by Annie Droege
Ny, (the butter woman), who comes here from the dairy tells me we are to have only a quarter pound of butter a week per person and we will have cards from the police just like the bread cards. That is very little when you think there is no cooking fat to be got at all. There seems to be a famine in fat.
One day this week there was a deal of grumbling in the market as regards food. They ask you at the post, when you send a parcel to the field, if there is fat of any kind in it because it is forbidden. The soldiers are not to receive any from home because they get fat in their food in the field.
It is forbidden to sell yeast at all to prevent the people from baking for fear they use eggs or lard and because some have a store from the summer. It is dreadful for poor people and they must have hunger at these prices.
A woman with one child only gets twenty-one shillings and sixpence a month from the government and often has quartered on her a soldier. If she is very poor she must go to the Red Cross Society and they often pay half her rent and give her a ticket for so much food. The husband in the field gets sixpence a day so he cannot send much home.
My quartering came on December 12th and it was two soldiers from the lazarett. They have been wounded in Russia and now they are better they must return in a few weeks. I had made arrangements for them to sleep at a neighbour’s and she gives them coffee in the morning and a vegetable soup in the evening. I pay nine pence for each man and she gets also one and a half pence a day from the government for each man. This woman’s husband is in the field and she has two rooms ready for the soldiers.
Having six in all it pays her for one fire and one light is enough. But when you reckon that coal is two shillings a hundredweight and coke is one shilling and eight pence a hundredweight it is very dear firing. We are glad that they are so very comfortably off. They come here one night a week for supper and Hannah (the kitchen maid) has them in the kitchen and I send them a bottle of beer and a cigar each. One speaks English perfectly and the other has a good idea of it having learnt it at school. Both are very nice fellows and must come from good homes. They said to me: ‘Don’t worry about your husband being in Ruhleben. It’s better than being in the field in winter. If he was free he would be in the military’.
I have felt it for a long time that of the two evils it is better as it is, for both bring anxiety.
Tea, coffee and cocoa are called up by the government and we are only allowed to have so much in our houses. Also milk is to be censored. In my opinion this all points to famine for the poor people.
The weather is cold but not as cold as in early December. Then we had twelve degrees of frost and many burst water pipes and no plumber to repair them. It is in these things that we miss the men. It is a great trouble to get any jobs done. I should like a lot of wood sent here from the estate but cannot get anyone to do the carting as both men and horses fail.
Such a poor lot of horses are on the streets and I feel so sorry for them. At the rate of food (three pounds of corn per day) they are simply a bag of bones. I remarked one day that: ‘I have never in all my life seen such horses’.
The reply came: ‘I never in all my life saw such a war as this’.
So it is with everything else.
Thursday 30th December.
I am glad it is the end of the year and we can at least wonder what the next will bring us. We can hope for better days even if we do not get them.
Arthur wrote me on the 18th saying that he had a pudding from Lily for Christmas and he was so pleased.
I heard nothing from home.
I am glad that Christmas is over. Belle and I spent it very quietly here. On one evening we went to Carole Osthaus and the next evening Carole and Fil Lebereuhn came to us.
The two soldiers came for supper on the 26th so I left them in the dining room for the evening with Hannah and the soldiers had a pleasant evening.
Belle and I went to the cathedral and then returned home and went to bed. I had to get up to go to the police (my daily visit) and then we had dinner and then another rest. That is how we spent Christmas. I thought the whole time of home and wondered how many were there together. It makes one sad when I think of the big parties we had only a very few years ago. And where we all are now - so scattered and so far apart. We should make as much as we can of Christmas for the time comes only too soon when it becomes a sad anniversary. But it gave me a certain amount of pleasure to look back on a few of the Christmases I have spent.
Wednesday 5th January 1916.
Now we are well in another year and I pray that it brings us peace.
Arthur has not written since the 18th of December but he said then that he hoped to be allowed to go to Berlin and pay a call for a couple of hours on his cousin Johanna Pulmann. I do not think that he got permission for one of them would have written.
Alice Graeinghoff has written and says that a friend of theirs has been exchanged for an English prisoner and that he is surprised at the bitterness he finds here. He says that he was well treated in the Handforth camp and the men exchanged have written to thank the English government for their treatment. It’s good to read it. If only we could see the end.
The papers are full of conscription in England. Of course I do not know of what it is to consist. But if is anything like they have here, well, revolution is better in my opinion. But of course I get so little news that I can believe. For if you read one thing today it is contradicted in another day or two.
Yesterday I had a couple of friends to coffee. One has a sister in London and the other a brother in Australia. Both have not heard from them for some time and are full of anxiety.
I cannot understand the letters not coming. Surely the members of my family have not left me the whole of Christmas without even a thought to put on paper? It is announced in the papers here how to address a letter to England to assure its safe delivery. Surely something of the kind is done in England to relieve the anxiety of relatives.
Today it is announced in the papers that we must tell how much weight of potatoes we have in the house over twenty pounds. Here in Germany everybody buys their potatoes by the hundredweight at the beginning of winter. I had six hundredweights sent here from the farm so I must announce all I have over the twenty pounds. It is so the government understands how many will be in hand when the new harvest is planted.
We are awaiting the new Income Tax every day and I have heard that the outlanders are to be heavier taxed than the Germans – we shall see.
Friday 7th January.
Lots of callers today as it is Belle’s birthday. Every one of your friends calls and brings you good wishes and a flower or plant. Tomorrow she goes out to supper so I shall have a quiet evening.
I have not been so well again and had a bad heart attack so I am going to a heart specialist in a few days. I seem to be going like mother. My pains remind me so much of her. We will see what a good doctor can do.
Steinoff came last week and says that William goes this month to the military and he must apply for a prisoner to do his work.
Hermenia came to see me and says all is well at home. Frau and Herr Pastor wrote me their greetings – they are very kind indeed.
I also had a Christmas card from Miss Seales, the Californian lady that I helped to get to America. She is now safe and thanks me for letting her have the money. It’s a pleasure to know one can be of help to someone in these bad times. She must be so glad to be amongst her own people again.
Tuesday 11th January.
It seems very strange to read today that the English have left Gallipoli after it having cost so much blood. But of course I only read it in these papers.
I have been ill again and went last week to a specialist and he ordered the ‘Röntgen Rays’ so I have been photographed today. I was dreadfully nervous but I think it will turn out well. I have no fear of cancer and think that it is all nerves. But the pain is a bit stiff at times and nothing relieves it. I am so thin at that. Perhaps it is an old ulcer breaking out again but I shall be glad when al
l is in order and I know what to expect.
Arthur writes me today that he has hopes of a visitor and that it will indeed be a day of joy when he sees me again. I daresay it will be even if it is only one hour in a crowded room. Ten days is the longest we have been apart since we were engaged and now it is fifteen months. Belle says it will teach us to have more regard for each other and may do us good. For my part it is an unnecessary lesson. I could have gone along without this and my fear is that this worry has done harm and unnecessarily shortened life. One never knows, it might be for the best. Or the opposite may come of it. I only know that if the present anxiety could be removed I would give all I have at the present moment. I daresay that there are plenty in the same boat.
Friday 14th January.
Received a letter from Arthur today and he has had permission to enclose one from Ettie. She sent it on the 30th of December and Arthur got it on the 11th of January. It did not take long.
Been to the doctor and he says most is nerves but my heart is enlarged. So I must be big hearted (what oh!).
We are filling up our papers for milk and potatoes. I have to say how many pounds I have in the house, how many people, and if they will last until the middle of July. Also how much milk I can manage on, give the age of us all, and say if milk is at all necessary through doctor’s orders. If you have children under five-years-old you get milk for certain but not at all certain otherwise unless sickness is in the house.
I read today that the English have given up the Dardanelles. Here they have always made fun of the English stopping in such an impassable place. They criticise all the boasting speeches that the English have made.
Ettie says she thinks we shall be together next Christmas but I do not think so. For these past few months I seem to have lost all hope.
It is strange to see how the people are now willing to buy English preparations. The first months of the war they insulted you if you asked to buy them and now they tout them in their windows. They even have the English directions in them. I have bought salmon, cornflower, tea, whisky, soap and medicines, all English packed, this last week.
Sunday 16th January.
There seems to be unrest in the people today.
It is announced that the capital of Montenegro is in German hands and there is lots in the paper of conscription in England. Here they are glad it has come to pass so that the English will know what it is to be a servant to the government. If only they can bow the Englishman down to know servitude then they do not care.
The butcher told me today that meat will be very scarce in a month or so from now. And a friend said that there was a deal of people grumbling at the town hall about rice, sago etc. They publicly told the crowd that England had forbidden the neutral lands to sell Germany anything so they could starve her out. I said no neutral land dare refuse to trade with Germany because, if so, she was no longer neutral and had taken the side of the enemy. But they believe what the magistrate said. I think it is because Germany has no gold and that the neutral lands will not accept the paper money at all.
We also read of a breakfast being given by the Chancellor. The Kaiser was there and various members of the cabinet. It seems to me as if it has been a cabinet meeting, but not in name, with the War Minister, Finance Minister, and Chancellor etc. I wonder if we shall hear of anything that passed. If only it would bring peace.
Monday 17th January.
I had the enquarterings in to supper and they say that we shall soon have peace for the people of Montenegro have begged for freedom and it has a great political significance. Also that the Austrians have gained a high fortress that is the Gibraltar of the Adriatic Sea and England’s flotilla is as good as done for as regards warfare. There is great jubilation over it and a certainty that peace is in the air.
I have been thinking a lot about Kittie and her little son. How strange it seems for so much to happen to ones nearest and dearest. All I hear is that Kittie is married and then that Kittie has a son. Is it two or three-weeks-old? I wish her luck with her little one from the bottom of my heart and would give a deal for a line from her. What a change this last two years has brought. But I know each day will be one nearer the end.
Tuesday 18th January.
Had very sad news today. This evening came a letter from Königswinter to say that Mrs. Durselen had dropped down dead at a coffee party in Ronsdorf where she was staying with her sister. It has upset me a deal. I had a letter from her only two days ago. What a sudden end and how very sad for the two girls, Lena and Emily in England, but it is a death she would have liked for she often told me that she did not want to lie in a sick bed and be any trouble to anyone. I look back with pleasure on her visit to me in 1914 when she spent seven weeks in Woltershausen. It will be a big shock to Alice Graeinghoff.
Friday 21st January.
Strange news in the paper. It reports that the Montenegro people deny that they are in want of peace. The papers say that they cannot say if it is true or not. We had made a great victory of it here and had all the flags flying. It’s very strange and we must await further news.
It is such miserable wet weather with rain all day and yet so warm that the trees are in full bud and many rose trees are in leaf.
There is a new order that all children must be out off the streets at seven o’clock. It is because their fathers are not at home to make them obey and they are disobedient to their mothers. Also they do not learn any good in the streets running wild after seven o’clock. The mother is fined fifty pfennigs if it is her fault. Such as not being at home or not reporting a disobedient child to the police. If it is the child’s fault he is punished by the police.
Here, as in England, January is devoted to an annual sale in all the shops but this year it has been forbidden by the government. Why is not told.
I bought some fish for dinner today at eleven pence a pound (cod) and I said that it was dear. The man said that we should be lucky if we got any at all next week for there had been less in the market every week this past two months. I do not know why, and the meat is very scarce.
Monday 24th January.
Had a letter from Alice Graeinghoff telling me that Mrs. Durselen’s death was a stroke. She died at once after remarking ‘I do feel bad’ and she gradually sank to the floor. They thought she had fainted and ran to her assistance but she was dead. What a nice end for her. She had no pain at all, but how dreadful for the children. I feel so very upset over her and cannot get her out of my mind.
It is advertised today that all firms using steam or electric power are not to work their machines more than twenty-eight hours a week. But they are obliged to pay their workers the same wages as if they were working full time. Or at least the wages they were receiving in January 1915.
All the remnants of brass or copper have to be given up this month. Also the walnut trees must be chopped down because the government want the wood for guns. Rosie v.d. Busch writes from Celle that she has to give up her two trees. In a village near here over two hundred trees (walnut) are being cut down ready to go away. It is so sad to see them go. In some places they are planted all along the roadway for a couple of miles.
They report today that it is quite true about Montenegro but that England does not know it yet. The King of Montenegro is so angry with England that he has not even sent them word of his giving in. One does not know what to believe these days.
Wednesday 26th January.
Received a postcard from our Willie today. It is such a pretty photo of Joan and it did me good to see it.
Now we hear of the deceitfulness of King Nicholas of Montenegro. The papers do give it to him for his cunning. He has gone to France, so it says, but he is more a prisoner of England for they have sent a bodyguard of over sixty soldiers with him.
Such a lot of things are called up by the government and the lists of forbidden things (to sell) are every day announced, and each day it is more.
Friday 28th January.
Feel bad today. I wish I could
get a little better.
It was the Kaiser’s birthday yesterday and a great feast. There is a collection on Sunday in every church in Germany for the Kaiser’s birthday gift and then he will give the various sums to the Red Cross or to the Soldier’s fund etc.
Had a letter from Arthur and he says that they have had no answer to the petition for visitors. Still I have hope of it.
Herr Stoffregan was here on a visit today and tells me that the man Rutt, who accused us of being spies, met with an accident and was buried yesterday. I am sorry for him and his wife also as she is badly left with five children. Everyone thought it was him that cut our telephone wire. Well, poor fellow, he will cut no more.
I read in the papers that the English were once more ‘too late’ in getting somewhere in Albania. They have nicknamed them here ‘too late nation’ and make great fun of them always being last.
Saturday 29th January.
We hear of mobilisation in Romania. I never expected that. How foolish of a nation to go into war if they can keep out. Here the war is felt very much as regards work and food. It’s difficult to get the latter and there is great trouble over the butter. One wonders where it will all end.
Hannah Stoffregan has written from Leipzig and says she can only get a quarter pound of butter per week and it is three shillings and sixpence a pound and now fat bacon is three shillings a pound. Potatoes are not to be had, but it does not matter much for people all have them stored – we get them in sacks here.
It must be very bad for the poor people and especially those with children. One poor fellow I heard of today has lost one eye and an arm and he was in a good position before the war. He earned four pounds per week and now he has a pension of forty-five shillings per month and has a wife and three children. He will not be allowed to work any more. I do not know how they can exist at all.
