Diary of Annie's War

by Annie Droege

  Friday 1st September 1916.

  We have had many surprises last month and I wonder if this month will bring the same amount. The people say that Greece and Denmark are very unsettled.

  I went to Hannover yesterday having got police permission. In one shop a man came in and after asking for several things which he was not able to obtain. He remarked: ‘Now all our prayers must be that Holland and the Swiss remain neutral or we shall be in a fix. In fact I think it is over with us’.

  Different people have different ideas but most are very downhearted about Romania. Another remarked: ‘I wish they would end the war by coming in. And I don’t care which way at all’.

  Frau Voight says that her husband has written to her and says that the exchange of prisoners has already commenced and that Arthur is writing instructions to me. I do hope all is in order for his exchange. I still hope he will be there for me to see on the 22nd. I wonder if they would allow that I visited earlier if it should be by chance that he goes home.

  Things look very bad for the winter.

  Monday 4th September.

  Arthur says that he has every hope of exchanges and wants to wait in Holland for me to join him. That’s awkward as I have much to arrange first. I go to Berlin on the 20th so it is not too long to wait now.

  The fifth war loan is in force and they say it is not going very well.

  Tuesday 12th September.

  I had a letter from Willie and it was written on April 1st so it had taken five months and ten days to come here. It came from America and all were well when it was written and it is my latest news from home.

  Soldiers go away each day and there is a big talk of a great offensive to be made on the English in Flanders. Hindenburg has been made General Field Marshal and has gone to France.

  The people here talk a lot of a new forced war loan. It appears that this 5th war loan is not going so well. So they say. After it is closed up there will come the forced loan and everyone must pay into it. You will be forced to do so. I myself cannot see it, but am told it is to be so.

  Great scandal is talked here about Romania. It appears that a great deal of fodder for the cattle was bought there a few days before the declaration of war and it has all been found to be poisoned. Cattle are dying off and it is also said that a box of pudding powders was also poisoned. I can only think that it is gossip. It is very dangerous talk and the people are so very angry about it. What a dreadful thing it will be if it is all lies for I can scarcely credit it being true.

  One gets such dreadful things in the papers these days and this last visit of the Zeppelins to England has been terrible according to our papers. I wonder if they have really done such damage.

  We read also that in England boys of seventeen-years-old are not called up into the military service and also those over forty years of age. It makes me wonder so much about them all at home as news is so very scarce.

  Saturday 16th September.

  The Romanian poisoning is found now not to be true. Perhaps it was put in the papers to give the people something to talk about.

  Arthur has written and given me an address to stay at in Berlin. I will go there on Wednesday the 20th and visit him on Friday afternoon. I have such a lot to tell him and two hours is not half long enough for me.

  We had news from the Kaiser today and he himself has telegraphed that the Romanians have had a dreadful beating though it has resulted in the loss of Prince Frederick William of Hesse. The people here are so very hard of belief now and they say that this telegram has been published to let the people have more faith in the news. It is because they do not believe the official notes. Also it is a lift to the new war loan for it is not being paid up as it should be. The people are more interested in the food question because the weather is so bad for the harvest. The potatoes up to now are not good and we have not heard the result of the corn harvest.

  It has been publicly announced that all people must have electric light in their houses for there will be no oil this year. Electric or gas must be put in so we must put the Steinoffs a light in the place. In most villages there is electric power for threshing, so now the people must have the light in their houses and barns. That is where this land has an advantage as they do not need coal for gas and power.

  Most of the electric works are driven by the water power, so it is a very great saving of coal and Germany has not so many gas works as England. Germany has gone straight from petroleum lamps to electric light. Here in Hildesheim there are few homes with gas and all are lamps or electric. People cook, iron and wash all with electric.

  The new time is to be changed on the 1st of October because now it is not so light in the mornings and it is too cold for the children to go to school at seven o’clock when it is really only six o’clock. These past few weeks it has been cold and wet and is real autumn weather.

  It is announced today that next week we get tickets, on application from the town hall, for sugar for preserving and we are to have a pound a head. We can’t do much with that. It is impossible to buy a pound of jam at present and the last that was sold was all sorts mixed up together. It was half turnips and now I cannot even get that. Fruit is there in plenty, but no sugar. Plums are plentiful so we eat stewed fruit. I did buy the saccharine but it was dreadful to use and tastes awful. We are told that there are three hundred chickens to be sold today at one-and-a-half pounds weight and are to cost five shillings and sixpence each and are sold by the government. Eggs are four pence each and you get two per week and most always I eat my half a quarter of butter in two days so I am five days without. It is not at all pleasant.

  I have had nice fruit from the estate this week and have got permission from the government to have my potatoes from the estate also. That is a blessing.

  Tuesday 26th September.

  I travelled to Berlin on the 20th of this month and saw Arthur in Ruhleben on the 22nd. We had only a short stay but pleasant. We came home on the 23rd. I found him looking very well but he has not much faith in the exchange of prisoners. He believes there will be no exchange now until all are exchanged. If he is sent home then I shall have to go also. The uncertainty is awfully unpleasant. The visit did not make such a bad impression this time as I knew what to expect, so it was not so bad. Arthur gave me some butter and soap and I was very thankful for it. I wonder why they do not send him some from home.

  Things are very bad in Berlin in the eating line and we never got butter or sugar on the table in the hotel. You got tea or coffee and three small thin pieces of bread off a four pound loaf. A pot of jam was on the table and it was all this mixed up together jam. For sugar there was saccharine that had been dissolved in water. A small bottle of this sweet water was on every table and you put a teaspoonful of it in your cup of tea. I was sorry that I had not brought a little sugar with me. Butter I found none to buy and eggs were seven pence each. Mrs. Voight paid that for some eggs for Thea. The servants in the hotel say that they have not had butter or sugar for over two months.

  On our return here we found that the potatoes were sold out and the people running all over Hildesheim looking for them. The potato harvest is very bad and I am very much afraid for the coming winter. However, the bakers were told to give four pounds of bread on the ten pound potato card so the people had something to eat. There is a deal of grumbling and people seem to want peace at any price now that the food is so very scarce.

  Monday 2nd October.

  No more doubt about the potato harvest, it is terribly bad, and our allowance of potatoes has been reduced to one-and-a-half pounds per day per person. I am so sorry for the people. The fruit has also been confiscated for a few days until the wants of the army have been satisfied. It is quite right that the soldiers have to be attended to first and I am sure that no one thinks otherwise. So many people do think that the fruit is held back for other purposes. I have nothing to do with that business for I get all mine from the garden.

  I am glad to say that I have let the house and garden
at last and I have now only the orchard to attend to. I am sure it is for the best.

  Sunday 22nd October.

  I have been to the estate and hear that the Germans are leaving Belgium and the people say that is a sign of peace. There is no doubt that the people’s thoughts are on peace because we really have famine staring us in the face.

  One notices the people going thinner and paler. If one of the old people takes ill he very rarely get better.

  The food question is very serious. We have been six weeks and never seen an egg. Fat of any sort is not to be had and on a diet of two ounces of butter a week one cannot cook anything now that we have no milk. I did ask for half a gill every morning but no it was not to be had. I bought a goose last Saturday because I could get a little fat from it. It was ten pounds in weight and cost me forty-four shillings. It just does not seem true. Forty-four shillings for a bird for dinner! Three of us had dinner for two days off it and then I preserved the remainder in glasses for another day.

  I have bought a few fowls, eight in all, and am feeding them up. Then I also have my two rabbits. One does all kinds of things for its dinner.

  Things are so very scarce and even things you have cards for you do not get. Now it is the vegetables – carrots, cabbage etc. Since the potatoes are so scarce, also so bad, one must cook other things. In one day the vegetables doubled in price. Carrots that cost eight pfennigs, about one penny, suddenly rose to two pence and one could not buy them at all as they were all sold out. Cabbage and swedes that were sold at a penny a pound are now two pence and such crowds awaiting their turn to buy.

  Arthur has written today that he has been photographed and has also written to England for my birth certificate. So it looks like as if I am to go at last. Everyone is astonished at the news but all wish me luck.

  I am sorry to leave some of the very nice friends I have made and I think that they are sorry to lose me.

  Thursday 26th October.

  Alice Graeinghoff has been to see me and came to give me some messages to take to her sisters regarding her mother’s death. It is very sad to think of it all as I was very fond of Mrs. Durselen. From what Alice says, things are not very bad in Königswinter as food is more plentiful being nearer to the frontier. She does not think that I shall travel before the December boat which is on the 6th. She says that the exchange will last some time yet.

  Hermenia says that if a great offensive is not made in a few weeks then the war will last a long time. Every one longs for peace here. Things are so very bad in the food line and also the clothes.

  I have been able to get the old servant of Uncle George to come to us and I think I can leave her here and she will attend to Belle whilst I am in England. I do wish that I could leave things a little more in order for her but it is impossible to do more.

  Monday 6th November.

  Up to now there is no further news of my journey only that a friend tells me that he would not cross the water because the German undersea boats are now in the channel. They will sink everything in the shape of a boat. It is not at all pleasant.

  I have written to Arthur and told him that I prefer to stay here and visit him at Christmas and then perhaps cross on the 6th of January. I have no faith in him being exchanged so very soon.

  I have written also to Willie today. I do worry often about my brothers for I know nothing of them. Also of Ettie and Kittie, I seem to know nothing of their lives and my own is just dragging out an existence. Will these days never end? One hopes each day to read of being a little nearer the end, but it is as far away as ever. Perhaps after Romania is settled it will be soon put in sight again.

  The food question is very serious and I am so thankful for Arthur’s presents. If we are to get a pint of milk a day we are to have no butter. So it is either butter or milk. The potatoes are scarcer and we only get seven pounds for six days now. When one gets a few diseased ones then the portion is too small. Oil, fat or margarine is not to be had at all. Meat we have one day a week and we have had no eggs for a long time and the fish is awfully dear. I paid two shillings and eight pence last week for codfish and mackerel is three shillings a pound. A sixpenny tin of sardines is now one shilling and sixpence and all other fish is not to be had. Rice is four shillings a pound, flour sixpence a pound, soap, awful stuff, is three shillings and sixpence and the poor cannot buy it at all. We now get half-a-pound of sugar in fourteen days. We can buy twenty tablets of saccharine for twenty pfennigs and a mark. We use that for tea and cook with the sugar.

  I am glad Arthur gets his parcels from England as I cannot send him anything from here. He tells me that he regularly gets a parcel from Uncle Frank MacMorragh, also James Walmsley and occasionally from others. It is a grand job they do to remember the interned ones. I am so thankful.

  Monday 13th November.

  I have no further news of my leaving here and the police tell me that they have no word yet from the Commandant’s. It sounds as if the question is not settled yet.

  Every day I get from Holland the ‘Daily Telegraph’ and for this I pay fourteen shillings a month. I read nothing in it at all about the exchange.

  Clemens Peligeaus came in on Saturday and said that he had read in the Köln paper that in Amsterdam they were waiting for eight hundred prisoners out of Ruhleben on Thursday to England.

  This morning Frau Voight got a letter from her husband from Ruhleben and it said: ‘We have heard nothing definite of the exchange of the forty-five-year-old ones yet, but let’s hope that it is before Christmas’. I am going to take it as it comes.

  They talk a lot of Norway and also of Wilson being elected again. They say of the latter that it does not matter to Germany who is elected as neither is her friend.

  Potatoes are still the topic and plenty of homes have been five and six days without one to eat. When one remembers that it is the staple food and bread is only allowed at half-a-pound per day it is very serious. A visitor here was only too glad to take enough away with her for her supper; and that on a Thursday afternoon. Parcels do not count at all now. We are allowed one gill of skimmed milk per day and no more and fresh milk is only for children under six years of age.

  I went to a school today to help wash the children. It is a kindergarten school and a very fine institution they have here. The children are from two-years-old up to being able to go to school and are taken care of in the town. It is a building all on its own and a lady caretaker lives there with a cook. The children come in at half past eight in the morning and bring their lunches with them. They get a plate of thick soup at noon and leave at half past four. Their parents pay twenty pfennigs a day for it and twice a week they are bathed. That is what I go for. We have a fine bathroom with plenty of towels and we do so many children per day – ten to twelve. Carole Osthaus and I go together two mornings a week. Two other ladies do the same and there is another morning for bathing. There are in all fifty to sixty children in this school and in the town there are four such places. The children are so happy and every accommodation is there for them – an open air playroom, a sleeping room and a winter playroom. One is really surprised at the details attended to. One little fellow said to me: ‘Are you our new bath lady?’

  None are at all afraid of the water. Many are very poorly clad but the greater portion comes from very comfortable homes.

  Wednesday 15th November.

  Got a letter from Arthur yesterday in which he writes that he expects me to travel to England on the 6th of December and gives me the name of a lady, a Mrs. Ferguson, who is also to travel on that day. Now, this morning I got a letter from the Commandant who tells me that the exchange of prisoners over forty-five is not yet complete and may last some weeks before the final arrangements. If one only knew what to do for the best. However I have written to Arthur to say that I can be ready to travel on the 6th. I feel terribly nervous over the journey but shall not be alone.

  We read of a terrible battle in France, north of Combles, and the papers here say that our losses were hea
vy. So it must have been very bad. We also read that we are to eat swedes instead of potatoes as a substitute. I am afraid that they will not be as satisfying as potatoes but I am sure they will be just as healthy and nutritious.

  I also saw a letter from a prisoner in England. He is in Handforth and is named Cosie. He writes very brightly and says he is in the best of health.

  Then I hear of one in the Isle of Man who writes that they do not have enough to eat and that the water comes through the roof as they lie in bed. I can scarcely believe that, but his people assure me it is so and that the prisoners live the whole year in tents.

  There was an announcement yesterday that every man up to the age of sixty-years-old, and every woman also, will be called on to work for the government. It will be on ammunition or some other employment. They tell us that we will not be beaten by England for every woman and man there will be working for the war. People wonder what it means for women are already doing men’s work and have been for eighteen months now.

  Things are bad for Christmas with no cocoa or chocolate to be got. A woman was speaking to me yesterday and she has had no bread for three whole days. She had eaten her fourteen day portion in ten days. When I asked what she will do, she replied: ‘We must do it. There is nothing else for us. What can we do against it if there is not enough bread and potatoes for us?’

  I do admire their patience. I often wonder if the English people are suffering hunger and cold to help their government. And so very patiently.

  Friday 17th November.

  I have been to the estate today to say adieu to the people. They have no idea that I am going to England and think I am only not coming anymore before spring. I think that all is in order with the house now and I am glad that it is let at last.