esses in enemy countries (England and
Italy especially) is the exploitation of the coal and other mines,
oil wells, and forests in occupied enemy territory. The French and
Belgian coalfields are being worked to the utmost, together with
the iron mines at Longwy and Brieux. Poland is being deforested to
such an extent that the climate is actually altering.

It is a vast and definite scheme, with such able leaders as Herr
Bassermann, the real leader of the National Liberal Party, Herr
Stresemann, and Herr Hirsch, of Essen. "We have powerful friends,
not only in London, Milan, Rome, Madrid, New York, and Montreal,
but throughout the whole of South America, and everywhere except in
Australia where that _verdammter Hooges_ (Hughes) played into the
hands of our feeble, so-called leader, von Bethmann-Hollweg, by
warning the people that the British people would follow Hughes'
lead."

So much for the commercial part of submarining.

U-boating close to England has long ceased to be a popular
amusement with the German submarine flotilla, who have a thoroughly
healthy appreciation of the various devices by which so many of
them have been destroyed. The National Liberals believe that the
British will not be able to tackle long-distance submarines
operating in the Atlantic and elsewhere. Their radius of action is
undoubtedly increasing almost month by month. From remarks made to
me I do not believe that these submarines have many land bases at
great distances--certainly none in the United States. They may
have floating bases; but this I do know--that their petrol-carrying
capacity altogether exceeds that of any earlier type of submarine,
and that their surface speed, at any rate in official tests, runs
up to nearly 20 knots.

The trip of the _Deutschland_ was not only for the purpose of
bringing a few tons of nickel and rubber, but for thoroughly
testing the new engines (designed by Maybach), for bringing back a
hundred reports of the effects of submersion in such cold waters as
are to be found off the banks of Newfoundland, for ascertaining how
many days' submerged or surface travelling is likely to be
experienced, and, indeed, for making such a trial trip across the
Atlantic and back as was usual in the early days of steamships.

CHAPTER XI

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE

AS enthusiastic, war-mad crowd had gathered about an impromptu
speaker in the Ringstrasse, not far from the Hotel Bristol, in
Vienna, one plea