Essen, the noisiest town in the world, bulks largely in the imagination of the Entente Allies, but “Essen” is not merely one city.  It is a centre or capital of a whole group of arsenal towns.  Look at your map of Germany, and you will see how temptingly near they are to the Dutch frontier.  Look at the proximity of Holland and Essen, and you will understand the Dutch fear of Germany.  You will grasp also the German fear, real as well as pretended, that the battle of the Somme may one day be accompanied by a thrust at the real heart of Germany, which, is Westphalia—­Westphalia with its coal and iron and millions of trained factory hands.

I saw when in Germany extracts from speeches by British politicians in which the bombing of Essen by air was advocated.  Perhaps the task would have been easier if the bombing had come first and the speeches afterwards.  Forewarned, forearmed; and Essen is now very much armed.

All German railroads seem to lead to this war monster.  Attached to almost every goods train in Germany you will see wagons marked “Essen—­special train.”  Wagons travel from the far ends of Austria and into Switzerland, which is showing its strict neutrality by making munitions for both sides.

On the occasion of my second visit to Essen during the war I arrived at night.  It was before the time of the bombing speeches, and, though it was well into the hours when the world is asleep, the sky glowed red with a glare that could be seen for full thirty miles.  My German companion glowed also, as he opened the carriage window and bade me join him in a peep at what we were coming to.  “This is the place where we make the stuff to blow the world to pieces,” he proudly boasted.  “If our enemies could only see that the war would be over.”

I suggested that Essen was not the only arsenal.  There were, for instance, Woolwich, Glasgow, Newcastle, Creusot, and in my own strictly neutral country Bethlehem, Bridgeport, and one or two other humble hamlets.  He brushed aside my remarks, “But we have also here is this very region Dortmund, Bochum, Witten, Duisburg, Krefeld, Dusseldorf, Solingen, Elberfeld and Barmen.”

As we approached nearer, freight trains, military trains and passenger trains were everywhere.  Officers and soldiers crowded the station platforms, and though it was night the activity of these Rhenish-Westphalian arsenal towns impressed me with the belief that unless the British blockade can strictly exclude essentials, such as copper and nickel, especially from their roaring factories, the war will be needlessly protracted.

It is not necessary to be long in Rhineland and Westphalia to realise that a shortage in these and other essentials is much more disturbing to the heads of these wonderful organisations than the fear of aerial bombs.

On the occasion of my first war-time visit to Essen it would have been easy to have bombed it.  There is an old saying that a shoemaker’s children are the worst shod, and the display of anti-aircraft guns which has since manifested itself was then non-existent.  The town was ablaze.  It is still ablaze, but the lighting has been cunningly arranged to deceive nocturnal visitors, and any aeroplanes approaching Essen at a height of twelve or fifteen thousand feet would find it hard to discover which was Essen, and which Borbeck, and which was Steele.