Away we sped through the meadows and fields, hills and valleys, forests and plains.

And nowhere—­I am forced, like all other travellers, to admit it—­did we see any signs of the existence of war.  Everything was quiet, orderly, usual.  We saw peasants digging—­in an orderly way—­for acorns in the frozen ground.  We saw little groups of soldiers drilling in the open squares of villages—­in their quiet German fashion —­each man chained by the leg to the man next to him; here and there great Zeppelins sailed overhead dropping bombs, for practice, on the less important towns; at times in the village squares we saw clusters of haggard women (quite quiet and orderly) waving little red flags and calling:  “Bread, bread!”

But nowhere any signs of war.  Certainly not.

We reached Berlin just at nightfall.  I had expected to find it changed.  To my surprise it appeared just as usual.  The streets were brilliantly lighted.  Music burst in waves from the restaurants.  From the theatre signs I saw, to my surprise, that they were playing Hamlet, East Lynne and Potash and Perlmutter.  Everywhere was brightness, gaiety and light-heartedness.

Here and there a merry-looking fellow, with a brush and a pail of paste and a roll of papers over his arm, would swab up a casualty list of two or three thousand names, amid roars of good-natured laughter.

What perplexed me most was the sight of thousands of men, not in uniform, but in ordinary civilian dress.

“Boobenstein,” I said, as we walked down the Linden Avenue, “I don’t understand it.”

“The men?” he answered.  “It’s a perfectly simple matter.  I see you don’t understand our army statistics.  At the beginning of the war we had an army of three million.  Very good.  Of these, one million were in the reserve.  We called them to the colours, that made four million.  Then of these all who wished were allowed to volunteer for special services.  Half a million did so.  That made four and a half million.  In the first year of the war we suffered two million casualties, but of these seventy-five per cent, or one and a half million, returned later on to the colours, bringing our grand total up to six million.  This six million we use on each of six fronts, giving a grand total of thirty six million.

“I see,” I said.  “In fact, I have seen these figures before.  In other words, your men are inexhaustible.”

“Precisely,” said the Count, “and mark you, behind these we still have the Landsturm, made up of men between fifty-five and sixty, and the Landslide, reputed to be the most terrible of all the German levies, made up by withdrawing the men from the breweries.  That is the last final act of national fury.  But come,” he said, “you must be hungry.  Is it not so?”

“I am,” I admitted, “but I had hesitated to acknowledge it.  I feared that the food supply—­”

Boobenstein broke into hearty laughter.