A
WAR-TIME JOURNAL
GERMANY 1914
AND
GERMAN TRAVEL NOTES

BY
LADY JEPHSON

Author of 'A Canadian Scrap-Book' and
'Letters to a Débutante'

LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET
M CM XV

ENGLISCHE KRIEGSFÜHRUNG
(How the Englishman makes war.)

PREFACE

Prefaces are rarely read, yet I have the hardihoodto venture on this one because there are certainthings in connection with my journal which it isnecessary to explain. On returning from Germany,although urged by my friends to publish the storyof my experiences, I refused, fearing to do anythingwhich in the smallest degree might prejudice thecase of those still in captivity. There came aday, nevertheless, when I read that all Englishpeople had left "Altheim." The papers announcedthat men under forty-five had been interned atRuhleben, and those over that age had been sentto Giessen. There seemed, therefore, no possibleobject in further withholding the journal, since, afterall, there was nothing in it which could by anypossibility affect the fate of others less fortunatethan I. Accordingly I sent my manuscript to theEvening Standard, which accepted it, and publishedthe first couple of pages. Then, in deference tothe wishes of people whose relations were still at"Altheim" (having been sent back from Giessen),I stopped my diary. However, in view of thedaily revelations in the Press as regards prisonersin Germany, I have come, after seven months, tothe conclusion that nothing I can say will in anydegree make the condition of prisoners there worse.Meanwhile it is of supreme interest to compare theopinions and conduct of Germans at the beginningof the war with what they express and observe now.My journal is simply a record made each day of mydetention, and although it has no pretension tobeing literature, it is at least a truthful picture ofthe state of things as we in Altheim saw themat the beginning of the war. For obvious reasonsthe place of detention has been given a fictitiousname.

Harriet J. Jephson.

CONTENTS