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
At the railway stations of Berlin and countless other German towns and
cities at that hour heart-rending little tragedies were being enacted,
as fathers, mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts bade a long farewell
to the beloved in gray. Only rarely did some man in uniform himself
surrender to the emotions of the moment. These swarthy young Germans,
with fifty or sixty pounds of impedimenta strapped round them, were
endowed with Spartan stolidity now, and smilingly buoyed up the drooping
spirits of the kith and kin they were leaving behind. "_Es wird schon
gut, Mütterchen! Es wird schon gut!_" (It will be all right, mother
dear! It will be all right!) Thus they returned comfort for tears.
_"Nicht unterliegen! Besser nicht zurückkehren!_" (Don’t be beaten!
Better not come back at all!) was the good-by greeting blown with the
final kisses as many a trainload of embryonic heroes faded slowly from
sight beneath the station’s gaping archway. Germany was now indubitably
convinced that its war was war in a holy cause. The time had come for
the Fatherland to rise to the majesty of a great hour. "_Auf
wiedersehen!_" sang the country to the army. But if there was to be no
reunion, the army must go down fighting to the last gasp for _unsere
gerechte Sache_, manfully, tirelessly, ruthlessly, till victory was
enforced. Such were the inspiring thoughts amid which the boys in field
gray trooped off to die for Kaiser and Empire.
The outstanding event of August 3 was the publication of the German
Government’s famous apologia for the war, the so-called "White Paper"
officially described as "Memorandum and Documents in Relation to the
Outbreak of the War." Early in the afternoon a telephone message
arrived for me at the Adlon to the effect that if I would call at the
Press Bureau of the Foreign Office at five o’clock, _Legationsrat_
Heilbron, one of Hammann’s lieutenants whom I had known for many years,
would be glad to deliver me an advance copy for special transmission to
London and New York. I lay great stress on the fact that up to sun-down
of August 3, 1914, I continued to be _persona gratissima_ with the
Imperial German Government. It was true that one of the young Foreign
Office cubs told off to censor press cablegrams at the Main Telegraph
Office had, during the preceding three days, expressed annoyance with
what he considered my eagerness to "go into details," but _Legationsrat_
Heilbron’s invitation to fetch the "White Paper" was gratifying evidence
that my relations with the powers-that-be were still "correct," even if
not cordial. I was glad of that, because there was constantly in my
mind the desire to remain in Germany, whatever happened, with a
front-row seat for the big show. At the appointed hour I presented
myself in Herr Heilbron’s room on the ground floor of the Wilhelmstrasse
front of the Foreign Office. He greeted me with old-time courtesy,
though I found his demeanor perceptibly depressed. He handed me a copy
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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