"'As fast as our railway transportation could carry them, we would transport thousands of others that would be fit for agricultural work, across Europe down into southeastern Europe, into Mesopotamia, where we have huge, splendid irrigation works. All that land needs is water and it will blossom like the rose.' "'The weak remaining, the old and the young, we would concentrate opposite the firing line, and put firing squads back of them, and force them through that line, so that the English and French could take care of their own people.' "It was a perfectly simple, direct, frank reasoning. It meant that the German Government would use any force in the destruction of any people not its own to further its own ends." (Frederic C. Walcott, in _The National Geographic Magazine_, May, 1917.) A brief general view of the character of the deportations can perhaps be gained best from the report of Minister Whitlock. REPORT OF MINISTER WHITLOCK (continued). "_The deportations began in October in the Étape, at Ghent, and at Bruges, as my brief telegrams indicated. The policy spread; the rich industrial districts of Hainaut, the mines and steel works about Charleroi were next attacked; now they are seizing men in Brabant, even in Brussels, despite some indications and even predictions of the civil authorities that the policy was about to be abandoned._ [The étapes were the parts of Belgium under martial law, and included the province of western Flanders, part of eastern Flanders, and the region of Tournai. The remainder of the occupied part of Belgium was under civil government.] [Sidenote: The deportations begin.] [Sidenote: Pitiable scenes.]