Those who had followed the Kaiser’s attitudes and their reflections preceeding the war in the German military party, were struck by a strange blending of martial glory and Christian compunction.  No one prays more loudly than the hypocrite and none so smug as the devil when a saint he would be.

During long years the military machine had been under construction.  Human ingenuity had been reduced to a remarkable state of organization and efficiency.  One of the principal phases of Kultur was the inauguration of a sort of scientific discipline which made the German people not only soldiers in the field, but soldiers in the workshop, in the laboratory and at the desk.  The system extended to the schools and universities and permeated the thought of the nation.  It particularly was reflected in the home; the domestic arrangements and customs of the people.  The German husband was the commander-in-chief of his household.  It was not that benevolent lordship which the man of the house assumes toward his wife and family in other nations.  The stern note of command was always evident; that attitude of “attention!” “eyes front!” and unquestioning obedience.

German women always were subordinate to their husbands and the male members of their families.  It was not because the man made the living and supported the woman.  Frequently the German woman contributed as much towards the support of the family as the males; it was because the German male by the system which had been inculcated into him, regarded himself as a superior being and his women as inferiors, made for drudgery, for child-bearing, and for contributors to his comforts and pleasures.  His attitude was pretty much like that of the American Indian towards his squaw.

Germany was the only nation on earth pretending to civilization in which women took the place of beasts of burden.  They not only worked in the fields, but frequently pulled the plow and other implements of agriculture.  It was not an uncommon sight in Germany to see a woman and a large dog harnessed together drawing a milk cart.  When it became necessary to deliver the milk the woman slipped her part of the harness, served the customer, resumed her harness and went on to the next stop.  In Belgium, in Holland and in France, women delivered the milk also, but the cart always was drawn by one or two large dogs or other animals and the woman was the driver.  In Austria it was a strange sight to foreigners, but occasioned no remark among the people, to see women drawing carts and wagons in which were seated their lords and masters.  Not infrequently the boss wielded a whip.