"God punish England and America." For some weeks this rubber stamp was
used very effectively.

The Navy Department realised, too, that another way to attack America
and especially Americans in Berlin, was to arouse the suspicion that
every one who spoke English was an enemy. The result was that most
Americans had to be exceedingly careful not to talk aloud in public
places. The American correspondents were even warned at the General
Staff not to speak English at the front. Some of the correspondents
who did not speak German were not taken to the battle areas because the
Foreign Office desired to avoid insults.

The year and a half between the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the
severance of diplomatic relations was a period of terror for most
Americans in Germany. Only those who were so sympathetic with Germany
that they were anti-American found it pleasant to live there. One day
one of the American girls employed in the confidential file room of the
American Embassy was slapped in the face until she cried, by a German
in civilian clothes, because she was speaking English in the subway.
At another time the wife of a prominent American business man was spit
upon and chased out of a public bus because she was speaking English.
Then a group of women chased her down the street. Another American
woman was stabbed by a soldier when she was walking on Friedrichstrasse
with a friend because she was speaking English. When the State
Department instructed Ambassador Gerard to bring the matter to the
attention of the Foreign Office and to demand an apology Wilhelmstrasse
referred the matter to the General Staff for investigation. The
soldier was arrested and secretly examined. After many weeks had
elapsed the Foreign Office explained that the man who had stabbed the