The Land of Deepening Shadow Part 12

An abominable deception was practised upon the public with the first potato supply. For many months tickets had been in use for this food, which is called the "German staff of life." Suddenly official notices appeared that potatoes could be had for a few days without tickets, and the unsuspecting public at once ordered great quant.i.ties.

The Agrarians thus got rid of all their bad potatoes to the ma.s.s of the people. In many cases they were rotting so fast that the purchaser had to bury them. It was found that they produced illness when given to swine.

What other people in the world than the Germans would stand that?

But they did stand it. "These are only the early potatoes--the main crop will be all right," said the profiteers right and left, and gradually the ma.s.ses began to echo them, as is usual in Germany.

Well, the main crop has been gathered, and Food Dictator von Batocki is, according to the latest reports I hear from Germany, unable to make the Agrarians put their potatoes upon the market even at the maximum price set by the Food Commission.

They are holding back their supplies until they have forced up the maximum price, just as a year ago many of them allowed their potatoes to rot rather than sell them to the millions in the cities at the price set by law.

Some Germans, mostly Social Democratic leaders, declare that since their country is in a state of siege, the Government should, beyond question, commandeer the supplies and distribute them, but just as the industrial cla.s.ses have, until quite recently, resisted war taxes, so do the Prussian Junkers, by reason of their power in the Reichstag, snap their fingers at any suggested fair laws for food distribution.

The Burgomaster--usually a powerful person in Germany--is helpless.

When on September 1 the great house-to-house inventory of food supplies was taken, burgomasters of the various sections of Greater Berlin took orders from the people for the whole winter supply of potatoes on special forms delivered at every house. Up to the time I left, the burgomasters were unable to deliver the potatoes,

Any dupes of German propaganda who imagine that there is much self-sacrifice among the wealthy cla.s.s in Germany in this war should disabuse their minds of that theory at once. While the poor are being deprived of what they have, the purchases of pearls, diamonds, and other gems by the profiteers are on a scale never before known in Germany.

One of the paradoxes of the situation, both in Austria and in Germany, is the coincidence of the great gold hunt, which is clearing out the trinkets of the humblest, with the roaring trade in jewelry in Berlin and Vienna. As an instance I can vouch for the veracity of the following story:--

A Berlin woman went to Werner's, the well-known jewellers in the Unter den Linden, and asked to be shown some pearl necklaces.

After very little examination she selected one that cost 40,000 marks (2,000 pounds). The manager, who knew the purchaser as a regular customer for small articles of jewelry, ventured to express his surprise, remarking, "I well remember, madam, that you have been coming here for many years, and that you have never bought anything exceeding in value 100 marks. Naturally I am somewhat surprised at the purchase of this necklace." "Oh, it is very simple," she replied. "My husband is in the leather business, and our war profits have made us rich beyond our fondest hopes."

Throughout Austria and Germany in every village and townlet are appearing notices to bring in gold.

The following notice is to be met with in all parts of Germany:--

LET EVERY ONE WORTHY OF THE NAME OF GERMAN DO HIS DUTY NOW.

Our enemies, after realising that they cannot defeat us on the field of battle, are striving to defeat us economically. But here they will also fail.

OUT WITH YOUR GOLD.

Out with your gold! What is the value of a trinket to the life of the dear one that gave it? By giving now you may save the life of a husband, brother, or son.

Bring your gold to the places designated below. If the value of the gold you bring exceeds five marks, you will receive an iron memento of "Die grosse Zeit."

Iron chains will be given for gold chains. _Wedding rings of those still living will not be accepted_.

From rural pulpits is preached the wickedness of retaining gold which might purchase food for the man in the trenches.

The precedent of the historic great ladies of Prussia who exchanged their golden wedding rings for rings of iron is drummed into the smaller folk continuously. The example is being followed by the exchange of gold trinkets for trinkets made of iron, with the addition of the price paid at the central collecting station--paid, of course, in paper, which is at a 30 per cent. discount in Germany and 47 per cent. discount in Austria. Every bringer of a trinket worth more than 5s. receives a small iron token of "_die grosse Zeit_" (the great epoch).

The gold hunt has revealed unexpected possessions in the hands of the German and Austrian lower cla.s.ses. To me it was pathetic to see an old woman tremblingly handing over treasures that had come down probably for two or three generations--treasures that had never been worn except on high days and festivals, weddings, and perhaps on the day of the local fair. Particularly sad is this self-sacrifice in view of the gigantic profits of the food usurers and war profiteers. The matter is no secret in Germany or Austria.

It is denounced by the small Socialist minority in the Reichstag, to whose impotence I have often referred. It is stoutly defended in good Prussian fas.h.i.+on by those openly making the profits.

There has arisen a one-sided Socialism which no one but Bismarck's famous "nation of lackeys" would tolerate. At the top is a narrow circle of agrarian and industrial profiteers, often belonging to the aristocratic cla.s.ses. At the other end of the scale is, for example, the small farmer, who has now absolutely nothing to say concerning either the planting, the marketing, or the selling of his crops. Regulations are laid down as to what he should sow, where he should sell, and the price at which he should sell.

Unlike the Junker, he has not a long purse. He _must sell_.

What state of mind does this produce among the people? I know that outside Germany there is an idea that every German is working at top speed with the spirit of the Fatherland flaming him on. That was the spirit I witnessed in the early days of the war, when Germany was winning and food was plentiful.

In certain rural districts as well as in centres of population there is an intense longing for peace--not merely for a German peace--but any peace, and a peace not merely for military reasons, but arising out of utter weariness of the rule of the profiteers and the casualties not revealed by the doctored lists--ingeniously issued lists, which, for example, have never revealed the loss of a submarine crew, though intelligent Hamburg s.h.i.+pping people, who are in close touch with German naval people, estimate the loss of German submarines as at least one hundred. I have heard the figure put higher, and also lower.

This kind of one-sided Socialism makes the people so apathetic that in some parts of Germany it has been very difficult to induce them to harvest their own crops, and in German Poland they have been forced to garner the fields at the point of the bayonet.

When a man has no interest in the planting, marketing, and selling price of his produce; when he knows that what he grows may be swept away from his district without being sure that it will be of any benefit to himself and his family; when, in addition, the father or sons of the households lie buried by the Yser, the Somme, the Meuse or the Drina, it is impossible for the authorities to inspire any enthusiasm for life, let alone war, even among so docile a people as those they deal with.

With regard to the other crops, rye is good; beets look good, but are believed to be deficient in sugar owing to the absence of South American fertilisers; wheat is fairly good; oats extremely good, and barley also excellent. The Germans have boasted to the neutral visitor that their artificial nitrates are just as good fertilisers as those imported from South America. It is true that they do very well for most crops when the weather is damp. But beets, strangely enough, require the genuine Chilean saltpetre to produce their maximum of sugar. The failure to get this, plus the use of sugar in munition making, accounts for the dearth of that commodity among the civilian population.

In order that nothing shall be wasted, the Government decreed this year that the public should be allowed to scavenge the fields after the harvest had been gathered, and this was a source of some benefit to those residing near the great centres of population.

Schoolmasters were also ordered to teach the children the need of gathering every sort of berry and nut.

Pa.s.sing along an English hedgerow the other day, and seeing it still covered with withered blackberries, I compared them with the bare brambles which I saw in Germany from which all berries have gone to help the great jam-making business which is to eke out the gradually decreasing b.u.t.ter and margarine supply. Sickness and death have resulted from mistakes made, not only in gathering berries, but in gathering mushrooms and other fungi, which have been keenly sought.

It is safe to say that the Germans are leaving no stone unturned to avoid the starvation of the Seven Years' War. The ingenuity of the chemists in producing subst.i.tutes was never greater. One of the most disagreeable foods I have tasted was bread made of straw.

Countless experiments have been made in the last year to adapt straw to the human stomach, but although something resembling bread has been produced, it contains almost no nourishment and results in illness.

People who reside in the cities and carefully shepherded visiting neutrals, who do not go into the country, have little notion of the terrific effort being put forward to make the fruits of Mother Earth defeat the blockade, and _above all_ to extract any kind of _oil_ from anything that grows.

Here is one notice:--

HOW THE CIVIL POPULATION CAN HELP IN THE WAR.

Our enemies are trying to exhaust us, but they cannot succeed if every one does his duty.

OIL _is a Necessity_.

You can help the Fatherland if you plant poppies, castor plant, sunflowers.

In addition to doing important work for the Fatherland you benefit yourself because the price for oil is high.

I may say that the populace have responded. Never have I seen such vast fields of poppies, sunflowers, rape plant, and other oleaginous crops. Oil has been extracted from plum-stones, cherry-stones, and walnuts.

The Government have not pleased the people even in this matter.

One glorious summer day, after tramping alone the sandy roads of Southern Brandenburg, I came to a little red-brick village in the midst of its sea of waving rye and blaze of sunflowers and poppies.

Taking my seat at the long table in front of the local _Gasthaus_, and ordering some imitation coffee--the only refreshment provided in the absence of a local bread ticket--I pointed out one of these notices to the only other person at the table, who was drinking some "extraordinarily weak beer," as he put it. "Have the people here planted much of these things I see on that notice?" I asked, pointing to one of the placards. "Yes," he said, "certainly. A great deal; but the Government is going to be false to us again.

It will be commandeered at a price which they have already set."

Then came the usual string of grumbles which one hears everywhere in the agricultural districts. I will not repeat them. They all have to do with the food shortage, profiteering, and discontent at the length of the war.

Though all Germans, with the exception of a few profiteers, are grumbling at the length of the war, it must not be supposed that they have lost hope. In fact their grumblings are punctuated frequently by very bright hopes. When Douaumont fell, food troubles were forgotten. The bells rang, the flags were unfurled, faces brightened, crowds gathered before the maps and discussed the early fall of Verdun and the collapse of France. Again I heard on every hand the echo of the boasts of the first year of the war.

The glorious manner in which France hurled back the a.s.sault was making itself felt in Germany with a consequent depression over food shortage when the greatest naval victory in history--so we gathered, at least, from the first German reports--raised the spirits and hopes of the people so high that they fully believed that the blockade had been smashed. On the third day of the celebration, Sat.u.r.day, June 3rd, I rode in a tram from Wilmersdorf, a suburb of Berlin, to the heart of the city through miles of streets flaring with a solid ma.s.s of colour. From nearly every window and balcony hung pennants and flags; on every trolley pole fluttered a pennant of red, white and black. Even the ancient horse 'buses rattled through the streets with the flags of Germany and her allies on each corner of the roof. The newspapers screamed headlines of triumph, n.o.body could settle down to business, the faces one met were wreathed in smiles, complaining was forgotten, the a.s.surance of final victory was in the very air.

Unter den Linden, the decorations on which were so thick that in many cases they screened the buildings from which they hung, was particularly happy. Knots of excited men stood discussing the defeat of the British Fleet. Two American friends and I went from the street of happy and confident talk into the Zollernhof Restaurant. With the din of the celebration over the "lifting of the blockade" ringing in our ears from the street, we looked on the bill of fare, and there, for the first time, we saw _Boiled Crow_.