On the 17th of March, arriving at the little German border town of Bentheim, I met for the first time the people who were already branded as “Huns and Barbarians” by the British and French.  Officers and people, however, were not what they had been pictured to be.  Neither was Germany starving.  The officials and inspectors were courteous and patient and permitted me to take into Germany not only British newspapers, but placards which pictured the Germans as pirates.  Two days later, while walking down Unter den Linden, poor old women, who were already taking the places of newsboys, sold German extras with streaming headlines:  “British Ships Sunk.  Submarine War Successful.”  In front of the Lokal Anzeiger building stood a large crowd reading the bulletins about the progress of the von Tirpitz blockade.

For luncheon that day I had the choice of as many foods as I had had in London.  The only thing missing was white bread, for Germany, at the beginning of the war, permitted only Kriegsbrot (war bread) to be baked.

All Berlin streets were crowded and busy.  Military automobiles, auto-trucks, big moving vans, private automobiles, taxi-cabs and carriages hurried hither and thither.  Soldiers and officers, seemingly by the thousands, were parading up and down.  Stores were busy.  Berlin appeared to be as normal as any other capital.  Even the confidence of Germany in victory impressed me so that in one of my first despatches I said: 

“Germany to-day is more confident than ever that all efforts of her enemies to crush her must prove in vain.  With a threefold offensive, in Flanders, in Galicia and in northwest Russia, being successfully prosecuted, there was a spirit of enthusiasm displayed here in both military and civilian circles that exceeded even the stirring days immediately following the outbreak of the war.

“Flags are flying everywhere to-day; the Imperial standards of Germany and Austria predominate, although there is a goodly showing of the Turkish Crescent.  Bands are playing as regiment after regiment passes through the city to entrain for the front.  Through Wilhelmstrasse the soldiers moved, their hats and guns decorated with fragrant flowers and with mothers, sisters and sweethearts clinging to and encouraging them.”

A few weeks before I arrived the Germans were excited over the shipment of arms and ammunitions from the United States to the Allies, but by the time I was in Berlin the situation seemed to have changed.  On April 4th I telegraphed the following despatch which appeared in the Evening Sun, New York: