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382 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
charming and altogether delightful Crown Princess. In the
evening we sat round an open, flaming hearth, and I recounted
my recollections from the front and from the desert, whilst
my illustrious hostess and her ladies-in-waiting were listening
and knitting socks for the brave soldiers in the trenches.
The Crown Princess had another guest whom it was a great
pleasure to me to meet again—Baron von Maltzahn, who now,
after his unlucky motor drive, had recovered sufficiently to
hop about on crutches.
The streets of Berlin looked the same as they had done two
months previously. Men and women, motor-cars and ’buses
moved about as busily as they had done before, and the streets
were flooded with electric light all night just as in piping times
of peace. At the appointed hour the Palace Guard came
marching along U^tter den Linden as it has always done, with
its alluring, rapturous military music calling to fresh deeds of
valour. Had one not known it, one could not possibly have
guessed, but for the shouting of the newsboys, that the country
was involved in the most gigantic war of all time. Neither did
I notice any thinning of the numbers of able-bodied men in
the streets, and yet had I not seen through the carriage window
from Metz armies of recruits, reservists and volunteers all drill-
ing in barrack squares and fields along the line ?
It has been stated in certain newspapers that the Germans
treated their prisoners of war in a cruel and inhuman manner.
That this was untrue like everything else which forms part of
the educational campaign, I readily understood, but all the
same I thought it would be interesting to find out for myself
the facts of the case. Accordingly I paid a visit to the acting
General Staff. Not only did they give me the usual prompt
permission to go out to the prisoners’ camp at Döberitz, but I
was given as guide a most capable and learned major.
At the entrance to the camp we were received by a colonel
and several other officers, who took us round and explained
everything. Here were four thousand Russians, four thousand
British and a few hundred French, Belgians and Turcos—I am
sorry to say there were no other specimens from the ethno-
logical colour-box at Döberitz. The prisoners live in gigantic
tents where they have their beds close together on the ground
in four enormous rows. I went into one of the tents and found
a group of Russians with caps on the back of their heads and
coats or blankets over their shoulders, and asked if they were
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