In 1916 the potato crop of Germany was a failure--but the turnip crop was enormous. So turnips were substituted largely for potatoes, and for many other kinds of food as well. Even marmalade and coffee substitutes were made from them, and turnip meal was mixed in the already too coarse and too much mixed flour. The Germans will never forget that terrible _kohl-rüben zeit_, or turnip time, of late 1916 and early 1917. And it was just after this time that the effects of Germany's great food difficulties began to show in a really serious way; they began to undermine the strength and health of the people. Those diseases like tuberculosis, which can rest in incipient or suppressed form for years without becoming serious as long as the body is well nourished, began to develop rapidly and dangerously. The birth rate decreased and the death rate increased. The physical and mental and moral tone of the whole nation dropped. THE SUGAR SHORTAGE Belgium and Germany illustrate a special food situation created by the war, namely, one in which a country, which relied on outside sources for a greater or lesser part of its food needs, had access to these sources suddenly and almost completely shut off. But grave food problems also confronted the countries which were not blockaded in so specific a way. England and France, with full access to all the great food-producing lands overseas (except to the extent that the submarines reduced this freedom of access), nevertheless had food problems hardly less serious than those of the more strictly blockaded countries. Their difficulties arose primarily from the fact that there was only so much shipping in the world and that the war conditions created suddenly a need for much more shipping than existed. The transference of large numbers of troops with their necessary equipment and munitions from the distant colonies to the European seat of fighting, and of other numbers from the mother countries to extra-European battlegrounds, made great demands on the shipping available to these nations. At the same time, the reduction of their native production increased largely their needs of food importations.