his personal staff alone. As far as one can learn there was no particular pinch in the town until everything was nearly gone, and then conditions became suddenly acute. It is improbable that economy was enforced in the early dispensing of food supplies, and the husbanding of such resources as were at hand. When the crisis came, it fell first upon the unfortunate soldiers, with whom their officers seem to have little in common. Transport horses were killed first, and then the cavalry mounts went to the slaughter house to provide for the garrison. The civilians next felt the pinch of hunger, and every live thing that could nourish the human body was eaten. Cats I am told were selling at ten kr. each and fair-sized dogs at twenty-five kr. The extraordinary part of the story is that according to evidence collected from many sources the officers never even changed their standards of living. While the troops were literally starving in the trenches, the dilettantes from Vienna, who were in command, were taking life easily in the Café Sieber and the Café Elite. Three meals a day, fresh meat, wines, cigarettes and fine cigars were served to them up to the last. One of the haggard starved-looking servants in the hotel where I was quartered told me that several of the staff officers lived at the hotel. “They,” he said, “had everything as usual. Fresh meat and all the luxuries were at their disposal until the last. Yet their soldier servant used to come to me, and one day when I gave him half of a bit of bread I was eating, his hands trembled as he reached to take it from me.” My informant paused and then concluded sardonically, “No, the officers did not suffer. Not they. It was cafés, billiards, dinners and an easy life for them to the end. But the rest of us. Ah, yes, we have suffered. Had the siege lasted another week we should all have been black in the face for want of food.”