report themselves, though the schools have offered to take back the Roumanians they turned out when war with Roumania was declared.

Here is another little tale of a friend of mine, a German. A policeman went up to her studio to make inspection concerning fire-escape, etc. He asked her to show her papers. "No/' she said, *'you've no right to ask for them. Duplicates are deposited at the pohce station, as is the case with every Prussian subject." "You've been abroad for a long time, missie," he said. "How do you know?" she asked. "You would never have dared answer up to me like that if you hadn't," he said. That seems to me a characteristic touch.

We have now great queues of people in the street waiting for their one allotment of sewing cotton - forty yards of cotton, to last four months, I have no doubt. Yet they say that things in the Ukraine are much worse. A man's suit of a normal kind costs looo roubles there, and stockings are not to be had. For the matter of that, though, all the poorer women walk about the streets stockingless now ; I've even seen better-class people adopting the healthy mode of sandals without stockings - "health" being a mere excuse for lack of stocking vouchers !

Berlin, May 191 8. - We are gradually beginning to hear details of the naval raid on Ostend and Zeebrugge. Here the newspapers make as little fuss as possible about it, treating it as an episode of minor importance, so that the attention of the nation may not be attracted to the real significance of the attack, which means the restriction of the Flanders flotilla to Ostend, from whence they can be much more easily handled. I must confess the news of this naval success has done my heart good. So many of my people are in the navy, and on the whole I have felt secretly a little disappointed at the slight successes obtained until now. One expected such startling results, grand sweeping victories in the style of the old Nelsonian days; instead of which they seem to have grown so exceedingly careful and cautious in their operations.

The offensive is taking on more and more the character of a race between Hindenburg and America, and people are beginning generally to perceive the terrific consequences of their fatal mistake in allowing America to come in. Every one is forced to admit that it is America now that is keeping on the war. How foolishly they laughed at the idea two years ago ! The American methods sound strange to us, and, if one may believe the accounts one reads, they are a little blatant in their appeals to the sentimental side of the nation, and in the means employed to work up their belligerent qualities. What can one say to such a legend as "Come and hiss at the beast of Berlin," stuck over a photograph of the Kaiser in the office of one of the leading New York papers !

Berlin, June 19 18. - We have just returned from a visit to Munich - my first; and after having heard so much of its beauty and the charm it possesses for all who have lived there, I was, as is often the case, rather afraid of being disappointed. But it is not so, and I am just as much under its spell as if I had lived there for years, instead of only having been there for some days.

I am afraid, like most people, I am somewhat unfair in my comparison between it and Berlin. The latter seems so ostentatiously clean and parvenu, and its absolute lack of style verges on vulgarity. One is inclined to forget that it has been built up in the midst of a dull sandy plain by a patient hard-working people who have no traditions of culture and style to carry on, but are more or less at the beginning of their history.

In Munich one perceives the centuries of culture of a beauty-loving people who have left their mark on the town for ever. There is dignity and a happy feeling for space and proportion in its wide streets and broad squares, combined with a romantic ''Gemiitlichkeit" in the alleys and by-streets of the inner part of the town. And there one always feels in touch with Nature, untrammelled and unspoilt.

early spring-time flocks of white-winged sea-gulls float on its foam-flecked surface. Wild storms tear over suddenly from the mountains, and the grand shining line of the Alps rises fantastically on the horizon, a never-ending source of inspiration for poet and painter.

The people impressed me as being particularly kind and warm-hearted, and even their slow broad dialect struck my ears pleasantly (although I could not understand it), in comparison with the abrupt and slangy speech of the people in Berlin. Those who know the Bavarians well tell me that they are not quite so simple and kind as one might believe at first sight. They are in reality more complicated and more endowed for good and bad than the Prussians, who at present seem to be intensely nervous and irritable compared with the people of Munich. The Bavarians, they say, like all mountainous people, are passionate and violent of temperament, and in spite of a generous breadth of feeling in their character, they are wary and suspicious with strangers under the surface. They have a deep feeling for humour and sarcastic wit, but they are not a talkative race and despise the loud-voiced vulgar garrulity of the Berliner. They are very gifted, most of the German artists of note being Bavarians by birth, and the many schools of art in Munich are all more or less inspired by the grandeur of this most beautiful of all German lands.

My nephew Norbert, who is nineteen years of age, has just been staying with us. He is on leave, after having been through the whole of the Western offensive. His descriptions of it are terrible. For six days and nights, he says, they lay in the front trenches, with nothing to eat but what they found in the English trenches on the first day. From these they obtained a perfect banquet, such food as none in Germany is accustomed to any longer, with cigarettes and other luxuries.

He described to me the friendly manner with which they discussed the war with English officers who were taken prisoners. One Englishman, on being asked when

Berlin, June 191 8 231

He told me that the English gas is much more deadly than the German; that French strategy recently has been better than their own; and that the Americans are daily becoming a more serious asset to the enemy, as each day more troops are pouring in, all fresh and well equipped, a contrast to the tired-out troops opposing

The food question is always the most important topic of the day. The less there is of it, the more do we talk of it. The Austrians have already eaten up their stores, and are grumbling and turning fo Germany for fresh supplies. It is rather like turning from a sandy desert to a rocky mountain for nourishment. And there is unfortunately no Moses to show us the way to a promising future.

We ourselves have little to eat but smoked meat and dried peas and beans, but in the towns they are considerably worse off. The potatoes have come to a premature end, and in Berlin the population have now a portion of I lb. per head a week, and these even are bad. The cold winds of this wintry June have retarded the growth of vegetables, and there is almost nothing to be had. We are all waiting hungrily for the harvest and the prospect of at least more bread and flour.

Here is an extract from a letter from Berlin : "What do you say to Kiihlmann's speech? The article criticizing it in the Vgssische Zeitimg this morning is about the acme of foolishness. It tries to prove that Napoleon only waged war to break the ambitions of England, just as Germany is doing now. Napoleon's way was rather a round-about one, to say the least of it, with his uncomfortable expedition to Moscow. But then, of course, Russia was polluted by English influence, and Napoleon had to try to crush that too I

"How weak-minded people must be growing through the war to make that article possible; whilst to count on its being believed is almost a sign of something more than weak-mindedness.

**You will probably have heard about the fearful state Cologne was in, on account of the flyers, though it was not allowed to be in the papers. A hundred persons were killed, and the wounded in the hospitals are dying because the exploding powder was poisoned. In the hospital of St. Vincent the people could be heard shrieking with the great pain, and the syren goes continually warning one of the danger."

Kiihlmann's speech has fallen like a bomb, and every one is discussing it. As a political act it invokes criticism, and would have been admirable, in my view, if he had not yielded to pressure and recanted the next day. His action is incomprehensible: he ought to have said his say and abided by it. Now he has lost ground on all sides, and the house in the Budapester Strasse will soon see a new tenant. Every one seems to agree that what he said was the truth, and nothing but the truth, but it was a heinous offence to say it.

The unfortunate ''peace" reports, those ghostly birds of despair, are again flitting about amongst us. We hear that a Dutch committee is circulating notices to the effect that the conference in The Hague should be turned into a Peace Congress. This too belongs to the region of Utopia, I am afraid. I have seen one of these notices myself. It pretends that Lloyd George, Wilson, and Asquith are all quite willing to listen to the proposal! Too good to be true, I fear.

I have been much interested in following the negotiations at The Hague regarding the exchange of prisoners of war. My husband and I were pleased to see that men like Prince Hatzfeldt and Baron von der Heydt have been chosen among the envoys on the German side.

Krieblowitz, July 1918 233

They are old acquaintances of ours, and as they have both lived in England and America, they will know how to negotiate with the other side better than many others. - - - - - - '

Baron Kiihlmann was dining the other evening at the Larisches', and sat next to me. Being a Bavarian, he has much of the genius of that nation, and a great deal of their renowned disregard for convention and fearlessness of public opinion. He made many enemies in the first days of his office in Berlin by turning out all the useless decorative "Hofrate" of the Foreign Office, and nominating men he thought more capable in their place. These were chiefly Bavarians too, so that he caused a good deal of bad blood amongst the Prussians, who are all, of course, now trying to trip him up. Argus eyes watch his every movement, and though he is at present too popular with the majority in the Reichstag for them to attack him publicly, they are waiting for a chance to catch him in his private life.

Krieblowitz, July 1918. - The lack of clothes and boots and shoes is growing more and more disastrous. In summer people can manage to scrape along, as every one is more or less shabbily dressed, and people in the country and smaller towns wear wooden sandals in place of shoes, the children either going bare-footed or stockingless, as a rule. They run about merrily enough with their little bare brown legs. In the big towns, of course, more boots and shoes are worn ; but here too a virtue is often made of necessity, and wooden sandals are the unwilling fashion of the hour. ^

It is next to impossible to get new boots and shoes. By bribing a shoemaker who is the lucky possessor of leather with a pound of butter or some bottles of wine, he may promise to make you a pair at the end of six months, for the price of 100 to 150 marks, in the country 80 to 100 marks. The ready-made boots available in Berlin are mostly of an extremely inferior quality, made of common grey cloth and bad leather; they cost about 50 to 60 marks, and are only to be had by the customer going and standing outside the shop some five or six hours before it is opened. In Berlin the shoe shops are not opened before 10 o'clock in the morning. A friend of mine, after running from one shop to the other for days, at last managed to buy a pair of boots for her little girl eight years old. The first time the child put them on, they cracked and split in a dozen places, and they discovered that the material was not leather but wretched cotton stuff covered over with a thin veneer of varnish. They had cost 27 marks.

A costume, jacket and skirt, of good cloth costs from 400 to 800 marks ; formerly it would have cost 80 marks. Very thin cotton stockings of a cobweb fabrication cost from 10 to 20 marks a pair. Calico for underclothes is not to be had.

In the country all the old forgotten arts of handspinning and weaving are being cultivated again, and careful housewives are busy preparing flax for spinning in the long winter evenings. Every peasant has now his patch of ground covered with flax, and the women in some places bring to light splendid rolls of strong homespun linen which have been stored up for years. They have it dyed and made up into practical and tasteful dresses for themselves and their children.

Many people keep two or three sheep for the sake of their wool. Nearly every village possesses some old dame who still understand the art of spinning wool into coarse worsted which is then used for stockings.

Except as regards light, people are better off in the country in every way than in the towns. From other parts of Germany I hear that the peasants have enough to eat, and look in splendid condition. They are gaining more money for their produce than has ever been known before; they have all the necessaries of existence near at hand, and are able to lay by an ever-increasing balance in the bank. On the other hand all farm-buildings are growing dilapidated, and they are not able to mend or replace the necessary implements of work. Moreover, the farm-stocks are being so reduced by lack of fodder and the slaughter of milk-cows for food, that farmers tell me the capital necessary for repairing and buying up new stock when the war is over will swallow up all their savings.

At Krieblowitz we ourselves are self -supporters, and live in a patriarchal way, the whole house being dependent on the results of my husband's shooting - at present wild duck and roe-buck. As in the good old days (how good we never knew until now) of the dark ages, he goes out daily with his gun and brings back something for dinner. If he is lucky and has more than we want for our own needs, we exchange the surplus with the tradespeople for butter, eggs, sugar, articles of clothing or anything else that is only to be obtained by bribery of this kind.

It has become a yearly institution to invite a number of town-children from the poorer classes for the summer months. Every country house, castle, and peasant's house is called upon to keep and feed so many. They are very interesting little people, and talking to them one can get a deep insight into the privations and sufferings of the people in the big towns. Many of them, too, have already experienced strange adventures and vicissitudes, and three of those here can hardly speak any German at all. Their father had been a civil prisoner in England until last year, and their English mother had had to support the family in a London suburb during the last two years qf the war. In England they had been looked at askance for being German, and here they have the greatest difficulties at school, as they are only able to speak English.

I am glad to say we are at last able to communicate with our own Russian prisoners, from whom we have always been cut off until now by a similar difficulty of language. Madame Rizoff and her two children have been staying here. She is the beautiful young widow of the Bulgarian Minister, who died three months ago in Berlin. She is here for a change of air and scene, and as she speaks Russian perfectly, I got her to talk to the Russians. We are not really allowed to address them, but their fervent gratitude at hearing their mother-tongue was worth the risk of disobeying orders for once.

They told us how happy they were to be here, and that before they came they had been in a prison camp with 13,000 other Russian prisoners who were literally treated like animals, being herded together in a yard, sleeping on straw and fed like swine. Five thousand of them had absolutely died of neglect. It had been like coming to heaven, they said, when they arrived here, where every one had a smile for them and was so friendly.

They ended by saying they hoped to stay on here until the end of the war, and that they certainly did not wish to return to Russia in its present disturbed state, and that in any case any fate was better than the misery and filth and horrors of the Russian trenches in the first years of the war.

The news of Graf Mirbach's death to-day in the paper, and the cold-blooded way in which he was murdered, has given me a great shock. My husband is especially affected by it, as they were very intimate friends, and Mirbach was such an attractive, quiet personage.

One feels the tragedy of an individual case like this so much more keenly when one has known a man well. Count Mirbach dined with us several times in the week before his departure for Moscow in March, and he was then very sad and depressed, assuring us that he did not in tiie least appreciate the honour done to him by being chosen as Ambassador. He realized the danger of his position even then, and packed his things with a heavy heart, filled with forebodings, and dreading the effect of the parting on his old mother, who perfectly comprehended what such a journey meant.

Amongst the many visitors here this summer one hears a great deal of tittle-tattle about people in high places, and a good many guesses are made as to the way His Majesty would accept a reverse of a very decisive order. People say that, although his attitude has not shown conspicuous moral strength, he is not physically a coward, and would rather die with his troops than return with a vanquished army ; whilst others say openly that if he only had the courage to abdicate now, he might save his whole country from the terrible fate impending.

Another discussion touched on the extraordinary way in which Germany has always underrated the importance of the danger coming from America, almost the whole country making fun of and laughing at the idea of an American army. Some one who happened to be present with His Majesty at the time when Roumania declared war, and also when the news of the American declaration became known, assured us that on the first occasion the Kaiser came into the room trembling and white as a sheet, his knees shaking as he said, "All is over; I may as well abdicate at once"; whereas on the second occasion he and those round him were jaunty, laughing, and saying that it made no matter at all, as America could never get an army together, and if it did, they were much too far away and could^ never possibly get their troops over because of the submarines.

I wonder why they did not listen to the few wise people who perceived the danger of the American intervention in all its sinister meaning, as it is now proving to be the final undoing of Germany.

all Ministers for Foreign Affairs in Berlin. No enlightened man can stand up against the dark powers of the military intrigues, but we feel very little interest in anything at present but the news coming from the West Front.

The great French "counter-offensive/' as the new term goes, has begun, and the French are again on the Marne, and the south bank is again in English hands. Chateau-Thierry has been taken, 20,000 prisoners and 400 guns. People here may well look grave; the meaning of America is coming home to them at last. They comprehend now that it means an increase of the French reserves at the rate of 300,000 fresh, well-equipped men per month, whilst Germany can bring up no fresh reserves. General Foch, with his talent for waiting, seems to be the great French General at last.

This success has been mainly won by the French and American troops. In four days General Foch has completely transformed the situation in the West, and the German blow at Paris has failed. Here people ascribe the bitter reverse to deserters having betrayed the German plans, and to the '^unshattered nerves of the fresh Americans," whilst others speak lugubriously of a newly invented artificial fog arising from the enemy's lines, which completely hid the fatal attack of the tanks.

I was very glad to see that the English Press com« ments on the decent state in which the Germans left Chateau-Thierry, comparing it advantageously with their behaviour when they occupied Belgium.

We are expecting further severe attacks, and Germany will be confronted by new tasks, but the bulk of the people still have unlimited faith in Ludendorff and Hindenburg, although they know that they are burning their stores and blowing up their ammunition in their retreat.

It is sadly tragical to look on and see the slow fate of Germany overtaking her. I, who have watched the people strugghng, and seen their unheard-of sacrifices

Krieblowitz, August 191 8 239

As was to be foreseen, the Czar has been murdered : a wretched end, and yet almost the only possible one for such a pitiful monarch, burdened from the cradle with the sinister heritage of merciless barbarous forefathers. "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children'* is what forces itself on one's brain, thinking of his miserable death. What will become of his children? Russia is at present like an enormous arena chosen by fate for the scene of a miUion bloody tragedies, and we are the cold-blooded spectators looking on.

Krieblowitz, August 191 8. - The cold dry weeks of June and the despondent outlook for the harvest gave place to rainy weeks in July, which came in time to repair the damage done, so that the promise of a good harvest cheered the hearts of the hungry watching people; and August has fulfilled these expectations, and the crops have proved to be abundant everywhere. Only the late corn and oats are suffering under the cold rainy weather of the last two weeks, and the precious cut corn is beginning to sprout, too damp to be brought in. In these lean years the eyes of all Germany follow anxiously the news of the harvest in the newspapers. The late potatoes are a success ; one can hear the universal sigh of relief at these tidings.