Cooper, Ethel – February 1917
4.2.17
My dear Emmie,
The 1st of February has come and gone, and the U-boat war has been declared, and like all the World, we are awaiting developments…everyone looks upon it as the most critical moment since the 1st of August 1914….
America has broken off diplomatic relations… Coal has run out, the electric light is cut off in most houses (I have gas, thank Heaven!), the trams are not running… all theatres, schools, the opera, concerts and cinematographs are close – neither potatoes nor turnips are to be had – they were our last resource – there is no fish – and Germany has ceased to trumpet the fact that it can’t be starved out…
Now to bed – I sleep in my old fur coat, with two hot-water bottles and two eiderdowns…
11.2.17
My dear Emmie,
… there seems to be no more potatoes – each of us has been given half a pound of what they call potato-flocken. I know no English word for it – they seem to me to be the dried parings of potatoes – you have to soak them overnight, then rub them through a sieve, and the dark parings remain in the sieve and you can use the rest in soup…
Any other people on earth would rise against a Government that had reduced it to such misery, but these folk seem to have no spirit left. Of course, there are no men, except those in uniform, and nearly all the sturdy women are working for the Government, too… what one sees in uniform now passes belief – there is nothing that is too unfit – they take everything…
We had an excitement of Thursday at midday when the Leipzig airship sheds were blown up. Till last night no paper in Germany mentioned it. Then came an official report to say that owing to an accumulation of snow on the roof it had fallen in, pulling down the walls and wounding 30 workmen… Now those great sheds were of solid concrete, and though there is a lot of snow lying about , yet it has neither broken down the roofs and walls of any other building in Leipzig, nor even of my little wooden summerhouse. Do they really expect people to believe such things when they print them officially?
… Now I must stoke the fires to prevent the bathroom pipes from freezing and bursting – this everlasting fire-stoking is such a nuisance and is ruinous to the hands, but it must be done…
