cheapest.” [SN: GERMAN KNAVERY] Most interesting of all was to watch the development of the German mind. They were no longer exposed to the influence of the Government newspapers, they were free to think and speak as they had been at home. There was no limit to their stupidity. They all believed that America would not dare to enter the war, because the 500,000 Germans in the States would be too strong for them. It was surprising with what unanimity they believed that every German in America would be a traitor. When America did enter the war, they said it was a great advantage for Germany, because now the States would not be able to supply Europe with any more ammunition. And all these ideas they arrived at without any help from their Government! Most men would probably rather be thought a knave than a fool, and really I think their folly alienated me more than their knavery. Their knavery was real. I long tried to separate people from Government, and to believe that their savagery was only something enjoined from above. I found it quite impossible to make any distinction between Government and people. On our high-days and feast-days poems used to be recited glorifying Germany’s part in the war. The Germans are great at amateur poetry, and it is the tradition of the Fatherland that there shall be no festival without its poem. Our Stretensk poems glorified more than anything else the killing of women and children. These compositions were greeted with loud cheers from every one present, so we may take it that they express the feelings of the German soldier. In one poem Father Christmas related how he had come to Siberia by Zeppelin, by U-boat, and by railway, and how he had first flown over London and killed a thousand women and children. Another poem celebrated the bombardment of Yarmouth in the winter of 1914-15. (It will be remembered that the Germans, misled by the placing of the buoys, did not succeed in reaching the land with their shells at all.) The poem related how Yarmouth was battered into ruin, and then the last lines described how the rising wind brings the sound of wailing. “Does that mean the wailing of women and children? Of course it does, and a splendid thing too.” Loud applause from all sides welcomed this sentiment. From that time onwards my only thought was how to renounce my German citizenship.