The fact of being Germany’s unwilling guest, a cripple and a sufferer to boot, did not prevent me from enjoying, in between certain episodes of humiliation, that delectable journey by the historic Rhine. At Bochum there was nothing beautiful. The grimy hand of industry has soiled all the countryside, but with its black smoke and hundreds of chimney stacks left behind, my face was ever pressed close to the carriage window. The first part of it was through the picturesque district of the Ruhr, which unites with its natural fertility other wealth in coal and ores. The only saddening thought was that so many of our boys were at forced labour there for a wage of threepence a day and a ration of war soup. A few miles further on we sighted Essen, the greatest asset of Prussian militarism, the pride of Germany in Peace or War. Perched upon an eminence Krupp’s great works of war seemed very peaceful and picturesque on this spring day. Two flags floated over one massive tower and these were pointed with pride by the Corporal as a sign that the ‘Great Kaiser’, one of the chief shareholders as well as overlord, was then on a visit. The alluring thought occurred, ‘Isn’t it possible to bomb these works and get perhaps two birds with the one stone?’
It was on reaching the Rhine, which we crossed at, I think, Duisburg, that the romance of the journey began. For a poet there may have been ‘peasant girls with deep blue eyes and hands that offer early flowers’ but nothing of that sort of a prisoner of war. Yet the great river was a fine sight, and buzzing with activities, little steamers perpetually passing up and down with trails of barges. But there were apparently no passenger boats. The rail runs with the river and all travel is by train. It gives one a rare outlook. After Duisburg the Rhine is left for a time, and we passed through one of Germany’s great manufacturing areas, from which her industrial wealth in silks and cottons were spread wide over the earth, but at Dusseldorf was again that ever charming alternation of meadow, wood and field. With a glance at Neuss, at one time belonging to the Hanseatic League of towns, we rush on to Cologne, having followed up the river for about three hours.
‘Is it not beautiful?’ asked my lady benefactress, and I agreed that it must be the most beautiful part of Germany. For miles there were nothing but cherry gardens between the line and the stream. On both banks the cliffs often rose a bit back from the river, and between cliff and water were nestling villages, old churches and country houses. Then one passed to the castles area, where almost every crag seemed to be crowned with the ruined keeps of feudal times. No castle was ever built away from a cliff; everything was weathered grey with age. The wonder was how they built upon such inaccessible foundations; the reason for it was obvious enough. Germany had robbers then as now, romantic, possibly not less brutal. The cultivation was all in little fields like those of England, fields without fences or hedges but, as in Southern France, with occasional lines of poplars. In cultivation there was severe economy, every slope and hill being terraced for vines, everywhere turnip fields, yet nowhere any sign of livestock. The field workers were nearly always women, again as in France old men and old women, scarcely ever a young man. If war had robbed the pleasant lands of France of their youth and vigour, it had also called away youth and strength from the valley of the Rhine. Germany, although unravaged, was not unscathed.
At railway stations they stood around and stared, but at one place, finding that I was the detested Engländer, crowded around and spat at me until the officer mentioned drove them away. On another station was a company of soldiers at ease. One of them who spoke French called out, as one soldier to another,‘How are you?’ We met many troop trains, all moving one way—down the Rhine, all bound for that Western Front which was eating up men by millions. Wherever soldiers drilled, they were usually very young—conscription classes called up before their time. But how very quiet and peaceful all the villages seemed! Later on quite a number of civilians, business men who looked like commercials entered the train. They talked little of war; their conversation was all of mines, shares and stocks, mostly Westphalian, the huge profits that were being made, the big dividends paid out of the blood and ruin of Europe. I thought then that the Rhine valley was the most beautiful land I had ever beheld, and having seen Switzerland, think so still. There is this difference between them—Switzerland is grand, but the Rhine is beautiful.
Cologne is a fine city, well laid out, and as we reached it, its bells clanging and soldiers marching suggested a liaison with the Western battle front, and I wondered whether we had a set-back. I could not help wondering how Cologne would have felt after such a bombing raid as the Germans had given many of our unfortified places.25
After a dull stretch to Bonn, one reached Rhine beauty again as we approached Coblenz, where for about thirty miles the train runs right by the water’s edge and kaleidoscopic changes bring constant wonderment. It is the land of enchantment, full of picturesque little villages that are unforgettable. It was always a feeling of satisfaction that, whatever happened next, whatever lay ahead, I had seen the last of my Lady Bountiful, whose kindness had done more than she knew to soften a foreigner’s hatred of all things German.
Nowhere along the Rhine, as far as I knew it, was there any place so strong strategically and yet more pleasant to look upon, than the great fortified city of Coblenz. On the east the Westerwald and Taunus, on the west the Hunsrück and Eifel mountains jut up as great natural ramparts of rugged beauty. The junction of the two great rivers, the Rhine and the Moselle, give it immense importance which the Hun strategist has not overlooked. One recalled the historical fact, and at the same time something of the grey antiquity of the town, that, before the time of Christ, fortifications were built here, not to protect, but to oppose German liberties. Here, after all the ages, Germany was still building its castles of unjust ambitions to become pawns of sacrifice in the moves of a lost game.
As we approached Karlsruhe, even my ‘Fredrick the Great’ seemed to realise that he was the nearer to humanity in being further from Prussia. Instead of hustling and scowling, he all at once became considerate.
‘Go easy—no hurry!’
He, who had refused to let me drink at a wayside tap, even brought me a cup of water with his own fair hand. It was all a matter of geography; the further south, the less savagery.
‘I am taking you to a hotel,’ he explained, and I looked forward gratefully to something of the comfort that was given to officers of his own country at Donington Hall. ‘But you must walk,’ he said, and that was the painful end to a picturesque journey.
Almost fainting from pain and exhaustion, I dragged myself somehow to the hotel. Sentries challenged and then passed us. The outside view of the hotel had realised every expectation. Inside I was formally handed over and the Corporal got his receipt. The ‘swine-hound’ was delivered. I was taken in a lift to the third floor and handed over to a sentry who led me along a bare corridor, opened a door, switched on the light, motioned me in, and with one remark, ‘Lights will soon be out’, locked the door. For a moment I could only stare in blank amazement, and then in spite of the fact that I was very tired and very hungry, I burst into laughter. A hotel—the incongruity of it! Two iron cots stood close together, the thin palliasse on each sparingly stuffed with wood shavings. Each cot had two cotton blankets, a dirty cloth in lieu of a sheet. This was my apartment. It promised little, realised much that was not unexpected. In the dark the blood-suckers began their work. It was a nest of vermin.
Life in the trenches accustoms one to many things that in peace time are revolting, but this was a Karlsruhe hotel. There is no more generosity in German vermin than in German men; terms in which the difference is not always noticeable. Their tactics were those of Hindenburg—attack in masses. Daylight came slowly after a sleepless night, and I made further examination of my cell. It was about 10 feet by 7 feet, and the frosted window, through which a dim light came, was duplicated and strongly barred. A few inches separated the two windows so that if one scratched a patch in the first he would still be unable to see anything but glazed window beyond. On the table some other unfortunate had scratched a menu:—‘Breakfast, coffee; lunch, soup, potatoes or sauerkraut; tea, do., do.; Twenty-four hours’ ration of bread issued each morning.’
This cell had been specially fitted for two occupants, the idea being that they were certain to talk, and that the quiet listener outside the door might hear something to his advantage. I learned afterwards that officers had been kept in this vermin-infested cell for weeks. It was enough to drive one mad. A Russian brought some coffee for my breakfast, the sentry standing by to see that he kept his mouth shut. When I spoke to him he was immediately hustled into the passage. Next time he put his finger across his lips as a warning for silence.
I was in no very pleasant mood when a non-com appeared with more papers to be filled in.
‘What is your regiment?’ he asked.
‘We have no regiments,’ I answered.
He brought an officer who spoke English. I explained that our organisation was different to that of the British, that I was an Australian, and that we had no regiments. He cursed me freely for a fool, and asked,
‘Where is your AIF badge?’ He knew the sign.
A little later, upon my asking when my wounds would be dressed, he seemed much surprised, and said, ‘What—have you an open wound?’ and on seeing it he said, in genuine concern, ‘Oh, this is terrible. I must bring the doctor to you at once.’
‘If you get bandages I can do it myself.’
‘Oh, no,’ he protested, ‘I couldn’t possibly take the responsibility—the doctor must see you.’
The doctor, an old fellow of about sixty-five, was much surprised on learning that I had taken a long train journey in such a state.
‘I will have you bandaged and taken away at once. This is no place for you, and you must not attempt to walk.’
‘I had to walk last night,’ I remarked.
‘It was a great shame,’ he burst out. ‘It was cruelty. We will carry you.’
One of the stretcher-bearers who came was a red headed joker, always jovial. The other had been a student before the war and spoke good French.
‘We are not Prussians down here,’ he observed. ‘You are in Baden and will be well treated. English are well thought of here.’
So on a beautiful sunny day I was carried through the streets of Karlsruhe. Again streets thronged chiefly with old men, women and children, streets kept wonderfully clean and neat in spite of the absence of men—to the infirmary attached to the officers’ Lager, in which were confined about 300 French and English officers. A contrast struck me at once. At Bochum every civilian, however badly fed, seemed to be well dressed. Everyone carried a cane. There was always lots of ‘swank’. For war time, indeed, their apparel was particularly fine, but I saw them always at their best on Sundays, when they visited the wounded in hospital. Here in Karlsruhe everybody was poorly, even shabbily clad, seemed to be utterly weary, with little interest in anything. Yet so strong was the sense of order that the town continued in apple-pie order. Prosperity was for the coal mining, the industrial districts. Down here was patience and poverty.