Heart-rending pictures were given of fair towns destroyed in the valley of the Somme; of their homeless and perishing inhabitants; of beautiful historic edifices wrecked by the “folly of the French bombarding their own cities”—those centres of a hostile Power that had not hesitated to commit any outrage in its vainglorious and frantic rush for Paris! No murmur of regret had escaped the success-intoxicated legions who advanced, with comparative ease, from the ruins of innocent Belgian towns, leaving devastation and despair behind them! No pang of remorse then made them hesitate to slaughter guiltless citizens, and bury them in heaps, sometimes before life was extinct, or to crucify their first British prisoners—a fact I was later assured was true, by an English soldier who had seen the bodies! But now that the avenging armies, overcoming obstacles such as the Germans never had to face, were uprooting them from the strongholds prepared during four years, the despotic song of victory through frightfulness suddenly became a whine of compassion, a childish and stupid wail for peace! No outsider could have been more infuriated at this than those in Brussels who had suffered under the despot’s hand and witnessed the vileness of his deeds. Again and again long articles appeared in our papers, trying to induce the cold and famished Belgians to add their impotent appeal for a cessation of hostilities, and to impress them with the suddenly developed Christian spirit of Germany! This failing, an attempt was made at terrorization. Photographs of ruined towns in France were exhibited, showing the homeless inhabitants flying for their lives. The papers gave highly coloured accounts of the general destruction, misery, and horror on the scene of each battle, as the price of every step in advance made by the Allies. The same fate was predicted for Belgium, should the unlikely happen, and the invincible German forces find it expedient to retire to one of their many well-prepared strongholds in that country. (The prospect of a German defeat was represented as too improbable to deserve contemplation.) At one time an account appeared describing the inevitable destruction of Brussels, should the Germans ever be driven back on it. In such a case, it was stated officially, Brussels was to be “the bouquet of the whole war.” Added to all this, quotations equally disheartening were printed from English papers. One, purporting to be from _The New Statesman_, was given on 2nd October as follows: “The Germans will certainly draw back their front to rectify it. But at a very short distance behind, they possess lines that form a solid base and, if able to hold it, they will not have lost more territory than they occupied at the beginning of 1918. And even supposing Douai and Cambrai should be lost to them, the experience of years must guard us against exaggerated optimism.” “Above all,” it finishes, “one can reasonably affirm that Hindenburg and Ludendorf