Ch. 4: August

Before Breakfast. Berlin, Sat., Aug. 1st, 1914.

My blessed little mother,

I've seen a thing I don't suppose I'll forget. It was yesterday, after
the news came that Germany had sent Russia an ultimatum about instantly
demobilizing, demanding an answer by eleven this morning. The
sensation when this was known was tremendous. The Grafin was shaken
out of her calm into exclamations of joy and fear,--joy that the step
had been taken, fear lest Russia should obey, and there be no war after
all.

We had to shut the windows to be able to hear ourselves talk. Some
women friends of the Grafin's who were here--we had no men with
us--instantly left to drive by back streets to the Schlossplatz to see
the sight it must be there, and the Grafin, saying that we too must
witness the greatest history of the world's greatest nation in the
making, sent for a taxi--her chauffeur has gone--and prepared to
follow. We had to wait ages for the taxi, but it was lucky we had to,
else we might have gone and come back and missed seeing the Kaiser come
out and speak to the crowd. We went a long way round, but even so all
Germany seemed to be streaming towards the Lindens and the part at the
end where the palace is. I don't expect we ever would have got there
if it hadn't been that a cousin of the Grafin's, a very smart young
officer in the Guards, saw us in the taxi as it was vainly trying to
cross the Friedrichstrasse, and flicking the obstructing policemen on
one side with a sort of little kick of his spur, came up all amazement
and salutes to inquire of his most gracious cousin what in the world
she was doing in a taxi. He said it was hopeless to try to get to the
Schlossplatz in it, but if we would allow him to escort us on foot he
would be proud--the gracious cousin would permit him to offer her his
arm, and the young ladies would keep very close behind him.

So we set out, and it was surprising the way he got us through. If the
crowd didn't fall apart instantly of itself at his approach, an
obsequious policeman--one of those same Berlin policemen who are so
rude to one if one is alone and really in need of help--sprang up from
nowhere and made it. It's as far from the Friedrichstrasse to the
Schlossplatz as it is from here to the Friedrichstrasse, but we did it
very much quicker than we did the first half in the taxi, and when we
reached it there they all were, the drunken crowds--that's the word
that most exactly describes them--yelling, swaying, cursing the ones in
their way or who trod on their feet, shouting hurrahs and bits of
patriotic songs, every one of them decently dressed, obviously
respectable people in ordinary times. That's what is so constantly
strange to me,--these solid burghers and their