WHAT I SAW IN BERLIN" TEE work before us is
a reprint of certain articles which appeared in the Evening News, together with a good deal of new matter. The writer, who seems to be an Italian, has, for reasons which he does not disclose, visited during the war almost all the European capitals, including two visits to Berlin. His sympathies are strongly British, but at the same time he draws what we believe to be a true picture of what he saw. He does not attempt to make out that the people in the German capital are dying of hunger or are as yet tired of the war. Yet if we compare his account of Berlin in October with that of Berlin at the end of December, it is impossible not to draw the conclusion that the Germans are on the down- grade, and that, unconsciously if not consciously, the people know it. To put it in another way, Berlin only keeps up its spirits because its inhabitants deliberately refuse to face the facts, and live upon the emasculating food of home-made optimism.
Though the book is distinctly light in character, and makes no claim to be a serious contribution to war literature, it is quite good reading. Some of the most readable chapters are those devoted to Constantinople and to the minor Slates. For example, the chapter on Holland shows very accurately the fine and wise temper which the Dutch have exhibited under the terrible strain of the war. No nation was ever placed in a more cruelly difficult position than Holland, but her people have come well out of the ordeal. The chief duty which fell to them was that of assisting their unfortunate, Belgian neighbours, and this they have done with a hospitality which can only be described as noble. The passage with which the chapter on Holland ends is well worth quoting : " The simple and noble manner in which the Dutch bare given all they could to the refugee Belgians, will certainly kill for ever
the century-long jealousies which were still alive a few months ago..
Only in the chapters on Belgium do we get near to the central horrors of the war. In the chapter on Louvain the writer makes a remark which, again, is worth quoting. He
points out that in this unhappy town the Germans " surpassed Nero ":— " While the town was still burning all the population, regard- less of age or sex, was arranged in a single line near Mont C6sar. And then the most dreadful thing happened. The Romans, to subdue soldiers' rebellions, invented a punishment which al %%lya seemed to the world the limit of cruelty—decimation. The Germans at Louvain did the same thing, but they beat the Romans. Every third man was the victim. I met a gentleman who had been twice through this ordeal. Ho was still young, but his hair was grey, and his eyes had in them a far-off expression of terror. Near the cathedral somebody pointed out to me a young woman gone mad through having lost her husband and brother in this way."
The author adds that in order to make the burning of Louvain easier the Germans took the fire-engines and used them to deluge the town with petrol allied to some other combustible recently devised in Berlin. Another chapter, that on Malines, also touches upon the Belgian horror :—
"But what happened in the towns is nothing compared with what happened in the country. There, far front the control of high officers. the blonde beast hos given way to all the brutal follies of which the Hun is now known to be capable. I have seen and heard things that disgust keeps me from writing; things ccmpared with which the excesses of the French Revolution, the bloodthirsty pleasures of some barbarian kings, the exploits of some notorious brigands, are but the A B C of an art in which the German army has certainly reached the highest possible standard of perfection."
• What I Sam in Berlin and other fiNropean Capitols (luring Wartime. 1.31 " Piermarini." London : Eveleigh Nash. 15s. net.]
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