disseminate them at the front by means of leaflets from the air. The silly letters written by German women cost hundreds of thousands of men their lives in the period which followed.
There were already objectionable phenomena. The front cursed and groused and was angry and discon¬ tented—sometimes rightly so. Whilst they starved and suffered, their people at home sat in poverty, whilst others had more than enough and revelled. Even at the battle-front all was not as it should be in this respect.
Grises easily arose, but these were 4‘domestic55 events. The same man who had groused and grumbled did his duty diligently a few minutes later as if it was quite natural. A company which had been discontented clung on to the bit of trench which it had to defend as though Germany’s fate depended on those few hundred metres of mud-holes. At the front it was still the old glorious army of heroes.
I was wounded in October, 1916, but happily had been brought back and was ordered home to Germany by ambulance train. Two years had passed since I last saw my home, an almost endless time under such cir¬ cumstances. I went to a hospital near Berlin. What a change !
Alas ! the world was a new one in other respects. The spirit of the army at the front seemed to have no place here. I came across for the first time something which was so far unheard of at the front—boasting of one’s own cowardice !
As soon as I was properly fit to walk I obtained leave to visit Berlin. Bitter poverty was evident everywhere. The city of millions was starving. There was much discontent. In some houses where soldiers visited, the tone was much the same as in the hospital. One got the impression that those fellows purposely looked for such spots in which to air their opinions.
In Munich conditions were far, far worse. When I had recovered and was discharged from hospital I was sent to the reserve battalion, and I felt I