General Wood’s position was terribly difficult. His army, encamped half way between Trenton and Westfield, had been increased to 75,000 men; but 50,000 of these from the militia were sadly lacking in arms and organisation, and 5,000 were raw recruits whose first army work had been done within the month. He had 20,000 regulars, not half of whom had ever seen active warfare. And against these von Hindenburg was advancing with 125,000 veterans who had campaigned together in France and who were equipped with the best fighting outfit in the world! It would have been madness for the American commander to divide his outclassed forces; and yet, if he did not divide them, von Kluck’s army would sweep over New England without resistance. In this cruel dilemma, General Wood decided--with the approval of the President--to make a stand against von Hindenburg and save Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, if he could, and to leave New England to its fate. At this critical moment I was instructed by my paper to accompany a raiding expedition sent by General von Hindenburg into northern New Jersey, with the object of capturing the Picatinny arsenal near Dover; and this occupied me for several days, during which General von Kluck’s army, unresisted, had marched into Connecticut up to a line reaching from beyond Bridgeport to Danbury to Washington, and had occupied New Rochelle, Greenwich, Stamford, South Norwalk, and Bridgeport. The Germans advanced about fifteen miles a day, living off the country, and carefully repairing any injuries to the railways, so that men and supplies from their Long Island base could quickly follow them. On June 10, when I rejoined General von Kluck’s staff (to which I had been assigned), I found that he was accompanied by the Crown Prince and the venerable Count Zeppelin, both of whom seemed more interested in this New England occupation than in the activities of von Hindenburg’s army. They realised, it appears, the great importance of controlling the industrial resources, the factories and machine-shops of Connecticut and Massachusetts. It was this interest, I may add, that led to the first bloodshed on Connecticut soil. Thus far not a shot had been fired by the invaders, who had been received everywhere by sullen but submissive crowds. Only a small part of the population had fled to the north and east, and the activities of occupied towns and cities went on very much as usual under German orders and German organisation. The horrible fate of Brooklyn, the wreck of the Woolworth and Singer buildings were known everywhere; and if New York City, the great metropolis, had been forced to meek surrender by the invaders, what hope was there for Stamford and Bridgeport and South Norwalk?