While "Aristide" was endeavouring to influence the civil population, aeroplanes were distributing to the Belgian troops in Antwerp circulars, printed in French, and in another language which had a certain resemblance to Flemish; and these strange handbills informed the Belgian soldiers that they had been deceived by their officers and by the authorities; that the Belgian army was fighting for the British and the Russians, etc. DECLARATION. BRUSSELS, _1st October, 1914_. BELGIAN SOLDIERS, Your blood and your whole salvation, you are not giving them at all to your beloved country; you are only serving the interest of Russia, a country which desires only to increase its already enormous power, and, above all, the interest of England, whose perfidious avarice has given birth to this cruel and unheard-of war. From the commencement your newspapers, paid from French and English sources, have never ceased to deceive you, telling you nothing but lies as to the causes of the war and the battles which have followed, and this is still done every day. Consider one of your army orders which affords fresh proof of this. This is what it contains: "You have been told that your comrades who are prisoners in Germany have been forced to march against Russia beside our soldiers." Yet your common sense must tell you that this would be a measure quite impossible to execute. When the day comes when your comrades who are prisoners return from our country and tell you with how much benevolence they have been treated, their words will make you blush for what your newspapers, and your officers, have dared to tell you, in order to deceive you in so incredible a manner. Every day of resistance makes you sustain irreparable losses, while with the capitulation of Antwerp you will be free from all anxiety. Belgian soldiers, you have fought enough for the interests of the princes of Russia, for those of the capitalists of perfidious Albion. Your situation is one to despair of. Germany, who is fighting only for her life, has destroyed two Russian armies. To-day no Russian is to be found in our country. In France our troops are about to overcome the last resistance. If you wish to rejoin your wives and children, if you wish to return to your work, in a word, if you wish for peace, put an end to this useless struggle, which is ending only in your ruin. Then you will quickly enjoy all the benefits of a favourable and perfect peace. VON BESELER, _Commander-in-Chief of the Besieging Army_. When examples of this circular were brought to us in Brabant, we at first thought it was a hoax. But we had to submit to the evidence; the idea of this proclamation had really been conceived and executed by the Germans.