“And under that, ‘got mitt uns’ (sic), that being the highest effort of all the men at German. Not bad for a bloodthirsty Briton, eh? Really that shows the spirit.”
THE GERMAN RAID ON THE ENGLISH COAST — MRS. KAUFFMAN’S DESCRIPTION — CANNONADING AT WHITBY — FREAKISH EFFECT OF SHELLS — FLIGHT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.
The Ninth Hague Convention of 1907, to which both Germany and Great Britain gave their assent upon identical conditions, expressly forbids “the bombardment by naval forces of undefended ports, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings,” and by inference requires notice to be given previous to any such operations. Neither of these stipulations was observed by the German naval raiders who on December 16, 1914, bombarded the historic English towns of Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough. Appearing in the early morning, the Germans rained deadly shells upon these coast towns, none of which was of strategic importance, and only one protected by fortifications. The immediate result was the useless slaughter of many non-combatants—men and women and children, and the ruin of buildings, churches and historic monuments, including the ancient abbey of St. Hilda at Whitby.
The raid on Scarborough was described by Ruth Kauffman, the wife of the novelist, Reginald Wright Kauffman, in an interesting communication. The Kauffmans had been living for several years just outside of Cloughton, a village near Scarborough.
“It’s a very curious thing to watch a bombardment from your house.
Where the War Was Brought Home to England.
“Everybody knew the Kaiser would do it. But there was a little doubt about the date, and then somehow the spy-hunting sport took up general attention. When the Kaiser did send his card it was quite as much of a surprise as most Christmas cards—from a friend forgotten.
“Eighteen people were killed in the morning between eight and eight-thirty o’clock in the streets and houses of Scarborough by German shrapnel, two hundred were wounded and more than two hundred houses were damaged or demolished.
“From our windows we could not quite make out the contours of the ruined castle, which is generally plainly visible. Our attention was called to the fact that there was “practicing” going on and we could at 8.07 see quick flashes. That these flashes pointed directly at Scarborough we did not for a few moments comprehend, then the fog slowly lifting, we saw a fog that was partly smoke. The castle grew into its place in the six miles distance.
“It seemed for a moment that the eight-foot thick Norman walls tottered, but no, whatever tottered was behind the keep. Curiously enough, we could barely hear the cannonading, for the wind was keen in the opposite direction, yet we could, as the minutes crept by and the air cleared, see distinctly the flashes from the boats and the flashes in the city.
“After about fifteen minutes there was a cessation, or perhaps a hesitation, that lasted two minutes; then the flashes continued. Ten minutes more and the boats began to move again. One cruiser disappeared from sight, sailing south by east.
“The other two rushed like fast trains north again, close to our cliffs, and in another half hour we heard all too plainly the cannonading which had almost escaped our ears from Scarborough. We thought it was Robin Hood’s Bay, as far north of us as Scarborough is south, but afterward we learned that the boats omitted this pretty red-roofed town and concentrated their remaining energy on Whitby, fifteen miles north; the wind blowing toward us brought us the vibrating boom.
“We drove to Scarborough. We had not gone one mile of the distance when we began to meet people coming in the opposite direction. A small white-faced boy in a milk cart that early every morning makes its Scarborough rounds showed us a piece of shell he had picked up, and said it had first struck a man a few yards from him and killed the man. A woman carrying a basket told us, with trembling lips, that men and women were lying about the streets dead.
“We did not meet a deserted city when we entered. The streets were thronging. There was a Sunday hush over everything, without the accompanying Sunday clothes, but people moved about or stood at their doorways. Many of the shop fronts were boarded up and shop windows were empty of display. The main street, a narrow passage-way that clambers up from the sea and points due west, was filled with a procession that slowly marched down one side and up the other. People hardly spoke. They made room automatically for a group of silent Boy Scouts, who carried an unconscious woman past us to the hospital. There was the insistent honk of a motor-car. As it pushed its way through, all that struck me about the car was the set face of the old man rising above improvised bandages about his neck, part of the price of the Kaiser’s Christmas card.
“The damage to property did not first reach our attention. But as we walked down the main street and then up it with the procession we saw that shops and houses all along had windows smashed next to windows unhurt. At first we thought the broken windows were from concussion; but apparently very few were so broken; there was not much concussion, but the shells, splintering as they exploded, had flown red hot in every direction, The smoke, we had seen, had come from fires quickly extinguished.
“We left the main business street and picked our way toward the foreshore and the South Cliff, the more fashionable part of the town as well as the school section. Here there was a great deal of havoc, and we had to climb over some of the debris. Roofs were half torn off and balancing in mid-air; shells had shot through chimneys and some chimneys tottered, while several had merely round holes through the brick work; mortar, brick and glass lay about the streets; here a third-story room was bare to the view, the wall lifted as for a child’s doll house and disclosing a single bedroom with shaving materials on the bureau still secure; there a drug-store front lay fallen into the street, and the iron railing about it was torn and twisted out of shape.
“A man and a boy had just been carried away dead. All around small pieces of iron rail and ripped asphalt lay scattered. Iron bars were driven into the woodwork of houses. There were great gaps in walls and roofs. The attack had not spent itself on any one section of the city, but had scattered itself in different wards. The freaks of the shells were as inexplicable as those of a great fire that destroys everything in a house except a piano and a mantelpiece with its bric-a-brac, or a flood that carries away a log cabin and leaves a rosebush unharmed and blooming.
“Silent pedestrians walked along and searched the ground for souvenirs, of which there were plenty. Sentries guarded houses and streets where it was dangerous to explore and park benches were used as barriers to the public. All the cabs were requisitioned to take away luggage and frightened inhabitants. During the shelling hundreds of women and children, breakfastless, their hair hanging, hatless and even penniless, except for their mere railway fares, had rushed to the station and taken tickets to the first safe town they could think of. There was no panic, these hatless, penniless women all asserted, when they arrived in York and Leeds.
“A friend of mine hurried into Scarborough by motor to rescue her sister, who was a pupil at one of the boarding schools. But it appeared that when the windows of the school began to crash the teachers hurried from prayers, ordered the pupils to gather hats and coats and sweet chocolate that happened to be on hand as a substitute for breakfast and made them run for a mile and a half, with shells exploding about them, through the streets to the nearest out-of-Scarborough railway station. My friend, after unbelievable difficulties, finally found her sister in a private house of a village near by, the girl in tears and pleading not to be sent to London; she had been told that her family’s house was probably destroyed, as it was actually on the sea-coast.”
THE WARNING TO NEUTRAL NATIONS — UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE — A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS — AIMED AT NEUTRAL SHIPPING — AN INHUMAN POLICY.
The German imperial decree making all of the waters surrounding the British Isles a war zone and threatening to destroy ships and crews found therein after February 18, 1915, whether they were English or neutral, raised a storm of protest in the United States. The decree read:
“The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, are declared a war zone from and after February 18, 1915.
“Every enemy ship found in this war zone will be destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and passengers.
“Also, neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British government on January 31 and in view of the hazards of naval warfare it cannot always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships shall endanger neutral ships.
“Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and in a strip of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way.”
As plainly as words could state it, this was a warning that American and other neutral vessels might be sunk by German submarines and that Germany would repudiate responsibility for such action. The American press denounced the declaration and its intent, and the United States government made public a note to Germany, containing the following paragraph:
“If the commanders of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American vessel, or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relations now happily subsisting between the two governments.”
Frederick R. Coudert, of New York, an authority on international law, said in discussing the war zone:
“From the beginning the United States government always maintained the right to treat the open sea as a public highway, and refused to acquiesce in one attempt after another to establish a closed sea. It refused to submit to an imposition of the Sound dues by Denmark, or to recognize the Baltic as a closed sea. It refused to pay tribute to the Barbary powers for the privilege of navigating the Mediterranean, and gave notice to Russia that it would disregard the claim to make the North Pacific a closed sea.
“No one has ever pretended to assert a claim to control the navigation of the North Sea, and Germany has no more right to plant mines in the open sea between Great Britain and Belgium and France than she would have to do so in Delaware Bay, or than a property owner, who was annoyed by automobiles, would have to plant torpedoes in a turnpike.
“The right to plant mines as a defense to a harbor, from which all vessels might lawfully be excluded, is one thing, but to destroy the use of the open sea as a highway, by sowing mines which might indeed destroy British ships, but might also destroy American ships, is an act of hostility which, if persisted in, would constitute a casus belli, and if we had Mr. Webster, or Mr. Marcey, or Mr. Evarts in Washington as Secretary of State, prompt notice would be given that for any damage done Germany would be held responsible.”
A representative quotation from the newspapers of the United States is the following:
“The imperial decree making all of the waters surrounding the British isles a ‘war zone,’ and threatening to destroy ships and crews found therein after February 18, whether they be English or neutral, is surely the maddest proposal ever put forth by a civilized nation.
“This excessively efficient method of warfare, however, is one that most concerns England and France. The interest of the United States lies in the fact that the threat is aimed emphatically at neutral shipping.
Three British Cruisers Sunk by Submarines.
The “Aboukir,” “Hogue” and “Cressy” sunk by torpedoes on September 22. The horrors of modern warfare are illustrated by the notice issued after this disaster by the British Admiralty, which reads in part, “No act of humanity, whether to friend or foe, should lead to neglect of the proper precautions and dispositions of war, and no measure can be taken to save life which prejudice the military situation.” (Copyright by the Sun News Service.)
The Loss of the “Irresistible” in the Dardanelles.
On March 18 the “Irresistible” quit the line of the French and English fleet, which was bombarding the Turkish forts in the narrows of the Dardanelles, and sank in deep water. The whole ship was lifted up in the explosion, and to increase the horror of the situation the Turks commenced bombarding the vessel with their big guns.
“Neutral nations were loath to accept the sinister meaning of the order when it was first published; but its intent was emphasized by Bismarck’s old organ, the Hamburger Nachrichten:
“‘Beginning on February 18 everybody must take the consequences. The hate and envy of the whole world concern us not at all. If neutrals do not protect their flags against England, they do not deserve Germany’s respect.’
“The misuse of the American flag is annoying to this country as well as exasperating to Germany, but no government in its senses would seriously threaten to make that an excuse for piratical operations. A merchant ship has a right to fly any flag the skipper has in his locker, particularly if thereby he can deceive an enemy and evade capture. The custom is as old as maritime warfare, and has been resorted to numberless times by every nation.
“But this issue is trifling compared to the German effort to exclude neutral shipping from an arbitrarily decreed ‘war zone.’ It is officially admitted that this does not comprise a formal blockade, but it is clear that Germany is attempting to achieve the benefits of a blockade without its heavy responsibilities.
“It is understood that she has a perfect right to hold up and search neutral ships in her declared ‘war zone,’ and to make prizes of such as carry contraband. But it is the possession of this very right which forbids the inhuman policy she proclaims. She cannot plead ignorance of a vessel’s identity, or attack it unless it refuses to stop when signaled. The burden of proof is upon the submarine, and to torpedo a vessel on suspicion merely would be unredeemed piracy and murder.
“This is distinctly a case in which the convenient doctrine of ‘military necessity’ is not to be invoked. Nor would an occasional misuse of a neutral flag by belligerent vessels, as a ruse of war, justify a mistaken act of destruction. If every British merchantman approaching England flew the American colors, that would not excuse the torpedoing of one American ship.
“These facts are stated with convincing clearness in the official protest sent from Washington to Berlin. We do not know who framed this document, although it bears distinct literary marks of revision by President Wilson. But whoever the men actually responsible for it, they produced a state paper which is a model of terseness, lucidity, dignified courtesy and force, an irrefutable presentation of the relevant principles of international law and justice. No loyal American wants trouble, but the blood of the most pacific citizen must move a little faster on reading the German decree and the restrained but perfectly straightforward reply sent by our government.”
TWENTY-NINE VESSELS SUNK IN ONE WEEK — EIGHTY-TWO NON-COMBATANT VESSELS DESTROYED IN GERMAN WAR ZONE — THE ATTACK ON THE GULFLIGHT.
The fact that the Lusitania was the twenty-ninth vessel to be sunk or damaged in one week in May in the war zone established by Germany around the British Isles throws into grim relief the ruthlessness of modern war. The naval battles of the past were engagements of dignity in which, when a vessel was lost, it went down with a certain tragic magnificence after a fair fight; but most of the vessels lost in the European war have been the victims of torpedoes, struck by stealthy blows in the dark. In less than three months, from February 18 to May 7, 1915, no less than eighty-two merchant vessels belonging either to the Allies or to neutral nations were torpedoed or mined in the war zone, with a loss of life estimated at 1,704 non-combatants—a terrible sacrifice to modern warfare.
Naturally the greater number of these merchant ships were British, but the fact that the war zone was proclaimed by Germany with a view to stopping neutral shipping as well is established by the figures which show that among the eighty-two non-combatant vessels destroyed there were French, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Greek and three American vessels, the latter being the Evelyn, sunk by a mine explosion February 20; the Carib, sunk by a mine explosion February 22, and the Gulflight, torpedoed May 1.
In addition to these eighty-two cases of non-combatant vessels destroyed, there have been innumerable instances of unsuccessful attacks, of which a notable example was the double attempt to sink the American tank steamship Cushing, once by a Zeppelin which aimed three bombs at the vessel, and once by a submarine which placed a contact mine directly in the path of the ship; her bow narrowly missed the mine, and her stern struck it a glancing blow, but not with sufficient force to explode it.
It would require many hundreds of pages to recount the details of all of these crimes against non-combatant merchant ships, and to show the relentless severity with which neutral commerce has been attacked, but the organized military measures even against neutral ships are well illustrated by the case of the American ship Gulflight, as described by the second officer, Paul Bower:
“When the Gulflight left Port Arthur, Texas, on April 10, bound for Rouen, France,” said Bower, “we were followed by a warship of some description, which kept out of sight, but in touch by wireless and warned us not to disclose our position to any one.
“At noon Saturday, May 1, we were twenty-five miles west of the Scilly Islands, a small group about thirty miles southwest of England. The weather was hazy, but not thick. About two and one-half miles ahead I saw a submarine.
Where Lusitania Was Torpedoed.
Kinsale, on South Coast of Ireland, close to Cork Harbor.
“Twenty-five minutes later we were struck by a torpedo on the starboard side, and there was a tremendous shock. The submarine had not reappeared on the surface before discharging the torpedo.
“Previous to this, we had been met by two patrol boats, which accompanied us on either side. The boat on our starboard side was so badly shaken by the explosion that her crew imagined that she also had been torpedoed. We immediately lowered the boats and left our ship and were quickly taken on board the patrol boats. But the fog increased and we drifted about all night and did not land at Scilly until 10.30 o’clock Sunday morning.
“At midnight of Saturday, while still on board the patrol boat, Captain Gunter summoned me. I found him in bed and he said he wanted some one to roll a cigarette for him. He then tossed up his arms and fainted. From then until the time of his death, which occurred about 3.30 o’clock Sunday morning, he remained unconscious.
“Captain Gunter’s speech was thick and indistinct, but we could distinguish that he wished some one to take care of his wife. The crew had always regarded Captain Gunter as a healthy man and had never heard him complain.”
Second Assistant Engineer Crist, of the Gulflight, said:
“I was on watch in the engine room when we were torpedoed, and so terrible was the blow that the Gulflight seemed to be tumbling to pieces. She appeared to be lifted high in the air and then to descend rapidly. I told the boys to beat it as quickly as possible and shut the engines down.
“Reaching the deck, I found them launching both life-boats. We got safely into them, with the exception of wireless operator Short and a Spanish seaman, who had dived overboard when they felt the shock, and were drowned.”
THE THREE-MILE LIMIT — BELLIGERENTS’ RIGHTS — NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS — EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY.
“A neutral has a perilous part to sustain.” So says Louis XI to his treacherous minister, Cardinal Balue, in Scott’s famous novel. The dictum is true enough even when a strong state is in question. For Great Britain the question of neutrality is of great importance in so far as it affects her on the sea. Historically, of course, neutrality is rather a modern development. Small and weak states in the earlier ages of the world had little hope of keeping themselves free from the havoc of a great world conflict. Great naval powers, such as the Hanseatic League, Genoa, and Venice, did, during the Middle Ages, succeed at times in inspiring respect for their neutrality, but it was at best precarious, and strong states rarely paid much respect to neutral waters. Early in the reign of Charles I the Dutch destroyed a Spanish fleet in the very Downs; and though Charles was master of a strong naval power he made no attempt to resent the insult. In this case, of course, there were special reasons for England’s apathy, but the incident is significant. Roughly speaking, it may be laid down as an axiom that in all the ages of history the neutrality of a state, on sea as on land, has been respected only in so far as it has possessed the power to make it so.
During the Napoleonic wars, Great Britain was in constant trouble with the United States owing to the fashion in which British naval commanders exercised, and sometimes abused, the right of searching American ships for contraband of war. The British-American quarrels had the good effect that attempts were made to standardize and establish on a firm basis the laws of neutrality at sea. The naval portion of the Neutrality Conference of 1907 contains twenty-eight clauses, of which the first provides that belligerents must respect neutral waters. Where the coast borders the open sea the neutral zone extends to three miles from the shore. As this is well within the range of even small naval guns it is clear that an opportunity is afforded to an unscrupulous captain of sinking vessels which have crossed the neutral line. In the case of a power controlling the entrance to inland seas the provision becomes of enormous importance.
Within neutral waters belligerents may not take prizes, hold prize courts, nor establish warlike bases, nor may they obtain supplies therein. At the same time neutrality is not held to be compromised by the simple passage through neutral waters of belligerent ships and prizes. Belligerent vessels may also obtain the help of pilots. The neutral state must use all its endeavor to be impartial and must expel or warn off vessels guilty of breaches of neutrality.
Except in special cases a belligerent warship may make a stay of only twenty-four hours in neutral waters. The special cases would usually be those of vessels disabled or otherwise in distress or storm-bound. When damaged a warship may remain long enough in a neutral port to effect necessary repairs, but it must not take on board extra armament, ammunition, or reinforcements of men. If out of coal it must only take on board sufficient to carry it to its nearest home port. Nor is it supposed to fill up with food stores beyond its ordinary supply in time of peace. In all these cases the neutral authorities are the judges. It must be obvious that a weak neutral state will be in a terrible quandary if the vessel be a powerful one and the country to which it belongs a powerful one.
The belligerent ship must give twenty-four hours’ notice before leaving, and must not visit the same port again until three months have elapsed. Should it break the neutrality laws the neutral state authorities may incapacitate it for immediate service and detain it, leaving on board just as many of the crew as are necessary to keep it clean and in order. The steps taken would generally be to remove the vitally necessary engine and gun fittings. Should two hostile ships enter a neutral port they must, while there, observe its neutrality, and must leave at an interval of twenty-four hours.
It must be obvious from all this that the inviolability of neutrality will always depend very much upon the ability of the state concerned to keep it so.
It is not difficult, either, to imagine various methods by which the neutrality, which is supposed to govern within the three-mile limit, may be evaded. It is only necessary to cite the case of a war vessel unable to overtake a fast merchant-man until the latter reaches neutral waters, but successful in sinking it by long-range gun-fire from a point outside the three-mile limit.
A LONG-TORTURED NATION AGAIN BLIGHTED BY WAR — DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND — RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE — PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND — NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ — THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD — UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF — NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS.
“If you imagined all the people of New York State deprived of everything they owned, left a prey to starvation and disease, and hopelessly crushed under the iron heels of contending armies, you might form a slight idea of what the Poles are enduring at present,” declared the great pianist, Paderewski, while visiting America in 1915 in the interests of the afflicted nation. “One of the worst phases of the situation lies in the inability of the inhabitants of one-half of the country to communicate with those in the other. Compared with their lot, even that of the Belgians loses some of its horror, for my unhappy countrymen have no France, Holland, or England in which they can seek refuge.”
Girt by a ring of war, Poland in the winter and spring of 1915 was in the most terrible straits. Her cities and villages had been captured and recaptured by both Germans and Russians, her fields had been laid waste, and her inhabitants were slowly dying of starvation.
“If figures can give any idea of the immensity of this disaster,” pleaded the great musician, “then these may convey a slight impression of what has gone on in Poland: An area equal in size to the states of Pennsylvania and New York has been laid waste. The mere money losses, due to the destruction of property and the means of agriculture and industry, are $2,500,000,000. A whole nation of 18,000,000 people, including 2,000,000 Jews, are carrying the burden of the war in the east on their backs, and their backs are breaking under the load. The great majority of the whole Polish people, about 11,000,000 men, women and children, peasants and workmen, have been driven into the open, their homes taken from them or burned, and they flee, terror-stricken, hungry and in confusion, whither they know not. In ruins, in woods or in hollows they are hiding, feeding on roots and the bark of trees. It is Christian humanity that calls for help for succumbing Poland.”
“From the banks of the Niemen to the summits of the Carpathians,” wrote the novelist, Henryk Sienkiewicz, in his plea to the American people, “fire has destroyed the towns and villages, and over the whole of this huge, desolated country the specter of famine has spread its wings; all labor and industry have been swept away; the ploughshare is rusted; the peasant has neither grain nor cattle; the artisan is idle; all works and factories have been destroyed; the tradesman cannot sell his wares; the hearth fire is extinguished, and disease and misery prevail. To such starving people, crying out for aid, listen, Christian nations.”
The Polish Relief Committee, headed by Madame Sembrich, published this word from the great tenor, Jean de Reszké, whose home is in Paris:
The Harvest-moon in Europe.
“My poor brother was unable to get away from the war zone in time. He wrote this letter several weeks ago, and now I fear he may never survive the terrible hardships. He had plenty of money and a splendid estate, but all were swept away.”
The letter referred to shows that there is no leveler like war. It runs:
“My dear brother, whether this will ever get through the lines and reach you I do not know. I am sure no man could get through alive, with all this fighting and the continual bombardment going on on every hand.
“The war broke with such suddenness that it was impossible to escape. I was forced to remain here on my estate in Garnesk. This part of Poland has been reduced to worse than a desert. All is desolate and every one is suffering. My beautiful estate has met the common fate and been reduced to ashes. I am now living in a cellar with scanty covering. If a shell should drop in it would afford no protection. So fierce has been the fighting here that there have been days when I could not venture forth. We have been between two fires. All Poland needs relief.
“I have no coal, oil, coffee, and only a handful of grain left. Through the cold and the rain I have had but poor shelter, but my lot is the same as that of my fellow countrymen here. Every one is in want; every one is suffering. Many are dead, and many more will die unless aid reaches them soon. Prince Lukouirski and his wife recently reached here and are sharing my cellar with me. Their own beautiful estate has been destroyed, and even the cellar blown to atoms by the shells.”
Mr. Herbert Corey, writing from Berlin to the New York Globe, in the spring of 1915, declared that unless something was done the world would be horrified—if the world had not lost its capacity for horror—by the sufferings of the Poles. “Soon cholera will come to Poland. Famine is there now. Scarlet fever and typhoid and smallpox and enteric and typhus are old settlers.” The million now in utter want only live at all because “humanity has a wonderful capacity for adjustment to wretchedness.
“There are 6,000,000 Poles in the portion of Russian Poland that is being fought over. Of these, according to the Red Cross men, 1,000,000 are absolutely destitute. They are without food or the means to buy food. They are living on the charity of others who are but slightly better off. That charity must come to an end soon—because food is coming to an end. It is not merely that money is lacking. Flour is lacking. It must be imported or starvation follows.
“Russian Poland is a conspicuous example of Russian rule. No measure of self-government is permitted the people. All governing officials are appointed from Petrograd. Lodz, for example, a city which contains from 500,000 to 750,000 people—all statistics in Poland are mere guesses—is ruled by a mayor and four assistants, all sent out from Russia. No city may expend more than $150, American money, for its own purposes, except permission is secured from Petrograd. That permission is rarely given. Petrograd needs the taxes that Lodz pays. When permission is given it is long delayed. Therefore, Lodz, a town as large as St. Louis, has unpaved streets that are ankle-deep in mud in winter and ankle-deep in dust in summer. It has a privately owned and paid fire department that responds only to calls from its own clients. Ninety per cent of its residents live in sties on streets that are mere stenches.
“And yet Lodz is the second cotton-manufacturing town in Europe. It is excelled only by Manchester in its manufacturing totals. Isolated on the bleak plains of Poland, at a distance from a seaport, served by two railroads only, it is an anomaly in the commercial world.
“For two weeks Lodz had no bread at all. For months it has had no meat at all—so far as the poorer classes are concerned. During those two weeks the mass of the population lived on potatoes.
“Conditions were slightly worse in Czenstochow, the second city in Russian Poland. Here 90,000 people live. It has no street-lights. It has no attempt at street-paving. It has no sewers. It has no city water. It has no publicly maintained fire department, though a few of the merchants have a department of their own. It is pre-middle-ages in everything—morals, discomfort, filth, darkness, disease, death-rate. Cholera is there all the time. Most of its people exist in reeking hovels, smoke-filled when they can afford fires, wet and cold at other times.
“As the towns grow smaller, conditions grow worse.”
If the war had not come, these people would have prospered after a fashion. Potatoes were plentiful, and they had few other wants. A woman earned thirty cents a day in the mills and a man three cents more. Children worked as soon as they were old enough. Sixty-five per cent are wholly illiterate. Then—
“Russia struck at Germany. The German armies invaded Poland in retaliation. They swept almost to Warsaw—and an invading army sweeps fairly clean. There were some things left when they passed over. They were driven back, and the Russian armies covered this territory—and they gleaned what was left. Then the Russians were driven back—sacking as they went—and the Germans covered the ground once more. Three times unhappy Poland has been fought over. It had little at the beginning. It has nothing now. For months Poland has been starving, not merely going hungry. That is a commonplace of war. Poles have been dying because they cannot get food.
“Poland is quite unable to help herself. Most of the mills—probably all of the mills—are owned by Russian and German and French capitalists. The banks are all branches of foreign institutions. These concerns are all conducted by resident managers. Some of the managers have—on their own responsibility—given their work people two and a half and three cents a day each for food. Some have added a trifle for the children also. But this has practically come to an end. The managers have exhausted their supply of cash. They cannot get more. There are no mails. The towns of Poland are each printing their own paper money—not by consent of the Russian bureaucrats, but in defiance of them—but this money circulates only within the town’s borders. It is highly improbable it will ever be redeemed in real money. Meanwhile the price of food commodities has risen fifty per cent in two months. By the time this reaches America the prices may have doubled.
“Conditions are slightly better in the agricultural sections. The farmers have no seed and no draft animals, it is true. But they have fairly good supplies of potatoes. Last year’s potato-crop was an enormous one.
“There is a Jewish question in every city of Poland. Where there is a Jewish question in Russia there are riots. There will be more rioting in Poland unless Providence intervenes. Russia has always confined her Jews to the pale. Being forced to make their living by trading, their naturally sharp wits have been whetted. Today they are—broadly speaking—owners of every shop in Poland. There may be Christian shopkeepers here and there. People who know Poland doubt it.
“Beggars follow the stranger in the Polish cities. Some of them are mute. They only look at the stranger through hollow eyes and hold out skinny hands. Others are vociferous. They cling to the garments of the passer-by. They cry for aid in an uncouth dialect. They run out from darkened doorways. The man who gives is pursued by a cue of them.”
THE HORROR OF BOMB-DROPPING—ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS — KINDS OF BOMBS — STEEL DARTS — “ARROW BULLETS” AND AERIAL TORPEDOES — MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT — ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS.
Ten years ago the dropping of bombs from balloons was still considered an illegitimate form of warfare, involving danger to non-combatants, and was under the ban of the Geneva Convention. At the Hague Peace Conference the Germans refused to abstain from bomb-dropping, and other nations followed suit. According to the German conception of war, civilians in the theater of operations must take their chance of being killed, but must not shoot back under pain of summary execution. The horrors which this theory has added to war have proved only too real, but, so far as bomb-dropping is concerned, the reality has so far fallen short of anticipations. The great Zeppelins, capable of carrying a ton of explosives, have practically been frightened out of the air by the new anti-aircraft guns; and, except for one instance at Antwerp, bomb-dropping has been confined to aeroplanes. Now, in the first place, an aeroplane can carry only a limited weight of bombs—say, two hundred pounds; and in the second place, it is extraordinarily difficult to hit anything with them. If the airman could hover over his target and take deliberate aim, he might be more dangerous; as it is, the German airman finds a cathedral hardly a big enough mark. The British airmen, at Düsseldorf and Lake Constance, adopted a different plan from the Germans; instead of dropping bombs from a great height, they made a steep “vol piqué” down on to the target, turned sharply up again, and dropped the bomb at the moment when the plane was checked by the elevator. This plan is more dangerous, but affords a better chance of hitting.