The Henson Journals

[154]

Saturday, October 2nd, 1920.

[I wrote to Ralph, and to Lilley after breakfast. The glass on my watch, which was broken yesterday, has been replaced at a cost of 12 marks.]

Captain Warburton, a very agreeable young officer joined us at lunch &went with us to ^the Kaiser Fredrich^ Museum in which we saw much medieval wood–carving, and a fine collection of pictures, and to the Schloss. We spent an hour & a half in going through the elaborately decorated of this vast & tasteless pile, in which the coarse egotism of the Hohenzollerns was fully expressed. In the chapel, the least ecclesiastical church I have ever fortuned to see, I noticed with sardonic interest that round the edge of the dome were inscribed the the Beatitudes in German. It was odd to read. "Blessed are the Peacemakers" in that place, where Force & Pride had been embodied so long. None of the statues & pictures of the Hohenzollern princes has been removed or mutilated by the republicans or by the communists who were in the Schloss. They pillaged the Kaiser's treasures, but abstained from damaging what they regarded as public property. We had tea in a fashionable Hotel & then returned to the House. The street "Unten den Linden", though wide & long, has not the dignity with which I had credited it. Perhaps the fact that it was Saturday afternoon may explain the fewness of the people who were to be seen in it.

The great length of the barges on the canal attracted my notice. They were mainly laden with timber and fire–wood. The letter, which I wrote [to Angel] from Stockholm a week ago, was only delivered [to her] today. It appears that the German Government makes a practice of opening all foreign letters.

[155]

The vast, almost insane, arrogance of the late Kaiser impresses the visitor to his palace, which received some of its most pretentious decorations during the war which his megalomaniacal vanity did so much to inflict on the world. That the fate of mankind should have rested on the caprice of an imperial mountebank like William II is sufficient condemnation of autocracy.

Lord Kilmarnock and General Bingham came to dinner, & we had much interesting conversation on the present state of Germany. Both agreed that the French were equally offensive & impolitic. "It is entirely owing to them that the German national spirit has been reconstituted" said the General. He spoke with indignation of the introduction of black troops into the country, & said that the horrible accusations against them were but too well–founded. I was assured that at this moment Germany was absolutely incapable of renewing the War, and that no armaments were now being manufactured but, added General B., "I woudn't answer for what would happen if we withdrew". If an individual of competent ability should arise & call on the nation to follow him against France, there would be a great response, but at present such an individual was not visible. [Both the soldier and the diplomatist spoke with contempt of the Poles. The War between them and the Bolsheviks was being carried on in a farcical manner. A story was current of a Bolshevik regiment chasing the Poles in order to be taken captured by them!] I inquired about the feeding of the German people & was told that the poor in the towns were certainly very ill–supplied, but that the rural population was in much better case. Matters were everywhere steadily improving in this respect.

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