The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-TimeWile, Frederic William
History
The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time
Wile, Frederic William
World War, 1914-1918
The Germans provided Sir Edward Goschen with a "corridor train" of
first-class cars, including "saloon carriages," which are a combination
of parlor and sleeping cars, for himself and his immediate entourage,
and for Baron Beyens, the Belgian Minister to Berlin, and his staff,
who, appropriately enough, were conducted to the frontier along with the
British. Baron Beyens has contributed to the genesis of the war not the
least noteworthy evidence of Germany’s felonious designs on European
liberties and peace. As has been revealed by a Belgian Grey Book, the
Baron was able to report to his government as early as July 26 that "the
German General Staff regarded war as inevitable and near, and expected
success on account of Germany’s superiority in heavy guns and the
unpreparedness of Russia." Baron Beyens also described his final and
dramatic conversation with the German Foreign Secretary, who "announced
with pain" Germany’s determination to violate Belgian neutrality, and
asked to be allowed to occupy Liége. The request was refused, Herr von
Jagow admitting to the Minister that no other answer was possible. The
Belgians had another "answer" up their sleeve, though von Jagow knew it
not. It was the shambles into which the flower of the German Guard
plunged at Liége a week later.
[Illustration: Berlin newspaper refugees on S. S. St. Petersburg. From
left to right, standing: Muirhead; Wile; Jelf; Lawrence; Nevinson;
Captain Deedes; Dudley Ward. Seated, Mackenzie.]
Lieutenant-Colonel von Buttlar, a dapper little gray-haired Prussian
officer with a Kaiser mustache and a heel-clicking manner, presently
approached Sir Edward Goschen, saluted, introduced himself as the
military chaperon of the party, and invited us to troop into the train.
An armed guard, a strapping infantryman with glistening bayonet affixed
to his shouldered rifle, was already aboard. He turned out, as did the
lieutenant-colonel himself, to be a very harmless warden. When the
_Oberstleutnant_, gloved and helmeted as if on dress parade, was not
snoozing or reading during the journey, he merely hovered about,
mother-like, to see that his charges were comfortable, as well as not up
to mischief. In addition to the ordinary train-crew, we were shepherded
by seven or eight plain-clothes Prussian detectives, whom even the ruse
of regulation railway-caps could not disguise. You can tell a German
"secret policeman," as he is idiomatically called, at least a mile off.
He is the last word in palpability.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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