Outside the cities, particularly through South Germany, a yet more dangerous licence was permitted. One of the German papers published on Sunday, August 2, an amazing story from Nuremberg, to the effect that a huge quantity of gold, stated variously at 20, 40, 80, and even 160,000 pounds, had been in transport before the war from France to Russia. When the war broke out, so the story ran, this gold had been hurriedly transferred to motor-cars, wherein it was to find its perilous way across Germany. From time to time further stories of this phantom gold appeared. Now it had been transferred to cars carrying the Red Cross flag; now they were American cars, with the gold guardians, disguised as harmless tourists; and finally the crazy press announced that countryfolk through Thuringia and Franconia would do well to look out for motor-cars containing middle-aged ladies. These, they said, were the gold carriers in disguise.
There followed upon this the craziest gold-hunt throughout all southern Germany. Villagers armed with sticks, shot guns, and anything that came handiest, took to making unprovoked attacks upon motor-cars of all kinds. Amongst the victim were an Austrian officer, an Austrian countess, a lady of title in South Germany, and doubtless a number of other people of less prominence. For nearly a fortnight the authorities seem to have taken no step to put an end to this extraordinary folly. Finally, the general staff was obliged to issue a notice inquiring whether the inhabitants of South German cities really any longer believed the idiotic story, and warning them that in future attacks on motor-cars would be severely discouraged.
It was left, however, for the pacifist organ, the Berliner Tageblatt, to complain querously that it did not altogether approve of the discouragement of national enthusiasm. It complained in particular that, whilst it was doubtless right to avoid undue harshness in the treatment of English-speaking peoples, for fear they might prove to be Americans, it was perhaps unwise to check mob violence against foreigners, lest perchance it should discourage the seeking out of spies.
If it fared ill with anybody in the cities who could by any chance be suspected of being a foreigner (for to the German mind every foreigner was an ex-officio spy), the fate of those who tried to travel across Germany after the outbreak of war was no less unpleasant. One by one unhappy Englishmen