While I was at the front I heard extraordinary things, for which I had again detailed confirmation from Schweder, who knew the whole of the Western Front well, about the German policy of persecution in Alsace-Lorraine. There the system was to punish with imprisonment not only actions but opinions. The authorities did not even scruple to imprison girls out of highly-respected houses who had perhaps made some harmless remark in youthful ignorance, and shut them up with common criminals and prostitutes to work out their long sentence. Such scandalous acts, which are a disgrace to humanity, Paul Schweder confirmed by the dozen or related at first-hand. He was intelligent enough, too, as was evident from the many statements made by him in confidential circles, to see through the utter lack of foundation, the mendacity, the immorality of what he wrote in his books merely for the sake of filthy lucre; but when I tried one day to take on a bet with him that Verdun would not fall, he took his revenge by spreading the report in Constantinople that I was an Pro-Entente, and doing his utmost to intrigue against me. That is the German war-correspondent's idea of morality! When I was released from the army in the beginning of 1915, I joined the editorial staff of the _Kölnische Zeitung_ and remained for some weeks in Cologne. I have not retained any very special impressions of this period of my activity, except perhaps the recollection of the spirit of jingoistic Prussianism that I--being a Badener--had scarcely ever come across before in its full glory, and, from the many confidential communications and discussions among the editorial staff, the feeling that even then there was a certain nervousness and insecurity among those who, in their leading articles, informed the public daily of their absolute confidence in victory. One curious thing at this time, perhaps worthy of mention, was the disdainful contempt with which these Prussians--even before the fall of Przemysl--regarded Austria. But the scornful and biting commentaries made behind the scenes in the editorial sanctum at the fall of this stronghold stood in most striking contrast to what the papers wrote about it. Later, when I had already been a long time in Turkey, a humorous incident gave me renewed opportunity of seeing this Prussian spirit of unbounded exaggeration of self and depreciation of others. The incident is at the same time characteristic of the spirit of militarism with which the representatives of the German Press are thoroughly imbued, in spite of the opportunities most of them have had through long visits to other countries of gaining a little more _savoir faire_.