Observers at long-distance that are neutral sometimes fail to see fundamentals in the present conflict, and talk of "negotiations" between right and wrong. It is easy for people who have not suffered to be tolerant toward wrongdoing. This war is a long war because of German methods of frightfulness. These practices have bred an enduring will to conquer in Frenchman and Briton and Belgian which will not pause till victory is thorough. Because the German military power has sinned against women and children, it will be fought with till it is overthrown. I wish to make clear this determination of the Allies. They hate the army of Aerschot and Lorraine as a mother hates the defiler of her child. There are two wars on the Western Front. One is the war of aggression. It was led up to by years of treachery. It was consummated in frightfulness. It is warfare by machine. Of that war, as carried on by the "Conquerors," the first half of this book tells. On points that have been in dispute since the outbreak, I am able to say "I saw." When the Army of Invasion fell on the little people, I witnessed the signs of its passage as it wrote them by flame and bayonet on peasant homes and peasant bodies. In the second half of the book, I have tried to tell of a people's uprising--the fight of the living spirit against the war-machine. A righteous defensive war, such as Belgium and France are waging, does not brutalize the nation. It reveals a beauty of sacrifice which makes common men into "golden lads." Was this struggle forced on an unwilling Germany, or was she the aggressor? I believe we have the answer of history in such evidences as I have seen of her patient ancient spy system that honeycombed Belgium. Is she waging a "holy war," ringed around by jealous foes? I believe we have the final answer in such atrocities as I witnessed. A hideous officially ordered method is proof of unrighteousness in the cause itself. Are you indicting a nation? No, only a military system that ordered the slow sapping of friendly neighboring powers. Only the host of "tourists," clerks, waiters, gentlemanly officers, that betrayed the hospitality of people of good will. Only an army that practised mutilation and murder on children, and mothers, and old people,--and that carried it through coldly, systematically, with admirable discipline. I believe there are multitudes of common soldiers who are sorry that they have outraged the helpless. An army of half a million men will return to the home-land with very bitter memories. Many a simple German of this generation will be unable to look into the face of his own child without remembering some tiny peasant face of pain--the child whom he bayoneted, or whom he saw his comrade bayonet, having failed to put his body between the little one and death. TABLE OF CONTENTS THE CONQUERORS