The Iron Ration Part 26

Captain Humann was born in Smyrna and had early in life made the acquaintance of Enver Pasha, now Ottoman Minister of War and vice-generalissimo of the Ottoman army. Raised in the Orient, Humann knew the people with whom he was to deal. The viewpoint of the Orient and the Turk was an open book to him. He had the advantage of being looked upon as half a Turk, for the reason that he was born in Turkey.

To these qualifications Captain Humann added great natural ability and a perseverance without equal.

Officially, Captain Humann was known as the commander of the German naval base in Constantinople and as naval attache. Actually, he was the alpha and omega of German-Ottoman relations.

There always was a great deal of friction between the Turks and the Germans. The Turk often could not see the need for speed, while the German was eternally in a hurry, from the Oriental point of view. The Turk was inclined to do things in a slovenly manner. The German insisted upon everything, in matters economic, military, and diplomatic, being in its place. German officers who had a great deal to do with these things had not always the tact and forbearance necessary. Bad blood would come of this. To make matters worse, the Turk was forever under the impression that he was being exploited. The Germans, also, refused to _bakshish_ the officials of their ally, and more trouble came from that.

It is hard to say what the general result of this would have been had not Captain Humann been on the spot. He was on _du_--thou--terms with Enver Pasha, and when things refused to move at all he would call on his friend in the Harbiyeh Nasaret in Stamboul and set them into motion again. That Turk and German did not come to blows during the first year of the war is largely due to the genius of Captain Humann. So great was the man's influence in Constantinople that the successor of Amba.s.sador Baron von w.a.n.genheim, Prince Metternich, grew jealous of him and had him removed to Berlin, where in the Imperial Naval Office Captain Humann chewed pencils until conditions in Constantinople were so bad that the German Emperor had to send him back, despite the prejudices he held against him. Captain Humann is not a n.o.ble, and in those days the powers that be in Prussia and Germany were not yet ready to have a commoner, no matter how able, take away glamour from the aristocratic cla.s.s.

Though purchasing in Turkey was not one of the duties of Captain Humann, he was often obliged to take charge of it. I knew of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of wool which the Germans had bought, but which the Turks were not willing to surrender because they were not satisfied with the price after the bargain had been closed. The case was ticklish in the extreme. Everybody had gone as far as safety permitted and the Turks had meanwhile grown more obdurate. In the end the matter had to be brought to the attention of the amba.s.sador. He, too, decided that nothing could be done. Captain Humann was appealed to and succeeded in securing delivery of the wool.

I have quoted this case to show that very often the exchange of commodities between the Central allies was attended with much friction and difficulty. More merchandise moved over and across the Danube as personal favors done than by virtue of the commercial treaties that had been made. Personal equation was everything in the scheme, especially at times when Germany's allies were in no pressing need for arms and ammunition. The very fact that Germany was the "king-pin" in the Central European scheme caused the lesser members of the combination to be sticklers in matters affecting their rights and sovereignty.

On one occasion the predecessor of Captain Westerhagen in Sofia was said to have boastfully made the statement that what he could not get from the Bulgarians voluntarily he would find means to get, anyhow. General Jekoff, the chief of the Bulgarian general staff, heard of this, and promptly shut down on all exports. For two weeks not a thing moved out of Bulgaria, and when the two weeks were over there was a new man in charge of the German purchasing bureau in Sofia. The methods of the Prussian barrack-yard would not do south of the Danube. It took many a lesson to bring this home.

Austria and Hungary were two separate economic units in the war. When food was scarce in Austria it did not necessarily follow that the Hungarians would make good the deficiency. It took a special permit to export and import from and into Hungary, and the same rules were enforced by Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey in the case of all shipments made by civilians, so long as these had a hand in this inter-allied exchange of necessities and commodities.

Little need be said of the German purchasing centrals in Austria and Hungary. The war was not very old before these countries had nothing to spare. Thereafter, exchange was limited entirely to materials needed in the manufacture of arms and ammunition. Austria and Hungary continued to exchange medical supplies, chemicals, and machinery for food and the like, respectively. They also managed now and then to get a little of the food in Bulgaria and Turkey, though the latter country could sell food only on rare occasions. Constantinople continued to live on Roumanian wheat, until the total cessation of activity by the Russian Black Sea fleet made navigation in those waters possible for the Turks and brought wheat and other food from northern Anatolia.

The food secured by Germany in other markets was also under military control, as I have stated before. Exchange in this case depended even more upon reciprocity in kind than in the instances already cited. At one time the Swiss government was ready to close its borders against the export of food to Central Europe entirely. Nothing came of the intention. The German government informed the government at Bern that this would lead to an embargo on coal along the Swiss borders. France and Italy had no coal themselves, and Switzerland had to have fuel.

It has been said that the incident in question was staged for the purpose of ill.u.s.trating what the position of the Swiss actually was. At any rate, they would have no coal, not so much as a shovelful, if to-morrow they refused to export to the Germans and Austrians dairy products and animal fats. The same is true of iron products and chemicals.

Holland is in the same position. Great Britain needs all the coal she can mine, and the Germans refuse to supply the little they can spare without getting something in exchange--dairy products, animal fats, vegetables, and fresh and preserved fish. Holland also gets her coal-oil and gasolene in that manner. Iron and steel and chemicals are other strong arguments in this scheme. Denmark is in exactly the same position, and when German gasolene and benzine are not available the Norwegian fishermen have to stay at home. For each gallon of these fuels, which Germany exports from the Galician and Roumanian oil-fields, the Norwegians are obliged to turn over so many pounds of fish. Sweden has no food to give for the coal and liquid fuel she gets from Germany, but exchanges them for wood pulp, certain specialty ores, and on rare occasions reindeer meat.

That this commerce is strictly military those interested know, of course. But they have given up splitting hairs over it, because there is no way out. Coal and iron products, to say nothing of chemicals and medicines, are things which the European neutrals must have, and this need warring Central Europe has held over them as a whip. Incidentally, this traffic has done much toward keeping up the rate of the German mark. Central Europe would have been bankrupted long ago were it not that the neutrals must buy what these states have for sale and must buy it at prices fixed by monopoly.

The need of coal and iron has been a far more efficacious discipline for the European neutrals than the German armies that have lain along their borders. That these countries have never combined for the purpose of throwing off this yoke is due to the influence of racial affinity--the sentiment upon which in the past has thriven Pan-Germanism. Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, rising simultaneously, could overnight cause the defeat of the Germans and their allies. But the ties of blood and kinship militate against that step, despite the dislike felt in these countries for certain aspects of German political life.

XVII

WOMAN AND LABOR IN WAR

To the plow was yoked an ox and harnessed a horse. A tall and muscular woman was guiding it, while a small boy carried the whip. From the Isonzo front, not more than ten miles away, came the crash of heavy artillery.

Neither the woman nor the boy seemed to mind that war was so near. I concluded that they were from the village which I had just come through, bound for the front named. The inhabitants of that place had listened to the noise of battle for eighteen months and it was possible that now the crash of guns meant less to them than the sound of the vesper bell.

There was a tire blow-out. While the soldier-chauffeur was attending to that, I watched the woman draw furrows. Being somewhat of a farmer, I was interested in the quality of her work. It was good average plowing.

The plow continued to cut down one side of the field and up the other.

The automobile did not interest the woman. She had serious business to attend to. War must have seemed to her a sort of folly, and fools all those connected with it--myself included. She was tilling the land to get something to eat for her brood and to raise the money for taxes which those idiots at the front would waste in powder and the like. Her "hees" and "haws" punctuated the rumble of artillery like words of command for the oxen in the trenches.

The woman behind the plow was a superb figure--the embodiment of nature herself.

I went on.

Toward evening I returned over the same road. The woman was still plowing, but now she had a little girl holding the whip. The sirocco had blown a heavy mist in from the Adriatic. Where the woman was plowing the vapors floated in layers of uneven density--the veils of evening. The plowers pa.s.sed into them and out again, loomed now and then dwindled in the mist as the moods of light pleased.

It struck me that it would be worth while to have a few words with this woman. She was so close to the war and yet, seemingly, so far from it that almost anything she could say promised to have an unusual color.

"These people here are Slovenes, sir!" remarked my soldier-chauffeur when I had sought his advice. "They do not speak German, as a rule. But we can try."

It was love's labor lost. The woman spoke some Slovene words in greeting and I replied in Bulgarian, of which language I know a few words. The chauffeur was no better off.

I dug into a furrow with the tip of my shoe and said:

"_Dobro!_"

She nodded recognition of both my "remark" and appreciation of her work.

To show the woman that I knew what I was talking about, I took the plow out of her hands and drew a furrow myself. It was her turn to say:

"_Dobro!_"

The fact that she limited her conversation to this word, as I was obliged to do, showed that she was a woman of understanding.

When I was back at the road I shook hands with the woman and her child and hurried off to Adelsberg, where General Boreovic, commander of the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army, expected me for dinner.

"Ah, she is a worker," said the old veteran, as I mentioned the incident to him. "Her husband is dead, you know. Was killed in the war. She is a remarkable woman. I have talked to her several times. She is worth a dozen of anything in skirts you can find in Vienna, or anywhere else, for that matter."

I thought so, too, and think so yet, and, _Deo volente_, I will picture the plow-woman better some other time.

In the Manfred Weiss works at Budapest thousands of women are engaged in the manufacture of ammunition. The little girls and older women who watched the infantry-ammunition machines did not greatly interest me.

They were all neatly dressed and did no more than watch the mechanical contrivances that made cartridge-cases out of sheets of bra.s.s and bullet-casings out of sheets of nickel-steel.

In the sh.e.l.l department of the establishment I saw quite another cla.s.s of women.

They were large and brawny and strong enough to handle the huge white-hot steel nuggets with ease. By means of a crane two of them would seize one of the incandescent ingots, swing it under the trip-hammer, and then leave the fate of the sh.e.l.l in the making to two others, who would turn the thing from side to side, while a fifth operated the hammer itself.

At the far end of the shed, in flame-raked gloom, other women of the same type were engaged in casting. The ladle was operated by them with a dexterity that showed that neither strength nor skill were lacking.

These daughters of Vulcan were stripped to the waist. Their labor seemed to be the only dress they needed. In fact, it never struck me that there was anything unconventional about this costume--the whole and total of which was a large leather ap.r.o.n and skirt of something that resembled burlap. Nor did they seem to mind me.

It is impossible to say to what extent man's place in labor was taken by woman in Central Europe during the war. On the farms the women had always done much of the hard work. They had been employed in large numbers in the factories, stores, and offices, so that it was generally a case of employing more women instead of surrendering to them departments which heretofore had been entirely in the hands of men. It is true that women were working on street-car lines as conductors, and in a few cases as drivers, and that more of them found employment in the railroad and postal service, but the work they did was well within the capacity of any healthy woman. Woman's work during the war was to have results quite foreign to those immediately in prospect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph from Henry Ruschin

WOMEN CARRYING BRICKS AT BUDAPEST

A pathetic aspect of the policy "Business as Usual" inaugurated at the outbreak of the European War. Central European women worked hard before the war, however.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph from Henry Ruschin

VILLAGE SCENE IN HUNGARY