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 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027944507 
 
Hmdenjburg's Mjaf ch 
 Into LondGn 
 
 TtinmsbjAed from the G^n^^ 
 
Hindenburg's March 
 into London 
 
Hindenburg's March 
 into London 
 
 Translated from the German Original 
 
 Cp 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Logan Marshall 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 BY 
 
 L. G. Redmond-Howard 
 
 Author of "Life of John Redmond," etc. 
 
 1916 
 
 THE JOHN C WINSTON COMPANY 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
Copyright, 1916, by 
 The John C. Winston Co. 
 
Contents 
 
 rxom 
 
 American Publisher's Preface . . 7 
 Old England and Young Germany . 9 
 With the Eastern Army to Calais . 30 
 Crossing the Channel . . .51 
 Battles in the South of England . 64 
 
 Heroes 93 
 
 The Night Between the Battles . 119 
 Fight of Airmen over the Thames . 133 
 The Last Battle of the Century . 148 
 Before the Gates of London . .174 
 The Entry into the City . . . 188 
 Introduction to English Edition . 213 
 
American Publisher's Preface 
 
 A MERICAN readers will require no introductory 
 XI. comment upon this remarkable book which is 
 said to have sold the stupendous number of 
 4,000,000 copies in Germany in a few months. It vis- 
 ualizes a plan for the successful termination of the war 
 which has been the dream of the Germans since its 
 beginning ; and this visualization is so stirring, so 
 vivid, so plausible, that the translation and publication 
 in England is reported to be rousing the whole British 
 Empire to arms. 
 
 Whatever may be the sympathies of the reader, this 
 book is not published to make him apostate; it is given 
 to the public as a great human document. 
 
 To Americans it will lay bare, with many surprises, 
 the intensity of the German belief in the godlike vir- 
 tues of the Kaiser, their complete faith in the justice 
 of their cause and their boundless confidence in the 
 invincibility of their armies. This revelation of the 
 German mind is an extraordinarily interesting feature 
 of the book. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, we may draw even more from it 
 than sensations. It throbs with the self-dedication to 
 death which has swept thousands of warriors through 
 curtains of fire to gain a few feet of ground; it voices 
 the passionate devotion to a man's native land which 
 gives life and all for the glory of his country's cause. 
 
 And if this vision of an alien patriotic consecration 
 winning its victory in the horrible shock of modern 
 battle shall make us realize the completeness of self- 
 sacrifice necessary in the hour of destiny, we shall 
 treasure more tenderly this great land of our own, 
 ransomed with the priceless life-blood of our fathers. 
 
HINDENBURG'S MARCH 
 INTO LONDON 
 
 OLD ENGLAND AND YOUNG 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 OLD ENGLAND was the most successful 
 and the most ruthless schoolmistress 
 the world had ever seen. 
 
 Zealously and with extreme talent, she had 
 adapted herself to playing the part of a politi- 
 cal schoolmistress, whose aim for centuries 
 had been to educate the countries of the Eu- 
 ropean continent in accordance with Eng- 
 land's wish and will; England, indeed, had 
 reason to be satisfied with the results of her 
 exertions. This rare teacher set bounds and 
 limits to any strong will or youthful force 
 which might arise, or strive for supremacy 
 anywhere in Europe. Favorites were fos- 
 tered, the strengthening of whom might be of 
 use to her later; England overthrew the plans 
 of others and helped to forge new plans. She 
 delighted in those countries who, not rising 
 above a mediocre level in their attainments 
 and ability, were satisfied with the endow- 
 
 9 
 
10 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 ments Nature had given them, and gave Eng- 
 land no trouble in any way. England, indeed, 
 wanted her rest. She looked with no friendly 
 eye upon any strenuous and forceful disturbers 
 of the peace. Above all, she did not like zeal 
 for geography in her proteges and could show 
 herself extremely ungracious if the Conti- 
 nental States poked their noses out of Europe 
 and wanted to have a look in and see what 
 was going on in the big world. The little 
 would-be Powers on the Continent were to 
 rest satisfied with the study of the map of 
 Europe! What lay beyond that was a pri- 
 vate matter for Old England. 
 
 Her primary aim was to keep the Continen- 
 tal countries as average-size Powers. With 
 the zeal of an anxious guardian, she watched 
 to see that none of them had too much 
 pocket-money to spend and became too en- 
 terprising. If one of them wished to look at 
 the wide world, and even to settle down 
 somewhere in it, Old England took care that 
 the domestic peace of these foolhardy Pow- 
 ers was disturbed, and they always had 
 enough work inside their four frontiers to 
 keep them away from other objects. 
 
 Towards needy parasites and starvelings 
 she might on occasion be very friendly and 
 ready to assist, but, notwithstanding all sym- 
 pathy, abated never a jot of her school-teach- 
 er's dignity. The Channel maintained the 
 
Old England and Young Germany 1 1 
 
 distance of authority between her and those 
 whom she sought to take under a guardian 
 care, full of noble love for one's fellows. She 
 was at all times ready to make the greatest 
 financial sacrifices if the rate of interest was 
 a good one. 
 
 It must be put down to the credit of Old 
 England that her political professions bore a 
 decidedly liberal stamp. She was by no 
 means anxious that her compeers on the Con- 
 tinent should sit with folded hands, but, on 
 the contrary, looked on approvingly if now 
 and again they flew at each other's throats. 
 It was a pleasurable sight to schoolmistress 
 England to see the little Continental soldiers 
 play and go to war. War, indeed! She 
 laughed then, as only the Devil can laugh. 
 She was remote from the fighting, and at 
 most, if the war did not take the required 
 course, brought her silver bullets into play. 
 When fighting stopped, however, she was 
 always on top, and always managed to lead 
 the peace negotiations into such a course that 
 even the victorious country was enfeebled 
 for years to come. That England at the 
 peace negotiations would at last play some 
 trump was as established a fact as the 
 "Amen" after the sermon. 
 
 "If two quarrel, the Briton rejoices" has 
 long been a proverb. In the course of cen- 
 turies but few had seriously endeavored to 
 
12 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 catch the measure of Mephistopheles, and 
 none had succeeded. 
 
 The wilder the turmoil in Europe, the more 
 might England rejoice, for the countries 
 which had got their heads battered were 
 afterwards easily the most docile. England 
 took counsel of her big banks as to whether 
 European peace should be maintained or 
 whether it was expedient in the" policy of 
 power, and in the interests of business, to rig 
 up a war again. The business books of her 
 banks and trading-houses are the best sources 
 for the history of European countries, for in 
 them the ultimate subterranean connections 
 are laid bare. 
 
 Old England wished to attend upon earth 
 to the business of God Almighty. And while 
 she looked with godly dignity to the main- 
 tenance of order in Europe, and liked to keep 
 in leading strings those who would fain be 
 great on the Continent, she was free, undis- 
 turbed to develop her world-wide business, 
 establishing herself comfortably on the 
 shores of all oceans, parceling up entire con- 
 tinents, sated with prosperity, and living 
 magnificently and joyously. Yes, it was a 
 pleasure to live ! England had a considerable 
 patrimony at the bank, and knew herself to be 
 respected and feared in her educational dig- 
 nity, and she now hoped to enjoy repose. 
 
Old England and Young Germany 13 
 
 • 
 
 Then in the year 1870 something quite un- 
 heard of happened. About that time there all 
 at once appeared in Europe in the foreground 
 a youth in the fullness of his strength — ^young 
 Germany ! He was a sprig of the good, stupid 
 old-German Michael, who had fared especially 
 badly owing to his horizon bounded by the 
 church tower, and his secluded mode of living. 
 Michael had to sit very far behind in the Eu- 
 ropean State class, and during the last five 
 hundred years he was always several decades 
 behind the others. Young Michael, however, 
 the fair-haired, blue-eyed fellow, was of a dif- 
 ferent mould! To the schoolmistress on the 
 other side of the Channel he looked a very slip- 
 pery fish! She could not turn an eye away 
 from the fellow as he carried on all sorts of 
 suspicious games, built g^ns diligently and with 
 surpassing skill, speedily developed engineering 
 and weaving as good as the British, and made 
 it his task to overtake his mistress in all depart- 
 ments in which Germany had been the pupil of 
 Britain. He had assiduous talent in working, 
 experimenting, investigating and inventing, 
 had drawers full of patents, and wanted to 
 know things better than anyone else in chemis- 
 try and medicine. Fortunately, the young fel- 
 low was still very far from worldly wise and 
 allowed everybody to peep into his laboratory 
 and workshops, so that even countries of prey 
 such as Japan might imitate many things. 
 
14 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 The young fellow was endowed with a capa- 
 city for taking pains and a self-consciousness 
 quite inadmissible in this age. He joined in all 
 great movements, and positively played the 
 part of the discoverer of Europe. He discov- 
 ered the French painters before the French; 
 English poets before the English; Slavonic 
 dramatists before the Russians; and Roman 
 beauty before the Italians. Young Michael 
 knew something and could do something, and 
 who could know what he still had up his sleeve ? 
 With rash temerity he wished first of all to 
 renew humanity on sentimental principles, and 
 one of his most fanciful ideas was, indeed, the 
 so-called "social care." By this, of course, one 
 only spoils the poor and reduces the profit of 
 contractors. Such humanitarian tendencies 
 were not to the liking of the English school- 
 mistress, who said in the philosophy of Jeremy 
 Bentham : "Let every Briton do what is of use 
 to him. Let every Briton see that he is good 
 at arithmetic and church-going — as regards 
 love of one's fellows, it is quite sufficient to 
 occasionally encourage those who are laden and 
 weary with a pious proverb! Or can anyone 
 seriously assert that social care is required for 
 money-making? A curious people these Ger- 
 mans I" 
 
 The young fellow developed visibly. He 
 lived entirely his young, strong life and both- 
 ered little about the good tone in which Eng- 
 
Old England and Young Germany 15 
 
 land wished to educate him. He continually 
 called forth blame and fault-finding, but young 
 Michael continued, quite unabashed to concern 
 himself with world-wide commerce, diligently 
 studied over-seas geography, labored ardu- 
 ously, and cared not two straws for what other 
 people thought about him. 
 
 In his relations with his European neighbors 
 he was of an honesty which has now grown 
 quite old-fashioned. He paid so little attention 
 in his diplomacy to craftiness and ingratiating 
 methods, that he often watched with a sigh how 
 Albion got the better of him in diplomatic world 
 business. This honesty was an inheritance from 
 the old, worthy, unsuspicious, and thereby often 
 befooled, led by the nose, and sorely tried Ger- 
 man Michael. 
 
 Greatly to his detriment, young Michael had 
 no idea of adopting the new methods of diplo- 
 macy, but looked upon himself as unfortunately 
 unfitted for diplomatic flirting, renounced the 
 creation of a lying press abroad in his favor, 
 and missed the opportunity for many relations 
 which can only be opened in drawing-rooms 
 when smoking a good cigar. 
 
 Full of worthy simplicity and blissful trust- 
 fulness, he thought that with honest work he 
 would do more in the world than by coquetting 
 and skirmishing, by taking pleasure in small 
 liaisons, and striving against solemn ententes 
 cordiales. He, with a proud half smile, passed 
 
16 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 by all the useful, petty English statesmen's 
 craft, unfortunately did not count wire-pulling 
 and the tricks of past masters in the art of 
 intrigue as being the work of diplomacy, and 
 failed to see that Bismarck was now out of 
 date, and that modern diplomacy of the English 
 school must often be encountered by employing 
 similar tactics. With his large blue eyes he 
 walked a straight road through the world and 
 worked bravely onwards. His art and his 
 science gained him fame, his industry accumu- 
 lated money, and his trade conquered country 
 after country. 
 
 To the Briton the doings of the young fellow 
 became more and more distasteful. Old Eng- 
 land wanted to have rest and enjoy the rich 
 patrimony of her fathers, and now this push- 
 ful and go-ahead fellow came along — naturally 
 she felt herself threatened more and more every 
 day in the comfortable enjoyment of life. Eng- 
 land had, on the other hand, no need to work 
 six days in the week; the country could afford 
 to devote at least two days to sports and games. 
 In Germany, with its own peculiar trend of 
 ideas, it was thought that in the age of world 
 economy only that party could be on top which 
 worked to the limits of its strength, and gave 
 the utmost to earnest creation. 
 
 Old England and Young Michael — a cleft 
 between two worlds. 
 
 In addition to harvesting fame and earning 
 
Old England and Young Germany 17 
 
 money, young Michael did many other things 
 which were no less distasteful to the school- 
 mistress of Europe. His most suspicious pas- 
 time he indulged at the water's edge. This ill- 
 advised scion of good old Michael began to 
 build big shipyards and to create for himself, 
 so far as he could, a serviceable fleet ! 
 
 Was he so rash, such a megalomaniac as 
 seriously to desire a voice in the business of 
 the world ? 
 
 Against the suspicious games of the young 
 coxcomb on the seashore measures must ab- 
 solutely be taken ! England might, perhaps, 
 have admitted a strong military Power as 
 having equal rights, but never again a sea- 
 faring people as serious competitors ! For so 
 venturesome a country, looking forward to 
 the future, as young Germany, his deliberate 
 building of a fleet might finally only form the 
 stepping-stone for the development of 
 strength which opened up limitless possibil- 
 ities! Even without an equal fleet, young 
 Germany had one for commerce, and ran un- 
 daunted around the whole globe, in order to 
 look for customers for its industry; even 
 without a strong fleet its merchant navy was 
 in all the corners of the world and earned 
 money, much more than it ought to. What 
 if it created a fleet of the same rank as the 
 English and placed it at the service of its 
 trade and industry ? The suspicious doings in 
 
18 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Kiel and Stettin and Wilhelmshaven gave 
 Old England many sleepless nights. 
 
 Envy and fear taught the English to hate 
 young Germany, but they did not at first 
 quite know how to give vent to this hate. 
 Though, it is true, those who talked politics 
 over their beer and gin, recommended a very 
 simple means for Britain to rid herself of the 
 German nightmare: Young Michael must 
 first be harassed with diplomatic pin-pricks, 
 and then fallen upon and attacked from all 
 sides with bludgeons! His ambitions should 
 be driven out of him and his Zeppelins blown 
 up! He should be made as powerless and 
 lamb-like as Michael in the pre-Bismarck 
 period. With pen and sword steps must be 
 taken to compel this people, these tillers of 
 the soil, to return once more to the existence 
 for which it was fitted in the poverty of 1815 
 or, still better, 1648! 
 
 Those who did not talk politics over their 
 beer, but in the St. James' district over their 
 whiskies-and-sodas, recommended the same 
 fighting tactics, though by a different path. 
 In their incendiary speeches in Hyde Park 
 they reasoned thus: 
 
 "Men of England ! That Germany has be- 
 come so provokingly prosperous and is not 
 yet content with its wealth, that it takes our 
 customers away and reduces the receipts of 
 the British Empire, is well known, but that is 
 
Old England and Young Germany 19 
 
 not its most dangerous activity. The claws 
 of the German phantom clutch deeper ! The 
 unbroken, primeval strength of young Ger- 
 many, the whole of that red-cheeked exist- 
 ence, this strenuousness — that, men of Eng- 
 land, is the lasting threat to the world's 
 peace! Just look at this young Michael! 
 Those muscles ! That entire frame breathing 
 strength ! That positively criminal and pro- 
 voking health! Look, that is how his mili- 
 tarism agrees with this barbarian! The 
 moral for us is: militarism must be driven 
 out of him! Is it not conceivable that this 
 coarse-natured fellow would knock out both 
 Russians and French at once? But what 
 would then become of the balance of power, 
 my men? Would England then be the man 
 at the helm? Nothing less than European 
 equilibrium is in danger, and therefore the 
 hour is one of bitter earnestness ! . . ." 
 
 After such speeches even the public-house 
 politicians felt that their devilish plans were 
 ennobled. The war-seekers of the streets 
 had got wind into their sails. 
 
 Balance of power — that was the word! 
 Translated into German: English predomi- 
 nance and vindication of threatened school- 
 masterly dignity! 
 
 Old England wanted to sit comfortably 
 and in unrestricted enjoyment if the well- 
 covered table, and suddenly a stressful new- 
 
20 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 comer, full of ideas, appeared. Against these 
 far-reaching plans one had to be on one's 
 guard every moment! Well-to-do England 
 was really not called upon to put up with dis- 
 comfort for any length of time, and possibly 
 to allow its authority as mistress of the 
 world to be undermined. And that, too, by a 
 young jackanapes! Really, England must 
 give him at once a thorough drubbing ! There 
 would have to be a thorough account, sooner 
 or later, with the impudent coxcomb ! Ger- 
 many must be thrown back into that poverty 
 so essential to English well-being and which 
 was the reason of its docility in past cen- 
 turies, and thus in all secrecy they egged on 
 war. A deciding war between the sleepy 
 culture of England and the alert youthful- 
 ness of Germany. 
 
 To venture upon the struggle alone with 
 young Michael was positively dangerous. In 
 order to get the sturdy fellow under, Eng- 
 land had to secure quite a number of confed- 
 erates. And then it would one day fall with 
 all its weight on the fellow! Under the 
 motto, "Down with Prussian militarism!" 
 England founded the world-historical "Isola- 
 tion Society for the Destruction and Divid- 
 ing Up of Germany." 
 
 They first succeeded in getting the French 
 
Old England and Young Germany 21 
 
 shouters for revanche to join. How could 
 Marianne have withstood the tender Edward! 
 
 Against German miltarism! With this 
 battle-cry Russia also had to be decoyed. 
 That Russia had a few divisions more under 
 the colors than Germany was unimportant. 
 The Isolation Society was not petty and nar- 
 row-minded in connection with the entrance 
 formalities. A noble picture this, showing 
 how the gentlemen from the Thames em- 
 brace the Muscovite brother heart, how John 
 Bull pressed friend Wanzislaus to his breast ! 
 What did it matter that the faithful ones from 
 the paradise of the Little Father could not 
 read or write, and smelt of vodka! Albion 
 could not help herself. Stimulated by repul- 
 sion for German militarism, she could no 
 longer restrain her heartfelt liking for Rus- 
 sian despotism. Being unable to endure lis- 
 tening to the shooting on German troop drill- 
 ing-grounds, she turned, full of fervor, to 
 Holy Russia, where, alongside the rifle-fire of 
 the giant army, the crack of the knout could 
 be heard, and occasionally, too, bomb ex- 
 plosions. 
 
 A paragraph in the articles of the Isolation 
 Society provided that kussia should first 
 ignite the torch of war. Criminal desires 
 sought a noble pretext — ^what could be nobler 
 than to protect the murderers of Royal 
 children ? 
 
22 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 As it was a question of holy crusade, of 
 chivalry, and of truly pure moral humanity 
 against the truly worthless German Huns, 
 Japan, Italy and Montenegro were also in- 
 vited. And the same Albion which in meas- 
 ureless conceit and mocking Phariseeism 
 turned up her nose at having to sit at the 
 table of the nations along with German bar- 
 barians, concluded a bond of sweet union 
 with the Bashkirs and Congo niggers, with 
 Senegalese and Gurkhas, Basutos and Aus- 
 tralians. 
 
 The devilish plan for the destruction of 
 Germany was settled in London, had been 
 considered for years carefully in all its de- 
 tails, and if signs and wonders had not hap- 
 pened, it must, in human judgment, have led 
 to complete success. In a couple of weeks 
 Michael's arrogance and temerity were to be 
 crushed! Crawling on his knees, he should 
 helplessly implore mercy! 
 
 The great day had come. On the English 
 tree of poison the fruit was ripe. According 
 to the articles of the Briti'^h Isolation Society 
 the torch flamed up in Russia first. It was, 
 in truth, ignited two years too soon; but 
 otherwise everything went as laid down in 
 the programme : the powder of half the world 
 caught fire on these great August days. 
 
Old England and Young Germany 23 
 
 To God-given Albion, which was chosen 
 from aforetime only for the maintenance of 
 peace, and hated nothing more passionately 
 than the thunder of cannon on the Continent, 
 the outbreak of war came as such an entire 
 surprise that in the first days of August it 
 suffered from a severe nervous shock. The 
 attack manifested itself in sudden and serious 
 loss of memory. It suddenly knew no longer 
 that, with France, it had long since made 
 military arrangements with Belgium; it no 
 longer believed in the least that in Maubeuge, 
 as early as 1913, it had had mountains of mu- 
 nitions piled up. The fact quite escaped its 
 recollection th^t it had compelled Belgium to 
 develop Antwerp into the most powerful 
 fortress in the world — ^Albion suffered a very 
 complete loss of memory. The cry "War!" 
 had struck the peace-loving people like a bolt 
 from the blue; the consequence was this 
 dreadful paralysis of the power of memory. 
 But Albion's heart, which beat only for peace 
 and human rights, had still remained the old 
 one, and therefore it could not look on inactive 
 when Germany now marched into Belgium. 
 Full of holy indignation, it called upon the 
 entire civilized world to avenge the malig- 
 nancy of the Huns in falling unexpectedly on 
 bashful and virtuous Belgium. 
 
 When Britain had gathered all her accom- 
 plices for praiseworthy deeds, and the capital 
 
24 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 of the Isolation Society was to begin work 
 and pay out dividends, the English news- 
 papers one day blurted out bluntly what 
 Grey, Sazonoff and Delcasse had in mind : 
 
 "The new German Michael is to be shot 
 down and cut up into pieces, so that he only 
 keeps his eyes to weep for his misfortune." 
 
 Poor young Michael! Why were you un- 
 willing to walk in the footsteps of the good 
 old stupid Michael ? Now your future is black 
 as thunder. And all this you have yourself to 
 thank for. It is owing to your ruddy health, 
 quite out of keeping with modern fashion. 
 
 So pious and gentlemanlike a nation as the 
 British waged war, of course, for very high 
 ideals — namely, for freedom and lofty human 
 rights. It was a war of civilization against 
 the uncivilized habits of barbarians, and for 
 that reason England has set itself the great 
 and noble task in the war, in beautiful asso- 
 ciation with Kaffirs and Cossacks, of starv- 
 ing German women and children! The 
 British had only mobilized as defenders of in- 
 ternational law, but soon they thrust inter- 
 national law aside with a superior smile, and 
 acted on the model of those merry Bavarians 
 who had joyously shouted : "Now for a jolly 
 scrimmage and no policeman near !" Albion, 
 too, was happy at having speedily got rid of 
 
Old England and Young Germany 25 
 
 the policeman of the world State, interna- 
 tional law, with its troublesome limitations 
 of crude high-handedness and despotism. 
 
 It was the war of gentlemen against 
 Boches and Huns, and these gentlemen in- 
 dulged themselves in the most repulsive sus- 
 picions against our Kaiser. Gentlemen min- 
 isters took as the bases of their inflammatory 
 speeches army orders in which the Kaiser 
 was said to have ordered his troops in secret 
 to slaughter the British. Their clergymen in- 
 terposed in the Church prayers the words: 
 "Lord God thou hast clouded over the spirit 
 of the German Kaiser with madness : let Thy 
 wrath be appeased and be gracious unto him 
 again!" In the Press they discussed the 
 question whether Attila, after the overthrow 
 of his vandal hordes, is simply to be deposed 
 or banished, or whether short shrift is to be 
 given him! 
 
 Every fresh day brought new and shameful 
 slanders — it was the war of gentlemen against 
 German want of culture. 
 
 The military and economic forces of an entire 
 world were conjured up against Germany and 
 its ally. In alliance with lies and cunning, the 
 British succeeded in temporarily angering 
 Germany by a series of petty tricks, meannesses, 
 and pin-pricks, but one thing they failed to 
 
'26 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 eflfect : they could not bend the neck of the fair 
 German youth ! Young Michael in the second 
 year of war possessed the same laughing con- 
 fidence of victory as on the first day of 
 mobilization ! Meantime the young fellow had 
 developed! Heavens! What elbows he had! 
 The left in Flanders, and the right on the 
 Black Sea. With legs wide spread he stood in 
 Central Europe and pushed his iron-mounted 
 soldier's boot every day a bit further into the 
 enemy country. He let the furious English 
 pack yelp on and only spit now and again over 
 the Channel: Hurrah! for the Zeppelins and 
 the valiant German fliers ! 
 
 Seven or eight against two or three and no 
 success, and for the future only bad bills in 
 pocket — the distress was great. The Isolation 
 Society was confronted with the most terrible 
 collapse a group of speculators had ever experi- 
 enced, and the fault for the enormous bank- 
 ruptcy, the loss of thousands of millions, was 
 ascribed to the man whose name was pro- 
 nounced with a shiver, and yet secretly with a 
 solemn reverence — 
 
 Hindenburg ! 
 
 Unless signs and wonders happened, Eng- 
 land's diabolical plans should have led to com- 
 plete success. Now signs did happen, and a true 
 son of the people among these miracles was 
 Hindenburg. 
 
 He was already before the gates of St. 
 
Old England and Young Germany 27 
 
 Petersburg. If this great battle leader, who 
 with puzzling perspicacity always marched his 
 armies up at the point where they were most 
 disagreeable to the Russians at the moment, 
 should one day have no occupation in the East? 
 What then? 
 
 Could this genius among generals read only 
 Russian maps and not English ones also? 
 Those were questions of despair, to which there 
 was no answer. 
 
 Beside herself, Albion saw how the Russian 
 legions which had once, with the primeval force 
 of the Flood, broken into East Prussia and 
 Galicia, fell to pieces under the merciless pur- 
 suit of Hindenburg's inferior numbers; how 
 the war-mongers of the Quadruple Alliance, 
 the men after the pattern of Grey, from Nikolai 
 Nikolaiewitch to the divine Gabriele, one after 
 the other sank down into the darkness of the 
 world's history. 
 
 Would this uncanny Hindenburg, after set- 
 tling Russia, take a holiday for recuperation, 
 or lead his armies to the West? Might Hin- 
 denburg be the stormer before the gates of 
 London? Such ideas shook people's nerves on 
 the other side of the Channel. 
 
 As the Allied Powers got no further with 
 their own strength, and in spite of large 
 premiums gained over no new satellites, they 
 looked around among the members of their 
 company for the scapegoat on whom they 
 
28 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 should throw the responsibiHty for the failure 
 of the carefully contrived surprise attack. 
 
 While the noble gentlemen under the banner 
 of the faithful ones mutually decorated each 
 other with orders, they secretly clenched their 
 fists against each other, and the sweet-bitter 
 world war began to bloom forth in a humorous 
 aspect. 
 
 The Russian newspaper contained the Paris 
 report that Joffre was preparing a great new 
 offensive, and appended to the report the caus- 
 tic comment that this time success could not 
 be wanting because it was the twenty-fifth, the 
 jubilee of the offensive! The French growled 
 against the British because they made them- 
 selves comfortable in Calais like a pig in clover. 
 England was angered with Italy for being un- 
 able to smash up Austria, for it would like to 
 send nobles of Rome to accompany its niggers 
 in the trenches! Italy, however, reproached 
 the English with niggardliness and meanness 
 in paying out the Judas millions, and declared 
 that, made wise by experience, it would only 
 carry out big offensives on the Isonzo and 
 South Tyrol in the future, provided the amount 
 was remitted beforehand. The Italians also 
 railed against the Serbians and Montenegrins ; 
 and to complete the circle, Serbia vented her 
 spleen at the menacing military position against 
 its holy protector, the patron of her Sarajevo 
 murderers. 
 
Old England and Young Germany 29 
 
 The Russian bear, however, was bleeding 
 from nose and ears, and all four paws, even if 
 he was no longer in a position to dance to 
 England's whistle. The lying Press of the 
 Allied countries, it is true, continued, under 
 the able guidance of Albion, to declare that 
 Russia stood before the world, the most ready 
 for battle of all the countries. 
 
 One fine day, however, the editor of the 
 Times made a painful mistake. He had inserted 
 the consoling article which was then due with 
 regard to Russia's enormous reserves and new 
 working plans of the steam roller, and in an- 
 other column of the same number he had to 
 record the very latest news, the world-wide 
 event fraught with such consequences — the 
 conclusion of a separate peace between Ger- 
 many and Russia. The sorrow round about 
 was great. Russia had given notice to the Lon- 
 don managers of the Isolation Society of its 
 withdrawal from the firm. It had retired from 
 the scene of war and now had to concern itself 
 with its own troubles, because everywhere in 
 the country lightning was in the air, as though 
 the severest storm was only now to visit the 
 Empire of the knout. 
 
 Hindenburg, however, ordered ten thousand 
 special trains of Falkenhayn. 
 
WITH THE EASTERN ARMY 
 TO CALAIS 
 
 WITH the dawn the alert conquerors of the 
 Russians appear Hke the missionaries of 
 a new age. For fourteen days the trains roll 
 along uninterruptedly on the great lines from 
 East to West. They travel amid merry songs 
 and mirthful speech and bring to the Western 
 frontier the joyful confidence and the whole of 
 the great stress of action of the Eastern fron- 
 tier. The people gather about the railway 
 lines as if they were festive streets. The 
 journey of the Eastern Army to the Western 
 front is a triumphal progress without compare. 
 Now the great days have come, when the faith- 
 ful sentinels there in the West become outposts, 
 advanced posts of a giant army, habituated to 
 victory and lusting for deeds — an army which 
 has accomplished its first great task, and is 
 about to seek a new sphere of work. 
 
 On their wagons the soldiers have written 
 Russian and Galician place names ; these names 
 are not merely inscribed in the record of honor 
 of the regiment, they are also entered in the 
 books of the world's history. The regimental 
 
 30 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 31 
 
 colors will carry many names on them for thou- 
 sands of years to come. 
 
 The advance in the West will now be im- 
 petuous. The anticipation of crowning the 
 proud German work by decisive deeds burns 
 like tropical fire in their stout hearts. The 
 will to decide the fate of the world fills them 
 all to the last man; they all feel mighty and 
 holy. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which the gray-clad 
 soldiers are greeted on their passage even ex- 
 ceeds the jubilation of the August days of 1914. 
 For now joyous confidence is accompanied by 
 the satisfaction of success. Enthusiastic and 
 joyously expectant men of storm and stress at 
 that time marched out in the dark uncertainty 
 of a world-wide war, but now an army of men 
 tried in the storm assembles for the last deed. 
 Waves of jubilation roll alongside the trains 
 through the country. The troops need not this 
 time keep secret the fact that they are going 
 from one frontier to the other ; the whole world 
 may know now. Hurrah ! The Eastern Army 
 in now marching. On the chalk cliffs of Dover 
 the German cry of jubilation shall resound: 
 Hindenburg's miUion army is on the road with 
 seven-league boots ! 
 
 In all regions through which our Eastern 
 armies pass, people who have been compelled 
 to stay at home in these years of war, come 
 thronging from miles around. On the railway 
 
32 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 stations where the troops get refreshments, the 
 people press in dense crowds in order to greet 
 its victorious sons. They wish to look the 
 brave men in the eyes and shake the hands of 
 those who now travel from the storms of one 
 world to those of another. 
 
 They are lusty fellows going to reap new 
 laurels. Wind and weather on Russian soil 
 have imparted a healthy brown to their faces. 
 All is muscle and steel in these sinewy frames. 
 Faces are as if carved in oak; clear-cut, tough 
 features are firmly outlined. Plump cheeks 
 have, it is true, had to yield up something of 
 their fullness in snow and ice, in marsh and 
 burning sun, and to many a man of the Land- 
 sturm hard nights of war have added a few 
 wrinkles. The war has been a wholesome 
 training for those who had waxed fat in peace ; 
 and if war, that iron-bearded doctor, and close- 
 handed cook undertake the treatment, they do 
 not rest before the last ounce of superfluous 
 flesh has melted away. Quill-drivers, however, 
 have had their breasts expanded by the war; 
 many of them will feel stifled when again com- 
 pelled to sit at the desk. Many an eye which 
 seemed to grow tired in a monotonous occupa- 
 tion now gleams with fresh life. These eyes 
 have looked through hell on the Russian battle- 
 fields ; they know no more fear. The town-bred 
 generation of these times has once again come 
 to know gnomes and elves, and gods of the 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 33 
 
 woods and forests, and has led an heroic life of 
 nature. Those who had been mildewing in the 
 towns were here thrown upon themselves, and 
 many a man first discovered himself. Many of 
 them went into the field as Mr. Nobody, and 
 now high orders adorn their breasts. All have 
 felt the hardening breath of Mother Earth, and 
 are in process of moulding their future accord- 
 ing to their plans. 
 
 The people wishes to do the impossible; it 
 wishes to reward the bravery of its sons with 
 small gifts. It wishes to do good in some way 
 to those who have given it new life. Hearts 
 are overfilled with thankfulness and with secret 
 wishes — each one would like to whisper secretly 
 into the ear of the gray-clad man: "Go hard 
 at them over there during the coming weeks! 
 Be it an evil day for him who seeks to stop you ! 
 He will do not so a second time ! Thus Goethe 
 admonishes you." 
 
 An old mother has bought a dainty morsel 
 out of her meagre resources, and hands the 
 modest gift of love to a soldier with the words : 
 
 "Take it, do; it is a long way to London!" 
 
 In the German journey to England she also 
 intimately participates, for in France and Rus- 
 sia her sons have fallen. Many a small but 
 precious thing is also stowed away in the knap- 
 sack — many an old man in the Landsturm is 
 now having the time of his life. The troops 
 are traveling from one bloody field to the other, 
 
 3 
 
34 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 but their heart is as though their way lay- 
 through the Land of Plenty; the most choice 
 delicacies come through the windows into the 
 wagons. They have scarcely been half a day's 
 journey on their way to the heart of Germany, 
 but already they begin to pick and choose 
 among what is offered them by men and beau- 
 tiful girls. The young maidens of Berlin who 
 wish to treat the passing battalions with choc- 
 olates and savory sandwiches hear a fellow 
 from Munich say to them quite openly: 
 
 "If you had a measure of Hofbrau beer and 
 a veal sausage! — I have had enough of cold 
 cake and lemonade!" 
 
 Even wreaths are now declined with thanks 
 by the lionized Bavarians, for in their small 
 traveling warehouses they have already created 
 a department for flowers. A corporal of the 
 Light Horse, who, however, cannot refuse a 
 lovely giver says : 
 
 "Throw it in, for Heaven's sake! I tell you 
 we have had flowers enough to make a garland 
 from Zeebrugge to Grey's Ministry of Lies! 
 And we have still got to settle our account over 
 there . /.!" 
 
 They are a merry people. They do not talk 
 about the storm of battle and the labor of war 
 which again awaits them; they only want "to 
 get a peep at the Englishmen at close quarters !" 
 
 The wagons are not big enough to contain 
 all the merry conceits and poems in chalk, the 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 35 
 
 rhymes in which are more difficuh to find than 
 the enemy in the best masked positions! The 
 popular rhyme of "John Bull" and "Vest Full" 
 is repeated in scores of doggerel verses. In- 
 deed, the John Bull rhymers already suspect a 
 professional poet of being the author of "Tsar- 
 islaus is done for ; now, Englishman, your turn 
 has come !" 
 
 The pontoon men are, of course, described as 
 the "Channel Fleet." And on a munition 
 wagon, connoisseurs of the English ladies' 
 world have htmg a small placard: 
 
 "With great care! Incendiary bombs! 
 Mark: Pride of the suffragettes!" 
 
 Berlin Army Medical Corps men have writ- 
 ten over their department : 
 
 "Medical Society for combatting the English 
 disease. We shall teach the youngster how 
 to walk!" 
 
 On one wagon merry Landwehr men, who 
 have known London on their travels, have hung 
 puppet figures : one puppet represents an Eng- 
 lishman with considerably developed jaws; 
 right and left of him hang Indians, Congo nig- 
 gers, Gurkhas, Zulu Kaffirs and cannibals. 
 Above them are the words : 
 
 "All-British Shopping Week! A patriotic 
 week in which a good Briton will only buy 
 goods of British origin." 
 
 It had been since 1911 a favorite method of 
 fighting the insinuating "Made in Germany" 
 
36 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 goods. Fifty-two times in the year an "All- 
 British Shopping Week," and then the tottering 
 German industry would have been completely 
 disposed of! 
 
 Now they are off! Thousands of handker- 
 chiefs wave a last greeting, and longingly fair 
 maiden lips murmur, "Au revoir!" 
 
 "We shall be back before long; we only want 
 just to run over to London and to insure Ger- 
 many with the London Political Society against 
 burglary for all times. We only want to clear 
 the General Post Office of the four thousand 
 telegraphists, of the manipulators of lies who 
 have brought the whole thing on . . .!" 
 
 "Au revoir!" 
 
 The next giant train contains joyous Saxons. 
 In one compartment the merry superscription 
 appears : 
 
 "Notice ! The Corps Midwife. Applications 
 for delivery* of the Agreement of London con- 
 cerning a separate peace may be made here." 
 
 Another train carries a giant gun to the 
 Western front. 
 
 "Fat Bertha in her nightdress." 
 
 "The poor girl has a bad cough. ..." 
 
 And one of the gunners of fat Bertha says 
 gravely : 
 
 "Just you wait and see how she will thrive 
 when she is able to work in sea air !" 
 
 * "Dissolution" — a play on the two meaning's of the 
 
 word,— Trans. 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 37 
 
 Now "Halloas" and "I have the honor" 
 resound. Merry Austrians come in. Kaiser- 
 jaegers, Bosnians, blue-eyed Saxons from 
 Transylvania and the Tyrolean Landsturm, fel- 
 lows from the Otztal and Pinzgau, Passei and 
 Obervintschgau ; Styrians, who have made 
 their homes in the interior of rocks and by 
 stone firesides ; Honveds, who once hewed them- 
 selves a victorious path over the storm-swept 
 slopes of the Carpathians — all are proud at 
 being able to fight on under Hindenburg! 
 They wish to do their share in order that the 
 great days may come soon, very soon, with 
 which the historian will one day begin a new 
 chapter of the world's history. No one is under 
 any illusion; it will be no easy task to get at 
 the breakers of the world's peace on their 
 island. The last victories of the German and 
 Austrian flags will demand their toughest 
 strength. The climber along the winding path 
 to the last proud height finds each ridge more 
 steep — of that these Austrian Alpinists are well 
 aware. 
 
 Joyous confidence flows out of their car- 
 riages. Over one compartment they have writ- 
 ten "G.m.b.H."* They really mean them to 
 stand for "Grenzregulierungskommission mit 
 brillantem Humor" (Boundary Regulating 
 
 * A kind of German limited company. — Trans. 
 (Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung. Company 
 with limited liability.) 
 
38 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Commission with brilliant Humor). Yes, in- 
 deed, they have the golden humor of Vienna. 
 They chaff every girl, but appear to be experi- 
 enced philosophers in more serious things of 
 life. A man of the battalions of Vienna ex- 
 cavation engineers, a fellow with the Virginian 
 wisp of straw behind his ear and adorned with 
 a full beard which appears to have been cut with 
 the Bessarabian hedge-trimming shears, is 
 watching a Prussian Hussar who is saying 
 farewell to his girl on the platform. Seeing 
 the young cavalryman about to clasp the 
 maiden passionately to his breast at the parting 
 kiss, he says warningly: 
 
 "Just you listen to me and stop all that 
 silly sadness! Be sensible and do not play 
 the fool! Many a fellow has gone un- 
 scratched through a dozen battles and at the 
 end, by gum, has at last been clean knocked 
 out by a bullet !" 
 
 All the wits have their tongues wagging. 
 With "God preserve you !" and "Victory and 
 safe home !" the train rolls out, and the next 
 one is received with a rousing hurrah. 
 
 Thus it is on all lines from East to West 
 from early morning to late at night, and then 
 again till the morning. And joyful confi- 
 dence is the keynote of them all. The Ger- 
 man people stands around gratefully to greet 
 its valiant sons. And all those who cannot 
 join the colors still have a fiery wish, an im- 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 39 
 
 portant commission to give the Channel 
 voyagers. . . . 
 
 Certainly many a man now breathes with 
 relief when he has passed the noisy station 
 and can once more be alone with wood and 
 meadow, together with a few genial com- 
 rades. For many the journey through the 
 lands of Germany is far too solemn for them 
 still to be responsive to small jokes. For the 
 army of 1914 is the people. And as mani- 
 fold as the aspect of the soul of the Germans, 
 of so many kinds of soul are the soldiers in 
 this war made up. This army has no mind 
 for the pleasures of the barracks; each one 
 looks upon the things of life quite in his own 
 way. 
 
 Many would prefer not to be acclaimed, 
 not even to be addressed on this journey. For 
 they are now once more in process of discov- 
 ering their German fatherland; like children 
 who travel by railway for the first time, they 
 feast their eyes on the landscape. For 
 months they have marched through an enemy 
 country and have seen nothing but want and 
 care, devastated meadows and torn-up fields, 
 with bloody shreds of clothing and scattered 
 household goods. They have fought on the 
 ruin-covered fields of Galicia, have marched 
 over hideous mounds of Russian skulls, and 
 
40 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 now they again see German soil! Arouna 
 uninjured villages extends the kindly solemn- 
 ity of the German forests; hamlets set in 
 poplars peep out of the cradles of the valleys ; 
 proud country mansions greet them from un- 
 devastated meadow. German soil and above 
 it the radiant German sky — take off thy 
 shoes, for the ground is holy ! 
 
 When they had to seek shelter in Polish 
 stables and within carbonized Russian walls, 
 when they marched through lands which bled 
 from a thousand wounds, distant Germany 
 appeared to them in blessed dreams as in a 
 fairy tale — now they are for two days allowed 
 to dwell within this golden reality! When 
 crossing the German frontier, many of them 
 ceased the games upon which they were 
 engaged. 
 
 Now the eyes brighten up and feast to 
 satiety on the uninjured magnificence of the 
 meadows and stretches of forest; it is as if 
 they found all this for the first time. For long 
 months they have lived in thick air, impreg- 
 nated with iron, and seen untold misery; now 
 they come out of the air of death into the 
 fragrant air of the German forests, and they 
 would like to absorb the fragrance of Ger- 
 man soil into every fibre. Longing pent up 
 within the heart now descends upon the 
 German landscape like a storm of birds into 
 a field of sweet fruit. 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 41 
 
 Can it be really true that this country has 
 stood in combat with a world of enemies? 
 As far as the eye can reach there is pastoral 
 happiness and undisturbed arable soil. Was 
 it this thrice-blessed land which England de- 
 sired to put to hunger ? Curls of smoke above 
 the houses speak eloquently of a goodly 
 evening meal. . . . 
 
 The soldiers travel onwards intoxicated 
 with the pleasure of home ; the rough-skinned 
 men are lost in longing thoughts . . . some- 
 where over there behind the forest lies their 
 home . . . ! 
 
 Songs ring out. "Thee, my silent valley, I 
 greet a thousand times !" For soldier songs 
 they now have no heart; they strike up old 
 German national songs deeply imbued with 
 feeling and speaking of the dear home. For 
 the army of 1914 is the nation. 
 
 But this happiness which fills the hearts of 
 the soldiers when journeying through the 
 land of their home no longer intoxicates; it 
 stimulates more and ever more ; it calls them 
 out! They wish no longer to be onlookers at 
 this homely peace; they want to have the 
 good right to their home. They wish to stake 
 all in order to secure the world's peace! Be- 
 tween the verses of their home songs they 
 clench their fists. Their thoughts go in quest 
 of those who grudged the Germans their 
 peace; their heart? fill to overflowing with 
 
42 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 hate against the peddlers and envious men of 
 Albion! 
 
 There are many refined natures among the 
 soldiers, who, at the beginning of the war, 
 dishked nothing more than all poems of hate 
 and preachings of hate, and all that increased 
 hate among nations. Since they have real- 
 ized, however, what Albion with her hypoc- 
 ricy was aiming at — how she bought over 
 traitors to Germany with her base money; 
 how craftiness and jealousy were brought 
 into the field against the German sword ; how 
 Albion used colored vermin to destroy highly 
 cultured German men — then their motto 
 became: 
 
 "Give unto peace that which is of peace, 
 and unto war that which is of war !" 
 
 He indeed is an unworthy man who in peace 
 sows discord between the nations, but un- 
 worthy likewise is he who in this war desires 
 to abate a hating heart. 
 
 Peering, dreaming and clenching their 
 fists, Hindenburg's men voyage on through 
 the German lands. No, they do not want for 
 long to be dreamers of German home bless- 
 ings and comfort! They desire with their 
 swords to conquer the peace of the world. 
 They wish with the whole of their strength 
 to fight down what still stands between them 
 and that happiness. 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 43 
 
 In Berlin the rumor has spread abroad that 
 Hindenburg was going through to the West- 
 ern front in the evening; he will certainly be 
 the guest of the Kaiser for a couple of hours ! 
 The whole of Berlin remained on foot till late 
 at night, and contrived all sorts of honors for 
 the great vanquisher of the Russians. 
 
 Hindenburg did not come. He was already 
 over the Rhine. A word of the great Field- 
 Marshal passes from mouth to mouth: 
 
 "The Russian collapse is a remarkable past 
 success, but it is not yet time for festivities 
 and rejoicings." 
 
 And many of his faithful warriors have be- 
 come one in sentiment with him. Without 
 great talk they go out to new struggles, 
 calmly, with restrained strength and keen 
 eye, but without boastfulness. For over there 
 they have lived the elevated life of action, and 
 clearly distinguish words from war and its 
 essentials. They wave away all great hymns 
 of heroic deeds. What they did was to them 
 a matter of course. They will not, however, 
 be able to avoid the word "heroism" if they 
 should ever have to write history about them- 
 selves. Russia's power, with its fabulous 
 proportions ; Russia's army, with its gigantic 
 figures overthrown! He who has put his 
 hand to the accomplishment of this German 
 master work may, in truth, accept a laudatory 
 word from a faithful heart. If there ever were 
 
44 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 heroes, he is a hero. And if no enemy ever 
 came under his sword in the Russian cam- 
 paign, he is a hero in what he has suffered. 
 
 They do not Hke noise, and have grown un- 
 accustomed to all ceremoniousness. As the 
 trains roll on through the country, many of 
 them look back meditatively into the past. 
 Here on these tilled fields the great Frederick 
 once drilled his Guards. When England was 
 already comfortably endowed with wealth, 
 the sweat still poured from men's brows here. 
 And where the small troop from which the 
 Prussian army sprung was trained, a vic- 
 torious million army rushes by after the lapse 
 of a century and a half. It wants at last to be 
 at the nation against whom Frederick the 
 Great uttered warnings. 
 
 On the long journey there is hardly a dis- 
 trict within which a place does not recall a 
 battle. Germany has had to fight its way 
 hard, bitterly hard, through the centuries. 
 Germany may truly be proud of the victori- 
 ous army which, after long schooling in the 
 spirit of Frederick the Unique, had performed 
 the unexpected, and now bears up its spirit 
 to meet a second thundering battle. 
 
 On the journey towards the Rhine the 
 thoughts of many go delving deep; many 
 among them have had their views enlarged 
 as to the world's horizon for the first time by 
 this war. The teacher in field-gray passes by 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 45 
 
 a village school. When he again stands be- 
 fore his boys, he will no longer speak at 
 length about Ludwig the child and Karl the 
 fat ; he will show what Mother Earth means 
 to the nations of to-day, and how the power 
 of the soil and history combine as secret edu- 
 cators and give its importance to the nation. 
 And thus he will let his scholars know their 
 own mind as men of the present time. 
 
 And the young clergyman in field-gray 
 who sees soldiers at the stations standing by 
 the mourning mothers of their fallen com- 
 rades, has in this man-devouring war be- 
 come fully aware of the last philosophic and 
 social content of the simple words which 
 Jesus spoke on the Cross : 
 
 "Mother, behold thy son ! Son, behold thy 
 mother !" 
 
 War-time teaches us to dig deep. 
 
 And amid the far-traveling thoughts of one 
 and the longing, melancholy songs of the 
 other, yet another good-humoredly cracks 
 bad jokes. And perhaps it is well so. 
 
 While two Landwehr men here were going 
 into the connection of the ultimate things of 
 existence in war and peace, they heard in the 
 neighboring compartment two Landsturm 
 men talking of English financial policy. One 
 says: 
 
 "In the Dardanelles you see the entire 
 shabby sordidness in money matters of the 
 
46 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 English. For the head of a German-Turk de- 
 livered dead or aUve to the English Army 
 they have offered in all six pounds! Our 
 Kaiser is more liberal. For a certain head he 
 has offered the order Tour le Merite' !" 
 "Which head?" 
 
 "For the bridge-head of Calais !" 
 Moods of inspiration, and oaths, and good 
 and bad jokes intermingled — such is the life 
 of the soldier in the pauses between the fight. 
 
 The first troops from the East now see the 
 Rhine ! The soldiers grow silent and look into 
 the distance. Solemnity encompasses them, 
 they breathe deeply ; they have gone cross-wise 
 through the German Fatherland, and they know 
 what peace is. . . . 
 
 A brilliant sunlit day wafts blue and golden 
 hues over the land of the Rhine. On the shores 
 of the river joyous children gambol. Young 
 wayfarers pass singing on their road. 
 
 "You boys down there, wander merrily far 
 over hill and dale, steel your body and feed 
 your souls by looking ! Enjoy your youth with 
 all your heart, and value the happiness in that 
 you will at one time reap what we now sow for 
 you! Remain thus simple in your ways, ye 
 young wandering youths with the oak twigs in 
 your shaggy hats, and let your eyes drink deep 
 of the beauty of the German meadows! Do 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 47 
 
 not become old-fashionedly wise in these great 
 days ! Do not feed your young souls with book- 
 learning alone ! Wander through the German 
 countries in merry mood and light humor, as 
 though the German land had from the inception 
 of the world lain so, free from care in the sun, 
 and as though it cannot be otherwise for all 
 eternity. Life will soon enough make known 
 to you her marginal notes ! Keep your love for 
 your native soil, and honor your German 
 mother-speech — that is for the present all that 
 you have to do ! Be proud of your native land, 
 for in this pride is all: the will never to yield 
 up a morsel of this happiness, the courage of a 
 strong man's life, readiness for war." 
 
 This is the last will and testament of the 
 soldier, the last holy will before they march 
 out to new battles. 
 
 What the valiant men feel as they pass over 
 the Rhine is deeper than all words. A golden 
 consciousness of happiness is within them, and 
 the determination to fall with might and main 
 upon those who deprived Germany and the 
 world of peace by wanton intrigue. 
 
 Between Aachen and Brussels Kaiser Wil- 
 liam holds the greatest review of troops of all 
 times. The conquerors of the Tsar's army 
 march once more before their Kaiser before 
 going on to the last decisive battles at the front. 
 
48 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Full of pride, the German hosts once more feel 
 the keen blue eyes of the mightiest prince of 
 the earth resting upon them. They greet him 
 whom in love and blind hate the thoughts of 
 the entire world surround, who was for twenty- 
 five years guardian of the peace of the world, 
 who now stands at the centre-point of the great- 
 est war in the world's history, and will perhaps 
 live on through the thousands of years to come 
 as the greatest German in the history of Ger- 
 many! How much moral force must lie in the 
 Kaiser if the political peddlers and intrigue 
 weavers of Albion feel themselves so severely 
 endangered in their business success by the na- 
 ture and action of the Kaiser that they rage 
 against him and call to their aid common lies 
 and slander! In the eyes of his soldiers the 
 Kaiser reads the reply to all the repulsive at- 
 tacks from the other side of the Channel. 
 
 And side by side with the Kaiser the troops 
 of the East see their Hindenburg again ! 
 
 He is the soldier after the heart of the god 
 of war! 
 
 He is the general with mildly beaming eyes, 
 which, however, at times shine with a keen 
 glint of steel which recalls Moltke. 
 
 The great German of powerful old Germanic 
 figure, in whose rough features, chiselled by 
 iron power of will, there is something of the 
 pride which Bismarck displayed when in arms 
 against all the assailants of Germany. 
 
With the Eastern Army to Calais 49 
 
 He is the Director of battles fertile in 
 strategic forms, whose plans show the great 
 forecast of the master, the creative artist who, 
 regardless of all obstacles and with implacable 
 sternness, aimed at the final objective, and yet, 
 to the discomfiture of the enemy, made in- 
 genious use of the clause "Alterations of the 
 programme reserved !" 
 
 He is the mysterious wizard who knew how 
 to put the cap of Fortunatus on his troops, who 
 at times appeared to hesitate long, and then 
 suddenly hit out so vigorously that the prisoners 
 were counted in tens of thousands. 
 
 The man of deeds whom the times have 
 exalted as they rarely have anyone! The im- 
 mortal hero who will live long among the peo- 
 ple in the splendor of his knightly accoutre- 
 ments of steel ! 
 
 And now our faithful watchers of the West- 
 ern front are released from the unspeakable 
 tortures of trench warfare. Heroism of unique 
 magnitude lay in the tenacity with which they 
 held out in their tough endurance in their clay 
 holes, in the bravery with which they baffled 
 forward lunges like the rushes of a mad bull, 
 and in their behavior under the nerve-racking 
 hail of shells which raged day and night and 
 scarcely gave an instant's breathing space. 
 Now the time is come for preparing the storm- 
 ing ladders in the trenches. 
 
 The Eastern motor batteries and the Essen 
 
so Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 giants which jointly blew away the Russian 
 fortress ramparts, now reach the French and 
 English entrenchments and earthen bastions 
 bring out the enemy columns from their con- 
 cealments and dug-outs, and set the avalanche 
 rolling westward. They beset Dunkirk and 
 Calais in masses, shoot the two fortresses to 
 atoms, and prepare the way for the world- 
 famed collapse of the French army and th^ 
 British Continental troops. 
 
 Various field battles, as to the issue of which 
 the world is not in doubt for an instant, break 
 out, for now the German army, for the first 
 time, has an ally in its ranks which alone, it is 
 true, can do nothing, but in combination with 
 bravery must force the victory — that is, num- 
 bers, superiority in numbers. 
 
 The millions of the Eastern Army overrun 
 all the trenches in the Channel. Now shudder, 
 Albion ! 
 
 A giant swarm of Zeppelins, of whose size 
 even German soldiers did not venture to dream, 
 travelled one foggy morning to the west coast 
 of England and sought out the British Navy. 
 With a thousand bombs fifty full hits were 
 made. Explosions completed the work of de- 
 struction. Almost at the same time a gigantic 
 fleet of submarines broke into the British naval 
 harbor and completed the work. 
 
 England had her Sedan. She was now to 
 experience her Paris ! 
 
CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 
 
 TT is night. 
 
 •■■ Off Zeebrugge, Dunkirk, and Calais one 
 ship after another Hes moored. There is a 
 bustle and business in the harbors, as though 
 the entire continent had packed up its bun- 
 dles in order to emigrate to another world? 
 Was it to a better world ? It was into one of 
 the cold hells of which Asiatic religions tell. 
 To be at the throat of a cold devil who for 
 hundreds of years has carried on politics 
 from office chairs, and, cold to the heart, has 
 sought with skill and success to determine 
 the fates of nations according to the entries 
 of his business books. 
 
 Along the coast of Dunkirk numberless 
 German regiments are bivouacked, awaiting 
 the command to go on board, and in Calais 
 and Zeebrugge lie the mighty ships under 
 steam which will bring after the troops muni- 
 tions and provisions and the thousand varied 
 implements of war which a giant army re- 
 quires in its train. 
 
 The ambition of the troops who here await 
 51 
 
52 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 the hour of crossing has not achieved its 
 great object. When the young heroes went 
 westwards from Ukraine, they hoped to be 
 the first to tread the coast of England, and 
 now they have learnt that fifty battalions 
 have been over there for the past two days. 
 
 "Oh, the deuce take it! During two 
 months' fighting I was always in the front 
 rank, and whenever, after a thousand years, 
 our children's children still talk of the great 
 event, they will say we came too late!" says 
 one, stroking his yellow stubbly beard, which 
 in droll fashion recalls his home among the 
 goats of the Swabian Alps. "Our German 
 fellows must have swept over John Bull like 
 bad weather !" 
 
 Yes, the first blows in preparation of the 
 invasion were dreadfully hard, but brief. 
 "Tragic, but simple." The storming of the 
 Fortress Britannia was so boldly and safely 
 carried up to the ramparts of the Straits, as 
 though the English fortress were only one in 
 a dozen. For eight days new giant Krupp 
 guns had felt their way over to Dover and 
 Folkestone, and had destroyed everything 
 living on the south coast of England, reduc- 
 ing all the work of human hands to nothing. 
 Under the sustained fire of the monsters of 
 Essen and Pilsen the great fortification 
 works were hammered into dust. While 
 landings of troops were simulated between 
 
Crossing the Channel 53 
 
 Yarmouth and the mouth of the Thames, the 
 three waterways from Zeebrugge, Dunkirk 
 and Calais to England had been secured east 
 and west by a steel wall of torpedo boats and 
 mines and submarines. Finally the Kaiser 
 sent his cousin the promised little surprise 
 . . , and for the last forty-eight hours 
 two army corps had stood on the shores of 
 the island. 
 
 The whole of England is aroused in wild 
 and furious hate against the Germans. They 
 are now once more calling upon the entire 
 world to assist them against the intruders. 
 But no one crowds on to a sinking ship. It 
 is true England has still assembled a respect- 
 able number of foreign battalions and colored 
 people from all parts of the world on its 
 island in order to repel the invasion, but they 
 will no longer succeed in bringing in foreign 
 reserves. Now for the first time in centuries 
 England is thrown on her own resources. 
 Now she shall show what she can do when 
 she gets no foreign team to draw her State 
 wagon! The need over there is great just 
 now. . . . 
 
 All night long the cranes rattle at the new 
 German moorages in North France. Boxes 
 and cases, items of equipment, many thou- 
 sands of necessary things, He heaped up on 
 the wharves — requirements for man, animal 
 and guns. One goods train after the other 
 
54 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 traverses Flanders, and the treasures which 
 they bring from the well-filled storehouses 
 of Germany are lowered into the holds in 
 Zeebrugge and Calais. 
 
 In the district of Dunkirk there is scarcely 
 a house or a shed in which German troops do 
 not pass the night. From here during this 
 night happy dreams wander by way of Eng- 
 land to the home, for the last thought of this 
 outward journey to hard, decisive battles is 
 peace — a world peace ! 
 
 Major Sigwart and Lieutenant Eickstadt 
 can get no sleep, and they go out upon voy- 
 ages of discovery. In the vicinity of the 
 town they see pioneers and companies of en- 
 gineers still engaged in building an enormous 
 shore hotel at midnight. A bomb-proof roof 
 frame quite peculiar in shape is being built 
 for it. . . . High guests are expected — 
 Zeppelins! Four at a time. At the side of 
 this hall a peculiar cross stands erect. On 
 the trunk of an ash-tree, the crown of which 
 has been shot away by shell, a propeller 
 blade has been nailed crosswise, and a wooden 
 tablet bears the inscription in handwriting: 
 
 "Here rest the brave men of the Jubilee 
 airship Z 100. In the fog of the Channel they 
 came too near to the fortress works. . . ." 
 
 The cross and the hall behind it — these 
 were a picture from which Major Sigwart 
 could not tear himself away for some time. 
 
Crossing the Channel 55 
 
 "The picture is, as it were, a simile of Ger- 
 man character," he says to Lieutenant Eick- 
 stadt. "Failures do not hold back the Ger- 
 man; they only bring pride in his diligence. 
 Behind the cross of the dead is . . . the 
 Will to Conquer!" 
 
 During the entire night our "Blue Jackets," 
 in field-gray, put away the traveling luggage 
 of his Lordship the German Army — cavalry 
 horses, motor-cars, oversea outfit down to the 
 proverbial last spat-button. 
 
 In the midst of the busy turmoil the warn- 
 ing call of watchful posts cries out from the 
 distance. Sirens howl. A squadron of aero- 
 planes is coming flying along from the Chan- 
 nel. The horrid guests in field-gray are now 
 on the threshold of England, and the latter 
 is making the last endeavor to prevent the 
 shipment of new armies. The need is great 
 over there. . , . 
 
 There they come ! The French and Italian 
 machines appear here and there among the 
 English. In her hour of utmost need Eng- 
 land, by merciless financial operations, has 
 compelled her impoverished vassal States to 
 support her with soldiers and weapons and 
 munitions ... the soldiers, the guns, and 
 the munitions have been appropriated by our 
 submarines, but the flying men have punctu- 
 
56 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 ally joined their allies, in order to ward off 
 unimaginable evil from the money supplier 
 of the three-fourths bankrupts. 
 
 The buzzing comes nearer and threaten- 
 ingly nearer. 
 
 Bombs fall down like rain and hail in pre- 
 historic times. A thunder resounds, as 
 though stars crushed to atoms fell from the 
 heavens. German guns growl. A couple of 
 German aeroplanes have bravely accepted 
 battle two thousand five hundred metres 
 high, but must yield to a ten-fold superior 
 force. Infantry take sporadic aim. Every 
 second a flash of lightning illumines the 
 clouds, and every flash is a hit. Our gunners 
 keep steady and aim well. One aeroplane 
 drops into the sea; four, five, find a grave 
 along the fringe of the coast. And many of 
 them stagger like a lame bird, and will 
 scarcely find their way home. 
 
 A terrible hit: a German ship is on fire! 
 
 A sinking ship, with lakes of blood and 
 rust of powder, fragments of aeroplanes, 
 gurgling waves, men writhing in anguish — 
 that is the result of a few minutes. The 
 dreadful ghost went as quickly as he came. 
 
 An English battle aeroplane while still in 
 the air receives orders to fly to the Irish Sea, 
 because from there British submarines have 
 reported by wireless that their compass has 
 been destroyed. The bird will pilot the 
 fishes to the harbor. 
 
Crossing the Channel 57 
 
 The swell foams with a murmur against 
 the breakwater. Searchlights scrutinize 
 earth and sky. On swaying stages the com- 
 panies leave the European continent, but 
 their confidence passes as surely as on iron 
 bridges over to the British Isle. They would 
 now like to strike up a merry song, but must 
 restrain their German pride and the longing 
 for action which would express itself in song 
 — the water might have ears ! Furthermore, 
 in German fashion, the fact has not been con- 
 cealed from the troops that yesterday a 
 British submarine succeeded in sinking a 
 German troop transport. 
 
 There was no handkerchief waving, no 
 beckoning of women's hands, and all lights were 
 shaded, but in all eyes was the fire of enthu- 
 siasm! And this holy fire in the eyes of the 
 gray seafarers will be shaded no more by any 
 power in the world. 
 
 Man and steed are weary beyond expression ; 
 they still have in their limbs the fatigues of the 
 last battle for Boulogne. But the pride of 
 being in at the finish keeps the troopers 
 awake! When the anchors are raised and 
 two torpedo boats attend as convoy, the last 
 rifleman becomes aware that he is now living 
 through a great and memorable moment in the 
 world's history. Now he is penetrating into 
 the sanctuary of the British! Now for the 
 tables of the traffickers and money-changers, 
 
58 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 who still offer the doves of peace for sale in 
 the market of the world, when they thought 
 they had already completed the work of isola- 
 tion, and the Russian war party had already 
 given the signal. Now the All-holiest of the 
 British Nation is in danger, the treasures be- 
 tween Threadneedle Street and Princes Street ! 
 The need in the business region of the Bank of 
 England is great. 
 
 The engines throb; the ship seeks its way 
 through the night. No sign of light on the 
 shore betrays how far behind Dunkirk already 
 lies. Enormous fires farther back inland write 
 upon the nightly sky that the European con- 
 tinent, thanks to England's zealous and well- 
 directed exertions for many years, has become 
 a sea of blood. It contains, however, two un- 
 injured and blooming oases — the German Em- 
 pire and the Danube country. 
 
 Diffidently at first, and then full of proud 
 will to conquer, the day dawns. 
 
 In the Eastern sky the struggle of light 
 against darkness has broken out, a few ram- 
 parts of cloud have already been gained by the 
 outposts of day, and this Eastern Army also 
 passes over to take the West by storm. Sullen 
 black masses are called up, but radiantly the 
 young day appears ! In front of it the North 
 Sea, it is true, lies like a blood-red carpet. . . . 
 
 The morning colors the chalky cliffs of the 
 English coast a pink hue, and greets the G^r- 
 
Crossing the Channel 59 
 
 man army hosts. The eyes of the young heroes 
 gleam afresh. They would, however, not have 
 been good Germans if here and there one of 
 them had not been made hieditative by the 
 morning dawn which filled their souls with 
 pictures of home and a gentle melancholy. 
 Silent and quiet lost in themselves, many of 
 them wonder what the day will bring . . , 
 and how things will be when they cross again. 
 . . . Will the return passage be over the 
 Channel or over that black stream which 
 washes the Isle of the Dead ? 
 
 Here is seated a group of young enthusiasts 
 in front of the picture of Nature, while there 
 one greets the morning light thus : 
 
 "There you are, I can write a picture post- 
 card at last!" War poetry and Landsturm 
 prose ! 
 
 But all of them are to-day writing picture 
 cards, both the poets and the realists among 
 those clad in field-gray. To-day even the negli- 
 gent one, who otherwise gives the field post 
 little to do, will write. 
 
 "Dear Sweetheart, — To-day we have at last 
 got so far. Gott strafe England ! . . ." 
 
 "Dearest Gustel! Hurrah! Now we are 
 at them! We are just going over now, and 
 shall give the British business offices a good 
 fumigation and kill the envy germs !" . . . 
 
 "Dear old Gal, — ^We are on the job now! 
 As soon as you get this 'ere letter your bloke 
 
60 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 will have run his sword through the knot which 
 that crafty old Edward thought he tied so 
 smartly!" . . . 
 
 They had not written with such enthusiasm 
 since the days of August, 1914. 
 
 Gazing, writing and dreaming, the troops 
 get nearer to their goal; soon they will be 
 islanders ! 
 
 "Stop!" 
 
 The ship trembles in all its joints, it has been 
 brought to a stop so suddenly. 
 
 A mine is floating before the bow ! 
 
 This fragment from the gigantic iron ram- 
 part of England escaped the mine sweepers. 
 But the two smart battle steeds which, with 
 long trailing manes of smoke, leap along and 
 athwart the vessel have sharp eyes ! Soon the 
 ominous monster of the sea has been deprived 
 of its sting. 
 
 From England distant rolling thunder of 
 g^ns is wafted. Things may be already pretty 
 hot over there! But the confidence of our 
 soldiers is unshakable. They see endless black 
 clouds floating above the Channel, funnel after 
 funnel; Germany is on the march. And they 
 see the three fighting comrades who are cross- 
 ing with them — three heavy guns, which, with 
 their cruel, hard blows, have helped to smash 
 down the ramparts of the Russian fortresses. 
 The three forty-two-centimetre guns are now 
 asleep like buffaloes worn out with fatigue. 
 
Crossing the Channel 61 
 
 The gunners will awaken them over there and 
 teach them to rumble again ! 
 
 A stiff breeze arises. The ever-living waters 
 of the Channel breathe hot. On the port side 
 the waves greedily lick the ship's walls. To 
 landsmen it is a movingly beautiful picture to 
 see the waves spray over the torpedo boats and 
 mount high along the sides of the steamer. 
 During the millions of years in which the waves 
 of the sea have washed the round ball of the 
 earth, the sea has never been fed with so many 
 ships as during these years of war, and now it 
 seems that its voracity had grown with the 
 plenitude of its indulgence. A toothsome mor- 
 sel certainly it would have been, a war-equipped 
 regiment of German world-war victors! 
 Watchful the deck officers stand, and with their 
 keen-eyed glasses scan the horizon. Each sailor 
 peers with vulture eyes . . . now the rank 
 and work of the individual fighters can no 
 longer be measured by the idea of duty; now 
 each one from the enormous stress of his soul 
 gives his last, for each one knows that Ger- 
 many from hour to hour is waiting for news, 
 and that the entire world is holding its breath 
 during these days! It is now a fight to the 
 last man ! Now each one has the fate of Ger- 
 many in his hands. 
 
 The chalk cliffs have moved nearer and 
 ncRrcr 
 
 "Hurrah! Dover!" 
 
62 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 A picturesque bay it may have been in time 
 of peace, but now the sea swells about a heap 
 of ruins. In the clefts of the rocks there are 
 still here and there trails of smoke showing 
 where shots have fallen, and fires raging. 
 
 Rattling, the anchor seeks the bottom. The 
 two small, smart little steeds wih floating manes 
 snort for a couple of minutes, then they gallop 
 back to convoy another regiment. Perhaps they 
 are already bringing over him who, with his 
 staff, dwells in Dunkirk in the vicinity of the 
 Telefunken wireless apparatus, and directs the 
 battle which has flamed up in England. 
 
 After the troops have climbed up and have 
 passed the ruins of the fortifications and bar- 
 racks, they halt at a field altar. At the thresh- 
 old of England the clergyman wishes to speak 
 to the soldiers of watching and praying: that 
 the heart should be humble before God, and the 
 neck stiff before the enemy! That the heart 
 should pray and the eye be watchful! He 
 reads from the Bible the text in which all his 
 thoughts are to be summed up : 
 
 "The Lord will be with thee and not with- 
 draw His hand from thee, nor abandon thee, 
 until thou " 
 
 "An aviator !" 
 
 "Fallout!" 
 
 "Seek cover!" 
 
 As soon as the troops are able to creep for- 
 ward out of their cover they once more gather 
 round their preacher. He reads on : 
 
Crossing the Channel 63 
 
 "The Lord will be with thee and not with- 
 draw His hand from thee, nor abandon thee, 
 until thou hast accomplished everything!" 
 
 "Until thou hast accomplished every- 
 thing ... !" 
 
 This is what the soldiers take with them from 
 the divine service into the battle. 
 
BATTLES IN THE SOUTH OF 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 THE main roads, on which the troops 
 landed to-day, march into the south- 
 eastern counties of England present a har- 
 rowing picture. The German corps, which 
 after the keenly contested battle in the hop- 
 fields of Kent are now already on their vic- 
 torious march passing through the county 
 of Sussex, so richly endowed by nature with 
 landscape beauty, have had to face a sharp- 
 shooters' warfare, exceeding in its atrocities 
 the performances of Belgian blackguards. 
 The German commanders have been com- 
 pelled to take stern measures of reprisal. 
 They will be a warning to English craft and 
 cunning. 
 
 In order to make the position of things 
 quite clear to his King's Grenadiers of Dres- 
 den, Major Sigwart assembles them around 
 him and reads over to them a proclamation 
 taken yesterday from a miscreant caught 
 red-handed and shot on the spot, the chair- 
 man and leader of some local council. 
 
 64 
 
Battles in the South of England 65 
 
 "Fellow citizens! The hordes of German 
 Huns have raised their coarse barbarian fists 
 against us! The deadly enemies of all pro- 
 gress of civilization, the tramplers on all 
 human rights, graze their horses on the holy 
 fields of Britain! The Moloch of Prussian 
 militarism opens wide its evil-smelling jaws 
 and threatens to grasp us between its teeth! 
 Gentlemen of Britain! we ask you, will you 
 suffer these Germans — who, owing to their 
 notorious want of education, could only find 
 a footing in London, the City of Culture, as 
 waiters and barbers — will you suffer them to 
 be in your native land for one hour longer? 
 Ladies of Britain! we ask you, will you allow 
 the fat sons of the sauerkraut 'Hausfraus' to 
 pass through the streets of your home? If 
 you will not suffer this, then 'To Arms.' 
 Your King appeals to you in a difficult hour, 
 See that each parish, each house, becomes a 
 trap from which not a single German rat 
 shall escape alive." 
 
 The soldiers now know how comfortable 
 it will be in the quarters of this battle area! 
 With revolver heroes and mixers of poison! 
 
 Major Sigwart enjoins the utmost caution 
 upon his men, and admonishes them to be 
 mistrustful at every step. 
 
 He concludes his address by saying: 
 
 "For hatred there is no such thing as the 
 
66 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 world's history. Hate has never learnt from 
 the past. The heart of England will not be 
 instructed even by the fate of Belgium! We 
 shall repeat the lesson of Louvain upon the 
 shooters from behind hedges if need be ! We 
 want an honorable battle with soldiers ! But 
 bandits shall not harm the hair on a German 
 soldier's head with impunity!" 
 
 For the Major no further stern orders or 
 forcible measures are necessary on the for- 
 ward march. The German advance com- 
 panies have already become wary. . . . 
 
 If the troops are preceded by dreams of 
 happiness in the direction of London, they 
 march gallantly forward! Our field-gray 
 clad men are merry and of good cheer. 
 
 But soon the bitterly hard reality breaks 
 into their dreams. The frightful traces of 
 furious recent battles already show them- 
 selves. Every hedge, every farm, has be- 
 comes a red milestone to the German and 
 Austrian armies on their victorious march. 
 Many a hastily knocked together cross of 
 rough birch on the road carries a helmet of 
 field-gray. 
 
 The road runs through landscapes of de- 
 vastated beauty. The parks of English lords 
 have been crushed under foot and overturned 
 by the war. Yew trees, centuries old, bleed 
 
Battles in the South of England 67 
 
 out of wet, gleaming, splintered wounds. 
 They have survived for many hundreds of 
 years, and knew nothing of the fact that upon 
 earth there is at times the turmoil of war. 
 Yes, Old England has in the course of cen- 
 turies been fortunate indeed ! It waged war 
 often enough, and allowed other nations to 
 suffer and paid vassals to fight for it, and its 
 old yews learnt nothing of all the unspeakable 
 heart's suffering which the much-tried Con- 
 tinent had to endure ! 
 
 The gardener War has worked wondrous 
 changes in the park-like meadows in which 
 huge shell holes yawn. And on the green 
 sward he has intertwined his poppy-red ten- 
 drils. He has ploughed over all the gardens 
 of Sussex, and where War runs his plough 
 along the digging is deep. What can the 
 giant shell have been looking for in the ele- 
 gant old mansion? It has fetched out weap- 
 ons, stones, pillars, shreds of concrete, table 
 slabs — with all these things it laid about it 
 and extinguished all life far around. 
 
 And on the fields of these fertile lands there 
 now grow nothing but steel sheaves with 
 steel ears, pyramids of rifles. Every bend of 
 the land swarms with German and Austrian 
 troops hastening to battle. 
 
 At a railway junction in South Sussex a 
 large number of prisoners from the recent 
 battles may be seen. 
 
68 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 "War puts many a man on his feet! But 
 many cavalry men above all !" jokes a Grena- 
 dier officer, as severalEnglish cavalry squad- 
 rons in smart khaki uniforms passed the 
 German troops towards the railway station, 
 in order from there to undertake that journey 
 to the heart of Germany and the Danube 
 which had been dreamt of some ten years be- 
 fore, though in a somewhat different way. 
 
 The caravans of prisoners there resting 
 are really strange medley of peoples. Indian 
 horsemen with false precious stones in their 
 turbans lie alongside ragged Montenegrins; 
 North Indian Sikhs, men of Madagascar, 
 Senegalese, Basutos from the Cape, Gurkhas, 
 Indians, Black South Sea Islanders, and City 
 of London Reservists are encamped side by 
 side. England has shrunk from no expense 
 in the service of humanity : pioneers of civil- 
 ization from the darkest corners of the 
 world were to show the vile German Huns 
 what education and manners are. 
 
 Repellent Congo negroes, whose torn faces 
 still bear all the marks of Belgian colonial 
 atrocities, relate gleefully how noble ladies 
 of London, formerly murdering Suffragettes, 
 had kissed them as liberators! They show 
 how their arms were allowed to encircle the 
 fair ones — their hands look like the claws of 
 beasts of prey. 
 
 "Phew, deuce take it!" says a German 
 
Battles in the South of England 69 
 
 Landwehr man. "They do not know that for 
 the pious English ladies there is nothing now 
 more worthy of worship than a noble gentle- 
 man from a heathen land. And what should 
 one not do indeed to promote the comfort of 
 the brave forces who are to free the world 
 from the German barbarians !" 
 
 Some prisoners look serious and medita- 
 tive, but the colored ones have not yet real- 
 ized that on the British Islands they were 
 employed as wretched serfs, and that only by 
 chance have they escaped their higher des- 
 tination of terminating their life as miserable 
 food for cannon in England. 
 
 Under the leadership of a man from 
 Monaco, an international public organize a 
 little game in the street trench. Soon, how- 
 ever, they give a thorough drubbing to their 
 banker, the expert from Monte Carlo, for 
 having tricked them. The game room is 
 cleared by the German Landsturm. 
 
 Major Sigwart asks his adjutant to take a 
 photo of the encamped caravans. 
 
 "Write under the picture: 'EngUsh Muni- 
 tions.' " 
 
 In the west of Sussex the storm of battle 
 rages hard. The reserves are hurried for- 
 ward to this field. They march swiftly 
 onwards. 
 
70 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 It now begins to smell of chlorine. Our 
 Grenadiers are approaching the fields where 
 the battalion will no doubt be used to-morrow. 
 
 The parks and meadows bear harrowing 
 testimony to the recent combats. Perforated 
 helmets lie here, wheel spokes smashed, horse 
 trappings. Steel fragments of gigantic shells 
 glitter in the sun like iron-pointed clubs of the 
 Middle Ages, in the hands of the torturers. 
 For hours by road the shells came here to help 
 build a cemetery of many miles in extent. 
 
 With widely opened eyes and convulsively 
 outstretched legs the horses lie. Stately race- 
 horses they may have been. They were in- 
 tended, no doubt, to be shown at Epsom before 
 hundreds of thousands. Instead of the many- 
 colored jockeys, crows and ravens are riding 
 on them. 
 
 The acrid pestilential smell would bar the 
 road to novices. Our soldiers have become 
 inured to this, and it would have to pour thickly 
 indeed on the heroes of Arras and Gilgenburg 
 before it weakened their courage. They know 
 that the road to victory looks a little different 
 from what it is pictured at times in festive 
 addresses. . . . 
 
 After many hours of march the Grenadiers 
 reach that portion of the recent battlefield 
 where the Army Medical Corps columns are 
 still at work. Wagons travel by from which 
 pitiful groaning is heard. Here from a heap 
 
Battles in the South of England 71 
 
 of boulders a couple of boots project dripping 
 with blood. The feet are still within them. 
 The hospital assistants will hardly find the body 
 which corresponds to that smashed skull over 
 there. An English horseman has had his veins 
 burst by the air pressure of a shell, so that his 
 face is overrun with black blood. On a rail- 
 way embankment hewn-down Pomeranians lie 
 alongside Highlanders torn to pieces. And on 
 the same embankment there still stands a big 
 board on which the words appear in huge 
 letters : 
 
 "Off to Berlin! Great tennis tournament. 
 Balls supplied by the Government! Great at- 
 traction ! Fine sport in Flanders ! Followed by 
 winter festival on the French Rhine! Feasts 
 of victory in the ruins of Krupp in Essen! 
 Visit to the caves of militarism, the barracks of 
 Berlin! Apply at once! Good sport guaran- 
 teed ! Hurry up and be sure you are there be- 
 fore the great finish." 
 
 Now the great finish has come and they were 
 there. At the foot of this repulsive board lies 
 a heap of corpses. They must certainly have 
 fought bravely, those sinewy figures of tough 
 young sporting men, before they were mown 
 down by machine-guns. 
 
 The entire landscape, which may have pre- 
 sented most attractive pictures during peace, is 
 desecrated by ugly advertising boards. While 
 our battalion rests it lies opposite a huge board ; 
 
11 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 "Beecham's Pills are the best. Beecham's 
 Pills cure." 
 
 A company clerk climbs up and corrects it in 
 red pencil : 
 
 "Germans' Pills are the best. Germans' Pills 
 cure." 
 
 Major Sigwart takes pleasure in such little 
 merry pranks. His motto is: "Cheerfulness 
 helps men valiantly forward, but a sullen face 
 is certainly concealed desertion of colors." 
 
 To your guns. Onwards and ever onwards ! 
 The day of the last great victory must be 
 achieved by infantry on the move. 
 
 They march until evening. Then our Gren- 
 adiers put up their tents. 
 
 Even before midnight an orderly comes rush- 
 ing to the city of tents. . , . 
 
 An alarm! 
 
 The Major calls the outposts in. In a couple 
 of minutes the battalion is ready for the march. 
 Stumbling they go onwards in the night. 
 
 After midnight the organ of battle begins to 
 play through its entire gamut. Dull, growling 
 songs of bards. In the nightly .sky flicker the 
 searchlights. The battalion is getting nearer 
 to the area of battle, where there is no night 
 and no rest. 
 
 Now the gun-fire can be heard shot after 
 shot. Machine-g^ns rattle off hard lessons. 
 
Battles in the South of England 73 
 
 Shells moan. Now heavy battalions of howitz- 
 ers shriek out their battle-cry. Alongside the 
 growl of these huge beasts the rifle fire sounds 
 like the wretched pattering of rain, and the 
 short and hasty rattle of the machine-guns re- 
 sembles the harmless noise of a woodpecker. 
 
 Pale dawns the morning, and the Grenadiers 
 march and still march. Their brows are wet 
 and their knapsacks weigh hundred-weights. 
 
 Behind the bushes miserably clad forms come 
 slouching forward, hunger driving them from 
 their lairs. They raise their arms high and 
 shout and lament, and behave as though pos- 
 sessed by the devil. They only calm down when 
 they are assured again and again by German 
 officers through interpreters that they will not 
 be used on Krupp's shooting ranges as targets. 
 
 Orderlies dash from the commander's head- 
 quarters to the staffs. The battalion is ordered 
 on by forced marches. 
 
 The regiments of artillery overtake in mad 
 gallop the quick-stepping Grenadiers. Bri- 
 gades of horsemen fly by on the dusty roads 
 and powder the infantry with dust. No cloth 
 dyes could in so masterly a fashion clothe the 
 infantry men in protective color and impart to 
 their uniforms the exact creamy hue of English 
 landscapes as the cavalry and artillery do in an 
 instant. 
 
 Orderlies bringing new orders come flying 
 up. The battalion is to be carried forward in 
 cars. 
 
74 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 What an outcry as the first troops get into a 
 captured London motor-bus on which there still 
 stands in big letters : 
 
 "Come with us ! Kitchener wants you ! This 
 car is at the disposal, free of charge, of all who 
 wish to enter." 
 
 Hurrah for Kitchener! We accept the 
 kindly offer with thanks ! We are coming ! 
 
 Our Grenadiers arrive punctually on the 
 borders of the battlefield. Every thicket of 
 trees swarms with troops. Alongside the bat- 
 talion are mounted Silesian Jaegers waiting the 
 telephone call. They have sat up and once more 
 slapped the necks of their horses. 
 
 Artillery, too, is in readiness in the thicket, 
 and awaits the command to join in the battle, 
 which rages even more thunderously towards 
 the west. 
 
 On the outskirts of the wood Major Sigwart 
 informs his officers of the position : 
 
 Over there, on the westerly horizon, lies 
 Gibbet Hill, and in front of it, on its eastern 
 slope, passes the embankment of the railway 
 from London to Portsmouth. These are the 
 first objectives on the road to London. 
 
 On the border of the battlefield! Here the 
 line pregnant with meaning is drawn which 
 divides two worlds. 
 
 Up to this point manoeuvre experiences suf- 
 fice, together with the careful preparatory 
 work of the military scientists. Here, how- 
 
Battles in the South of England 75 
 
 ever, the work of will begins, and the mobiliza- 
 tion of the highest moral forces. Up to here it 
 was a question of the readiness for marching 
 of the great mass, but now each individual 
 must set up his man. Up to here the conduct 
 of war has been wise and semi-mechanical 
 manipulation, but now a keen eye, speedy de- 
 cision, and a courageous heart are needed. 
 
 Riders dismount ! The interior of the mod- 
 ern battlefield belongs to the infantry. 
 
 The reserve battalions on the margin of the 
 battlefield receive the order to make their way 
 into the foremost trenches, in order to 
 strengthen the firing line. Much blood has 
 been shed there. The battalions are to jump 
 into the hard-fought trenches . . . and the 
 soldiers burn to go to the assistance of their 
 sorely pressed brothers. 
 
 The battalion falls out into thin lines and 
 groups, and each small group must now see to 
 make its own way forward safely. The 
 ground is not favorable for bringing up re- 
 serves. Hedges, walls and clumps of trees oflfer 
 cover. Where, however, the reserve troops 
 have to run over an open piece of ground an 
 awful rain of iron pours down on them. Be- 
 tween the tree clumps Death stands and de- 
 mands toll of the passers-by. 
 
 The storm of battle rages dreadfully. The 
 
76 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 reverberation of the explosion never dies down, 
 as the decHning growl is at once caught up by 
 the next shell. Although over there, behind 
 bush and trench, the lust of death looks out 
 greedily for what it may grasp ; though in the 
 battered trenches, scarcely affording any 
 shelter, death and suffering encompass them 
 about, the groups yet have the will victoriously 
 to advance, and this will find the way. Now 
 here, now there, they dash forward without 
 intermission and without hesitation. The fore- 
 most trenches, miles in length, draw to them- 
 selves like magnets the small iron chips of the 
 companies. 
 
 A long and dangerous stealthy march brings 
 the battalion of Major Sigwart to the trenches 
 in front. Death has called only twelve of his 
 brave fellows to pass another way. 
 
 The Grenadiers have run breathlessly, as if 
 a paradise opened before them, and now they 
 have reached a hell. 
 
 "They don't fire badly, those English chaps !" 
 
 This means, when translated into civilian 
 language, "The battle is raging fiercely." In 
 none of the battles of this world-wide war did 
 the fury attain to the terrific pitch, to the des- 
 perate blind rage, of the collisions and contests 
 which are to be fought out on English soil. 
 
 Hiss and scream and buzz go on unceasingly. 
 And the English shots do not travel up into 
 the blue of the sky. They know their way well 
 
Battles in the South of England 11 
 
 about these parts, are able to locate the enemy 
 and strike upon the roof of his subterranean 
 dwellings. Ramparts break down, wire en- 
 tanglements are reduced to shreds, and waves 
 of earth are dashed into the trenches. A glance 
 at the battle area makes it clear how obstinate 
 the struggfe will be! From a hundred thou- 
 sand bloodthirsty guns fire is belched — from 
 machine-guns, howitzers, and armor-plated 
 cannon. 
 
 The German guns leave no shot unanswered, 
 and the German gunners, too, if they had been 
 unskilled beforehand, would have learned to 
 aim on the great Russian and French shooting 
 ranges. And the Austrians have had their war 
 training at the Isonzo. The mine-throwers 
 — the machines revived from the Middle Ages, 
 resembling a crouching dog in shape — belch 
 death and destruction, and where heavy torpedo 
 shells alight it is a holiday there, too. 
 
 True, the troops have, during the lengthy 
 struggles of this world-wide war, learned the 
 way to protect themselves, like cave bears 
 against the dangers of the battle, but the Ger- 
 man soldiers have no further liking for fresh 
 position warfare! When the English lyddite 
 shells waft their stinking greenish-yellow 
 sulphur fumes against them, they feel the desire 
 grow within them to get fresh air by storming 
 the enemy positions and thus get nearer to the 
 great objective. The longings of both general 
 
78 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 and private look beyond the enemy entrench- 
 ments away to London ! For only there can the 
 world's peace be secured, and nowhere else. 
 
 The enemy has his eyes and ears everjrwhere. 
 He is well-informed as to the strength of the 
 advance German regiments, and knows that in 
 the German trenches storming columns are as- 
 sembling who are to be directed towards Gibbet 
 Hill. He then begins to feel his way with his 
 heaviest guns from this hill into the German 
 entrenchments. His shots fall slowly, like the 
 thunderous step of some invisible fabulous be- 
 ing. At each step an approaching monster 
 strikes fire from the earth. The dreadful hoof 
 blows come nearer and nearer. Soon the mon- 
 ster has reached the entrenchments of our 
 Grenadiers, and steps and hovers about them, 
 crushing down the artificial structures here and 
 there until evening. It is a torture which no 
 words can describe to have to suffer under the 
 steps of this fury-breathing, invisible, giant- 
 hoofed monster. The Grenadiers, however, 
 keep undismayed to their work, and keep also 
 their underground prisons and excavations in 
 as good condition as they are able. 
 
 Suddenly a shot fired at a high angle hits 
 the bottom of the trench; it gets jammed be- 
 tween the boards and is held a moment as 
 though it had first to think of the command 
 with which the gunners sent it on its way. A 
 tremendous burst ... a clap of thunder 
 
Battles in the South of England 79 
 
 ... a spout of fire and smoke ... a wild 
 whirlwind dance . . . 
 
 A little afterwards a similar uncanny visitor 
 finds its way into the trench of the other wing 
 of the battalion. Will the men survive the 
 next few moments ? The steel visitor lies pow- 
 erless, inanimate. It seems to have lost its will 
 of destruction in its tearing flight. Any mo- 
 ment, however, its senses may return, and its 
 rage . . . those few seconds are pregnant with 
 awful fear. 
 
 Two pioneer non-commissioned officers take 
 the hot mass of steel on the straps of their guns 
 and drag it carefully away. 
 
 The soldiers grip the hands of both of them 
 with quite unmilitary heartiness. Many a quiet 
 heroic act of this great war will remain hidden 
 in oblivion. 
 
 The enemy also brings up reinforcements — 
 East Yorkshire Volunteers, Highlanders, Lon- 
 don Scottish. Has a trace of humanity been 
 moved in British hearts? Has Albion done 
 away with his colored animal vermin ? 
 
 No, it is only saving its Blacks, as it still has 
 ammunition of its own and of American manu- 
 facture. The Africans and Indians will, how- 
 ever, certainly be used up to the last man be- 
 fore a treaty of peace is signed. The niggers 
 are now still enjoying drill, or an easy time — 
 whichever you like. 
 
 The telephone brings the order to the corps : 
 
80 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 "To-morrow morning at four o'clock the 
 artillery will open fire on the enemy positions 
 on the railway embankment and Gibbet Hill. 
 Charge to take place at 7.30." 
 
 A bit of railway embankment and Gibbet 
 Hill! ... In the decision of the fate of the 
 world it is a question of the possession of 
 hedges, craters torn by shells, waste heaps. . , . 
 
 Late in the afternoon the artillery fight still 
 continues along the entire front, as in the 
 morning. Pillars of refuse and dust as high as 
 houses blow over the trenches. The inter- 
 change proceeds mercilessly. One would think 
 that the shells must at last rend apart the blue 
 silk of the heavens. They appear to lunge 
 blindly forward into the horizon, but each has 
 its carefully computed instructions to kill and 
 destroy. An aiming device contrived by human 
 cunning shows them how they are to satisfy 
 their lust of blood upon human beings. 
 
 The evening comes. The battle, however, 
 does not cease. The guns continue coughing 
 during the night as though to clear the powder 
 smoke out of their mouths. 
 
 At a late hour the Berlin Landwehr man 
 Watzlit reports himself to Major Sigwart. He 
 no longer looks smart; his comrades call him 
 "Quizzy lugs," because his ears stand out at an 
 angle, and he has a very dry humor. He hands 
 
Battles in the South of England 81 
 
 the Major quite a respectable little bag of gold 
 pieces. 
 
 Reservist Watzlit has been on patrol duty 
 during the day. On a silent meadow an Eng- 
 lish airman descended near him, being com- 
 pelled to land by our artillery. This airman, 
 with a mistaken notion of the German char- 
 acter, wanted to bribe him with fifty thousand 
 marks in bright gold. 
 
 "I said to him, 'Sei IseU' " 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "That's English, sir. In English 'i' is pro- 
 nounced like 'ei' and 'ie' like 'i,' sir. 'Sie EseV 
 ('You donkey'), I said to him in English. 'Do 
 you think I am an Italiano that you want to 
 bribe me?' I certainly won't have it said of 
 us that we are uneducated." 
 
 "Did he understand your English ?" 
 
 "Didn't look as if he did, sir. But I kept 
 hold of him by the collar and spoke to him in 
 German; then he understood. I said to him: 
 'Gold must be paid into the Reichsbank in Ger- 
 many. The nearest office of the Reichsbank is 
 Doberitz. I shall get you a ticket to Doberitz, 
 so that you can pay in your gold yourself.' " 
 
 While merry laughter was aroused for an 
 instant by this colloquy, a shell fragment as 
 big as a fist came flying along and claimed a 
 young ensign as its victim. War is a 
 capricious master, and will at times suffer no 
 merry face. 
 
82 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Now it is night. 
 
 The Grenadiers are now converted into 
 treasure seekers of rare ability. They are 
 burying their dead brothers who were the 
 victims of the hoof blows of the giant mon- 
 ster. The Pioneers dig their way into saps, 
 and behind steel shields work their way for- 
 ward in the open field to the enemy entrench- 
 ments. Fire leaps to meet them from trench 
 and bush. They stick doggedly to their 
 difficult work, however, and prepare the way 
 for the charging troops to-morrow morning. 
 
 Sleep well, young Grenadiers! To-mor- 
 row morning at half -past seven Fate will deal 
 hardly with you! Master Hindenburg re- 
 quires all from those who fight under his 
 colors. 
 
 In the small hours of the morning, on the 
 stroke of four, a noise like an inferno re- 
 sounds across the battle area. Over the 
 German line, miles in length, numberless steel 
 throats spout fire. The earth quakes beneath 
 the feet. Black masses of smoke gather above 
 the enemy positions. The enemy does not re- 
 main idle. From Gibbet Hill the British guns 
 send down their thunder shots. The salvoes 
 ring out uninterruptedly. High flames up 
 the destructive wrath of the German bat- 
 talions. The explosions of mines thrown 
 
Battles in the South of England 83 
 
 forward like rockets tear up the wondrous 
 land traversed by Martian canals. 
 
 "Boom! boom!" sing out the cannons. 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" reply the rifles, as though 
 laughing at the call of death. 
 
 Suddenly a hideous uproar breaks forth. 
 Has the Lord God given the sign for the de- 
 struction of the world? No, the forty-two- 
 centimetre Pilsen and Essen guns join in the 
 battle. They cover up the enemy trenches, 
 lift up English batteries, and grind enemy en- 
 trenchments to dust and ashes. They plant 
 the railway embankment between Godalming 
 and Petersfield with dark vegetation as high 
 as a house, and the small guns hang up their 
 shrapnel clouds like enormous caps of wool 
 on the black thicket. 
 
 For hours the fearful battle of guns rages. 
 Now those buffaloes who had slept during the 
 journey across are awakened. Now they 
 snort, and out of their nostrils pointed flames 
 project. 
 
 The great hour draws nearer and nearer. 
 
 The clocks in London strike seven. The 
 storming columns are already assembling in 
 the German trenches. It is now high time to 
 make the final preparations. But look, two 
 worthy Saxon Grenadiers on the left wing 
 there are still sitting and drinking a cup of 
 canteen coffee. 
 
 "What!" says one. "The English starve 
 
84 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 us ? If they have not succeeded in doing so 
 by sea, it is jolly certain they won't on land! 
 And now just let's have a Dresden good fat 
 sandwich. Boys, if the marmalade fellows 
 over there knew what a jolly life we still have 
 here!" 
 
 And with unshakable calmness they drink 
 their coffee and eat their sandwich twenty 
 minutes before the order to charge. 
 
 These two Grenadiers won the world war. 
 Their merry calm is indeed not indifference 
 nor yet gallows humor. It is a feeling of 
 pride in a consciousness of strength. They 
 know that success will be theirs. In them is 
 the good German spirit of unshakable con- 
 fidence that a right cause must conquer, and 
 when the ladders are put up for the charge 
 these two men will be in front. 
 
 Shortly before seven-thirty the infernal 
 thunder of battle suddenly ceases. It is the 
 rest of the lion crouching for a spring. 
 
 On the stroke of seven-thirty the young 
 lions stretch their limbs. God be with you, 
 valiant German youth ! 
 
 "Hurrah!" resounds somewhere. Now 
 there is no further hesitating for German 
 soldiers whose blood is up. The first line 
 bursts out. The hurrah swells into a jubilat- 
 ing storming song which leads the troops into 
 
Battles in the South of England 85 
 
 the battle over an immeasurable front, the 
 battle in which man will stand against man. 
 
 In three minutes the first English trench is 
 captured. The English retire in flight to 
 their second line. With wonderful speed and 
 without a fight they at the last moment 
 evacuate their trenches. . . . Cowardice or 
 cunning? 
 
 Forward ! There is no time to philosophize 
 here! Eyes front and steady ahead. 
 
 Lieutenant Eichstadt leaps up out of the 
 conquered trench. 
 
 "Hurr !" 
 
 He does not end the hurrah. He turns as 
 in a circle, having received a shot in the head. 
 A sergeant-major springs forward and fin- 
 ishes Lieutenant Eichstadt's hurrah. Then 
 he, too, feels about him. 
 
 Farther down a first lieutenant tries to 
 dash forward with a group. A machine-gun 
 smashes his body. 
 
 A cruel hail of shrapnel bullets pours down 
 on to the valiant conquerors of the British 
 trench. 
 
 A new storming line has moved forward 
 from the German trenches. These brave 
 fellows, too, are swept when half-way by the 
 fire coming from hitherto unlocated guns. In 
 this land, of which it is difficult to obtain a 
 general view, the German artillery has not 
 succeeded in detecting all the enemy bat- 
 
86 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 teries. Now the men hidden in ambush fall 
 upon the German storming columns. 
 
 The latter, taken by surprise when half- 
 way, throw themselves on the ground and 
 endeavor to protect themselves with the 
 sandbags and protective shields which they 
 have taken with them. 
 
 Dreaded moments have now come for the 
 brave Grenadiers. They are in deadly peril. 
 English guns, which have got the range ex- 
 actly, pour down a hail on their ranks from 
 Gibbet Hill. They can go neither forward 
 nor backward, nor get away from this place 
 of horror. No torture of the Middle Ages 
 could have contrived such suffering. 
 
 Now the Scots charge forward from the 
 other side against our Grenadiers — two bat- 
 talions of the brave Scots Black Watch regi- 
 ment. They have made a sad mistake, little 
 thinking what small effect this slight set- 
 back would have on the warriors' wrath and 
 the battle readiness of German troops. 
 
 The broken German charge has, however, 
 had one great result : it has effectively cleared 
 up the position. The German artillery now 
 knows in what lairs destruction is concealed. 
 While our brave German warriors crawl back 
 to their trenches, the artillery takes up the 
 work with double energy. 
 
 The English army commander thinks the 
 moment favorable for converting the "de- 
 
Battles in the South of England 87 
 
 feated" . . . troops by leaflets. An aviator 
 drops bombs which are filled with leaflets 
 instead of dynamite. 
 
 "German soldiers ! You have been dragged 
 over the Channel in order to shed your blood 
 uselessly! They have not ventured to tell 
 you you are already cut off from your home ! 
 England is surrounded by our submarines. 
 There is no escape for you! Already the 
 French are crossing the Rhine and carrying 
 devastation into your land, where your wives 
 and children weep for you. . . . Austrians ! 
 In the Vienna Prater the Italians and Ser- 
 bians are already celebrating feasts of vic- 
 tory! Your leaders keep you tied here, 
 although they know they are committing 
 against you the greatest crime known to the 
 world's history ! They will, however, rather 
 sacrifice your blood than their vanity. While 
 you are driven on English soil to meet the 
 bloody collapse of German militarism, your 
 children are starving, your mothers are weep- 
 ing, and your wives and sweethearts are 
 despairing ! Deliver up your arms ! Report 
 yourselves to our advanced posts ! Then we, 
 full of mercy, will open the trap in which you 
 must otherwise meet a miserable end! You 
 have furnished proof enough that you love 
 your Fatherland and know how to wield your 
 arms. Your plans were great; your end is 
 terrible ! We hardly venture to angwer to th? 
 
88 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 world's history for what circumstances com- 
 pel us to do — to destroy a brave army to the 
 last man! Break away from Hindenburg, 
 the wretched barbarian, in whose eyes you 
 have failed, and surrender!" 
 
 Thus a happy fate at times on English soil 
 provides something which helps on the Ger- 
 man soldiers in their darkest hours as a 
 gallant and cheery companion — humor ! 
 
 The German artillery has now settled its 
 account with the English g^ns, and thoroughly 
 searched out all hiding places. With 
 clenched teeth and burning eyes, the Grena- 
 diers await the order for the second charge. 
 
 For some moments the firing abates. 
 
 And now forward once more! Many a 
 brave German who led the first charge is no 
 more. The heroes are dead, but their fury 
 lives on in the hearts of their comrades. And 
 this fury now again resounds over the long 
 front, and swells into a battle song which 
 drowns the English naval guns and grips and 
 drags forward the last man. 
 
 Now there is no further halting. The 
 enemy lines begin to waver. Mightily our 
 troops dash on. Over the railway embank- 
 ment they swarm ! An enormous quantity of 
 war material is already ours. 
 
 German reserves press on behind. Men 
 without arms plead for mercy. 
 
 The iron hurricane sweeps up the eastern 
 
Battles in the South of England 89 
 
 slope of the Gibbet Hill. Thousands are 
 hauled out of their caves and sent back as 
 prisoners to the German trenches. 
 
 A few bold Englishmen remain calmly 
 aligned, taking aim with their guns. 
 
 "Hi!" 
 
 "You there!" 
 
 They are dead. . . . 
 
 Below the cross on Gibbet Hill a few stub- 
 bornly defended entrenchments still hold out. 
 One fort after the other is captured by means 
 of hand-grenade attacks. 
 
 Hurrah! On the cross which crowns the 
 ridge the German, Austrian and Bulgarian 
 colors are already hoisted. 
 
 A black boxer strikes about him right and 
 left like a madman, his voice overtopping the 
 din of battle. He gets into a hand-to-hand 
 engagement with several men from up above. 
 
 "It's my turn." 
 
 Our artillery whips the last strength out of 
 the horses. The guns take the height. And 
 now Fate descends on the back-flowing tide 
 of the English divisions. The gunners see 
 that fleeing groups are pinned to earth and 
 will never again serve the will of a general. 
 
 A group of Austrians has already taken up 
 its post on Gibbet Hill; they are motor bat- 
 tery observers. Soon the big guns sing out 
 "Rule Britannia" in the metallic roaring bass 
 after the fugitives, and complete the work of 
 destruction of several hard-hit battalions, 
 
90 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Twilight sinks over the field. It brings no 
 evening peace. With fiery breath the guns 
 work on. Amid the roar of howitzers and 
 the thunder of motors, long trains run into 
 the other world. 
 
 The day has been a hard one. And still no 
 fresh and joyful chase begins; no Blucher's 
 victorious march with flying colors. The 
 British are bringing fresh reserves up and 
 building new entrenchments under the cover 
 of night against the North Downs, in order to 
 keep off the Day of Judgment from London. 
 
 Major Sigwart endeavors to collect his 
 battalion. He counts twenty different regi- 
 mental numbers on the helmets of his storm- 
 ing columns. Of his brave officers he finds 
 not one, and many a well-known face in the 
 ranks of his brave men is missing. 
 
 Again it is night. The stars twinkle and 
 look upon pain increased ten thousand fold. 
 And the night is so mild, not a night in which 
 one would wish to die. . . . 
 
 Towards midnight the Commander-General 
 sends a joyful message, just to hand by 
 orderlies, to the encampment of troops: 
 
 "Germans, Austrians and Turks have 
 fought the decisive battle at the Pyramids! 
 The British Army is in great part broken up ; 
 the rest have been captured." 
 
 The battle most pregnant in consequences 
 
Battles in the South of England 91 
 
 in the world war won by the new Triple 
 Alliance. 
 
 Now the refrain is struck up joyously 
 through the German ranks : 
 
 "Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles!" 
 
 -Now the song has first received its last 
 deep meaning. It now rings out with the 
 solemnity of a choral song over the night- 
 clad land. 
 
 An English searchlight has been picking 
 out the ground. Suddenly enemy rearguards 
 direct a murderous shell fire on them. As 
 soon, however, as the howling of this night 
 storm abates for an instant, one hears the 
 men here and there singing on the more 
 joyously : 
 
 "Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles!" 
 
 No German stage manager has ever been 
 able to stage the song so effectively as was 
 done this night by the British. 
 
 Here and there rockets are sent up on the 
 other side. They look like feelers of the two 
 gigantic fabulous creatures who face each 
 other snarling and baring their teeth. 
 
 Our Grenadiers look forward full of holy 
 confidence to the coming days. And if the 
 English build a hell around London the 
 German will break through. The Grenadiers 
 still have in their memory the golden words 
 in which the chaplain explained the Scrip- 
 tural word before Dover: 
 
92 Hindenburg^s March into London 
 
 "The Lord will be with thee and not take 
 away His hand from thee, nor abandon thee, 
 until thou hast completed all." 
 
HEROES. 
 
 WHILE the nations contend grimly and 
 doggedly against the fate which the 
 enemy seeks to impose upon them, many a 
 soldier has to struggle against forces of fate 
 known to him alone. Many a soldier is, at 
 times, faced by greatly superior forces of 
 attack and whispering devils, and grits his 
 teeth, defends himself, and hews his way 
 through, conquers, and yet remains a hero 
 not known to Fame. But even he contributes 
 his share to the fame of the Army. 
 
 The fame of the Army is like a bar of gold ; 
 each soldier has contributed his carat to it. 
 The literature of war is the endeavor to coin 
 this bar and to return to each individual what 
 is his. The gallant men out there do not want 
 to have what is theirs returned to them ; they 
 do not want a great noise to be made of their 
 own deeds. They, however, call upon the 
 poets of their land to write what has not 
 happened anywhere or ever, and what is yet 
 cut from the tree of living reality, 
 
 93 
 
94 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 From the fame of the Allied Armies, that 
 precious bar of gold, I strike a few medals 
 and tender them to the nameless heroes. And 
 we also speak of an Englishman — every inch 
 a man. 
 
 Leopold von Immentofl and Annemarie. 
 
 As a hero unsung First Lieutenant von 
 Immentofl fell upon English soil. 
 
 The young man of Vienna, Baron Leopold 
 von Immentofl, had two tastes which hardly 
 seemed to go well together: he diligently 
 searched through castles and cloisters for 
 old paintings, and side by side with this paid 
 homage to equine sports. He cultivated the 
 study of the history of art, and his means 
 enabled him to keep a small racing stable in 
 England. He had, indeed, himself ridden at 
 Epsom. 
 
 When, in quest of a Joshua Reynolds 
 portrait, he had reached New York in the 
 early weeks of 1914, he came to know and 
 love Miss Edith, the daughter of a multiple 
 Chicago millionaire who was esteemed and 
 feared on the Corn Exchange. Late in the 
 summer the wedding was to be celebrated in 
 Trouville, and then the young couple in- 
 tended to go to Dorking, in the neighborhood 
 of Epsom. Edith's father had had a country 
 
Heroes 95 
 
 house built for them there, a romantic little 
 castle in an old park on the southern slope of 
 the North Downs. 
 
 As Leopold von Immentofl necessarily 
 thought himself to be well secured in financial 
 matters, he had, in the rashness and intoxica- 
 tion of his happiness, indulged freely his in- 
 clination as an amateur of works of art. In 
 his enthusiasm for classical paintings, he had 
 taken advantage o:^ a favorable opportunity 
 for purchase, and had employed a part of his 
 fortune of three-quarters of a million crowns 
 in the acquisition of a fine coast landscape by 
 Turner, the picture of a girl by Gains- 
 borough, and some Hogarth caricatures of 
 the eighteenth century. He had had a picture 
 gallery fitted up at his manor of Dorking, and 
 was just on the point of going to America 
 and fetching his bride away, when the politi- 
 cal situation of the world suddenly grew 
 strained. He was first lieutenant in a Heavy 
 Howitzer Division, and was required to re- 
 port himself in Prague on August 3d. 
 
 In the first weeks of 1915 he wrote from 
 Poland to Miss Edith : 
 
 ". . . And am I to write to you also 
 about the fate of my pictures ? They will, I 
 hope, be well taken care of by my English 
 friends. Such art treasures are the property 
 of mankind. I have received no news, and do 
 not wish now to hear anything about horses 
 
96 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 and pictures . . . Heavens, what things 
 happen here in the field ! Do not think me a 
 sentimental visionary on account of what I 
 am writing to you about my experience. War 
 is not a handicraft; it requires more than a 
 sharp eye and a skilled hand. War is a stern 
 and wise teacher, taking all mankind into the 
 school and testing its very heart. Eye to eye, 
 it puts deep questions to which it requires no 
 answer. However much one may struggle 
 against it during the first black war nights or 
 Russian soil, they come, those questions- 
 even those which concern wealth and prop 
 erty — and, behold, overnight many an idol is 
 shattered. So much money we both of us 
 could not get together as I have given away 
 in this night in a heavy dream of the need of 
 the world. . . . 
 
 "And after the nights with their questions 
 come the days with their great experiences ! 
 As an enthusiastic soldier, I have always been 
 in favor of going heart and soul into the 
 struggle, but I shall never forget the hour 
 when for the first time I directed my death- 
 dealing monsters against men. The first 
 shell fell in a marching Russian column ; the 
 second rent asunder soldiers of an ammuni- 
 tion division who were just sitting around 
 the saucepan — at such a moment one clenches 
 one's jaws an instant! But one gets used to 
 putting one's feelings out of the question and 
 
Heroes 97 
 
 doing in cold blood what is required by a 
 soldier's holy duty. Soon the bloody work of 
 the furies of war does not affright you further. 
 
 "And yet, what I to-day passed through 
 has again unsettled everything within me. 
 Let me relate to you briefly, and you will ask 
 whether a human heart is strong enough to 
 bear what I have borne. It was necessary to 
 find the range of a Russian entrenchment 
 with our heavy howitzers ; the shell pierced a 
 hill and tore up unshrouded bodies from the 
 earth and threw the rigid limbs in a ghastly 
 whirlwind dance high in the air. The mound 
 of earth covered a grave where masses lay 
 buried; the shells had torn the dead from 
 their eternal slumber. . . . Let who can 
 get over such an experience. 
 
 "And do you now still wish to know about 
 the pictures ? . . ." 
 
 Thus had written Leopold von Immentofl, 
 the man of the picture craze. 
 
 As an experienced connoisseur of English 
 conditions, and an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Hindenburg's able conduct of war, he had, 
 after the collapse of Russia, only the one 
 wish to continue fighting under Hindenburg. 
 And his division might well pride itself, for 
 it was included in the Army of Invasion. 
 
 The hero Hindenburg had built an iron 
 rampart on the elevation of the forest ridge. 
 
98 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 against the English battalions and cavalry 
 squadrons; against this ridge the blind and 
 furious force of their storming attacks broke, 
 and their last hope of freeing the island from 
 the invaders was shattered. Now the time 
 has come for the German regiments again to 
 fly their colors. They march onward to 
 London. 
 
 The division of Lieutenant von Immentofl, 
 which in its laborious onward march gained 
 the direction towards Redhill and Reigate, 
 suddenly received orders, by a half-turn to 
 the left, to advance towards Dorking. Dor- 
 king! The town to which, in his visions of 
 happiness, he was a pilgrim! There where 
 his manor awaited him and his future bride! 
 He thanked the Fates. In smiling colors he 
 pictured to himself how he would march in 
 there with the German victors. He would 
 then know for certain whether his precious 
 pictures were among the catspaws of war. 
 No; this region had hitherto been spared all 
 the stress of war, and he would be able to 
 thank the guardians of the pictures. 
 
 Next morning, when the sun had fought 
 the fog down, looking through the telescope 
 he saw the distant towers of Dorking gleam. 
 And now, red-gabled, cumbrous, rises the 
 manor with its three proud towers out of the 
 mists! Incomparable works of art are con- 
 tained within this house on the outskirts of 
 
Heroes 99 
 
 the wood; generations have helped to get 
 together the fortune which Hes in those 
 pictures — 750,000 crowns. 
 
 There is a liveliness among the German 
 columns; as though for this place on the south- 
 ern slope of the North Downs the test of fate 
 were impending. The coming fight will be a 
 hot one! Now Leopold von Immentofl no 
 longer finds himself helped over questions of 
 bitter earnestness by the cheerful talk of his 
 comrades. 
 
 In the vicinity of a battery of soldiers a fly- 
 ing division makes its last preparations. There 
 is a flight lieutenant who is a good friend of 
 Immentofl's, and the latter would like to ask 
 him to spare his private castle from bombs 
 should he have to send his devil's gifts to this 
 region. Here, however, no whispered request 
 is of any use ; there is only one thing he knows, 
 and that is duty. 
 
 The stream of battle breaks loose. 
 
 Shrieking and hissing, the guns rage against 
 each other ; machine-guns rattle off their songs 
 of hate, and rifle alongside rifle forms an iron 
 hedge as far as the eye stretches. A hellish 
 growling and spitting fills the air. Death and 
 destruction rain from the skies. 
 
 The telephone rings : 
 
 "The division of First Lieutenant von Im- 
 mentofl is to demolish " 
 
 No, surely that is impossible! He inquires 
 again, as though he had not rightly understood. 
 
100 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 The voice of the adjutant repeats sharply 
 and clearly: 
 
 "The division of First Lieutenant von Im- 
 mentofl is to destroy the castle-like building 
 with the three towers in front of Dorking. 
 Enemy observation posts have been observed 
 on the towers." 
 
 Night swims before the first lieutenant's 
 eyes ! Irreplaceable art treasures ! And a for- 
 tune! All his belongings, those costly treas- 
 ures which are the property of the whole of 
 mankind, he is to devote to destruction ! Was 
 ever a human breast torn by such anguish? 
 Was ever brain driven into such a conflict of 
 emotions ? 
 
 He had once written from Russia to his 
 future bride that in the field of battle greater 
 things were at stake than money and property 
 and earthly treasures, and that in his breast he 
 had already cast down many idols — and now, 
 when he is ordered to destroy his picture gal- 
 lery, he becomes suddenly aware that what he 
 had written then were mere resounding 
 phrases. Only now war, the great elucidator, 
 tears the mask of phrases from his soul. 
 
 The struggle between duty and amour propre 
 lasts but a few seconds. 
 
 He gives the order to load. 
 
 Never did any order issue from Leopold's 
 lips so hoarsely and brokenly. The gunners 
 
Heroes 101 
 
 train the howitzers on the object, but he does 
 not check the aim, because there is a mist be- 
 fore his eyes. 
 
 It must be ! He pulls himself together. The 
 thunderous word "duty" stands before him like 
 an implacable superior requiring strict obedi- 
 ence, and not allowing himself to be moved one 
 iota from a command, he then tries quadrant 
 and level, and the whole of the wondrous work 
 of the modern aiming apparatus and corrects 
 the aim — this time it must be a hit. 
 
 "Ready to fire!" 
 
 The upward pointed tube looks like the neck 
 of some rearing beast of prey. Leopold von 
 Immentofl delays the last order one second 
 more, as a counter order might come which 
 would put an end to all the torture of his soul. 
 
 No telephone. No orderly. 
 
 The division has been waiting a couple of 
 seconds longer than usual for the short word 
 which will send the picrine-filled cylinder on 
 its frightful journey. If the soldiers had known 
 that this word would, perhaps, decide a human 
 fate, and as to the existence or non-existence of 
 sacred things from the Temple of Art, and as 
 to the future of the first lieutenant . . . 
 
 Finally he chokes out the words : 
 
 "Fire!" 
 
 All hands are raised to the ears. One man 
 pulls the long cord as though he was opening a 
 cage containing a dangerous bird of prey. 
 
102 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 With a shriek of unearthly shrillness, the 
 fire-spitting giant shell mounts up and away, 
 swings as high as Mont Blanc, and looks 
 around from above for its prey. 
 
 The mad flight lasts for minutes. First 
 Lieutenant von Immentofl stands at the tele- 
 scope awaiting the monstrous . . . He is pale, 
 red, and then again deathly pale. The minutes 
 are of untold length to him, and his feet refuse 
 their function. 
 
 There, now the bird of prey swoops down 
 with the avidity of a vulture ; the shell tears its 
 way through the roof of the little castle, tears 
 up the masonry, envelops the building in a 
 cloud of dust and ashes and greenish-yellow 
 smoke. 
 
 Flames now burst out of the windows. They 
 complete the work of destruction. The flames 
 are now feeding on a morsel worth three- 
 quarters of a million ; they are now licking the 
 colors of old Masters. 
 
 Leopold von Immentofl reports to headquar- 
 ters through the telephone that he has scored a 
 hit — yes, he had. 
 
 To his bride he writes that he now stands 
 before the void. 
 
 The letter will never reach her, because Miss 
 Edith has come to Europe with ladies and gen- 
 tlemen of the American Red Cross Corps and 
 is already on German-English soil. 
 
 Hot went the battle on the following day. 
 
Heroes 103 
 
 The wrath gleams white hot. Each side plies 
 the other hard with metal. Between the forest 
 ridge and the North Downs runs the battle 
 line. Lightnings dart from small white clouds. 
 Small shot comes pattering down — shot for 
 man's sport. The mood is that of a dying world. 
 
 Close by Leopold von Immentofl an English 
 shell lands. He stands amid a column of clay, 
 powder, smoke and iron fragments. 
 
 "Boys . . . keep at it!" he breathes, and 
 then falls. 
 
 "Lord, our first lieutenant ... !" 
 
 A gunner jumps forward and sees the blood 
 streaming from the legs of the lieutenant. 
 Another lifts up a fragment of steel beside the 
 lieutenant, which is moist with blood, and 
 throws it back, muttering, into the clay. Three 
 pairs of ready hands are round Leopold von 
 Immentofl; they cut the trousers and boots 
 from his body with the shears for cutting steel 
 wire, and bind up his wounds roughly. 
 
 He is carried back on an ammunition truck. 
 In a small English cottage Annemarie, the 
 German nurse, takes him in hand. She will 
 stand faithfully at his side during those difficult 
 hours, and under her care he will patiently 
 await the surgeon's knife. 
 
 Miss Edith has, after wandering to and fro 
 for days, found Leopold's division. She has 
 at last reached the cottage where her intended 
 
104 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 bridegroom lies prostrate on a bed of straw 
 with smashed legs. 
 
 It is evening. In the flickering light of a 
 candle Edith stands by the bed of her bride- 
 groom in the cottage and spreads treasures of 
 wool and linen before him, feeds him with the 
 costliest dainties, and regards it almost as an 
 insulting suspicion that Sister Annemarie 
 should always see that things are right here 
 and not leave entirely to her the care of 
 Leopold. The latter holds Edith's hand as 
 though it was the last treasure which has re- 
 mained to him through all the vicissitudes of 
 fate. By cheerful chatter she endeavors to 
 while away the time; with her millions she 
 builds golden bridges into the future, but she 
 cannot get rid of the feeling that talk of this 
 kind has lost all meaning to him. He puts 
 questions which lie remarkably far away from 
 gold and property. It is no longer her Leopold 
 of formerly. 
 
 Now, listen! Is not that the inhumanly 
 shrill, bloodthirstily strident hiss of a shell ? 
 
 A roar of thunder bursts upon the silence. 
 The shell must have struck quite near. 
 
 Did it by pure hazard find its way to the 
 vicinity of the cottage with the Red Cross flag, 
 or was it sent there by devilish computation? 
 The cottage in which Edith and Sister Anne- 
 marie are with Leopold, appears to have 
 cracked in all its framework under the bursting 
 
Heroes 105 
 
 of the exploding shell. A poisonous breath 
 fills the air and causes the lungs to labor. 
 Gleam-lights glide ghost-like past the window. 
 
 Suddenly outside the hasty clatter of horses' 
 hoofs and despairing cries. With bated breath 
 it is handed on from man to man : 
 
 "Save yourselves !" 
 
 In a house which is already on fire mountains 
 of hand grenades lie. When the flames eat 
 their way through to the heap the explosion 
 will be frightful. 
 
 Signal horns blare out. Death lurks prowl- 
 ing in the village, in order, at one stroke, to 
 reap an ample harvest and convert the hamlet 
 into a cemetery. 
 
 Miss Edith dashes out thinking only of her 
 own safety. She implores help for her bride- 
 groom, and runs crying and lamenting into the 
 night ; her exertions for Leopold exhaust them- 
 selves in desperate cries for help. 
 
 Sister Annemarie, however, faithfully per- 
 forms her duty. She is busying herself quickly 
 about Leopold and endeavors to drag him out 
 as best she can. 
 
 Only a few steps. A blinding flash. A roar 
 of thunder. The earth trembles. The village 
 is torn asunder by a hail of iron. 
 
 Annemarie is no more. 
 
 Leopold von Immentofl has also been thrown 
 to the ground by fists of steel, and from many 
 
106 Hindcnburg's March into London 
 
 veins his heart's blood soaks into the English 
 soil. But by a miracle he has remained alive. 
 
 Laboriously, with a rare gleam in his eyes, 
 he scribbles his last letter. 
 
 "Thus it shall stand as a sign in the field and 
 shall press like a mighty army corps into the 
 future. Whoever has lived through this war 
 dies rich! That is written by a beggar who 
 directed the guns against his own property, 
 and he then spun his dreams about his last 
 anchor, thou dearest Edith, and he now sees 
 that thou also hast become apostate. Weep 
 not for me ; apostate you have become, and even 
 though you adorn my grave day after day with 
 red roses. 
 
 "You came to please with money and goods, 
 to alleviate want, and you meant well. But 
 there is something which stands high above the 
 services of your love and your cold gold. Your 
 love, Edith, was great, but there was not a 
 readiness for death. Now, however, the only 
 thing which avails in Europe is to be prepared 
 with the rest. 
 
 "Tens of thousands of undaunted men I saw 
 step before the devouring fire, and I saw thee, 
 Annemarie, thou German woman — the song of 
 heroism and duty will also sing of you, German 
 nurse. War is more, Edith, than the great sen- 
 sation of the old world, which one must, with- 
 out fail, view from a vantage point. 
 
 "Every day brought me testimony of the old 
 German truth. Therefore I say it again : even 
 
Heroes 107 
 
 though he were as poor as a beggar, whoever 
 has lived in this war dies rich! Money, it is 
 true, is no longer happiness and wealth, just 
 as death is no longer suffering and darkness. 
 Heroes of duty you call those who now march 
 behind victory's accustomed flags ? More they 
 are ! Warriors of primeval stress, fighters for 
 the soul of the world ; fighters for the world of 
 Goethe, Kant, Diirer, and Beethoven. 
 
 "Great is the aim and great the stake. Thou- 
 sands and again thousands have been claimed 
 by death ; but all, Germans and Austrians, died 
 in the Germanic longing. This longing is the 
 happiness of this age. Where now, Death, is 
 thy sting? Where is thy cruelty? Come, poor 
 wretch! Thou hast lost thy sting and thy 
 scourge, and all thy weapons are dull. For a 
 long time now our thoughts have no longer 
 receded from thee in cowardly fashion. Come, 
 perform thy bloody office. Thou thoughtest to 
 do us harm, but hast been to us the gates to the 
 great German future. Thou hast in these days 
 grown to be the greatest event in life ; oh, bony 
 visitant, to die is to the valiant as a holy sowing 
 in the certain hope of a good harvest. For our 
 great German Fatherland, from Hamburg to 
 Trieste, the century of greatest happiness shall 
 open out from this war " 
 
 On this Death took the pencil out of the 
 tremulous hand and drew a line beneath the 
 records of an unsung hero of this great time. 
 
108 Hindenburg's March into London 
 Sir John Falconer. 
 
 In the trenches of a Prussian Garde du Corps 
 Regiment huge missiles from the heaviest Eng- 
 lish naval guns have penetrated, and no Ger- 
 man aviator's camera has yet succeeded in 
 discovering the Cyclopean cave in which these 
 appalling one-eyed giants lurk. The battered- 
 in trench has to be evacuated. In the first at- 
 tempt to retake it brave German soldiers re- 
 mained lying between the two lines. Six 
 severely wounded Lifeguardsmen writhe since 
 this morning in death agony between the en- 
 trenchments, and none can help them. 
 
 Two German Army Medical Corps men have 
 endeavored, under cover of the Red Cross, to 
 reach them with a stretcher, but the Gurkhas 
 and Kaffirs over there shot them both down — 
 shot them down mercilessly, and their animal 
 yell of joy was distinctly heard. The six hold 
 up their hands imploring assistance like chil- 
 dren, but they must continue to bear their 
 cruelly hard fate. They have but the one hope 
 — that aid may reach them in the night. 
 
 Night — that did once exist. In the battles 
 of to-day there is no more night. Search- 
 lights take care that the riflemen shall have a 
 tolerable field even during the night. Before 
 the time comes for a German charge, the six 
 can have no aid. The reserves are still far 
 off. The poor tortured men, therefore, must 
 
Heroes 109 
 
 look forward to that night from which only 
 the Lord God will some time awaken them. 
 
 The new morning dawns, and death has 
 released one of them. Five groan like dying 
 animals, and' their moans rend the hearts of 
 the soldiers. If one were, however, to venture 
 towards them, it would mean but one more 
 lying on the field. Those who lie there com- 
 plaining and imploring in their deathly need 
 lie in the close vicinity of a thousand feeling 
 people, before the eyes of faithful regimental 
 comrades, and must die as though lost in the 
 desert. It is beyond human power to think 
 this thought out to its last issue. Advanced 
 outposts narrate how the Negroes and Indians 
 take delight with sardonic grins in the sight 
 of the dying Lifeguardsmen. For the latter 
 are five of the wretched vermin who had been 
 declared by the British to be a barbarian race. 
 The Huns must be destroyed who sought to 
 attack a knightly, civilized nation! The 
 Gurkhas and Kaffirs will see to that. 
 
 Then an English officer leaps forward out 
 of the trenches. It is Major John Falconer. 
 When making an inspection of the trenches 
 of the colored people he arrived at this place 
 of torture and heard the moaning of the 
 Guardsmen. 
 
 "A Samaritan, however, was journeying 
 and came that way, and when he saw the five 
 who had fallen among the murderers he had 
 compassion on them " 
 
110 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Major Falconer throws down his sabre and 
 waves a white handkerchief. 
 
 Our Guardsmen are no longer taken in by 
 such crude trickery. They have been made 
 wary by experience. The white cloths of the 
 Gurkhas have often done service for the pur- 
 pose of criminal attacks and cost the blood of 
 many trusting comrades. They shoot at the 
 Major, and aim well. He appears to have 
 received a shot in the lung; he clasps his 
 hand to his chest, but continues running. 
 With tottering steps he comes to where the 
 wounded men lie writhing. 
 
 The Guardsmen put their guns down from 
 their shoulders. 
 
 As well as he can, John Falconer helps the 
 five men to creep like lame animals towards 
 the German trenches. He then wants to 
 drag himself back to his line. 
 
 Now the captain of the Garde du Corps 
 Company climbs over the rampart of the 
 trench, goes towards the English Major, and 
 shakes his hand silently. 
 
 "Bravo ! Bravo !" resounds at this moment 
 from the German throats. 
 
 John Falconer falls. The Prussian captain 
 beckons to two Gurkhas to take the Major 
 away. They carry him back. No further 
 command.? will issue from his mouth in this 
 war. 
 
 Amid the most embittered struggle in the 
 
Heroes 1 1 1 
 
 world's history, men with hearts stood for a 
 moment face to face. Through the black 
 clouds of war the sun radiated for one instant 
 and shone upon the deed of a British noble- 
 man. 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann, 
 
 The Germans in their onward march have 
 overrun the property of Lord Charles West- 
 bury. The English troops who had con- 
 verted the romantic old park into a strong 
 fortress were compelled to evacuate this sec- 
 tion of country without a fight, in order to 
 avoid the danger of being completely sur- 
 rounded. Lieutenant Haussmann is to take 
 possession of his lordship's country house 
 with a company of Pomeranian infantry, late 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 The house is locked. On the lieutenant 
 ringing, a servant in livery appears and asks, 
 as though they were on some happy island 
 far aw^ay from the din of war: 
 
 "Your name, sir?" 
 
 The soldiers laugh at the solemn formal- 
 ities, but in the house of an English lord 
 people know what is proper. 
 
 "Announce a German officer." 
 
 After the servant has made the announce- 
 ment in the drawing-room, Lieutenant 
 Haussmann is asked to enter. He is there re- 
 
112 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 ceived by the master and lady of the house 
 with an amiability stamped with the best 
 Society form, as though the lieutenant were 
 an old club friend who had accepted an invita- 
 tion to a reception of the British aristocracy. 
 
 Lord Charles Westbury regrets that they 
 were brought together in the hour of need of 
 his unhappy country, and does not conceal 
 how deeply it wounds his British honor to 
 have to shelter a German. 
 
 "I will tell you quite honestly that I sin- 
 cerely hate the Germans. As, however, Fate 
 has now decreed otherwise than what the 
 just English cause deserves, I bow to the 
 irrevocable. I knc^y my duty as a host. You 
 may rest assured, sir, that a Britisher honors 
 a gentleman even in his opponent." 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann at once feels as 
 though the noble lord only gives such a 
 straightforward expression to his hatred of 
 Germans to produce, for some reason or 
 other, the impression that he was sans peur et 
 sans reproche. Sacred assurances that all fric- 
 tion will be avoided are very cheap when a 
 draft of Pomeranian infantry are in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 Lord Charles Westbury gives Lieutenant 
 Haussmann to understand during the con- 
 versation that he himself had not been satis- 
 fied with the new course of things in Eng- 
 land. He had never approved the war, and he 
 
Heroes 113 
 
 counted the revolting free-lance work with 
 which they had sought to stay the invading 
 army in the South of England as among the 
 most rascally malpractices which man had 
 ever been capable of. Quite by chance his 
 glance appears to fall on Bernard Shaw's 
 "The Man of Destiny." 
 
 "Look here," he says, "I hold with Shaw, 
 who once wrote: 'The Englishman is never 
 embarrassed for a great moral gesture. 
 Nothing is so bad and nothing so good that 
 you will not see an Englishman perform it, 
 but you will never prove to an Englishman 
 that he is wrong, because he does everything 
 on principle. He conducts warfare on patri- 
 otic principles, he commits fraud on business 
 principles, he converts free nations into 
 slaves on principles of moral policy.' It is 
 regrettable that I should have to say this to 
 an enemy of England: I echo Shaw's words 
 from the bottom of my heart." 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann gets the impres- 
 sion that his lord, with his sharp judgments 
 on modern England, only wishes to say: 
 "Yes, look at me ; I am one of the Good Old 
 School! Do not, for heaven's sake, be mis- 
 trustful in my house, which it is true you 
 have every reason to be." 
 
 Lady Ruth, the lady of the house, asks 
 Lieutenant Haussmann to go to the dining- 
 room, as he must certainly be hungry. 
 
 8 
 
114 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 In the dining-room Lieutenant Haussmann 
 is introduced to the daughter of the house, 
 Lady Margery, who is married to an Eng- 
 lish officer. Her husband is at the front. 
 The young Lady Margery appears to be a 
 merry war grass widow. She talks with 
 Lieutenant Haussmann and makes his stay at 
 her father's country house seem very agree- 
 able in dvery respect. She has curled her hair 
 after the style of the Madonna of Botticelli. 
 The Gurkha-colored silk dress with the 
 French red scarf only strikes one as a nar- 
 row setting in which, broad and deep and in 
 well-cared-for fullness, her decollete bosom is 
 exposed. How she hates these Germans! 
 But her glances aim at bewitching them. 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann notes these glances, 
 and also partakes of the choicest delicacies on 
 the table. He is not afraid of poison ; a draft 
 of Pomeranians is a good antidote. He 
 makes a cheerful repast and also drinks a 
 glass of dry wine. In spite of assiduous- per- 
 suasion, he only takes one. Although for 
 weeks his only beverage has been canteen 
 coffee, he feels that this post requires a sober 
 man with all his wits about him. He feels 
 as though for some reason they are trying to 
 prevent him from being on his guard. 
 
 Casually, as it were, the hostess says to 
 him: 
 
 "Of course, your men will be well looked 
 
Heroes 115 
 
 after so far as we can serve them up a simple 
 dinner in haste." 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann enjoins upon his 
 men to be very much on their guard. 
 
 "Apparently modeled," he says, "on the 
 Belgian School division. Siren tricks " 
 
 That is enough for them. They have 
 already observed themselves that no great 
 marches will be necessary to surround and 
 take prisoners the strikingly complaisant 
 "Kitchen Dragoons" of this estate. 
 
 Lady Margery will now be quite pleased 
 to show the lieutenant the sights of the park, 
 the centuries-old idyllic natural foliage, the 
 romantic grottos. For many months no per- 
 son of the fair sex has been in the co^ipany of 
 Lieutenant Haussmann, and now he is at 
 liberty to walk in the sunny favor of a benign 
 young lady, who beams upon him. The motto 
 is : Keep your eyes open, young man. 
 
 He has more important things to do now 
 than to go promenading. He politely but 
 decidedly gives orders to check all the per- 
 sons on this estate. That is certainly not 
 nice action on the part of a guest, but it is ex- 
 tremely useful; quite a suspiciously large 
 number of people come to light during this 
 inventory. Footmen, chauffeurs, game- 
 keepers, a manicurist, a poodle washer, and 
 numbers of villagers who say they are here 
 in connection with supplies. Lieutenant 
 
1 16 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Haussmann shakes his head at this party and 
 gives a hint to his Pomeranians. 
 
 He then asks that a room should be shown 
 him. There, with sharpened senses, he col- 
 lects further observations as to what is pro- 
 ceeding in this house. The Belgian rascals 
 of the August days of 1914 were only willing 
 pupils of British instigators; now our brave 
 troops have to deal with the masters of the 
 game of intrigue themselves. Keep your 
 eyes open, you fair young Pomeranian 
 country squire. Do not fall into the trap. 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann, towards evening, 
 has another conversation with Lady Mar- 
 gery, who can talk so charmingly and en- 
 gagingly. It would be nicer for him to pass 
 his time chatting to her. In truth, in this 
 long and indescribably hard war, the hour 
 comes for many a field soldier in which the 
 sight of a fair maiden offers him more pleas- 
 ure than the greatest victory after a hot field 
 battle could afford him. 
 
 He struggles awhile with the devil whis- 
 pering temptation within him. The service 
 to which he belongs, his sense of duty is clear 
 and sharp; he conquers and remains a hero. 
 As a true German he remains on the watch. 
 
 In the evening, when the measure of his 
 suspicion is full, he goes out and knocks at 
 the door of a room in which he suspects a 
 hotbed of craft and cunning. 
 
Heroes 117 
 
 Lady Ruth is at once most serviceably on 
 the spot. "That," she says, "is Lady Mar- 
 gery's bedroom; you will not have the pre- 
 sumption " 
 
 "1 require you to open at once !" 
 
 A voice from within : 
 
 "But, sir, I have just undressed " 
 
 His Lordship joined them. 
 
 "Sir, I do not venture to think that the evil 
 reputation that German officers are barbarian 
 chiefs should be in the least degree justified." 
 
 "I order that the door be opened at once !" 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann alarms the senti- 
 nels by firing off a revolver. 
 
 The door is thrust in by gun-stocks. 
 
 "What is this?" 
 
 The lieutenant points to an extensive tele- 
 phone plant and carrier pigeon baskets. 
 
 "There used to be carrier pigeons in these, 
 but, of course, since the Germans have been 
 in the country- " 
 
 A squad of men come breathless up the 
 stairs. At this very moment a flight of car- 
 rier pigeons have gone out of this room, and. 
 a stupid fate is so careless as to allow a little 
 letter to fall into Lieutenant Haussmann's 
 hands, which a village maiden who had just 
 turned up had brought out of her stocking: 
 "Three brigades of Germans and twenty 
 heavy guns are half-way between Lenham 
 and Headcorn!" 
 
118 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Lieutenant Haussmann gives orders to 
 take away all the persons in the house. 
 
 They raise a great outcry. Asseverations 
 of innocence, wringing of hands, fainting 
 fits, kicking and scratching — sirens become 
 termagants. Margery falls foul of the un- 
 gentlemanly Hun officer and clenches her fist 
 at him. The Pomeranians make as though 
 to grasp their gun-stocks. 
 
 The noble lord is as white as a sheet and, 
 tottering, bears the sweat of dread on his 
 brow. He knows that to-morrow perhaps 
 the sighs of death will go forth, against a 
 wall. 
 
 That Lieutenant Haussmann made these 
 prisoners is a fact which will be praised by 
 no commemorative tablet. But this result 
 was only brought about after a severe 
 struggle. A young lieutenant had fought 
 and won a splendid victory over himself. 
 
THE NIGHT BETWEEN THE 
 BATTLES. 
 
 DEAR JOHANNA,— 
 It was a hard day ! Now it is night, and 
 I am with you in thought. I am not merry to- 
 day, not one of the always contented warriors 
 of whom you read in books of the moment. At 
 night one sometimes gets moods of all serious- 
 ness. Yes, by day merry speeches and old sol- 
 diers' songs calm one's nerves ; but these nights 
 on foreign soil ... ! If at night one lies 
 on the borders of the battlefield, and the ocean 
 storm sweeps over the British Islands, it is as 
 though the field of combat had something mys- 
 terious and uncanny about it, as though some- 
 where there the gigantic paws of a great un- 
 known fate waited upon the child of man in 
 his powerlessness. These nights grip your 
 heart. . . . 
 
 I saw Landwehrmen moist-eyed sitting at 
 the candle-light. They said they had taken 
 strong pinches of snuff, but I knew better ; they 
 bad been telling themselves about their children. 
 
 "9 
 
120 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 I saw a fellow sitting by the grave of his lieu- 
 tenant and playing on the mouth-organ the 
 song which his lieutenant was fond of hearing. 
 Then he threw the mouth-organ into the river, 
 as though it had no further sound. During 
 these nights the heart of the most hardened 
 soldier is at times penetrated. And the storm- 
 tried field soldier gives way to the softest emo- 
 tions of the soul. 
 
 In the hours between the battles one lies 
 miles away from the stress and din of combat; 
 these night hours are detached from the course 
 of time, they belong to memory and to Provi- 
 dence. They belong to wife, mother, the fair- 
 haired girl — to thee, Johanna! 
 
 At night the soul deserts the colors. As 
 soon as it has no superiors with stern com- 
 mands over it, it mounts up and flies away like 
 a bird of passage which goes seeking the land 
 of the sun; it wings its flight to the land of 
 longing. Each night I celebrate my union with 
 thee, beloved! 
 
 Amid the wild shell-fire one dreams the 
 most blessed dream that ever a warrior 
 dreamt; one enters London in stately proces- 
 sion, marching with bands playing past Grey's 
 windows, and bringing the world's peace home 
 to one's Fatherland ! As the conquerors of the 
 world war one returns to the house of one's 
 German maiden. 
 
 Upon this hot feast of dreams the telephony 
 
The Night Between the Battles 121 
 
 at times breaks in . . . that small, cold devil 
 in my dug-out recalls me from Nirvana back 
 to the border of the battlefield. The birds of 
 passage of longing have at once vanished in the 
 clouds, and the entire man once more belongs 
 to his hard duty. 
 
 The candle in the trench has burnt low, and 
 slowly the minutes creep by. One leaves the 
 care of the moment to the watching sentinels, 
 and care for the future to the stars and the 
 God above the stars. Then I am again with 
 thee, beloved! True, into my blessed dream 
 other pictures peer, streaming with blood, 
 frightful. In ghostly semblance there appear 
 to me the massive-toothed jaws of an English 
 Minister and war-maker, or I see bloodstained 
 English, claw-like hands, which greedily grasp 
 the globe. ... In the wonderful interplay of 
 the pictures I may then again perceive quiet 
 pictures at home, and once more there is a tele- 
 phone call. The latter suddenly converts Hans 
 the dreamer into a sober field soldier. I am on 
 my service round. For to-day the night's rest 
 is over. 
 
 On English soil the armies get no more 
 sleep. The nights are filled with noise and 
 haste like the days. On the roads behind the 
 front all night long the measured tread of bat- 
 talions is heard, and the rapid clatter of hoofs. 
 
 The fronts do not grow rigid by night, the 
 battalions always remain in motion, reserve 
 
122 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 columns grow denser at the point where to- 
 morrow the General Staff desires to drive in 
 the wedge. The line becomes a mighty, gigan- 
 tic springboard, as hard as iron. Carefully, 
 late in the evening, the canteen bring up their 
 steaming coppers, and the soldiers partake of 
 their breakfast, tea and supper. The pioneers 
 hammer out straight in front of the trenches 
 those ramparts which have been shot in, and 
 sharpen again the barbs of blunted wire entan- 
 glements. 
 
 Plump in the middle of the entrenchment a 
 shot and an outcry — an English shell has struck 
 home. One killed ! And all this a minute in- 
 cident which gets not a moment's attefttion. 
 
 Listening posts report what they have heard, 
 and shortly afterwards the drums far behind 
 the Hne again call the utterly weary combatants 
 to the gun, now here, now there . . . the roll 
 of the drums reverberates through the night, 
 as though Death were playing with bony 
 fingers on coffin lids. 
 
 These nights on English soil are not black, 
 nor yet silvery with moonlight. These nights 
 are fiery red. As if from sacrificial altars, 
 gigantic red flickering flames leap up to the 
 sky, and speak to the gods of the plight of the 
 world. Over yonder a brilliantly white blind- 
 ing flash — is Death already swinging his steel 
 scythe? They are the erratic beams of the 
 searchlights which probe heaven and earth. 
 
The Night Between the Battles 123 
 
 Like saucer eyes, these machine suns peer into 
 the night, but the apparently vacuous eye be- 
 longs to an indeed fine brain ; behind these eyes 
 quiver the nerves of battalions eager for 
 action. Suddenly one looks right into the heart 
 of these giant silver funnels, with which the 
 enemy sucks up all that he desires to know. 
 Like the eye of a gendarme the searchlight 
 looks around it, and wherever a group of rash 
 nightly loiterers are not punctually at their 
 quarters in the trenches and dug-outs, the ar- 
 tillery flashes out in an instant ! 
 
 When the lids have fallen on these eyes, 
 night lies darker than before, for the space of 
 a minute. Radiating, long-tailed stars now rise 
 in the heaven, balls of light. Circumspectly, 
 saving their light, they rise up; at the climax 
 of their arc they throw down their magnificence 
 of light in squandering plenty over the field of 
 battle, and then die away. They have seen all 
 that the General seated at the map table wishes 
 to know. They, however, bring not only news 
 of lusty life, they also gleam into the cleft and 
 undergrowth and spy out the suiifering of a 
 thousand hearts. 
 
 Suddenly to the northeast the horizon flames 
 over with the clearness of day. In the German 
 lines a ray of light has shot up — a fearful clap 
 of thunder, and soon after it a far more dread- 
 ful growl comes through the air; a giant shot 
 has blown up an English munitions depot, and 
 
124 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 inflicted fearful punishment. Now the shots, 
 thirsting for blood, search out the night-clad 
 land, flames shoot gleaming out of the cannon's 
 mouth. It is a sight of awful beauty and pic- 
 turesque charm, because the trajectories of the 
 shots become singing rainbows by night. 
 
 A falling star drops. It really looks as 
 though the howitzers with their vertical fire 
 had smashed a star. Colored signaling balls, 
 a dance of the searchlight rays, rains of sparks 
 before the mouths of the heavy guns, flashes of 
 light from the rifles, gleams from the mortars, 
 whole towns and villages burning — such are the 
 light festivals, O Lord, of your earthly chil- 
 dren! Pyrotechnic grotesques, such as the 
 earth has not yet seen ! And their stage man- 
 ager? Death the Tartuflfe. 
 
 This nightly aspect of the battlefields of to- 
 day is harrowing. And only the dawn of the 
 morning can drive it out. 
 
 Thus, dearest, are the nights between the 
 battles. By night everything which must fear 
 by day creeps out on the edge of the battlefield. 
 They are not creatures fearing the light. Now 
 those of the Red Cross are passing over the 
 battlefield. 
 
 I shortly accompanied the field service of our 
 war dogs, which, under the guidance of our 
 brave men of the Army Medical Corps, went on 
 
The Night Between the Battles 125 
 
 a nightly patrol through bush and brushwood 
 in order to save those miserable beings who 
 have lost the last thing that helps them over 
 all need — their comrades. 
 
 One of the unkempt fellows called us to a 
 hedge bush and showed us a piteous picture. 
 A young Bavarian cavalryman, with a pretty 
 boy's face, lay there in the throes of death. A 
 shell had crushed his limbs. He raved in wild 
 fever. I wanted to hand him my flask, but his 
 soul appeared to have already traveled too far 
 for him to take any pleasure in food and drink 
 and earthly comforts. 
 
 I stroked his brow. He then grew calmer. 
 He might have felt as if his mother was placing 
 her hand on him with a blessing, for after a 
 time he burst out as in a wild dream : 
 
 "Mother, don't let me miss it . . . don't let 
 me miss it . . . London . . . London . . . 
 Mother, don't let me miss it. . . ." 
 
 We placed him on the stretcher. 
 
 He will, however, miss it. His mother will 
 never waken him again. He must sleep 
 through the great day on which his comrades 
 with bands playing will enter London. . . . 
 
 And again war dogs call from a thicket of 
 box-trees, one here and another there. . . . 
 
 Soldiers take the squirming bodies of their 
 comrades on their backs and save friend and 
 enemy from the dance of death, spectrally 
 swaying on the battlefield. Thanatos, the 
 
126 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Demon of Death, passes with black wings and 
 lowered torch over the blood-besprinkled 
 ground. . . . 
 
 I once at night helped to look at those whom 
 the storm of battle had dashed to the ground 
 I helped to examine where, in a thousand com- 
 rades, there was still life. Only he who has 
 done this knows what war is. 
 
 Gray in black — beloved, such are the pictures. 
 And yet these quiet nightly feasts of Death 
 have something unspeakably elevating, some- 
 thing which grips man entirely to his inmost 
 heart and shakes him, and puts great and in- 
 finitely deep questions to him. For each one 
 of the fallen is a hero. Each of the dead here 
 is an Amen to the prayer of the German Army : 
 
 "Lord, let us subdue England!" 
 
 Yesterday we buried the funny man of our 
 company, Theodor Nietzelmeyer, a sunny per- 
 son whose splendidly ironical sayings always 
 called forth fresh laughter amid these long 
 struggles full of privations. We are not going 
 home even though day is breaking! Shortly 
 before the storming of Kiev he was allotted to 
 me as a Russian interpreter, the loyal Land- 
 sturm man, Theodor Nietzelmeyer, a lock- 
 smith by profession, baptized in genuine Spree 
 water, and gifted with a humor which ex- 
 tracted from the most ticklish situation some- 
 
The Night Between the Battles 127 
 
 thing to maintain good temper, even though it 
 was a dry, saucy joke. Dear Johanna, will you 
 have believed that I should ever take pleasure 
 in little Berlin jokes ? Many a thing to which 
 one attaches one's soul is reduced to naught 
 in value by war. And other things, which one 
 turned up one's nose at, it teaches us to treas- 
 ure. One of the greatest gifts of Heaven is, 
 to the soldier in campaigning, a ready humor. 
 Where pious sense and good humor are com- 
 bined, with such people I would lie for ten years 
 in the trenches ! But mockers and ill-humored 
 sulkers are the secret allies of England. 
 
 If a despondent mood seemed likely at any 
 time to spread in the company, Theodor Niet- 
 zelraeyer, in a lecture lasting for hours, would 
 describe a parting from his "better half." 
 "Theodor," said she, "don't get putting your- 
 self in front, because they shoot fast at supe- 
 riors !" Nietzelmeyer was a lance-corporal. On 
 his patrol rounds he was regularly exposed to 
 sly attacks by doves, hens and geese, and, in 
 self-defence, as is well known, shooting is per- 
 mitted. His whole pride was -his helmet, 
 shot through six times. He asserted that it 
 had been worn by the chief of the parish of 
 Kuhschnappel, in the battle of Gilgenburg, and 
 that, after the six shots, the poor fellow had 
 had his brain "amputated." He had now re- 
 turned to office, and no one in the parish had 
 observed any change in the gracious head. 
 
128 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Nietzelmeyer, in a fight in East Prussia, had 
 shown his helmet above the trench in order to 
 tease the Russians, and this had brought his 
 helmet the six holes. 
 
 Quite a specially brilliant piece of his Berlin 
 art of narration was when he told of the trick 
 he played at Tannenberg. As a capable lock- 
 smith and interpreter he had, in the turmoil of 
 that gigantic battle, connected himself up to a 
 Russian telephone wire, had conversed with the 
 Russian Army Corps commander on the mili- 
 tary position, and convinced him that it would 
 be advisable to send several regiments 
 to the immediate vicinity of the Masurian 
 Marshes. . . . 
 
 Some would have liked to sift his anecdotes 
 and find out the grain of truth in them, but his 
 stories were a true balsam! During the first 
 months of war I read once again "Faust" and 
 Fichte's "True War," but now one's nerves do 
 not allow the mind to collect itself sufficiently 
 for philosophical reading. After the first six 
 months of war, heavy literature has no further 
 attraction for the men in the trenches. Their 
 motto is : Good humor is half the victory ! 
 
 And this sunny man was yesterday called up 
 by Death into his world of shades. Last night 
 we buried Theodor Nietzelmeyer. 
 
 He had learned that his son, the young vol- 
 unteer Grenadier Guard, had fallen in the 
 vicinity. Throughout the night he had searched 
 
The Night Between the Battles 129 
 
 for him who was all on earth to him. The 
 stars of God and the fire at the edge of the 
 battlefield helped him to find the body. Then 
 out of tent canvas he prepared a shroud to bear 
 him to his last resting-place. . . . Quickly he 
 began to dig a grave for him ... in blind 
 ardor he worked onwards, when a ball of light 
 was pointed at him — and a column of enemy 
 rifles. Now his helmet, in addition to the six 
 humorous holes, bore the seventh, the dreadful 
 last. 
 
 Without pain, Nietzelmeyer died a splendid 
 soldier's death. 
 
 Last night I stood with the comrades of his 
 draft around both of them, the young Grena- 
 dier and our hero of fatherly love. How I 
 closed his eyes, which had so often with their 
 roguish laughter cheered up the company, is a 
 thing I shall never forget. He held his right 
 hand to the helmet, as though in death he still 
 wished to greet his Kaiser. Nietzelmeyer had 
 been present at Lyck! And he who saw the 
 Kaiser there, as he stood in the market-place 
 amid fragments and boulders, smoking ruins 
 and cruel devastation, and yet in the most mag- 
 nificent victor's wreath, amid a crowd of field-' 
 gray jubilating victors from all regions of Ger- 
 many — whoever saw this will retain this 
 world-historical picture of the Kaiser before 
 his eyes until death ! 
 
 I had both put into the same grave. It was 
 
 9 
 
130 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 done silently, no one speaking a word. With 
 compressed lips, we threw earth upon the dead, 
 but no word of preaching speeds the departed[ 
 into eternity here. What avail words here in 
 the field? In a corner of the great European 
 cathedral in which the Master of the World 
 now preaches to humanity, there is no chatter. 
 
 We stood yet awhile impressed with the 
 weight of this touching and heroic action of 
 the father who went on English soil to look 
 for his son. With tear-dimmed eyes we prayed. 
 One cannot believe that with a couple of blows 
 of the spade and a wet hole in the clay, far 
 from wife and child and bride and friend, now 
 day after day thousands of human lives are to 
 be ended, and one cowers as beneath an impla- 
 cable fate that has come upon the whole of man- 
 kind, and that can be nowhere better conjured 
 up than on British soil ! And that by German 
 weapons ! 
 
 We bound poles together into a cross for the 
 grave, crowned it with the perforated helmet, 
 and wrote on a shield of wood: 
 
 " Here father and son lie. 
 Dreaming of Greater Germany." 
 
 When we took oflf our helmets in the last 
 greeting, the solemnity of a high office was 
 about us, and the field bells were tolling — ^the 
 guns. 
 
The Night Between the Battles 131 
 
 We went back to our underground cavern. 
 Flares blazing over burning villages held the 
 watch of death without. 
 
 Dear Johanna, such are the nights between 
 the battles. They are the time of our silent 
 celebration of the dead. I torture you with 
 dark pictures, and I will never write to you 
 again at night. . . . 
 
 By day, between n^erry songs, I shall write 
 you! When we have hit out lustily, and 
 when the radiant eyes of our comrades are 
 about me ! When the order for the last great 
 charge is given, which, if God wills, is to 
 bring us over the barrier chain of the North 
 Downs — then I will write you ! 
 
 Lord God, fulfill in me what the young 
 Bavarian horseman implored in vain : "Mother, 
 let me not miss it . . . let me not miss it 
 . . . London . . . London . . . Mother, 
 let me not miss it. . . ." 
 
 Farewell, beloved! For us here the short 
 night is over. The gates of the East already 
 garb themselves in ruddy hue to the young 
 day. Now bursts forth the morning song of 
 the birds, the birds with bombs. And ma- 
 chine-guns say their morning greetings. As 
 of iron stands the German guard, his eye 
 directed to the North. Ready to fire, we look 
 out for the enemy. The stubborn, field-gray, 
 
132 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 faces are colored bronze by the ruddy morn- 
 ing. This German wall of iron and bronze 
 will be broken by no enemy. 
 
 In the evening soft longing for peace and 
 home is uppermost in the soul, and the holy 
 wrath of combat weakens. But in the morn- 
 ing it blooms again a fiery red! One longs 
 furiously to break through and compel the 
 coming of the hour which gives us the great 
 about-face, and command that restores us to 
 our homes. 
 
 This great hour, beloved, is no longer dis- 
 tant! Only London now — and the British 
 blood-guiltiness is avenged, and a world war 
 is at an end ! 
 
 Sleep well, beloved! 
 
FIGHT OF AVIATORS OVER 
 THE THAMES. 
 
 IN the trough of the valley at Cuckfield lies 
 the aviation camp of the Third Corps of 
 Invasion. Shortly after midnight the tele- 
 phone rings in the subterranean business 
 room of the Aviation Depot: 
 
 "The squadron to go out on scouting duty 
 at sunrise in the direction of Aldershot, 
 Guildford, and Reigate." 
 
 The chief object is to ascertain the strength 
 of the English reserves brought forward. 
 
 In the half-darkness eighty Taubes carry 
 out their grand toilet. So many busy hands 
 are about them as though eighty brides were 
 being prepared for the altar. Every little 
 metal strip and band, every seam in the 
 canvas, every loop of steel, is once more 
 checked. A dozen little things have to be 
 thought of, as the slightest manipulation is 
 important in the success of the flight. It is 
 as everywhere in life: whoever wants to do 
 something great must first of all dispose of 
 a host of necessary petty things. 
 
 Wedding flight? Revolvers, carbines, 
 bombs, and arrows — it is a wedding of blood. 
 
 Towards the East the morning mists are 
 133 
 
134 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 filled with feeble light. The engines are 
 ready. The motors whirr and the propellers 
 practice once more on the earth what they are 
 to do in the clouds. Impetuously the engines 
 tug at their fetters ; they chafe and roar with 
 impatience; their gaze is directed north- 
 wards, to the chain of the North Downs, be- 
 hind which extends the broad depression of 
 the Thames Valley. 
 
 "Let loose!" orders Captain von Bren- 
 decke, the commander of the squadron, and 
 he mounts first. He is the observer. Lieu- 
 tenant Prohl steering. 
 
 The eighty aircraft set out in small 
 swarms. First they grope a few yards, 
 clumsy and ungainly; then they dart for- 
 ward, snorting with rage, like prehistoric 
 monsters. Now the wonder is repeated : the 
 heavy colossi become easily controlled birds. 
 Doves,* indeed? They are eagles with wide- 
 spread wings — German eagles, which to-day 
 at last wish to see what their minds have been 
 bent on for months — London! 
 
 They do not fly high, because the mist still 
 fills the air. Thin curtains of gauze enshroud 
 the stage on which the final act of the 
 greatest tragedy of the war is to be shortly 
 played. 
 
 According to map, watch, and compass, 
 
 * A play on the word Taube, which means Dove. 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 135 
 
 they must now be near the enemy. Every 
 nerve is tense. The airmen know that their 
 reports play a part on Hindenburg's map 
 table. 
 
 Hurrah! There is movement now in the 
 mist! Gentle morning gusts tear apart the 
 troublesome veil. No sooner, however, have 
 the glasses detected assemblages of troops, 
 than the first infantry shots come whistling 
 up, with as much promptitude and decision 
 as though the riflemen had been all night long 
 on the watch for these birds of prey. The 
 airmen open the admission valve full, and at 
 seventy-five miles per hour the machines rise 
 in great curves into the blue sky. 
 
 The barometer shows 220 meters. 
 
 Suddenly clouds of shrapnel stand next to 
 the machines. The guns which were directed 
 against the German lines have now been 
 turned towards them — eighty aircraft are an 
 attractive thing, and must pay to fire at. As 
 the motors absorb every sound, the airmen do 
 not hear the firing of the shrapnel. There- 
 fore it is somewhat uncanny to see suddenly 
 spring up out of nothing next to the aircraft 
 these white, ghost-like giant fists, which wish 
 to grip and set fire to and crush. 
 
 The machines dart onwards and drown the 
 noise around them. They resemble fright- 
 ened children who sing in bad weather so as 
 not to hear the thunder. No! the valiant 
 
136 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 scouts in the air know not fear. Until they 
 can give a reply to whence and whither, how 
 many of the enemy troops, they do not think 
 of seeking protective shelter. Let the guns 
 spew shot after shot ! Let the machine-guns 
 below cast their thousand lightning forks 
 into the air, they will not succeed very easily 
 in hitting a bird. 
 
 The barometer now shows the dizzy height 
 of 2,800 meters. 
 
 Calmly the observers scan the landscape. 
 
 A flash is seen over there. 
 
 "Oh! that is it, is it?" 
 
 The oblong quadrangles down there amid 
 the wood of the park are those guns which 
 yesterday sent down their shots like light- 
 ning from a clear sky and remained undis- 
 covered till now. So that is their hiding- 
 place. Quickly a note is made of everything 
 worth knowing about them. Every sus- 
 picious spot which can be detected on the dis- 
 torted face of the English parkland is 
 recorded by the observers on the map ; they 
 scan and measure, make notes, bend over- 
 board again, allow their hungry soldier's eyes 
 to gaze upon the land, and write and draw, 
 and with the prism glass continuously detect 
 new zigzag lines, new entrenchments. Be 
 careful, you imitators of Icarus in field-gray ; 
 the shells are finding their way nearer and 
 nearer to you, and aim at your life. Truly, 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 137 
 
 the dizzy height is no longer habitable. The 
 air pressure of the exploding shells strikes so 
 hard on the machines that they stagger as 
 though no longer subject to a conscious will. 
 Here and there English lead already licks the 
 wings. But in the north gleam the roofs of 
 London — with that proud prospect German 
 soldiers will find even Hell habitable. 
 
 The aircraft, surrounded by death, are not 
 without defence. They now spout out their 
 poison. The first bomb drops. As soon as it 
 has left the car it unfolds its black, white, 
 and red band — thus adorned it cannot disap- 
 pear from the eye of the airman. With a 
 fluttering strip of ribbon in his heart, thus 
 death rides down on to the earth. Waving 
 colors with destruction as heavy as the lead 
 attached to them — such is war ! 
 
 Thus the squadrons aimed at become in 
 an instant a swarming heap of ants. During 
 the days of the hard calamities of war with 
 which England and her accomplices have 
 visited the entire world, it is an indescribably 
 majestic feeling to send down lightnings on 
 English soil, to exact retribution for the 
 crime of the English intriguers who, in 
 frivolous temerity, once began to play with 
 the idea of the world-wide war. 
 
 Strong gusts arise — ^what is majestic man 
 then in his feebleness? The aeroplanes oscil- 
 late, they dart upwards and slip downwards 
 
138 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 as in a witches' dance. But the iron will c'on- 
 quers. The propellers whirl, the taut wires 
 sing. The pilots in the whirlwind and amid 
 the shrapnel fire have their hands firmly on 
 the steering gear and lever; the observers 
 have, in smartly drawn lines, securely noted 
 the positions of the troops below, and now 
 and again, almost mechanically, they throw 
 a surreptitious triumphant glance on the 
 roofs of London, which will, in a few days, 
 no doubt, witness the bloodiest struggle in 
 the world's history. 
 
 As the sun has now risen, and the morning 
 light imparts shadow and light to the land- 
 scape, the camera starts work. With a single 
 glance it spies out every corner, and does not 
 forget like the human eye. It hauls good 
 booty out of the enemy camps, between the 
 forest ridge and North Downs and grips it 
 firmly. Its keen eye and its memory helps to 
 win the battles of to-day. 
 
 The valiant scouts are suddenly filled with 
 affright. Two comrades have been hit home. 
 The aeroplane is torn to shreds and tatters. 
 Bits of steel and limbs — human limbs — drop 
 down. Blood drips from the sky. 
 
 Then anger gives animation. A train is 
 coming along; it seems to be bringing ammu- 
 nition. They fly over it, and when eighty 
 battle-planes aim misfortune follows and 
 deadly distress. Was it even a troop trans- 
 port train? 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 139 
 
 The day brightens up into one of rare clear- 
 ness. The shells hiss ever more fiercely. 
 Still higher the machines mount. 
 
 The Germans look steadily into the op- 
 ponent's cards ; they now know where are his 
 trumps. Another hour and Hindenburg will 
 lead his cards. 
 
 Tiny black points suddenly appear in the 
 northern horizon. The points grow and assume 
 wings. Five, six, eight, twenty, fifty, one hun- 
 dred — it is a giant squadron. 
 
 "Rise!" Captain von Brendecke shouts 
 above the roar of the motor, and points out 
 to Lieutenant Prohl, sitting at the steering- 
 wheel, swarms of approaching attackers. 
 There are one hundred and twenty! Such 
 squadrons the world has not yet seen ! Hands 
 grip the steering-wheel more firmly, and hearts 
 beat. 
 
 Now the moment has come! Loosen the 
 rifle and take aim! Up here there is no war 
 of position; here only Blucher's spirit con- 
 quers. 
 
 "Upwards!" An ascending war is the war 
 in the air ; he who is highest is the victor. They 
 rise almost to the height of twenty Cologne 
 Cathedrals. 
 
 The squadrons now go at each other full tilt. 
 The aeroplanes greet each other with powder 
 and lead, dash hard by their opponents to get 
 
140 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 off their path; they turn at sharp angles and 
 abrupt curves, and seek to checkmate each 
 other by cunning and force. They swing their 
 cars round at a speed which makes them cant 
 over on the tips of their wings, and while lying 
 in the curve the carbines seek their living 
 target. 
 
 It is a wondrous, a blood-red, harrowing 
 witches' dance up there. 
 
 The Englishman succeeds in flying over Cap- 
 tain von Brendecke's aeroplane at a short dis- 
 tance. He throws a bomb. By a hair's breadth 
 it escapes the tail end of the German craft. 
 Once on its way it seeks for victims ; in a couple 
 of seconds it kills the horses of a British 
 squadron. 
 
 The English flying men shoot with sang- 
 froid and with sure aim; many a German is 
 already setting his teeth together to overcome 
 the pain of his injury. The German machine- 
 guns, rotating on their pivots, also do not fire 
 into the blue sky. One English pilot seat car- 
 ries nothing but a corpse. The machine stag- 
 gers, fires aimlessly hither and thither, then, 
 falling from the fighting swarm, carries with 
 it another aeroplane, and both fall, burning 
 into the abyss. 
 
 The guns below have long been silent, but 
 against friend and foe the common enemy 
 comes rushing along with ever-increasing vio- 
 lence, and, wildly roaring, the storm rides from 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 141 
 
 the ocean over the land. The forcible gusts 
 convert the empire of the air into a battle coun- 
 try, full of difficult obstacles. Just as though 
 pits had been dug up aloft, the aeroplanes glide 
 into holes, get jammed, and are held stationary 
 for seconds together. But the battle continues. 
 Each seeks to gain the higher position over the 
 other. The machines are taxed to their utmost. 
 The propellers revolve with mad speed. Eyes 
 gleam. Every muscle is tense. 
 
 Lieutenant Prohl received a blow on the head 
 as though struck with a mallet. He feels his 
 helmet and finds a bullet. The steel framing 
 of the helmet has stopped it, but it must have 
 embedded itself a couple of millimeters in the 
 cranium ; blood runs down his temples. 
 
 The captain has heard the short shout, and 
 looks round at Lieutenant Prohl. 
 
 The lieutenant, casually: 
 
 "Nothing, Captain. A small splinter ran 
 into me." 
 
 And they continue the fight. Here none can 
 get away, for they are three to two. The air 
 battle consists of single combats, or surprise 
 attacks and duels, a cruelly hard tournament 
 for life and death. Revolver balls rattle against 
 the armouring of the frames ; rifle balls crash 
 into the aluminum of the radiator plates. Here 
 the lining of the framework is smashed up, 
 there a revolution counter is dashed to pieces. 
 At times the craft of the individual groups 
 
142 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 gather together into a battle of masses and 
 lamed birds drop head over heels into the depth. 
 Whether friend or enemy, it will be difficult to 
 find out below. 
 
 And in the thick of the fight for life or death, 
 the German airmen again and again cast a 
 glance to the sea of stone — London, the world 
 city, the cold city of envy. There will be hot 
 days for London! A glance at the roofs of 
 London fills the German outposts, hard pressed 
 by superior forces, with fresh courage. 
 
 Now they are the witnesses of a heroic deed 
 of thrilling greatness. As though they had 
 vowed themselves voluntarily to death, two 
 English aircraft dash, like men running amok, 
 at a specially dreaded German battle-plane, 
 which is equipped with new and mysterious 
 weapons, and has already shot down seven 
 English birds. They grip it fore and aft, hook 
 themselves in its rods, a couple of last shots — 
 a cluster dashes down from the height of 
 its flight Below there is motion among the 
 fragments for barely a second. Such har- 
 rowingly great deeds only mature where the 
 world's history stands in front of final decisions 
 frought with the greatest consequences. 
 
 Captain Brendecke has also met his death. 
 The weather is so fascinatingly transparent to- 
 day that for an instant he bent overboard to 
 get a view of a simulated artillery station and 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 143 
 
 the work of a Fougass minefield. And he 
 would have been able to make important re- 
 ports — if lead had not entered his spinal mar- 
 row. The car now floats like a ferry on the 
 Acheron. The captain is dead. And the hel- 
 met of the lieutenant is stuck by blood to his 
 head. This war is at times endless murder; 
 only the greatness of the object and a clear 
 conscience can sustain German men to endure 
 such horrors. 
 
 The observer is no more. A blind bird, 
 however, is of no use to us. Lieutenant Prohl 
 drops sharply down a couple of hundred meters 
 in order to escape the attention of the enemy. 
 They will look upon him as finished. He will 
 then return to the aviation camp. 
 
 On looking out at a height of 2,000 meters 
 he notes that during the fight he has quite lost 
 his bearings. To be out of contact with the 
 enemy is bad enough, but to lose control of 
 that contact with the enemy country is death or 
 captivity. But look on the map and on the 
 land — the two pictures do not agree. 
 
 Fate, however, is seldom satisfied with one 
 prank; the motor begins to run irregularly. 
 In the fine work something has gone wrong 
 in the levers — possibly a bit of lead has got 
 entangled. The cylinders miss fire. The posi- 
 tion is now serious. 
 
 In a volplane the bird, wounded to death, 
 glides down. German England he can no 
 
144 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 longer reach, and now Lieutenant Prohl looks 
 around for a piece of land free from people, 
 where he can come down. 
 
 In a meadow adjoining a river, between wood 
 and park trees, the aeroplane lands. 
 
 A ball has hit a small tube and throttled the 
 motor. The damage can be repaired; but not 
 with the speed with which, for miles around, 
 the report will be spread that a damned Ger- 
 man has landed! 
 
 The first to arrive on the spot is a well- 
 dressed elderly squire, having his estate there. 
 He is of the old English build and thick-set; 
 he has smuggled his old-fashioned corpuleticy 
 from pre-sport times into the England of to- 
 day. In his gray top hat and riding boots he 
 looks almost like a typical John Bull in the 
 pages of Simplicissimuss. Behind the well-to- 
 do and respected squire walk armed peasants 
 and noisy women. 
 
 When the squire is still fifty meters away 
 he fires a revolver at the areoplane. 
 
 Lieutenant Prohl lets him approach and then 
 fires oflf two shots with the machine-gun to 
 frighten him. They are the last two cartridges. 
 Now boldness of action and speech are the only 
 things left. 
 
 "Take your seat or die!" says Lieutenant 
 Prohl to him harshly, for another crowd of 
 armed peasants are approaching, and it is an 
 urgent matter to secure a hostage. 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 145 
 
 The gentleman and hero of the revolver pre- 
 ferred to take his seat rather than get a ma- 
 chine-gun bullet, and mounts, grunting, into 
 the car, while Lieutenant Prohl proceeds to re- 
 pair the motor. When armed peasants are 
 growling a stone's throw away, minutes become 
 eternities. 
 
 "One step forward and the hostage loses his 
 life." 
 
 Now the peasants know. Hastily he sets 
 to work to sew up the slightly torn main artery 
 of his bird. Soon the last touches are added. 
 
 Lieutenant Prohl is placed before a difficult 
 choice. Shall he now bring the body of his 
 captain to the aviation camp, or rise up with 
 the country squire? The roughly repaired 
 machine cannot carry both. If he releases the 
 squire, he may be sure that the growling peas- 
 ants will craftily fire at the aeroplane when it 
 rises and will certainly kill him mercilessly if 
 compelled to land a second time. 
 
 For the present he places the body along the 
 skirt of the wood. As soon as he can, he will 
 carry it behind the German front. 
 
 To the peasants he says : "If any sacrilegious 
 hand touches this dead man, the one I have here 
 will answer for it!" 
 
 He then rises with his rare booty. 
 
 High in the air Lieutenant Prohl learns that 
 the river over there is the upper Thames. So 
 far had the German aviators advanced to the 
 
 10 
 
146 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 northwest during the fight. Lieutenant Prohl 
 now reveals to his guide that he need not be 
 afraid of the machine-gun, as all the ammuni- 
 tion, to the last cartridge, had been fired off. 
 
 The squire would have liked to box his own 
 ears. 
 
 At last the landing cross is perceived. That 
 is the German Flyers' camp. In narrow spirals 
 the machine descends. Officers of the General 
 Staff come towards Lieutenant Prohl to con- 
 gratulate him and regale him with port and 
 cigarettes. With acclamation they take receipt 
 of the caricature of John Bull! But then the 
 jubilation changes to pain. They learn that 
 on the banks of the Upper Thames the body 
 of Captain Brendecke rests, and that the battle 
 in the air has cost much precious blood. 
 
 The army surgeon wishes to remove Lieu- 
 tenant Prohl's blood-incrusted helmet ; the lat- 
 ter prevents him. He first wishes to recover 
 the body of his captain. He enters one of the 
 few aircraft which have remained uninjured 
 in the hard fight, supplies the machine-gun with 
 ammunition, and rises up for the second time, 
 accompanied by another. 
 
 Now the German airmen return victoriously 
 to their nest. Eighty pairs of flying men had 
 gone up in the morning dawn, and barely fifty 
 have returned. But surely as glorious con- 
 querors! German science and German indus- 
 
Fight of Aviators Over the Thames 147 
 
 try, in combination with German heroism, must 
 have accompHshed great things in the air ! For 
 the battle was two against three. 
 
 A long, long row of dead. But war does 
 not leave the heart long to attend to impulses 
 of feeling. Later! Later on. In this hour 
 the Fatherland wishes to have photos, sketches, 
 and reports of its flying men. Telephone, tele- 
 graph, and motor-car convey important news 
 to headquarters. Pencil and camera have to- 
 day brought home valuable booty ! 
 
 A general to whom one of the flying men is 
 making interesting observations says, at the 
 close of a short address, in which he has sent a 
 brief word into Eternity after the fallen : 
 
 "Gentlemen, you have already earned high 
 honors in Russia and France. External tokens 
 of this the Fatherland can now hardly give you. 
 But, gentlemen, you have yourselves to-day 
 reaped the finest reward : you have seen Lon- 
 don on the wings of your German eagles." 
 
THE LAST BATTLE OF THE 
 CENTURY. 
 
 FOR eight days heavy thunderstorms have 
 been lowering over the valley of the 
 Medway. They have been caught betw^een 
 the heights of the North Downs and the 
 Forest Ridge and seem unable to get free 
 from the slopes. The vehemence of the 
 tempest is almost prehistoric. Forests are 
 uprooted and rocks broken and splintered. 
 From hour to hour the force increases, the 
 thunder growls more and more threaten- 
 ingly, and the lightning becomes more selec- 
 tive in the choice of its victims. London sees 
 this lightning in the south. For eight days 
 it has heard the roll of thunder in the distance, 
 and from early morn till eve, and yet again 
 till morn, is terrified. Will the storm sweep 
 over the hills? . . . 
 
 London, Britain, the whole world, looks 
 with fear or in anticipation of infinite joy 
 towards the storm-swept corner of the North 
 Downs. 
 
 These North Downs traverse the counties 
 of Surrey and Kent in the form of a ridge of 
 hills some ninety miles in length. Four 
 hours south of London they rise out of the 
 
 148 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 149 
 
 valley trough of the Medway like the Sax- 
 onian Erzgebirge from the Eger plain. The 
 circular Forest Ridge resembles the Bohe- 
 mian hills in the south of the Eger plain. 
 Although these English hills are but a third 
 as high, they protect the plain of the Thames 
 like a wide fortress rampart. 
 
 Since the first threatening signs in the 
 Near East brought anxiety to the heart of 
 Albion, and since like a phantom the fear of 
 a collapse of Russia has haunted the confed- 
 eracy for the abolition of Germany, the 
 English had converted this natural rampart 
 into a fortress, which dwarfed all the master- 
 pieces of military science ever created. 
 
 The construction of the fortifications round 
 London was a task undertaken by the whole 
 English nation. By the daring and wisely- 
 thought-out plans of British engineers who 
 profited by the world war, bands of archi- 
 tects, and countless battalions of engineers 
 converted the North Downs into a glorious 
 monument of national strength. Using im- 
 mense quantities of concrete and nickel steel 
 armored forts, shell-proof housings for artil- 
 lery and infantry works were built into the 
 ridges of hills. The summer residences of 
 the wealthy situated on the ridges were razed 
 to the ground so that the giant fortress might 
 be stripped of all tinsel which might prove 
 dangerous to its defenders. Every park in 
 
150 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 this beautiful country was now a bastion with 
 pits, treacherous wire entanglements, traps 
 of all kinds, and mysterious obstacles pressed 
 into the service of a cunning defence. In a 
 word, the North Downs formed a fortress 
 which, according to human calculation, could 
 not be taken by storm. Truly had they be- 
 come an "Erzgebirge" (Iron mountain). 
 
 Opposite, on the northern slope of the 
 Forest Ridge, lie the Germans, and the will 
 of a Hindenburg seeks for them the way to 
 the north. 
 
 The roar and surge of the waves of battle 
 between the two ridges of hills is of terrifying 
 force. It means death! The tumult rings 
 across the valley, and its echo answers, 
 Distress! 
 
 A tract over which the English repeatedly 
 attempted to advance is called by our soldiers 
 the "God help us acre." The fearful din 
 sounds as if all that is left from the world 
 war in material and force is here pitted 
 against each other, and if all the arsenals were 
 being rapidly emptied and not even a single 
 useless grenade left for the long period of 
 the peace that is to follow this last decisive 
 struggle. 
 
 Like gigantic herds of wild beasts the 
 guns roar at each other, and they have not 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 151 
 
 yet grown hoarse during the eight days. And 
 the guns must now speak loudly, for all the 
 five continents wish to hear ! The last battle 
 of the century has commenced — the fight for 
 the world! 
 
 Since the morning the artillery in duel has 
 tried to excel itself in fury. A terrific contest 
 of the engineers and gunners rages over the 
 long front stretching from Midhurst to Ash- 
 ford. Opposite these two wings of the Ger- 
 man front the English have entrenched 
 themselves strongly, for they know Hindeh- 
 burg as a master of gigantic claw-like opera- 
 tions, and they are afraid of his encircling 
 them. 
 
 But a genius of strategy does not feed on 
 schemes. 
 
 Hindenburg plans to pierce the enemy's 
 position by means of two "bull's horns" and 
 to lift out the whole front. From the small 
 railway junction of Three Bridges he intends 
 to advance by way of Horley, and eighteen 
 miles farther to the east from Paddock Wood 
 to Sevenoaks. During the last few days he 
 made sham advances here and there to induce 
 the enemy to waste ammunition and cudgel 
 his brains, confused in guessing as to where 
 the German attempt to pierce the Hne is to 
 be made. Meantime he secretly collected his 
 heaviest material for piercing and impact 
 purposes at the two points where the bull's 
 horns were to be applied. 
 
152 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 From six o'clock that morning the guns 
 sweep the enemy's front like red-hot rakes. 
 At the two points of the planned piercing 
 attack, Essen and Pilsen volcanoes come into 
 action. 
 
 On the other side the lava is flowing. 
 
 Scarcely an hour later the English show 
 their cards. Almost at the center, between 
 the two points where the Germans mean to 
 break through, they intend pushing forward 
 their wedge ! Seeming to have copied Mack- 
 ensen at Gorlice and Tarnow, they pour a 
 murderous fire on the section of the front be- 
 tween Edenbridge and Penshurst. Naval 
 guns of the heaviest caliber pound the 
 trenches, and under their smashing blows the 
 German earthworks are pounded to chaff. 
 At the point where the attack has been 
 planned, tons of steel are every minute 
 thrown against the German lines. Masses 
 of earth fly in all directions. Breastworks 
 are reduced to dust, and shelters and founda- 
 tions rent. The projectiles raise whirling 
 clouds of smoke. A mad dance of beams and 
 splinters of steel and flagstones is taking 
 place around the trenches. 
 
 It is like reducing the world to ashes ! 
 
 Continuously fresh grenades pierce the 
 German ramifications. The English guns 
 angrily search for the German batteries, and 
 they cannot find them, and their fury in- 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 153 
 
 creases. With their uncanny m-m-m and 
 o-o-o and s-s-s, they seem always to spell the 
 word mors — death! 
 
 Nothing remains unhit. The complex laby- 
 rinth of the trenches of our battalions is 
 reduced to dust. From seven o'clock this 
 destructive artillery fire has been playing on 
 the German positions, and now it is midday. 
 Every peephole of the observers is shot away. 
 The grenades have cut the telephone wires. 
 Now each little group is left to act on its own 
 initiative, and every man can show what 
 there is in him. 
 
 Although the trench lines are closed and 
 their retreat cut off, the advanced listening- 
 posts must now get back to the trenches, even 
 at the cost of their lives; for they have to 
 report an important observation. They rush 
 over open tracts, a hail of shrapnel following 
 them, like game crossing a forest clearing, 
 and safely reach their comrades. 
 
 The enemy is removing his obstacles ! 
 
 The English artillery is sending fog-shells 
 across, and throwing up in front of the Ger- 
 man positions a black wall of dense thick 
 smoke, through which no eye can penetrate, 
 compelling the field-grays to use thick eye 
 bandages, while the enemy columns arrange 
 themselves in battle order. 
 
154 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 For a moment the curtain is torn asunder. 
 In the valley the enemy is rolling up in broad 
 dark waves — wave after wave. The enemy's 
 artillery is collecting its full strength for a 
 last concentrated fire to clear the way for the 
 storming columns through the entanglements. 
 
 The English artillery is now silent. The 
 smoke curtain slowly lifts. Nothing is to be 
 seen. Was the impression of advancing bat- 
 talions only a mirage? The telescope knows 
 better: it sees what threatens the German 
 lines. 
 
 The Albion who speaks of culture in high- 
 sounding phrase is sending colored troops 
 against the invading hosts. 
 
 Here and there something springs up sud- 
 denly, to disappear again on the instant. 
 With animal-like perseverance and cunning, 
 they creep up the slopes. Horde after horde 
 is let loose by the opposing side. 
 
 Over a space of two miles the enemy crawls 
 nearer and nearer, on, on, with a grim, set 
 purpose. The whole valley is now filled with 
 these Native troops. 
 
 The German artillery is in action, here 
 shelling a train and there destroying a whole 
 company. By a terrific hail of shrapnel it 
 seeks to drive back the onrushing hordes 
 from our infantry, but behind the corpses 
 
The Last Battle of the Centui^ 155 
 
 of a thousand slain two thousand more creep 
 on. Against an enemy who holds life so 
 cheap, the fire of the best artillery in the 
 world can do but little. Undismayed by 
 enormous losses, always fresh, unending 
 swarms of black and brown figures approach 
 the German positions. 
 
 Half an hour later the signal is given. The 
 advancing waves are to form billows, and 
 with the roar and all-destroying force of a 
 storm-flood surge against the German lines. 
 
 Over the slopes of the forest ridge wild 
 battle-cries fill the air. . 
 
 Not the jubilant and liberating note of the 
 German "Hurrah!" but a beast-Hke roar of 
 the lust of killing and murder. Indians in 
 colored rags howl like dervishes, swinging 
 their weapons over their heads in juggler 
 fashion. They dash forward with frenzied 
 courage. In the delirium of battle the natural 
 instinct of self-preservation seems to be 
 stifled ; they have only one aim — to beat the 
 German barbarians to pieces ! 
 
 Our soldiers allow the hordes to approach 
 within 300 yards. The machine-guns then 
 begin to work. They do not shoot, they mow. 
 
 The swarms upon the slopes begin to 
 waver, but there is no retreat for them. The 
 corpses lie in heaps. 
 
156 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Ever fresh hordes of Indians steal up. 
 The corpses are piled up higher still. Now 
 they send forward the Senegal Natives in 
 blue coats, with their ancient knives, made 
 before the outbreak of the war in Paris. 
 Beneath turbans of lemon color grin the 
 brownish-yellow faces of the Moroccans. 
 Maori warriors roll up with wild animal-like 
 cries, and show their large white teeth to our 
 men in gray. 
 
 Fresh groups of Gurkhas drive forward, 
 fresh lines of Pathans with piercing battle- 
 song. The din and roar are awful to the ear. 
 They act as if possessed by evil spirits. Some 
 have put on German helmets instead of their 
 turbans, not in order to deceive, but to in- 
 toxicate themselves, to enjoy the idea that the 
 German soldiers will foam with anger. 
 
 The German machine-guns give them their 
 reply; they select a few dozen fellows . . . 
 never again will they outrage a German 
 helmet. Small caliber guns riddle the at- 
 tackers with steel, and here and there the 
 German hand grenades make spaces clear. 
 Once more the Native lines commence to 
 waver; but on the other side the English are 
 on the watch and handle roughly those who 
 show signs of turning back. 
 
 The last colored reserves are advanced. 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 157 
 
 They do not charge, they sweep onward. No 
 matter how pitiless the tribute in blood ex- 
 acted of them by the German arms, the chain 
 is immediately linked up again where death 
 had broken it. The barrels of the German 
 rifles are red hot; the machine-guns have 
 nearly exhausted their immense store of 
 ammunition. 
 
 Twenty rows deep, the Native troops 
 press forward to the decisive attack! 
 
 In the end they penetrate the German 
 trenches. 
 
 They attack our men in gray like jackals. 
 Bayonet is opposed to daggers and stiletto- 
 like instruments of murder. It is now tooth 
 for tooth. 
 
 Young Germans who, until the time of 
 military service came, sat on school forms 
 and learned and ever learned, are slaughtered 
 like cattle by these hordes. Such thoughts 
 cause the blood of the German warriors to 
 boil, and, anger poisoned, turn to thirst for 
 revenge. Fresh arrivals of German reserves 
 do not treat the foe with kid-glove methods ; 
 they defend themselves against the over- 
 whelming numbers until the last blow with 
 the butt of the rifle. 
 
158 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 Our men in gray fight Hke Hons, and the 
 song of the brave men rings out loud! But 
 all their heroism is of no avail. Even the 
 reserves now arriving cannot prevent the 
 disaster. The tenacity of the attack of 
 superior numbers weakens the first German 
 lines till they bleed to death. The battle 
 seems to convict of error the mad Germans 
 who think that in warfare mental and moral 
 forces play some part. ... 
 
 Divisions of colored troops overrun the 
 German trenches between Edenbridge and 
 Penshurst over a front of nearly six miles. 
 The commanding general is compelled to 
 order the survivors to retreat. 
 
 This is the signal for the enemy. Now the 
 regiments of white Englishmen may advance. 
 Very politely, however, they allow even now 
 Canadians and the French Foreign Legion to 
 go first. 
 
 With rejoicing battle-cries some hundred 
 and fifty thousand men between Edenbridge 
 and Penshurst take up the pursuit of the 
 Germans. At the English headquarters the 
 report is already received that five thousand 
 prisoners were taken — amongst whom, how- 
 ever, there is not a handful of unwounded ! 
 
 In the meantime the English airmen have 
 collected over this section of the front and 
 engage in the battle. Bombs are thrown on 
 all parts of the rear, where it is suspected 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 159 
 
 places of high command are located, and on 
 all railway stations. They endeavor to 
 muddle up the giving of orders, and prevent 
 the bringing up of German reserves. 
 
 "Succeeded in breaking through! Five 
 thousand prisoners! Germans in disorderly 
 flight! Area of six miles breadth and three 
 miles depth in our hands! The King just 
 arrived at the front !" These are the jubilant 
 messages sent at this hour from London to 
 all parts of the globe. 
 
 The moment has now arrived for the Lon- 
 don stockbrokers to make something for 
 themselves by immoderately exaggerating 
 the German reverse . . . before Hinden- 
 burg fixes with his sword the latest quota- 
 tions. . . . 
 
 The Stock Exchange puts life into the 
 Munchausen News Agency. 
 
 The cry "Special ! Special !" may be heard 
 throughout the whole of London. 
 
 "The most terrible retreat ever experienced 
 by any nation on this earth is in progress." 
 
 "From all parts of the globe the sons of 
 Britain hasten to free their mother country 
 from the barbarians ! The complete dissolu- 
 tion of the invading army has already taken 
 place ! 
 
 The newspaper boys now cry "Extra 
 special," and from Fleet Street spread through 
 the whole ot London, 
 
160 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 An illustrated gutter rag already has a 
 picture showing how Hindenburg in his 
 despair grips a revolver. "Extra special! 
 Extra special!" 
 
 Enlightened reporters of the sensational 
 press know how to feed the mob. Recruiting 
 again revives. 
 
 "Under the leadership of d'Annunzio, the 
 immortal, a battalion of French and Italians 
 dressed as Prussian guardsmen has taken 
 Hindenburg and his whole staff prisoners! 
 Can a headless trunk still carry out an inva- 
 sion? Can the miserably beaten German 
 army ever collect again on English soil?" 
 
 London is now mad with joy. 
 
 The Bank of England is the most highly 
 decorated building. 
 
 The German invasion is finished ! 
 
 On a ridge of hills farther in the rear Ger- 
 man reserves collected the small number of 
 brave men who survived this storm. 
 
 Hindenburg sits in Brighton surrounded 
 by his staff. 
 
 He moves his compasses over the map of 
 the Forest Ridge. 
 
 He then addresses Ludendorff: 
 
 "The front wall is six miles wide, the side 
 walls each three miles. A hundred and fifty 
 thousand English are within. ... If we now 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 161 
 
 close the rear wall we would then have a nice 
 cage for the savages and their trainers and 
 drivers . . . ! Yes ! The cage shall have its 
 back wall! Bavarians, Silesians, and West- 
 phalians will make it their business to see 
 that the front wall resists immovably all 
 further English attacks, the men of Allgau 
 and Thuringia will keep guard on the East 
 and on the West, while the Saxons, Swa- 
 bians, Moravians, and the Hungarian Im- 
 perial Hussars close up the rear wall in the 
 North. 
 
 The quickly thought-out plan becomes a 
 well considered command. The command 
 emanating from Brighton splits up into a 
 thousand small commands before it reaches 
 the last man. The Saxons, Swabians, and 
 Austrians soon set out on their great encir- 
 cling march. After hours of hardship they 
 stand densely packed and protected from the 
 eyes of the enemy in the northeast and north- 
 west of the tract where Hindenburg intends 
 erecting the cannibal cage. 
 
 Scarcely a quartc" of an hour's rest after 
 these forced marches comes the command to 
 take up rifles and fix bayonets! The bat- 
 talions start the fan-shaped advance. They 
 must march over corpses, for during the last 
 part of their march they must tread the way 
 of horror already taken by the negroes and 
 Gurkhas. At the same time all the German 
 11 
 
162 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 troops around the gigantic rectangle prepare 
 for the attack. 
 
 When the Saxons catch sight of the com- 
 mander of a Baden regiment lying with his 
 nose cut off and his ears torn out by these 
 savages, there is no holding them back. The 
 blind fury of their attack incites the bat- 
 talions near to unheard-of bravery. From all 
 sides the German troops victoriously advance 
 against the positions of the English mercen- 
 aries ! Sooner than expected Hindenburg can 
 be informed that the rear wall of the cage 
 has closed as he had ordered. 
 
 The next step is to draw the bars of the 
 cage tighter. A fearful shedding of blood 
 commences! Everything confronting the 
 German arms falls, and those who fall are 
 trampled underfoot by those behind. Gurk- 
 has writhe in their death a'gony like dying 
 beasts of prey. The blacks with red poppies 
 in their woolly heads roll on the ground 
 showing their teeth and making appalling 
 grimaces. Some stutteringly ask for pardon 
 and make to kiss the hands of the German 
 soldiers, but they would have no more of 
 those souls of slaves. . . . 
 
 Thousands upon thousands of dead lie 
 around. A black scoundrel, apparently dead, 
 suddenly rises and cuts down from behind a 
 German captain of the guards. At this the 
 fury of the German soldiers knows no 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 163 
 
 bounds. Now, they show no mercy; every- 
 one lying there receives a stroke which settles 
 him ; not only those who treacherously sham 
 death but those long dead are roughly 
 handled. The German soldiers angrily de- 
 fend themselves against criminal attacks and 
 designs. Horror is in supreme command. 
 
 Once more the express order is given to 
 take no prisoners. 
 
 Too late! The shame of England is too 
 great to be borne by human hearts. Whoever 
 sets mad dogs on human beings is no longer 
 protected by the rules of war. When fight- 
 ing bestial, snarling scum, the German soldier 
 observes only the laws of the hunt of beasts 
 of prey. The troops can no longer obey the 
 command. No more prisoners remain to be 
 taken. The cage has become a chamber of 
 death. 
 
 When Hindenburg hears that a number of 
 corpses are strewn over the thirty square 
 miles twice greater than the area of those en- 
 gulfed in the Masurian lakes, a feeling similar 
 to that of those great August days stabs him 
 for a moment. . . . 
 
 England has now received its Tannen- 
 berg ; nay, even more ; it has given its battle 
 in the Teutoburg Forest, in which out of 
 every hundred a hundred were slain. The 
 battle, it is true, has cost the Germans twen- 
 ty-five battalions of their heroic sons. Eng- 
 
164 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 land, however, has lost twenty-five brigades 
 — twenty-five brigades of those white and 
 colored noblemen who were to meet the Cos- 
 sacks and the Eastern illiterates at Potsdam ! 
 The English army of the offensive has had 
 its German battle. And now the German 
 trumpets may sound the attack on the fortress 
 of the North Downs. 
 
 The piercing of the German lines by the 
 English hordes had spoiled the morning for 
 Hindenburg. His intention was to advance at 
 the railway junction of Three Bridges via 
 Horley, and eighteen miles farther to the East 
 from Paddock Wood towards Sevenoaks, but 
 suddenly he had found himself compelled to 
 deal with a more pressing task; to build an 
 iron cage for gigantic hordes of beasts of prey. 
 
 As soon, however, as the report was received 
 that the ring around the hundred and fifty 
 thousand was complete and closed, he imme- 
 diately gave the order to push forward the 
 bull's horns by means of which he intended 
 lifting out the whole front of the enemy. And 
 now, when it is nearing five o'clock, the East 
 Prussians, Hungarians and Hanoverians are 
 already in the foremost trenches at these two 
 points, where the Essen and Pilsen monsters 
 have been clearing up for eleven hours. The 
 table ground is free, and the attacking troops 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 165 
 
 have an easy task to perform. The points of 
 the bull's horns are already in the flesh of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Now the supreme moment in Hindenburg's 
 plan has arrived. By means of captive balloons 
 he gives the signal for a general attack on the 
 North Downs! The terrible thunderstorm 
 which has been raging for eight days over a 
 front of ninety miles, between the North Downs 
 and the Forest Ridge, and which had lost noth- 
 ing of its primeval force, tearing up forests, 
 splintering rocks, is now to sweep over the hills 
 to London. 
 
 Punctually on the stroke of five something 
 creeps from out the trenches along the whole 
 side front, and a hurricane of iron howls and 
 expends its fury on the hills. The German 
 troops, proud of the great task they have to 
 perform, storm up the hills, with only their own 
 desire to exact reparation from the British for 
 all the blood which has been shed in Europe. 
 
 The paths leading up the hills are full of 
 horror. The track of the tempest lies through 
 blood, through a cemetery stretching for miles. 
 Behind torn wire entanglements and broken 
 walls of parks death has stored its prey. Whole 
 battalions, which during the eight days col- 
 lected here in blind eagerness for the attack 
 on the German positions, lie in gigantic graves, 
 fallen and forgotten. 
 
 At Hindenburg's headquarters a message is 
 
166 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 received from the Front which would not be 
 believed had it not originated from a German 
 commander : 
 
 "The English drive before them all captive 
 Germans, soldiers and civilians, as bullet 
 shields." 
 
 At a pause in the fighting German negotia- 
 tors take the following urgent reply to the Eng- 
 lish camp : 
 
 "If the commander of the English army does 
 not at once remove from the field all captive 
 Germans being driven in front, a corresponding 
 number of English officers now prisoners will 
 be shot without delay." 
 
 Albion, however, prefers sacrificing its cap- 
 tive officers rather than that London should 
 now sacrifice its last semblance of world-power. 
 The English think that if the Germans have 
 hearts in their bodies, they must stop when 
 dealing with their kinsmen .... and in the 
 meantime the fortune of battle might be favor- 
 able to England ! 
 
 The German generals see from this mad ob- 
 stinacy that those at the helm in England, tor- 
 tured by anxiety and desperation, are no longer 
 in possession of their right senses. Nobody, 
 however, punishes madness. Germany would 
 not like the English officers, of whom many 
 have fought a gallant fight, to be sacrificed to 
 blind men in power. The storming of the 
 North Downs, however, must not be delayed 
 another minute. What is to be done? 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 167 
 
 A Bavarian general knows a way out of the 
 difficulty. He orders his Bavarians to put aside 
 their rifles and cartridge belts, and sends them 
 on their way only with hand-grenades and 
 spades. Thus his battalions advance and care- 
 fully distinguish between separate Germans 
 and English .... their great mission makes 
 them feel like little gods ; they place the sheep 
 on the right and the goats on the left. . . . 
 Their bullets might have hit their German kins- 
 men, the spades and knives of fighters of Upper 
 Bavaria, however, do not miss their mark. The 
 Bavarian lions hack themselves through the 
 bullet shield. The English officers from the 
 German camps for prisoners may, perhaps, one 
 day shake hands with them! 
 
 In the meantime the witches' revel continues 
 all along the line. The German attacking col- 
 umns resist desperate counter attacks and con- 
 tinue to gain ground step by step. The 
 confusion in the English camp seems to become 
 chaotic, the confusion of command and counter- 
 command aids the Germans considerably. 
 Nothing can resist the approaching flood-tide; 
 it surges and roars over earthworks and steel 
 fortifications and engulfs everything in its 
 path. 
 
 The heartrending moans of the badly 
 wounded can be heard on the battlefield, which 
 extends for many miles, and it comes from the 
 woods, the ditches and the trenches. 
 
168 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 A Scotch officer is wedged in a recumbent 
 position between blocks of concrete, so that 
 one only sees his head — ribs and limbs are 
 broken. A German Landwehr man frees one 
 of his arms, and is about to hand him the water 
 flask. The officer, however, gathers together 
 his strength once more, pulls out his revolver 
 and shoots himself. 
 
 The battle rages pitilessly on, heedless of all 
 these great and small tragedies. How many 
 dead and wounded? Numbers have lost their 
 significance. The pool of blood of Sarajevo 
 has grown into a sea of blood. Figures merely 
 resound in the ears and no longer become clear 
 ideas. The conception of the value of life is 
 changed into mere noise and emptiness by this 
 gigantic battle, and only one word still sounds 
 meaningly — London ! 
 
 While English troops retreat without halt, 
 and German regiments already besiege a last 
 infantry work, suddenly cries of joy ring out on 
 the other side, which swell up into wild jubila- 
 tion: 
 
 "Poor Germany! Great torpedo attack on 
 German transport fleet! One hundred thou- 
 sand dead !" 
 
 A young Viennese infantryman presses his 
 lips together and quiveringly grips the stock 
 of his gun. A Landsturm man of Berlin taps 
 him on the shoulder and laughs: 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 169 
 
 "Comrade, that was their last lie !" 
 
 From the German front, however, another 
 "Hurrah!" comes — a hurrah louder than any 
 ever yet sounded on earth : 
 
 "Prussian guards have taken Height 262 at 
 Woldingham, and see London! With the 
 naked eye they see London!" 
 
 All the battalions wish to have a share in 
 this precious result of the historical contest of 
 these days! And on the entire front, 150 kilo- 
 meters in length, the last small elevations are 
 gradually taken which afford a view of Lon- 
 don! 
 
 London in the afternoon sunshine! 
 
 A general halt is called ! 
 
 And hurrahs ring out ! 
 
 The day has been a hot one, the struggle 
 bitter. A wounded lion in the agony of death 
 once more lifted his paws for a terrible strug- 
 gle. Now, however, he will have only one de- 
 sire — ^peace ! 
 
 In a battle report on the broken attack of 
 the German front by the British, which was 
 found in the afternoon on a captured adjutant, 
 the words appeared: 
 
 "The battle on the North Downs will be de- 
 scribed by the history of the world as the 
 death-blow to German militarism !" 
 
 It will be described as the battle of the 
 KafRrs, illiterates, British and beasts of prey. 
 
170 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 In wild flight the remainder of the British 
 army seeks safety behind the walls of London. 
 
 Our heroes rest in their last bivouac, and 
 now cannot tear themselves away from the 
 picture. London in the light of the setting 
 sun! The rough warriors now begin to see 
 symbols with poet's eyes. . . . 
 
 They throw their knapsacks away and tear 
 their helmets from their heads, so that the 
 evening wind may cool their heated brows. 
 What would not the German soldiers in ex- 
 uberant exaltation have done in order at some 
 time to see the roofs of London ? They would 
 have liked to perform dances of joy and shout 
 their gaiety throughout the night ! They had 
 seen themselves hard pressed by death in fifty 
 battles, and the bitter sufferings of war had 
 been visited upon them, but they had still 
 always looked forward feverishly to this last 
 decisive battle. They would have liked to 
 dance and be merry and sing: The Russian is 
 dead, the Russian is dead, England lies dying. 
 The German is coming, the German is coming 
 and will inherit all . . . But in this hour, when 
 they have achieved their great object, they are 
 in no street mob's mood. 
 
 They do not dance or laugh, they fold their 
 hands in silent prayer. The price has been 
 heavy, but the stake was great. Many have 
 fallen in these days. And to die on the thresh- 
 old is tragic. 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 171 
 
 The German soldiers had wanted out of their 
 small savings to buy up the entire stock of 
 every market vendor, and prepare for them- 
 selves a meal of the gods when they once should 
 stand before the gates of London. . . . And 
 they no longer have even the iron ration in their 
 knapsack. German men are seated over the 
 Durra which they have captured, over the 
 Negroes' millet, and consume with it goat flesh, 
 of which Gurkhas have already eaten. 
 
 It is evening, and the world wishes to sleep ; 
 London will have to remain awake. It must 
 watch and pray, for it will experience much 
 suffering of heart in this last night of war . . . ! 
 In Calais and Dunkirk fearful enemies are 
 equipping themselves at this moment, who have 
 long waited to give each arrogant town its 
 death-blow. ... . 
 
 The soldiers are mortally weary. First, 
 however, a card must be sent home to mother 
 and sweetheart. No diffuse messages to-day, 
 they only write the four fateful words: "God 
 has punished England !" 
 
 No sooner has sleep stroked the brows of the 
 brave soldiers and calmed their nerves in which 
 the entire great excitement of these last few 
 days is reverberating, than they are awakened 
 by a dull growling murmur. Are hosts of 
 riders of the clouds coming over with muffled 
 drum beat ? 
 
 Zeppelin's giant cruisers sail away to the 
 
172 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 north of the German positions. They are 
 twenty, thirty, fifty in number. 
 
 Now the tired eyes brighten up again, and 
 one hundred thousand throats send joyful 
 greetings to the nightly sky. 
 
 Hurrah, Zeppelin ! 
 
 A captain of horse says merrily to his men : 
 
 "Boys, even though it means a ten marks 
 fine to the funds of the squadron, we must just 
 once greet our Zeppelin in English." 
 
 "All right ! The day is here, the great day ! 
 All right, Zeppelin." 
 
 Now no German soldier has time to be tired. 
 With bated breath they look after the ghostly 
 night birds whose feathers gleam mysteriously 
 in the pale moonlight! A giant squadron is 
 moving out to the destructive battle for which 
 Germany has been hungering for long, long 
 months. . . . Now each one feels that the last 
 act of the great tragedy of the people is to be 
 played — a people who would have liked to de- 
 clare the stars in heaven to be colonies of Great 
 Britain ! 
 
 Lightning already flashes in the distance, 
 fiery trees with gigantic branches grow up out 
 of London's wilderness of houses. The reflec- 
 tion of terrific explosions rends asunder the 
 darkness of night. A terrible retribution has 
 fallen upon the city of peddlers, the city of 
 envy. 
 
 Bomb after bomb shoots down. These are 
 
The Last Battle of the Century 173 
 
 the last wonderful strokes in the European con- 
 cert dreamed of by Edward the Seventh, . . . 
 The final chorus was, it is true, to be blown 
 solemnly before the gates of Berlin ! 
 
 London's fire bells during this night ring out 
 the last battle of the century. 
 
BEFORE THE GATES OF LONDON. 
 
 'TpHE same night the bells of victory are 
 "■■ resounding in Berlin. 
 
 All day long Berlin has been a prey to 
 pleasant yet secretly worrying restlessness, 
 a feeling which precedes proud achievements. 
 
 Early in the afternoon the special news- 
 papers carried the superscription: "Before 
 the Gates of London!" The commander of 
 the army has announced that a great battle, 
 promising a favorable issue, is developing on 
 the North Downs. Whoever has ears to un- 
 derstand Hindenburg's language knows that 
 the die is cast. Even the strategists of the 
 street, always eager to interfere in our gen- 
 eral's tactics, who arrange their maps accord- 
 ing to hearsay, feel with sure instinct that to- 
 day final decisions are taking place over 
 the way. 
 
 To-day reports are as cheap as blackber- 
 ries in Berlin, and the cuckoo may guess 
 where people get the underlying atom of 
 
 174 
 
Before the Gates of London 175 
 
 truth from. At the Exchange a flag is hung 
 out towards evening. It flutters in the air as 
 if it would fain know what was happening, 
 but no one can give it a decisive reply. 
 
 Meanwhile, in spite of the nerve-racking 
 guessings and imaginings, the night descends. 
 It is eleven o'clock. The heart of Berhn is 
 beating. There is no thought of sleep. The 
 business premises of the great newspapers 
 resemble beleaguered forts. Wherever a map 
 of England is hung, there is the semblance of 
 an excited sitting of a military council. 
 
 At half-past eleven Wolff's Bureau issues 
 the information that the gigantic armada of 
 all available German airships has over- 
 whelmed the City of London with bombs, 
 and that salvos of our forty-two's have been 
 thrown into the town. The Tower and two 
 bridges over the Thames are in ruins ! 
 
 Berlin shouts with joy! During the night 
 the streets become a many-colored fairyland 
 of flags. The waves of enthusiasm are surg- 
 ing high. The multitude increases by leaps 
 and bounds. Whole suburbs seem to migrate 
 to the central parts of the town by means of 
 the night trains. For no inhabitant of Berlin 
 would like to hear an hour later than neces- 
 sary the news of what is happening on the 
 '^hames. 
 
 At one of the street corners someone is 
 making a speech, and this is his first attempt 
 
176 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 in public. He manages to utter a few cheap 
 expressions . . . everyone, however, is aware 
 that this is not the impulse of a phrasing 
 amateur, but that his heart is welling over 
 with enthusiasm. These are great hours of 
 the world's history. 
 
 The church clocks announce midnight as 
 new specials are issued: 
 
 "The Lord Mayor of London has sur- 
 rendered the keys of the Mansion House to 
 Hindenburg, and has, begged him to spare 
 the town !" 
 
 London before the occupation by the 
 troops! Hindenburg London's Overlord! 
 This information is the signal for a delirium 
 of delight surpassing Germany's joy in the 
 days of August, 1914, and in the autumn 
 of 1915. 
 
 "Germany, Germany above everything!" 
 Like a mighty wave it roars in multitudinous 
 chorus up to the starlit sky. All are crowd- 
 ing to the "Linden." In front of the palace 
 hearts are bubbling over with rapture. There 
 is singing in the streets, and it continues 
 through the Mark Brandenburg and resounds 
 throughout the mighty fortress of Germany 
 founded on rock, and yet so hard pressed at 
 the beginning of the war. 
 
 "A mighty fortress is our God I" Berlin does 
 not think of going to sleep ! Hindenburg, the 
 Overlord of the British capital! Such news 
 
Before the Gates of London 177 
 
 does not conduce to sleep. Many tinted lamps 
 in German, Austrian, Hungarian and Turkish 
 colors are carried through the streets. There 
 is singing and shouting everywhere, and 
 though the night is throbbing with gay life, 
 it is the first care-free night since the 1st of 
 August, 1914. 
 
 When the church clocks have rung out the 
 second hour of the night, the motor-cars of 
 the great newspapers again pass through the 
 streets; new specials are thrown to the 
 crowd. Joyous voices carry it in all directions. 
 
 "In order to save London from the threat- 
 ened destruction, the English Government 
 has accepted Hindenburg's demand that the 
 entire English army, wherever it may be, is 
 to lay down arms without delay !" 
 
 This announcement is received with a de- 
 light such as Germany hardly experienced 
 after Arminius, when the Roman Legions 
 perished, or in the October days of the battle 
 of Leipzig, or after the capitulation of Sedan ! 
 A Cabinet Minister buys a whole bundle of 
 specials from one of the vendors and sells 
 them at ten marks each. In a quarter of an 
 hour he has provided many a Berlin war- 
 widow with a sum of money ! 
 
 There is a moving throng in Berlin as if it 
 were broad daylight. It is more than a New 
 Year's glamor, for it means not a New Year, 
 but a new period of history! 
 
 12 
 
178 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 At three o'clock all the bells are ringing. 
 The clangor is as deafening as if the bells of 
 the whole world were pealing and ringing out 
 the war — the terrible, cruel world war. 
 
 Till daybreak shoutings of hurrah and 
 patriotic songs are heard through the streets. 
 When the song is started, ". . . In the 
 Homeland, in the Homeland, there we meet 
 again !" the singing reaches a joyous, jubilant 
 height! For soon Germany will have her 
 brave sons back again ! 
 
 In the late hours of the afternoon on the 
 following day the invading army hold a 
 stately parade march at Croydon, three hours 
 south of London, expecting their Marshal, 
 who has called them together for review and 
 short army service before he directs their 
 ceremonial entry into London. 
 
 It is a memorable moment when Hinden- 
 burg with his staff comes riding up the hill, 
 and sees from the heights south of Croydon 
 the roofs of London for the first time ! A town 
 of seven and a half millions is lying at his 
 feet. The capital of a country which has been 
 able to subdue one-fifth of the whole human 
 race, and the extent of whose colonies spreads 
 over a surface equal to thirty-two German 
 empires. This proud city that was the 
 
Before the Gates of London 179 
 
 world's banking-house, the world's exchange, 
 the world's wharf, the world's guardian. . . . 
 
 Hindenburg is riding slowly on, and 
 thoughtfully he glances at the Canaan of the 
 German dreams of conquest. ... At last ! 
 at last! he has succeeded in subduing that 
 English commander reputed far more mighty, 
 more skilful, more experienced, and more 
 successful than he. . . . Hindenburg has 
 conquered the lie! 
 
 In the first months of the war the lie gained 
 great strategic victories in its expedition 
 against the Germans. With its poison it in- 
 fested public opinion everywhere, with deceit 
 and wickedness it raised a whole world in 
 arms against us. By well-laid schemes and 
 falsehoods, with detestable deception, and un- 
 heard-of obstinacy it succeeded in enmeshing 
 the healthy human sense of whole nations. 
 . . . What value had the triumphs of the 
 taking of Tannenberg or the conquests on 
 the River Bug to that? Its weapons were 
 the cable, the telegraph, and the Press, its 
 munition silver bullets, and the soil under- 
 mined with all the means of modern technics 
 was Germany's honor. 
 
 Even when German truthfulness had cut 
 angrily into the web of this miserable lying 
 worm, in whose cobwebs the thoughts of whole 
 nations were taken prisoners ... in a second 
 they were again patched together with back- 
 biting and suspicions. 
 
180 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 In Paris and in Rome the lie was busy weav- 
 ing its nets; but there its meshwork was too 
 clumsy for deception. The French and Italian 
 lie, laid on too thickly — reports of severed 
 hands and mutilated breasts, of the shooting of 
 inconvenient members of the Reichstag, and of 
 boxes on the ears occasionally applied to the 
 Crown Prince by the Emperor. The more 
 finely-spun — and therefore more dangerous — 
 English lie whispered into the world's ear that 
 Germany had had a friendly smile for Europe 
 only because she wished to store up munitions' 
 in order to stab murderously the innocent, 
 guileless. God-fearing Briton in his sound 
 sleep, and in the midst of a blessed dream of 
 peace. . . . 
 
 For months the nations of the earth saw the 
 German soul described as the nesting place of 
 all imaginable evils. 
 
 Lies are said to have short legs ! With long, 
 sturdy legs the English lie has been running 
 round the world, has daily received in London 
 new instructions, has sown hatred of Germany 
 in the remotest corners of the earth, and has 
 escaped all snares laid by truth. 
 
 Now at last it was surrounded! Hurrah! 
 Now the German regiments are standing round 
 the cave of this London dragon! Hurrah! 
 The lie has succumbed to the broadsword of the 
 hero Hindenburg! 
 
Before the Gates of London 181 
 
 Hindenburg is riding through the regimental 
 lines and greeting his army of heroes. The 
 battalions move closer to a pulpit erected by 
 gunners from a munition wagon and fir- 
 branches. 
 
 The sound of hymns is borne across the field, 
 and then the army chaplain ascends the green 
 pulpit. 
 
 "Comrades, the Lord has done great things! 
 He has blessed our arms and has given over 
 to us the proud city before whose gates we now 
 gratefully lift up our hands to God. 
 
 "In such mighty hours of fate we do not stop 
 to think of the inscrutability of God's inten- 
 tions, but look for connections which make His 
 wise actions clear to us. And thus we ask to- 
 day : Why has the Lord God so deeply chastised 
 the great and proud nations in these days, when 
 He gave it such rich blessings at other times ? 
 And after letting it rest under His sun of grace 
 for so many centuries ? 
 
 "Truly, the Lord was with it ! This nation 
 skilled in statescraft ruled a mighty empire from 
 its little island and made and levied tribute on 
 a large part of the earth. Canada gave Eng- 
 land wheat and fur, Australia meat and wool, 
 India rice and spices, Africa gold and jewels, 
 Ceylon coffee and tea ; millions of fish swam to 
 its shores. Immense wealth coming from all 
 parts of the world was stored in its banks and 
 in its warehouses, its soil had been left un- 
 
182 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 touched by all the bloody wars of centuries — 
 God had blessed the Briton, and it seemed 
 almost as if he were called to be lord of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 "And now this nation is humbled by devas- 
 tating blows of the sword. 
 
 "I answer this question with the words of 
 the Lord : 'What shall it profit a man if he gain 
 the whole world and lose his own soul? Or 
 what can man give in order to redeem his 
 soul?' 
 
 "The English were not content with the 
 treasures given them by God; the desire for 
 pleasure and always greater possessions and 
 unlimited world power poisoned and impover- 
 ished their souls. They wished to gain lightly 
 and speedily in order to enjoy sport and amuse- 
 ments, and to be early safeguarded in the ex- 
 travagant luxury of the clubs of the West End 
 of London from the cares and worries of life. 
 Their social life became more and more sepa- 
 rated from higher mental and social interests. 
 Many a Briton spent his days in horse-breed- 
 ing, yachting, football playing, and followed 
 the political life of unscrupulous war instiga- 
 tors. When the mental activity of a contem- 
 porary won success in cash, he was not denied 
 respect; but according to the British view of 
 the world spiritual striving and moral worth 
 for their own sakes were things he did not 
 know how to treat. 
 
Before the Gates of London 183 
 
 "History praises many a Briton who was per- 
 sonally a hero of moral worth ; but the ideals of 
 a few individuals did not react on the fashion- 
 ing- of the nation as it did in Germany. 
 
 "Ideals which have no market value and are 
 not convertible into cash, Albion did not include 
 in the price list of its soul stocks. 
 
 "To this poverty was joined jealousy. 
 
 "Already two generations ago Bismarck 
 wrote : 'England hates to see us gain anything 
 in maritime development or in our navy, and 
 envies us our industrial success.' Since Bis- 
 marck's time Albion's envy has grown yellower 
 and more bitter year by year. 
 
 "England became steadily wealthier, but 
 impoverished at the same time, so that her 
 originally healthy sport turned to sport idiocy, 
 and her originally healthy interests in the activ- 
 ity of the world became the policy of self-seek- 
 ing, envious tradesmen. 
 
 "England is the land of moral weaklings. 
 This town lying at our feet holds within its 
 walls fifteen hundred churches. But far more 
 than fifteen hundred temples have been built 
 to that other god, the golden calf! You can- 
 not serve God and Mammon, says the Lord. 
 That is why in a short time they carried God's 
 word only on their lips, and with their whole 
 souls served the shining idol which made Eng- 
 lish rule the most treacherous of all govern- 
 ments. Truly they have taken grievous harm 
 in their souls ! 
 
184 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 "Two words belonging to the Britons are 
 difficult to translate into our language. One is 
 cant — that is, 'to pretend' real sorrow for one 
 whom one slowly tortures to death. And the 
 other is called business, 'to gain profit under 
 any conditions.' 
 
 "There are also two words in our language 
 which are possessed alone by Germany and 
 which cannot be translated into English in all 
 their meanings. One is 'Gemuet' (innermost 
 fine feeling), and the other 'Froemmigkeit' 
 (religious sense), for piety is no less than the 
 thorough penetration of the whole inside 
 human being with true, active, godly resigna- 
 tion. In the pious town of the fifteen hundred 
 churches the devilish plan was nurtured of in- 
 citing Kaffirs, Gurkhas and Australian blacks 
 against your comrades ! 
 
 "The Briton seemed to be rich in aristocratic 
 qualities. How is that now? We praise the 
 war, the great God-sent clarifying valuer, that 
 he has torn the mask from the pious aristo- 
 cratic people of Britain, and has shown the 
 world the fetters with which their soul was 
 bound ! 
 
 "But what can a man give that he may re- 
 deem his soul? 
 
 "The Britons did not become conscious that 
 their soul had been harmed, for philosophers 
 arose and blessed their greed of gain. Do what 
 is of use to you ! taught Bentham. Try to sub- 
 
Before the Gates of London 185 
 
 due the outer non-English parts of humanity 
 — always full of fairness — into servility! Let 
 your money — always full of cringing polite- 
 ness — work in all parts of our planet at high 
 interest ; let millions work themselves to death, 
 in order that you may sit in Pall Mall in your 
 club, and that you may devote yourselves to all 
 branches of sport! In her desire for gold, 
 Albion stretched out her tentacles like a deep- 
 sea octopus, and fastened herself to all the 
 corners of the earth. 
 
 "Everything became her business. But her 
 greatest business she sought with the German 
 love of peace and with the German Michael's 
 diplomatic honesty, and she founded the world 
 war undertaking. . . . 
 
 "God's mills grind slowly. Comrades, it is 
 something precious and lofty that God should 
 have chosen you for His instrument ! That He 
 made your swords write in the English soil: 
 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world ?' 
 
 "What can man give to redeem his soul 
 again ? 
 
 "Look, comrades, there in the East End are 
 London's slums. Pitiable endless misery fills 
 this the greatest poverty den of the world. 
 There Albion rhight contrive to redeem her 
 soul, for she was immensely rich and became 
 immensely hard, she was religiously pious and 
 heartlessly heathenishr 
 
186 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 "England's Holy of Holies was its Ex- 
 change. 
 
 "The lofty clock-tower of the London Ex- 
 change carries instead of a weathercock a hCige 
 gilded locust. Yes, like a plague of locusts, it 
 must be owned, the spirit of jobber and broker 
 and profit-hunter were also coming to our Ger- 
 man Fatherland . . . But the golden locust 
 shall remain. The magnificent flowering 
 meadow of German ideals shall never be sacri- 
 ficed to the locust plague of English money- 
 greed and profit-hunting ! 
 
 "Comrades! Great things the Lord God 
 hath done to us ! And if He now makes a jubi- 
 lant Germany rich in earthly goods, may the 
 all-generous God preserve the old German 
 mind of our forefathers! For what shall it 
 profit a man if he gain the whole world and 
 lose his own soul?". 
 
 After the singing of the last hymn, a corps 
 of cavalry and some artillery regiments re- 
 ceived orders to enter London the same even- 
 ing. They were to inquire with regard to the 
 situation in London, and to take measures of 
 safety, so that the entry of the troops might be 
 undertaken on the morrow without mishap! 
 
 In addition, two battalions of Pioneers are 
 sent to town in rapid cars, for a terrible con- 
 flagration is raging in London, as the Zeppelin 
 bombs have wrought sad havoc in the city. As 
 the fire has now completed its share in the edu- 
 
Before the Gates of London 187 
 
 cation of Englishmen, the Pioneers are to help 
 in subduing the raging element. 
 
 During the night the rest of the troops are 
 brought by rail close to the city. Up to early 
 morning the trains are bringing thern in. The 
 engines for the long military trains groan and 
 wheeze as if they found it extremely difficult 
 to carry these gray guests closer to the 
 Thames. 
 
THE ENTRY INTO THE CITY. 
 
 THE streets and squares round London 
 Bridge Station on the following morn- 
 ing are a huge military camp. Soldiers from 
 all parts of Germany, gallant Austrians, sons 
 of Prussia who have stood the touch of war, 
 make themselves as tidy as possible and 
 anxiously await the hour which will make 
 history. 
 
 It is Hindenburg's entry into London! 
 Our soldiers have kept these four words in 
 their hearts as a blessed promise. They have 
 scarce dared whisper them in the midst of 
 the battles, lest luck might have turned aside 
 if they had invoked it loudly, and Albion has 
 for months seen these four words like the 
 writing on the wall. 
 
 Hurrah ! Hindenburg has entered the sta- 
 tion grounds. At nine o'clock sharp he 
 mounts his horse. He rides between Luden- 
 dorff and Count Zeppelin. The battalions 
 unfurl the flags. To the strains of the 
 "Entry Into Paris March" of 1814 the troops 
 proceed to London Bridge. 
 
 On this stately Thames bridge, close up to 
 which even the largest ocean steamers may, 
 
 l88 
 
The Entry into the City 189 
 
 moor, the pace becomes involuntarily slower, 
 as the eye is anxious to take deep draughts 
 of the variegated pictures offered by the 
 view. The soldiers look at the riggings of 
 the cargo-boats which have escaped, not* 
 without difficulty, from a dangerous fate, and 
 have come to the docks to have the wounds 
 inflicted upon them in the Channel by the 
 German submarines attended to. 
 
 Is a forest fire raging down the river? The 
 Zeppelins the day before yesterday set fire to 
 this forest of masts and many warehouses. 
 Black clouds of smoke, interspersed with 
 sparks, set threateningly ablaze the powerful 
 cranes and a few still undamaged ware- 
 houses. 
 
 There, on the left bank of the Thames, 
 where clouds of smoke are still lowering like 
 a storm over the ruins, the Tower had stood 
 for 900 years up to the day before yesterday. 
 One of the thirteen 42-c.m. guns had trans- 
 formed into rubbish and ashes this old cita- 
 del on the eastern edge of the City. The 
 arsenal, with its walls and proud battlements, 
 is now a heap of sweepings. The Bloody 
 Tower stands out as a dismal token amid the 
 stones of the ruined fortress. 
 
 The soldiers cast a hasty glance at the lofty 
 dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, which reminds 
 them of St. Peter's Church in Rome, and now 
 they enter the streets of the City, which has 
 
190 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 been jestingly called the capital of London. 
 German military pride swells the breast of 
 the conquerors of the world battle; a cold 
 shudder of awe strikes the veterans in 
 thoughtful mood as they become conscious 
 they have been called to witness those noble 
 days which mark a turn in the fate of the 
 world. Now to the heart of London ! 
 
 The goal of the troops is St. James' Park. 
 They cannot reach this place by the shortest 
 way, as between Cannon Street and Queen 
 Victoria Street a tremendous fire is raging, 
 which destroys goods worth millions and 
 sends them flying up in black clouds of 
 smoke. They will spray all over the ocean 
 what remains of these treasures, and the 
 storm will whistle to them the little song of 
 the tradesman whose most precious goods 
 were eaten by the rust and the moth. 
 
 Such an uproar reigns in the quarter of the 
 City round London Bridge that the clang of 
 the military bands is drowned by the noise. 
 As London and Charing Cross bridges are 
 shaking under the weight of the German 
 heavy artillery, a threefold traffic is con- 
 gested here. Tram-cars, omnibuses, bar- 
 rows, taxi-cabs, luxurious carriages, and 
 amongst them noisy street hawkers and 
 newspaper boys — all these noises blend to- 
 gether and deafen the ears. The people fight 
 to get on top of the omnibuses, thousands 
 
The Entry into the City 191 
 
 and thousands hurry to have a look at this 
 dismal Hindenburg and his guard of Huns. 
 Shame grasps many onlookers by the throat, 
 shame makes to-day many would-be German 
 haters and detractors of the Kaiser low- 
 spirited, but greater than the shame of the 
 mob is, as always, its curiosity. 
 
 By the side of the Piccadilly girls, in their 
 best attire, may be seen ragged, slouching 
 figures which have been eaten by vice and 
 hunger. More poor than there are soldiers 
 in an Army Corps live a miserable existence 
 in the workhouses of the town of seven 
 million inhabitants, and a still larger rabble, 
 shy of the daylight, wander here and there 
 entirely homeless. The necessity of the war 
 months has also brought these gloomy bat- 
 talions of Londoners to war strength. Hon- 
 orable citizens and smart young sportsmen 
 look at the military spectacle with a sullen 
 gaze. Gentlemen and foppish mongrels, 
 righteous and unrighteous, all clench their 
 fists in their pockets against the Germans. 
 Let them hate us if they like, provided they 
 fear us! 
 
 In many streets there are crowds as at a 
 fair in peace times. At the corner of the 
 street a Punch and Judy show detains idlers. 
 On the stage Kaiser William is fetched by 
 the devil every five minutes. This theatre 
 manager would not change places to-day 
 
192 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 with the manager of the London Opera 
 House! 
 
 From the Thames the troops have gone 
 through King WilHam Street, the houses of 
 which are blackened by the dark gray Lon- 
 don fogs, and the soldiers have now reached 
 the square of the World where the traffic is 
 greatest — that is to say, the square between 
 the Mansion House, the Bank, and the 
 Exchange. 
 
 The Mansion House is the residence of the 
 Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor in the last 
 decade has been a much-plagued man. He 
 had the Presidency of Honor when at the 
 Mansion House the Committee for German- 
 English understanding exchanged good 
 words around the festive tables and declared 
 that they were engaged on fruitful work. A 
 few days before the Lord Mayor welcomed 
 in the same rooms the "Union Jack Industries 
 League," whose wish was at any price to put 
 a halter round the neck of the highly obtru- 
 sive German industry. Again, a few days 
 afterwards, the Lord Mayor spoke at the 
 meeting of the British Chambers of Com- 
 merce, in which, dissatisfied with the victory 
 gained by the German mark of origin "Made 
 in Germany," some members recommended 
 the creation of a "British Empire Trade 
 
The Entry into the City 193 
 
 Mark." And before the German members of 
 the Committee for the German-English 
 Entente had turned their backs on London, 
 the Lord Mayor welcomed with special cor- 
 diality the "Entente Cordiale Society" in the 
 rooms of the Mansion House. 
 
 "Entente Cordiale Society?" That is 
 English-French-Russian, and means, in Ger- 
 man, Society for Freezing Out Germany. Its 
 first propagandist was Edward VII, and its 
 last was Grey. 
 
 The Lord Mayor will in the future be 
 deprived of any representative functions. 
 Germany will give her hand in understand- 
 ing to the British as cordially as she can, but 
 in the future Michael will never be deceived 
 by the festive meetings at the Mansion 
 House, by peaceful declarations between 
 Russian caviare, English roast beef, and 
 French chickens. 
 
 And likewise there, in the Bank of England, 
 the cash desks, towards which moneyed people, 
 hungering for gold, hurried from all parts of 
 the world, will become slacker. There they 
 will mourn for the Golden Fleece, which has 
 gone to America. In this Banking House, 
 which once was the richest treasury in the 
 world, the receivers in bankruptcy of the Isola- 
 tion Company will have to make up accounts 
 during a whole generation, with a gigantic 
 army of clerks. 
 
 13 
 
194 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 In the sacred rooms of the Bank and Ex-' 
 change, near which the German troops are now 
 passing, Edward VII once had an estimate 
 for the big war of 1916 got out for him, which 
 war, by mistake, broke out two years too soon. 
 The financial experts were able very confidently 
 to call His Majesty's attention to the historical 
 fact that declarations of war in Europe had 
 always been for old England the most promis- 
 ing for industrial securities, and that the level 
 mark which indicates the development of Eng- 
 lish welfare has always risen sharply when Con- 
 tinental nations have been tearing at one an- 
 other. On this favorable Bankers' report the 
 Isolation Company was founded. As the World 
 War of 1916 had to be the grandest English 
 financial undertaking of all times, propaganda 
 money was lavishly spent, large newspaper 
 undertakings were bought up in foreigti coun- 
 tries, an army of spies was recruited in Bel- 
 gium, and high salaries were paid to the silent 
 members of the Company. So soon as beaten 
 Germany should lie prostrate on the ground, 
 with her flourishing economical life annihi- 
 lated, England would snatch with greedy hands 
 the gold treasure of the German Reichsbank, 
 and annex the State property of Prussia in 
 railways, forests and domains. "There would 
 be milliards and milliards as war indemnity." 
 This was what a Minister had dangled before 
 the people's eyes. And so long as England had 
 
The Entry into the City 195 
 
 not recouped from the World War transaction 
 the capital invested, together with unheard 
 usurious interest up to the last farthing, Dres- 
 den and Breslau would have Russian garrisons, 
 the King of Belgium would reside in Cologne, 
 Coblenz and Mainz would remain the principal 
 towns of French Departments, and the Eng- 
 lish would make themselves at home in Ham- 
 burg, Bremen and Frankfurt-on-the-Main. 
 
 And now past this bank in the secret 
 archives of which the nicely calculated estimate 
 lies hidden, German troops are marching, 
 troops from Dresden, and Breslau, from Cob- 
 lenz and Mainz, and even from Bremen, Hes- 
 sen, and Frankfurt-on-the-Main, The Ger- 
 man soldiers look with rare pleasure at the 
 machine-guns and anti-aircraft guns standing 
 on the roofs of the banks, and gaily enter 
 Cheapside ; with great noise and shouting, the 
 street hawkers, amongst whom are wretched, 
 small children, not taller than three cheeses 
 placed on top of each other, in dirty rags, 
 formed in a line, ofifer to the loiterers all their 
 penny articles, for the most part small toys and 
 figures supposed to be funny. The novelty of 
 this week is "Hindenburg on the Gallows." 
 For a penny every one can execute this annoy- 
 ing hero as many times as one likes ! Let the 
 London mob take their pleasure in childish 
 games, but the cavalry general who yesterday 
 entered the town has put a stop to the business 
 
196 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 of those running hawkers, who bawled out in 
 the streets the latest novelty — "Revanche." 
 As long as German troops are in London, the 
 thought of revenge must be kept silent — after- 
 wards let the English politicians foster or sup- 
 press this Parisian disease of children ! 
 * * * * 
 
 The troops march past the proud St. Paul's 
 Cathedral and soon arrive in Fleet Street and 
 the Strand, where one square yard of ground 
 costs more money than thirty German majors 
 receive as salary in a month. 
 
 Here is the district of the music-halls, the 
 place of birth of the political street tunes which 
 gallantly helped in preparing the World War. 
 
 In these well-attended halls there were sung 
 during the last decade those exciting couplets, 
 the chorus of which was always the challenge 
 cry: 
 
 "The World for Great Britain, and a rasher 
 for Germany."* 
 
 And night after night the crowd joined in 
 this song. 
 
 With a view to facilitate the recruiting busi- 
 ness for 1916, the invasion songs, "An English- 
 man's Home" and "A Nation in Arms," have 
 been produced since 1909, and Germany and 
 her great Kaiser were vilified until the mob 
 broke into a horse-laugh. . . . 
 
 * In English in the original. 
 
The Entry into the City 197 
 
 It is from this part of the town that the 
 English people were attuned quite methodically 
 to the pitch of the World War. The man in 
 the streets had to learn to shudder in fear 
 of the German Dreadnoughts and Zeppelin 
 cruisers. In the music-halls, mad, stupid nig- 
 ger dances were performed, and in the audi- 
 ence the idea finally grew ripe that for a nation 
 which could have as allies these supple, austral 
 negroes with their looks of beasts of prey, these 
 Zulu-Kaffir dancing-masters, it would be quite 
 easy to venture a small dance with Germany. 
 
 And the newspapers suitably completed the 
 formation of opinion began in the music-halls. 
 Fleet street, through which our troops are now 
 passing, is the newspaper street of Great 
 Britain. During the last five years there has 
 been scarcely a paper offered for sale which did 
 not carry in capital letters as a heading : 
 
 "The German Danger." 
 
 "German Invasion." "German Spy." 
 
 "Beware of German Spies and Zeppelin 
 
 Secret Agents!" 
 
 In this part of London imaginative pam- 
 phleteers faithfully assisted their Parisian col- 
 leagues and toadies in completing the vile lit- 
 erature for the million on the German abomina- 
 tion. 
 
 A young student and volunteer in the Gren- 
 
198 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 adiers makes a sign to a newspaper boy and 
 buys from him a copy of The Times. It has a 
 mourning border. The leading article says: 
 "We do not mourn because we have come to 
 grief in this war which has been prepared for 
 decades by Germany, but we mourn because 
 the civilization of the whole world now lies on 
 its deathbed. What will indeed remain of the 
 treasures of civilization in those countries in 
 which the horses of the Brandenburg Dragoons 
 graze and the Potsdam Generals swing their 
 sabres ? The treasures of civiHzation, the ideals 
 of which we took up arms against, the mate- 
 rialistic. . . ." The young Grenadier does not 
 translate any further; his glance falls on an 
 advertisement in the same copy : 
 
 "Wanted, a cook, wages 600 mk., and a tutor 
 speaking perfect English and French, salary 
 450 mk. . . ." 
 
 The chaplain at Croydon might have inter- 
 woven this advertisement into his sermon 
 when he expounded the Biblical text: "What 
 will it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world. . . ." 
 
 When the troops enter the Strand the 
 adjutant calls the attention of Major Sig- 
 wart, who is riding close to him, to the fact 
 that here, in a small by-street, the Tsar Peter 
 the Great had lived when he went to Hoi- 
 
The Entry into the City 199 
 
 land and England to learn the shipbuilding 
 trade as a simple dockyard workman. It would 
 be a fine parallel, thought the major, if the 
 King of England had some day to enlist as 
 a recruit in a Potsdam by-street to study 
 German military science. If King Edward 
 had done so, this world war would surely 
 have been spared us. 
 
 From the business part of the city our 
 troops have now arrived at the West End, in 
 the city of palaces, club-houses, and Govern- 
 ment offices. Here people spend in idleness 
 their easily earned money, and here laws are 
 made. 
 
 To the joyous strains of the German naval 
 song the troops come to Trafalgar Square. 
 The four bronze lions at the foot of Nelson's 
 Column have mourning veils over their 
 manes. To-day they lie, not as crouching for 
 a spring, they lie as lame with terror. Our 
 troops look at the proud Corinthian column, 
 as high as a church tower, which was built on 
 the model of the columns of the Augustan 
 temple in Rome. The temple was conse- 
 crated to Mars, the avenging God of War. 
 An avenging, all-bountiful God has assisted 
 our soldiers in winning their way to Lon- 
 don ; but on their faces nothing of revenge is 
 to be read. Lieutenant Haussmann hears in 
 Trafalgar Square two Berlin soldiers speak- 
 ing of Nelson, the popular British hero. 
 One says: 
 
200 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 "To win so easily a sea battle — it is surely 
 an extravagant adventure." 
 
 "Yes, Karl," says the other, "it happened 
 in Schoneberg in the month of May, and no 
 German U boat was present. . . ." 
 
 Thus some of them go on joking in a gay, 
 humorous manner, but most of them march 
 along in silence and look at this brooding 
 place of Germanophobia as if this noble suc- 
 cess of arms was only a dreamy unreality. . . . 
 
 Through the imposing gate of the Admir- 
 alty Arch our troops enter the Mall, a mag- 
 nificent street of the Victorian era. Now 
 they are in the great district of the English 
 clubs. Here is Pall Mall and St. James' 
 Street, with their beautiful club-houses, in 
 which the West End millionaires, in as lavish 
 and royal a fashion as Continental kings, are 
 attended to by an army of pages and footmen. 
 Here these fortunate, and yet such poor, sons 
 of Britain meet each other, men who have no 
 profession and no other care than not to miss 
 anything which may happen in the five parts 
 of the world which should be witnessed — any 
 sensational event in the domain of fire, water, 
 air, or earth. 
 
 Towards Whitsuntide the young gentle- 
 man of the Pall Mall Club goes to the Derby 
 at Epsom. A fortnight later he bets at Ascot, 
 
The Entry into the City 201 
 
 After the racing week in Windsor Park he 
 attends the great boat regattas at Henley, 
 and in July he goes to a fashionable seaside 
 town on the social level of Scarborough. 
 After a trip to the Berner Oberland, he goes 
 shooting the coveted grouse in August on the 
 moors of England. In September he shoots 
 the partridge. In October and November he 
 attends the great hunting meets, the climax 
 of which is stag hunting. In December he 
 goes to Cairo, in January he does not decline 
 an invitation to a tropical hunt, but early in 
 March he finds himself in due time at the 
 gaming table in Monte Carlo. In April he 
 resides on his estate in the outlying neigh- 
 borhood of London. He will soon leave his 
 country house to attend the season in Lon- 
 don. When he has rested there in a club 
 armchair he again goes traveling all through 
 the year, having as his only aim three things 
 — sporting, flirting, and gambling. 
 
 And now the war has struck out the items 
 of the traveling programme he had carefully 
 prepared. The war has barred the way to 
 Cook's Express Tours in Belgium and the 
 North of France. And the guide who will 
 accompany the would-be traveler to the East 
 is called Hindenburg! In the St. James' 
 district the sorrow is great . . . ! 
 
 Such a crowd of arrogant men who enjoy 
 life without doing anything can only vegetate 
 
202 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 in their idleness in a country which has made 
 all other nations tributary. Thousands of 
 ladies resplendent with diamonds can only 
 find a home in a country which understands 
 cleverly how to distribute the work amongst 
 its contemporaries all round the world, and 
 who in dividing up the world acted in the 
 same manner as that Englishman whom the 
 French poet, Leconte de Lisle, had the honor 
 to meet. 
 
 The meal was nearing its end when the serv- 
 ant girl put a basin of strawberries on the table. 
 Without saying a word the Englishman pulled 
 the basin towards him and emptied its entire 
 contents on his plate. "But, my dear sir," said 
 Leconte de Lisle, "I also like strawberries." 
 "Oh ! not so much as I do," replied the famous 
 Englishman. 
 
 Our soldiers have seen in the city the diligent 
 English merchant, in front of the Lloyds busi- 
 ness rooms the gallant English seamen, and on 
 the streets the well-groomed dignified English 
 citizens ; but here in the Pall Mall district they 
 are reminded of the braggart, inconsiderate, 
 selfish man who elbows his way ruthlessly 
 everywhere, the terror of the German traveler. 
 
 Over a good liquor and a brandy cocktail 
 London men during the last decade used to sit 
 in their club palaces listening to the revelations 
 of the Harmsworth Press, and discussing poli- 
 tics, They were thinking of the throttling of 
 
The Entry into the City 203 
 
 Germany. They had been on good terms with 
 Germany as long as she had remained the late 
 comer amongst the European nations and as 
 long as she had been considered as harmless, 
 as a playground of poets and dreamers. As 
 soon, however, as this Germany sprang out of 
 her shell as a clever, diligent, inopportune in- 
 truder amongst the nations, disarranging Eng- 
 land's circle, and bringing German trade and 
 German industry into the economical world, it 
 was decided in St. James' to cut short the 
 career of this upstart. . . .! 
 
 And now the Prussian pointed helmets are 
 marching in. 
 
 The spirits of Albion are past consolation. 
 
 Against this "damned" devil of Hindenburg 
 nothing avails, neither a new lie nor the fist 
 clenched in the pocket. The once happy homes 
 of "Merry old England," which by day used to 
 look after its racing horses and in the evening 
 to chat with club friends, while her wars were 
 carried on by mercenaries and hirelings — 
 abodes of deceptive happiness — have to-day 
 hoisted crape-covered flags at half-mast. 
 
 The gentlemen of Pall Mall do not mourn 
 out of sentimentalism. They are afraid of the 
 future, as war reduces most the estate of those 
 who do not work. Hard-working Germany, 
 filled with new strength, will take away still 
 more customers from the British; and then 
 there is the danger that roast beef will become 
 
204 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 scarce. That is a sad look-out! In the Park 
 district of London, where the cry to arms for 
 the most sacred treasures of civiHzation had 
 resounded, heads are now drooping — the Roast 
 Beef of Old England is in danger ! 
 
 Even in front of the palatial quarter the 
 London poster business has not stopped. An 
 advertising post praises in huge letters, "Respi- 
 rators for protection against gas from Zeppe- 
 lin bombs." 
 
 "Protective means against poisoning from 
 Zeppelin bombs ought not to be necessary in 
 this century," says a captain to his comrade, 
 "but the English Government should at some 
 time look for a respirator as a protection 
 against the poison of the English Press, if they 
 have the world's peace at heart in the future." 
 
 St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace — all 
 halt! 
 
 All columns halt ! A cry to the whole world ! 
 The last command in the world war! 
 
 Round Buckingham Palace the troops erect 
 their tents. St. James' Park, with its delight- 
 ful groups of trees, allows of a few unimpeded 
 glances at the Government buildings, and the 
 officers explain to their men in what a re- 
 nowned corner of the world they are encamp- 
 ing. There is the Admiralty building, the 
 proud fortress of the Sea Lord, from whom the 
 
The Entry into the City 205 
 
 men of wealth had for centuries required an 
 unconditional autocracy over the world's seas. 
 In this house it was also decided to send the 
 German fleet remorselessly to the bottom of the 
 sea, as had been done before to the Spanish, 
 Dutch, French, and Danish fleets. And sud- 
 denly, like a mischievous spirit, the name of the 
 Emden had appeared there, and day after day 
 the bad news of the deeds of our submarines had 
 been received ! 
 
 To-day our troops still see in front of the 
 doors of this palace women and girls crying, 
 who ask to be told the truth about their hus- 
 bands and brothers. 
 
 That dull, gloomy building is the War Office. 
 Before the war it had to look after an Army 
 characterized by a most strange honor. A 
 London girl who had any self-respect never 
 went out in public with a soldier, and an officer 
 would never have been forgiven had he ven- 
 tured to wear his uniform in society. It is with 
 such hirelings, afraid of daylight, that the 
 masters of that house expected to crush the 
 proud German Army, even at the cost of the 
 last drop of blood of the French soldier or the 
 last Cossack's horse. 
 
 Further down to the right is Grey's do- 
 main, and all the other Government offices 
 follow in a row. This has been for centuries 
 the business place for the division of the 
 world. It is here that the politicians of the 
 
206 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 isolation plan carried out their intrigues; 
 from here French Chauvinism was carefully 
 kept under steam; it is here that on the map 
 of Germany and Austria-Hungary the ob- 
 jects of Panslavism were explained to the 
 Slavs. From here an advance of billions was 
 shown with the grin of a tempting demon to 
 wretched Italy, and the grip was not relaxed 
 until she had taken the Judas shilling, and 
 committed the most miserable perfidy known 
 to the world's history. From here the Eng- 
 lish plotters of desolation let loose the great 
 war, which was to finish with the restoration 
 of the Vienna Convention and a small, 
 wretched Germany on the Biedermaier pat- 
 tern. "War without mercy ! War to the last 
 drop of blood !" It is with this battle-cry that 
 they went out and tried to raise from Central 
 Europe that heavy block which, in Bis- 
 marck's words, nobody can touch without 
 crushing his fingers. 
 
 And that lofty building there on the bank 
 of the Thames is the House of Parliament, 
 where a short while ago Germany's guar- 
 dians used to sit and solemnly dictate to 
 German leaders what they had to do and 
 what they were to leave undone. 
 
 "There is, further, a very curious custom in 
 there," says Major Sigwart to his Grenadiers. 
 "The Lord Chancellor presides over the de- 
 bates from a woolsack. Queen Elizabeth 
 
The Entry into the City 207 
 
 caused the woolsack to be sent as a chair 
 cushion to a Lord Chancellor so that the 
 legislators should be always reminded of the 
 prohibition of the export of cotton." 
 
 "Then it would be advisable," says one of 
 the Grenadiers, "that the Lord Chancellor 
 should sit on an image of Hindenburg so that 
 no further thoughts of a policy of isolation 
 should ever rise in the House of Parliament." 
 
 It was in these luxurious buildings that it 
 was considered how, through the strong 
 welding of all the countries of the world 
 which are under English sovereignty, a Fed- 
 eral State, a group protected by Customs 
 duties, might be formed, which would simply 
 close the world's trade to the non-British. It 
 was also on this house that the London peo- 
 ple, so fond of placards, should have posted 
 up a notice, "Under New Management." At 
 the commencement of the great war, when 
 Albion was still living in the secret hope that 
 the French Hotspurs and the Russian steam- 
 roller would settle England's business satis- 
 factorily and clear up matters with Germany, 
 the Lords in the Parliament buildings struck 
 their British chests and vowed that English 
 freedom would never be assailed, and they 
 slandered German militarism as the vilest 
 any European mind had ever imagined. And 
 now all the gentlemen in St. James' district 
 had become suddenly full of ardent desire for 
 
208 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 national military service, and the Prussian 
 Military Articles, and the celebrated Miss 
 Freedom, thanks to her tender relations with 
 the Eastern gentlemen of the Knout, sud- 
 denly experienced the pleasure of giving birth 
 to three fine children: Prohibition of Strikes, 
 the Munition Act, and Compulsory Regis- 
 tration ! 
 
 Palace after palace! And before the win- 
 dows of these proud palaces, where the motto 
 was "The EngHshman is on earth to com- 
 mand and control the globe," German troops 
 are to-day encamped. Yes, there are even 
 among them Austrians and Hungarians, 
 whereas one of the results of the war, and not 
 the least, was to have been the complete over- 
 throw and political death of Austria. 
 
 In the beautiful streets in which, between 
 lunch and tea, expensive ostrich feathers 
 used to nod from the motor-cars, and lords 
 and ladies used to drive to Rotten Row for 
 flirtation, Prussian Uhlans are now riding 
 their horses. The sorrow and secret shame 
 are great! 
 
 War invalids from the Scottish highlands 
 approach with their bagpipes the camp of our 
 troops, and maimed Italian heroes from Isonzo 
 come with their barrel-organs and entertain 
 the German troops to gain a halfpenny. Our 
 
The Entry into the City 209 
 
 soldiers then remember that the troops of the 
 Quadruple Entente expected to enter Berlin 
 with drums beating and trumpets sounding. 
 ... If the hour were not so serious and the 
 sight so pitiful, they would laugh heartily at 
 this band of the Quadruple Entente. 
 
 Towards the evening a stiff breeze comes 
 from the sea over the West End, and plays 
 a mischievous trick on London. The storm 
 carries away from Queen Victoria's National 
 Monument in front of Buckingham Palace 
 the gigantic veil which London ladies have 
 had wound round the statue of freedom, 
 twenty-five meters high, and covers with 
 mourning veils two large statues at the foot 
 of the monument — ^Justice and Truth. 
 
 In the evening Hindenburg orders the 
 great bell of Big Ben, the tower clock of 
 Saint Stephen's, to be rung. Then all the 
 army bands assemble for the great tattoo on 
 foreign soil ! 
 
 Never had the sounds of the trumpets 
 penetrated so deeply in a soldier's heart! 
 Many a comrade who lies buried in the clay 
 trenches of Arras and Ypres, or in the white 
 sand of Galicia, had dreamt at the hour of 
 his death of this entry into London and this 
 tattoo, and death has called him away from 
 the world's theatre before this last and most 
 
 14 
 
210 Hindenburg's March into London 
 
 pleasing act; such thoughts go to the depths 
 of one's heart! 
 
 The London mob gaping round the Ger- 
 man troops witnesses something unheard of. 
 The poor simpletons who have been led by 
 the nose by their mischievous Press hear the 
 anthem "Now Praise Ye God" roaring 
 through Hyde Park, and they ask each other, 
 "Do the Huns beHeve in God ?" 
 
 Hindenburg will to-night start his home- 
 ward journey to the Continent, but before 
 leaving he addresses to his gallant men a few 
 short words to take with them on the path 
 of life: 
 
 "Soldiers ! It has been a hard fight, but you 
 have carried your flags from victory to victory, 
 and have shown to the world that none can set 
 the German frontier ablaze without his own 
 house being burnt. When you return to Ger- 
 many shortly, go to church and thank God. 
 And tell your children the great things you 
 have witnessed in these days and write all this 
 with a firm stylus on your family tablets, so 
 that in the future, if in the course of the next 
 centuries a war-like feeling arise again in Eu- 
 rope, your children's children shall say, to your 
 honor and to the confusion of our enemies: 
 "One of my forefathers once bivouacked before 
 Buckingham Palace after helping to subdue a 
 whole world of enemies. Good night, com- 
 rades!" 
 
 As the great German war-hero whose ruth- 
 
The Entry into the City 211 
 
 less, hard "must" on the battlefields extracted 
 from the last man the last atom of strength 
 now once more rides through the ranks of his 
 battalions, many eyes fill with tears. 
 Now, friends, fall out! 
 
 A veteran, returned from the frpnt, took the 
 pencil from my hand and said : "You dreamer, 
 are you not satisfied with all that our glorious 
 arms have already accomplished ? If you want 
 to praise, praise then the proud German work 
 of to-day, and not the castles in the air of to- 
 morrow! What are big words and poHtical 
 fairy tales in such golden times of action?" 
 "There will be no big words," I said ; "they will 
 be a few strains from the song of the German 
 aspiration, as whispered by our people. A fairy 
 tale? The story of England's inviolability — 
 that is a fairy tale! No, here are words of 
 German reliance, as firm as a rock, which will 
 lead the way through London to a world's 
 peace, even quicker than we suspect. Then the 
 God who has stood at our side during this 
 severe war of liberation and given us a Hin- 
 denburg will also lead us over the Channel. 
 Who would then not irresistibly follow to the 
 banks of the Thames Hindenburg's flags, those 
 flags accustomed to victory? Who would not 
 be then full of joyous pride?" 
 
 In the shining eyes of the soldier I read the 
 answer. 
 
* Introduction to the English Edition 
 
 PROBABLY no book has so taken possession 
 of the popular imagination of any coun- 
 try as "The March of Hindenburg into Lon- 
 don" has taken hold of that of Germany, where 
 it is at present selling in hundreds of thousands 
 as fast as publishers can turn it out, and being 
 devoured by man, woman, and child, from the 
 Statesmen in the Wilhelmstrasse down to the 
 babes of the kindergarten. 
 
 A few years ago a book on the same lines, 
 dealing with the taking of Parisf and the final 
 division of France between Germany and Italy, 
 produced a similar sort of furore, but this was 
 nothing compared with the outburst produced 
 by the present volume, for of course England 
 is now openly acknowledged to have been all 
 along the real objective of the world war which 
 is now threatening the very foundations of civi- 
 lization. 
 
 *This Introduction is printed here to show how Englishmen 
 viewed the appearance of this remarkable book. 
 t"How Germany Crushed France," by Adolf Soramerfeldt, 
 
 213 
 
214 Introduction to the English Edition 
 
 Such an admission is of the very first im- 
 portance, even though it comes from such a 
 source as an indiscreet romance as this, which 
 might be aptly described as "a diplomatist 
 speaking in his cups," for while it incriminates 
 Germany up to the very hilt it is the final justi- 
 fication of our belated and much-debated inter- 
 vention. 
 
 Nay, more — events have added a certain ele- 
 ment of Nemesis to our respective attitudes, 
 one to the other, for while on the one hand an- 
 other twenty years of peace would have finally 
 consolidated the hard-won victories of pains- 
 taking German science and determination, on 
 the other hand nothing but a European con- 
 flagration could have roused lethargical Eng- 
 land from a comatose state, which was as much 
 of a danger to herself as, witness the event, it 
 was to the whole evolution of mankind. 
 
 In fact, a paradox as undeniable as it was 
 unexpected, has gradually been appearing, till 
 it now dominates the whole of the sixteen 
 months of war, namely, that far from being the 
 first step in a series of downward strides, Eng- 
 land probably owes more to the Kaiser's folly 
 than to anything else in her history since the 
 Armada, by the folly of another sovereign, 
 finally established her freedom of religion. 
 
 Instead of the war tending to an invasion of 
 our shores by German hordes, nothing has more 
 thoroughly cleansed them from aliens whom 
 
Introduction to the English Edition 215 
 
 we had been inclined to enthrone in our midst 
 with a semi-superstitious respect which would 
 have made any respectable demi^god blush. In 
 the process we were led to overrate their 
 strength as much as they were led to underesti- 
 mate our power, so we have as much reason to 
 bless our good fortune as they have to curse 
 their ill-fortune that this persistent illusion is 
 finally dispelled. 
 
 Had the present bombastic adventure been by 
 way of warning, or even by way of threat, and 
 had it come from the pen of an Englishman, 
 like, say "The Battle of Dorking," or Wells' 
 "War in the Air," or even William le Queiix's 
 "Invasion," we might have questioned its good 
 taste, but we could have felt no qualms in tak- 
 ing it as a tribute to Germany's greatness ; but 
 coming at this belated hour from the pen of an 
 unknown poet of the Fatherland after months 
 of continual fiascos, which only their colossal 
 proportions prevent from becoming apparent, 
 it simply indicates a blindness and an uncon- 
 scious sense of irony, which will some day place 
 "Hindenburg's March into London" among 
 their masterpieces of satirical self-criticism. 
 
 In a word, nearly every one of the plans of 
 the German Government have miscarried, and 
 this to such a degree that the day must inevi- 
 tably come when the German people will call it 
 to reckoning for the colossal catastrophe which 
 now threatens all their labors and efforts, and 
 
216 Introduction to the English Edition 
 
 it is only a matter of time for the realization of 
 the fact that, far from advancing the threat- 
 ened invasion of England, the Kaiser has made 
 it forever impossible. 
 
 Thus, when the German Gibbon, sitting upon 
 the banks of the Rhine, takes up his pen to 
 start "The Decline and Fall of the Teutonic 
 Empires," he will probably start his first chap- 
 ter with the invasion of England, and how the 
 Kaiser stopped it at the very moment when to 
 all appearance it was within an ace of success. 
 
 Possibly he will not find it necessary to warn 
 his readers that he does not use the word "in- 
 vasion" in any military sense, for he will go 
 on to explain that he uses the word "invasion" 
 in a far more complete sense than the mere 
 militarism sense, when he might begin in this 
 fashion : — 
 
 "About the year 1914 there was hardly any department 
 of life or thought in which Germany was not the dominating 
 influence, and this is not merely in countries like France and 
 Russia and England, but throughout the world. 
 
 "In another twenty years of peace the Fatherland would 
 have held the world within the palm of her hand had it not 
 been for the colossal folly of Wilhelm II., who, by an 
 unexpected declaration of war upon Europe in the August 
 of that year, suddenly withdrew the clutch of her life force 
 and precipitated the country upon a downward career which 
 was destined to end in financial and moral catastrophe. 
 
 "Critics and philosophers," he will probably add, "are 
 to this day incapable of giving a satisfactory explanation 
 for the coupe de foudre by which the last of the HohenzoUems 
 plunged Europe into war, save upon the supposition of a 
 tinge of insanity which had become hereditary. 
 
Introduction to the English Edition 217 
 
 "Suffice it to say that within six months the seas had 
 been absolutely swept of our shipping, our trade brought to 
 a standstill, and our country encircled with a ring of steel 
 which was gradually to strangle us to exhaustion. 
 
 "The tragedy was ail the more colossal in that it was a 
 step so absolutely unnecessary, • for on all sides we had al- 
 ready won the hearts of those whom our own folly— or 
 rather that of our ruler — had turned into our enemies. 
 
 "Thus, for example, England, which even then controlled 
 the world's commerce and directed the democracy of civiliza- 
 tion, was as completely under our control as she could have 
 been under an army of occupation, but notwithstanding the 
 combined warnings of her most able politicians and the most 
 important sections of her Press, she was sublimely unconscious 
 of the fact. 
 
 "England, in other words, was already passively in our 
 power — practically a German colony — and it only needed a 
 few more years of persistent, organized co-operation before 
 her whole empire should fall into our hands as naturally as 
 a ripe pear falls to the ground. 
 
 "Already in her colonies our goods were flooding her 
 own markets and cutting out the Mother Country, and where 
 German trade did not do so, American trade was doing it, 
 so that England's commercial downfall was practically within 
 a measurable distance, and as America was fast becoming 
 Germanized, this would have meant a complete world victory 
 for the Fatherland. 
 
 "German citizens sat in England's Parliament and were 
 members of her Privy Council, and from these high places 
 down to the lowest stations every position of importance in 
 office and factory was becoming filled with our advance agents, 
 and even so-called British firms were often financed entirely 
 from Berlin and Frankfort. 
 
 "In her Universities, German thought had long become a 
 synonym for culture and science. German philosophers like 
 Kant, Fichte, Haeckel, and Nietzsche ruled supreme. His- 
 torians like Lord Acton openly avowed their admiration of 
 
218 Introduction to the English Edition 
 
 our methods and thoroughness as exemplified by the models of 
 Ranke and Dollinger. Doctors and scientists revelled in the 
 latest German invention or discovery, like those of Koch and 
 Ehrlich. Literary men and dramatists found in our native 
 masterpieces endless sources whence to draw a national school. 
 Schiller, Heine, and Goethe were looked upon as the greatest 
 poets that ever lived, while Bernard Shaw was regarded as a 
 genius simply because he was a good translator and adaptor 
 of Teutonic ideals. The music of Wagner, Bach, and Beet- 
 hoven could fill the Queen's Hal! or the Albert Hall any'night 
 when native talent might starve for years ; while nearly all the 
 younger men in art looked to Munich with hardly less rever- 
 ence than they did to Athens. Politicians likewise caught the 
 craze; bill after bill went through the House of Commons, 
 such as Old Age Pensions and Insurance, simply because they 
 were already in force in Germany; in a word, the Englishman 
 was being deprived of his individuality. 
 
 "In one thing alone did he retain it, and that was in the 
 matter of militarism, which was, after all, the least important 
 of all, for even the Englishman's religion was being German- 
 ized aweiy into modernistic negations, like Tyrrel's and R. J. 
 Campbell's, who had only to mention some unknown professor 
 from one of the German universities to have the most astound- 
 ing statements believed under the title of the New Theology. 
 
 "It was at such a time as this that Wilhelm the Second 
 suddenly came in with the one move that could arouse the 
 Englishman's resentment and awake him to the conscious- 
 ness that his covmtry was already invaded. 
 
 "In vain did our economists warn the Kaiser of the danger 
 of an open attack, and point out the inevitable victory unaided 
 peace would bring to Germany, viz., that the whole world 
 would wake up only when it was too late, and the last prize 
 had been secured. 
 
 "He could not have played more into the hands of the 
 British had he been in the pay of their Government; he could 
 not have freed England more thoroughly had he been at the 
 head of an army of victorious invaders, like the Norman Con- 
 
Introduction to the English Edition 219 
 
 queror, and then suddenly ordered them to re-embark; and 
 iowever humiliating it may be for us Germans to admit, history 
 endorses the verdict that it was the Kaiser who saved England, 
 and in so doing began the decline and fall of the German 
 Empire." 
 
 There is no necessity, however, to resort to 
 prophecy, for we can actually see the process 
 of National Salvation going on before our eyes. 
 
 England but a few years ago was looked 
 upon by Europe as the world's greatest tyrant, 
 she is now enthroned over all as the champion 
 of outraged right and nationality, while Ger- 
 many,, that was to have led Europe against the 
 Yellow Peril, has stooped to acts which have 
 not only disgraced the white races but even dis- 
 gusted the black races, who are flocking over 
 under England's standards in order to break 
 her barbaric power. 
 
 A few mad months of debauch by your regi- 
 ments, oh! hapless Monarch, have robbed of 
 their reward a century of your people's toil and 
 idealism, which might have taken the place of 
 England as pioneer of civilization. 
 
 The only possible rival to England as ruler 
 of the waves, you have by one single act — the 
 sinking of the Lusitania — showed a horrified 
 world what you meant by your freedom of the 
 seas, and made the nations realize what our 
 Fleet has saved them from. 
 
 All these things and more we owe to you — 
 Kaiser Wilhelm — and we cannot but tell you 
 
220 Introduction to the English Edition 
 
 of our gratitude for the way you have averted 
 the invasion of our land. 
 
 We leave our vengeance to your own people 
 — it is theirs in a far truer sense than it is ours. 
 
 You fondly hoped that, like the Roman 
 Caesars, these thousands of gladiators you 
 would send to their doom would still hail you 
 "faire well" on the threshold of death ; instead, 
 it is they who are witnessing your own suicide, 
 in the full consciousness that your fall will 
 mean their salvation. 
 
 That is why we say, "Not we who are about 
 to die," but "we who are about to live, salute 
 you." 
 
 L. G. Redmond-Howard. 
 
 London: Lincoln's Inn.