"We must have peace," the doctor finished, "and we must have it soon. I
do not say this because I have lost a son, and I do not say it alone.
There are thousands who feel it just as much, but they are afraid to
speak what is in their mind. You are a traveler from the great city
[Berlin], and you do not know what war means. All you have heard is the
talk of fight and victory and glory, and that is all you see if you do
not look close. You must live in the smaller cities, must see the
villages and farms without men, and you must come with me and see the
homes without husband or son." For the third time he interrupted himself
to ask:--"You are Amerikaner--yes? And why do you come?"
"To see the war and find out what the German people think."
"Then go home and tell your country what I think and say, and many
others like me."
It was not easy to forget his tears and final words as he came up on the
platform at Hanover, and, looking around to see that no one overheard,
whispered hoarsely: "Fangen sie ihre Propagande an, junger Mann, und
Gott starke ihre Bemuhungen"--"Start your peace propaganda, young man,
and Heaven help the undertaking."
The southern part of this trip was not without its crop of stories, some
humorous, and some atrocious. It was impossible to verify the statement
of the Bavarian travelers who boasted of the treatment of English
prisoners en route to the detention camp. On one occasion sixty were
captured, they said, and only five brought home alive. The Bavarian
soldiers guarding them said with a laugh, "But they were tired, so we
had to shoot the rest"; and the officer answered with a wink, "What
happens to English prisoners need never be reported." One never needed
more one's sense of the probabilities.
And there was the good-natured cavalry lieutenant who said the Germans
had found a way to keep their prisoners in training. "You see," he
explained, "we lock twenty of the 'red-trousers' [Frenchmen] and twenty
Englishmen in the same room at night and shut the windows. You know a
Frenchman can't stand air, and a Kitchener will die without it. So we
stand outside to watch the fun. First a window goes up, and then it
goes down, and pretty soon there are growls, grumbles, and oaths. In
ten minutes a terrible fight ensues; in half an hour the Frenchmen are
badly beaten,--they always are,--and twenty battered English heads come
sticking out the window for a breath of air."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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