I could understand why certain towns and villages along the Meuse and along the lines of the French and English retreat were badly shot to pieces. There had been fighting in these towns and the artillery of first one side and then the other had worked their havoc among the houses of the inhabitants. But there were many towns in which there had been no fighting and yet all too many of these towns also were in ruins. It was not ruin by shells, but ruin by fire and explosions. There were the famous "punished" towns. Either a citizen or perhaps two or three citizens had fired from a window on the invaders--or were alleged to have. Thereupon a block, or two or three blocks, or half the town was methodically and effectively burned or blown to pieces. There are many of these "punished" towns in occupied France. And between these towns and along the roadways are innumerable isolated single farm houses that are also in ruins. It is not claimed that there was any sniping from these farmhouses. They were just destroyed along the way--and by the way, one may say. When the roll of destroyed villages and destroyed farmhouses in occupied France is made known, the world will be shocked again by this evidence of German thoroughness. [Sidenote: Heartlessness of German rule.] The rigor of the control over the inhabitants of the occupied French territory is almost inconceivable. The lines delimiting the regions occupied by the various distinct German armies are lines of impassable steel for the inhabitants. If a member of the family in one town was visiting friends or relatives in another town a few kilometers away at the time of the outbreak of the war that family has remained separated through all the long months that have since elapsed. No messages can pass except by dangerous subterranean ways from town to town. [Sidenote: False receipts for requisitioned property.]