Diary of Annie's War

by Annie Droege

  Frau Pastor took her brass and copper kettles, candle-sticks etc. last week and she got seventy-two marks for them. Some have been in the family for a hundred years.

  The third war loan is overpaid as everyone has put money into it.

  I am much better and go for my last kohlensäure bath next week and have gained two pounds in two weeks.

  I have had no news from my people for over two months. It’s too bad. It makes me wonder if there is bad news and they will not write it.

  Sunday 3rd October 1915.

  We are having lovely weather and the harvest is all in and only a few potatoes are left in the fields. Today is Harvest Thanksgiving so all are at church.

  I went to Hildesheim yesterday to arrange about the boiler going away. It is copper and all copper is called up. With so many being called up at once the iron boilers fail for the workers are scarce and you must wait three or four weeks before the copper boiler is replaced.

  A police officer called and told me that our house is large enough for six soldiers in quartering so I am sure of having two. Hildesheim has so many military there.

  Grebe the agent for the property was here Monday last and said that he could not get half the rent and some people said that they must give up the land for their men fail and they cannot work it themselves.

  It is a dreadful time for the poor people and now they are limited to butter at so much per person, as lard and dripping are not to be got. You can go to six or eight shops for flesh and fat and get not one ounce. We have made a lot of jam but it is not good to eat too much. Still it is better than nothing.

  Belle came to me with a Frau Degenhart and her sister and the Frau D. would like our place for her son. They were delighted with everything around it.

  Sunday 10th October.

  It is decided that I go tomorrow to Hildesheim and Hermenia goes with me. I don’t know whatever I should have done without her. Her great kindness I will never forget. I go to the hotel after a few days until the house is in order. The furniture comes on Wednesday and I hope to be soon in order. It has been very hard to get workmen. In fact there is no light in the house yet and oil is so scarce that you are only allowed one quart per household per month. The plumber also fails us and we cannot tell when he comes for all people want gas putting in their houses on account of the scarcity of oil. I can see us being upset for a long time. Thank goodness the painter and decorator is able to come though we cannot have any oil paint for the oil fails. I have had water colour put in one room and it looks very nice.

  Saturday 16th October.

  I went yesterday to Woltershausen as I had a permit until the 15th just to say goodbye to a few. I shall not be allowed more than two and a half miles away after today.

  The furniture is in my house and two rooms are in order. I am glad Belle is in Celle for we are so plagued with workmen and I should like her rooms to be in order before she comes back. If only we had light. I am very comfortable in the hotel and Herr and Frau Roeder are very kind to me but I am anxious to be settled in my own home.

  Tuesday 19th October.

  Hermenia came yesterday to stay a few days with me so we’ve slept in the house for the first time. We got some oil so we were able to use the lamp. It is surprising how many houses have no light - only oil here. Houses at thirty and forty pounds rent a year with no gas or electricity! This town is fifty years behind one of its size in England. Many houses of fifty pounds a year rent do not have bathrooms and it is only this past three or four years they have water closets. Thank goodness we have both.

  Monday 25th October.

  We have been very busy this past few days and we are as far in order as it is possible to be for we are only waiting for the men. The new girl came on the 20th. Hannah is her name and she seems a good worker and pleasant. But she can’t cook. Hermenia is here yet so it does not matter.

  Today we have our first frost and it is very cold with five degrees of frost. There is every promise of a long and severe winter. God help the poor soldiers in the field.

  Wednesday 27th October.

  I had a letter from Alice Graeinghoff, Mrs. Durselen’s daughter, from Königswinter. She and her husband are in Berlin and Herman is using his influence to pay Arthur a visit. I also received yesterday a parcel of old clothes from Arthur and a parcel with tea and biscuits. It was such a welcome surprise and it gave me great pleasure.

  I also received a letter this morning from Arthur and it made me so sad. I am afraid that he is ill. Or losing his hopes and that is just as bad. Though it is a long time since we met, eleven-and-a- half months, still we must live in the hope of it coming to an end. But when one is not well things look so very black all round.

  Thursday 28th October.

  Our Ettie’s birthday.

  Received a letter also a wire from Alice Graeinghoff and Herman has permission to visit Arthur on Friday 29th. How very delighted he will be. I hope that it is a long visit and not just a few minutes. They promise to come for a visit on their return so we can have a long chat.

  Hermenia had to return yesterday as her mother is not so well. I am sorry. Still, the maid shapes very well.

  Saturday 30th October.

  Grebe the agent for the land sent for me yesterday. He has had notice that he must give an exact account of all my belongings, the estate, monies etc. so I have left all in his hands.

  Belle came home yesterday and is very pleased with her rooms and they are very comfortable. She has had a nice time with Rosie in Celle for three weeks.

  Tuesday 2nd November

  The Graeinghoffs came today and leave tomorrow. Herman tells me that he saw Arthur for three quarters of an hour but of course four soldiers were in the room. Arthur looks well but thin, and seems to be in good spirits. He tells Herman that he is constantly busy and I am glad to hear it. It must have been a very difficult task to obtain permission to visit. Herman tells me that he was three whole mornings visiting various officers before he got permission to visit the General Commander and state his wish. I had written to Königswinter to say I was afraid Arthur was ill because of a letter I had received. That was the ground that Herman obtained permission to visit Arthur.

  We are told today that all pfennigs (they are made of copper and about as large as a three penny bit) are to be called up for bullets and we are to have them made of iron.

  I received also a letter from Ettie and she says that they have had such a lot of letters returned. I cannot understand it as I get letters from friends much more often.

  Friday 5th November.

  I have such worrying thoughts about our Kittie in Canada and last night I had such awful dreams and she was in every one and in such trouble. It does worry one especially as I have no news of her.

  From the 1st of November all meat shops have been closed for three days a week and the restaurants dare not cook any meat, or the lodging houses, on two days a week. When we do have meat allowed we are not to fry or roast it but boil it to save the fat being wasted. It is so very dreadful to get any fat to cook with and we get fat cards now with the bread cards and no one is allowed to sell to a person without a card. These we get every week from the giving out offices. We are allowed half a pound of bread per person per day and quarter of fat, either bacon or lard, per person per week.

  When you have cooked a quarter of bacon fat you can eat it once, but you can fry three times in a quarter of lard. It’s to make it last longer but it’s rotten to keep house on. Just imagine no meat at all for three days and two out of the remaining four you are only to eat boiled stuff. That is five days a week without fat.

  Butter you are allowed to buy without cards, when you can get it and it costs three shillings and three pence a pound. It is very scarce and so is milk for we have the foot and mouth disease as well as a shortage of cattle. I get fits when I go out shopping as prices change so quickly and are always higher. I wonder if on November the 1st they are paying in England four pence a pound for white bread, three shillings and
threepence for butter, one shilling and eleven pence for lard, one shilling and nine pence for margarine, a shilling for rice, six shillings for tea, two shillings and nine pence for roasting beef, one shilling and ten pence for boiling, pork two shillings and four pence, ham two shillings and sixpence, bacon two shillings and a penny, and eggs at three pence each. Most things in the household are double the price. Soap is at one shilling and a penny a pound, candles three pence each and matches at sixpence a dozen boxes.

  On November 5th all prices are to be set fast by the government so perhaps they will be cheaper and then they cannot make them any higher. Anyone selling above this price will get twelve months imprisonment and their place of business will be closed. One man had six months imprisonment (no fines) for doing something like that and his place of business closed up.

  Monday 8th November.

  Now there are new rules as regards drink. You can only buy spirits during certain hours with none to be sold after nine o’clock at night and to no householder. You must sit in a hotel and drink what you buy. You cannot take a drop home. I wanted three pence worth of rum for cooking and it was not to be got for love nor money.

  We were in a shop today and a man came in to order champagne and asked for a French brand. The owner said that he had a few bottles but during the week the police had been there and counted what he had and he was forbidden to sell any of it. The maker of that brand, a Frenchman, had said something insulting of the Germans so not a drop of his champagne must be sold. I think that is cutting off your nose to spite your face. The champagne is lying in the cellar and that is as good as money lying there. But one does not understand things and perhaps there is another motive for it all.

  I have received during the week a newspaper and one letter and they have been in Köln for fourteen months. The paper is of August 2nd 1914 and the letter July the 30th and though so old were very welcome.

  There is an announcement in the papers asking the people not to do all their work themselves. But to leave some for after the war as so many poor men will come back and require labour. They certainly do look ahead here.

  Today when I went to report to the police a mother was dragging her boy in because he had been naughty. Here the police see to them for, as they say, the fathers are away at the front and someone must control them and women are not fit to look after boys. He did howl and was terrified when taken in the police room. You are summoned by the police here for the smallest thing.

  It is sometime this week that the eighteen-year-olds are called up. The soldiers one meets in the streets are wonderful and so many. But they are not the fine looking men that were here at first. Many have been wounded once, twice, and three times and some have gone back for the fifth time into the field. It seems strange to see soldiers with dark blue glasses and one or two have such bad coughs. Our plumber has been called away. He has a glass eye and never thought he would be called.

  Sunday 14th November.

  Had Carole and Rosie v.d. Busch here to tea and supper and it was very nice and comfortable.

  We read in the papers that after this month all small change will be given in postage stamps. For instance when we go into a shop and give one shilling and want eight pence change we get one penny or half penny stamps. I wonder what it means. It’s such a funny way of doing business. Why not have sixpence notes? We have had one shilling (mark) since the first week of the war and if you give ten shillings (paper of course) you get change, say nine shillings in paper. We have one, two, three and five shilling notes and they are so dirty.

  Tuesday 16th November.

  Elizabeth Day and it is a general holiday for she is the patron saint of Hildesheim. Protestant and Catholic have a general holiday and all the shops are closed. There are three masses, just as Sunday, in all the churches.

  Arthur has written me a nice long letter and I have sent him a parcel. He says it is a long time since he has had anything from England so I must write to them. He reminds me that it is over twelve months since we were separated. But there is no need to remind me. Why? Because I cannot bear to think of it!

  I had a letter from Alice Graeinghoff and one from Mrs. Durselen and she promises to visit me in the New Year. I have just filled in my paper with all the brass and copper and it is ready when called up. Such a lot has been given by the free willing that we hope for peace before ours is needed.

  In the last fourteen days there has been great progress in Serbia, Nis has fallen, and it is the greatest fortress the Serbians have and each day we read of a few thousand prisoners. I got a ‘Times’ yesterday and read of the dreadful Armenian outrages but there was not a word in our papers. I should think it is a surprise to England that Nis has fallen so very quickly.

  Last week a priest was arrested here. They think he is a spy. The poor man, he has had a time. First he was in Alsace Lorraine and was taken for a spy there, he is German, and so the French ill-used him. He came here for protection and after three months he is now in prison. Some dreadful tales are about.

  Saturday 20th November.

  I hear today that Canon Heiser, the old priest I used to confess to, is very ill and not expected to live. I am so very grieved for I am very fond of the old gentleman and I realise that I must get a new confessor and that is not so nice for me in a strange land. He spoke English so very well.

  Belle says she reads in the paper that Leo Havermann (Arthur’s cousin) is dead. It does not trouble me. I have nothing to thank him for. He was very unkind to me in my trouble for which I shall never forget. He thought that the world and God else was only for the Germans. Still I wish him a peaceful rest. He might have been kinder to a lonely woman in a strange land during war time.

  We have the foot and mouth disease in many a village and it is a great pity for we were short of milk and butter before we got this disease.

  The little children are all wearing wooden shoes for leather is not to be got at all. It makes such a noise to hear a crowd coming from school. So many of the children have a breaking out on their hands and faces, it seems to be a regular disease, poor blood I suppose. It is because the food cannot be nourishing as so much is potato food and the flour you buy is half potato meal.

  Sunday 28th November.

  Rosie is on a visit to me so being three we are very comfortable.

  There is a notice in the papers about people laughing at the Landstorm men when they are drilling and is forbidding them to do it. I think it is a great shame for the most of the poor fellows have never been in the army having being exempt because of some ailment in their youth. Now they must all go out and fight. When one is forty-five-years-old one is not as able as the young ones. Also they are very stiff. Still it is dreadful of the people to laugh and I feel so sorry for them for they are mostly married and all look so very sad.

  All red wine is to be confiscated on December 1st.

  Wednesday 1st December 1915.

  This week has been very cold and we have frost.

  Arthur writes me that he has hopes of leave in early spring so he must have heard something of it.

  Frau Mummers says that she has a son, a waiter in England, and he is imprisoned. His wife visits every week. Yet here it is not at all allowed.

  Wednesday 8th December.

  Not much to report only that there is a shortage of lard and there is to be no more until after Christmas. We have the cards but cannot buy it. Margarine is one shilling and eight pence per pound and can be got only by chance. If a shop gets a box of margarine there are crowds waiting for it.

  Herr Grebe has announced all my goods. Each piece of silver, old furniture, jewellery, all monies, papers, properties etc. has been sent in. It has been a job.

  Tuesday 14th December.

  It is sad to read of Serbia and now all talk is of Egypt and the American note on Austria. I don’t think anything will come of it. It was the same over the Lusitania.

  There is an order that we give all our rubbish to the government. Soldiers are at every house thi
s week with small carts for old rags, metal, paper, clothes boxes. Anything you have in the cellars, or attics, that is not in use must be given up. The mode of organisation is wonderful and not a scrap of anything is wasted here. I wonder if it is the same at home. Even the little children work for the government as much as they can. Every one does what they can to help, even the poorest ones. If such methods were in England then such a lot could be done at very little expense.

  Thursday 16th December.

  Today there is a notice and we are not to bake any cakes for Christmas as it is forbidden to use flour, yeast, eggs or fat of any description. We know that the cakes we buy are made of potato, meat, egg powder and baking powder.

  There is also a notice that they are coming for the metal, copper and brass. That was announced in October so our wash kettle and brass candlesticks must go and then we will have enough ammunition for six years. I do hope the war will not last as long as that. I feel so often without any hope at all of an end to it.