tain
through a megaphone. My unpractised ear could not through the roar of
the wind and the slap of the waves catch all he had to say, but it was
something about submarines and a naval battle to the northward and
orders to change and take a different course through the mine
fields.[3] Whereupon we pursued a very zigzag course. In a moment we
would turn 120 degrees and proceed for miles on the new tack. We took
at one time or another nearly all directions of the compass. Sometimes
the smoke from the funnels went off straight at right angles to our
course; at others it preceded us.

[Footnote 3: It was on this morning that the German fleet bombarded
the towns on the east coast of England.]

CHAPTER X

VIENNA

_Vienna, Saturday, December 19th._ I remained in Berlin only one day
and started this morning for Vienna with dispatches, arriving late in
the evening after an uneventful fourteen-hour journey.

* * * * *

_Sunday, December 20th._ I presented myself at the American Embassy
this morning, delivered my dispatches, and had a conference with Mr.
Grant-Smith, the First Secretary. At luncheon I met Colonel Biddle, an
officer in the Engineer Corps of the United States Army, who has
recently arrived in Austria in order to go to the front as a military
observer. The afternoon and evening I spent with Captain Briggs,
Military Attache at the Embassy, studying and comparing the military
methods of the eastern and western fronts. Captain Briggs has
collected, with an energy and intelligence that can fairly be called
amazing, an immense quantity of valuable military information
relative to the operations and practices of the Russian, German,
Austro-Hungarian, and Serbian armies.

* * * * *

The Austrian army officers and privates suffer by comparison with the
Germans. The soldiers one sees in the streets of Berlin are big,
husky, strong, healthy creatures, with jowls hanging over their
collars. The officers are clean-cut, keen-eyed, and in splendid health
and training. Austria seems distraught and unready for emergencies,
the people are not as keen for the war as the Germans and appear to be
more indifferent as to its results. I am predicting that the end of
the war will see Japan, Italy, and Roumania gainers, and Belgium,
Turkey, and Austria losers, while Germany and England will be
approximately in the same positions as before the war. Russia has
re