For luncheon that day I had the choice of as many foods as I had had in London. The only thing missing was white bread, for Germany, at the beginning of the war, permitted only Kriegsbrot (war bread) to be baked. All Berlin streets were crowded and busy. Military automobiles, auto-trucks, big moving vans, private automobiles, taxi-cabs and carriages hurried hither and thither. Soldiers and officers, seemingly by the thousands, were parading up and down. Stores were busy. Berlin appeared to be as normal as any other capital. Even the confidence of Germany in victory impressed me so that in one of my first despatches I said: "Germany to-day is more confident than ever that all efforts of her enemies to crush her must prove in vain. With a threefold offensive, in Flanders, in Galicia and in northwest Russia, being successfully prosecuted, there was a spirit of enthusiasm displayed here in both military and civilian circles that exceeded even the stirring days immediately following the outbreak of the war. "Flags are flying everywhere to-day; the Imperial standards of Germany and Austria predominate, although there is a goodly showing of the Turkish Crescent. Bands are playing as regiment after regiment passes through the city to entrain for the front. Through Wilhelmstrasse the soldiers moved, their hats and guns decorated with fragrant flowers and with mothers, sisters and sweethearts clinging to and encouraging them." A few weeks before I arrived the Germans were excited over the shipment of arms and ammunitions from the United States to the Allies, but by the time I was in Berlin the situation seemed to have changed. On April 4th I telegraphed the following despatch which appeared in the _Evening Sun_, New York: "The spirit of animosity towards Americans which swept Germany a few weeks ago seems to have disappeared. The 1,400 Americans in Berlin and those in the smaller cities of Germany have little cause to complain of discourteous treatment. Americans just arriving in Berlin in particular comment upon the friendliness of their reception. The Germans have been especially courteous, they declare, on learning of their nationality. Feeling against the United States for permitting arms to be shipped to the Allies still exists, but I have not found this feeling extensive among the Germans. Two American doctors studying in German clinics declare that the wounded soldiers always talk about 'Amerikanische keugel' (American bullets), but it is my observation that the persons most outspoken against the sale of ammunition to the Allies by American manufacturers are the American residents of Berlin."