to restore sanitation, in order to avert disease.

I went downstairs and entered the large beer room, hazy with
tobacco smoke, and filled for the most part with non-commissioned
officers. They, like everybody else in the room, seemed to have
heard of my arrival. I joined a group at a long table, a jovial
crowd of men who chaffed good naturedly one of their number who
said he wished to be home with his wife and little ones. They
looked at me and laughed, then pointing at him said, "He is no
warrior!"

But it was their talk about the Russians which, interested me most.
There was no hate in their speech, only indifference and contempt
for their Eastern enemy. Hindenburg was their hero, and they drank
toast after toast to his health. The Russian menace was over, they
felt; Britain and France would be easily smashed. They loved their
Army, their Emperor, and Hindenburg, and believed implicitly in all
three.

They sang a song of East Prussia and raised their foaming glasses
at the last two lines:

"Es trinkt der Mensch, es sauft das Pferd,
In Ostpreussen 1st das umgekehrt."

While they were singing a man in civilian clothes entered,
approached me with an air of authority, and announced in a loud
tone of voice that he had heard that I had said that I had come to
East Prussia in search of Russian atrocities.