The Land of Deepening Shadow Part 6

"Sad, so sad!" he said in a voice full of grief. "And it seems sadder that it had to be done by our own people," he added.

"Were you here during the fighting?" I asked.

"I was," he answered. "I would rather die than leave this place, where I was born and where I have always lived."

I returned to the anxious guides add told them that I had visited the ruins of the church.

"A destruction which could serve no military purpose," declared the man in brown. "You see the methods of the people Germany is fighting."

I expressed a desire to seek only one more thing, the church on the road to Friedland which had been destroyed by the Russians after the sixty maidens had been driven into it. We went to it, but, alas! it had not been disturbed in the least. I somehow felt that my guides saw the lack of destruction with genuine regret. The big man with the black beard was at a loss to reconcile the story he told me at Konigsberg with the actual facts found on the spot.

"Somebody must have made a mistake," was all he said.

My last view of Allenburg was from across the river with the long rays of the setting sun burnis.h.i.+ng the ruins of the once beautiful church, the church I saw months later on the screen in the London display room, the church that has been shown all over the world as evidence of Russian methods in war.

I went all through East Prussia studying first hand the effects of the great campaign. My luck increased from day to day. I secured a military pa.s.s to visit all hospitals in the XXth Army Corps, which aided my investigations not a little. The prejudice which I had against the Russians died in East Prussia. It was buried forever the following winter when I was with the Russian Army in the memorable retreat through the Bukowina. In East Prussia I was in an entirely different position from a man investigating conditions in Belgium, for I was in the German's own country after he had driven out the invader. I tried to see some youth whose hand had been cut off, but could not find a single case, although, everybody had heard of such mutilations. The fact that no doctor whom I questioned knew of any case was sufficient refutation, since a person whose hand had been cut off would need something more than a bandage tied on at home.

When the Russians entered the province they struck yellow and black posters everywhere announcing that it was annexed to Russia. In view of this the Russian officers were instructed to restrain their men and to treat the natives well. Isolated cases of violence, for the most part murder and robbery of the victim, had occurred where men had broken away from restraint, but they were surprisingly few.

After I returned to Berlin I met an American correspondent who was in East Prussia when I was. His sympathies were pro-German, but he was an, open and fair-minded man, who, like me, had left Berlin with a deep feeling against the Russians, thanks to the excellent German propaganda. "I went especially to get some good stories of Russian atrocities," he said. "I thought that every mile would be blood-marked with evidence, but I came back defeated. Some petty larceny and robbery, a Red Cross flag torn to shreds by a Russian sh.e.l.l, two old men murdered and robbed by Cossacks, and a woman in the hospital at Soldau, who had been outraged by five Cossacks, was all that I could find, even though I was aided by the German Government."

My own first-hand investigations convinced me that it would be difficult for any army in the world to conduct a cleaner campaign than Russia conducted in her first invasion of East Prussia. I remind the reader that I am speaking of the _first_ invasion, for I have no personal knowledge of the second. Subsequently in Germany when. I spoke of the matter I was always told that it was the _second_ invasion which was so bad. Perhaps! But I had been fooled when Berlin cried wolf the first time.

By a stroke of fortune while in East Prussia I became "a.s.sistant"

for two days to a Government moving picture photographer who had a pa.s.s for himself and a.s.sistant in those happy days of inexact.i.tude.

We formed the kind of close comrades.h.i.+p which men form who are suffocated but unhurt by a sh.e.l.l which kills and maims others all about them. That had been our experience. He had, moreover, been over much of the ground covered by me behind the front.

"I am instructed to get four kinds of pictures," he explained.

"(1) Pictures which show German patriotism and unity. (2) Pictures which show German organisation and efficiency. (3) Pictures which show evidence of humanity in the German Army. (4) Pictures which show destruction by the enemy. Some of my pictures are kept by the _Kriegsministerium_ for purposes of studying the war. The greater part, however, are used for propaganda both at home and abroad.

Furthermore, I must be careful to keep an accurate record of what each picture is. The pictures are then arranged and given suitable t.i.tles in Berlin,"

I thought of all this in the London display-room when the familiar picture of the ruined church flashed before my eyes with the t.i.tle _Beautiful Church at Allenburg Destroyed by the Russians_--a deliberate lie on the film.

I have nothing to say against the Germans for knocking their own town to pieces or against the British and French for knocking French towns to pieces. That is one of the misfortunes of war.

The point is, that the propaganda department of the Wilhelmstra.s.se fully understands that people who do not see the war, especially neutrals, are shocked at the destruction of churches. The Germans have been taught an unpleasant lesson in this in the case of Rheims. Therefore they answer by falsifying a film when it suits their purpose with just as little compunction as they repudiate promises.

"A little thing!" you might say.

That adds to its importance, for it is attention to detail which characterises modern Germany. It is the subtle things which are difficult to detect. The Government neglects nothing which will aid in the owners.h.i.+p of public opinion at home and the influencing of neutrals throughout the world.

CHAPTER VII

THE IDEA FACTORY

A group of diplomats and newspaper correspondents were gathered at lunch in a German city early in the war, when one of the latter, an American, asked how a certain proposition which was being discussed would suit public opinion. "Will public opinion favour such a move?" he questioned.

"Public opinion! Public opinion!" a member of the German Foreign Office repeated in a tone which showed that he was honestly perplexed. "Why, we create it!"

He spoke the truth. They certainly do.

The State-controlled professor, parson and moving-picture producer appeal to limited audiences in halls and churches, but the newspaper is ubiquitous, particularly in a country where illiteracy is practically unknown, and where regulations bidding and forbidding are constantly appearing in the newspapers--the reading of which is thus absolutely necessary if one would avoid friction with the authorities.

In a free Press, like that of the United States or Great Britain, the truth on any question of public interest is reasonably certain to come to light sooner or later. Compet.i.tion is keen, and if one paper does not dig up and publish the facts, a rival is likely to do so. The German Press was gaining a limited degree of freedom before the war, but that has been wiped away. As in other belligerent countries news of a military nature must quite properly pa.s.s the censor. But in Germany, unlike Great Britain, for example, all other topics must be written in a manner to please the Government, or trouble ensues for the writer and his paper. To a certain extent the Press is a little unmuzzled during the sittings of the Reichstag--not much, but somewhat, for the reports of the Reichstag proceedings are strictly censored. The famous speech of Deputy Bauer in May, 1916, was a striking example, for not a word of his speech, the truth of which was not questioned, was allowed to appear in a single German newspaper. The suppression of most of Herr Hoffmann's speech in the Prussian Diet in January, 1917, is another important case in point. This is in striking contrast to the British Parliament, which is supreme, and over whose reports the Press Bureau has no control. The German Press Bureau, on the other hand, revises and even suppresses the publication of speeches. When necessary, it specially transmits speeches by telegram and wireless to foreign countries if it thinks those speeches will help German propaganda.

The Berlin and provincial editors are summoned from time to time to meetings, when they are addressed by members of the Government as to what it is wise for them to say and not to say. These meetings const.i.tute a hint that if the editors are indiscreet, if they, for example, publish matter "calculated to promote disunity," they may be subject to the increasingly severe penalties now administered.

If a newspaper shows a tendency to kick over the traces, a Government emissary waits upon the editor, calls his attention to any offending article or paragraph, and suggests a correction. If a newspaper still offends, it is liable to a suspension for a day or even a week, or it may be suppressed altogether.

But in peace, as well as in war, editors all over Germany were instructed as to the topic on which to lay accent for a limited period, and just how to treat that topic. For example, during the three months preceding the war, Russia was bitterly attacked in the German Press. From August 1 to August 4, 1914, the German people had it crammed down their throats that she was the sole cause of the war. On August 4 the Government marshalled the editors and professors and ordered them to throw all the responsibility on Britain, and the hate was switched from one to the other with the speed and ease of a stage electrician throwing the lever from red to blue.

How do the editors like being mere clerks for the Government? The limited numbers of editors of independent thought, such as the "relentless" Count Reventlow, Maximilian Harden, and Theodor Wolff, detest such a role, and struggle against it. After sincere and thorough investigation, however, I am convinced the average German editor or reporter, like the average professor, prefers to have his news handed to him to digging it up for himself.

In this connection the remark made to me by the editor of a little paper in East Prussia is interesting. After the Russians had fallen back he told me of two boys in a neighbouring village whose hands had been cut off. He said that he was going to run the story, and suggested that I also use it. I proposed that we make a little trip of investigation, as we could do so in a couple of hours.

He looked surprised. "Why, we have the story already," he declared.

"But I am not going to write it unless I can prove it," I replied.

A moment later I heard him sigh with despair as he half whispered to a cavalry captain: "Yes, yes, alas, over there the Press is in the hands of the people!"

Many newspaper readers run more or less carelessly through articles, and many more simply read the headlines and headings.

The Official Press Bureau, for which no detail is too minute, realises this perfectly, with the result that German newspaper headings are constructed, less with a view to sensationalism, as in some British and American papers, or with a view to condense accurately the chief news feature of the day, as to impress the reader--or the hearer, since the headlines are cried shrilly in Berlin and other cities--with the idea that Germany is always making progress towards ultimate victory. The daily reports of the General Staff have been excellent, with a few notable exceptions such as the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of the Somme.

During reverses, however, they have shown a tendency to pack unpalatable truths in plenty of "shock absorber," with the result that the public mind, as I know from my personal investigations, is completely befogged as to the significance of military operations which did not go in a manner satisfactory to the German leaders.

In all this the headline never failed to cheer. When the Russians were smas.h.i.+ng the Austrians in the East, while the British and French were making important gains and inflicting much more important losses on the Somme, the old reliable headline--TERRIBLE RUSSIAN LOSSES--was used until it was worn threadbare.

What would you think, you who live in London or Hew York, if you woke up some morning to find every newspaper in the city with the same headlines? And would you not be surprised to learn that nearly every newspaper throughout your country had the same headlines that day? You would conclude that there was wonderful central control somewhere, would you not?

Yet that is what happens in Germany repeatedly. It is of special significance on "total days." Those are the days when the Government, in the absence of fresh victories, adds the totals of prisoners taken for a given period, and as only the totals appear in the headlines the casual reader feels nearer a victorious peace.

On the morning of March 13, 1916, most of the papers had "total"

headlines for Verdun.

Not so the _Tageblatt_. Theodor Wolff, its editor, has had so much journalistic experience, outside of Germany, and is, moreover, a man of such marked ability, that he is striving to be something more than a sycophantic clerk of the Government. He is not a grumbler, not a dissatisfied extremist, not unpatriotic, but possesses a breadth of outlook patriotic in the highest sense. On the morning after the Liebknecht riots in the Potsdamer Platz, his paper did not appear. The reason given by the Commandant of the Mark of Brandenburg was that he had threatened the _Burgfriede_ by charging certain interests in Germany with attempting to make the war a profitable inst.i.tution. But there are those who say that the police were very watchful in the newspaper offices that night, and that the _Tageblatt_ did not appear because of its attempt to print some of the happenings in the Potsdamer Platz.

It has been the custom of Herr Wolff to write a front-page article every Monday morning signed T. W. On the last Monday morning in July, 1916, in a brilliantly written article, the first part of which patted the Government on the back for some things, he delicately expressed a desire for reform in diplomatic methods which would render war-making less easy. Then he added that if some statesman, such as Prince Bulow, had been called as adviser in July, 1914, a way to avert the war might have been found.

This so angered the Government, which has successfully convinced its great human sheep-fold that Germany is the innocent victim of attack, that the _Tageblatt_ was suppressed for nearly a week, and, like the ex-Socialist paper _Vorwaerts_, was permitted to reappear only after it promised "to be good." Theodor Wolff was personally silenced for several months. This was his greatest but not his only offence. All over Germany the people have been officially taught to regard this great war time as _die grosse Zeit_. Wolff, however, sarcastically set the expression in inverted commas--thereby committing a sacrilege against the State.

Throughout Germany monuments have been reared and nails driven into emblems marked DIE GROSSE ZEIT. I have often wondered just what thoughts these monuments will arouse in the German's mind if his country is finally beaten and all his bloodshed and food deprivation will have been in vain.

The Press has, of course, been the chief instrument, reinforced by the schoolmaster, professor and parson, in spreading the doctrine of scientific hatred. It is not generally known that Deputy Cohn, speaking in the Reichstag on April 8, 1916, sharply criticised the method of interning British civilians at Ruhleben. He went on to say that, "reports of the persecutions of Germans in England were magnified and to some extent invented by the German Press in order to stir up war feeling against England."

I saw a brilliant example of the German Press Bureau's attention to details in the late autumn of 1914. I was on a point of vantage half way up the Schlossberg behind Freiburg during the first aerial attack by the French in that region. In broad daylight a solitary airman flew directly over the town and went on until he was directly over the extensive barracks just outside. Freiburg is a compact city of 85,000 inhabitants, and it would have been easy to have caused damage, and probably loss of life to the civilian population. It was clear to me in my front-row position and to the natives, with many of whom I afterwards discussed the matter, that the Frenchman was careful to avoid damaging the town, and circled directly over the barracks on which he dropped all his bombs. The Freiburg papers said little about the raid, but to my surprise when I reached Frankfurt and Cologne a week later, newspaper notices were still stuck about the cities calling upon Germans to witness again the dastardly methods of the enemy who attack the inhabitants of peaceful towns outside of the zone of operations.

The French very properly and effectively practised reprisals later, but the Germans believe that the shoe is on the other foot. And so it is in, everything connected with the war. The Germans tell you that they use poisonous gas because the French used it; in fact, only their good luck in capturing some of the French gas generators enabled them to learn the method. Britain, not Germany, violates the laws of the sea. It was the Belgians who were cruel to German troops, especially the Belgian women and the Belgian children.