_Rotterdam_. The soft strains of a waltz floated up from the music
room, adding enchantment to the windmills and low Dutch farmhouses
strung out below the level of the water.

At that time my thoughts were full of my coming attempt to get into
Germany, a Germany which was smashing through Serbia, and already
planning the colossal onslaught against Verdun, the onslaught which
she hoped would put France out of the war. I had got into Germany,
but for a long time I had almost despaired of getting out; twice I
had been turned back courteously but firmly from the frontiers,
once when I tried to cross to Switzerland and again when I started
for Denmark. A reliable friend had told me that the Wilhelmstrasse
had suspected me but could prove nothing against me. The day
before I felt Germany I was called to the Wilhelmstrasse, where I
received the interesting and somewhat surprising information that
the greatest good that a correspondent could do in the world be to
use his influence to bring the United States and Germany to a
better understanding. I made neither comment nor promise. I was
well aware that the same Wilhelmstrasse, while laying the wires for
an attempt to have my country play Germany's game, was sedulously
continuing its propaganda of _Gott strafe Amerika_ among the German
people. As in the hatred sown against Great Britain hate against
America was sown so that the Government would have a united Germany
behind them in case of war.

I was at last out of Germany, but the lights of the Hook of Holland
reminded me that a field of German activity lay ahead--floating
mines, torpedoes, submarines, and swift destroyers operating from
Ostend and Zeebrugge. They are challenging British supremacy in
the southern part of the North Sea, through the waters of which we