The Iron Ration Part 30

Shortly afterward I learned of the case of a woman who had sold herself in order to provide food and fuel for her two children. She was the widow of a reserve officer who had fallen in Galicia. Her own pension amounted to one hundred and ten crowns a month, and for the support of the children she was allowed another one hundred crowns, I believe. The sum was entirely too small to keep the three, being the equivalent of, roughly, twenty-seven dollars, depreciation of the Austro-Hungarian currency considered. At that time life in Vienna was as costly as it is normally in the United States. While her husband had been alive the woman had led a very comfortable life. She had kept a servant and lived in a good apartment in the Third Munic.i.p.al District. The thing that struck me in her case was that she had not taken the step before. It is extremely difficult to be virtuous on twenty-seven dollars a month when one has not known need before.

The many cases of that sort which I could cite would merely repeat themselves. I will make mention, however, of one which is due to what may be termed the psychology of the ma.s.s in war. In this instance it was not want that was responsible. Aggregates involved in war seem to sense instinctively that the violence of arms may draw in its wake social dissolution. The pathology of society is affected by that in much the same manner as is evident in other organisms when a change is imminent or pending. A period of relaxation sets in, which in the case of the human aggregate manifests itself in s.e.xual looseness.

In various parts of Serbia I had had occasion to notice that the women gave themselves readily to the invading soldiers. In the Austrian capital I ran into the same thing, though there was at that time no danger of invasion.

Time lying heavy on my hands when I was not at a front, or occupied with some political situation in one of the Central European seats of government, I decided to pa.s.s some of it by taking piano lessons. I made the necessary arrangements with a master of the instrument near the Karntner Ring. On the three half-hours a week which I took from the _maestro_ I was preceded on two by a pretty young woman greatly gifted musically. Her parents were well off, so that it was not a question of getting a "good time" in the only manner possible.

After a while the young woman failed to appear for her lessons. The _Tonmeister_ wanted to know the reason for this. Confused and conflicting answers being all he received, he made up his mind that something was wrong. The poor old man had dealt with nothing but music all his life, and was delightfully ignorant of the ways of the world. He asked my advice. Should he inform the parents of the student?

After I had ascertained that his responsibility as teacher was not weighted by friendship or even acquaintance with the girl's family, I suggested that he confine himself to his proper province by notifying the student that failure in the future to put in appearance at her hour would result in a report of that and past delinquencies to the parents.

A very emotional interview between teacher and student resulted. By this time the girl had realized the folly of her conduct and seemed truly repentant. Being much attached to the old teacher, she made a clean breast of it. Her excuse was most interesting.

"You see, dear master," she said, "these are war times. I thought that it wouldn't matter much. If the Russians came to Vienna it might happen anyway."

There is used in the German army a word that comprises every rule of s.e.x conduct to which the soldier is subject, or ought to be--_Manneszucht_--the moral discipline of the man. Infraction of this rule is severely punished in all cases, though the ordinary soldier may under it cohabit with a woman by her consent. To the officer this privilege is not given, however, it being a.s.sumed that as the instrument of military discipline he must be proof against many demands of nature and be in full control of himself at all times. The German officer who would violate a woman in an occupied territory fares badly, and the code forbids that he enter into liaison with a woman of the enemy. Nor may he visit the army brothels which now and then are established by the authorities.

I do not mean to infer that the German army officer always and invariably adheres to these rules. But he does this generally. The abstinence thus practised reflects itself in that unqualified devotion to duty for which the German officer is deservedly famous. It tends to make of him, for military purposes, a sort of superman. He comes to regard the curb he sets upon himself as ent.i.tling him to despise the weaklings who satisfy their desires. In the course of time he extended the fine contempt that comes from this to his allied brothers-in-arms in Austria and Hungary, who were deplorably lax in that respect, despite the regulations.

Though I do not especially deal with the latter subject, I must mention it here as a preamble to a certain experience I had one night in Trieste. The experience, on the other hand, showed to what extent war may influence the conduct of men whose station and opportunities might cause one to believe that they were above surrendering to s.e.xual laxness.

In the "Hall" of the Hotel Excelsior of Trieste were sitting at cafe tables some sixty Austro-Hungarian officers from the Isonzo front who on that day had been furloughed from the trenches for a certain purpose. At the tables sat also a fourscore of women who for the time being were the sweethearts of the officers. High revelry was on. The windows of the room, with all others along the Trieste water-front, had been well blinded, so that no beam of light fell into the inky blackness without through which a fierce _borea_--northern wind--was just then driving a veritable deluge.

The room was well heated and lighted. I had on that very day walked off a sector on the Carso plateau, and found a most pleasant contrast between the cold and muddy trenches and the "Hall." It was exceedingly snug in the place. And there was the inevitable gipsy music.

Across the bay, from Montfalcone, came the sound of an Italian night drumfire, and in the room popped the bottle of Paluguay champagne--the French products being just then hard to get.

There were three other war correspondents in the party. An Austrian general-staff man was in charge. The officer was of the strait-laced sort and did not sanction the conduct of his colleagues. But then he was at headquarters at Adelsberg and could go to Vienna almost as often as he liked. The others were poor devils who had been sitting in the Carso trenches for months and had now come to Trieste to have a good time, even if that meant that next morning the pay of several months would be in the pocket of the hotel manager and in the hands of some good-looking Italo-Croat woman.

It was not long before we had at our table some of the "ladies." One of the war correspondents had taken it upon himself to provide us with company. From that company I learned what the frame of mind of the officers was. After all, that att.i.tude was simple enough. Each day might be the last, and why not enjoy life to-day when to-morrow there might be a burial without coffin, without anything except the regrets of comrades? What was etiquette under such circ.u.mstances? The champagne helped them to forget, and the women, though their conversation might be discouragingly ba.n.a.l, were, after all, members of the other s.e.x. One of the women was able to take a very intelligent survey of the situation.

She was capable of sensing real sympathy for these men. I learned that she had lost her husband in the war. It was the same old story. She had found the small pension for herself and the allowance for her boy entirely insufficient, was not minded to do poorly paid hard work, and had concluded that it was easy for the well-to-do to be decent. The poor had to do the best they could in these days of high prices.

Out on the Carso the bombardment progressed, satisfactorily, I presume, as the next official _communique_ of the Italian government would say.

The champagne bottles continued to pop. Men and women drank to one another's good health, the former oblivious, for the time being, that this might be the last good time they would ever enjoy.

It strikes me that not much fault can be found with this, so long as we are human enough to allow those whom we are about to execute for the commission of some crime to choose their last breakfast--or is it supper? To be detailed into the advanced trenches was generally no better than to be sentenced to death.

Only those who have been constantly threatened by the dangers of war can realize what state of mind these men were in. Nothing mattered any more, and, nothing being really important, the pleasures of the flesh were everything. It was so with the little music student I have mentioned. I could not reach a harsh judgment in either case, despite the picture of Prussian _Manneszucht_ before my eyes. At the same time, I am not ignorant of the fact that sleek communities living in peace and plenty cannot be expected to understand the moral disintegration which the dangers of war had wrought in this instance.

I made the acquaintance of similar conditions in Berlin and other cities of the Central states. Being a matter-of-fact individual, I cannot say that they shocked me. The relations of cause and effect cannot be explained away, much as we may wish to do it. With some fourteen million men taken away from their families, whose sole support they were in the vast majority of cases, nothing else was to be expected. It speaks well for mankind in general that the resulting conditions were not worse. The responsibility involved falls rather upon those who brought on the war than upon the men and women who transgressed.

And that responsibility was not shirked in the Central states. Before the war broke out there had already been held very liberal views on illegitimacy. The children of Hagar were no longer ostracized by the public, as, for instance, they are in the United States and other countries where social "justice" is still visited upon those whose misfortune it is to have been born out of wedlock. In Germany and Austria-Hungary it was held that a man is a man for all that.

Small wonder, then, that during the winter of 1916, when the crop of "war" babies was unusually large--formed, in fact, more than 10 per cent. of the increase in population--the several Central European governments should decide to give such children and their mothers the allowances provided for the wives and widows of soldiers and their children. The German state governments, that of Prussia excepted, also abolished the "illegitimate" birth certificate and gave the unwed soldier wife or widow the right to use the designation _Frau_--Mistress--instead of, as heretofore, _Fraulein_, or Miss.

This measure was a fine example of humaneness, seeing that otherwise many thousands of mothers of "war" babies would have been obliged to go through life with the stigma of illegitimacy branding both woman and child. It is somewhat typical of Prussia that its government should be willing to support illegitimate "war" babies and their mothers and yet deny them the comforts of social recognition, when their number was no less than two hundred thousand.

There came up, in connection with this legislation, the question of whether the offspring of unmarried women whose paramours were not in the military service should receive the same liberal treatment. A great deal of opposition was voiced by the clergy and other conservative elements.

It was argued that extension of this benefit to all would encourage a general recourse to free love.

But the legislators and governments were less short-sighted. The legitimizing acts were so framed that they included all children, no matter who their fathers were. It was held that it would be absurd to expect the millions of women whom the war had robbed of their husbands, or the chance of getting one, to lead a life of celibacy. Nature would a.s.sert itself, and if the subject was not now dealt with in a rational manner, it would have to be disposed of later when conditions might be less favorable.

There were certain examples to be recalled. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War the South German states, being the hardest hit in losses of male population, adopted laws according to which any man with the necessary means could legitimately admit into his house as many women as he cared to support. Though well-intentioned, the law shared every defect which emergency legislation is apt to be afflicted with.

The men able to support more than one wife were generally advanced in years, so that the very condition which the state had hoped to meet gave rise to chaos. It had not been the intention to afford the pleasures of the seraglio to the wealthy, but to take the best possible account of a social emergency.

This was borne in mind when the Central states governments dealt with a similar condition in 1916, the factors of which were these: There had been killed in action, crippled for life, and incapacitated by disease nearly five million men who had gone to the fronts in the very prime of life. That meant a serious loss to a community--considering Germany and Austria-Hungary a single unit in this respect--which then had approximately twenty million women in the state of p.u.b.erty. Reduced to statistics, the situation was that there were only four men of marriageable age for every five women. It was estimated at the time that before the war was over these odds would go to three to five. Recent casualty statistics show that this stage has been nearly reached.

I must make reference here to the fact that the normal and healthy woman finds life with the physically impaired man a torture. A good many cases of that sort have come to my attention. One of them is so typical of all others that I will give its details.

At a certain Berlin drawing-room I made the acquaintance of a charming young woman of the better cla.s.s. I may say that she is a writer of considerable merit.

A few months before the outbreak of the war she had married a professional man of quality. When the mobilization came he was drafted as an officer of the reserve.

For months at a time the two did not see each other, and when finally the man returned home for good one leg had been amputated at the knee and the other a little above the ankle. The woman did what most women would do under the circ.u.mstances. She received the man with open arms and nursed him back to complete recovery.

Soon it was evident that all was not well with the relations of the two.

The woman tried to forget that her husband was a cripple for life. But the harder she tried the more grew a feeling of repulsion for the man.

Finally, she decided to live alone.

It would be very simple to label the woman a heartless creature. But it would be quite as unjust. The foes of even that small portion of realism which the most logical of us are able to identify may be inclined to take the stand that s.e.x has little to do with what is called love. And yet in the healthy race it forms the social _force majeure_.

It is not for me to decide whether the woman in question did well in leaving the man. After all, that is her own affair--so much more her own affair since the man, as yet not reconciled to his great misfortune, began to plague her with most vicious outbreaks of jealousy, when as yet he had no reason for it.

The man is to be pitied by all, and unless he is able to calm his mind with the solace that comes from philosophical temperament, it would have been far better were he among the dead. He may in the end find another mate; but, seen from the angle of natural law, it must be doubted that the pity, which would have to be the great factor in such a love, would in any degree be as valuable as the s.e.xual instinct which caused the other woman to go her own ways. Idealism and practice are always two different things. The former is the star that guides the craft, while practice is the storm-tossed sea.

More than fifty thousand Russian prisoners-of-war pet.i.tioned the Austrian government to be admitted to citizenship in the country that held them captive. Many of these men had been sent into the rural districts to a.s.sist the farmers. Others were busy around the cities.

They had come to be reconciled with their lot, had acquired a fair working knowledge of the language, and a.s.sociation with the women had led to the usual results. The crop of "war" babies increased.

The Russians were willing to marry these women, but under the law could not do so. Hence the pet.i.tion for admission to the usual civil rights.

The Austrian government recognized the situation, but in the absence of the necessary legislative authority could do nothing to admit the Russian to Austrian _Staatsangehorigkeit_. Yet it was eager to do that.

The new blood was needed.

Travel about the country has often brought to my attention that in certain districts intermarriage for centuries had led to degeneration.

Goiter, one of the first signals of warning that new blood must be infused in the race, was prevalent. Scientists had drawn attention to this long before the war. But there was nothing that could be done.

The Russian prisoners-of-war came to serve as the solution of the problem. Their offspring were unusually robust, and some cranium measurements that were made showed that the children were of the best type mentally.

A state which was losing men at a frightful rate every day could not be expected to view this increase in population with alarm. So long as the mothers were Austrian all was well from the political point of view, since it is the mother usually who rears the patriot. The Russians, moreover, soon grew fond of the inst.i.tutions of Austria, and gave return to their own people hardly any thought. Conversation with many of them demonstrated that, on the contrary, they were not anxious to go home.

Russia was then still the absolute autocracy, and these men were not minded to exchange the liberal government of Austria for the despotism they knew.

I may state here that the Austrian government, serving in this instance as the example of all others in Central Europe, had done its level best to promote this very thing. On several trips to prison camps I visited the schools in which the Russian prisoners were being taught German.

Thousands of the men were thus given their first chance to read and write, and to the more intelligent was apparent the irony of fate that caused them to read and write German instead of their own language. No more deliberate attempt to win friends could have been devised and executed. Small wonder that on one occasion a Russian working detachment employed in road-making on the Italian front rushed to the a.s.sistance of the Austrians who were being overwhelmed, and cut down the last of their allies with their spades and picks.

To what extent Russian blood has been infused in the rural population of Austria and Hungary is at present entirely a matter of conjecture. The same applies to Germany, though I must state that in this case the number cannot be so great.

Dreary as the picture is, it is not without its brighter spots. The mixture of blood which has occurred in many of these countries will improve the human stock. And who would care to gainsay that governments are not in the habit of looking at populations from that angle--the angle of stock? None will admit it, of course, they may not even be conscious of the fact that they hold this view. But so long as governments are interested more in quant.i.ty than in quality of propagation they cannot easily clear themselves of the suspicion. I am not at all sure that it is not better thus.

I have so far treated the post-bellum aspect of s.e.x morality entirely from the position of the man. Women will ask the question: What do the women think of it?

That depends somewhat on conditions and circ.u.mstances.