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

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To return from this digression. The German Government worked on the feelings of the people, not only through the spy mania, but in all sorts of crooked and underhand ways. It was given out that Rhineland was going to be invaded by the French through Belgium, and that in this flat country the French would have an easy time. For the first week or two of the war people in Rhineland were distinctly nervous. Learned professors used to discuss what would happen if the French came to Bonn, whether any one would be left alive, or any building would survive their fury. It seems ridiculous, when one looks back upon it, but it all served the purpose of the Government very well. It directed the rage of the people against the foreign enemy and away from their own rulers, and it heightened the “Kriegsstimmung.” In time the Government could play upon the people just as they liked. I remember once that reports appeared in the Dutch papers that 600 men a day were joining Kitchener’s Army in London, and 2000 a day in the whole of England. The German newspapers reported that only 600 men from the whole of London had joined, and from all England only 2000. (This was in September.) The people were immensely relieved, they thought that England was already sorry she had joined in the war, and would only put up a half-hearted fight. I was spending the evening with acquaintances when the news arrived, and a bottle of wine was immediately fetched up from the cellar to celebrate it. In this connection I need scarcely refer to the speech of John Burns that was specially forged, except to say that some German books still refer to it as that “much-disputed” speech, and then proceed to quote large extracts from it.