GERMAN ATTITUDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15769, 18 November 1914, Page 8

GERMAN ATTITUDE.

SUPPLIES NOT STOPPED.

(received November 18, 12.80 a.m.) Washington, November 16. The American Ambassador to Britain, Mr. T. N. Page, has cabled a denial of the report that the Germans are stopping food supplies intended for the Belgians.

MOTOR-CARS FOR FRONT.

AUSTRALIAN . GIFTS.

Melbourne, November 17.

Twelve motor-cars have been presented to the Army Medical Corps for use as motor ambulances during the war.

Mr. J. J. Garvan, of Sydney, has presented an armoured motor-car to Lord Lovat's scouts.

BERLIN IN WARTIME.

FLAGS AND MOURNERS.

Tho Handelsblad publishes a. letter from its Berlin correspondent dated September

6, describing the feeling in the German, capital. He says : —

" Yesterday the public stood waiting in i two long straight lines oil the Potsdamerplatz. From the neighbouring stations a string of Tied Cross and other hospital \iaggons approached in a slow procession. A trainload of wounded had arrived. A few men ceremoniously bared their heads in salute to the poor fellows in the locked carriages. It. was long before the lugubrious procession had passed by. " Every moment one meets wounded soldiers in the city—young men leaning with difficulty on thick sticks and officers with arms in slings. They look very —these first sacrifices of the war. And despite good care and excellent nourishment after they have been wounded one can see by their hollow cheeks and pale complexions, pale beneath the brown of the sunburn, how terrible the hardships of the conflict must have been- Every day wounded officers come from both west and east by express trains to Berlin. "In Germany the practice of wearing mourning is still firmly adhered to, and in these days there is so large a number of men and women in black clothes to be seen going along the street with sad faces that a request has been made that people will restrict themselves to inward sorrow.

Berlin has in the past week seen 10,000 I refugees come from East Prussiamen, I women, and children who have been obliged to forsake their homes to escape with their lives from the Russian invasion. " Berlin thus now already recognises tho cruel misery of the war. And yet for a week past this self-same Berlin has been beflagged as if the pomp of victory was already definitely assured, as if no sacrifices of the war were to bo found in Germany. It began with the first successes in Northern France and with the defeat of the Russians at Tannenberg. From many balconies tlio black, white, and red flag" of Germany was exhibited, beside it the black and white of Prussia, the blue and white of Bavaria, and the black and yellow of Austria. On Sedan day the number of flags was much greater still. " Street hawkers ply a busy trade in flags from their handcarts, and in the great warehouses, where except in the provision departments it is so strikingly quiet and empty, rooms are devoted to the sale of flags. When in the short war reports of General Quartermaster von Stein the name of Paris was first announced, the Berliners hastened to put flags out. But was it necessary that this external sign of rejoicing should remain exhibited on the following night and the following day and again the following night? What must the silently grieving think of this, the hobbling wounded, the sombre East Prussian refugees? It is very difficult to penetrate the soul of a people."