What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During WartimePiermarini
History
What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime
Piermarini
Europe -- Description and travel; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
"Yes, we had a few cases, not amongst German troops, but amongst the
Austrians who are fighting with us in Belgium. We have organised a few
large special hospitals for such diseases, as we expect that we shall
have more infectious cases when the winter is over."
"Do you have many English, French, and Russian wounded in your
hospitals?"
"Not many. We don't keep them in the same hospitals with our
own soldiers. Generally we send them down straight away to the
concentration camps, where there are always infirmaries, and in these
they are cured."
I don't know if the impression of dullness I got from this visit to
Berlin is due solely to what I have seen and heard or whether it is
partly due to the weather. During the five days I was there it rained
without interruption. The town was completely washed by heavy showers,
which hardly ever stopped.
In such weather the only thing to do was to sit and talk. In the
numerous cafés women and old men were constantly talking and reading
newspapers and letters from the front to each other and discussing the
next German move. Apparently the wish of the whole of Germany is now
the capture of Warsaw; they give to the Russian theatre of operations
an importance which was formerly reserved for the western theatre. They
consider the war in Flanders as a sort of siege war, refuse to believe
in an offensive movement of the Allies there, and want to go for Russia
before it is too late.
Berlin seems to need a sort of formula, something to shout out, an
immediate object to achieve; but the newspapers engaged in supplying a
popular cry seem to be rather unhappy in their choice. At the beginning
of the war the cry was "To Paris"; later on "To Calais" seemed to
satisfy German public opinions; now everybody shouts "To Warsaw."
The fact that the two former wishes were not fulfilled does not seem to
matter much. Not only that, but every good man in the street will tell
you that the march to Paris and the march on Calais are only postponed.
The almost unlimited confidence of German people in their army has
certainly been shaken during the last few months, and though nobody
will frankly admit that things are going badly, I have observed a
difference between the way they used to talk and the way they talk now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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