The title of the book refers to deprivations on the home front while men were fighting the war.
The author was part of a group of American women who were traveling to the Hague in Holland for a peace conference.
What affect this meeting of women will have, who can tell? Idealistic, impractical, it may have been, but little it was not. While war rages, force reigns on earth and we forget it is ideas that made that force possible. But ideas can also create good-will. No thought sent out into the world dies. The future lies in our hands. It is for us to mold it.
The book gives a sense of the dread, uncertainty, and danger of crossing the Atlantic Ocean from the United States to Europe during the war.
When Doty's shipped docked at Dover, England, her group experienced the frustration of wartime bureaucracy.
At the peace conference, a variety of people participated, from different countries and different walks of life. The representatives from Belgium made a strong impression because of their experience of having their country invaded and occupied by German soldiers. The presence of Belgian refugees at the conference added to the impression.
The discussions at the Hague often have the air of self-righteous, isolated good intentions that are fueled by euphoric feelings of idealism.
Doty was asked by the Evening Post to be a correspondent during her trip to Europe. The author made two trips to Europe (in 1915 and 1916).
The author travelled to Berlin with the help of a Hungarian women. During her travels, the author tried to find like-minded people and had to sneak around to do this.
In Berlin, Doty experienced a stifled, suppressed feeling about the city, though she felt it was well-run. All of German society seemed geared to war. Doty also experienced some anti-American feelings in Berlin, and found it dangerous to speak English.
In a visit to London, Doty compared two women who in the past campaigned for women's right to vote. One of the women was putting that fight on hold to support the war effort, while the other woman was continuing the fight.
A pattern of the book is the focus by the author on people who opposed the war. But the author also found herself feeling some admiration for people who are focused on mobilizing the resources of England to end the war.
The author visited Paris, where life was much more subdued compared to her previous visits to that city. While in Paris, Doty volunteered as a nurse, and observed different kinds of wounds. She talked with soldiers about their experiences, and shared some of her ideas about non-violent ways to achieve peace, which were rejected by some of the soldiers.
The author kept reminding the reader that she is a peace activist, including a story about how a button that said "Peace" almost prevented her from leaving England to go to France.
Doty visited to battlefield of Marne, where she noticed large number of trenches and crosses. She also noticed how life continued for civilians like farmers.
Doty told a story of a young boy who took his newborn sister from Belgium to Holland, at the request of his mother, who stays behind and is apparently killed when her hamlet is destroyed. The boy's father is killed at the front, and Doty tries to make sense of the family's experience.
On the author's second trip to Europe, she has to travel to Hamburg, Germany through Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Enroute, she makes general travel writer observations about the different societies, physical conditions, and war loyalties.
In Hamburg, Doty makes this observation:
All that modern industry and the ingenuity of man can achieve has her been flung upon the land, and then the force that created it has vanished, leaving these great monuments to rot, to rust, and to crumble. The tragedy of unused treasures is as horrible as rows of dead. A city seems visibly dying.
Doty spent a day in Hamburg, where she noticed a lifeless stillness.
From Hamburg, traveled to Berlin, which seems more full of life in 1916 than it did during her last trip to Berlin in 1915.
The author constantly talks about the quality of food that she eats, and finally decides to stay in only the best hotels during her trip, where she can get the best food.
But that writing contrasts strongly with writing about the meager rations of everyday Germans, and how rich people find ways to eat better than the poor. The bourgeoisie can afford food stamps, but the poor cannot. To the author, most people had an undernourished look, and she wonders if that will make them rise up against autocracy and militarism.
On the author's second trip to Berlin, she can freely talk English, unlike her first visit a year earlier.
Doty writes a lot about how the militarists are keeping the war going, not the everyday German citizens.
It is hard to be discontented and progressive when the stomach is full and the land flows with milk and honey. But with suffering a new race is emerging—a lean race with active minds that begins to question German autocracy and militarism.
The author observes solemn scenes of parting at train stations.
Doty talked about being spied on, and how she and a friend had fun trying to get spies off of their tails.
The book has many examples of the bureaucratic passages of the author, and personal ways that she used to negotiate through them.
The author is sympathetic to the Social Democrat party in Germany, and tries to find members of that party.
The German Government is headed for disaster because it has failed to distinguish between two kinds of efficiency—personal efficiency and industrial efficiency. Human beings cannot be treated like machines. It does not make them efficient. The world would do well to copy Germany's industrial efficiency. German hotels, railroads, cars, and factories are the best of their kind. But Germany's attempt to apply her system to individuals is creating havoc. Human beings are efficient when they are imaginative, original, and uncrushable. That is why France has outshone all other belligerents. Her people can turn a shirt-waist factory into a munition factory overnight. Germany would spend three months cataloguing and drawing plans. England would be too bound by tradition and custom to make such an adjustment. She would build a new factory.
The wonder of the world is not Germany or England, but France. Germany in years of preparation built up an army, and laid in food and munitions for two years. But the two years is up, and the nation begins to crack and crumble. France, on the other hand, in spite of the strain, is still active and vividly alive. Her people, undrilled in obedience, but strong in personal efficiency, have stood together as one man. Slowly the German people are disintegrating. In March or April, if not before, unless securing the food supply in Roumania puts off the evil day, the potatoes will give out, and there will be riots. When this occurs, if Lloyd George is still making speeches about crushing Germany, the German militarists by these speeches may drive the people together in a campaign of desperation and horror. Belgians will be seized and abused, submarine terrors multiplied. But if a hand of sympathy is extended to the German worker, he will riot, not against mankind, but against is own Government. Militarism will be overthrown. Now is the critical moment. Ought we not to aid the awakened, struggling German in his fight against Imperialism?
The author talks about the inefficiency of the food distribution system in Germany, and how it is making people suffer.
The author is a good example of the neutral mindset that the United States was supposed to have in 1915 and 1916.
The author talks a lot about the Karl Liebknecht trial in 1916.
The author gives a close look at how a war affects a society. At times, you feel that she is a native German writing about her country. Sometimes the book feels like a preview of the unrest of postwar Germany.
Doty writes about a handbill announcing the arrival of the Deutschland U-boat in Bremen, which had a soothing, calming effect on the population.
Author has a hard time finding homes for war orphans.
It was a weird sensation being flung so closely against this evidence of war. By the tiny gleam of light I could just see the outline of these military figures and the knives sticking in each boot. I fell to wonder how many stabs each knife had given.
The author travelled around Germany, including trips from Berlin to Leipzig to Karlsruhe. In Heidelberg, she visited a camp for Russian, English, and French officers. When she was in Mannheim, Italy and Romania declared war. In Stuttgart, she visited the Bosch munition facilities. She noticed a lot of women employed in the factories. In Nuremberg, she visited a prison.
Civilian authorities who escorted reporters through Germany were very kind and generous. At times, Doty felt guilty. Local citizens treated visiting journalists like celebrities at public events. The visits of these journalists gave these citizens something to get excited about.
The author visited crippled soldiers' hospital at Ettlingen, where she saw different physical therapy sessions and demonstrations of different prosthetic devices.
When seeing cities in comfortable circumstances, author often saw contrasting images of underfed children and long food lines.
The soldiers at the front push forward, but at home death lurks. Under such circumstances of what avail are military triumphs and militarism? They are but hollow mockeries.
Makes different comparisons between Bavarians and Prussians.
In Munich, the author used money from a special fund to give food tickets to people who are eating substandard food that was given to them.
In Munich, the author attends a peace rally with a friend. The author feels threatened when her friend's peace plan differs from the peace plans of most of the people at the rally.
Makes surreptitious and illegal trip from Munich to Stuttgart to meet peace activist who has been jailed (Clara Zetkin).
The author experienced some scary moments when she attempted to leave Germany after her second visit to that country. She was afraid that she might be detained for her unauthorized trip to Stuttgart or for notes that she has taken about Germany.
From Germany, she travels to Switzerland, where at first she has feelings of relief, seeing the contrast between Germany and Switzerland. But after she settles into Switzerland, she sees effects of war in refugees, spies, and limited resources.
I had seen both sides. I had no doubt about the outcome. Germany would eventually be beaten. Her resources were becoming exhausted. But a prolonged struggle might mean bankruptcy, spiritual and physical, for the Allies. Was there a way out?
Author wants justice, not punishment, in resolution of war. She thought that a revolt of the German people against German authorities would help win the war.
Doty concludes the book with a story about a letter written by an English pilot to the mother of a German pilot who was killed by the English pilot.
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