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  [Illustration: _Germany's Youngest Reserve._]


GERMANY IN WAR TIME

What an American Girl Saw and Heard

by

MARY ETHEL McAULEY







Chicago
The Open Court Publishing Company
1917

Copyright by
The Open Court Publishing Company
1917




     DEDICATION
     TO MY MOTHER
     WHO SHARED THE TRIALS OF
     TWO YEARS IN GERMANY
     WITH ME




PREFATORY NOTE.


This book is the product of two years spent in Germany during the great
war. It portrays what has been seen and heard by an American girl whose
primary interest was in art. She has tried to write without fear or
favor the simple truth as it appeared to her.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


                                                             PAGE
  Getting into Germany in War Time                              1
  Soldiers of Berlin                                            7
  The Women Workers of Berlin                                  20
  German "Sparsamkeit"                                         35
  The Food in Germany                                          49
  What We Ate in Germany                                       62
  How Berlin is Amusing Itself in War Time                     69
  The Clothes Ticket                                           81
  My Typewriter                                                88
  Moving in Berlin                                             93
  What the Germans Read in War Time                            98
  Precautions Against Spies, etc.                             108
  Prisoners in Germany                                        115
  Verboten                                                    128
  The Mail in Germany                                         132
  The "Auslaenderei"                                          140
  War Charities                                               146
  What Germany is Doing for Her Human War Wrecks              159
  Will the Women of Germany Serve a Year in the Army?         173
  The Kaiserin and the Hohenzollern Princesses                184
  A Stroll Through Berlin                                     196
  A Trip Down the Harbor of Hamburg                           207
  The Krupp Works at Essen                                    218
  Munich in War Time                                          228
  From Berlin to Vienna in War Time                           242
  Vienna in War Time                                          256
  Soldiers of Vienna                                          267
  Women Warriors                                              279
  How Americans Were Treated in Germany                       286
  I Leave Germany July 1, 1917                                292




GETTING INTO GERMANY IN WAR TIME.


Now that America and Germany are at war, it is not possible for an
American to enter the German Empire. Americans can leave the country if
they wish, but once they are out they cannot go back in again.

Since the first year of the war there has been only one way of getting
into Germany through Denmark, and that is by way of Warnemuende. After
leaving Copenhagen you ride a long way on the train, and then the train
boards a ferry which takes you to a little island. At the end of this
island is the Danish frontier, where you are thoroughly searched to see
how much food you are trying to take into Germany. After this frontier
is passed you ride for a few hours on a boat which carries you right
up to Warnemuende, the German landing-place and the military customs of
Germany.

When I went to Germany in October, 1915, the regulations were not
very strict, travelers had only to show that they had a good reason
for going into the country, and they were searched--that was all. But
during the two years I was in Germany all this was changed. Now it
is very hard for even a neutral to enter Germany. Neutrals must first
have a vise from the German consul in Denmark. It takes four days to
get this vise, and you must have your picture taken in six different
poses. Also, you must have a legitimate reason for wanting to go into
the country, and if there is anything the least suspicious about you,
you are not granted a permit to enter.

Travelers entering Germany bring as much food with them as they can.
You are allowed to bring a moderate amount of tea, coffee, soap, canned
milk, etc.; nine pounds of butter and as much smoked meat as you can
carry. No fresh meat is allowed, and you must carry the meat yourself
as no porters are allowed around the docks. This is a spy precaution.

The butter and meat are bought in Copenhagen from a licensed firm where
it is sealed and the firm sends the package to the boat for you. You
must be careful not to break the seal before the German customs are
passed. The Danes are very strict about letting rubber goods out of
their country, and one little German girl I knew was so afraid that the
Danes would take her rubbers away from her, that she wore them on a hot
summer day.

The boat which takes passengers to and from Warnemuende is one day a
German boat and the next day a Danish boat. If you are lucky and make
the trip on the day the Danish boat is running, you get a wonderful
meal, and if you are unlucky and strike the German day, you get a poor
one. After getting off the boat, you get your first glimpse of the
German _Militaer_, the soldiers at the customs.

The travelers are divided into two classes--those going to Hamburg
and those going to Berlin. Then a soldier gets up on a box and asks
if there is any one in the crowd who has no passport. The day I came
through only one man stepped forward. I felt sorry for him, but he did
not look the least bit disheartened. An officer led him away. Strange
to say, four days later we were seated in a hotel in Berlin eating our
breakfast when this same little man came up and asked if we were not
from Pittsburg, and if we had not come over on the "Kristianiafjord."
When I said that we had, he remarked: "Well, I am from Pittsburg, too,
and I came over on the 'Kristianiafjord.'"

"But I did not see you among the passengers," I said.

"No," he answered, "I should say not. I was a bag of potatoes in the
hold. I am a reserve officer in the German army, and I was determined
to get back to fight. I came without a passport claiming to be a
Russian. It took me three days to get fixed up at Warnemuende because
I had no papers of any kind. The day I had everything straightened
out and was leaving for Berlin, a funny thing happened. I was walking
along the street with an officer when a crowd of Russian prisoners came
along. To my surprise one of the fellows yelled at me, 'Hello, Mister,
you'se here too?' And I knew that fellow. He had worked for my father
in America. As he was returning to Russia, he was taken prisoner by
the Germans. I had an awful time explaining my acquaintance to the
authorities at Warnemuende, but here I am waiting to join my regiment."

At Warnemuende, after the people are divided into groups, they are taken
into a large room where the baggage is examined. At the time I came
through we were allowed to bring manuscript with us, but it had to
be read. Now not one scrap of either written or printed matter can be
carried, not even so much as an address. All the writing now going into
Germany must be sent by post and censored as a letter.

When I came through I had a stack of notes with me and I never dreamed
that it would be examined. I was having a difficult time with the
soldier who was searching me when an officer who spoke perfect English
came up and asked if he could help me. He had to read all my letters
and papers, but he was such a slow reader that the train was held up
half an hour waiting for him to finish reading them. Nothing was taken
away from me, but they took a copy of the _London Illustrated News_
away from a German who protested loudly, waving his hands. It was a
funny thing to do, for in Berlin this paper was for sale on all the
news stands and in the cafes. But sometimes the Germans make it a point
of treating foreigners better than they do their own people. I noticed
this many times afterward.

After the baggage was examined, the people had to be searched. The men
didn't have to undress and the women were taken into a small room where
women searchers made us take off all our clothes. They even make you
take off your shoes, they feel in your hair and they look into your
locket. As I had held up the train so long, I did not have much time
to dress and hurried into the train with my hat in my hand and my shoes
untied. As the train pulls out the searcher soldiers line up and salute
it. Searching isn't a very nice job, and when my mother went back to
America the next spring, no less than four of the searchers told her
that they hated it and that when the war was over the whole Warnemuende
force was coming to America.

The train was due in Berlin at 9 o'clock at night, but we were late
when we pulled in at the Stettin Station. We had a hard time getting
a cab and finally we had to share an automobile with a strange man
who was going to the same hotel. At 10 o'clock we were in our hotel
on Unter den Linden. From the window I could look out on the linden
trees. The lights were twinkling merrily in the cafes across the way.
Policemen were holding up the traffic on the narrow Friedrichstrasse.
People were everywhere. It did not seem like a country that was taking
part in the great war.

  [Illustration: _Marine Reserves on Their Way to the Station.
   Wilhelmshaven._]




SOLDIERS OF BERLIN.


Berlin is a city of soldiers. Every day is soldiers' day. And on
Sundays there are even more soldiers than on week days. Then Unter den
Linden, Friedrichstrasse and the Tiergarten are one seething mass of
gray coats--gray the color of everything and yet the color of nothing.
This field gray blends with the streets, the houses, and the walls, and
the dark clothes of the civilians stand out conspicuously against this
gray mass.

  [Illustration: _Soldiers Marching Through Brandenburg Gate._]

When I first came to Berlin, I thought it was just by chance
that so many soldiers were there, but the army seems ever to
increase--officers, privates, sailors and men right from the trenches.
During the two years that I was in Berlin this army remained the same.
It didn't decrease in numbers and it didn't change in looks. The day
I left Berlin it looked exactly the same as the day I entered the
country. They were anything but a happy-looking bunch of men, and all
they talked about was, "when the war is over"; and like every German I
met in those two years, they longed and prayed for peace. One day on
the street car I heard a common German soldier say, "What difference
does it make to us common people whether Germany wins the war or not,
in these three years we folks have lost everything." But every German
soldier is willing to do his duty.

The most wonderful thing about this transit army is that everything
the soldiers have, from their caps to their shoes, is new, except the
soldiers just coming from the front. And yet as a rule they are not
new recruits starting out, but men who have been home on a furlough or
men who have been wounded and are now ready to start back to the front.
To believe that Germany has exhausted her supply of men is a mistake.
Personally, I know lots of young Germans that have never been drafted.
The most of these men are such who, for some reason or other, have
had no army service, and the German military believe that one trained
man is worth six untrained men, and it is the trained soldier that is
always kept in the field. If he has been wounded he is quickly hurried
back to the front. By their scientific methods a bullet wound can be
entirely cured in six weeks.

  [Illustration: _The Most Popular Post-Card in Germany._]

German men have never been noted dressers, and even at their best the
middle and lower classes look very gawky and countrified in civilian
clothes. You cannot imagine how the uniform improves their appearance.
I have seen new recruits marching to the place where they get their
uniforms. Most of them have on old ill-fitting clothes, slouch hats
and polished boots. They shuffle along, carrying boxes and bundles.
They have queer embarrassed looks on their faces. Three hours later,
this same lot of men come forth. They are not the same men. They have a
different fire in their eyes, they hold themselves straighter, they no
longer slouch but keep step. The uniform seems to have made new men of
them. It should be called "transform," not uniform.

At the Friedrichstrasse Station one can see every kind of soldiers at
once. There the men arrive from the front sometimes covered with dust
and mud, and once I saw a man with his trousers all spattered with
blood. The common soldiers carry everything with them. On their backs
they have their knapsacks, and around their waists they have cans,
spoons, bundles and all sorts of things. These men carry sixty-five
pounds with them all the time. In one of their bags they carry what
is known as their _eiserne Portion_ or their "iron portion." This
consists of two cans of meat, two cans of vegetables, three packages of
hard tack, ground coffee for several meals and a flask of whisky. The
soldiers are not allowed to eat this portion unless they are in a place
where no food can be brought to them, and then they are only allowed
to eat it at the command of a superior officer. In the field the iron
portions are inspected each day, and any soldier that has touched his
portion is severely punished.

  [Illustration: _Schoolboys' Reserve. Berlin._]

A great many of the soldiers have the Iron Cross of the second class,
but very rarely a cross of the first class is seen. The second class
cross is not worn but is designated by a black and white ribbon drawn
through the buttonhole. The first class cross is worn pinned rather
low on the coat. The order _Pour le merite_ is the highest honor in
the German army, and not a hundred of them have been given out since
the beginning of the war. It is a blue, white and gold cross and is
hung from the wearer's collar. A large sum of money goes with this
decoration. The second class Iron Cross makes the owner exempt from
certain taxes; and five marks each month goes with the first class Iron
Cross.

The drilling-grounds for soldiers are very interesting. Most of these
places are inclosed, but the one at the Grunewald was open, and I often
used to go there to see the soldiers. It made a wonderful picture--the
straight rows of drilling men with the tall forest for a background.
The men were usually divided off into groups, a corporal taking
twelve men to train. It was fun watching the new recruits learning
the goose-step. The poor fellows tried so hard they looked as though
they would explode, but if they did not do it exactly right, they were
sent back to do it over again. The trainers were not the least bit
sympathetic.

One day an American boy and I went to Potsdam. We were standing in
front of the old Town Palace watching some fresh country boys drill. I
laughed outright at one poor chap who was trying to goose-step. He was
so serious and so funny I couldn't help it. The corporal came over to
us and ordered us to leave the grounds, which we meekly did.

  [Illustration: _Soldiers Buying Ices in Berlin. A War Innovation._]

Tempelhof, the largest drilling-ground in Berlin, is the headquarters
for the army supplies, and here one can see hundreds of wagons and
autos painted field-gray. The flying-place at Johannisthal is now
enclosed by a fence and is so well guarded you can't get within a
square of it.

  [Illustration: _Looking at  Pictures in an Old Book-Shop._]

It is very interesting to watch the troop trains coming in from the
front. When I first went to Berlin it was all a novelty to me and I
spent a great deal of my time at the stations. One night just before
Christmas, 1915, the first Christmas I was in Berlin, I spent three
hours at the Anhalt Station watching the troops come home. They were
very lucky, these fellows, six months in the trenches and then to be
home at Christmas time! They were the happiest people I had seen in the
war unless it were the people who came to meet them.

  [Illustration: _Cheering the Soldier on His Way to the Front._]

Most of the soldiers were sights. Their clothes were dirty, torn and
wrinkled. Many of them coming from Russia were literally covered with
a white dust. At first I thought that they were bakers, but when I
saw several hundred of them I changed my mind. Beside his regular
paraphernalia, each soldier had a dozen or more packages. The packages
were strapped on everywhere, and one little fellow had a bundle stuck
on the point of his helmet.

A little child, perhaps three years old, was being held over the
gate near me and all the while he kept yelling, "Papa! _Urlaub_!" An
_Urlaub_ is a furlough, and when the father did come at last the child
screamed with delight. Another soldier was met by his wife and a tiny
little baby. He took the little one in his arms, and the tears rolled
down his cheeks, "My baby that I have never seen," he said.

This night the soldiers came in crowds. Everybody was smiling, and in
between the trains we went into the station restaurant. At every table
sat a soldier and his friends. One young officer had been met by his
parents, and he was so taken up with his mother that he could not sit
down but he hung over her chair. Was she happy? Well, I should say so!

At another table sat a soldier and his sweetheart. They did not care
who saw them, and can you blame them? He patted her cheeks and he
kissed her hand.... An old man who sat at the table pretended that he
was reading, and he tried to look the other way, but at last he could
hold himself no longer, and grasping the soldier's hand he cried,
"_Mahlzeit!_"

  [Illustration: _A Field Package for a German Soldier._]

We went out and saw more trains and more soldiers. A little old lady
stood beside us. She was a pale little lady dressed in black. She was
so eager. She strained her eyes and watched every face in the crowd.
It was bitter cold and she was thinly clad. At 12 o'clock the station
master announced that there would be no more trains until morning. The
little old lady turned away. I watched her bent figure as she went down
the stairs. She was pulling out her handkerchief.




THE WOMEN WORKERS OF BERLIN.


The German women have filled in the ranks made vacant by the men.
Nothing is too difficult for them to undertake and nothing is too hard
for them to do.

The poor German working women! No one in all the war has suffered like
these poor creatures. Their men have been taken from them, they are
paid only a few pfennigs a day by the government, and now they must
work, work like a man, work like a horse.

The German working woman is tremendously capable in manual labor.
She never seems to get tired and she can stand all day in the wet and
snow. But as a wife and mother she is becoming spoiled. She is bound
to become rough, and she takes the jostlings of the men she meets with
good grace, answering their flip remarks, joking with them and giving
them a physical blow when she thinks it necessary. Most of the women
seem to like this familiarity which working on the streets brings them,
and they find it much more exciting than doing housework at home.

All great reforms begin in a violent way, and maybe this is the
beginning of emancipation for the German woman, for she is beginning to
realize what she can do, and for the first time in the history of the
empire she is living an independent existence, dependent upon no man.

  [Illustration: _A Window Cleaner._]

When the war first broke out, women were taken on as ticket punchers on
the overground and underground railways, and _Frau Kneiperin_, or "Mrs.
Ticket-puncher," sits all day long out in the open, punching tickets.
In summer this job is very pleasant, but in winter she gets very, very
cold even if she does wear a thick heavy overcoat and thick wooden
shoes over her other shoes. She can't wear gloves for she must take
each ticket in her hand in order to punch the stiff boards. She earns
three marks a day.

  [Illustration: _A German Elevator "Boy."_]

After the women ticket punchers came the women door shutters, and _Frau
Tuerschliesserin_, or "Mrs. Door Shutter," is all day long on the
platforms of the stations, and she must see that every train door is
shut before the train starts. This is a lively job, and she must jump
from one door to the other. Most of these women wear bloomers, but some
of them wear men's trousers tucked in their high boots. They all wear
caps and badges.

_Frau Brieftraegerin_ is the woman letter carrier. This is rather a nice
job, carrying only a little bag of letters. One fault with the work is
that she must deliver the letters to the top floor of every building
whether there is an elevator or not, but as no German building is more
than five stories high, it is not so bad. Most of the special delivery
"boys" are women. They wear a boy's suit and ride a bicycle.

More than half the street car conductors in Germany now are women. Most
of these women still cling to skirts, but they all wear a man's cap
and coat. They are quite expert at climbing on the back of the car and
fixing the trolley, and if necessary they can climb on the top of the
car. If the car gets stuck, they get out and push it, but the crowd is
generally ready to help them. They have their bag for tips, and they
expect their five pfennigs extra the same as a man.

When _Frau Fuehrerin_, or "Mrs. Motorman," came, some of the German
people were scandalized and exclaimed: "Well, I will never ride on a
street car run by a woman. It wouldn't be safe." Now, no one thinks
anything about it, and the women have no more accidents than the men.
Some of these women are little bits of things, and one wonders that
they have the strength to stand it all day long. Most of them look as
if it were nerve-racking. They earn three and a half marks a day.

  [Illustration: _Costume of a Street-Car Conductor._]

Women cab drivers are not very numerous, but every now and then one of
them whizzes around a corner looking for a fare. One Berlin cabby is
quite an old lady. The men cabbies are jealous of the women because
the women get the best tips. There are few women taxi drivers. One
young woman driver has a whole leather suit with tight breeches and
an aviator hat. Women also drive mail wagons, and women go around from
one store to another cleaning windows. _Frau Fensterputzerin_ or "Mrs.
Window Cleaner" carries a heavy ladder with her. This is no light task.

They have always had women street cleaners and switch tenders in
Munich, but now they have them in Berlin as well. They work in groups,
sweeping the dirt and hauling it away in wheelbarrows. Just before I
left Berlin I saw a woman posting bills on the round advertising posts.
She did not seem to be an expert at managing the paste, because she
flung it around so that it was dangerous to come near her. In the last
year they have had women track walkers, and they pace the railroad ties
to see if the tracks are safe. They dress in blue and carry small iron
canes.

  [Illustration: _A Famous "Cabby" in Berlin._]

The excavation for the new underground railway under Friedrichstrasse
was dug out by women, and half the gangs that work on the railroad
tracks are women. They fasten bolts and saw the iron rails. All the
stores have women elevator runners, and most of the large department
stores have women checking umbrellas, packages, dogs, and--lighted
cigars! Most stores have women floor-walkers. Most of the delivery
wagons are run by women, and they carry the heaviest packages.

All the newspapers in Berlin are sold by women, and they wheel the
papers around in baby carriages. Around the different freight stations
one can see women loading hay and straw into the cars. They wield
the pitchfork with as much ease as a man and with far more grace.
Many of the "brakemen" on the trains are women, and some of the train
conductors are women. Most of the gas-meter readers are women, and
other women help to repair telephone wires, and still others help to
instal telephones.

There are a few _Frau Schornsteinfegerin_, or "Mrs. Chimney Sweep,"
but the job of being a chimneysweep doesn't appeal to most women. These
women wear trousers and a tight-fitting cap. They mount the house tops
and they make the soot fly, and the cement rattles down the chimney.
They carry long ropes with which they pull their brushes up and down.

  [Illustration: _Cleaning the Streets in Berlin._]

_Frau Klempnermeisterin_, or "Mrs. Master Tinner," repairs the roofs.
Of course she wears trousers to make climbing easier. Most of the women
who have these odd jobs are those whose husbands had the same before
the war. Many other women work in the parks cutting the grass and
watering the flowers. In the market places women put rubber heels on
your shoes while you wait.

Most of the milk wagons are run by girls, and women help to deliver
coal. They have no coal chutes in Germany, and the coal is carried from
the wagon into the house. This is really terrible work for a woman. A
few women work on ash wagons, others are "ice men," and others build
houses.

Nearly all the munition workers in Germany are women, and they are
paid very high for this work. Most of them get from $40 to $50 a month,
wages before unknown for working women. The strength of some of these
women is almost beyond belief. Dr. Gertrude Baumer, the famous German
woman writer and settlement worker, told me that shells made in one
factory weighed eighty pounds each and that every day the women working
lifted thirty-six of these shells. Women are also employed in polishing
the shells.

The women workers in munition factories are very closely watched, and
if the work does not agree with them they are taken away and are given
other employment. The sanitary conditions of these factories are very
good, and they are almost fire-proof, and they have no horrible fire
disasters. Indeed they have very few fires in Germany.

They have in Berlin what is known as the _Nationaler Frauendienst_,
or the "National Women's Service," and it is an organization to help
the poor women of Germany during the war. Dr. Gertrude Baumer is the
president of this organization, and she is also one of the strongest
advocates for the one year army service for German women.

  [Illustration: _A Berlin Street-Car Conductor._]

This society finds employment for women and gives out work for women
who have little children and cannot leave home. Women who sew at
home make bags for sand defenses, and they make helmet covers of gray
cloth. These covers keep the enemy from seeing the shining metal of
the helmet. If a woman is sick and cannot work the society takes care
of her until she is better and able to work again. They also have food
tickets which they give to the poor.

  [Illustration: _Reading the Gas Meter._]

  [Illustration: _A Chauffeur._]

Pension schedules are being made up by different societies, and it
is not yet certain which one the government will adopt; at present
every woman whose husband is in the war is given a certain amount
for herself and children. For women who are now widows the pension
is according to the rank of the husband. For instance, the widow of
a common soldier gets 300 marks a year. If she has one child she get
568 marks and so on, increasing according to the number of children,
for four children she gets 1072 marks. The widow of a non-commissioned
officer, a corporal or a sergeant, gets a little more, and the widow of
a lieutenant gets over twice as much as a common soldier's widow. The
widow of a major-general gets 3246 marks a year. When she has children,
she gets very little more, for when a man has risen to the rank of
major-general the chances are that he is old and that his children are
grown up and able to take care of themselves.

  [Illustration: _Digging the Tunnel for the New Underground Railway in
   Berlin._]

These schedules are also controlled by the number of years a man
has served in the army, and they are trying to pass a new bill which
requires that pensions shall be controlled by the salary the man had
before the war. If the dead man had worked himself up into a good
position of 1000 marks a month, his family should have more than the
family of a man who could only make 300 marks a month.

The schedule as it now stands for wounded men is that a private who has
lost his leg gets 1,368 marks a year; a lieutenant gets 4851 marks a
year; and a general 10,332 marks a year.

  [Illustration: _Caring for the Trees._]

They have in Germany a "votes for women" organization of 600,000
members, but it will be years and years before it ever comes to
anything, for German women are very slow in acting and thinking for
themselves.




GERMAN "SPARSAMKEIT."


When the blockade of Germany began, no one believed that she could hold
out without supplies from the outside world; that in a short time her
people would be starving and that she would be out of raw material.
During the few months before the blockade was declared, Germany had
shipped into her ports as much cotton, copper, rubber and food as
was possible. After the blockade started much stuff was obtained from
Holland and Scandinavia. From the very first days of the war Germany
set to work to utilize all the material that she had on hand, and her
watchword to her people was "waste nothing."

  [Illustration: _Collecting Cherry Stones for Making Oil._]

The first collection of material in Germany was a metal collection,
and it took place in the fall of 1915, just after I came to Berlin.
This collection extended all over Germany and took place in different
parts at different times. Every family received a printed notice of
the things that must be given up to the State. It was a long list, but
the main thing on it was the brass ovendoors. As nearly every room in
Germany has a stove with two of these doors about a foot wide and three
quarters of a foot high you can get some idea of how much material this
collection brought. Since this collection the doors have been replaced
by iron ones that are not nearly so pretty. All kinds of brass pots and
kettles were collected, but with special permits people were allowed to
keep their heirlooms. Everything was paid for by the weight, artistic
value counted for naught. Vacant stores were rented for storing this
collection and the people had to bring the things there.

In some cities the people willingly gave up the copper roofs of
their public buildings. Copper roofs have always been very popular
in Germany. In Berlin the roof of the palace, the cathedral and the
Reichstag building are of copper, and in Dresden the roofs of all the
royal buildings are of copper.

A friend of mine who is a Catholic went to church one Sunday just
before I left Berlin. Before the service opened and just as the priest
mounted the pulpit the church bells began to ring. When they had
stopped the priest announced that this was the last time the bells
would ever ring, for they were to be given to the metal collection. The
people began to cry as the priest went on, and before he had finished,
many were sobbing out loud. Even the men wept. My