1918 Rations and Nicer Subjects

My mother didn't break off her walking tour after all! Yesterday, to our delight she finished the first, nine-day stage of the journey from Berlin to Leipzig, took a bus, and returned to grace us with her presence. And this morning we all woke up early (before 9 o'clock, practically unheard of on a weekend!), ate bread rolls and croissants, drank coffee, and talked.

Last evening I'd read that food rations were introduced in the UK in 1918. So for the sake of my history experiment I'd weighed out my day's ration of sugar, butter and tea into little teacups and a saucer that I lined up at my spot at the breakfast table, and resolved to buy a package of bacon. Besides eating an ahistorical croissant this morning, I therefore made porridge, regretfully using water instead of milk, and used a little of the sugar ration to redeem the thin taste.

After tidying the kitchen, and taking out the compost and the regular garbage into the heating atmosphere (it was 24 degrees Celsius or thereabouts at first, reaching apparently toward 30 degrees later in the day) of the courtyard, I went grocery-shopping. Since rations were distributed, apparently, more in shops than in markets, I visited the littler organic food store near our apartment building.

I bought red currants, a melon with lovely deeper green flesh, apricots, early potatoes and carrots there, as my 'civilian ration.' Then I went to a larger organic food store to buy bacon for my 'civilian ration', but also two tins of gulash soup to approximate the tinned beef and turnip and carrot soup that British soldiers would receive, and the only whole grain salty biscuits I could find, to approximate army biscuits.

For lunch, then, I grated the carrots and added celery for a cold salad; boiled the potatoes; fried the bacon using a fraction of my butter ration; and heated the tinned soup. After the soup had boiled, I crumbled the biscuits into items portion, my main complaint being that it was over-salted. For reasons of frugality, I fried most of the potatoes in the remaining bacon grease and they became crispy and flavourful. Besides I mixed cocoa with a little sugar and poured boiling water on it, in imitation of a soldier's ration.

Feeling well fed especially considering what a hot day it was, I also enjoyed talking with my mother and brothers and sister, who had come over bearing gifts: After Eights that had melded together into a semi-solid and intriguing mass, Cola gummies sprinkled with sugar, and orange-marmalade-filled Jaffa cakes. All anachronistic, especially considering that luxury chocolates were banned during 1918, but I did take an After Eight even before my experiment had ended.

A while after T. left again, we had a teatime of coffee, melon, leftover bread rolls, and further conversation.

And, for the sake of my mother's birthday, we ate an anachronistic pound cake. (I ate it with my rum ration, which to be honest I'd rather looked forward to.)

Besides I read part of the Berliner Zeitung, kept knitting my second sock — I am at least 3.5 inches into it — and read books. The Death of Vivek Oji, part of my aunt's gift of a book subscription, is finished. I also read The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck. Reeling from the disturbing themes of women deprived of authority over their own reproduction, predators, forcible confinement and vigilante justice, I realized that I might be overthinking things, or that a few of Beatrix Potter's books are arguably far more child-friendly than adult-friendly. In terms of other children's authors of her time, L. Frank Baum was still publishing Wizard of Oz books in the 1910s; I might read one or two of them after Beatrix Potter, but frankly expect similar 'surprises.'

At 7:30 p.m., I'd finished my 1910s experiment for today, and watched the television news: Not-so-good news: heavy rain is forecast, a little perturbing in view of the recent deadly flooding in western Germany, but not expected to be anywhere near as severe. Good news: the first 'real' Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin since before the coronavirus pandemic took place today.

My First Vaccination at a Bicycle Track

Today it is 1917 according to my time travel experiment. But it is evidently depressing to pretend that extensive battles are going on everywhere from France to Iraq, that the German parliament and a huge (hushed-up) mutiny of French soldiers and pleas from Allied soldiers have all proposed peace or a change in strategy because they were starting to feel that the war was a needless brutality (but in vain), that every food or personnel shipment from overseas is one that managed not to be sunk by a mine or a submarine's torpedo, etc.

So I haven't observed it much — except by knitting more of my second sock, reading a book set in WWI, taking care of correspondence, and cooking a more-or-less historically accurate lunch of rice with a tomato soup composed of leftover leeks, a purple onion, celery stalks, herbs, a regular tin of tuna and a large tin of tomatoes. And I'm beginning to meditate, influenced by a gruesome book by a hospital assistant during WWI that details how soldiers lay around wounded for days unable to help themselves, then turned up in hospital beds with limbs rotted off or ruptured intestines pumping out feces, that I might become at least 95% pacifist.

Back in 2021, my mother has broken off a days-long walking trip because the rural areas of Brandenburg are not really equipped for pedestrians or travellers, and places she could stay or rest in are often closed. My brother Ge. is set to pick her up from Treuenbrietzen (what an elaborate name!) tomorrow morning. I'm sad because she has sounded so exhausted and dismayed. But I'm happy to see her again soon, and hopeful that this trial-and-error will help grow ideas and plans for more rewarding adventures in future.

Another big event today was cycling off to the east of the city to get a vaccination in one of the large centres that have been set up in Berlin. It's a velodrome with an indoor bicycle track that looks even more dangerous up close; and I realized I'd seen it before without knowing what it was. From the streets around it, you can see bare concrete steps that look like an urban park feature. Sunk into it, like one of the enigmatic Ethiopian churches that are built like a cross in the ground, is the oval of the velodrome itself. A trickle of vaccinees was walking out or rolling along in a wheelchair, and an elderly man with the straight bearing of a dignified train conductor and a yellow hi-visibility vest lifted a bar so that I could pass through the security barrier.

I was quite late, tangled in the network of streets at the Volkspark Friedrichshain, already wincing when I heard a church tolling the noon hour and then eventually stopping. But I managed to find the entrance down into the bowels of the velodrome, then carried my bicycle up a few flights of stairs again to secure it, then returned to the entrance of the vaccination centre. It is being staffed largely by volunteers with the Johanniter charity (who kindly reassured me that it was fine that I was late), a medical charity a little like a domestic German version of the Red Cross; but soldiers in camouflage were also guarding the parkade.

After I poured disinfectant on my hands at a lotion dispenser, an older lady with her grey/white hair in a short bob scanned me with a fever-detecting gun at a collarbone. She told me it wouldn't hurt, reassuringly; and instantly the machine gave what must have been the good kind of beep because I was waved through. The three staff members at the next station, which looked rather like a display table at a telecommunications shop, required me to present my vaccine reservation QR code. After that I advanced to a wooden table two tall and burly security men, also in fluorescent vests, asked me to display the interior of my bag. In my view, all this security is probably a great idea.

At the end of a long corridor, also staffed by a few standing people, I was directed me through to two young women, who pointed me to a rather dystopian waiting area where black chairs were placed at least 1.5 m apart on red dots, and we all sat in a sort of sad pretend bus with a Johanniter volunteer and a television screen at the front.

Then I was gestured to the front, after the closer seats in the 'bus' had emptied, and pointed toward cubicles where another young woman led me to a plate-glass-covered booth. A woman volunteer in her 50s or thereabouts, sitting there and tapping at her computer now and then, took time to set me at ease as she looked through my vaccination booklet (still from 1985, it lists all the vaccinations I received as a baby and toddler), my identification card, as well as the information and consent forms I'd printed out and signed at home.

She gave me back a clipboard with all my documents attached, and then a few steps further a cluster of orange-vested teenagers directed me to a curtained cubicle area where a soldier (also in camouflage) waited to conduct me through to Cubicle 15.

After I'd sat down on the black pleather chair and put my things on the ground, a white-frocked doctor with blonde hair in a tight, short ponytail came in and cheerfully asked me to get settled in. Smiling through her eyes above the FPP-2 mask, and altogether giving me the impression that I was a rather tall child at a pediatrician's, she looked through my papers.

She confirmed with me that I didn't have an immune disorder, didn't have blood clotting problems, and wasn't taking medication, with surprised pleasure. Then she listed the statistics of vaccine effectivity (86 to 96% after the second vaccination, or something to that effect) and advice for handling side effects.

When I asked if drinking a lot of water staves off side effects, as I'd heard, she laughed a bit. She said that resting (and, if needed, paracetamol or ibuprofen) would help more, but one shouldn't rule out the placebo effect.

In the meantime, the soldier (with whom she was on formal, Sie-zing terms) was arranging my paperwork. Then the doctor asked me if I was left-handed, ambidextrous or right-handed, and prepared to vaccinate the non-leading arm; asked me if I had a needle or vaccination phobia, whereat I said no; I rolled up the sleeve, and after spreading disinfectant spray on the site, she injected. After putting a little pad over it, she added a bandaid.

She let me know that I'd be staying for 15 more minutes to be observed, smiled, and swept out past the curtain again. The soldier stood there while I put away my stamped immunization booklet, and I felt awkward under the impression that he'd literally have to hover there for the next 15 minutes making sure I didn't keel over.

To make conversation, I asked, 'So, I hear it's been pretty quiet today?'

He picked up the conversational gambit after a pause of surprise and generally agreed. 'Alles nicht so wild,' he concluded, using a German expression I've heard often in the past few days.

After that, he pointed out, 'I'll be bringing you to a waiting area.' Then I realized, with an internal groan, two things: 1. that my question had been badly phrased and therefore sounded especially sensation-hungry (I was intending to confirm if there were fewer people, not really intending ask if anything 'exciting' had happened e.g. a dedicated anti-vaxxer had burst their bonds and hollered 'Vaccines are murder!' until the police showed up). Also 2. he was just waiting for me to pack up, not at all desperate for conversation to help pass the time.

After a short walk with him, I landed at an outer corner of the velodrome. A blue-vested volunteer kindly handed me a plastic cup of cold water, and directed me to wait in a chair until the clock on the cubicles pointed at 12:45. There were more black chairs, equidistant, with around 20 other people of all ages sitting there, not keeling over, as volunteers walked back and forth in a sort of patrol amongst us. The tall, steep curve of the blond bicycle track rose in front, empty spectator seats looming in dark grey at the back; metal framework bars hung low from the ceiling and I could see the skeleton of the roof. Information banners advertised the involvement of the Johanniter and the city of Berlin in setting up the immunization centre. I think there were a few indoor plants and more curtains for ambience.

After 15 minutes of limbo, I waited an extra half minute or so just to be safe; then ambled out past a few more soldiers in camouflage, past a First Aid station, and past a volunteer, past desks where people who were having their second immunizations were meant to check more paperwork; and reached the outer perimeter of the Velodrome again, whose parkade's and staircases' bare aesthetic I didn't dislike as such but which — let's say — would have rejoiced the utilitarian senses of a 1930s architect.

I found and unlocked my bicycle. Before taking off, I took a 'selfie' of my face and arm to send to my sister T. and brother Gi. to let them know I'd been immunized and was on my way home — quite aware that if I were watching myself as a stranger, I'd probably be rolling my eyes at the narcissism.

Then I pedaled off (at first in the wrong direction) into the bright sunlight and the soulless heart of Mitte. Twice I met the same police motorcade + car demonstration of Falun Gong supporters. But then I was finally home and — besides drinking a lot of water because the weather felt so warm — ate a nice bowl of Neapolitan ice cream ... before remembering that a nice bowl of ice cream wasn't very 1917.

A Time-Travel Saturday in 1915

It has been a nice, sunny, market-going day, although the warmth and a hint of humidity have spread profuse eau de garbage into the air.

Landing in the year 1915 of the historical experiments on Saturdays, I started by tidying the kitchen, and then gradually the rest of the family woke up; we ate croissants and bread rolls, drank coffee, and had a long conversation about matters political and other, as usual.

Then I finished dusting shoes that stand in our hallway, but aren't used very often.

I went to the Winterfeldtplatz market again. Peaches, cherries, apricots, figs, and other high summer fruits were piling on the tables, alongside the artichokes and potatoes etc.. I bought red beets, potatoes, a fennel bulb, kohlrabi, English cucumbers, lemons, and eggs, before returning home fairly soon.

Because I lacked corned beef for the planned lunch or dinner of corned beef hash, and didn't want to eat anything heavy anyway, I was happy that T. had taken the initiative and ordered food for us. So we ate dumplings with pork, chicken, ginger, scallions, carrots, peas, and prawns. Then we had Belgian waffles with Spekulatius cream, cherries, and other fillings. I did mental gymnastics, arguing inwardly that dumplings are also British. Even if they're not mentioned in (m)any of the Edwardian cookbooks I've been skimming through.

Then T. and the others watched videos about Japanese cheesecake, the British government system, and the pros and cons of playing in a classical music orchestra on YouTube, in the living room. I listened in, pretending it was the radio, while I re-knitted the sock that I've already attempted to knit twice and had to unravel twice.

After 5 p.m. I prepared lemon curd, scones, and a rooibos-and-papaya tea for teatime. Sadly, T. had already departed and could not partake. Blueberries and strawberries were left over from Mama's breakfast purchases, so we ate those too.

*

Then I began reading an old Merck's Manual: the articles about tetanus, trench fever, and trench foot, which all felt relevant to WWI. Reading about gruesome medical conditions for reasons of curiosity felt flippant, however, and so I stopped.

After reading the detailed and informative Diary of a nursing sister on the western front, 1914-1915 (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1915) in the Internet Archive, I have the impression that a lot of lives were wasted not just due to bullets and shells.

When trains arrived from the front for her French hospital, the author writes:

One [soldier] told me he was wounded on Tuesday—was one day in a hospital, and then travelling till to-day, Saturday. No wonder their wounds are full of straw and grass. (Haven’t heard of any more tetanus.) Most haven’t had their clothes off, or washed, for three weeks, except face and hands.

After fighting around Rheims, it was an even more extreme situation:

The train I was put to had 510 cases. [… T]he men were lying on straw; had been in trains for several days; most had only been dressed once, and many were gangrenous.

It's sad to think — although I might be ignorant and unfair by saying so; the nurse certainly doesn't say it — that maybe a salt solution or alcohol might, if applied right after the injury, have prevented infection. Later, I think that liquid oxygen was also used. Or that the trains could have been cleaner. Maybe far fewer people would have died.

I was wondering how a government official could look a bereaved person in the eye, knowing that their relative or friend died because they didn't receive proper care that the government should have organized.

In the meantime it looks, based on an old British Pathé film, as if English stretcher-bearers on the battlefield were taught to wrap a bandage around the wound as it was, tie together the limbs, and lift them onto a stretcher for transportation — that was all.

The Diary reveals that the nurse had tended English soldiers during the Boer War in the late 1890s/early 1900s. She writes that shelling in the Western Front during WWI did far worse damage to the human body than the Mauser bullets in South Africa.

*

At nighttime, in 1915, Britons used 'black-out curtains' to block the light from their windows so that their homes could not be targeted from the air. Per my notes from the Further Back in Time for Dinner television series: 'Zeppelin air raids killed 2,000 people in the southern UK.' I'd feel disrespectful if I played at being potentially air-bombed, however, and I wouldn't have educated anyone by doing so (unlike the TV series). So I left my curtains and windows as they are.

The Lusitania also sank that year and nurse Edith Cavell was executed for helping soldiers escape the German occupiers in Belgium, according to a British Pathé retrospective. It led, as a side effect, to anti-German vandalism in England: windows of German-owned businesses were smashed.

Walking out from the market I reflected that in a better parallel to the war years, I would need to volunteer for social service in my community. It seems like a good thought in general, but there's no way I'd do that for the mere sake of experimentation. So in the end, today has been enjoyably selfish and relaxing. Chatting with the family and looking at the flowers outdoors makes me unsurprisingly, while knitting socks makes me surprisingly, happy.