It was really a Pittsburg chauffeur who was primarily responsible for my being invited to dine with the commander of the Ninth German Army. The chauffeur's name was William Van Calck and his employer was a gentleman who had amassed several millions manufacturing hats in the Smoky City. When war was declared the hat-manufacturer and his family were motoring in Austria, with Van Calck at the wheel of the car. The car being a large and powerful one, it was promptly commandeered by the Austrian military authorities; the hat-manufacturer and his family, thus dumped unceremoniously by the roadside, made their way as best they could to England; and Van Calck, who was a Belgian by birth, though a naturalized American, enlisted in the Belgian army and was detailed to drive one of the armoured motor-cars which so effectively harassed the enemy during the early part of the campaign in Flanders. Now if Van Calck hadn't come tearing into Ghent in his wheeled fortress on a sunny September morning he wouldn't have come upon a motor-car containing two German soldiers who had lost their way; if he had not met them, the two Germans would not have been wounded in the dramatic encounter which ensued; if the Germans had not been wounded it would not have been necessary for Mr. Julius Van Hee, the American Vice-Consul, to pay a hurried visit to General von Boehn, the German commander, to explain that the people of Ghent were not responsible for the affair and to beg that no retaliatory measures be taken against the city; if Mr. Van Hee had not visited General von Boehn the question of the attitude of the American Press would not have come up for discussion; and if it had not been discussed, General von Boehn would not have sent me an invitation through Mr. Van Hee to dine with him at his headquarters and hear the German side of the question. But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning. On September 8, then, the great German army which was moving from Brussels on France was within a few miles of Ghent. In the hope of inducing the Germans not to enter the city, whose large and turbulent working population would, it was feared, cause trouble in case of a military occupation, the burgomaster went out to confer with the German commander. An agreement was finally arrived at whereby the Germans consented to march around Ghent if certain requirements were complied with. These were that no Belgian troops should occupy the city, that the Garde Civique should be disarmed and their weapons surrendered, and that the municipality should supply the German forces with specified quantities of provisions and other supplies--the chief item, by the way, being a hundred thousand cigars.