As soon as possible I excused myself on the ground of fatigue, desiring to rest and be fresh for my interview with the Minister. I walked home alone – it not being far and past some of the smart Berlin shops all full of beautiful things and apparently busy.
I had rested about an hour when, to my great pleasure, Dr. Alice Salomon called and sat an hour talking in my room. While she was there my Baron called me up on the telephone attached to the wall and before I could prevent her, Dr. Salomon had rushed to reply. Of course there was confusion and I had to go and heard the Baron in his sternest tones demanding who was in my room speaking German. I told him, but he knew too little of the Social World [work] of Berlin to have any idea of Dr. Salomon, her work, or her international reputation. It took a long while to make him understand that she was the lady who had initiated the institution I had seen that morning and who, having been applied to for permission to see it, had heard I was here and naturally wished to call on me.
This explained, my interrupted conversation with Dr. Salomon was resumed. She gave me her views of the Food and Health situation in Germany and also Austria whence she had recently returned and I begged her to arrange for me interviews with leading men – a doctor, a clergyman, politicians, etc. She took an optimistic view of the public health, thinking indeed that with regard to infants and mothers it was even better than normal because owing to the scarcity of bread, philanthropic and municipal bodies were feeding the poorer classes with food of a more varied kind. She spoke much of the Aberdeens* whose intimate friend she is – and was very warm about my former work and full of gratitude for the effort I had made in coming to visit them during the war. She left and I made ready to go to Wilhelmstrasse.
The Baron came, rather stiff, and I repeated my assurances and explanation about Dr. Salomon. I wondered about it all, for I had been put under no restrictions whatever, the Kommandatur as he knew, had made me free and I was not on parole. I shewed him I could not study the Food Supply in Germany by sitting alone in my bedroom and I must see everyone I could and representatives of different classes. He was silent and only half convinced. I felt he had imbibed the Martial Law ideas of Belgium and brought them with him.
There was a flight of stairs at the Wilhelmstrasse and at the top stood the rather ubiquitous Herr Rieth. A curious, unpretentious, rambling old building – with long very narrow passages like old-fashioned Inns. I was shown into a waiting room where several gentlemen were awaiting interviews, but had not time to seat myself before I was summoned to the presence of the Minister and in another moment was ushered into a long room where von Jagow rose from his desk and came forward to greet me.
The room was very still and the windows gave upon a garden. He drew me to the window and placed me on a sofa with my back to the light while he sat on a low easy chair hardby [sic]. He was very simple and natural and wholly unofficial in manner.
I will not here reproduce our talk. I have written it out at length in a separate form and shall keep it apart and perhaps sealed. It lasted nearly an hour. I felt lifted into some sphere aloof from our blood-stained World. That I should sit in the Foreign Office of Berlin ere the war ended, I had always felt – it had been a piece of second sight to me – and there I was and it all looked familiar and as if I had seen and known it all before. A strangely moving experience to be sitting with the Foreign Minister of the country with which we are at death grips and having a heart to heart talk with what I believe was mutual confidence and respect.
Only all through I was tortured by my feeling of utter mental incompetence – partly from an empty brain, the result of over fatigue and partly from the sense that I was not trained enough maybe in public matters and diplomacy to make the most of a chance so unusual and so striking. I had the right spirit, but body and mind lacked power and knowledge. He probably thought me a goose, but if so, he was good-natured enough not to show it. When I rose to go I felt giddy and could hardly find my way to the door. The effort to concentrate my whole feeble mental powers had been very much too great for me.
Outside, the Baron and Herr Rieth awaited me. I recovered myself a bit, enough to say tauntingly to the Baron that the Minister had said I was to see anyone I pleased and the more I saw the better satisfied he would be and that I had told him I had seen Dr. Salomon and hoped he did not mind. He had said he was delighted I had seen her.
The Baron there at seemed much relieved – as if a weight was off his conscience. So we returned to the hotel and I hoped to rest go early to bed and digest the talk I had just heard. It was a relief that the Baron said goodnight, asking me to ring him up in the morning.
I went to my room – when to my joy in a very few minutes after I had eaten my boiled egg for supper – Elisabeth Rotten appeared asking if I would receive also Baron de Neufville, the well-known pacifist of Frankfurt a/M, the friend of the Courtneys to whose daughter I had sent the wedding gift last summer from Amsterdam on behalf of Kate Courtney. I was most pleased. It was then a little after 8 p.m. and they stayed till past 10 – and then we sent the gentleman away first, that he might slip away the more unobserved – he fully aware of the necessity for caution. He brought me a bouquet of magnificent roses which sweetened my room all the time I was in Berlin. How we talked – they telling me and I telling them.
I was glad to seek his advice about an idea that had already come into my head since I left von Jagow, born of the feeling that it ought to have been a British Statesman sitting chatting with him and not just me. He thought I could do no wrong by suggesting it in a little note and outlined the form. I was comforted and supported and determined to try. They told me much of the condition of the country – he said food affairs were very similar at Frankfurt a/M and like everyone else he said on that point Germany would never give in. He spoke of the Peace Gatherings they had had at his town and they told me much that was helpful of the state of internal politics – the position and difficulties of the Chancellor, the respect felt for him, the link between him and the Kaiser – the continued Jingoism of the Conservative Militarists and the immense growth of the Social Democrats whose Minority in Reichstag was a Majority in the country and likely to sweep the Empire at the conclusion of the war. I spoke of my wish to see Clergymen and Frau Minna Cauer and anyone else possible. Dr. Rotten was so sorry that the Meeting for her Fund to take place at Prince Lichnowsky’s house should have been fixed for that very next day, for it was all on her hands; otherwise, she could have done so much more for me.
By 10.30 p.m. I was alone to chew the cud of a most exciting and wonderful day. It was still broad daylight as I went to bed.
Tuesday, June 20th Very early I was up, desiring to write to von Jagow without delay. I hurried through my coffee and expressed the letter. Then Baron Falkenhausen ’phoned to say the trip to Ruhleben was put off as of some difficulty about a car and that Count Schwerin himself desired to be there. This somewhat wasted the day. He said he would come round later and take me to a restaurant. Dr. Alice Salomon rang me up about arranging for Dr. Lewandowski* and Heine** to see me. I told her and E. Rotten how much I depended on them as otherwise isolated.
At noon came my Baron and said he would take me, at my desire, to another class of restaurant. I found it rather a long walk – he said Herr Rieth wanted to meet me there again ‘to make arrangements about Ruhleben’. Somehow, I disliked Rieth, though most attentive and gentlemanly, but I shall always believe he was a spy. Half through lunch, Rieth, having been told where we were by telephone, arrived and my Baron as suddenly departed giving me over to his charge. Lunch ended and, at very moderate cost, he proposed taking me to see the Tiergarten, and when I pleaded fatigue, he said his car was outside. I could say no more and he drove me about to see the sights – through the wooded park, past the various public buildings, by the famous statue of Hindenburg – barbaric but life-like colossal figure – and then to his very charming apartment, exquisitely furnished. Here he found a pile of the London Times for me and as the cold showers were incessant, I beg
ged to be taken back to my hotel. This he did, promising to come next morning at 10 a.m. I felt relieved when he was gone. Then I rested and got some tea in the lounge. They only served cake with tea, two or three very small thin slices and no bread and butter. I think, occasionally, stale rusks.
Later on when I was in my bedroom Elisabeth Rotten appeared. I was rejoiced. She was arrayed in her best for she had just come from the Emergency Committee Meeting at Prince Lichnowsky’s house, a meeting which had been a huge success. She wanted me to take the news to London, she writing it to Berne to Gertrude Woker and I translating and forwarding it thence. She wished it to be in the London Press. We had a long, long talk – she said Baron de Neufville had much wished to come again but thought it wiser not to do so. She was very exhausted and several times nearly fainted. I gave her ether for her face and some brandy and had up some coffee for her. She said she had not had a single day off, not even a Sunday, since the war began. She told me much of her work and of all the men told her who came out of Ruhleben on parole to visit their wives – how, even, they were talking of bringing out from there superfluous food parcels for their wives and families in Berlin. She looked after their families. We talked long and deep of everything in both countries – of politics and prospects. She promised to send Pastor Siegmund-Schultze* to see me. Many she wanted me to see were away – many full up with work. She was trying to find time also for Minna Cauer** who wanted to see me. It was late when she left and I went to bed.
Wednesday, June 21st Very early I was up and breakfasted and had the room in order to receive Dr. Lewandowski at 8 a.m. He came with German punctuality – in full uniform and cloak and sword – with a nice honest face. He spoke English with difficulty but fair correctness. He spoke of the children of the town – was chief doctor of the Municipal Schools. He said there was undoubted enfeeblement among the infants under 1 year and the children from 10–14. He had however weighed all last year and again this year and found them normal. He knew of no increased mortality in consequence of this enfeeblement. This sounded strange to me. He went on to lay stress on the improved condition of mothers and infants owing to the food supplied them being more varied in character than what was customary in their lives. He could see no reason to think that the food shortage would necessitate ‘giving in’ as vanquished. He was very polite, and very grave but pleasant. All he said was in agreement with Dr. Alice Salomon but yet I did not feel I had got to the bottom of him.
Ruhleben
As soon as he left I began to prepare for the drive to Ruhleben. Very soon the car came with my Baron and Herr Rieth and soon we covered the 10 or 12 miles to Spandau. Rieth had brought lunch and we stopped inside the camp and ate sandwiches early though it was, for I saw a long and tiring day and no chance of food therein. Afterwards the gentlemen acknowledged my forethought.
I was taken first to the offices where I was received by Count Schwerin the German Commandant of the Camp. He was a handsome old man with a fine presence and a most benign countenance – one loved him instinctively and from all, of both sides, one heard only good of him. He was really beloved and known to have done the best in his power to make Camp life endurable. He was full of the interest of it and spoke of the prisoners as ‘meine grosse Familie’. Long and very boring explanations were given me in the office about the system employed and the autonomy granted – and at my request facts and figures about those who had left and those who were on the list desiring to leave. For many reasons large numbers of the elderly men did not wish to go back to England having their wives etc. and businesses in Germany. Those who did want to return were of military age and of course could not, unless invalids. At the moment only nine were applying for exchange. The monthly date for leaving was the 6th.
Then we went to inspect the camp and the old Count hearing I was weakly insisted, rather tryingly, upon offering me his arm, a thing so boring to us. However I was quickly introduced to Capt Powell the elected English Captain of the camp and his next in Command whose name I forget – I think Simmons. It was curiously stirring to be in a Camp again – with all its sordidness and all its artificiality, its neatness and its squalor, its dun colour and monotony, its forlorn efforts to find amusement and occupation, its shabbiness and the worn strained faces of the inmates.
Only in this camp there were no children, no raging sicknesses, no starvation, no skeletons, no deaths. The problem was different to that which had faced me sixteen years before in South Africa. All Camps are odious – that is the basis from which one must start in speaking of them. That odiousness is accentuated in the early days of formation because the inmates are brought together in a hurry with nothing ready for them – supplies, shelter or sanitation.
From that odiousness Ruhleben was not free, but given that, and all the suffering it involved, I can and must truthfully say that Ruhleben Camp was not a bad one – that much was done for the amusement and occupation and instruction of the inmates, that the food was good (the bread coarse but wholesome) and kindness shown by the Enemy authorities.
Nevertheless a cloud lay upon the Camp and as I walked about with the group of companions, often I was alone with Captain Powell and learnt from him of the mental and nervous strain becoming more marked, especially amongst the older men. I talked with several of these and found them in a strange condition. Capt Powell begged me to do all possible to get out the men of 45 and over, saying he just could not pull them through another winter and they infected the whole camp. Without them he felt the younger men could brace themselves to face it out. I promised to leave no stone unturned when I reached England to plead for their release. Moreover I spoke to many lads as well as old men and became more and more sure that the problem was mental and psychological not material. Some of the younger men also showed signs of great strain.
The civilian internees seem in every country less able to bear detention than do military prisoners of war and this for several reasons.
1st They feel Fate has been unfair to them.
2nd They have never been under discipline.
3rd They have not escaped from the more awful sufferings of war – the trenches etc.
4th They are usually older men and less adaptable.
5th The majority are married men and anxious about wives and families.
6th They are hurriedly taken from businesses without time to arrange - the future dark.
7th They have had no opportunity of having their fling – doing their bit – showing their loyalty.
8th Consequently try to shew loyalty to their country by the only means open to them viz putting themselves into a state of mental hostility to everything and everybody about them – even the food is ‘hostile’.
9th To maintain this mental hostility at white heat is before long to become mentally deranged.
Dr Ella Scarlett Synge* has issued a good report of this Camp, so it is hardly necessary for me to dwell upon what I soon saw were the less pressing and important features of the life. I mean the kitchens, the food itself, the Canteen, the sleeping and living arrangements, Washing and Sanitation.
I thought the food good and excellently cooked and as much as the conditions in Germany made possible. Potatoes and fish that day and both were first rate. In a smaller kitchen men could, for 1d or 2d, have camp food fried or done up in some way and their own English parcel food also cooked for them.
The parcel delivery office was an immense business – dealing out some 1,250 parcels every morning. 39,000 parcels** had arrived during the month of my visit. In all the time the Camp had been running only two or three parcels had been missed out of this vast number streaming in.
There were many amusements golf, football, sports of various kinds – a great space for all this – Cinema, Theatre and Company performing constantly, arts and crafts – an Exhibition of work proceeding – small gardens, poultry keeping – occupations of a more serious nature. Shops of many trades – two dentists, Police force of fifty strong. University attended by 250 with 9 or 10 pr
ofessors, a library, hall, separate rooms for languages nicely furnished. YWCA hall, Protestant and Catholic Churches and a Restaurant nicely arranged where the older or more weakly might take their meals.
I thought in comparison with the many blessings of the Camp (as Camps go) that the sleeping accommodations came off worst though that was not bad as in the Boer Camps. I thought the men kept their barracks very dirty, and I told them so. Their excuse was ‘no time’!!! Yet there were hundreds of merchant seamen there well accustomed to keep the deck of a ship spotless.
I saw the hospital for temporary illnesses and the doctor – a long and rather low building which did not look very inviting. There have, I am told, been only about six deaths in the camp and the health is good.
It was a long day. I seemed to be ‘taking in’ at every pore and felt much exhausted. At the end I asked leave to speak a few words to Capt Powell and his ‘Aide’ and I sat down and told them how much we felt for them and how none better than I knew the awfulness of Camp life. I told them of my experience of sixteen years ago – and of the awful camps we gave the Boer Women who with their children lay down and died without a murmur. I assured them that by comparison they were fortunate in Ruhleben, but that it was a hateful system and I would do my best in London to obtain release or exchange first for over 45 – then for all. They must not think they would be forgotten etc etc.
I afterwards wrote a little letter to the Camp – on these lines and showing how they too, each one, held something of the honour of England in their hands to uphold or to mar as really any soldier in the trenches. This letter I sent to the Foreign Office open to be transmitted to Count Schwerin if he thought fit to communicate it to the Camp. I wrote it because the men seemed to me to need above all things a mental and spiritual tonic.
Large numbers of the men drew up to see us drive away; it gave a horrible pang to go away and leave them there – such a forlorn and despairing atmosphere hung about them. It was one of the most painful moments of my life and as such will always be remembered and the whole issue is stamped indelibly on my mind. The gates fell to and it was over. I was almost dead with exhaustion. I had been on my legs for hours – bad enough by itself and in addition going through tense mental work and strong emotion, having at the same time to be wary, offend none and keep outwardly calm.
Agent of Peace Page 10
