Another man in the crowd took a toy cannon from his pocket, and pointing it at a passing line of soldiers, cried: “Attention! The British are coming!” And to the amazement, I think, of most persons present, he was answered by the troops with a roar of spontaneous laughter. Some scenes presented by the retreat of Germany’s disillusioned and crest-fallen army were pitiful enough to bring tears to the eyes of their bitterest enemies. Often small detachments passed through, not in line, but trudging along as best they could under heavy burdens—probably the sorry remnants of once-proud regiments. These had no commander and evidently no interest save the one fixed purpose to get back to their homes. They carried their belongings either on their backs, or in heavy carts which they dragged along, four or five together straining at the ropes. These cumbrous country carts, probably bought or stolen from peasants, were piled high with bulging knapsacks, boxes, French and English helmets, and other trophies of the battlefield. And, in strange contrast to these, were bits of furniture, coops containing live hens, and often a cow or two tethered behind. Travel-worn peddlers could not have been more indifferent than these men to public observation. Ill-clad and ill-nourished, they gazed straight ahead, hungering for their wives and children; taking as little interest in the revolution as they did in the Kaiser; trying to forget what they had gone through—plodding along like animals, without hope of reward or acclamation for all they had courageously endured. I saw one soldier, an elderly man whose uniform was almost in tatters, and his boots so worn they must have been painful to walk in, trudging alone along one of the main boulevards, leading a very small donkey attached to a cart in which were the treasures he was taking home. On top of all was a wooden cage containing live rabbits. He paid no attention to the amusement his appearance aroused in the onlookers, and, appearing to have forgotten he had ever pertained to a regiment, saw nothing but the long way ahead, toward the goal of his one absorbing desire—_Heimat_! Later on, the troops strode through in regimental order under command of revolutionary leaders, but bearing, even then, little resemblance to the brilliant legions that had marched so haughtily through Brussels on the 20th of August 1914. The great monster had even then met its master on the banks of the Marne; but it refused to recognize the fact, or sacrifice Imperial pride in order to save the brave sons of the then prosperous nation: it threw palpitating, living hearts of those sons to the cannon, until a latent human instinct of self-preservation was awakened in them. Then those who survived understood, at last, that their real enemy was not behind those determined and avenging guns; but at home, seated upon the throne of despotism.