Part 8

The greatest question before the German women is not, Shall they have the right to vote? but, Would it not be better for them if they had one year's special training by the Government as do the men when they serve their time in the army?

Compulsory military service has been a fine thing for men in the countries where it is enforced, and this is especially so of Germany where the men are inclined to be fond of studies rather than of sports and exercise. It makes them physically stronger, they are taught correct ways to exercise, and the way to care for their health.

And so this war has brought to the German women the consciousness that they, too, must have some practice and training in things, if they wish to fulfil their duty to their families and their country. They realize how much better they could do all the things that they are now forced to do if they had had some special training beforehand. And so the great question has come up: Shall the women of Germany have a year's training by the State?

Many of the greatest women of Germany are for this issue, and they have worked out plans for the service. All this does not mean that the women will have to learn to shoot guns and cannons, but that they shall be trained in the branches that make a more perfect womanhood and motherhood.

The women will be divided into two classes for their army year--the first class being the higher and more educated German girls, and the second class being the poorer girls who must earn their own living. Naturally, the rich girl who stays at home would not be taught the same branches as a poor girl.

The better class girls will pay for their year of service. Buildings would have to be built for them, complete in every equipment, where they could live during that year. The other girls would be taught in the public schools, and their training would be free, the State paying for everything--clothes, food and training.

The most important thing for the women to learn in their year would be housekeeping. Not merely the keeping of the house in order, such as sweeping, dusting and scrubbing and all the branches that go with housekeeping. They must learn cooking, not only cooking for strong healthy people, but things that sick people can eat. They must learn to prepare food for infants. They must learn to do washing and ironing, and they must learn to make a bed properly.

They must learn to do scientific marketing, so that they will know what to buy without wasting, for _Sparsamkeit_, i. e., economy, is one of the fundamental things to learn. They will be taught what to do when there is no fat to be had, and they will be given different menus for times when certain foods are scarce.

Then the German women will be taught how to make a garden, when to plant different seeds and what grows best in certain seasons. Chicken raising will be taught to the girls who care to know about it, and for the country girls there will be training in the making of dairy products.

After housekeeping the next important thing is nursing. The women must learn to take care of the sick, how to make bandages, and perhaps some knowledge of medicine. If this branch is distasteful to any of the women they will not be compelled to pursue it very far, but for those who like the branch they can continue it until they become graduate nurses.

The second branch of nursing which every girl must learn thoroughly is taking care of infants. They must be taught the proper dressing for young babies, what babies must eat and when they must sleep. Also they must know what to do in cases of light infants' diseases and what to do for fussy babies and for teething babies.

Then they must learn something of social settlement work, and how to entertain sick and crippled children. They must help in the care of orphans and be able to make things for them. They must know something of kindergartening and know stories and games for children. Many German women who have lost their husbands in the war will be glad to have a place to send their children, and the army girls can take care of them.

After nursing come lessons in sewing, and besides the making of the common things the better class of girls will learn to make lace and to do fancy work. In the year's service the better class girls will sew for the poor and the poorer girls will sew for themselves.

One prominent German woman thinks that it would be a good plan to have the girls serve their first half year of service at the age of fourteen, when they leave public school. At this time they would be taught house-keeping and cooking. Then, later, between the age of seventeen and twenty when it is most convenient to the girls they could do their second half year.

Nursing, sewing and cooking will be the main branches taught to the better class girls, but each of the poorer girls will be taught a special branch by which she can earn her own living, and something she can use in filling the places of the men when it is necessary, as in this war.

The better grade of the poorer girls will be taught book-keeping and typewriting. They will be taught to be telephone operators, and how to wait on customers properly. But a girl will be taught only one of these branches, and she will be allowed to choose the one that she likes best.

Of course most German girls get married, but they must have some specialty to fall back on in case of the men going to war, or in the case of the loss of a husband, when they may be left with many little children to support. When a girl has learned any specialty she must serve the State in that capacity whenever she is called upon to do so. That will be her duty, the same as a man's.

The plan so far is to have everything managed by women, and they are to have officers the same as the army. This will make the bright women more efficient in management and the duller women will learn to obey.

Already the society women of Germany have formed clubs for learning to do things. They are learning to make gardens, to cook and to sew. Women are now being drafted for the munition factories, and as most of these girls have before been housemaids, many German housewives are thrown upon their own resources.

That most of the German women would be benefitted by a year's training cannot be denied. It would help to make them stronger in body and in mind. This war has been a great example to the world of what military training means to the men, and the women of Germany feel that if they must do the work of a man, they should have the same benefits as a man.

THE KAISERIN AND THE HOHENZOLLERN PRINCESSES.

The most popular man in Germany is the Kaiser, and the Kaiserin is the most popular woman. William II may have his critics, but no one can deny that in him Augusta Victoria has found what she considers an ideal husband. The only domestic tyranny that I heard of his engaging in is, that every birthday he gives the Kaiserin twelve hats for a present. These hats he picks out himself, and she has to wear them. From the pictures one sees of the Kaiserin wearing a hat one does feel that he is a sort of barbarian and rather rough on his wife. On her last birthday when I was in Berlin, she would allow no gifts to be given her--perhaps she wanted one year without hats--and instead, she requested all the givers to send wine, jams and preserves to the soldiers. This collection was called the Kaiserin's birthday gift.

Except for the present war, the life and reign of Augusta Victoria has been a peaceful one, and it is now twenty-eight years since she became the first lady in the land. She was born in the little castle of Dolzig in Schleswig-Holstein, and there she spent her childhood with her two younger sisters and her brother. The young Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the present Kaiser, was a half cousin of the young Princess, their mothers being half sisters. Prince Wilhelm had seen her but once at an English court party given by a mutual relative, and it was not until he was invited to a hunting-party at her father's castle that they became acquainted.

The hunting-party was in 1878, and it brought a great booty. The story goes that after the hunt the young Prince was walking in the garden when suddenly he came upon the young Princess--that was the beginning of the courtship, and a year later they were married. When Bismarck heard the news he exclaimed, "A happy ending to a kingdom's drama." Bismarck had probably arranged the match, for Schleswig-Holstein was restless and needed to be bound more securely to the states of Germany.

The Prince and Princess entered Berlin through the Brandenburg Gate. Six years later, Emperor Wilhelm I died, and less than a year later his son died, and Kaiser Wilhelm II and Augusta Victoria ascended the throne.

On the 6th of May, 1882, the present Crown-Prince was born. His father was so excited that he opened the window of the Marble Palace and yelled across to his father's palace, "Father, it is a boy. Hurrah! The fourth German Kaiser!" The child was christened with the full name of Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst.

After this came five more boys, one after the other--Eitel Friedrich on July 7, 1883; Adalbert on July 14, 1884; August Wilhelm on January 29, 1887; Oskar on July 6, 1888; and Joachim on December 17, 1890. The youngest child was a daughter, Victoria Louise, born on September 13, 1892.

All the children are now married, and strange to say every one of them has married a German, and all of royal blood except the wife of Prince Oskar, and she was a baroness.

The wedding of the Crown Prince and the Duchess Cecilia of Mecklenburg-Schwerin took place on June 6, 1905. The Crown Princess has very high connections, coming from the same family as the famous Queen Louise. Her mother is a Russian Princess, and she is a first cousin to the late Czar. Her sister is the Queen of Denmark, and when she goes to Denmark to pay a visit to her sister, the two walk through the streets of Copenhagen arm in arm with the king.

Her democratic spirit has made her very popular with the German people, and she is said to be the one person who dares to defy her imperial father-in-law, and as a result he admires her very much and is very fond of her. Four years ago, the Kaiser forbade the officers to tango. The very next day after this edict the Crown Princess hired a tango teacher. The Kaiser only laughed. He liked her spirit.

She is very tall, almost as tall as her tall husband. She is almost of the Russian type and has dark hair and very bright eyes. The German women look to her to set the styles. She dresses a great deal in white and like the Kaiserin wears very large hats. Although very rich in her own right she does not wear extravagant clothes but rather sensible things.

She is very active and capable, and is a splendid mother, spending much of her time with her four boys and her little daughter, helping to train them herself. The eldest boy is now ten years old, and the little girl was born since the war. She has her own palace in Berlin, but she spends most of her time at Potsdam or at Danzig, the favorite resort of the royal pair.

At the silver wedding of the Kaiser and Kaiserin, Prince Eitel Friedrich and the Grand Duchess Charlotte of Oldenburg were married. The Duchess is a grand-daughter of Prince Carl, the famous general of 1870. She is quite different from the vivacious Cecilia, being of a quiet temperament. She has no children.

A year later the fourth son of the Kaiser, Prince August Wilhelm, was married to Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. She is so pretty that they call her the "Beautiful Princess." Almost any day one can see her riding around in her carriage with her little boy at her side. She is a first cousin to her husband, being a daughter of the favorite sister of the Kaiserin. She is by far the favorite daughter-in-law of the Kaiserin's, and the two are often seen together. Her child is a beautiful boy of four years. Both she and the child are very often photographed.

Prince Adalbert, the third son, was the next to be married, and in 1911 he married Princess Adelheid of Saxe-Meiningen. Princess Adelheid is a very sad princess, for since her marriage she has lost both her parents. She has no children.

The next royal child to be married was Victoria Louise, who has always been very popular in Germany. She is the Kaiser's favorite child and he always said that his only daughter should marry whom she pleased. When she picked August of Brunswick every one was satisfied, for it settled for once and all the Guelph claim to the Brunswick throne. The Germans like to believe that this was a love match, for they do not like to think that their dear little Princess Victoria Louise was sacrificed to the plans of the State, but on all sides you hear rumors that she is not happy and that her husband is always "away," and "away" doesn't mean at the front either, for they say he doesn't care much for fighting. She has two children. She spends most of her time in Brunswick, but sometimes she meets her husband in Berlin, and they go to either the Adlon or Bristol Hotel.

The fifth son, Prince Oskar, was morganatically married in 1914 to the Baroness von Rippen, a beautiful and high-minded lady with whom he was very much in love. Of all the royal ladies she has the most charming face. At first the Kaiser wasn't very keen on this marriage, but when the war broke out he gave his consent. They have one baby born in 1916.

The youngest son was married in the spring of 1916, and the wedding of Prince Joachim and the Princess Marie of Anhalt was a quiet war marriage. This summer a boy was born.

A STROLL THROUGH BERLIN.

When you start your stroll through Berlin, you begin at Friedrichstrasse Station, for everything begins there and ends there for that matter. Here is the elevated that takes you all around the city, and the long-distance railway that takes you all around the world.

From the station you hurry down two squares of Friedrichstrasse, and there you are right on Unter den Linden, the heart of Berlin. Linden trees! Linden trees! But they are all bare now, and the lights from the other side of the street show through their empty coal-black branches. But on days when there has been a victory, flags show through, and then the street is very beautiful.

The center of Berlin is built on a square. On one side is Unter den Linden, on the second side Friedrichstrasse, on the third side Leipzigerstrasse and on the last side Wilhelmstrasse. Unter den Linden is all fashionable shops and hotels. Here is the Hotel Adlon where most Americans stop, but the German royalty go there as well. The Duchess of Brunswick often makes this her headquarters. Near the hotel is a newspaper office, the _Lokal-Anzeiger_. It always has a crowd of people hanging around its bulletins, and its great war map which shows with colored pins how Germany has advanced her boundaries. Then there are jewelry and men's furnishing shops. This is the promenade side of the street, and here the Beau Brummels and Disraelis of Berlin walk with their fine ladies. Some of them take tea at Kranzler's, and the little cake house is packed from early morn till night. People sitting in Kranzler's never look at ease but as though they were there to be seen and not to have a good time.

On the other side of the street in the midst of all this fashionable array is a tiny little beer hall for soldiers. They always have a ham and a dozen of eggs in the window, and beside the ham the sign "_Bier für Militär 10 Pfennige_," and what soldier would not take advantage of this! On the same side is the "Jockey Club," tailors who make English clothes. The words "Jockey Club" are printed all over the front of the store. There is only one empty store on the street, and that is a tiny shop, and the signs are still in the window: "Chevalier d'Orsay Perfume." The French shop-keepers left at the beginning of the war. The "Mercedes Automobile Company" have a big show window on this street, and in this window they have three or four giant automobiles. They are all marked "Sold," but they can't be delivered until after the war.

Friedrichstrasse is a very narrow street, and it is always so crowded that one can hardly get along it. Many people walk in the middle of the street. It is full of little shops and lottery places run by the government. They have a great many Red Cross Lotteries, and the chances sell for three marks a chance. Last winter the winner of the first prize of many thousand marks never came to claim it. The number was advertised in all the papers. If the winner did not turn up in a certain time the money was to be turned over to the Red Cross.

On Friedrichstrasse there are several American shoe stores--the "Walk Over," the "Hanan," and the "Vera" shoe. But it is now over two years since they have had any shoes from America, and they have filled up their empty boxes with German shoes which are very inferior to our makes. Busses run along this street, and many of the conductors are women who wear trousers--not bloomers but regular men's trousers.

Leipzigerstrasse is all big stores, and these stores do a rushing business. At one end of the street is Wertheim's large department store. From the outside it looks like a public library or a government building, but inside it is rather cheap looking and it is a regular mirror maze to find your way in. I doubt if even Mr. Wertheim himself finds his way through it.

Right by the door of this store they have field post boxes for soldiers all ready packed for sending things to the front, with goose breast, cakes, candy, wine, oranges and cigarettes. Everything tied up with a ribbon of _Schwarz-Weiss-Rot_, and a bit of green laid on the top. What don't they have in this store for soldiers! Clothes, caps, blankets, pocket lamps, knee warmers, pulse warmers, sleeping-bags, folding knives and forks, and books.

The fourth side of the square is Wilhelmstrasse, and when you read in the papers, "Wilhelmstrasse says this to-day," or "Wilhelmstrasse is silent," this is the street. It is a bare street without street-cars or trees, and lined with gray government buildings. The German Foreign Office is here, and right beside it the Chancellor's house, where Bismarck lived so long. The American Embassy is on the other side of the street. The Spanish Embassy occupies the building now. So many automobiles run over this street that it looks like glass, and when the lamps are lighted, its reflections are so bright that it looks as though it had been raining.

At the head of Wilhelmstrasse where it meets Unter den Linden is the famous Brandenburger Tor, and there, on the top of it, you see the famous bronze horses that Napoleon took to Paris and that were brought back in 1871. When you walk through its arches you are in the Tiergarten, the great park of Berlin. This park is always full of people, and many of them are going out to drive nails into the Iron Hindenburg. For over two years this nailing has been going on and the statue is not nearly finished. It is an enormous figure over fifty feet high. The money for the nailing goes to the Red Cross. It costs one mark to drive an iron nail into the figure, five marks to drive a silver nail, and 100 marks to drive a gold one. Already the whole top of Hindenburg's sword is gold, and his wedding ring is gold. The buttons on his coat are silver. The nailing is directed by soldiers, and every afternoon a military band plays in front of the figure.

If you are too lazy to walk around Berlin, you can ride around on the city elevated, taking the train at the Potsdam Station. At this station you can nearly always see prisoners--Arabs, Englishmen, French--waiting to be taken out to Zossen, the great prison camp near Berlin. This station is surrounded by coal yards, and last winter when it was so hard to get any coal delivered, I often felt like getting out here and stealing a lump.

At no time in the day can you ride around the loop without seeing a troop train. There is always a troop train flying by. Very gay trains with shouting soldiers hanging out of the windows and doors. All waving and crying _Auf Wiedersehen_! That means "Till we meet again," but many of them never come back.

Beside the soldier trains are the freight trains and the funny things they haul: Parts of aeroplanes with the wings marked with the Iron Cross; parts of undersea-boats; sleds for the winters in Russia--the kind you see pictures of in story books, and then cannons, automobiles, little field-kitchen wagons--everything painted gray--"field-gray."

Near the Charlottenburg Station is a _Mittelstandsküche_ or a middle-class kitchen. These kitchens have been established all over Berlin since the war, and here one can get a good meal for eighty pfennigs.

If you get off the elevated at the Lehrte Station you are in Alt-Moabit. Near the station is the great civil prison of Berlin. It is built like a star with five arms running out from a center. It makes one think of an octopus. Here the spies, the offending editors and the troublesome socialists are imprisoned. Liebknecht is here. I knew the prison pastor, a young man named Dr. Klatt. Dr. Klatt wanted to go to the front, but he is so useful here that they will not let him go. He is the go-between for the prisoners and the outside world. Some of the prisoners begged to be allowed to go to fight for their country, and Dr. Klatt helped these men to get free. He says there is a tremendous amount of patriotism among the prisoners.

Near the prison is a great red barracks. It is so long that one can scarcely see from one end to the other. There are always soldiers at the windows, and if you look their way at all, they are very apt to call _Guten Tag_. At the far end of the building there is a path-way, and no matter at what time of the day you go there you can see hundreds of new recruits coming out. They have not received their uniforms as yet, and they have on old clothes, and most of them carry boxes in their hands. Two hundred of them come at a time, six abreast, and when they have reached the gateway as far back as you can see, a second batch appears. This lasts as long as you stand there.

A little farther up from the Lehrte Station is the greatest hospital in Berlin, and it is now used as a collecting-place for soldiers who have been wounded and are now well and ready to go back to the front. Here they go through their final examination to make sure that they are able to go back.