It was my privilege--and necessity--in connection with the work of the Commission for Relief in Belgium to spend several months at the Great Headquarters of the German armies in the west, and later to spend more months at Brussels as the Commission's director for Belgium and occupied France. It was an enforced opportunity to see something of German practice in the treatment of a conquered people, part of whom (the French and the inhabitants of the Belgian provinces of East and West Flanders) were under the direct control of the German General Staff and the several German armies of the west, and part, the inhabitants of the seven other Belgian provinces, under the quasi-civil government of Governor General von Bissing. I did not enter the occupied territories until June, 1915, and so, of course, saw none of the actual invasion and overrunning of the land. I saw only the graves of the massacred and the ruins of their towns. But I saw through the long, hard months much too much for my peace of mind of how the Germans treated the unfortunates under their control after the occupation. It would be an unnecessary repetition to describe again the scenes in Louvain, Dinant, Visé, Andenne, Tamines, Aerschot, and the rest of the familiar long list of the ruined Belgian towns. But too little has been said of the many, many ruined villages all over the extent of the occupied French territory from Lille in the north to Longwy in the south, and from the eastern boundary of France to the fatal trench lines of the extreme western front. As chief representative for the Commission, it was my duty to cover this whole territory repeatedly in long motor journeys in company with the German officer assigned for my protection--and for the protection of the German army against any too much seeing. As I had opportunity also to cover most of Belgium in repeated trips from Brussels into the various provinces, I necessarily had opportunity to compare the destruction wrought in the two regions. [Sidenote: Towns untouched by war but ruined.]