Anxious to reach Berlin with as little delay as possible we left Rheine after dinner and drove through the darkness and pouring rain and appalling roads towards Osnabruck. We had no windscreen and the hood therefore became valueless. Keating with characteristic determination drove while I crouched in the bottom of the car. Both of us were drenched by the time we reached the Kaiserhof Hotel at Osnabruck and the car was in a pitiful state. We felt that Germany was giving us no adequate welcome. Our host, a man of charming manners, told us that the mobilisation orders were about to be issued, and that shortly the deceitful Russian would be taught a lesson of value. We were asked, a little eagerly, if England would assist, and those who listened were obviously disappointed when we said we thought she would not interfere. In the morning, as it still rained, we bought a large sheet of celluloid as a substitute for the long-broken windscreen. At a later date we bitterly regretted ever having seen or heard of this celluloid. As the rain still fell we did not leave until the late afternoon, and therefore did not get further than Minden when night fell. Both of us were angry, chiefly owing to Keating’s total inability to read a route in a Continental Guide, which was, in any case, quite inaccurate. Here at Minden, where our ancestors had fought as allies with the Germans in the year of victory, 1759, there were unmistakable signs of approaching war. The hotel (Stadt London) was packed with officers and their families eating a fond farewell lest on the morrow the worst might come. Dinner passed to the clicking of heels and an orgy of ceremonial salutes by officers who were about to bid good-bye to ‘review-order’ for years to come. In the streets the tramp of the troops, the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and the rumble of iron-shod wheels continued throughout the night. While here we learnt that Austria had on the day before declared war on Serbia, and that soon the Emperor’s eagles would end all Balkan troubles for all time. On Thursday the weather cleared and the sun shone. We passed through Hanover, where we bought tiny silk flags of the German States with some faint idea of showing the people that we did not really dislike them. In Brunswick we ate sandwiches and drank very dark beer from huge china mugs while we sat in an old oak-panelled hall with a high roof also of oak.