Behind the Scenes in Warring GermanyFox, Edward Lyell
History
Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany
Fox, Edward Lyell
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The great cafés which an hour ago had been empty, were suddenly filled.
The air was tense with excitement. At every table the "beer strategists"
were discussing this newest of great victories, which they were calling
a second Tannenberg. Unable even to get a place of vantage from which to
overlook this ecstasy of patriotism, I returned to Adlon just in time to
receive a message from a blue-coated page boy; Major von Herwarth, of
the General Staff, wanted me at the telephone.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Fox," the Major was saying. "I am very happy to say
that everything has been arranged and that you start to-night for the
East." Thanking Major von Herwarth, who has done everything in his power
to help every open-minded American correspondent locate the facts, I
hurried to my room to get my luggage together.
And an hour later we were completing arrangements for the most amazing
piece of reporting done in this war. With the cooperation of the Foreign
Office, the Staff had decided to permit Herbert Corey and myself to send
collaborated reports from the front to America. Subsequently filed at
different points on the battle line, they went by military telegraph
into Germany, thence by the regular Government lines to Berlin, thence
by the great wireless to Sayville, Long Island. Only a limited number of
words a day are sent by the transatlantic wireless but the Foreign
Office gave us one hundred and fifty of these which is why thirty-seven
American cities read as swiftly as science could bring it to them, the
truth of the terrific smash of Hindenburg's army.
That night, my only luggage, a change of clothing wrapped in a sleeping
bag--for we had been cautioned to reduce what we had brought to the
barest necessities--I went at eleven to the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof
where I met the officer who was to take me to the front. I found Baron
von Stietencron, a captain in the 5th Regiment of the Prussian Guards,
the crack infantry of Germany, to be a light spirited devil-may-care
type of officer, gifted with a touch-and-go sense of humor, high strung
and imaginative. Since the war he had let a reddish beard grow around
his chin but one could see he was young and never happy in the field
unless he was leading a charge. Indeed, later that night I learned that
Baron von Stietencron had been shot through the throat when the Germans
stormed at St. Quentin!
Troops swarmed on the platform; new recruits going out to fill the gaps
in the line, officers rejoining their regiments. The train for
Königsberg glided into the arc lighted shed; we managed to get a first
class compartment.
"I tried to get sleeping accommodation," apologized Baron von
Stietencron, who spoke good American, "but we were too late."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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