The mention of devastated areas conjures a picture of the kind of destruction that happened in France. But in Poland the problem of devastation is quite different. It is almost true to say that the whole of Poland is devastated. In France the destruction was intensely concentrated in a narrow belt of country where battles were fought. In Poland, with its tremendous distances, the depth of devastation is rarely less at any point than two hundred miles. If in the summer of 1920 a Polish soldier had started from Warsaw in the defence against the Bolshevist invasion, had fought his way to Kiev, had fallen back in the retreat to Warsaw and, after the Polish victory, had again advanced to the present Polish front-line, he would have marched over a thousand miles in the space of four months. We set out on a misty morning to cover the hundred and fifty kilometres which lie between the ruined city of Brest-Litovsk and the nearest town of Kovel. The road runs straight as a pencilled line across the sullen landscape. In all that stretch of country there is scarcely a sign of cultivation. The fields have become a wilderness, the rivers have overflowed and the whole is a barren swamp. The desolation was begun in 1915 when the Russians retreated before the Germans, driving the civilian population behind them, seizing the cattle and harrying with fire and with dynamite. They destroyed all the post-houses, which made communications possible, and blew up all the bridges. Then came the German occupation and the establishment of the Russo-German trench-systems forty kilometres to the east of Kovel. Whatever had been overlooked by the retreating Russians was picked clean by the advancing German armies. Until the Armistice this occupation lasted. When the Poles regained their freedom, the peasants who had been refugees during all this period, began to come back. They Had no sooner settled than the Bolshevists' assaults commenced, sweeping clean across this same stretch of tillage to the very gates of Warsaw. As you travel the bleak road between Brest-Litovsk and Kovel, every sight is eloquent of the misery that has been wrought. The route is marked by grave-yards and solitary crosses. Some are merely scratched on trees, the burial was so hurried. All surrounding is a brooding silence. One comes to clusters of houses, crouched beneath the weight of sky. Their roofs have collapsed; their walls are charred. Tenanting these ruins are gaunt human beings who hurry out of sight like pariahs. Sometimes we met them struggling along the road on purposeless journeys. They wore no shoes; their feet were swathed in sodden rags. They had a hunted look and gave us a wide berth as though they feared our cruelty. Many of the travellers were children, with gray faces and hunted eyes.