This idyllic interlude was shattered in the summer of 1914 when World War I erupted across Europe. The world situation so dramatically changed, Poole recovered the manuscript for his book from Macmillans and spent a month writing a completely new ending. Drawn to cover the conflict as a war correspondent as if a moth to a flame, Poole belatedly attempted to make use of his contacts with the publishers of various magazines, but found that all the positions for correspondents in France and England had been filled. He was ultimately able, however, to persuade "The Saturday Evening Post" to send him to the German capital of Berlin to cover the war from the opposite camp, and early in November 1914 he sailed aboard a British ship for Europe.