" Well, the road to Berlin does not end at the Polish
frontier.
The Flight Into Switzerland
By Ethel Therese Hugli.
[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan. 10, 1915.]
BERNE, Nov. 18.--Question: What is Switzerland?
Answer: A small neutral State entirely surrounded by war!
At the first glance such would seem to be the actual state of affairs,
for neutral Italy, our southern neighbor, takes up but a small part of
our border; to the west we have France, to the north Germany, and to the
east Austria, all engaged in deadly combat, all realizing that this time
the loser will go down, never to come up again as a power of the first
class. The drawback in being so neutral and so near the stage of all
these dramatic proceedings, is that we are overwhelmed with "latest
dispatches." Our papers bristle with the victories, defeats, denials,
assertions, protests, accusations, blame, as contained in the dispatches
of the various news agencies.
Reuter is the official English agency. His news is taken with a generous
pinch of salt. The German agency is Wolff, whose proud boast it is never
to have announced a single German defeat. As a consequence, he is also
taken with a large pinch. The French pin their faith to Havas, whose
rose-colored dispatches have earned for themselves the name of
"Havas-Lies." The Austrians believe in the Wiener agency, whose
dispatches are too busy saying: "The reports of Austrian defeats, spread
by the enemy, are absolutely untrue," to have time for any real news;
while in Italy--"neutral Italy"--the Italian news agency shows such
unholy glee over German reverses as to make an impartial person sniff
rather suspiciously at its "neutrality.
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