How many soldiers would it take to enforce the regulation that no Belgian was to wear the Belgian colours? Imagine thousands and thousands of Landsturm men moving about and plucking King Albert’s face or the black, yellow and red from Belgian buttonholes! No sooner would a buttonhole be cleared in front than the emblem would appear in a buttonhole in the rear. The Landsturm would face counter, flank, frontal, and rear attacks in a most amusing military manœuvre, which would put those middle-aged conquerors fearfully out of breath and be rare sport for the Belgians. You could not arrest the whole population and lead them off to jail; and if you bayoneted a few--which really those phlegmatic, comfortable old Landsturms would not have the heart to do for such a little thing--why, it would get into the American press and the Berlin Foreign Office would say: “There you are, you soldiers, breaking all the crockery again!” In the smaller towns, where the Germans were billeted in Belgian houses, of course the hosts had to serve their unwelcome guests. “Yet we managed to let them know what was in our hearts,” said one woman. “Some tried to be friendly. They said they had wives and children at home; and we said: ‘How glad your wives and children would be to see you! Why don’t you go home?’” When a report reached the commander in Ghent that an old man had concealed arms, a sergeant with a guard was sent to search the house. “Yes, my son has a rifle.” “Where is it?” “In his hands on the Yser, if he is not dead, monsieur. You are welcome to search, monsieur.” Belgium was developing a new humour: a humour at the expense of the Germans. In their homes they mimicked their rulers as freely as they pleased. To carry mimicry into the streets meant arrest for the elders, but not always for the children. You have heard the story, which is true, of how some gamins put carrots in old bowler hats to represent the spikes of German helmets, and at their leader’s command of “On to Paris!” did a goose-step backwards. There is another which you may not have heard of a small boy who put on grandfather’s spectacles, a pillow under his coat, and a card on his cap, “Officer of the Landsturm.” The conquerors had enough sense not to interfere with the battalion which was taking Paris; but the pseudo-Landsturm officer was chased into a doorway and got a cuff after his placard was taken away from him. When a united public opinion faces bayonets it is not altogether helpless to reply. By the atmospheric force of mass it enjoys a conquest of its own. If a German officer or soldier entered a street car, women drew aside in a way to indicate that they did not want their garments contaminated. People walked by the sentries in the streets giving them room as you would give a mangy dog room, yet as if they did not see the sentries; as if no sentries existed.