ated: road jammed with
huge, long wagons, the same excitement, the same discussion, but now and
then somewhat sharper. In some villages the duty to defend the
Fatherland has turned into madness.

"'Here, get out! Where was this paper stamped? Yes, it is possible to
forge!' They refuse to believe anything; not even a passport from the
Chief in Command, nor papers proving me to be a German and my companion
a German officer. When I tell them that I am an author and journalist
from Berlin, they parry with a 'What the devil is that?'

"These brave peasants defend their Fatherland well. Once we had to wait
half an hour till a _gendarme_ came and ended the comedy with a few
short words. Then we are allowed to get in again, and as I turn round a
peasant shouts a last greeting: 'Really, I took you for a common hussy
in disguise!'

"They threaten us from the houses. Now and then the trigger of a gun
clicks as it is levelled at us from a window. The roads are lined with
peasants armed with all sorts of weapons, iron spikes, dung-forks,
clubs, scythes, and old swords from the time of our great-grandfathers.

"Up to the suburbs of Munich they stand at every village by day and by
night to see that nothing happens to the Fatherland! And even if we were
stopped twenty-eight times in this short distance; even if we did have
to put up with hard words and black looks--we suffered all this gladly.
We rejoiced to see with our own eyes how valiantly our peasants defend
the frontiers of their Fatherland."[59]

[Footnote 59: Edmund Edel in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, August 9th.]

In due time the bloodthirsty Pecksniff who had set the avalanche in
motion appeared to express his holy indignation.

"Wolff's Bureau has circulated the following warning. Berlin, August
14th. This fatal hunt for motor-cars has claimed yet another victim.
Recently an Austrian countess was shot while working for the Red Cross,
and now a cavalry captain and his chauffeur have been killed by a
forest-keeper on the look-out for Russian _automobile_.

"The General Staff has again and again issued the most urgent demands
that this unhappy hunt for foreign motorists--which has already caused
the death of several good Germans--should cease.

"It is unadulterated madness (_es ist heller Wahnsinn_) to search for
enemy motors in our land. Neither enemy officers, nor cars loaded with
gold, are driving around in Germany. Would that our people would stop
this horrible murd