To Ruhleben, and back : a great adventure in three phases

Front matter

ame HA i a “

- BY GEOFFREY. PYKE

BOOK for everyone who

Preface

In September of 1914, two months after war had started between Germany and England, I set out to reach Berlin in order, it is hardly necessary to add unknown to the German authorities, to act as a correspondent on behalf of the Daily Chronicle of London. I had also been asked to write letters for the Cambridge Magazine. Ruhleben was not then in existence as a prison camp, and I should certainly have had no intention of going there even if it had been. My object was to go to Berlin and see what there was of interest going on there, and then to travel across to the Rhine and the industrial districts of the Westand South. Ireckonedacouple of months would see the whole thing done, and that if I felt matters were becoming hot and unpleasant I would bolt as quickly as possible. It must be remembered that the desire to know the truth of what was going on at that time in the interior of Germany was intense. At the words Krieg, Mobil, the floodgates of news had clanged to, and not a word that could be prevented, or had not a purpose in it, was leaving Germany. At home masses of information were being produced in newspapers of all complexions,

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Vili TO RUHLEBEN—AND BACK most of it contradictory, often to itself. One section of the Press told us that Berlin was a city of old men and children, of a darkness like that of Egypt and—triumph above everything else—of women tram drivers; yet when I arrived there a few weeks later one of the first things I found was young men not merely working but young men doing nothing, young men drinking, young men laughing, young men going about with young women, young men, in fact, who were committing the supreme crime of being young, while the arc lights of the Linden worked as merrily as ever ; and it was not until months later, in January, 1915, when I was driven across Berlin, that I saw from behind the grille of Black Maria the quintessence of German ignominy in a female manipulating a tramcar. A well-known journalist with American connections told us of women clamouring for bread and screaming loudly for food outside the royal palace, yet I discovered from people who had actually been on the spot that here an isolated shout and there a lonely scream had represented the sumtotal of that howling mob. Economic pressure, economic necessity, impossibility of import, necessity of export, ruin of industry—unemployment— howling mobs again—all these were phrases juggled with to make them mean first one thing and then another. But Germany was silent, and refused to show to the outside world what was going on within her frontiers, and rumours spread and grew, and

PREFACE ix phraseology grew more redundant and more pompous, and of less, and still less meaning. The German Army marched from Liége to Namur and from Namur to Mons and further, and Economic Necessity and Economic Pressure, the effect of our water-tight blockade, and again and again the howling mobs of unemployed men and _ bereaved women were supposed to be just treading on the tracks of the victorious hordes, about to bring the whole machine on which it depended for its life’s breath crashing to the ground. It was the truth and probability of this that I set out from London to investigate, and for a time the fates were good to me, and let me wallow lazily in the sun of the Economic Pressure and Economic Necessity that were to pull down Germany to the dust; but soon they forsook me. I was caught up in the vast mechanism that has been created by, and intervenes in the lives of 67,000,000 human beings, who live within the bounds of the German Empire, and was tossed from one part to another, was beaten, crushed and hammered first by one great section and then by another, finally to be tossed aside as useless ‘and harmless while the great machine went on its way whirring, screaming and groaning as it worked. The way was long and weary and took long to wend. From the contemplation of itself, the machine took me and threw me into jail, and then into another jail, and then into another, and then back into the first, finally vomiting me, in a fit of x TO RUHLEBEN—AND BACK either weariness, mercy or disgust, to this day I know not which, into a concentration camp for interned civilians.

This book, then, is a collection of pictures of the road thither, there and—thence. Half-way along Fate again was kind, and gave me a trusted friend in Mr. Edward Falk, District Commissioner in the Political Service of Nigeria. Together we travelled the last stretch. With him I escaped from Ruhleben on July 9th, 1915, nearly ten months after I had started out in quest of economic necessity, and to him I feel as only those who have been hunted for together, who have lain shuddering in hiding with a price upon their heads, can feel.

Unfortunately it has been necessary for me to be discreet. This I regret, because it necessitates effort. On my part to preserve discretion, and on my readers to pierce it. Had only the four and a half thousand other inhabitants of Ruhleben escaped at the same time, in a species of general stampede, and one or two other people in Berlin and elsewhere died or been killed off, matters might have arranged themselves very satisfactorily. But while the German Government follows the policy of ‘“‘ Vergeltungs massregeln”’ or “ retaliatory measures,’ I deeply regret that on behalf of my friends whom I have left behind me I must say that discretion is the better part of valour.

Bal s Pa

Contents

PREFACE } ‘ : 4 aoeVvil CuapreR I. Wantep,—A CorrESPONDENCY . NS | ¢ IJ. En Route ror Beruin . ; Cote E fe Ill. BamBoozLEMENt } . 24 - IV. Tue Sxconp MosInisaTION AGAINST THE RvUssIANS . f , iy ade) ey V. Tue Crash. , Migrsa "7 VI. Prison ; : apa » VII. Warstina To BE SHot . att Paka 5 WIII. A Propuct or CivinisaTion Moe i IX, Sanity anp Mapness . os hee Me X. Tse Impressions or a Lunatic on RELEASE FROM SOLITARY : . 120 HE XI. Tse City or Fourmity . . 130 » AIT. Tae Inner Meanine of ORGANISATION 136 » AIT. Tae Catzecorican Imprrative . . 144 » ALY. Wauich Way! Wuat Means?. . 160 , XV. Free yah 5s 169 » AVI. BERLIN ONCE MORE ia Wis » VII. Tue First Day : . 188 » XVIII. Across NortHERN GERMANY . 6 ROT ei hoe BURGLARY iy beyat . 207 » XX. A CORPSE : : ( . 215

LIST OF [ILLUSTRATIONS

RvuwLEBEN: British CrvinIAN PRISONERS AND THEIR QUARTERS ‘ . . Frontispiece

Chapter I Wanted,—a Correspondency

Yes, the Great; Man was in, but busy, please to wait a moment.

A®ons passed, and the Great Man ceased for a few moments to be busy, and could spare a minute or so.

“Yes, yes, what is it you want? Quickly please, I’ve got no time to spare,” and the Great Man who looked surprisingly young took up two telephone receivers, shouted instructions for foreign telegrams into each, rang a bell cunningly hid under the edge of the table, glanced about him in all directions at once, first at a row of large clock dials showing the hour in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Petrograd, Berne, Madrid, Belgrade, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, frowned, looked at the large wall map, gave instructions to a pallid, overworked clerk for yet another foreign cable to go, and repeated, ‘‘ Yes, quickly, please, I’m busy.”

He truly was a great man.

Half an hour’s conversation followed. The Great Man of surprising youthfulness was silent for three minutes. Then he spoke. He spoke for the remain-

B 1 ing twenty-seven minutes. His imagination carried him along. He put one leg over the arm of his swivel chair and his hands behind his head, he got up and walked up and down. Schemes were discussed and thrown aside, details on which success or failure might depend were balanced airily and then disposed of—sometimes down one of the telephones. The Great Man was unable to make up his mind at once, he must consult, he must think, he must talk things over, he must recapitulate, he must reconsider—he must telephone. Of course to get into Germany—and out—during war was a difficult thing todo. Besides, he thought it risky. Of course, it must be distinctly understood that he could undertake no responsibility of any sort and yet the thing was most distinctly enterprising and he liked enterprise ; in fact he was something of an enterprising man himself. He went on talking, and his eyes laughed as he thought of the possibility of columns of ‘‘real news’ hot from Berlin or Cologne. He had nice eyes. In fact this Great Man was really the devil of a fellow. The idea of a regular column from “our special correspondent in Berlin ’’—our very extra special correspondent—tempted him. The possibility of success, the Great Man felt, though faint was worth it. He said ‘“‘ Righto! let’s leave it at that,’ and began talking again. For another thirty minutes he talked of what there might and might not be going on inside Germany. We rushed up and down and all over the country, and the

WANTED,—A CORRESPONDENCY 3 possibility of events. Berlin—the attitude of the social democrats—especially the opinions of the large working population in the north of the city.— Munich—what were the Bavarians saying ?—was it true their privileges in the imperial army system were being taken away ?—What were the women saying and doing ?—What impressions had the losses made ?—How were our own people who had been unable to get out of Germany being treated ?—Anything that was obtainable about the Zeppelins.— London was going to be darkened soon for fear of them.—How were the people taking the invasion of Prussia ?—The main lines, Berlin, Hanover, Essen, Crefeld, Aix la Chapelle, something of possible interest on them all. If feasible see what Hamburg is like. How do they like the blockade? Doberitz. —KHEnglish prisoners. A good deal of interest was sure to arise about the young Grand-Duchess of Luxembourg. There were rumours that despite all the guarantees and undertakings of the Germans she had been taken away and incarcerated in some Schloss in the interior—Where was the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, the Empress—Prince Joachim ?.- It was said the former had died suddenly from illness, the second assassinated, that the Empress was prostrated by the shock, and that Prince Joachim had been killed. The daily life of Berlin would also be of interest, in view of the fact that there was supposed to be neither food nor light.

The Great Man gave me carte blanche as to where

I went and what I did. If I felt things getting too hot, cut and run,—if there was still time——. As I left the Great Man he was still talking, and the last I heard was the clatter of his feet as he stumbled over a chair in order to talk down two telephones simultaneously, and probably on different topics. It is an odd sensation, to be in perfect safety and yet feel the fear of danger upon one, to know that nothing but at worst a motor-bus or at best a wild newspaper boy on a bicycle can do you any hurt, and yet feel the sweat stealing out from you as if already entangled in risks and dangers from which there is no visible escape. It feels queer to come from the warm busy brilliance of a newspaper office, with the telephones ringing, and passages filled with boys running here and there with proof-sheets, the organized industry of scores, to the darkness of Whitefriars Street and Fleet Street, with the cold wind blowing round one’s face, and the seeming business of hundreds, all scurrying, determinedlooking, ant-like, fatuous. The knowledge that to-day it is to be London and next week to be the borders of the German Empire,—frontier guards, wiliness, alertness, microscopic care and precaution, food-getting and worse,—news-getting, made Fleet Street look a row of ramshackle monstrosities embracing pandemonium, and oneself a regrettable ass. Everything seemed a mess. The world was in a most decided mess, the German cavalry were at most twenty-five miles off Paris, and it appeared as

WANTED,—A CORRESPONDENCY 5 if they must be in occupation of the town over the week-end. London seemed hot, stuffy, grey and altogether thoroughly beastly, it was too hot to do this, it was too cold to do that, it was too damp for something else, and too dry for some other anathema, and if I did not go on this beastly German expedition, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I reviewed the past and felt savage. I reviewed the present and felt worse. I reviewed the future and just managed not to explode. I was absolutely determined to be a correspondent somewhere. I remembered how I had gazed at the map, how assiduously I had examined the newspapers. I thought it possible that the ubiquitous correspondent of the papers had not been sent to Rekjavick, and I looked avidly to see if there were any messages from our special correspondent at Timbuctoo ; I tried to think of arguments by which I could persuade an editor that the war was likely to develop suddenly in the Region of Lhassa or Krim Tartary. Not that I was particularly anxious to go to Rekjavick or even Timbuctoo. Lhassa tempted me not overmuch, and Krim Tartary seemed to have its drawbacks, but all the billets at the front, at Dieppe, at Paris, Bordeaux, Petrograd, and at Warsaw were full, and filled well. Suddenly it came to me. We had no correspondents in Berlin. Supreme ass of all asses—of course—Berlin; the very place; no competition; no editor could say with an air of tired resignation that he was already very well served there, and had no necessity for further assistance, though of course he was very grateful, etc. etc. No difficulty at all, except of getting there, and out again—and a day’s thought ought to settle that. Of course, if the Germans were expecting English journalists to come into Germany after war had broken out,—then I should probably get caught. But the point was, were they ? Would they be as wide awake as all that? If one was really careful and really wily, what were the chances ? Certainly the hardest part of the problem was solved —a country of some interest was found and editors of London newspapers would not have a dozen or so correspondents already there. Then suddenly everything changed. Glory of glory at having something to do that seemed impossible, something necessitating all the virtues and all the vices imaginable, something for which one would have to be alert and cautious, receptive and sceptical, something that would necessitate twenty-four hours’ work and twenty-five hours’ watchfulness a day, and above all things the colossal humour of the idea. The fatuity of the Fleet Street crowd, the danger, the consequences, the general madness of the scheme, all were forgotten or roughly pushed aside as belonging to another being of another age, and immediately began a search that took a week for information concerning the German frontiers, and how they were guarded. It was a whirl from one end of the Kingdom to the other, chasing

WANTED,—A CORRESPONDENCY 7 a man here who had got out before declaration of war, a man there who had got out by trick just after, a man released quite lately. Getting a clue here and there, often resulting in nothing but a wild-goose chase. Some knew a little, most knew nothing, one knew a lot. The whirl ceased, and I returned to town to perfect matters and to see the Great Man once more. But little more remained to be done. A book or two on Germany to be consulted, the latest files of the newspapers to be searched for any extra scrap of information, a code to be worked out for use in case of necessity, and then—off. A code if it be used frequently is a fairly easy thing to detect, though difficult to interpret. But for the first few occasions on which it needs be used the chances are in favour of its success.

Now, strange and astounding as it may seem now, one of the events the most probable for which it was most desirable to be in Berlin was for the reception of the Russians. It was known that on the incursion into East Prussia there had been something like a panic in Berlin, and it was thought that in the event of a further advance threatening there would be another—and worse. Many a paper and many an individual believed in the possibility of this firmly. It was therefore arranged that a message asking for money should be sent over the frontier, and even if caught and suspected it would convey nothing as to what it meant or from whom it came. There were roughly three directions from which the Russians might advance. From East Prussia, from Posen, or after the fall of Cracow, from the south. Their distance from the metropolis could be designated in one of three sections. The ensuing panic which these facts were sure to cause, and they were equally sure to leak out, might be put down as serious, very serious, or as a regular stampede. Primitive as this may appear, it would convey the main facts of the proximity of the Russians as known in Berlin and the effect. The Berliners’ opinion as to the whereabouts of the enemy was alone likely to be of interest and importance—especially if it differed from the real state of affairs. It was a matter of no little difficulty to predict the events most likely to occur. In those days of ignorance and of bliss, of London decorated with placards saying “‘ Breslau threatened, fall of Cracow imminent,” the investment of Berlin was often discussed as a possibility within two months, and my very ingenuous self was filled to the brim with hopes that I should be the last person—most certainly the last Englishman-to leave the doomed city. The first portion of the telegram I meant to despatch the moment I was back over the frontier rose with inky vividity before my eyes. Dreams of the booms of Russian cannon on the east side of Berlin as I left it by the west came easily to my imagination ; and my mind once more went back to that despatch which was to adorn, yes—I confess— I decided it was to adorn a whole page of the

WANTED,—A CORRESPONDENCY 9 morning paper. Little things such as the German military and the German police did not worry me. I dismissed them as minutiz whom I could deal with later, at my convenience. Meanwhile, however, I had to get my ticket for Newcastle.

After two days of agony on the sea, Bergen presents a great contrast to Newcastle.

The Bergen-Christiania Railway is a thing by itself. It is easy to forget the maddest of mad schemes; fear and hope and all other human faculties will alike disappear before the influence of what it brings you to. Moonlight mountains, huge lakes are but words that have been rendered meaningless by advertisements of tourist resorts, and there are no words and never can be any that will tell of the sensation that the fresh cold air of these great boulders, two, three, four and five thousand feet high, the pale darkness of the Northern night, and the lap, lap, lapping of the great lake as it ripples backwards and forwards between one great rock and another, give to men. _ Voss, where the train stops to allow the other to pass, that comes dashing down from the snowy heights, from amid glaciers and ice drifts, is shroudéd in darkness, but out beyond it stands this view, strong and bold in its outline. A quietness that can. be felt, a quietness preaching the immensity of distance, closes in upon one from all sides. The hissing of the train and all the hustling crowd within her die away, and there is no sound beyond the lisping of the waters of the lake, and no sight but the moon above and its image below. The jagged line of the granite hill marks the meeting-place of heaven and earth. But otherwise all is dark, and all is quiet, and as I trudge back to the bright-lit train, the question Why go? Why go? rings in my ears, but as the whistle shrieks, I jump in, laughing at the joy of doing something hard to do effectively, at the notion of being an Englishman in Germany.

CHAPTER Il EN ROUTE FOR BERLIN

HE was very loquacious. He was also very angry. The last may have been the cause of the first, but I surmise that both were produced by independent facts, and that the result of the former was continual. He was either unmarried, which was improbable, for he looked just the sort of man a woman in her ignorance might call masterful and therefore marry, or divorced, which was possible, since he never stopped talking. He opened the carriage door with a flick of his hand and wrist, and closed it with a slam. He stamped as if he were on parade, and then shook himself as if he had just come off it. He undid his belt and swung it and the bayonet viciously on to the rack. Then he began. It was twenty-three and a half minutes before he stopped, and then it was only to take breath. He seemed very happy in his anger. It fitted him as well as did his trousers badly, and chiefly for the same reason, that he was too big for both. He had a habit of spitting at what, from a grammatical aspect, was the crucial point of every sentence. The German Government being largely managed by men who smoke, have, in their omniscience, provided spittoons, two to every one of their railway carriages. 11

My friend, however, just ignored them. I drew my legs up under me. He seemed to experience a momentary surprise, and then spat succinctly right across me out of the window. It takes a long time to come from one of the northern frontiers of Germany to the capital, if you travel by bummelzug, and not by the dashing through express. The police have a habit of watching that express on its arrival at Stettin, and very few of its inhabitants escape their vigilant eyes, while the bummelzug, only coming from a short distance away in an inordinately long time, necessitating an almost incredible amount of changing, has for the traveller from a distance aspects of safety and obscurity about it that make it attractive. My friend seemed to realise the time that lay at his disposal and at mine, for his next halt for breath was after thirty-three minutes. The subject of his dissertation and complaints was a “ gefreiter’’ by name “‘ der schweinhund,’’? alias “‘ verfluchte schafskopf.”? He occasionally asked questions, or, what was the same, expected replies to statements: “So. Ach so. Naturlich. Ja, ja. Doch. Ach. So.” So, all seemed to please and satisfy him. I only hoped that my interruptions uttered in a manner betokening a common sympathy between the oppressed and downtrodden against all the bloody tyrants of life, whether gefreiters* or unter-ofliziers,4 would not

1 Slow local train. 3 Lance-corporal. 2 Terms of abuse. * Corporal.

evoke questions as to my own particular martyrdom. During the turgid stream of oaths, epithets, stampings, shoutings and splutterings, I searched vainly for the cross it might be most advisable for me to be bearing in this world, should my sympathy have proved excessive, but the only thing that came persistently to my mind was the agony of his conversation. My next “Ja, ja. So. Doch,” did not come with that blood-curdling note of pathos I put into my earlier utterances. The later editions intimated that perhaps there might be something to be said for the other side, that possibly the martyr was not so blameless as his sweating face, his porcine bristle of a moustache, and his pink neck would naturally lead one to believe. This called for argument and justification on his side to demonstrate that not merely was the gefreiter a swine, and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather swines also, but that his mother was a sow, and that, therefore, the probability was that he was not born in holy wedlock, which quite obviously put him altogether out of court. I attempted to fall asleep, but before I had come to the point when my first snore was due, he had tapped me firmly on the knee, nearly making me swear in English, which was the only thing, I believe, that would have stopped his talking of his martyrdom and his continual demands for my sympathy.

Gradually the sun began to sink, and this human organism, kept awake by passion, slipped gently into a sleep horrible to behold. And I turned from him in disgust and relief, towards the setting sun, as the train jolted shakily towards the next little station. On each side great forests of pine tree grew out of Prussia’s sandy plain, and the sun glowed red between them. A mile or so and all would be barren. Fields would take the place of pine, and the sound of the hoe that of silence. It is September, and war has endured for but six or seven weeks, and already every inch of soil that before lay untouched for its poverty is now turned over and over, to prepare for the crop it must yield to its owners. The women are serious. For them work is something serious, and their sons are at the war; and even as they work a great silence reigns. It is odd how here, of all the places in Europe furthest from the battlefield, the war seems to be but behind the next hedge, and that the peasants are working in its presence in fear of it. White and anxious faces follow the letter-bag to the post office. At each village station the process is repeated, and, as the train pulls out into the distance, the village postman, generally a greybeard—for even at this early date the German Government had begun its policy of denuding the country in order to spare the towns —was to be seen trudging back to the post office, followed by all the women of the neighbourhood. To them he was the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

At a later station, as the train began to move, the monstrosity of fat awoke from his sleep in the corner with a start, shouting at me to know if this was S “Ja, ja,’ I replied, ‘das ist da,” pointing to the rapidly receding platform. With a roar of awakened rage, in which he suddenly seemed to remember the porcine gefreiter, he flung himself against the door, and, wrenching open the handle, jumped down on to the line. He immediately laid his hands on his stomach, and feeling that his belt was not there, grew purple in the face as he tried to keep up by the side of the train, bawling and screaming to me to throw it him. I reached up on to the rack, and leant out of the window with it, and he ran still faster. The next instant I had caught him beautifully right across the shins with the hardest part of the bayonet scabbard, and I congratulated myself on a remarkably good shot. I then drew in my head, leaving the somewhat befogged creature striving to surround himself with the belt. I threw myself back, delighted to have so easily got rid of what might have been a very unpleasant nuisance, chuckling at the idea that the station of S was as yet fifteen miles ahead.

In half an hour’s time we arrived there, and, this being a spot where I had to change, I thought I might just as well start getting used to German life by having some dinner. It was some moments before I could pluck up courage to march into a restaurant, but eventually, with the Berliner Tageblatt tucked very ostentatiously under my arm, I strolled in. Far from being noticed by anyone, the whole world, including waiters, appeared bent upon ignoring me. Here was a quandary. My train was due to go in twenty-six minutes, and I had not eaten since the night before, when I was still the other side of the frontier. To call ‘‘ Herr ober ’’! and to ask him what the devil he meant by being so slow was the obvious thing to do. Nor was it difficult. I might omit the complaints, and merely intimate by tone of voice that I was very annoyed, and that a gratuity in proportion to his speed would be his reward. My experience in the carriage had given me lessons in tones of voice, but nevertheless I felt horribly uncertain. I was now really in Germany. This was Germany, all around me. This great hall was German, this table was German, and these were Germans all around me. Ugh! what would not they say if they knew I was English. How fat that woman over there was; she would be quite presentable otherwise. Several times the words rose in my throat, but each time they failed to get further. I tried looking angry, I tried looking pathetic, hungry, helpless, wealthy, hurried, important, all to no purpose. The ober went busily on, taking a lager here, a schnitzel? there, calfsbraten,% omelet, sauerkraut, leberwurst,4 cervelartwurst,® schlappwurst® to everyone but myself. I grew angry ; I grew desperate; suddenly I heard my