मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

a puzzle to think out an English Princess, married to a foreigner, on the continent. After much trouble I got a note written to me from the outside. And from that note I could make out that the war could be no other than between England and Germany, and that it had already begun between Germany and France. So this was a war between England and Germany!— a prophesy I had made years ago. This was, indeed, a golden opportunity. But it came when I had found myself helpless and behind the prison-bars. As I have told many times before, what I write down here expresses my passing moods of the day, as they overpowered me in my prison at the time. They do not necessarily represent what I feel about the happenings today. They are, so to say, history, leaves from my diary, and not their justification today. It was the activity of the Abhinav Bharat that had drawn the attention of Germany to India. When I was in Europe, I had long conversations with German, French, Irish, Turkish (the young Turks as they were called) and other diverse agitators and patriots, from which I found out that they did not know anything of India, that there was a people like Indians in the whole world. India as a nation did not exist for them. It was a dead civilisation —this India—which they thought could not be used conveniently even as a second fiddle to England in international affairs and in international politics. It was the propaganda carried on in England, through newspapers and other agencies by the Abhinav Bharat Mandal, which drew the attention of Germany to the existence and political importance of India. It interested all far-sighted politicians and leaders in her future. And more so in France and Germany than anywhere else, for the members of the Mandal had worked intensively in those countries on behalf of India. I may mention particularly the lecturing tour of Madame Cama in Germany which I have already mentioned earlier. Subsequently German Newspapers published articles on India from the pen of some of our workers. Then came the episode of Madanlal Dhingra and the shooting of Sir Curzon Wylie by that revolutionary. Madanlal Dhingra went to the gallows like a hero, and the British C.I.D. were set after our workers all over the field. This created an awakening in France and Germany about India, and faith in the power of our organisation. Madanlal Dhingra had made a reference to Germany in his final spirited statement to the Court that had tried him. My book on the Indian Mutiny of 1857 was in the press at that time, and the police were keen on knowing where it was being printed, and, therefore, it had come in a large number in Germany to keep a close watch on our movements. Some of the German officials had already informed me about it. I was warned to leave England in time that I might not be arrested in England itself. This message came to me through one of our workers in Germany, who got the news from an agent in the German police itself. When the Abhinav Bharat's Newspaper, "Sword", began its publication in England, I wrote an article in its first issue predicting war between Germany and England within six years. I had written in it a long article over the Kiel Canal. It was then that I had shown that such a war would be a golden opportunity for India. Later on my hazardous attempt to escape at Marseilles and the many International issues it had raised, made our movement, its hopes and ambitions, and the sacrifices we had made in its behalf, the topic of discussion all over Europe. These upheavals not only in India but at the door of Europe itself, had brought the realisation to