Читать книгу What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime онлайн

19 страница из 43

Down the endless Friedrichstrasse I saw a company of a few hundred boys still in civilian clothes, marching stiffly, and trying to keep the compass-like Prussian step. Officers and sergeants in uniform were with them. Some of the recruits did not look more than fifteen or sixteen. Most of them, with large gold or tortoiseshell spectacles, represented the classical type of the German Gymnasium and Lyceum.

The crowd cheered the boys, and they marched away as stiff as possible, without even turning their eyes to the people in the street. An old man explained to me that they were boys a few months short of seventeen, who want to be perfectly ready when, in February, they will be accepted in the army as volunteers. There are apparently over fifty thousand boys of this class, who intend to volunteer as soon as the military authorities will allow them to do so.

To get out of the Sunday crowd I walked along the Spree. Here is one of the largest barracks in Berlin. I wonder how many men of the Kaiser Alexander Garde Grenadiers will come back to their beautiful home. It seems to have been one of the regiments most severely cut up in France lately.