The kaiserly mustache of world-wide fame, by the way, has largely disappeared, at least in the American sector. In fact, the over-modest lip decoration made famous by our most popular “movie” star seemed to be the vogue. More camouflage? More “_Kamerad_”? A gentle compliment to the Americans? Or was it merely the natural change of style, the passing that in time befalls all things, human or _kaiserlich_?
Speaking of German officers, when the first inkling leaked out of Paris that Germany might be required by the terms of the Treaty of Peace to reduce her army to a hundred thousand men there was a suggestion of panic among our German acquaintances. It was not that they were eager to serve their three years as conscripts, as their fathers had done. There was parrot-like agreement that no government would ever again be able to force the manhood of the land to that sacrifice. Nor was there any great fear that so small an army would be inadequate to the requirements of “democratized” Germany. The question was, “What on earth can we do with all our officers, if you allow us only four thousand or so?” Prohibition, I believe, raised the same grave problem with regard to our bartenders. But as we visualized our own army reduced to the same stern necessity the panic was comprehensible. What would we, under similar circumstances, do with many of our dear old colonels? They would serve admirably as taxi-door openers along Fifth Avenue—were it not for their pride. They would scarcely make good grocery clerks; they were not spry enough, nor accurate enough at figures. However, the predicament is one the Germans can scarcely expect the Allies to solve for them.
“War,” said Voltaire, “is the business of Germany.” One realized more and more the fact in that assertion as new details of the thorough militarization of land, population, and industry came to light under our occupancy. Fortifications, labyrinths of secret tunnels, massive stores of everything that could by any possibility be of use in the complicated business of war; every man up through middle age, who had still two legs to stand on, marked with his service in Mars’s workshop; there was some hint of militarization at every turn. Not the least striking of them was the aggressive propaganda in favor of war and of loyalty to the war lords. Not merely were there monuments, inscriptions, martial mottoes, to din the military inclination into the simple _Volk_ wherever the eye turned. In the most miserable little _Gasthaus_, with its bare floors and not half enough cover on the beds to make a winter night comfortable, huge framed pictures of martial nature stared down upon the shivering guest. Here hung a life-size portrait of Hindenburg; there was a war scene of Blücher crossing the Rhine; beyond, an “_Opfergaben des Volkes_,” in which a long line of simple laboring people had come to present with great deference their most cherished possession—a bent old peasant, a silver heirloom; a girl, her hair—on the altar of their rulers’ martial ambition. It is doubtful whether the Germans have any conception of how widely this harvest of tares has overspread their national life. It may come to them years hence, when grim necessity has forced them to dig up the pernicious roots.