the war.

The glorious manner in which France hurled back the assault was
making itself felt in Germany with a consequent depression over
food shortage when the greatest naval victory in history--so we
gathered, at least, from the first German reports--raised the
spirits and hopes of the people so high that they fully believed
that the blockade had been smashed. On the third day of the
celebration, Saturday, June 3rd, I rode in a tram from Wilmersdorf,
a suburb of Berlin, to the heart of the city through miles of
streets flaring with a solid mass of colour. From nearly every
window and balcony hung pennants and flags; on every trolley pole
fluttered a pennant of red, white and black. Even the ancient
horse 'buses rattled through the streets with the flags of Germany
and her allies on each corner of the roof. The newspapers screamed
headlines of triumph, nobody could settle down to business, the
faces one met were wreathed in smiles, complaining was forgotten,
the assurance of final victory was in the very air.

Unter den Linden, the decorations on which were so thick that in
many cases they screened the buildings from which they hung, was
particularly happy. Knots of excited men stood discussing the
defeat of the British Fleet. Two American friends and I went from
the street of happy and confident talk into the Zollernhof
Restaurant. With the din of the celebration over the "lifting of
the blockade" ringing in our ears from the street, we looked on the
bill of fare, and there, for the first time, we saw _Boiled Crow_.

Through the spring and early summer the people were officially
buoyed up with the hope that the new harvest would make an end of
their troubles. They had many reasons, it is true, to expect an
improvement. The 1915 harvest in Germany had fallen below the
average. Therefore, if the 1916 harvest would be better per acre,
the additional supplies from the conquered regions of Russia would
enable Germany to laugh at the efforts of her enemies to starve her
out. Once more, however, official assurances and predictions were
wrong, and the economic condition grew worse through every month of
1916.

CHAPTER XIII

A LAND OF SUBSTITUTES

The only food substitute which meets the casual eye of the visitor
to England in war time is margarine for butter. Germany, on the
contrary, is a land of substitutes.

Since the war, food exhibitions in various cities, but more
especially in Berlin, hav