At Barracks.
As I suspected when I was appointed here, my job is deadly to a degree, and my main duty is to sign leave passes.
Our great effort in France has failed, and now the Allies react furiously. The great war machine is strained to its utmost capacity; can it endure the load?
Our proper move is to paralyse the Allied offensive by striking with all our naval weight at his cross-channel communications. The U-boat war is too slow, and time is not on our side, whilst a hammer blow down the Channel might do great things. But we have no naval imagination, and who am I, that I should advance an opinion?
A discredited Lieutenant in barracks--that's all.
Worse and worse--there are rumours of troubles in the Fleet taking place under certain conditions.
It is the beginning of the end!
Last night the High Seas Fleet were ordered to weigh at 8 a.m. this morning.
A mutiny broke out in theKönigand quickly spread.
By 9 a.m. half a dozen ships were flying the red flag, and to-day Wilhelmshafen is being administered by the Council of Soldiers and Sailors.
There has been little disorder; the men have been unanimous in declaring that they would not go to sea for a last useless massacre, a last oblation on the bloodstained altars of war.
Can they be blamed? Of what use would such sacrifice be?
Yet to an officer it is all very sad and disheartening.
I have seen enough to sicken me of the whole German system of making war, and yet if the call came I know I would gladly go forth and die whentout est perdu fors l'honneur.
Such instincts are bred deep into the men of families such as mine.
We approach the culmination of events. To-day Germany has called for an armistice. It has been inevitable since our Allies began falling away from us like rotten print.
The terms will doubtless be hard.
Heavens above! but the terms are crushing!
All the U-boats to be surrendered, the High Seas Fleet interned; why not say "surrendered" straight out, it will come to that, unless we blow them up in German ports.
The end of Kaiserdom has come; we are virtually a republic; it is all like a dream.
We have signed, and the last shot of the world-war has been fired.
Here everything is confusion; the saner elements are trying to keep order, the roughs are going round the dockyard and ships, looting freely.
"Better we should steal them than the English," and "There is no Government, so all is free," are two of their cries.
There has been a little shooting in the streets, and it is not safe for officers to move about in uniform, though, on the whole, I have experienced little difficulty.
I was summoned to-day before the Local Council, which is run by a man who was a Petty Officer of signals in theKönig. He recognized me and looked away.
I was instructed to take U.122 over to Harwich for surrender to the English.
I made no difficulty; some one has got to do it, and I verily believe I am indifferent to all emotions.
We sail in convoy on the day after tomorrow; that is to say, if the crew condescend to fuel the boat in time. Three looters were executed to-day in the dockyard and this has had a steadying effect on the worst elements.
I went on board 122 to-day, and on showing my authority which was signed by the Council (which has now become the Council of Soldiers, Sailors and Workmen), the crew of the boat held a meeting at which I was not invited to be present.
At its conclusion the coxswain came up to me and informed me that a resolution had been carried by seventeen votes to ten, to the effect that I was to be obeyed as Captain of the boat.
I begged him to convey to the crew my gratification, and expressed the hope that I should give satisfaction.
I am afraid the sarcasm was quite lost on them.
We are within sixty miles of Harwich and I expect to sight the English cruisers any moment.
I wrote some days ago that I was incapable of any emotion.
I was wrong, as I have been so often during the last two years.
In fact, I have come to the conclusion that I am no psychologist--I don't believe we Germans are any good at psychology, and that's the root reason why we've failed.
I do feel emotion--it's terrible; the shame--the humiliation is unbearable.
I wonder how the English will behave? What a day of triumph for them.
The signalman has just come down and reported British cruisers right ahead; it will soon be over. I must go up on deck and exercise my functions as elected Captain of U.122, and representative of Germany in defeat. One last effort is demanded, and then----
NOTE
This is the last sentence in the diary. It is probable that he suddenly had to hurry on deck and in the subsequent confusion forgot to rescue his diary from the locker in which he had thrust it.
ETIENNE.