What this meant for Germany's economic life and for the people generally became apparent in many ways during the winter, and in none more striking than in a fuel shortage which brought much suffering to the inhabitants of the larger cities. The coalfields of the Ruhr district required twenty-five thousand cars daily to transport even their diminishing production, but the number available dropped below ten thousand. Only eight hundred cars were available to care for the production in Upper Silesia, and a minimum of three thousand was required. The effect on the transportation of foodstuffs to the cities cannot so definitely be estimated, but that it was serious is plain. The armistice provided that the blockade should be maintained. In reality it was not only maintained, but extended. Some of the most fertile soil in Germany lies on the left bank of the Rhine, and cities along that river had depended on these districts for much of their food. With enemy occupation, these supplies were cut off. What this meant was terribly apparent in Duesseldorf after the occupation had been completed. Duesseldorf, with a population of nearly 400,000, had depended on the left bank of the Rhine for virtually all its dairy products. These were now cut off, and the city authorities found themselves able to secure a maximum of less than 7,000 quarts of milk daily for the inhabitants. A further extension of the blockade came when German fishermen were forbidden to fish even in their territorial waters in the North Sea and the Baltic. The available supply of fish in Germany had already dropped, as has been described, to a point where it was possible to secure a ration only once in every three or four weeks. And now even this trifling supply was no longer available. Vast stores of food were abandoned, destroyed or sold to the inhabitants of the occupied districts when the armies began the evacuation of France and Belgium, and millions of soldiers, returning to find empty larders at home, further swelled the ranks of the discontented. Only the old maxim that all is fair in war can explain or justify the great volume of misleading reports that were sent out regarding food conditions in Germany in the months following the armistice. Men who were able to spend a hundred marks daily for their food, or whose observations were limited to the most fertile agricultural districts of Germany, generalized carelessly and reported that there were no evidences of serious shortage anywhere, except perhaps, in one or two of the country's largest cities. Men who knew conditions thoroughly hesitated to report them because of the supposed exigencies of war and wartime policies, or, reporting them in despite thereof, saw themselves denounced as pro-German propagandists. Months later, when perhaps irreparable damage had been done, the truth began to come out. The following Associated Press dispatch is significant: