Since I was well acquainted with the German language, I was assigned the special task of questioning the prisoners and of translating such documents and diaries as were often enough found upon them. The work was interesting and gave me a clear conception of the terrible and disastrous condition of our lands after the invasion of the enemy. While reading or listening to the account of some especially frightful deed, I often asked myself whether, if those of our soldiers who knew not how to lay down their lives for their country to keep the enemy from violating their lands, had known some of the facts I know, they would not have found strength enough to resist. Ought not the Italian soldiers, who during the terrible days of October were compelled to abandon the villages which they had won, for which they had suffered and fought, know what became of those regions and their people, after their departure? Had not the inhabitants placed implicit faith in the ability of the soldiers to resist; looking upon them as protecting brothers? Yet later, these same soldiers were compelled to abandon to the enemy, one by one, these very towns and villages, whose terrorized inhabitants were then compelled to fly, so relinquishing the uttermost of their possessions to the mercy of the invader. Among the many documents which passed through my hands were not lacking some of considerable importance. I see before me a letter, found in the pocket of a subaltern officer of the Fourth German Army, which he had not had time to dispatch. In part the letter read: “Dear Friend: “After a painful time, the good Lord God gave us wings and, from the icy and snowy caves, has transported us into a magnificent country. We were half-dead, but now we are beginning to resuscitate. This is a splendid country. There is everything one wants; food and drink enough for all to choke on, rice and coffee in abundance and enough red wine to bathe in.” Another letter found on a German prisoner reads: “We are living like princes, we have food and drink, and may it always continue thus! If only I could send some to my family in Berlin. But there is not room for much in our packs, and furthermore, one would have to carry it for days along mountainous roads a distance of about thirty-five or forty kilometers. Right now we have before us a whole cheese, round and large as a cart wheel, and we don’t know what to do with it. No one is hungry, yet the cheese is good.” Such acknowledgments filled me with rage. Those who yesterday were hungry are now full and they have filled themselves by stealing from our homes! The many documents which passed through my hands demonstrated how extensive were the requisitions of the Germans who robbed the poor peasants of the things they needed most. From the notebook of a Czech officer, a deserter, under date of November 15, 1917, I read: