My investigations extended over a period of four or five months. The first six weeks were spent in visiting the base hospitals and convalescent camps at Boulogne and Rouen, and the hospitals at Paris; during the remaining three months I was attached to the General Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary Force. In the course of my inquiries in the hospitals and camps I orally interrogated some two or three thousand officers and soldiers,[78] representing almost every regiment in the British armies and all of whom had recently been engaged on active service in the field. The whole of these inquiries were conducted by me personally, but my inquiries at headquarters were of a much more systematic character. There, owing to the courtesy of Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, the late Chief of the General Staff, I had the assistance of the various services--in particular the Adjutant-General, the Provost-Marshal, the Director of Military Intelligence, the Director of Medical Services and their respective staffs--and also of the civil authorities, within the area at present occupied by the British armies, such as the sous-prefets, the procureurs de la République, the commissaries de police, and the maires of the communes. In this way I was enabled not only to obtain corroboration of the statements taken down in the base hospitals in the earlier stages of my inquiry, but also to make a close local study of the behaviour of the German troops towards the civil population during their occupation of the districts recently evacuated by them.[79] In pursuance of this latter inquiry I visited every town and commune of any importance now in our occupation and lately occupied by the Germans, including places within a few hundred yards of the German lines. As regards the conduct of the German troops in the earlier stages of the campaign and in other parts of France, I confined my inquiries to incidents which actually came under the observation of our own troops during or after the battles of Mons, the Marne, and the Aisne, and did not extend them to include the testimony of the French civil authorities, as I did not consider it part of my duty to attempt to do what was already being done by the Commission of Inquiry instituted by the President of the Council. But I freely availed myself of opportunities of corroboration of English evidence from French sources where such sources were readily accessible, and, by the courtesy of the French Ministry of War, who placed a Staff officer and a military car at my disposal, I was enabled to go over the ground to the north-east of Paris covered by our troops in their advance to the Aisne and to obtain confirmation of many incidents already related to me by British officers and soldiers. It was also my privilege frequently to meet M. Mollard, of the French Commission, and to examine for myself the depositions on oath and _pièces justificatives_ on which