But it is the humming, beehive activity of these Rhenish-Westphalian cities and towns which crowd one another for space that impresses the traveller in this workshop section of Germany.  He knows that the sea of smoke, the clirr and crash of countless foundries are the impelling force behind Germany’s soldier millions, whether they are holding far-thrown lines in Russia, or smashing through the Near East, or desperately counter-attacking in the West.

In harmony with the scene the winter sun sank like a molten metal ball behind the smoke-stack forest, to set blood-red an hour later beyond the zigzag lines in France.

Maximilian Harden had just been widely reported as having said that Germany’s great military conquests were in no way due to planning in higher circles, but are the work of the rank and file—–­of the Schultzs and the Schmidts.  I liked to think of this as the train sped on at the close of the short winter afternoon, for my first business was to call upon a middle-class family on behalf of a German-American in New York, who wished me to take 100 pounds to his relatives in a small Rhenish town.

Thus my first evening in Germany found me in a dark little town on the Rhine groping my way through crooked streets to a home, the threshold of which I no sooner crossed than I was made to feel that the arm of the police is long and that it stretches out into the remotest villages and hamlets.

The following incident, which was exactly typical of what would happen in nineteen German households out of twenty, may reveal one small aspect of German character to British and American people, who are as a rule completely unable to understand German psychology.

Although I had come far out of my way to bring what was for them a considerable sum of money, as well as some portraits of their long-absent relatives in the United States and interesting family news, my reception was as cold as the snow-blown air outside.  I was not allowed to finish explaining my business when I was at first petulantly and then violently and angrily interrupted with:—­

“Have you been to the police?”

“No,” I said.  “I did not think it was necessary to go to the police, as I am merely passing through here, and am not going to stay.”

The lady of the house replied coldly, “Go to the police,” and shut the door in my face.

I mastered my temper by reminding myself that whereas such treatment at home would have been sufficiently insulting to break off further relations, it was not intended as such in Germany.

It was a long walk for a tired man to the Polizeiamt.  When I got there I was fortunate in encountering a lank, easy-going old fellow who had been commandeered for the job owing to the departure of all the local police for the war.  He was clearly more interested in trying to find out something of his relations in some remote village in America, which he said was named after them, than in my business.