Soldiers at the Prater Park in Vienna.
Soldiers at the Prater Park in Vienna.
One day I went to the Central Cemetery in Vienna where Mozart, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Johann Strauss and Brahms lie buried in a little plot of ground. Just before you come to the cemetery there is a barracks. It had only a barbed wire fence around it and we could see into the place. It was made up of small frame houses and looked like a western mining town that had sprung up in a single night. Before the door of a house near the fence a soldier was doing a good-sized washing.He seemed to be very much worried for fear he was not getting the things clean. I am sure he was rubbing everything full of holes. When he saw us watching him, he first wiped the perspiration from his brow, then he laughed. "Sehr schwer," (very hard), he said sighing.
The Central Cemetery is so large that nearly every one who dies in Vienna is buried in it. When a funeral comes in at the gate the bells are tolled, and the funerals came in one after another the day I was there. The hearses of the soldiers were draped with the Austrian flag. People follow the hearse walking. An old woman dressed in black and with a black shawl tied over her head was holding on to the back of one of these soldier hearses. It seemed as though she could not bear to be parted from her dead. She was not weeping but had a strange grim look on her face, a face in which all hope was gone.
From the cemetery we went to the Prater to see the less dismal side of soldier life. The Prater is the great park of Vienna. It has splendid drives, but one end is like a Coney Island or a Luna Park. It is a very gay place even now in war time; there are merry-go-rounds, roller-coasters and all kinds of side shows. The crowd was very much mixed, but most of the men were soldiers, privates, and they looked like men from the country. I saw one old Austrian general getting on the loop-the-loop with a little boy. He was showing his grandson a good time.
Kaiser Carl of Austria on a Visit to Berlin.
Kaiser Carl of Austria on a Visit to Berlin.
Along the streets one could buy roasted peanuts, roasted chestnuts, roasted apples, and roasted potatoes. I bought a potato. It was served to me in a newspaper, and I had to eat the thing without the aid of a knife or a fork. It tasted fine to me.
One morning we went to the art gallery, but it was closed. Now it is open only one day a week. When we came out of the gallery a common soldier came up and spoke to us. He asked us what there was to see in Vienna. He said he only had until six o'clock that night, and he did not know what to go to see, as he had never been in Vienna before.
He was a young man with light hair and very gentle manners. He was dressed in field gray but I noticed something queer about him. All German and Austrian privates wear pieces of gray linen around their necks instead of collars, but this man had on a white collar with a black border. Was he a priest? He asked me a lot of questions as to whether this church or that church was open or not and then I said to him, "Are you a priest?"
"Yes," he answered, "I am the village priest of the little town of X.... I am a volunteer in this war, and now after a year I am returning on my first furlough to my little parish. My people will be very glad to see me, but in two weeks I must be back to the front again. An old man is taking my place. He was too old to go, but I am young and my country needed me." He walked along with us a little wayand when he left us, he raised his hands over our heads and gave us his blessing.
Austrian Soldiers in Winter Uniform.
Austrian Soldiers in Winter Uniform.
The guard change in the court of the city palace in Vienna is a great spectacle. It takes about a half an hour and is much more elaborate than the one in Berlin. I can't begin to tell all that takes place. Soldiers stand in rows, then they come out and salute, and then they go back again. The officers must stand without moving, they don't seem to breathe, and this standing is so strenuous that three times in that half hour they must be relieved. When the Austrian flag is brought out all the men lift their hats and salute it with drawn swords. In between the military band plays, and when the playing is over a major comes out and congratulates the officers on their performance. It is like a piece on the stage.
The opera in Vienna is always crowded with soldiers, and they make a very gay assembly, officers with their gay uniforms and Viennese ladies in their low-necked gowns. The customs in Vienna are not the same as in America, and a real lady can take an officer to the theater or to dinner, paying his way.
One night we were seated in a restaurant when a first lieutenant, a tall fellow dressed in black and gold, came in with a lady. They sat down at the table next to us. He was very polite, hanging up her coat, taking a spot of dirt off her face, and then he read over the bill of fare and asked her what shewanted. They were not married to each other, for they usedSieand not the familiarDu. He wanted her to have either roast duck or roast goose, but she said no, that they were too expensive, and she modestly took two "wienies" and some sauerkraut at sixty cents a plate. "What a considerate lady," I thought, "she doesn't want to be too hard on that poor officer." When the waiter came around I nearly fell over to see her foot the bill, and then she gave the officer five crowns to pay for the cab.
Another day I was in a shop buying cheese. A young lady came in with three officers—two artillery officers and a hussar. First she bought several dollars' worth of cakes, and then she bought each of the men a bottle of fancy liqueur. Her bill was over thirteen dollars. She carried the cakes and the bottle for the hussar, because he had on white gloves and had no pockets. It is a great thing to be a Viennese officer.
Perhaps in no other war have there been so many women warriors as in this one. In Russia, in Galicia, in Hungary, in Serbia, and in Montenegro, countless women have gone out to fight. They have served in the trenches, in the mountain passes and on ships. They have suffered hardships the same as the men, enduring the cold, the wretched food and the strenuous work without a murmur. Each one of the women has had love of country and fireside in her heart, but in most cases it was love for her husband from whom she did not wish to be separated that sent her to the front.
The peasant women in these far eastern countries have always done the work of men. They have tilled the soil, built houses and made roads, and so it seems quite natural to them that they should fight. A number of Russian women soldiers have been taken prisoners, and it is impossible to tell them from men.
The German government does not permit her women to fight, but every now and then one of them disguises herself as a man and enlists, fighting forher country until she is found out. In France, a few women have done the same thing, and in England a regiment of "Riflewomen" has been formed, not for service on the front, but for home defense if it ever becomes necessary. In Serbia, early in the war, women formed a battalion known as the "Death's Head Battalion," and at that time they were very active. Some women in the Austrian, Hungarian and Russian armies have been made corporals and sergeants, and many of them have received decorations for valor.
The most famous woman warrior of the present war has been the Grand Duchess Augusta of Austria, wife of the Grand Duke Josef. Ever since Italy entered the war she has been at the head of her regiment on the Italian front. She dresses like a soldier, wears a helmet on her head, carries a sword and rides her horse like a man. The Grand Duke is very proud of her and does everything he can to encourage her activities.
Elizabeth Lorenz, also a Viennese, is the second famous woman warrior. She is the wife of the famous surgeon Dr. Adolf Lorenz, and she went to the front as her husband's assistant, driving a Red Cross wagon to and from the firing line. She was decorated by Franz Josef before he died.
Another Austrian to serve her country was a little twelve-year-old peasant girl, Rosa Zenoch, who, during the fighting at Rawaruska, carried water to the soldiers in the trenches. In the thick of thefray she stopped to give a drink to a wounded Hungarian soldier lying by the wayside. Some shrapnel burst around her and she was severely wounded. She was carried to the hospital train, but on the way to Vienna it was necessary to amputate her leg. When Franz Josef heard about her case he sent her a golden band set with diamonds, 10,000 crowns and a new leg.
In one Hungarian regiment the eighteen-year-old Anna Falacia served five months without any one knowing that she was a girl. Since Anna's mother died she and her twin brother had been inseparable, and when he was called to the colors, she dressed herself as a boy and went with him. During the storming of Belgrade the brother of Anna Falacia was shot and he fell dying at her feet. When she saw him lying there she burst into tears. They carried him away and she left her post and followed the bier. The sergeant called her back. "I am Anna Falacia," she cried, "I am a girl, and now that my brother is dead, I am going back."
A German woman who disguised herself as a man was Maria Balka. When the Russians invaded Memel in East Prussia they killed Max Balka. When his wife Maria saw what they had done, she swore that she would have revenge. She dressed as a man and enlisted. No one knew her. She was a good soldier and she rose from private to corporal and then to sergeant. She even won a band for being one of the five best shots in her regiment.
At Kowno, twenty thousand Russians were taken prisoners, and Maria Balka with two underofficers and ten men were ordered to take one thousand of them to Gumbinnen. There were no trains, and they had to march. The orders were strict—if a prisoner got out of line he was to be shot. It was no time for mercy.
In the village of Pilwiski they passed a hut. A Russian peasant woman was standing in the doorway. She had a baby in her arms. When she saw the men she rushed forward crying, "Peter! Peter Doroff!" A prisoner broke from the ranks and rushed into her arms, although he knew the order was death. Four German privates stopped and leveled their guns and waited the order from Maria Balka to fire. Maria Balka's face was all aflame; she would make at least one Russian suffer as she had suffered. It was her moment. But the Russian woman flung herself at Maria's feet.
"That is my husband," she pleaded, "Don't shoot him. He is all I have."
Maria's hand which had been raised to give the signal trembled and then fell at her side.
"March," she said to the surprised soldiers.
"You may keep him," she said to the terrified woman. When Maria reported at headquarters she explained what she had done, and she told them that she was a woman. The next day she went back to Memel. Her desire for revenge was dead.
One German woman, Anne Marie Reimer, thewife of a doctor in East Prussia, served seven months as the driver of an automobile truck, and the result of her experiences is a very interesting bookSeven Months on the East Front as a Driver. In this book, she tells how she guided her automobile right up to the firing line. Once, when the fighting was very fierce she did not have her clothes off for four weeks. When the Kaiser came to review her regiment, she passed in review in front of him with the rest of the men. In February, 1915, she was taken with fever contracted by the exposure. Her husband brought her to Berlin. In her book she says that no one knows the unselfishness and the kindness of soldiers toward each other, and she thinks that war has an ennobling influence on the men.
The Russian prisoners in the German prison camp at Zossen went in a body to the German major and asked him to have a Russian prisoner, Nicholas Nisoff, removed from their barracks. He was possessed with the devil, they said, and he was trying to cast a spell over them. The major sent for Nicholas Nisoff, and he came pale and trembling.
"Nicholas Nisoff," said the major, "sit down and tell me what is the matter. What have you done that you are silent all day and cry out all night?"
It was below freezing in the major's barnlike office, but Nicholas had to wipe the perspiration from his brow as he staggered into a seat. He began in broken sentences.
"It happened in Galicia. In the morning we took two hundred Austrian and Hungarian prisoners. We shut them up in different places, and in one hut where thirty of them were, I was detailed on night watch. All night long I paced up and down before the cottage. It was very quiet, but at last I heard a noise. The window was slowly opened and some one jumped to the ground. "Halt!" I cried, "Halt! Or I will fire." The person did not stop, so I fired into the darkness. I took out my pocket lamp to see what kind of a Hungarian I had shot, and there on the ground a slender figure was lying. I looked again. I could not believe what I saw. It was a woman! Her cap had fallen off and her long yellow hair was streaming about her. I felt her heart. It had stopped beating. And I, Nicholas Nisoff, had killed a woman. And since that time I cannot sleep, and in the night she comes to me with her long hair streaming around, and pointing her finger at me she says, 'Nicholas Nisoff! Why did you shoot me?'"
When he had finished, Nicholas again wiped the sweat from his brow and the major wrote down something on a paper. The next day Nicholas was taken away and brought to Berlin where he was given employment on a railroad. He is much happier now, and it is only now and then that the ghost of the Hungarian woman comes to haunt him.
Helene Lichowitz! When they came for Ivan Lichowitz, Helene begged them not to take her husband. He was ill, she said. But it made no difference,and three weeks later he was in the trenches. Once he coughed so violently that he lost consciousness. But when he came to, Helene Lichowitz was bending over him.
"I have come to take care of you," she said. For three weeks they were together. Helene did the same work as a man, and most of Ivan's work too. On a bitter cold day last December there was a night attack by the Germans. The Russians were ordered to charge. Ivan stumbled along blindly, and Helene supported him when she thought that he was going to fall. When they had gone a little way, there was a great roar from the German side, followed by a volley of bullets, shells burst in the air.
In the evening the German ambulance men came to save what they could of the poor creatures lying there. Ivan was dead, but Helene was carried to a field hospital. The German doctor did everything he could to save her, but Helene Lichowitz did not want to live. She said her work was done. In three days she died, holding the hand of the tear-dimmed German doctor.
"Ivan Lichowitz!" she called in a low voice, "I come!"
"Wilson Breaks with Germany!" So announced theB. Z. am Mittagat noon on Sunday February 5, 1917. It was a very cold day, almost the coldest of that long cold winter. The chills were running up and down my spine in our cold apartment, but this headliner froze me stiff.
"Wilson Breaks with Germany." That is a typical German headliner. They never say "America" in the German papers, but always "Wilson," and it is Wilson that gets the blame for everything and never the American people.
The Monday after the break occurred the Americans flocked around the Embassy. We were all tremendously excited. Some were talking about "getting out" and others about "staying over." All were saying something, but most of us were saying "We will wait and see." When war was really declared, we took it much more calmly, we had grown used to emotion.
Our breaking off relations was taken very quietly by the German people. It was not flattering, and Ifelt that they should show a little horror and emotion that the greatest country in the world was against them. But the German people are sort of stunned in their emotions, and the only real emotion they have is the wish for peace. Peace is all they think about and long for.
When our Embassy went away all the Americans that remained behind went to the station to see them off. It was a slushy, snowy night. German policemen were everywhere and we had to show our passes to get out to the train. The platform was full of people, and the people who were going away were leaning from the train windows. Mr. and Mrs. Gerard had a little crowd around their window. I saw two men from the German Foreign Office in the crowd, Dr. Roediger and Herr Horstmann. Dr. Roediger was the clever young German who censored most of the articles of the American newspaper correspondents. His English was perfect.
When the train pulled out, there was a faint "Hurrah," and the people turned down the steps, embassyless and ambassadorless.
Right after the break Herr Zimmermann gave out that the Americans in Germany should be shown every courtesy, and that they should be treated as neutrals, and that any discourtesy should be reported to him at once.
Nothing happened to us until about the first of April all the Americans were summoned to the Military Commandery, and here we were lined up andregistered. TheMilitäradvised us to go home. The Foreign Office too gave us this advice. Even the American men were advised to leave, and none of them were held.
The last of April the Americans got notices that they would have to report to their local police every day to get official papers stamped. Also that they could not go from one city to another without a special permit which took three weeks to get, also that they could not go to the suburbs of Berlin without a permit—this last includedGrunewald. The only bright spot was that we could stay out at night as late as we liked.
But for most Americans this did not last long, and they got off with reporting only once a week, and some of them had permanent permits for going to certain places in the suburbs of Berlin. As I was expecting to leave Germany, I never asked for one of these permits, for it was an awful task to go to the Military Commandery for anything, because there were always so many people there waiting, it took half a day to get anything. But I got off from going to the police every day. No Americans were allowed to go to either Potsdam or Spandau, Potsdam because of the royal residences, and Spandau because of the military stores. If you went any place without a permit, you were fined twenty marks and were liable to imprisonment.
I lived at a boarding-house where there were a lot of German officers, and on all the excursionsthat were made to the country by the boarders, I was asked to go along. The officers were very nice men, and they said that they would protect me if anything was said about my not having a permit, but I never went with them, for I don't look like a German and I was afraid I would be caught. I always stayed within the law.
I lived at that boarding-house seven weeks just before I left Germany, and I can honestly say that I never heard a word against my country. When I first went there I felt worried, for I was afraid that they would say things to me about America, and that I would answer back and maybe I would get into trouble and be arrested and held in Germany. But nothing like that happened. We hardly ever talked war—no one in Germany talks war as we do here in America—we talked about things to eat.
At this boarding-house I made friends with a very nice little German girl. One day we were talking and she said to me, "You and I have become very good friends. I never would have made up with you if you had been an English girl, but we Germans have no hate for America." And I have found this true of most of the German people—I am not speaking of the high officials and the bigMilitär, for I don't know anything about their sentiments—but the German folks, they have no hatred for us.
Amelia, the boarding-house maid, astonished meone day by asking if America was in the war. When I told her "yes" she wanted to know on which side, and when I told her she said, "Donnerwetter, we have so many enemies, I can't keep track of them. But I want to go to America, and I am going there after the war."
Every place I went I met Germans who want to come to America after the war; every man on the police force where I reported wants to come.
All the time all sorts of reports were being spread in America. My family heard that I was being held as a hostage, and another report was that an American lady in Dresden had been shot as a spy. The lady was called up by Mr. Oswald Schuette, an American correspondent, and the lady herself answered the phone. It was the first she had heard of it.
Personally I never heard of an American that was mistreated. I heard of one American that did a lot of blowing and talking, and he was forced to report to the police twice a day, and he had to be in at eight o'clock at night, but when he got a passage for America he was allowed to leave the country. All the American business houses were open as usual, and no American property was destroyed and no money was confiscated. Of course one has the feeling that one is in an enemy's land when one has to go to the police every week, and it did get on my nerves. And yet, every one was nice to me, and I was there five months after the break.
The German people have the greatest faith in their undersea-boats and the majority believe that the war will be over before America really gets into it. To them America seems far away. They don't know our power and our might, and they are hoping, hoping that the war will be over soon. Ask any German when the war will be over and the answer is, "In two months from now." "It can't last," they say.
It is easier to cross the frontier going out of Germany than any other frontier in Europe. This statement includes neutral Denmark where they nearly tore my clothes off me searching for gold. You are not allowed to take any gold out of Denmark. There are two reasons why the German frontier is easy to cross. One is, that most people who come out of Germany are anxious to come out, and they are afraid to hide anything for if it was found they would be sent back and held. The second reason is that the Germans don't give suspicious persons a permit to leave the country.
The day before you arrive at the German frontier the officials there know all about you. They know the history of your life and every move you have made in Germany. They know whether you are to be well searched or to be put through a form of searching. At the frontier they ask you no questions, for everything has been sent to them by the military commandery in Berlin. An American newspaper man in Copenhagen told me, that if the man at the door of the searching-room at the frontiergives you a low number you are to be well searched, and if you are given a high number you are hardly searched at all.
It takes at least three weeks for a foreigner—neutral or enemy—to get a permit to leave Germany; that is unless you have influence, and then it can be done in a few days. But that influence has to be a powerful one, for the military authorities are very strict.
The regular way to get the permit is to make a formal application at your local police. This application must be very politely written. I wrote out my application so, "Ich ersuche um Erlaubnis, nach Amerika zu gehen." My local policeman was horrified at this. "It is not polite enough," he said, "you must take it home and write it over." So I wrote beginning like this, "Honorable Gentlemen, I beg politely to have the honor to ask your gracious permission to leave Germany, etc." This letter made a great hit with the policeman.
After waiting a while, and if the police find that you have a clean record, you get a notice to come to the military commandery on a certain day. There you find your permit orPassierscheinwaiting for you. The soldier in charge asks you what day you wish to leave and then he gives you a day before that date and a day after that date—three days upon which you can travel.
Then the soldier takes a stack of papers—about twenty sheets, and puts them—with your pass, fourphotographs and your permit ticket—in an envelope and tells you to go to the police headquarters. Then your running around commences, and it takes you at least two days to get all the necessary stamps and seals. Then the evening before you leave the country you must go to your local police and register. If you should forget to do this you would be sent back from the frontier.
You are not allowed to take with you any writing of any kind, or printed matter, books etc., out of Germany without having them first censored. They have a place where the letters are read and sealed, and if you have a lot of books they send a soldier to your house. He looks over the books and packs your trunk and then seals it, and it is not opened again at the frontier. You pay the soldier one mark an hour for the work.
You are not allowed to take anything that Germany might need, out of Germany—no tools, no instruments and no electrical apparatus; that is, if the things have been bought in Germany. If it is something of a foreign make you can take it with you.
I had a little electric stove that I was very fond of, and I knew that if I ever went to the frontier with that stove they would take it away from me in a minute, as it was new and German make. I went to an influential man I knew in the Foreign Office and I asked him if he would seal up my stove for me. He laughed but said, "The German Foreign Office can't seal up a stove." I was disappointedbut not daunted, and I inveigled the military division of the Foreign Office to help me in getting a permit to take my stove over the border.
You are allowed to take one thousand marks out of Germany, so I got all my money over that amount changed into Swedish money. I took it to Dr. Roediger, the censor, and asked him to seal it for me.
"How many marks have you?" he asked.
"No marks at all," I answered, "that is Swedish money." As he was a nice, sensible, clever man, he asked no more questions but sealed it for me.
It was Sunday when I left Berlin. The train was almost empty. I had my money in my hand grip, and in the other hand I had my precious stove which had a case like a kodak. At Rostock a man came through the train and asked to see our passports. He only looked at the passports of the Germans in the coupé with me, but he took my pass and wrote a long list about it on a slip of paper. The people in the coupé stared at me.
At noon we came to Warnemünde. At the door of the military customs we were given a number. Mine was "J 19." Then we went into a room where a soldier called out the numbers. There were only about thirty of us in all, I was the only enemy—the rest were Germans and Danes. When the man called "J 19" I handed him my pass and my permit. "Oh, aPassierschein." he said. The passes were shoved through a little slot in the wall, and as soon as ourpass examination was through, we were let into a room where our baggage was examined.
As I entered the room, a soldier stepped forward. He had my pass in his hand. "What is your name?" he asked, and that question was the only question that I was asked when I crossed the frontier out of Germany.
A soldier in a black uniform opened my trunk first. I showed him the permit I had for the stove. He looked at the sealed packages and then he passed me on to another soldier in gray. This soldier took the wrapping off all my sealed packages, and then he asked me if I had any other writing or books in my trunk, and when I said, "No," he closed the trunk again without taking one thing out of it or looking at it at all. This man spoke rather good English, and when I asked him where he had learned it he answered, "Talking to little American children that I know."
Then he told me that I would have to be searched and he gave me the number "91." He carried my baggage to the dressing-room for me. Here a woman searched me. I had to take off my skirt and waist and shoes, but I was not torn apart, and the searching was anything but thorough. When I came out I was given my pass again and told I could get on the boat. The whole performance did not take more than fifteen minutes.
On the boat I had to have my baggage searched again by the Danish officials, but this was merelya farce, for they knew well enough that nobody was trying to export anything out of Germany. The dinner on the Warnemünde boat was wonderful—everything possible and without a card. We all sat down and ate and ate and ate. After dinner, lovely girls came around selling the most wonderful strawberries. But when we were out about an hour the sea got very rough. Afterwards we left the boat and boarded a train on the island. Before the train started we all stood in the corridor of the train looking at the boat we had just left. It was all spattered down the sides with red. Our thoughts were all the same, and then in the silence, the piping voice of a little German girl was heard, "Wie schade um die Erdbeeren!" And we all echoed her thoughts, "Too bad about the strawberries."
Transcriber's Note:Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.
Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.