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It is curious how much sympathy there was for England even months after the beginning of the war. Ladies whom we knew had always had their dresses made in London, and asserted their intention of doing so again as soon as the war was over. Others, who were strongly attracted by the freedom of English life, still felt the charm in spite of all that had happened. And when they were in the company of people they could trust, they used to say how much they were longing for the war to end in order that they might resume the pleasant relations which had been broken off. They never doubted that the English would meet them halfway. Such of my students as were in England when war was declared were loud in praise of the courtesy with which they had been treated. Communication was possible with England through Holland, and these students were still receiving letters breathing assurances of friendship. The German Government had at the very beginning laid their hands on the personal possessions of all Englishmen who had left Germany. I tried in vain to rescue the property of my friends who had fled at the outbreak of war. The War Office had been there before me. On the other hand, the officials in England were not so quick. My students were getting their effects sent out to them through Holland without any hindrance.

ENGLISH TRADE

It was curious to notice how things English had risen in public estimation when once they were hard to get. Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, for instance, ruled the German market in time of peace. No German biscuit can be compared with them for a minute. An officer we knew wrote home asking his mother to send him out some biscuits. She trudged all over Bonn in search of Huntley and Palmer’s. At one shop they offered her German ones, saying they were just as good. She flared up at once. “Do you think,” she said, “I would send German biscuits to my son at the front?” Finally the indomitable old lady managed to get a tin of English biscuits, and she sent them off. All the mourning crêpe, arm-bands, and so on, worn in Germany were imported from England, even long after war was declared. A merchant told me that the Germans could not manufacture it, they simply had to have English crêpe! Jokes were often cut at the expense of the business instincts of the English; they got up a war to kill German soldiers in order to sell mourning to their mothers and wives. I could hear of nothing else being imported from England except English books. All the new publications on the English market arrived regularly and could be inspected at the University Library. Even the little propaganda booklets of the Clarendon Press were there. I subscribed to the Morning Post through a Dutch bookseller and for nearly a year received every number, except the one describing the attack on Scarborough. That was suppressed.

Although I had nothing to complain of, Englishwomen married to Germans were subject to the bitterest persecution. Coffee parties would be formed, to which they would be invited, and then each guest present in turn, by those little stabs that women know so well how to inflict, would see how she could torture the “Engländerin.” A certain “Professorenfrau” we knew wanted to try the same tactics on me. She made the most extravagant efforts to convert me to her way of thinking. When everything else had failed she even visited the members of my household and suggested they should make my life a hell to me until they had brought me round to the German point of view. Then she tried to entrap me. She was putting on the usual pose, asserting that Germany had never expected that England would make war on her and that nothing had surprised her more.

A VIRAGO

“Well, then,” I assured her, “how do you explain the fact that four days before the declaration of war Germany arrested all the English sailors in the country, even those in little sailing vessels far up the Rhine, as well as other Englishmen she thought it desirable to keep?” I gave her the names of acquaintances of mine who were put in the common jail without being accused of anything—and this before the declaration of war. She refused to believe it, and requested me to give her a written statement over my signature. This was the trick always played by German agents on Belgians in neutral countries. If they made a written declaration and signed their names to it, their families in Belgium would suffer for it; while if they refused—then they were branded as liars. I, of course, refused, and the woman broke out into a storm of abuse. I have never seen a more horrible figure, even among the drunken viragos of Whitechapel. At last, fearing for my eyes, as her fingers were obviously itching to be at me, I bowed, and left the room as hastily as was consistent with dignity.

But though I never took any trouble to conceal my English sympathies—in fact, they were notorious—I had nothing to complain of except from this woman. It is with especial pleasure that I record that my relations with my students were never so cordial as in this last Semester. My correspondence was censored from early days, and the essays my students sent me all went through the Censor’s hands. This caused some hindrance to the work, but they simply thought it a good joke that the Censor should have to read their essays. (Letters addressed to me were always censored; letters addressed to my wife never were. It is a curious example of the limitations of official intelligence.) My colleagues and other friends, when they discussed the war with me, were quite fair, and seemed only interested in discovering the English point of view. Some of my acquaintances were good enough to inform me, with all the exactness and conscientiousness of German pedantry, what they thought of England, and then to add they did not want that to interfere with our relations. If I laughed at their clumsiness, I valued their good will. The professors of English throughout Germany were the bitterest. They did not help their countrymen to understand England at all. One man told me he was going to learn to speak English with an American accent and insist on his students doing the same. Another spent his time translating a Dutch book, proving that Germany was superior in material resources to the whole of the British Empire.

Of course, although private friendships might remain unaltered, it was dangerous to speak English in public. Americans had an especially bad time. An acquaintance of mine had a tankard of beer emptied over his head for speaking English in a Bavarian restaurant. The populace used to invent the absurdest rumours about the English people living in Bonn. They were all spies, they were all going to be arrested, they were all living in cellars, not daring to show their faces. The soldiers who were quartered on us from time to time used to bring a budget of these tales about me and amuse the servants with them.

ENGLISH TRADE

The Government began their campaign against English trade at once. The Sunlight Soap Works passed into German hands in the first days of the war. What the terms were I never heard, but as it was a forced sale they could not have been generous. English insurance companies are popular in Germany, because they can be relied on to pay up. Holders of English policies were informed that they could change over into German companies, who thus acquired the bulk of the English business in Germany. The Government also tried to bring about an international agreement by which, in future, the lengths of sewing cotton should be given in metres and not in yards. They thought in this way to strike at the English control of the market. Certain companies, like Singer’s Sewing Machine, were the objects of bitter and unscrupulous attacks in the press, and they, no doubt, lost a great many of their customers.

Englishmen in business were cheated in all sorts of underhand ways. One man I knew was taken to Ruhleben and left his wife (a German woman) in charge of the business. All her assistants combined to render her life insupportable, and finally she had to give up the attempt to carry on. As a result, foreseen of course, the business was sold at a heavy loss. Another friend of mine had an especially tragic experience. For some years he had been the chemical director of a German factory, staying on there more out of friendship to the proprietor than for what he was making out of it. He was on his holidays in England all that fateful July before the war broke out, and on the 31st he received a wire from the factory, imploring him to return. He did so, and as soon as he arrived was informed that his salary had been reduced by one-half. He protested, and was curtly told he must economize and must cut down the number of his servants—one was quite enough in time of war. Then, in November, he was interned in Ruhleben. His firm promptly dismissed him and refused to pay his salary any longer, although he had the usual contract providing for six months’ pay in lieu of notice. In December the German Government let him go back to Bonn for a few days to see if he could regain his position. Those Englishmen who were kept on in their old posts were being released from Ruhleben. His firm would not take him, they had other ends in view. He had in his possession a book containing a number of chemical formulæ. These formed practically his stock-in-trade and were extremely valuable. Some were old family secrets handed down from father to son, others were the results of his own independent research. The firm tried to cajole him out of his formulæ, but, failing in that, started an action at law against him for the possession of the book. He knew nothing about it till one day a representative of the firm appeared at Ruhleben, and in the same breath informed him of the action, that he had lost it, and that he must deliver up the book for some time. He did so. Whether he ever got it back again I do not know. In any case his firm was in possession of all his secrets without paying him a penny for them. It throws a curious light on “German efficiency”—and in chemistry, too!—that they have to resort to such measures to steal an Englishman’s knowledge. I need scarcely comment on the difference between German and English ideas of justice. In Germany, the Englishman condemned in his absence, unheard; in England, every German, even Krupp, represented by the best counsel money can buy, and his case carefully and patiently listened to.

INJUSTICE

One other instance of ill-treatment I add. It is rather important and I have not seen it referred to in any publication, although some of the victims must already be in England. It is asserted that when war broke out there was a sort of agreement between the English and German Governments to the effect that male subjects of military age in either country should be free to return home up to August 11. After that date they would not be allowed to leave the country. Now, it was easy for Germans to leave England—the trains were running, and the Dutch service of ships was working just as in peace time. In Germany it was quite different. Twenty-four hours after the declaration of war the whole of the railways were taken over by the military authorities and used solely for the purposes of mobilization. Englishmen, therefore, who happened to be in Germany, had to stay just where they were. But some enterprising Englishmen in Cologne endeavoured to charter a Dutch steamer in order to go down the Rhine on her to Rotterdam. After protracted negotiations they succeeded. But they had to face so many difficulties that they did not reach Wesel, the last big place in Germany on the Rhine, till midnight of August 11. As they had exceeded their time, they were all taken prisoners and sent to Sennelager. No preparations had been made to receive them, there were no huts or buildings to shelter them, there were not even any tents. To make matters worse, the rain came down in a steady downpour for two days. They themselves were wet through to the skin, and even their good leather suit-cases were sodden and the contents ruined by the rain. After a little while the Englishmen were sent back home again until it was time for them to go to Ruhleben.