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It is only with a measure of habitual foolhardiness that you can be sure, in the common run of men, of courage on a reasonable occasion. An army or a fleet, if it is not led by quixotic fancies, will not be led far by terror of the Provost-Marshal. Even German warfare, in addition to maps and telegraphs, is not above employing the "Wacht am Rhein."
But the honest men of a nation are not asked for their opinion: and they are not bold enough to give it. Those who are not virile enough to take public action are inevitably condemned to be its pawns. They are the magnificent and unthinking echo which casts back the snarling cries of the Press and the defiance of their leaders, and swells them into the Marseillaise, or the Wacht am Rhein.
It was, as we presently learned, the only beer shop in all of Maubeuge, and the reason for that was this: No sooner had the Germans cleared and opened the roads back across Belgium to their own frontiers than an enterprising tradesman of the Rhein country, who somehow had escaped military service, loaded many kegs of good German beer upon trucks and brought his precious cargoes overland a hundred miles and more southward.
They sang their favorite marching songs Die Wacht am Rhein, of course; and Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles! which has a fine, sonorous cathedral swing to it; and God Save the King! with different words to the air, be it said; and Haltet Aus! Also, for variety, they sang Tannenbaum with the same tune as Maryland, My Maryland! and Heil dir im Sieges-kranz; and snatches from various operas.
How deeply it touched me to hear them sing the 'Wacht am Rhein' and then 'Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, in the very city which was to serve as an English base for operations against our dear Fatherland. And my Flemish companion softly hummed this splendid German song of faith. Kotzde concludes his work as follows:
We clinked glasses again, sang "God Save the King" and the "Wacht am Rhein," compared the character of German and English literature, of German and English women, clasped hands, and said, "Auf wiedersehen!"
Then he took his letters down to the Study building, to post them so that they might go out with the night mail. On his way he passed the Barclay house; it was all brightly lighted, the sound of laughter and of gay boy voices rang out through the open windows; the notes of a piano then subdued them, and there burst out a chorus in the sonorous measured sweep of “Wacht am Rhein.”
Accordingly "Die Wacht am Rhein" was played by the Guards' band down the entire length of Ebury Street, photographs of the Baroness appeared in all the leading periodicals, and Society, after its own less demonstrative but equally sincere fashion, prepared to welcome the distinguished visitors.
Kroll, in Rhein. The quotation from the speech of Gallus also lends support to a statement in Servius that Gallus had been assigned to the duty of exacting moneys from cities which escaped confiscation. For this we are duly grateful.
The Germans were still busy landing wood; whenever they got hold of a specially large piece they shouted 'Hurrah! Suddenly some big logs came floating down, and this raised their enthusiasm to such a pitch that they started singing the 'Wacht am Rhein'. For the first time in his life Stasiek, who was so sensitive to music, heard a men's chorus sung in parts.
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