Diary of Annie's War (25 page)

We have sunshine today and it is needed as for two weeks we have had nothing but rain and the gardens are in a sad state.

I go on Sunday to Berlin and can visit Arthur on Tuesday afternoon for one hour. I wonder if I shall find a change in one year and eight months. What a blessing we do not know what is before us. If I had known of this long war from the beginning I think I should have gone mad. With the constant uncertainty and the hope of peace it has only succeeded in making me ill.

No news of importance only the scarcity in food and its dearness. I paid sixpence a pound for flour today and lard is five shillings and ten pence a pound. It is an impossibility to get shoes repaired as there is no leather and you must buy new ones. What we shall do when the stock runs out I do not know. Wear wooden ones very likely.

Yesterday we were astonished to see all the shops (drapers) being closed. They had a government notice to take stock of every yard of stuff they possessed and they have not to sell until they get permission. The prices are to be fixed by the government and so is the quantity of materials to be sold to one person. It will be the same all over the land. I really do not know how it is that we have no failures as the shops are half empty and yet still keep going.

I was not well on Sunday last when we set off and therefore was not extra well when I met Arthur. We arrived in Berlin at half past five and went to the police at six o’clock (decently civil). On Monday we went to the Commandant at eleven o’clock where we met with our first disappointment. They were very abrupt with us and I was very glad Frau Voight was with me for I could not have managed alone. We were told that we could not visit our husbands more than once and that was to be on a Tuesday for two hours. We begged to be allowed on the Friday but
no
. Once in three months is all that is allowed.

We set off and I was not extra well and our tram went and ran into another so it made me ill. Still I was able to buck up a little before I got to Arthur. He was so delighted to see me and I was very glad to see him looking so well. He is much thinner and looks healthy but his nerves are completely gone. His hands shake like a leaf and he says himself that his nerves are done. He tried to persuade me to go to England but I would not hear of it. Frau Voight got a great shock as her husband looked awfully bad. I should never have recognised him. I was so
very,
very,
sorry for her. She did not give way however until she got back to the hotel. After seeing the great change in her husband I began to think that
we
have been very lucky. Arthur does not look half as bad. Of course he is busy all day in the post office and it is a great help to the men if they have work. Oh these dreadful times. And what misery we are having at present.

Our visit was so very sad and it was dreadful to meet our husbands in a room of two hundred people with soldiers walking up and down all the time. It was still more dreadful to see them put behind lock and key before we left. We then looked at the crowd of men behind the rails waving their goodbyes to their wives and children. We were lucky in one thing though. It seems that children were not allowed to visit until this week. Whatever should we have done with little Thea Voight I do not know. Two weeks ago the mothers had brought their children and they were not allowed inside but were left in the care of a soldier outside. Of course they all cried. It must have been so sad to see the little ones without their mothers - and their fathers inside the bars. I am so glad that I did not see that as my impression was bad enough as it was. However it does not do to dwell on it. All in Ruhleben think the war will end this autumn. I do not think so.

Cousin Johanna wrote me that she expected me for a few hours on the Wednesday. I wrote and told her not to send Hedwig for me before five o’clock as I had another engagement. I then went to Schönberg for the evening and came home at ten-thirty.

We spent the remainder of the week shopping and got through a lot of cash. But we could not get anything in the food line because we had no tickets. We found things very scarce in Berlin and a goose of five pounds weight cost twenty-two shillings and sixpence, one egg cost three-and-a- half pence, soap was four shillings and three pence and only on tickets, but each person could have a pound of flour without a ticket at a shilling a pound. A cup of tea is sixpence and a cup of coffee is seven pence Things are awfully dear and fresh vegetables are not to be had at all. This is because Holland has refused to sell any to Germany.

A four-year old child’s pair of shoes cost twelve shillings and sixpence and woollen material for a dress, which I have paid often three shillings a yard, is now fifteen shillings a yard. Butter, meat, lard etc. are not to be seen anywhere. We were so pleased to get home and it cost us at least five pounds to see our men for two hours. We were glad of it at the price.

In Berlin things are very bad and one day last week thousands of women went to the palace, very orderly, and asked for bread from the Kaiser. He came out on the balcony and they shouted: ‘Give us our men out of the field of battle and more bread’.

The Kaiser answered: ‘In two months we shall have a great victory and then there will be peace’.

The women said: ‘We want without the battle or the victory. Give to us our men and bread’.

There was no answer to that.

We got home on the Saturday evening of June the 24
^th
and I was so glad to be back again.

It’s a long time since I wrote here but there is not much to report.

There is a great deal in the papers about the English offensive in France on the River Somme but the reports are so contradictory one does not know what to believe. In the neutral papers it seems as if England has made advances. The German papers say they are sent back.

Our chief interest is food and this everlasting anxiety is dreadful. When you go to bed you never know if you are to be fed the next day. We have had butter cards for a month but no butter. Remember we are only allowed two ounces per week. A quarter pound must last fourteen days, but at that rate of allowance we are a fortnight without. One sends the maid out every day and it is the same answer: ‘None today, come again in three days time’. Now the beer fails. We get a quarter of a pound of meat per week and are very uneasy on a Saturday morning to see if the butcher is open for it can happen that he is closed. Potatoes are very scarce and are thirteen shillings per hundredweight and only so many are allowed per person. The new post tariff comes in on August 1
^st
and everything will be double.

I went to the estate last week but it is no use to gather the fruit for there is so little sugar to preserve it with. We have been allowed a half pound per person per week for a long time, so one cannot preserve much out of that.

Most people think that the war will end next autumn, but I have a poor opinion of it doing so.

Things have been so scarce for so long that one gets used to the shortage and only wonders what will fail us next.

I was so delighted to get on my wedding day, June 30
^th
, a parcel of food stuffs from Arthur. The finest packet I have had for twelve months – one pound of butter, two tins of milk, one pound of biscuits and one pound of tea. It was worth twenty shillings to me.

I am not able to bake now for flour is not sold more than a half pound per week to a person. Before the order I used to get for my cards (bread) the flour and bake myself. I got a little better bread but now that is impossible.

No news from home for four months but Arthur gave me a little home news. I hear of a new baby that is to come to Will and Lilly. I was so very glad to hear that Joan will have a little playmate. I had good news of Ettie and her little ones and also of dad.

Belle tells me that there is a lot in the neutral papers about the exchange of prisoners (civil) and that it is to be considered. I do not think anything will come of it for Germany cannot exchange half of hers as they are the children of naturalised English parents. And their wives, children and businesses are here. So how could they exchange them? No, that must wait the end of the war.

It seems as if England has made advances in France, but the papers are very quiet about it. In Russia it is very bad for the Austrians.

My enquartering went away two weeks ago and has never written one line. I do hope nothing has happened to him. He had a dread of Russia having spent one winter there and had been badly wounded. I do hope I hear from him.

Went today to Woltershausen and saw on the station a lazarett train being unloaded. It was a dreadful sight and I shall never forget the impression it made on us all. They usually send the wounded here at night but lately there has been so many to come from France that they must unload day as well as night.

We talk often of events and I wish we had other news. Many speak of peace this year.
I
have no hope of it.

There is such a lot of fruit this year and so very expensive. I wonder at that for no one can preserve as we do not have the sugar. The only reason I can think of the high price is that formerly we had imported fruit. Now it is only our own grown which we have.

Yesterday was my birthday and I had lots of good wishes and flowers but not a line from Arthur. I wondered at that because he had written to Belle that he was writing me. James Walmsley wrote me a birthday letter and posted it on the 5
^th
of July in Blackpool and it got here on the 25
^th
– just the right day. We had a very nice day and Belle made a little tea so we were happy in our own way.

All talk is that no land can hold out this winter and that we are sure of peace before Christmas. I do not feel so hopeful of it myself.

The baths of Salzdetfurth are doing me a lot of good and I feel much better for them.

I received a packet from Arthur today and I was very thankful for the tinned milk and tea. He is well and I can see that he is building up on this exchange of prisoners. But they will never exchange him - he is far too healthy and can do many useful jobs.

I had a visit from Johanna Pulmann today. She and her daughter, Hedwig, are staying at Goslar for a few weeks in the hopes of better food. But the feeding is bad there too. It would be funny if it was not so pitiful. When you meet a person and say: ‘How do you do?’ They reply: ‘Do you still get your butter or milk?’ Hildesheim is badly off for food and one wonders how much longer these dreadful days last.

When Johanna was here she remarked that England has taken all the German’s businesses, land and property from them and she expects it will come here also. If the government takes all our property I shall have to travel home quick. One lives in anxiety from morning until night and does not know what the next day will bring.

I got a new enquarterings today. These last ones are such young men that it is sad to see them.

The drapers are now selling only on permission tickets. Woollen clothes are such a price – twenty-four shillings a yard for cloth that used to be four shillings. I paid fifteen shillings a yard for stuff that was dear at two shillings and eleven pence. The prices of woollen goods are simply awful. A lady told me of paying twenty-five shillings a yard for dress material (wool) and cousin Johanna paid seventeen shillings and sixpence a yard for her stuff. It is really wicked the prices being asked.

Today all bicycle tyres are confiscated. A few weeks ago all bicycles were forbidden to be used and you had to pay a heavy fine if you went for a bicycle ride for pleasure. Now to make sure of it all tyres have to be given up. For a good tyre, inside and outside, you get three shillings; an inferior one is two shillings and for a discarded one sixpence is paid.

It is announced that no more bacon or lard is to be had and that only houses with children are to be served milk. For each child under three you get a pint of milk and over three a gill of milk a day until twelve-years-old, and then no supply at all. We have no children so I am glad of Arthur’s cans of milk. Things are fine here.

Had no letter for two weeks from Arthur and it makes one anxious.

Frau Voight and I hope to travel to Berlin in a few weeks time as it is almost three months since our last visit.

There is a lot in the papers about the confiscation of property in England and I expect daily to hear that all ours is confiscated. What I shall do then I do not know.

Most people are keeping rabbits to kill in the winter so of course the price is very high. A buck and doe of the Belgian breed (coloured like a hare) costs thirty-five shillings a pair, a chicken of eight weeks and not weighing more than one pound costs two shillings and sixpence, a good sized cock or hen that one got for three shillings before the war is now twelve shillings. Eggs are four pence each and you are allowed two per week.

We read that the war can last three years longer. I do not think so.

We had a visit from two gentlemen (brothers) this week and one said the war would last three years longer and the other said Christmas would see the end. There is a great deal of difference in the opinions and a great deal depends on the harvest.

There is to be a house to house examination of food stuffs on the 1
^st
of September. They are to come in your place and see your stock and according to what you have you get your tickets. For instance, if you have thirty eggs in preserve you get no egg tickets until that stock is used up. It is the same for sugar, meats etc. so it is almost impossible for one to stock for the winter.