In the midst of the discouragement caused by the news from Italy, the new copper raid took place, and an _avis_ appeared requisitioning all dogs above forty centimetres in height. This _affiche_ appeared soon after a tax of forty francs on every dog had been announced—a tax resisted by the Belgian police, who refused to supply the authorities with information as to dog owners. It was said, and the bicycle affair gave weight to the supposition, that the demand for dogs was merely a preliminary to exacting the tax. At any rate, the requisition was either vengeance for opposition, or a means of learning who had dogs; for the matter eventually died out, after causing a panic of grief and the painless slaughtering of many pets, in order to save them from ill-treatment by the army. I went to a vet. for this purpose, and there saw a man of middle age openly weeping, and with him his one remaining home companion—since his wife was dead, and a son lost in battle—a soft-eyed, beautiful Groenendael. Even in the streets women were sobbing, and what occurred in the houses where dogs were cherished, I can only imagine by the distress reigning in ours. Some time later, another _affiche_ announced that only dogs under four years old would be taken—a correction which came too late, for many hundreds of persons had already sacrificed their animals. But dogs too old for training would only have been an encumbrance to the army; so, after many worthless dogs had been given up, for a small payment, by those who stole or secured them in other ways, this amendment, which would have spared many a heartache, was tardily published. Our dogs we never declared, and kept in hiding until the matter gradually died down; and so saved them, after many weeks of anxiety and fear, although hundreds were taken day by day. There was some mystery about the whole affair. It can only be explained as another mean scheme for obtaining money, whose failure evoked this method of vengeance, for there was abundance of dogs to be had for army work, without depriving people of their pets. XII Nineteen hundred and eighteen dawned with little suggestion of the brilliant and victorious events it had in store for us. Belgium was at the end of her strength, almost at the end of her courage. Everyone, even the wealthy, was cold for lack of fuel in the midst of an unusually severe winter; many were starving, and no one had _enough_ to eat. There was, also, scarcely any gas to relieve the darkness of early dusk; in some quarters of Brussels no gas at all, and no candles to be had. The weather was abnormally bitter, and winter dragged on relentlessly into the month of March—the BLACK MONTH, when even the bravest hearts were ready to break under the harrowing news of that second German offensive, rushing forward again over all the hard-gained territory across which we had with such eagerness and confidence followed the Allies on the map!