The city appeared as if a typhoon had passed through it. Its wide asphalt and macadamized streets, fronted by beautiful four- and five-story buildings of German architecture, were vacant. Giant shells, some three feet long and a foot in diameter, were lying about on sidewalk and street still unexploded. Trees, splintered at their bases, lay toppled over in the avenues. Windows in the houses were shattered, while gaunt holes in the sides of buildings, where shells had torn their way, made the residence blocks appear to be gasping for air. Out in the harbor could be seen the spars of the _Rickmers_ and two or three other German freighters, which had been sunk at the opening of hostilities about the city, while farther out in the channel was the grave of the Austrian cruiser, _Kaiserin Elisabeth_, which had been sunk by the Germans. The whole scene seemed one of devastation. Streets deserted of people, show-fronts of stores completely gone, as was also the merchandise, harbors deserted of ships, and not even a sign of a ricksha to remind you of the Orient. Such was Tsingtau as I first saw it two days after its surrender. But for the continual sight of the Rising Sun flag flapping from every peak in the rear of the city, as well as from every Government building, and its message of "occupied," one would have thought Tsingtau a city deserted. WITH MY REGIMENT--BRITONS ON THE FIELD OF HONOR _Fighting from the Aisne to La Bassée_ _Told by a "Platoon Commander"_ This is the inspiring story of a typical British soldier. "I was staying in a large house by the banks of the Thames when we heard the news of the War," he relates. "My hostess was the mother of soldiers. She took the news calmly, as the mother of soldiers do; said good-bye to her eldest boy, who was to go with the first troops who left England, arranged for the outfit of her two second sons, and sent for her baby from Eton, who she saw dispatched to the Royal Military College. It was a great house to be in on the outbreak of War--a house whose sons to the third and fourth generation had built up the British Empire, and which now, when the Empire was called upon to fight for its life, stood firm and undismayed." This platoon commander tells his experiences in a book entitled "With My Regiment." Many of his stories have appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_, _The English Review_, and _The London Standard_. Some of them are reproduced here by permission of his American publishers, _J. B. Lippincott Company_, of Philadelphia. I--STORY OF THE OLD WOMAN AT THE AISNE