The Land of Deepening Shadow by D. Thomas Curtin

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THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW

GERMANY-AT-WAR

BY

D. THOMAS CURTIN

1917

TO

LORD NORTHCLIFFE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I GETTING IN
II WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE
III THE CRIME AGAINST THE CHILDREN
IV PULPITS OF HATE
V PUPPET PROFESSORS
VI THE LIE ON THE FILM
VII THE IDEA FACTORY
VIII CORRESPONDENTS IN SHACKLES
IX ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU
X SUBMARINE MOTIVES
XI THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE
XII IN THE GRIP OF THE FLEET
XIII A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES
XIV THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT
XV PREVENTIVE ARREST
XVI POLICE RULE IN BOHEMIA
XVII SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES
XVIII THE IRON HAND IN ALSACE-LORRAINE
XIX THE WOMAN IN THE SHADOW
XX THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN
XXI TOMMY IN GERMANY
XXII HOW THE PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME FROM THE SOMME
XXIII HOW GERMANY DENIES
XXIV GERMANY'S HUMAN RESOURCES
XXV BERLIN'S EAST-END
XXVI IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW
XXVII ACROSS THE NORTH SEA
XXVIII THE LITTLE SHIPS

THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW

CHAPTER I

GETTING IN

Early in November, 1915, I sailed from New York to Rotterdam.

I spent nearly a month in Holland completing my preparations, and
at length one grey winter morning I took the step that I dreaded.
I had left Germany six months before with a feeling that to enter
it again and get safely out was hopeless, foolish, dangerous,
impossible. But at any rate I was going to try.

At Zevenaar, while the Dutch customs officials were examining my
baggage, I patronised the youth selling apple cakes and coffee, for
after several months' absence from Germany my imagination had been
kindled to contemplate living uncomfortably on short rations for
some time as the least of my troubles. Furthermore, the editorial
opinion vouchsafed in the Dutch newspaper which I had bought at
Arnhem was that Austria's reply to the "Ancona" Note made a break
with America almost a certainty. Consequently as the train rolled
over the few remaining miles to the frontier I crammed down my
apple cakes, resolved to face the unknown on a full stomach.

The wheels ground under the brakes, I pulled down the window with a
bang and looked out no longer upon the soft rolled military cap of
Holland but upon the business-like spiked helmet of Germany. I
steeled myself. There was no backing out now. I had crossed the
German frontier.

The few passengers filed into the customs room, where a corps of
skilled mechanics prised open the contents of bags and trunks.
Each man was an expert in his profession. A hand plunged into one
of my bags and emerged with several bars of chocolate, the wrappers
of which were shorn off before the chocolate was well out of the
bag. A bottle of liniment, the brand that made us forget our
sprains and bruises in college days, was brought to light, and with
commendable dexterity the innocent label was removed in a twinkling
with a specially constructed piece of steel. The label had a
picture of a man with a very extensive moustache--the man who had
made the liniment famous, or _vice versa_--but the trade name and
proprietor must go unsung in the Fatherland, for the Government has
decreed that travellers entering Germany may bring only three
things containing printed matter, viz.: railroad tickets, money and
passports.

When the baggage squad had finished its task and replaced all
unsuspected articles, the bags were sealed and sent on to await the
owner, whose real troubles now began.

I stepped into a small room where I was asked to hand over all
printed matter on my person. Two reference books necessary for my
work were tried and found not guilty, after which they were
enclosed in a large envelope and sent through the regular censor.

Switched into a third room before I had a chance even to bid
good-bye to the examiners in the second, I found myself standing
before a small desk answering questions about myself and my
business asked tersely by an inquisitor who read from a lengthy
paper which had to be filled in, and behind whom stood three
officers in uniform. These occasionally interpolated questions and
always glared into my very heart. When I momentarily looked away
from their riveted eyes it was only to be held transfixed by the
scrutinising orbs of a sharp, neatly dressed man who had been a
passenger on the train. He plays the double role of
detective-interpreter, and he plays it in first-class fashion.

While the man behind the desk was writing my biography, the
detective--or rather the interpreter, as I prefer to think of him,
because he spoke such perfect English--cross-examined me in his own
way. As the grilling went on I did not know whether to be anxious
about the future or to glow with pride over the profound interest
which the land of Goethe and Schiller was displaying in my life and
literary efforts.

Had I not a letter from Count Bernstorff?

I was not thus blessed.

Did I not have a birth certificate? Whom did I know in Germany?
Where did they live? On what occasions had I visited Germany
during my past life? On what fronts had I already seen fighting?
What languages did I speak, and the degree of proficiency in each?

Many of my answers to these and similar questions were carefully
written down by the man at the desk, while his companions in the
inquisition glared, always glared, and the room danced with
soldiers passing through it.

At length my passport was folded and returned to me, but my
credentials and reference books were sealed in an envelope. They
would be returned to me later, I was told.

I was shunted along into an adjoining small room where nimble
fingers dexterously ran through my clothing to find out if I had
overlooked declaring anything.

Another shunting and I was in a large room. I rubbed elbows with
more soldiers along the way, but nobody spoke. Miraculously I came
to a halt before a huge desk, much as a bar of glowing iron, after
gliding like a living thing along the floor of a rolling mill,
halts suddenly at the bidding of a distant hand.

Behind the desk stood men in active service uniforms--men who had
undoubtedly faced death for the land which I was seeking to enter.
They fired further questions at me and took down the data on my
passport, after which I wrote my signature for the official files.
Attacks came hard and fast from the front and both flanks, while a
silent soldier thumbed through a formidable card file, apparently
to see if I were a _persona non grata_, or worse, in the records.

I became conscious of a silent power to my left, and turning my
glance momentarily from the rapid-fire questioners at the desk, I
looked into a pair of lynx eyes flashing up and down my person.
Another detective, with probably the added role of interpreter, but
as I was answering all questions in German he said not a word. Yet
he looked volumes.

Through more soldiers to the platform, and then a swift and
comparatively comfortable journey to Emmerich, accompanied by a
soldier who carried my sealed envelope, the contents of which were
subsequently returned to me after an examination by the censor.

At last I was alone! or rather I thought I was, for my innocent
stroll about Emmerich was duly observed by a man who bore the
unmistakable air of his profession, and who stepped into my
compartment on the Cologne train as I sat mopping my brow waiting
for it to start. He flashed his badge of detective authority,
asked to see my papers, returned them to me politely, and bowed
himself out.

My journey was through the heart of industrial Germany, a heart
which throbs feverishly night and day, month in and month out, to
drive the Teuton power east, west, north, and south.

Forests of lofty chimney-stacks in Wesel, Duisburg, Krefeld, Essen,
Elberfeld and Dusseldorf belched smoke which hazed the landscape
far and wide: smoke which made cities, villages, lone brick
farmhouses, trees, and cattle appear blurred and indistinct, and
which filtered into one's very clothing and into locked travelling
bags.

But there was a strength and virility about everything, from the
vulcanic pounding and crashing in mills and arsenals to the sturdy
uniformed women who were pushing heavy trucks along railroad
platforms or polishing railings and door knobs on the long lines of
cars in the train yards.

Freight trains, military trains and passenger trains were speeding
over the network of rails without a hitch, soldiers and officers
were crowding station platforms, and if there was any faltering of
victory hopes among these men--as the atmosphere of the outside
world may have at that time led one to believe--I utterly failed to
detect it in their faces. They were either doggedly and
determinedly moving in the direction of duty, or going happily home
for a brief holiday respite, as an unmistakable brightness of
expression, even when their faces were drawn from the strain of the
trenches, clearly showed.

But it is the humming, beehive activity of these
Rhenish-Westphalian cities and towns which crowd one another for
space that impresses the traveller in this workshop section of
Germany. He knows that the sea of smoke, the clirr and crash of
countless foundries are the impelling force behind Germany's
soldier millions, whether they are holding far-thrown lines in
Russia, or smashing through the Near East, or desperately
counter-attacking in the West.

In harmony with the scene the winter sun sank like a molten metal
ball behind the smoke-stack forest, to set blood-red an hour later
beyond the zigzag lines in France.

Maximilian Harden had just been widely reported as having said that
Germany's great military conquests were in no way due to planning
in higher circles, but are the work of the rank and file---of the
Schultzs and the Schmidts. I liked to think of this as the train
sped on at the close of the short winter afternoon, for my first
business was to call upon a middle-class family on behalf of a
German-American in New York, who wished me to take 100 pounds to
his relatives in a small Rhenish town.

Thus my first evening in Germany found me in a dark little town on
the Rhine groping my way through crooked streets to a home, the
threshold of which I no sooner crossed than I was made to feel that
the arm of the police is long and that it stretches out into the
remotest villages and hamlets.

The following incident, which was exactly typical of what would
happen in nineteen German households out of twenty, may reveal one
small aspect of German character to British and American people,
who are as a rule completely unable to understand German psychology.

Although I had come far out of my way to bring what was for them a
considerable sum of money, as well as some portraits of their
long-absent relatives in the United States and interesting family
news, my reception was as cold as the snow-blown air outside. I
was not allowed to finish explaining my business when I was at
first petulantly and then violently and angrily interrupted with:--

"Have you been to the police?"

"No," I said. "I did not think it was necessary to go to the
police, as I am merely passing through here, and am not going to
stay."

The lady of the house replied coldly, "Go to the police," and shut
the door in my face.

I mastered my temper by reminding myself that whereas such
treatment at home would have been sufficiently insulting to break
off further relations, it was not intended as such in Germany.

It was a long walk for a tired man to the _Polizeiamt_. When I got
there I was fortunate in encountering a lank, easy-going old fellow
who had been commandeered for the job owing to the departure of all
the local police for the war. He was clearly more interested in
trying to find out something of _his_ relations in some remote
village in America, which he said was named after them, than in my
business.

I returned to pay the 100 pounds and deliver the photographs, and
now that I had been officially "policed" was received with great
cordiality and pressed to spend the evening.

Father, mother, grown-up daughters and brother-in-law all assured
me that it was not owing to my personal appearance that I had been
so coldly received, but that war is war and law is law and that
everything must be done as the authorities decree.

Cigars and cigarettes were showered upon me and my glass was never
allowed to be empty of Rhine wine. Good food was set before me and
the stock generously replenished whenever necessary. It will be
remembered that I had come unexpectedly and that I was not being
entertained in a wealthy home, and this at a time when the only
counter-attack on Germany's success in the Balkans was an increased
amount of stories that she was starving.

Evidently the Schultzs and the Schmidts were not taking all the
credit for Germany's position to themselves. They pointed with
pride to a picture of the Emperor adorning one wall and then smiled
with satisfaction as they indicated the portrait of von Hindenburg
on the wall opposite. One of the daughters wore a huge silver
medallion of the same renowned general on her neck. After nearly a
year and a half of war these bard-working Germans were proud of
their leaders and had absolute faith in them.

But this family had felt the war. One son had just been wounded,
they knew not how severely, in France. If some unknown English,
soldier on the Yser had raised his rifle just a hairbreadth higher
the other son would be sleeping in the blood-soaked soil of
Flanders instead of doing garrison duty in Hanover while recovering
from a bullet which had passed through his head just under the eyes.

CHAPTER II

WHEN SKIES WERE BLUE

There was one more passenger, making three, in our first-class
compartment in the all-day express train from Cologne to Berlin
after it left Hanover. He was a naval officer of about forty-five,
clean-cut, alert, clearly an intelligent man. His manner was
proud, but not objectionably so.

The same might be said of the manner of the major who had sat
opposite me since the train left Dusseldorf. I had been in Germany
less than thirty hours and was feeling my way carefully, so I made
no attempt to enter into conversation. Just before lunch the
jolting of the train deposited the major's coat at my feet. I
picked it up and handed it to him. He received it with thanks and
a trace of a smile. He was polite, but icily so. I was an
American, he was a German officer. In his way of reasoning my
country was unneutrally making ammunition to kill himself and his
men. But for my country the war would have been over long ago.
Therefore he hated me, but his training made him polite in his
hate. That is the difference between the better class of army and
naval officers and diplomats and the rest of the Germans.

When he left the compartment for the dining-car he saluted and
bowed stiffly. When we met in the narrow corridor after our return
from lunch, each stepped aside to let the other pass in first. I
exchanged with him heel-click for heel-click, salute for salute,
waist-bow for waist-bow, and after-you-my-dear-Alphonse sweep of
the arm for you-go-first-my-dear-Gaston motion from him. The
result was that we both started at once, collided, backed away and
indulged in all the protestations and gymnastics necessary to beg
another's pardon, in military Germany. At length we entered,
erected a screen of ice between us, and alternately looked from one
another to the scenery hour after hour.

The entrance of the naval officer relieved the strain, for the two
branches of the Kaisers armed might were soon--after the usual
gymnastics--engaged in conversation. They were not men to discuss
their business before a stranger. Once I caught the word
Amerikaner uttered in a low voice, but though their looks told that
they regarded me as an intruder in their country they said nothing
on that point.

At Stendal we got the Berlin evening papers, which had little of
interest except a few lines about the _Ancona_ affair between
Washington and Vienna.

"Do you think Austria will grant the American demands?" the man in
grey asked the man in blue.

"Austria will do what Germany thinks best. Personally, I hope that
we take a firm stand. I do not believe in letting the United
States tell us how to conduct the war. We are quite capable of
conducting it and completing it in a manner satisfactory to
ourselves."

The man in grey agreed with the man in blue.

Past the blazing munition works at Spandau, across the Havel,
through the Tiergarten, running slowly now, to the
_Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof_.

A bewildering swirl of thoughts rushed through my head as I stepped
out on the platform. More than three months ago I had left London
for my long, circuitous journey to Berlin. I had planned and
feared, planned and hoped. The German spy system is the most
elaborate in the world. Only through a miracle could the
Wilhelmstrasse be ignorant of the fact that I had travelled all
over Europe during the war for the hated British Press. I could
only hope that the age of miracles had not passed.

The crowd was great, porters were as scarce as they used to be
plentiful, I was waiting for somebody, so I stood still and took
note of my surroundings.

Across the platform was a long train ready to start west, and from
each window leaned officers and soldiers bidding good-bye to groups
of friends. The train was marked _Hannover_, _Koln_, _Lille_. As
though I had never known it before, I found myself saying, "Lille
is in France, and those men ride there straight from here."

The train on which I had arrived had pulled out and another had
taken its place. This was marked _Posen_, _Thorn_, _Insterburg_,
_Stalluponen_, _Alexandrovo_, _Vilna_. As I stood on that platform
I felt Germany's power in a peculiar but convincing way. I had
been in Germany, in East Prussia, when the Russians were not only
in possession of the last four places named, but about to threaten
the first two.

Now the simple printed list of stations on the heavy train about to
start from the capital of Germany to Vilna, deep in Russia, was an
awe-inspiring tribute to the great military machine of the
Fatherland. For a moment I believed in von Bethmann-Holweg's talk
about the "map of Europe."

I was eager to see how much Berlin had changed, for I knew it at
various stages of the war, but I cannot honestly say that the
changes which I detected later, and which I shall deal with in
subsequent chapters of this book--changes which are absorbingly
interesting to study on the spot and vitally important in the
progress and outcome of the war--were very apparent then.

In the dying days of 1915 I found the people of Berlin almost as
supremely confident of victory, especially now since Bulgaria's
entrance had made such sweeping changes in the Balkans, as they
were on that day of cloudless blue, the first of August, 1914, when
the dense mass swayed before the Royal Palace, to see William II
come out upon the balcony to bid his people rise to arms. Eyes
sparkled, cheeks flushed, the buzz changed to cheering, the
cheering swelled to a roar. The army which had been brought to the
highest perfection, the army which would sweep Europe--at last the
German people could see what it would do, would show the world what
it would do. The anticipation intoxicated them.

An American friend told me of how he struggled toward the
_Schloss_, but in the jam of humanity got only as far as the
monument of Frederick the Great. There a youth threw his hat in
the air and cried: "_Hock der Krieg, Hock der Krieg_!" (Hurrah for
the war).

That was the spirit that raged like a prairie fire.

An old man next to him looked him full in the eyes. "_Der Krieg
ist eine ernste Sache, Junge_!" (War is a serious matter, young
man), he said and turned away. He was in the crowd, but not of it.
His note was discordant. They snarled at him and pushed him
roughly. They gloried in the thought of war. They were certain
that they were invincible. All that they bad been taught, all the
influences on their lives convinced them that nothing could stand
before the _furor teutonicus_ once it was turned loose.

Delirious days when military bands blared regiment after regiment
through lines of cheering thousands; whole companies deluged with
flowers, long military trains festooned with blossoms and greenery
rolling with clock-like regularity from the stations amid
thunderous cheers. Sad partings were almost unknown, for, of
course, no earthly power could withstand the onslaughts of the
Kaiser's troops. God was with them--even their belts and helmets
showed that. So, "Good-bye for six weeks!"

The 2nd of September is Sedan Day, and in 1914 it was celebrated as
never before. A great parade was scheduled, a parade which would
show German prowess. Though I arrived in "Unter den Linden" two
hours before the procession was due, I could not get anywhere near
the broad central avenue down which it would pass. I chartered a
taxi which had foundered in the throng, and perched on top. The
Government, always attentive to the patriotic education of the
children, had given special orders for such occasions. The little
ones were brought to the front by the police, and boys were even
permitted to climb the sacred Linden trees that they might better
see what the Fatherland had done.

The triumphal column entered through the Kaiser Arch of the
Brandenburger Tor, and bedlam broke loose during the passing of the
captured cannon of Russia, France, and Belgium--these last cast by
German workmen at Essen and fired by Belgian artillerists against
German soldiers at Liege.

The gates of Paris! Then the clear-cut German official reports
became vague for a few days about the West, but had much of
Hindenburg and victory in the East. Democracies wash their dirty
linen in public, while absolute governments tuck theirs out of
sight, where it usually disappears, but sometimes unexpectedly
develops spontaneous combustion.

Nobody--outside of the little circle--questioned the delay in
entering Paris. Everything was going according to plan, was the
saying. I suppose sheep entertain a somewhat similar attitude when
their leader conducts them over a precipice. Antwerp must be taken
first--that was the key to Paris and London. Such was the gossip
when the scene was once more set in Belgium, and the great Skoda
mortars pulverised forts which on paper were impregnable. Many a
time during the first days of October I left my glass of beer or
cup of tea half finished and rushed from cafe and restaurant with
the crowd to see if the newspaper criers of headlines were
announcing the fall of the fortress on the Scheldt, How those
people discussed the terms of the coming early peace, terms which
were not by any means easy! Berlin certainly had its thumbs turned
down on the rest of Europe.

With two other Americans I sat with a group of prosperous Berliners
in their luxurious club. Waiters moved noiselessly over costly
rugs and glasses clinked, while these men seriously discussed the
probable terms Germany would soon impose on a conquered continent.
Belgium would, of course, be incorporated into the German Empire,
and Antwerp would be the chief outlet for Germany's commerce--and
how that commerce would soon boom at the expense of Great Britain!
France would now have an opportunity to develop her socialistic
experiments, as she would be permitted to maintain only a very
small army. The mistake of 1870 must not be repeated. This time
there would be no paltry levy of five billion francs. A great
German Empire would rise on the ruins of the British. Commercial
gain was the theme. I did not gather from the conversation that
anybody but Germany would be a party to the peace.

A man in close touch with things military entered at midnight. His
eyes danced as he gave us new information about Antwerp. Clearly
the city was doomed.

I did not sleep that night. I packed. Next evening I was in
Holland. I saw a big story, hired a car, picked up a _Times_
courier, and, after "fixing" things with the Dutch guards, dashed
for Antwerp. The long story of a retreat with the rearguard of the
Belgian Army has no place here. But there were scenes which
contrasted with the boasting, confident, joyous capital I had left.
Belgian horses drawing dejected families, weeping on their
household goods, other families with everything they had saved
bundled in a tablecloth or a handkerchief. Some had their
belongings tied on a bicycle, others trundled wheel-barrows.
Valuable draught dogs, harnessed, but drawing no cart, were led by
their masters, while other dogs that nobody thought of just
followed along. And tear-drenched faces everywhere. Back in
Bergen-op-Zoom and Putten I had seen chalk writing on brick walls
saying that members of certain families had gone that way and would
wait in certain designated places for other members who chanced to
pass. On the road, now dark, and fringed with pines, I saw a faint
light flicker. A group passed, four very old women tottering after
a very old man, he holding a candle before him to light the way.

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