[Illustration:  A Berlin “Extra”]

I was in St. Quentin, France (which the Germans on their 1917 withdrawal set on fire) at the headquarters of General von Below, when news came May 8th that the Lusitania was torpedoed.  I read the bulletins as they arrived.  I heard the comments of the Germans who were waging war in an enemy country.  I listened as they spoke of the loss of American and other women and children.  I was amazed when I heard them say that a woman had no more right on the Lusitania than she would have on an ammunition wagon on the Somme.  The day before I was in the first line trenches on the German front which crossed the road running from Peronne to Albert.  At that time this battlefield, which a year and a half later was destined to be the scene of the greatest slaughter in history, was as quiet and beautiful as this picturesque country of northern France was in peace times.  Only a few trenches and barbed wire entanglements marred the scene.

On May 9th I left St. Quentin for Brussels.  Here I was permitted by the General Government to send a despatch reflecting the views of the German army in France about the sinking of the Lusitania.  I wrote what I thought was a fair article.  I told how the bulletin was posted in front of the Hotel de Ville; how the officers and soldiers marching to and away from the front stopped, read, smiled and congratulated each other because the Navy was at last helping the Army “win the war.”  There were no expressions of regret over the loss of life.  These officers and soldiers had seen so many dead, soldiers and civilians, men and women, in Belgium and France that neither death nor murder shocked them.

The telegram was approved by the military censor and forwarded to Berlin.  I stayed in Belgium two days longer, went to Louvain and Liege and reached Berlin May 12th.  The next day I learned at the Foreign Office that my despatch was stopped because it conflicted with the opinions which the German Government was sending officially by wireless to Washington and to the American newspapers.  I felt that this was unfair, but I was subject to the censorship and had no appeal.

I did not forget this incident because it showed a striking difference of opinion between the army, which was fighting for Germany, and the Foreign Office, which was explaining and excusing what the Army and Navy did.  The Army always justified the events in Belgium, but the Foreign Office did not.  And this was the first incident which made me feel that even in Germany, which was supposed to be united, there were differences of opinion.