Diary of Annie's War

by Annie Droege

  Pigs, he tells me, are fetching ninety-five to a hundred shillings per hundredweight alive and little pigs, six-weeks-old, twenty-six shillings each. Before the war they were fourteen shillings and forty shillings per hundred-weight and that was good for live pigs.

  I am not much stronger and the doctor says I had better get some stronger air as I lost six-and-a-half pounds in a week. I am glad of that but I feel so weakly.

  We hear tonight that the Russians have had great losses by Przemysl. Twenty-three thousand prisoners and a lot of guns were taken. They never seem to know when they are getting surrounded though we can see it on the map for days before.

  Wednesday & Thursday 26th & 27th May.

  There is news of an English ship, the Majestic, being lost and news of the Italians being in a fight in the mountains. The Austrians won of course. The Italians are such cowards. As soon as they heard the big guns they ran away.

  Saturday 29th May.

  Hear of the English being sent back at the Dardanelles and the loss of another ship. The Germans complain that the English will not come out to fight and her ships are all in harbour.

  Today a canary flew into my room. He is so tame. I shall keep him.

  Sunday 30th May.

  Got a letter from our Willie today and it is over two months since anyone wrote me a line. They must write more often.

  Thursday 3rd June.

  Corpus Christie and a fine feast day here. We hear of the capture of Przemysl and the Russians have lost heavily. The Germans have retaken the place but it is Austrian of course. The Russians took it about three weeks ago. They (the Russians) do not seem to know what they are doing.

  Today it is announced that we must prepare for next winter and that the women must get their wool at once from the Rathaus (town hall) and commence knitting for the winter. Carole Osthaus has got some. All the socks that were used last winter have had the feet worn away so all the legs are washed and unwoven. This year we are short of wool so the legs of the socks are being knitted out of thick cotton and the feet are knitted out of the wool taken from last years socks. They are very practical here. I am sure their war is costing them less than any other country that is in the field. Everyone works so very well together and the organisation is marvellous. If it were only so in the other countries then much suffering would be saved.

  Friday - Sunday 4th - 6th June.

  A French flyer has been over the Crown Prince’s quarters and dropped bombs but there is not much damage. A German flyer has been over Harwich and set many places on fire.

  Yesterday a soldier here shot himself. He was ready for the front but did not want to go. He was married and has two children.

  There is a note in the papers that England has offered a large sum of money if anyone can take the Duke of Brunswick a prisoner so the Kaiser has forbidden him to go to the field again. I do not believe it at all.

  We are badly in need of rain for we have had none for a long time.

  Monday - Wednesday 7th - 9th June.

  The Germans are confident that this month sees all Russians out of Austria.

  We are desperately in want of rain. There was only one day of rain in the early part of May and all things are drying up. The heat is intense. This past two days it has been thirty degrees in the shade and no signs of rain.

  Fraulein Ernst was here yesterday and she says that her brother writes from Austria for food. The food is so scarce and bad there with only one meal a day in the evening. And he is in the shooting graves! He writes that if he lives to be a hundred he would never forget Whit week of 1915. In terrible heat he marched two hundred kilometres in three days in full rig out. He then went directly into the shooting line, poor fellow. He has been wounded twice and this is his third time out.

  I have applied for leave to go to Woltershausen for a short time. I am not at all well. It will take two weeks to get permission. The heat and dust is so stifling that I can scarcely breathe.

  Today all the butchers have the order to only open half a day. Fresh meat is so scarce.

  In the papers it states that if the harvest is not good then we cannot hold out this coming winter. But if anything can do it, it is the marvellous organisation. From the third month of the war everything eatable has been controlled. Germany knows to a day how long she can last.

  America’s sharp note is commented on in the paper and that all she says is all untrue. No one tells the truth but Germany.

  Arthur writes me that he is surprised that my people do not write oftener because all their letters come through to him.

  Saturday 12th June

  I had a visit from Miss Seales, the Californian lady who is with Miss Marhgraf, and she is in a fix about cash and has had none for four months from America. At least I could help. Still a great deal of uneasiness over the American note.

  Belle went to Celle today for a few weeks and I shall miss her terribly but Carole Osthaus has promised to write me any German letters that are necessary.

  Wednesday 16th June.

  We read today that England sank the under sea boat U14 on the 8th of June but it has only been announced in small type. We never hear of a German boat being lost and one thinks that the English navy is asleep.

  It is announced that the Ambassador who was sent to America regarding the sinking of the Lusitania has returned. But he is not at liberty to say anything to the press.

  Belle used to take Arthur her bread allowance. She heard from the police today that her bread was now withheld in Hildesheim and she must have it in Celle. It is to prevent the people here getting her share whilst she travels.

  Next month only so much fresh meat is to be bought on the same lines by ticket from the police. One must admire the organisation, it is so perfect. German soldiers, who have been sent into Austria to help, soon remark on the want of organisation there. The Austrians are very neglect in comparison with Germany.

  Thursday 17th June.

  I got my allowance to travel to the estate so I go on Monday .

  There is news in the paper of bombs being dropped over Hull and of a great deal of damage being done. They also tell of forty French flyers being over Karlsruhe and dropped bombs on the streets there. Eleven civilians have been killed and fifty have been wounded.

  Belle had a letter last Saturday from a friend in London (German) and he says that all Germans have orders to leave England. He has been naturalised for twenty years and feels it a great injustice. He is hoping to get leave to stay. I wonder if we will have to leave also.

  Still no rain and the land is now parched. We have had no rain for seven weeks and we want it badly.

  Friday 18th June.

  Our John’s birthday.

  I read of the death of Edmund Lax in Austria. He was only at the front for one month and had been training soldiers here for seven months. He was a great friend of Arthur’s.

  I had a visit from the Californian lady yesterday. She is anxious over America and wants to get away. I am very sorry for her. She had a very unpleasant experience on her last visit here to me. On leaving me a man from the town saw her on the station in Hildesheim and evidently thought that she was an Englishwoman. He went and gave information to a soldier (there are always a lot at the stations) that she was English and that they must see if she had permission to travel and what her business was. She was very indignant about it but it did no good. I told her that if I go further than three miles from here I must have permission from the police. They will give me a piece of paper saying that I am to go to such a place and what my business is. That paper I must hand to any person who asks me for it, civil or otherwise. If I do not have such a paper and I am more than three miles from here I can be marched off to prison by any person. And mind you, the civil people do it. They think they are helping their country.

  A case in point. The place where Belle lives is very large and has perhaps thirty people living there in pension. A couple of weeks ago there came a stranger and she was a decent woman who kept herself to
herself. Because the people in the place could not get to know anything of her (the manageress kept her mouth closed) one of the people privately went to the police and informed them. She thought she was a spy and asked them to enquire into it. They thanked her for being so very careful about her country and informed her that the manageress had already been there to announce her. This must be done with every single person who comes to sleep a night in the town. They said that they knew all about her and even told of the woman’s private business to this creature. They explained she was a visitor and was to be married but her intended was at the front etc. etc. Once more - organisation.

  There is not a soul in this town that they do not know all about.

  Sunday 20th June.

  Still no rain and things are looking serious for the crops and the potatoes are dying in the ground.

  I hope this week to get permission to travel to the estate for a month or so as Hildesheim is too low for me. I must have stronger air and live much higher up.

  I had a letter from Fraulein Lesdorff, she is in Salzdetfurth for the baths, and having heard that I was still here she has written to me to join her. But as I have applied for a permit to travel to Woltershausen this cannot be done. She is a fine old lady who I met at the baths six years ago and she goes there each summer and has been going for seventeen years. They are very strong salt baths and she says that they set her up for the whole year. She is seventy-six-years-old.

  Tuesday 22nd June.

  I go today to the estate and my permit will be ready. Dr. Myer has ordered me to take a course of baths for my heart. So on his orders I have got permission to travel twice a week into Bad Salzdetfurth to bathe and once a week into Hildesheim to visit him. This has been a long sickness. It is all heart and nerves and I shall not be better until the war is at an end. For that is the worry at the bottom of it all.

  Wednesday 23rd June. Woltershausen.

  I came here yesterday after a few disappointments. All my papers are in order but I dare not travel a mile from here without them. The police begged me not to go in the forest alone as people’s tempers are not to be trusted. I live with Hermenia Stoffegan; she was my cook for a couple of years, and thoroughly understands me.

  Sunday 27th June.

  The weather is perfect and I feel so much better here and I sleep so well. In the hotel if I slept two hours at once I thought that I had done well. Here I go to bed at half-past nine and sleep until three o’clock so that is a great improvement. One learns to be thankful for small mercies. I have brought my bread card with me and Hermenia gets me a little white bread but they must give up a lot of roggen (rye) for it. Here they eat only rye but I cannot digest it at all and the doctor has strictly forbidden it. It was an impossibility to buy white in Hildesheim for the baker dare not sell it. Even here the miller dare not grind wheat alone and he must put so much potato, meal, and so much rye amongst the wheat. Most people are ill with the bad bread.

  Thursday 1st July 1915.

  I have been here a week and am a little better. I keep losing flesh but that does not matter for I was much too stout. I must not lose too much says the doctor. I now weigh nine-and-a- half stones but sleep a lot better. The baths are doing me good but the first few took the use out of my hand (the old complaint).

  I went into Hildesheim yesterday to see the doctor and he says I must stay here as long as I can and when the time is up (I applied for a month) we will apply for a longer period.

  I am busy with the fruit and am canning a lot for the winter. I am also making jam and juice for my own use.

  I have decided to take rooms and live private in the winter if Arthur is not with me. Please God this war is over by then though the English papers say no. It will last two years. Poor Arthur if he must spend two years in that awful place. He writes each week and last week we cut him a large box of cherries. The fruit is fine this year. I shall have two or three hundredweights of currants and at least ten stones of raspberry. Grapes are very full and cherries and pears are fine but the apples are worm eaten. That comes from the dryness.

  Sunday 4th July.

  I had a letter from Mr. Ralph of Stockport. He was here this time last year and all the people here now say that he was a spy. I was pleased to think he remembered me. He offered to send me anything he could but it is not allowed that I receive anything. I said he might send Arthur some tea and biscuits. It costs half a mark (six pence) to send a letter to England and I must buy a coupon (three pence) at the post office and enclose it in my letter which must be opened. I must address the letter and enclose it in an envelope to The Hague (Holland) and it is read there by the Germans and with the coupon a stamp is bought and then it goes away.

  Dad wrote to me and it took five weeks for me to get it. Before the war it was thirty-six hours.

  Monday 26th July.

  Yesterday was my birthday and I cried all day. Hermenia remembered it and made quite a feast day of it. When I got in my sitting room I could not understand all the beautiful flowers. I had forgotten all about it. Hermenia had fixed up the table and put two lovely roses on my plate. Then Henri sent a bunch and August (he is here on leave) and Frau. Steffregan sent me a large cake and more flowers. When I was having my breakfast two little children came in with more flowers. It upset me awful. That shows how my nerves have run down.

  Arthur wrote me a nice long letter – he always writes very cheerful.

  Now we are a nice family party. Hermenia’s sister Anna is here with three bonnie children. A little girl Ruth, five-years-old, and a boy Fritz, three-years-old, (a regular little monkey) and a dear little baby Jean who is just like our little Bobbie in Castleton. He is so fat and so good tempered.

  Then there is August the younger son of Steffregan’s who is an under officer and is home for ten days on leave. He has been all the time in France by Verdun and he tells some dreadful tales of warfare. Anna is to stay one month and I am so glad. I take the baby out in a little cart and am very happy with him. He knows me and will come to me even from his mother. I have the little girl to sleep with me as there are two beds in my room and she occupies one. I have slept well ever since she came as the company is so good for me.

  I hear very little of the war as the people in the village do not trouble much about it. It is only when one of our own people is killed or wounded that you hear much. If you hear of a great victory then they talk of it. But most is talk of the crops and animals.

  All grain and animals have been reckoned. The government know to a few hundredweight what grain they will get. Early in the year a census was taken of the fields and each farmer must say how many acres he worked and how it was planted - so many acres wheat, barley, rye, hay, potatoes, swedes etc. At the threshing a man comes and takes account of how many hundredweight you have and then tells you how much you can have for yourself. You are allowed so much per head for your cattle and so much per head for yourselves according to the people in the house. Less than one-year-old does not count and from one to three you get half the amount. You get so many potatoes and four pounds of corn each week for each person and there is six ounces of bread per person and no more.

  Many people do not have enough. They tell you that you must make vegetable soup and eat it twice a day. You are given a card to take to the miller and it comes from the mayor of the village. The miller dare not grind you more than so much a month. The baker dare not bake you more than so much bread a week as you have a card for him also. These bread cards are given out each month and you give them up every time you go to the miller or baker. You cannot bake in the houses here as they are the old fashioned stoves. Also yeast is forbidden to be sold and if you do get a little flour you cannot bake it. We have tried baking powder but it is not like yeast.

  There was a notice in the papers this spring saying that no one must plant flower gardens but must grow vegetables and eat them to save bread. Now you often see peas, cabbage, beet etc. in the front gardens. Also more potatoes must be planted and not so much sugar b
eet. We can live without sugar says the notice. Every precaution is taken against hunger and people roast corn for coffee and it is very good. We roast it brown and grind it like coffee and it tastes alright.

  It is a fine time for the farmer as all things are twice the price and the government pays market price for all. Of course, here in Germany, the government fixes the price and no one dare charge more but the government does pay the same price themselves. Henri Stoffregan reckoned up last week that a large farmer here who rents over a thousand acres has his rent alone in the money he received from his barley.

  Monday 16th August.

  We are quiet again. Anna and the children have returned to Leipzig and August has gone back to the front in France. He wrote yesterday and he and his regiment must go to Italy. He said when he was here that there were not enough soldiers of any great worth (in numbers) in France as they were building the places for the large guns. When they got to Warsaw they would remove a deal of artillery to France from Russia and then the war was only a question of a few weeks. If they could get a few more regiments in France it would soon end all.

  I have been very busy in the garden but now it is very wet. The rain has come at last and seems to have come to stay. It grieves me to see our beautiful garden so neglected. Help cannot be got and the trees and bushes are just like a forest in the park land. The fruit garden is full of weeds but the fruit is fine. The vegetable garden is oats and potatoes. I shall have about fifteen tons of potatoes and the oats will buy me about seventy marks. The garden is about four acres but one acre is orchard. It is a pity about the fruit as I cannot get it to the station so it cannot be disposed of.