Diary of Annie's War (21 page)

They mention also the failure of three German banks and we have not heard of that at all.

I went today for my weekly visit to the police. It’s the first time and I must say that it is most agreeable.

The food shortage is getting very serious indeed and you can go all over town and not get any. And that is with money and tickets in your hand. A cabbage costs one shilling (for five persons) and sprouts are seven pence a pound. Potatoes are not to be got and many bakers are to be closed. Children come to your door and beg for a ticket to buy a little bread. Money they have but no bread cards or tickets.

They announce today that we are all to be allowed three-quarters-of-a-pound of potatoes a person per day and with the six ounces of bread it means hunger for so many things fail in the grocers and butchers. Fresh meat is at a discount and most shops are closed and you are not able to get more than half-a-pound of sausage at once.

I have been getting potatoes from the estate up to now but Steinoff tells me that there are to be no more. What is there is required for seeds.

It is wonderful how the people hold together for their Fatherland and are so economical.

Just fancy, it has been impossible to get a bit of bacon or an ounce of lard since December 1
^st
and margarine at a quarter-of-a-pound per household a week and it is one shilling and eight pence per pound. Butter is sold ditto and most weeks it is not to be got and four days a week the people are without fat. It is forbidden to be used, to make it last longer, and in no house is baking allowed. If you buy flour to cook with, then you have none to make bread. It must be dreadful where there is a family for you cannot buy rice, extra flour, oatmeal etc. for money. I sometimes wonder how it will all end.

There has been trouble in Berlin, and even here, but most people are very patient with it all and only say: ‘We must hold out until the end’.

Belle reads today of the Russian successes. They seem to be joining the English in Asia, but here they announce (from the Turkish reports) that it is a mere nothing.

Yesterday the flags were flying for the fall of a fort in Verdun and ten thousand French prisoners were taken. We hear of the dreadful ‘trummel fire’ being heard at Metz all day Thursday and Friday morning so we knew that there was a big battle in progress. God help those people who have relatives in that quarter. There are so many from here that have sons in Verdun. It is too dreadful to think of. We have no particulars up to now only the fall of one fort and the ten thousand prisoners.

Two more priests have gone to the front from here and that is two hundred and twenty-six from the diocese of Hildesheim. We have two from Alsace Lorraine here to help and they must announce to the police each day like I did.

We hear today that America will not allow that Germany does sink all neutral ships and has placed impossible conditions in the way.

People are beginning to say now that they dread after the war for so much money will be wanted for widows and orphans and that the very high taxes are sure to be higher still. We are anxiously awaiting the new taxation.

The newspapers are trying to
buck
up the people by saying that we must take it as a duty to the Fatherland. I think of how much worse it would be for us if the enemy came all through the land and did as they did in East Prussia and destroy all our goods and premises.

I am so sorry for the poor people, they must be so hungry.

I had a letter from Arthur yesterday and he has hopes of coming for a couple of weeks leave. I am afraid to hope any more.

Steinoff has written for him and the ‘mayor’ of the village has stamped and signed it for him and we are anxiously awaiting the result.

I went to the Wiener Hof Hotel today to have a cup of tea with Frau Voight. It was like going home and all were so glad to see me. I suppose that after ten months in residence there they look upon me as an old guest.

There are new rules on the bread cards and people are beginning to get uneasy about food. So many shops are closed and it is dreadful to get potatoes. Even wealthy people are asking you to let them have twenty pounds of your store and they will return it later on. Even with money in their pockets the people are really hungry.

My enquarterings told my maid that they were satisfied after their supper here every week. They come here once a week to supper, though I pay for their lodging and coffee elsewhere, and it was the only time each week that they left feeling full. They always ask for bread cards so they can buy extra bread and I have none to spare.

Real food is scarce and very dear. When a person has bought three-and-a-half pounds of bread a week they have no cards for flour. So it is impossible to make a pancake or thicken the soup. Vegetables are at a discount and sprouts are seven pence per pound, a cabbage is one shilling, swedes two pence per pound, and so on. Dried peas and beans are very scarce and dear at five pence and sixpence per pound. Just try how far one pound of those will go. The worst are the potatoes and they are a shilling a score, but you cannot get them. I guarantee that if you went in every shop in this town this morning you would not get a pound.

They are only available through the Red Cross Society for the poorest people and are sold on cards at five pounds for each person. You have to live on five pounds of spuds, three-and-a-half pounds of bread and whatever else you can afford to buy at an extraordinary price. Meat is two shillings a pound, and butter is two shillings and eight pence to be got only in quarter pounds. Rice, lentils, flour and cornflower are not to be got and milk is very scarce with one pint being allowed for three people unless you have a doctor’s note for more on account of sickness.

Yet the people hold together wonderfully and say we must help the Fatherland. I often wonder where it would end were it in England.

The small white breads are a halfpenny each and ten make up a pound. White bread is now five pence per pound and the dark bread is so awful to eat that sometimes I save bread cards and buy one pound of flour that costs four pence and I must give one-and-a-quarter pounds of bread cards for that. The system is really marvellous and there is no possibility of dodging.

Today we read a Russian report to the effect that they have completely demoralised Persia and that the Turks have fled from them. There is no question about the report so it must be true though no provenance was given to it in the paper. Also the French report that they got back the west side of the lost fortress before Verdun. There are no remarks on that. I fancy that it must be true.

How long is this war going to last I wonder?

The war news from here is scarce but according to the French reports the Germans are surrounded in the fort they took on Friday last. One cannot believe it. I daresay that the French papers are like all the others and tell lies to suit themselves. No news from Russia at all, but the people hear that the war will last another year. I wonder if the Russian report is true and that the Turks and Persians are completely routed.

Hermenia came today and she says that they have not heard anything of the letter that went to Ruhleben. I am beginning to lose what bit of hope I had. And that was not much.

Lots in the paper about the new war loan (the 4
^th
) and they beg of the people to put every shilling in it as it is their solemn duty. Every school child must take its savings and put it in, but people are so poor and food is so dear. One never sees the big fat soldiers that we had at first and now everyone is so thin. I never was so thin in my life before and many say the same for the food is not nutritious and the scarcity of fat is telling on all - rich and poor - young and old.

Today I had a visit from Herr Vieweg. He is let out of Ruhleben for leave for an indefinite time. He brought me news of Arthur and we had a long chat together. He has improved his English very much in his time in Ruhleben. He tells me that they have classes amongst themselves and go to school just like boys. He has studied English and reads and writes it very well. So you see that even in the late thirties it is possible to commence studies again. It’s never too late to learn. This is the gentleman who called on me twelve months ago having leave to visit his doctor. He brought me some of the literature they published in Ruhleben and the small books are very funny. They are published every two weeks and cost two pence. I do hope that Arthur is collecting them.

I heard also that England is exchanging three German prisoners for every Englishman and that three hundred and twenty-five English leave Ruhleben this week and that one thousand Germans come back to Germany. This is not in the papers. All are to be over forty-five-years-old this year and as Arthur is forty-five this year we hope for his release. Arthur is very busy and often works till twelve o’clock at night. We are hoping to hear from him soon.

In the papers it states that the Germans are just before Verdun. The French report says they have been driven back again. One cannot believe the papers at all.

Had a letter from Arthur and he thinks that he will get a few days leave at the end of this month. He says that he has met the son of Herr Richstoffen (from Blackpool) in Ruhleben. He says that food is more a trouble for us than them.

One spends all their time in wondering what to cook with the material at hand and all is so adulterated. Permission is given to the people to “fake” their products to make them go further and receipts are given on how to boil butter with meal etc. to make it go further.
Life is one long dodge.
How is it, I want to know, that England can send dripping and butter from Denmark to Ruhleben and that Germany cannot get it for her markets? It’s very funny to me.

I received a letter yesterday from dad over America enclosing one from Kit written on the 31
^st
December and one from James which was nearly a year old. They were such a pleasure to me.

I also had a visit from Frau Voight whilst she was here. Herr Vieweg came with his wife so we were a party. Mrs. Voight and I had our husbands in Ruhleben and Miss Shumaker has her brother there too. We told Mrs. Vieweg that she was a lucky woman to be having her husband to take her out to tea.

I do hope that Arthur comes through. Yet I want to be a little better before he comes.

Had a disappointment today for I hear that Arthur has been refused his fourteen days release. I shall never again build up hope on him coming free until peace is declared.

The shortage of food is awful and so many shops are closed that it is pitiful to see. I sent my maid out for eight articles and she returned with two. The others were not to be had at all.

St. Patrick’s Day and a very beautiful spring day here.

We hear of the resignation of Admiral von Tirpitz and everyone here is astonished.

We hear that there is trouble in the town about bread and meat and that one must be thankful for small mercies in these times.

We have had a new consignment of wounded soldiers. They parked furniture vans here and laid beds on the floors of the vans. This was to make the men more comfortable. I saw seven men, all under thirty-years-old, and each man had lost his right leg. It was awful to see.

I have been busy today making soft soap as one has to try at all trades. Soft soap is one shilling and two pence per pound and is awful stuff. Scouring soap is two shillings and two pence so it is all very expensive. If my receipts turn out well I will have ten pounds in weight for five shillings and sixpence. That’s a saving. We only clean the floors now once a week where before it was three times.

I have been strongly advised this week to auction the estate. I do not know which way to turn. Yet the advice, at present, looks very sound. If only I could get independent advice. I feel bound hand and foot here in a strange land.

I have been to have a cup of tea with Mrs. Voight in the Wiener Hof and she tells me that she has heard that Herr Vieweg has been let free from Ruhleben because they are going to call him up for the military. If that is true I am thankful that they have not let Arthur free for he is better in Ruhleben than in the front.

No war news of any note only contradictions. The French say that they have not lost any places. The Germans say that they have got some. One does not know the truth. The Berlin papers say now that the resignation of Admiral Tirpitz is in consequence of a difference of opinion and that it had to be kept secret for some time. That sounds funny when one remembers the Kaiser wrote of regret for his ill health.

We are to have meat cards next month at so much meat a week. We don’t know how much.

There has been a difference of opinion in the parliament and the Socialist has been giving a bit of his mind. A visitor here tells me that in Berlin the Social Democrat women stormed the house of their leader for giving his word that the Socialists should go in the war. At the beginning of the war the Socialists were all for the nation. Now they say that they are not being treated as they should be at the promises of ‘one party only’ and they are angry.

Even in Warsaw there is trouble and the Poles say that the Germans are not keeping their word of last November and are angry about it.

This war loan is finished today and they have canvassed every school. Every scholar has taken five shillings and upwards to his teacher. In one school twenty six thousand shillings have been collected. That is here in Hildesheim, we have seventeen schools, so that will help the war loan.