Diary of Annie's War

by Annie Droege

  There is terrible lot of sickness here at present and I suppose it comes from the nerves and the poor food. I know lots of people who have had no butter for two or three weeks and often it is impossible to get bread and meat (a quarter pound). It is not allowed to sell cans of meat or sausage.

  No news from Verdun but I have an old London Times of last year and the news is very different from what we heard. I wonder which land lies.

  Friday 19th May.

  It’s no use me writing the war news for what I read one day is contradicted or no notice given to it the next day. Then I know it is not to be believed. In future I shall keep to my own private affairs and how the war affects me.

  At present I am well but begin to feel my disappointments about my visit to Arthur for it is now seven weeks since they received visitors. Though I wrote up at once for permission to visit him I have not even received a line to say that my request is being considered. We are having lovely spring weather and I work in the garden and keep generally busy.

  There is no news of the thief of my clothes.

  The news from America is reported very favourably in the papers with no fear of war.

  We read that they are going to have the new time in England and all clocks are put back one hour. It acts very well here and after the first day we did not notice it at all as we all go to bed at ten o’clock. We have never had a light on in our house for two weeks and the only difference is that we feel it cold in the mornings until about nine o’clock.

  We are to have a general soup kitchen in all towns after this month and everyone has to give up all he has in his store room in the meat line – ham, bacon, sausage and meat in tins or jars. Every day there will come along a soup wagon and we are to get a quantity of soup for two pence halfpenny and everyone has to eat the same. All is to be cooked together, meat, cabbage, potatoes etc and sold as a thin ‘hotpot’. It is the same food as the soldier gets.

  From today no baker dare sell more than two pounds of bread at a time to one person. It is because the people have been getting more than their share early in the week and then when their cards are done at the weekend they get angry because they cannot get any more bread. Now they are to be prevented from using it all up early. Rice, sago, tapioca and macaroni are not to be had so there is nothing to fill up with. The butcher gets his meat early on the Saturday morning each week and we all get our quarter pound per person per week. Yet the people will meet you and say: ‘We have enough to live on. Before the war we ate too much’.

  Perhaps so and I do not think I have as large an appetite. But a quarter pound of butter in two weeks is too little for me. We also have a quarter pound of meat and bread at three-and-a-half pounds for seven days. I have these and the ten pounds of potatoes, but they do not fill me.

  Lots of butchers sell fish on certain days. The town eating offices (all the food supply comes through one set of offices) say we can get fish, say twice a week. Codfish is available on those days and certain people eat cheaper fish as codfish is eight pence per pound and fluke costs ten pence per pound. The cheaper ones are very small fish and for two pounds of cod you get three or four of the small fish. With fluke you get five for a pound so they are not very advantageous.

  Coffee is very scarce and dare not be sold without half coffee and half adulterations of a certain coffee meal. Cocoa is not to be had. Tea is eight pence a pound and rotten at that. It is a fact no one has much to cook these days - only potatoes.

  I had a line from Alice Graeinghoff (Durselen) and she says that she has been at Baden-Baden to take the baths and she wonders how she will find it at home. She had enough to eat in the bath’s pension. Her daughter had said that they had no coffee or butter for over two weeks and could Alice bring some home for them. But you get nothing without cards and you must be a householder to get them and not a guest at a pension. The manageress is so good that not a thing can be got without cards so you only get your portions.

  What does surprise me are the people. No grumbling is to be heard and you hear no one speak of losing. One day last week this remark was made to me: ‘In 1866 the Austrians had to, and in 1871 the French. Now it is our turn. We are all human beings and what they had to do, we can do. Only we will not be beaten as they were. We shall win by our holding out’.

  I often wonder if the people are of the same mind in England. If this is the result of militarism then there is certainly a deal to be said in its favour. The obedience amongst so many people is to be admired.

  I think so very often about all the men at home and if this new conscription will affect any of them. According to James’ letter he is not accepted because of his eyes and George is too far out in the land (Canada) I should think. But Willie, John, Robert etc. I often wonder about.

  Arthur does not say that he has any letters lately from home and that always makes me uneasy.

  Here we are having lovely weather and I wonder so often of George and Kittie, so far out in the country in British Columbia. Spring is so very beautiful when one is in the very centre of nature as they are. I wonder if I shall ever see their homes and Kittie’s little one. I think so often of them all.

  Monday 29th May.

  Got a letter from Arthur yesterday and he says that he has to give my name and address. He thinks I shall get permission to visit him in a few days. Perhaps the wish is father to the thought. I have no hopes now for it is nine weeks since I wrote.

  A lady who wrote later than I did has had her permission for over a week. I often wonder if it has anything to do with our strictness and that the family were such staunch Hanoverians. However, the lady wishes to travel with me to Berlin for company and then both go to Ruhleben together. She says she will go to the police here this week and ask them to make enquiries as to why I haven’t received permission to visit my husband. At least we shall know why. That is some satisfaction.

  I have been so distressed this week about the conscription in England. If only I could get news from home and hear about the men of the family. I am tired of praying for them all as there seems to be no answer to my prayers.

  Arthur writes me that he has had a short letter from Winnie, but she writes of nothing but her own health. It’s a pleasure to know all is well and we are keeping pretty well here and are having a few days wet weather.

  There is a note in the paper that no more malt etc. is to be used for beer and that we can do without it. It is only a luxury, so my next delivery of bottles must be half small beer as we call it in England or herb beer. Also there are to be two days a week in the pubs and hotels when no beer is sold. So now we are six days without meat (you eat your quarter pound on a Sunday), two days without beer, and butter you only get at home and that’s a quarter pound in fourteen days.

  The new daylight bill is now quite ordinary to us and we very soon got used to it and it is a great saving. It seems very strange to be at the door in the evening and see the streets quite empty at ten o’clock and then think that it is really only nine o’clock. Hildesheim is a garrison town and the soldiers must be in by nine o’clock, so by ten o’clock the streets are quite empty. We have no theatres open as they are all lazaretts. There are no men to sit in the pubs as they are all soldiers.

  We hear of great defeats in Italy. The poor Italian soldiers seem to be having a dreadful time. In France the Germans and French seem to be suffering dreadfully. The poor men, it seems too awful to think about. When will this war come to an end? One wonders how they live through the awful days let alone the fighting. Now the people here are quite delighted when they hear that one of their relatives is a prisoner: ‘Thank God; he will come back to us after the war’.

  It is the universal expression and every paper is full of it. I think it is to take our attention off the food question and also off the war places.

  One can read from the French reports that there has been fighting by Verdun and one day it is in the French favour and the next in the German.

  We have a notice that all nickel money is now t
o be called up and another five million marks in iron money is to be put into circulation. The nickel is for bullets. We have had a quantity of iron money for sometime but now all nickel is to go.

  Another notice says that we have to take our bread book and we shall be allowed to buy for two pence halfpenny each one egg per person, per week, from the town offices. Each day a district will be attended to so I get three eggs per week, i.e. Belle, the servant girl and I. The farmers, being so short of meat (they dare not kill anything), are eating the eggs themselves and preserving them for winter so they are very scarce. They are three for a shilling and only a few to be had. People go to the country every Sunday to buy what they can and go from house to house like pedlars. They all end up with the cry: ‘We must hold out. At this rate of living we can last two years at least’.

  I don’t think I can.

  I went to the Doctor last week (I have been going for over a year) and he ordered me to take the baths again in Salzdetfurth. He said it was no use him giving me a note to the magistrate for more milk and butter for he had written for it for another invalid and the reply was: ‘We cannot give what we have not got’.

  Very true.

  Sunday 4th June.

  Lots of war news these last few days. On Friday 2nd we flagged for the great sea battle and on May 31st we celebrated the great battle in Italy where the Austrians took two of the principal forts off the Italians.

  Many German soldiers in the Austrian uniform have left here this week and it is reported that a German General (Mackenson) has taken the forts. The Austrians are no good as soldiers and soon want to give up. The Germans must always be behind them and push them along.

  The sea battle was a great day here and they reported that the whole of the English war fleet was present and also the whole of the German. The English list of lost ships is twelve certain and many reported missing. The German loss is four ships and three missing. If all we hear is true then England has had a great whacking. They report that the war ship Westfalen has sunk six English ships alone. Altogether it has been a great victory and all papers up to now (neutral etc.) remark that it is the greatest battle in history, and that Trafalgar was a fool to it. We read no notices from England. All we read is that the English Admiral in London says: ‘We have lost the ships Queen Mary, Invincible, Indefatigable, Defence, Blanche, Black Prince, Turbulent, Tipperary, Fortune, Sparrowhawk and Ardent. Other ships are still missing’.

  That is the report from headquarters in London. The Germans say that besides the eleven above reported they know that they have sunk the Warrior so that makes it twelve, not speaking of the undersea boats. The Germans have lost four ships, and three undersea boats are missing. This is the greatest joy they have had since the war began. To think that they can give England a beating on that her greatest spot – her navy! We often wonder how many men lost their lives. They report here that our loss of life is great but not one third that of the enemy. Well, we must wait and see. I hope we get an English report.

  No news of my visit to Ruhleben. Arthur has written to me and expects me daily but I cannot go before Whit week now.

  We have had an extra quarter pound of meat this week. Bread has gone up a penny and we are paying six-and-a-half pence for a two pound loaf of very indifferent bread. We are to also have a quarter of butter a week now and not the quarter in fourteen days. So perhaps we shall also get more bread. My servant cannot come out on hers and is always a few days without bread at the end of a fortnight.

  So many eatables are not to be had and now we are told that there is no more soda to be had. It is also announced that all cycles and tricycles, or anything with gummi (I mean India rubber), are not to be used for there is to be no more tyres made or repaired.

  I had a visit from a friend out of the country today. She lives on a gut (estate) and I asked her the prices of things. She says that they got thirty-five pounds for a very old horse, past work, so it must have been used for slaughtering. They had to give five thousand and five hundred marks for a six-year-old horse for working and that’s two hundred and seventy-five pounds in English money. I heard of a horse being sold here for three hundred pounds last week.

  Steinoff’s son was called up last week and he was the last man in our village between eighteen and forty-five years old.

  Arthur wrote last week and mentioned of it being our wedding day. He was only a month too soon. He must lose count of the months in Ruhleben as he did the same last year on my birthday. He made it June and not July.

  Frau Voight tells me she went to buy a pair of shoes for her little girl last week. The shoemaker showed her the new stock he had got. Every shoe has a wooden sole of half an inch thick and it is covered with strips of leather half an inch wide and one inch apart. It is like a cross rail across the sole and it does not make so much noise when walking. Still they must be so hard to walk in.

  Wednesday 7th June.

  We had a sad telegram to read last night. Out of London it is announced that the battleship Hampshire, with General Kitchener and all his staff, has struck a mine and all is lost. I cannot believe it. If it is so there are three items for England to face – Kut-Al-Amara with General Townshend, this great sea battle which must have been a German Victory and now this dreadful loss. Up to now we have nothing but the London telegram. In the German papers there is the usual hatred shown and one paper says: ‘It took a big coffin for Kitchener – a whole battleship. And he was not worthy of it’.

  I think it is so very mean of them to speak of the dead so. The Germans show their hatred so dreadfully. Even the Turks were better. When they took General Townshend they spoke so nicely of his bravery. But not one kind word for Kitchener. There is only hatred and jeers. He was a brave man as well as Townsend.

  Saturday 10th June.

  Frau Voight and I got ready to go to Berlin today but then we got the news that my papers had been mislaid and that we must wait another week. This is Whit week and strongly observed here so the holidays interfere with the Commandant’s work. The police here were very kind and tried all they could. But it was of no use and we hope for better luck next weekend.

  No further news of Kitchener. It is reported here that an officer from Hildesheim has sunk the Hampshire and has got the Iron Cross for same but I can scarcely believe it. If a big ship like the Hampshire was wrecked in a storm then an underwater boat could not do much in the same big sea. It is reported that England had sent out help to the ship but too late. She is known here as ‘The too late nation‘. I am anxious for more news from the English side.

  Friday 16th June.

  We have sunshine today and it is needed as for two weeks we have had nothing but rain and the gardens are in a sad state.

  I go on Sunday to Berlin and can visit Arthur on Tuesday afternoon for one hour. I wonder if I shall find a change in one year and eight months. What a blessing we do not know what is before us. If I had known of this long war from the beginning I think I should have gone mad. With the constant uncertainty and the hope of peace it has only succeeded in making me ill.

  No news of importance only the scarcity in food and its dearness. I paid sixpence a pound for flour today and lard is five shillings and ten pence a pound. It is an impossibility to get shoes repaired as there is no leather and you must buy new ones. What we shall do when the stock runs out I do not know. Wear wooden ones very likely.

  Yesterday we were astonished to see all the shops (drapers) being closed. They had a government notice to take stock of every yard of stuff they possessed and they have not to sell until they get permission. The prices are to be fixed by the government and so is the quantity of materials to be sold to one person. It will be the same all over the land. I really do not know how it is that we have no failures as the shops are half empty and yet still keep going.

  Sunday 25th June.

  I was not well on Sunday last when we set off and therefore was not extra well when I met Arthur. We arrived in Berlin at half past five and went to the police at
six o’clock (decently civil). On Monday we went to the Commandant at eleven o’clock where we met with our first disappointment. They were very abrupt with us and I was very glad Frau Voight was with me for I could not have managed alone. We were told that we could not visit our husbands more than once and that was to be on a Tuesday for two hours. We begged to be allowed on the Friday but no. Once in three months is all that is allowed.

  Tuesday 27th June.

  We set off and I was not extra well and our tram went and ran into another so it made me ill. Still I was able to buck up a little before I got to Arthur. He was so delighted to see me and I was very glad to see him looking so well. He is much thinner and looks healthy but his nerves are completely gone. His hands shake like a leaf and he says himself that his nerves are done. He tried to persuade me to go to England but I would not hear of it. Frau Voight got a great shock as her husband looked awfully bad. I should never have recognised him. I was so very, very, sorry for her. She did not give way however until she got back to the hotel. After seeing the great change in her husband I began to think that we have been very lucky. Arthur does not look half as bad. Of course he is busy all day in the post office and it is a great help to the men if they have work. Oh these dreadful times. And what misery we are having at present.

  Our visit was so very sad and it was dreadful to meet our husbands in a room of two hundred people with soldiers walking up and down all the time. It was still more dreadful to see them put behind lock and key before we left. We then looked at the crowd of men behind the rails waving their goodbyes to their wives and children. We were lucky in one thing though. It seems that children were not allowed to visit until this week. Whatever should we have done with little Thea Voight I do not know. Two weeks ago the mothers had brought their children and they were not allowed inside but were left in the care of a soldier outside. Of course they all cried. It must have been so sad to see the little ones without their mothers - and their fathers inside the bars. I am so glad that I did not see that as my impression was bad enough as it was. However it does not do to dwell on it. All in Ruhleben think the war will end this autumn. I do not think so.