rlough. I noticed that he was ill or out of sorts, and he told
me that he had been unexpectedly called back to his regiment on the
Western front. "How is that?" I said. He made that curious and
indescribable German gesture which shows discontent and
dissatisfaction. "These ------ English are putting every man they
have got into a final and ridiculous attempt to make us listen to
peace terms. My leave is cut short, and I am off this evening."
We had a glass of beer at the Bavaria Restaurant in the
Friedrichstrasse.

"You have been in England, haven't you?" he inquired. I told him
that I had been there last year. "They seem to have more soldiers
than we thought," he said. "They seem to be learning the business;
my battalion has suffered terribly."

Within the next day or two there were other rumours in
Berlin--rumours quite unknown to the mass. How and where I heard
these rumours it would be unfair to certain Germans, who were
extremely kind to me, to say, but it was suggested to me by a
friend--a member of the Extreme Left of the Social Democratic
Party--that if I wanted to learn the truth I should go out to
Potsdam and see the arrival of the wounded men of the famous
Prussian Guard, who had, he said, had a terrible experience at the
hands of the English at Contalmaison on July 10th.

He drew me aside in the Tiergarten and told me, for he is, I am
sure, a real German patriot, that the state of things in the Somme,
if known throughout Germany, would effectively destroy the
pretensions of the annexationist party, who believed that Germany
has won the war and will hold Belgium and the conquered portion of
France and Poland.

He told me to go out to Potsdam with caution, and he warned me that
I should have the utmost difficulty in getting anywhere near the
military sidings of the railway station there.

I asked another usually extremely well-informed friend if there was
anything particular happening in the war, and told him that I
thought of going to Potsdam, and he said, "What for? There is
nothing to be seen there--the same old drilling, drilling,
drilling." So well are secrets kept in Germany.

The 4th of August is the anniversary of what is known in Germany as
"England's treachery"--the day that Britain entered the war in what
the German Government tells the people is "a base and cowardly
attempt to try and beat her by starving innocent women and
children."

On that sunny and fresh morning I looked o