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anonymous German continued:
     
I just had to go through it and left the Police station at 8.45 p.m. more dead than alive . . . As you will be able to see from the papers my position as a German here in London is a most serious one: whilst I have not the slightest wish or desire to do anything against this country I must be prepared to be arrested on suspicion. Of this I hope you are all convinced . . . I am very much troubled, not for my own safety or comfort, but for the sorrow and disaster that will follow out of this terrible war which is caused by the folly of my countrymen!
     
    Those registering gave details as to nationality, occupation, appearance, residence and ‘service of any foreign government’. Quite reasonably, enemy aliens were banned from owning firearms, signalling equipment, carrier or homing pigeons or the means of conducting secret correspondence. They were also banned from owning cameras and naval or military maps. Germans had until 17 August to register and Austrians a further week; those failing to do so could be subject to a £100 fine or six months in prison - a harsh punishment for those who, ignorant of the law and fearing their neighbours, went into hiding, although, in reality, most were allowed to register late on explanation of the facts.
    Julia Jacobitz was one of the ‘quiet looking old ladies’ who registered at her nearest police station in Bournemouth. A retired school governess, she had lived in the popular seaside town for sixteen of her twenty-three years in Britain. She was scrupulously law-abiding and on cordial terms with the local police. Several years earlier, her home had been burgled and ransacked and she now made a point of letting the police know whenever she went away and leaving them a door key should it be needed.
    On registration, all enemy aliens were given strict rules as to where they could live and where they could or, more to the point, could not go. One provision of the Aliens Restriction Act forbade Germans from living close to the sea. Julia Jacobitz’s whole-hearted cooperation with the police was, as she later pointed out, ‘hardly the manner dangerous persons would adopt who wished, or had, to hide their business’. She was concerned that she might be forcibly moved and so was grateful when Bournemouth police reassured her that that would not be the case for someone such as her, living by herself and in her mid-sixties. She was a German who desired to stay in England and wished only to be left alone.
    Many Germans who had lived in Britain for a generation or more wanted to be left alone, too, and hoped that Reginald McKenna’s parliamentary reassurances to respect law-abiding enemy aliens would be honoured. Meanwhile, others were packing up. Leaving from Parkstone Quay, Harwich, was the German ambassador. On 6 August he was escorted to the port by an armed guard from the Rifle Brigade along with scores of embassy staff, their families, assorted luggage and prams. There were no restrictions on who left, then or during the following days, for the Act gave Germans until midnight on 10 August to leave from any of thirteen designated ports.
    Princess Evelyn Blücher, née Stapleton-Bretherton, the British-born wife of Prince Gebhard Blücher, travelled with the ambassador’s party. The Princess and her husband had been staying at their London home where a steady stream of friends and relatives had come to help her pack and say goodbye, including her brother Vincent, one of her four siblings who were serving as officers in the British Army. The Princess was taken to Liverpool Street Station.
     
Even at that early hour, we saw placards and papers everywhere announcing German disasters and 3500 Germans killed. The scene at the station I shall never forget, with 250 Germans and their luggage congregated on the platform, and the special train in readiness.
The Ambassador and Ambassadress arrived at the last minute and got straight into the train, the