well that they were
the idol of their Fatherland, and that they had fought with every
ounce of their great physical strength, backed by their long
traditions. They had been vanquished by an army of mere sportsmen.

My thoughts went back to Berlin and the uninformed scoffings at the
British Army and its futile efforts to push back the troops of
Rupprecht on the Somme. Yet here on the actual outskirts of the
German capital was a grim tribute to the machine that Great Britain
had built up under the protection of her Navy.

In Berlin at that moment the afternoon editions were fluttering
their daily headlines of victory to the crowds on the Linden and
the Friedrichstrasse, but here the mammoth vans were moving slowly
through the streets of Potsdam.

To the women who stood in the long lines waiting with the potato
and butter tickets for food on the other side of the old stone
bridge that spans the Havel they were merely ordinary cumbersome
furniture wagons.

How were they to know that these tumbrils contained the bloody
story of Contalmaison?

CHAPTER XXIII

HOW GERMANY DENIES

Germany, according to Reichstag statements, is spending millions of
pounds upon German propaganda throughout the universe. The trend
of that propaganda is:--

1. To attempt to convince the neutral world that Germany cannot be
beaten; and

2. Above all, to convince Great Britain (the chief enemy) that
Germany cannot be beaten.

The only factors really feared by the Germans of the governing
class are the Western front and the blockade.

I went into Germany determined to try to find out the truth, and to
tell the truth. I had an added incentive to be thorough and work
on original lines, since I was fortunate enough to secure
possession of an official letter which advised those whom it
concerned to give no information of value to Americans in general.
I also got accurate information that the Wilhelmstrasse had singled
me out as one American in particular to whom nothing of value was
to be imparted.

The German, with his cast-in-a-mould mind, does not understand the
trait developed among other peoples of seeing things for
themselves. He is unacquainted with originality in human beings.
He thinks a correspondent does not observe anything unless it is
pointed out to him.

Last summer, for example, one could learn in the Wilhelmstrasse
that the potato crop was a glittering success. By walking through
the country and pulling up