Diary of Annie's War by Annie Droege Page A

downhearted. They explain that the very wet weather we have had prevents them from going on. They are convinced that they are steadily winning. Still you can see that they are uneasy over no news. They commonly speak of Russia being finished before Christmas but we hear nothing at all from there.
    Eight hundred men go away from here tonight. They do not know where and they will not be allowed to write home their address. They are allowed just the regiment and company and name. The letters will find them either in France, Belgium or Russia. Their people do not know where they fight in this bad weather as all the soldiers are given the same clothing.
Sunday 10 th January.
    It was a memorable day for me as regards church. I never saw so many communicants in one church before. It was the finish of the three days of prayer and all who could were to confess and communicate for the peaceful end of the war.
    Another Father has come to preach at the Dom. It is really marvellous where the people come from. When you think that the place is only a third the size of Stockport it has eight Catholic churches. Also that more than half of the population is Protestant. Every church was full and you could not get near the confessionals. Priests came on the altar and said Mass and went off again. Still there were priests giving communion all the time at the altar rails. I heard three complete Masses and half a fourth. Still there were people waiting for communion.
    Everyone goes to their church now for help. No one else can give them comfort. People who live in a free country do not have any idea of what war means in a conscript country. Misery is everywhere you go and each day buries more men.
    I saw one of our young waiters at the church. He seemed full of trouble and afterwards I questioned him. He told me he has three brothers at the front - nineteen, twenty-one and twenty-two-years-old. His father was called up last Thursday. He is forty-five years old. He was very busy slaughtering, as he is a butcher, when the telegram came at noon. He went at once to the barracks, in his working clothes, and his wife ran to get help in the business to finish the slaughtering. At eight o’clock in the evening she got a telegram to say he was already in uniform and was in Munster. The poor boy said: ‘My mother cannot cry any more. She has done so much. She can only pray for them all’.
    If he was in England he would have no such trouble.
    The head waiter told me today that everyone from nineteen to forty-eight years old must present themselves this month for an army of five million must be ready for April. So there is trouble for someone awaiting. It is such an anxious time and one hears such dreadful things.
    Today I hear of twenty-four new Zeppelins for London. Each one is to carry fifty bombs of half a hundredweight each. They are going in nine weeks time and some of them are to be used in Nieuwpoort (Flanders) this week.
    Got a postcard from Arthur and he wants a few things and a box to lock them in. It sounds as if someone is pinching. But I don’t blame them if what I hear of the place is true.
Tuesday 12 th January.
    I saw many men come in. There was not one under forty years of age. I felt so sorry for them. They just tramped along with their cardboard boxes as if they noticed nothing. They were looking for the houses they were to sleep in. Everywhere is full up.
    With fourteen-thousand soldiers in the place it makes a difference. Frau Kuhner is very ill, inflamation of the lungs, but they still have a soldier in quarters with them and it makes such a deal of work. One must be up to get his coffee before he goes out. The people never grumble and say they must do it for their country.
    I feel so sad for the horses poor things. They seem so very strange in a town and prance about as if afraid. Their drivers, young boys, look sad over the affair and the masters ditto. Now there are no horses to do the heavy work and spring is