meantime, there was confusion, uncertainty and anxiety amongst the British
population in Germany, amplified in the large cities such as Berlin which, in
the early part of August 1914, was seething with nationalistic fervour, as huge
agitated crowds gathered singing patriotic songs and making clear their dislike
of both the French and the British. In the city that the Le Rossignols had
come to regard as home, the mood was graphically captured by the respected
war correspondent Henry Woodd Nevinson
2 of the Daily News,
3 and in these
early days, it was a mood that must have concerned Robert, not only for the
safety of his young family but for his own safety too. In ‘Berlin, a-Tiptoe to
War in August 1914’, Nevinson writes
4
;
On the evening of July 31
st, I started for Berlin … Passing into Germany, we at
once met trains full of working men in horse-trucks decked with flowers, and
scribbled over with chalk inscriptions: ‘Nach Paris,’ ‘Nach Petersburg,’
5 but
none so far ‘Nach London.’ They were cheering and singing, as people always
cheer and sing when war is coming. We were … six hours late in Berlin …
[then] … for two days I waited and watched. Up and down the wide road of
‘Unter den Linden’, crowds paced incessantly by day and night, singing the
German war songs… Every moment a new rumour whirled through the
maddened city. Every hour a new edition of the papers appeared. All day long,
and far through the night into the next day, I went backward and forward to
the telegraph office, trying to send home all the descriptive news I could … On
the morning of the fatal 4th, I drove to the Schloss, where the Deputies of the
Reichstag were gathered to hear the Kaiser’s address. Refused permission to
enter, I waited outside, and gathered only rumours of the speech that declared
the unity of all Germany and all German parties in face of the common peril.
A few hours later, in the Reichstag, the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg,
announced that … the neutrality of Belgium had almost certainly already been
violated. Then I knew that the long-dreaded moment had come.
In the afternoon I heard that our Ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen, had
demanded his papers, and war was declared. I was at the ‘Adlon’, having been
turned out of the ‘Bristol’ the day before as a dangerous foreigner. While I was
dining, I heard the yells of a crowd shouting outside our Embassy in the
neighbouring street, and breaking the windows … Soon the noise came nearer,
and in front of the hotel entrance I could distinguish shouts for the English
correspondents to be brought out … Two … armed police seized me … and
dragged me out, holding an enormous revolver at each ear. ‘If you try to run
away,’ … ‘we will shoot you like a dog!’ … they flung me out into the mob,
who savagely set upon me with sticks, fists, and umbrellas … Holding the
274
D. Sheppard
population in Germany, amplified in the large cities such as Berlin which, in
the early part of August 1914, was seething with nationalistic fervour, as huge
agitated crowds gathered singing patriotic songs and making clear their dislike
of both the French and the British. In the city that the Le Rossignols had
come to regard as home, the mood was graphically captured by the respected
war correspondent Henry Woodd Nevinson
2 of the Daily News,
3 and in these
early days, it was a mood that must have concerned Robert, not only for the
safety of his young family but for his own safety too. In ‘Berlin, a-Tiptoe to
War in August 1914’, Nevinson writes
4
;
On the evening of July 31
st, I started for Berlin … Passing into Germany, we at
once met trains full of working men in horse-trucks decked with flowers, and
scribbled over with chalk inscriptions: ‘Nach Paris,’ ‘Nach Petersburg,’
5 but
none so far ‘Nach London.’ They were cheering and singing, as people always
cheer and sing when war is coming. We were … six hours late in Berlin …
[then] … for two days I waited and watched. Up and down the wide road of
‘Unter den Linden’, crowds paced incessantly by day and night, singing the
German war songs… Every moment a new rumour whirled through the
maddened city. Every hour a new edition of the papers appeared. All day long,
and far through the night into the next day, I went backward and forward to
the telegraph office, trying to send home all the descriptive news I could … On
the morning of the fatal 4th, I drove to the Schloss, where the Deputies of the
Reichstag were gathered to hear the Kaiser’s address. Refused permission to
enter, I waited outside, and gathered only rumours of the speech that declared
the unity of all Germany and all German parties in face of the common peril.
A few hours later, in the Reichstag, the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg,
announced that … the neutrality of Belgium had almost certainly already been
violated. Then I knew that the long-dreaded moment had come.
In the afternoon I heard that our Ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen, had
demanded his papers, and war was declared. I was at the ‘Adlon’, having been
turned out of the ‘Bristol’ the day before as a dangerous foreigner. While I was
dining, I heard the yells of a crowd shouting outside our Embassy in the
neighbouring street, and breaking the windows … Soon the noise came nearer,
and in front of the hotel entrance I could distinguish shouts for the English
correspondents to be brought out … Two … armed police seized me … and
dragged me out, holding an enormous revolver at each ear. ‘If you try to run
away,’ … ‘we will shoot you like a dog!’ … they flung me out into the mob,
who savagely set upon me with sticks, fists, and umbrellas … Holding the
274
D. Sheppard