"After more than four years of a terrible war without example in the history of the world, the Belgians deprived of their freedom and rights during all that time have the immense joy of seeing again the sun of liberty shining bright and joyful over their heads. To tell you what a boundless feeling of happiness and gratitude we have now in our hearts is impossible for us to do in some words. We are like slaves whose fetters would fall down all of a sudden, like birds kept for long years in a dull cage and which unexpectedly could fly freely again in the open air of a nice spring day. Our hearts sing merrily, our souls are transported with joy and hope. On this memorable day where you bring us freedom, we turn away from the hard and unjust past to look forward with hope to the future. But if we are so to say mad for joy, our hearts are large enough to make room for another feeling as sincere and powerful as our happiness--our gratefulness to all our Allied friends. Yes, to you all which have helped us to reconquer our liberty, to you all which have given your blood for a destruction of a system of oppression, violence and brutality which threatened the world, we are immensely obliged. We are full of admiration for the great exploits of your armies; their courage, their spirit of self-sacrifice, their perseverance in the duty are for us external signs of the inner forces which animate them; passion for independence, justice and liberty. We are proud indeed to have as friends and Allies men of such a noble character. "In the name of the Civil Authorities of the village of Thy-le-Chateau I am proud and glad to have the privilege of greeting you heartily. "Hurrah for the English people and their valiant armies. "Hurrah for our brave Allies. Hurrah." 24th. Gerpinnes. 25th. Ermetont. The 310th Brigade on this occasion were billeted _en masse_ in the Abbey of Maredsous, where they were entertained most hospitably by the Benedictine Monks. The Prior and eight of the monks had only just got back from serving two years' imprisonment with hard labour in Germany. This savage punishment was inflicted on them for having given a few days' shelter to a wounded British soldier. 27th. A long march through Dinant, where we crossed the Meuse, to the Thynne area, where we had a long and rather tedious halt. The headquarters billet was in a most picturesque chateau situated in a deep hollow surrounded by rugged hills, on the road from Dinant to Lisangues. The owner was the widow of a retired French General. She told me that when the Germans were occupying her chateau, at the time of the Dinant atrocities, they treated her and her husband, an old man over eighty, with the greatest roughness. Finally they told the old couple one day that if any further act of hostility were committed by the surrounding villagers, _they_ would both be shot. The next day the old General fell dead of heart disease. [Sidenote: Dec. 1918.]