In Boston the effect on the German officers and men was unbelievable. Tremont and Boylston and Washington streets, echoing with cheers of the exulting conquerors, resembled the night of a Harvard-Yale football game when Brickley used to play for Cambridge University. The citizens of the big town, their senses deadened by their own disaster, received the news, and the ghastly celebration that followed it, without any real interest. The fact that an ex-Mayor of Boston and the son of the present Governor were among those that perished failed to rouse them. Boston, mentally as well as physically, was in the grip of the enemy.
That this was just the effect the Germans planned to produce is shown by General von Kluck’s own words. In an interview that he gave me for the London _Times_, after the occupation of Boston on July 2, 1921, General von Kluck said:
“The way to end a war quickly is to make the burden of it oppressive upon the people. It was on this principle that General Sherman acted in his march from Atlanta to the sea. It was on this principle that General Grant acted in his march from Washington to Richmond. Grant said he would fight it out on those lines if it took all summer--meaning lines of relentless oppression. In modern war a weak enemy like Belgium or like New England, which is far weaker than Belgium was in 1914, must be crushed immediately. Think of the bloodshed that would have stained the soil of Connecticut and Massachusetts if we had not spread terror before us. As it is, New England has suffered very little from the German occupation, and in a very short time everything will be going on as usual.”
The veteran warrior paused, and added with a laugh: “Better than usual.”
As a matter of fact, within a week Boston had resumed its ordinary life and activities. Business was good, factories were busy, and the theatres were crowded nightly, especially Keith’s, where the latest military photo-play by Thomas Dixon and Charles T. Dazey--with Mary Pickford as the heroine and Charley Chaplin as the comedy relief--was enjoyed immensely by German officers.
As to the commerce of Boston Harbor, it was speedily re-established, with ships of all nations going and coming, undisturbed by the fact that it was now the German flag on German warships that they saluted.