Читать книгу Boche and Bolshevik. Experiences of an Englishman in the German Army and in Russian Prisons онлайн

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War having finally broken out, the Government, of course, did not relax its hold on the Press. The early days brought a fine crop of fantastic inventions. The utmost was done to heighten the people’s illusions. The semi-official telegrams declared that England would remain true to its time-honoured principle of making money out of other people’s difficulties and abstain from taking part. This was at a time when Germany had already sown mines in English waters, arrested every English sailor in Germany, and cut the Jamaica cable. Japan was said to be about to conclude an alliance with Germany. A Frenchman was alleged to have poisoned wells in Alsace-Lorraine. While the Government invented the absurd story of a French aeroplane having been seen over Nuremberg before the war broke out, they quite concealed the fact that in the early days of the war French aeroplanes really did visit Coblenz. My authority is a priest who nearly lost his life from the shrapnel of the German air defences. The Government did not even spare its own citizens. A circumstantial report appeared in all the newspapers to the effect that the innkeeper Nicolai, of Cochem, and his son had been put to death for trying to blow up a railway tunnel on the Moselle. The affair created a sensation, because Nicolai was known far and wide for the excellence of his wines. The report was allowed to run for some time, and then the public were told that there had indeed been some charge of the sort against Nicolai, but upon investigation it had been withdrawn. And if you ask why a simple private citizen should be libelled in this way, the answer is easy—it was to heighten the prevailing spy-fever by suggesting that spies were to be found everywhere, in the least likely places.