The efforts of some women to increase their fortune sufficiently to enable them to invest in a military better-half are pathetic from an Anglo-Saxon point of view.  One woman who requested an interview with me said that as I was an American correspondent I might be able to advise her how she could dispose of a collection of autographs to some American millionaire.  She explained that her financial condition was not so good as formerly, but she was desperate to better it as she was in love with an officer, who, although he loved her, would have to marry another if she could not increase her income.  The autographs she showed me were from Prince Henry of Prussia, Prince Bulow and other notables, and most of them were signed to private letters.

Take the story of Marie and Fritz, both of whom I knew in a garrison city in eastern Germany.  Nothing could illustrate better the difference between the German attitude and our own on certain matters.  She was a charming, lovable girl of nineteen engaged to an impecunious young lieutenant a few years older.  They moved in the best circle in the Garnisonstadt.

Two years after their engagement her father lost heavily in business and could no longer afford to settle 5,000 pounds on her to enable them to marry.

It mattered not; theirs was true love, and they would wait until his pay was sufficient,

All went well until another girl, as unattractive as Marie was charming, decided that she would try to buy Fritz as a husband.  After four months of her acquaintance he found time at the end of a day’s drill to write a few lines informing the young lady, nine years of whose life he had monopolised, of his intention to marry the new rival.  Life became black for Marie, the more as she realised that she and Fritz had only to wait a little longer and his pay would be sufficient.

How would Fritz be regarded in this country, and how was he regarded according to German standards?  That is what makes the story worth telling.  With us such a man as Fritz would have been cut socially and there would have been great sympathy for the sweet girl whose years had been wasted.  But on the other side of the Rhine women exist solely for the comfort of men.  In militaristic Germany Fritz lost not an iota of the esteem of his friends of either sex; as for Marie, she had failed in a fair game, that was all.  The girl’s mother even excused his conduct by saying that he was ambitious to get ahead in the army.  Like most of her sex in Germany she has been reared to venerate the uniform so much that anything done by the man who wears it is quite excusable.  Indeed, Marie’s mother still listens with respectful approval at Kaffeeklatsch to Fritz’s mother when she boasts of what her son is doing as a major over Turkish troops.

German women have many estimable qualities, but a proper amount of independence and pride is noticeably foreign to their natures.  Is it surprising that the American girl of German parents requires only a very brief visit to the Fatherland to convince her that the career of the Hausfrau is not attractive.