r Office), and she kept her word.

The neglect, and, in some cases refusal, to attend the British
wounded by German nurses are a sign both of their own intensity of
feeling in regard to the war and their entirely different
mentality. Again and again I have heard German women say, "In the
event of a successful German invasion of England the women will
accompany the men, and teach the women of England that war is war."
Their remarks in regard to the women of my own country are equally
offensive. Indeed, States that Germany regards as neutral, and who
are treated by the officially controlled German Press with a
certain amount of respect, are loathed by German women. Their
attitude is that all who are not on their side are their enemies.
American women who are making shells for the British, French, and
Russians are just as much the enemies of Germany as the Allied
soldiers and sailors. One argument often used is that to be
strictly neutral America should make no munitions at all, but it
would not be so bad, say the Germans, if half the American
ammunition went to Germany and half to the Allies.

I lost my temper once by saying to one elderly red-faced Frau,
"Since you have beaten the British at sea, why don't you send your
ships to fetch it?" "Our fleet," she said, "is too busy choking
the British Fleet in its safe hiding places to afford time to go to
America. You will see enough of our fleet one day, remember that!"

Summing up this brief and very sketchy analysis of German
femininity in the war, I reiterate views expressed on previous
visits to Germany, that German women are not standing the anxiety
of the war as well as those of France and Britain.

They have done noble work for the Fatherland, but the grumblings of
the lower third of the population are now such as have not been
heard since 1848. German officials in the Press Department of the
Foreign Office try to explain the unrest away to foreign
correspondents like myself, but many thinking Germans are surprised
and troubled by this unexpected manifestation on the part of those
who for generations have been almost as docile and easily managed
as children.

CHAPTER XX

THE WAR SLAVES OF ESSEN

Essen, the noisiest town in the world, bulks largely in the
imagination of the Entente Allies, but "Essen" is not merely one
city. It is a centre or capital of a whole group of arsenal towns.
Look at your map of Germany, and you will see how temptingly n