The two German officers who acted as my guides tried to impress upon me that the camp was a model one and that everything was done for the prisoners which they had a right to expect. It seemed to me very much less desirable than the prison for French soldiers which I had previously inspected at Zossen. Some specific things which the French possessed and the British lacked were overcoats, bunks, ample food, work, recreation, blankets, and the opportunity for exercise, and it should be remembered in extenuation of German prison camps in general--if extenuation is deemed necessary--that besides interned civilians, Germany has now nearly seven hundred thousand prisoners of war to house and feed. _February 14th._ After brief visits to Holland, France, and England I last night boarded the steamship Lusitania at Liverpool and sailed for that land of skyscrapers, electric signs, and telephones--the land which has been called "opulent, aggressive, and unprepared." CONCLUSION It would be a sin of omission for me to neglect to sound again that oft-repeated warning against the dangers of military unpreparedness, which has been so vainly sounded since the birth of our nation by every American, great or small, who has known or seen anything of actual war conditions. Is it idle to hope that the warnings to be deduced from the current histories of other nations will be heeded by a nation which has ever disregarded the lessons of its own history? APPENDIX MISCELLANEOUS MILITARY OBSERVATIONS MADE BY THE AUTHOR DURING THE SEVEN MONTHS RECORDED IN THIS BOOK The best maps with which to follow and study the war in France, Flanders, and Belgium are those of the French Automobile Club, called "Cartes Routières pour Automobiles," published by A. Taride, 18 Boulevard Saint-Denis, Paris. The war has been largely fought and directed by the use of these maps, which are on the scale prescribed by the French General Staff--about three and one-half miles to the inch. They show every road and lane, every town and village in France. The war areas are contained in numbers 1, ibis, 2, 3, 6, and 7. Those most referred to in this book are 3 and 7. CASUALTIES The total losses of the various belligerents in killed, wounded, and captured for the first six months of the war, from August 1st to February 1st, are as follows: British 140,000 French 1,450,000 Russians 2,050,000 Austro-Hungarians 950,000 Germans 1,500,000 * * * * * The approximate ratio of deaths to total casualties is as follows: German, 2 deaths to 9 casualties. French, 2 deaths to 7 casualties. (The large proportion of French deaths was due: First, to the fact that in the early part of the war most actions were German victories, and the Germans could not care for French wounded as well as they did for their own;