Читать книгу All in a Life-time онлайн

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I passed several weeks at Kiel; I lived well on less than a dollar a day. I had some difficulty in becoming friendly with a pensioned wounded army captain because he held me personally responsible that American ammunition had been sold to the French. The same complaint was made to me by the German Ambassador, Baron Wangenheim, in Constantinople, in 1915. I saw the launching of the new Empire’s first battleship, the very beginning of that colossal preparation for war which, at the cost of so many millions in lives and money, was finally to bear its bloody fruit in 1914. A wrinkled old man wearing a small military cap made the speech on that occasion. It was the famous General von Moltke. I listened intently to what he said. His words reached everyone in that crowd, which was attentively listening to the great hero of the Franco-Prussian War; and when I looked into his piercing eyes, I found that they seemed to penetrate right through me, and I could understand the frequently made statement that officers used to quiver in his presence, and that his questions, accompanied by one of his fixed looks, always elicited the exact truth.

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