The Occupied Areas have suffered the least of any in Germany. Yet even in this relatively favoured land the state of affairs is bad enough. In Bonn, for some reason, things seem to have been worse than in Cologne. I shall never forget the feeling of utter helplessness with which I saw a group of rickety-looking Bonn children staring hungrily into the windows of a chocolate shop. We took them in and gave them sweets; there were no cakes or buns to be had, and bread is rationed. Poor children, they gathered round us in a state of frantic excitement when we produced slabs of chocolate. The fatuity of our own action was miserably apparent. For these children were only typical of hundreds of thousands of cases all over Europe, and even so their circumstances were far better than what obtains in many other countries. Children, of course, cannot grow up and be healthy without milk, and milk is unobtainable in the towns. The municipality doles out a limited supply to invalids, nursing mothers, and babies, but children above a certain age never see fresh milk, and tinned milk is too expensive a luxury to figure in the daily dietary of the working-classes. Most German children have nothing but “ersatz” coffee to drink in its unqualified nastiness. The distribution of food on fair lines has proved a great failure in Germany, and the prolonged malnourishment of the children is likely to have consequences of the gravest character. A shattered house, a ruined village tell their own very obvious tale. Physical deterioration is a subtle thing far less easy to recognize or to estimate. It is only little by little that one realises the state of affairs produced by the blockade and the degree to which the morale of the whole nation has been undermined by starvation. It is true that the Germans cling desperately to what sorry comfort they can derive from the theory that their armies in the field were never defeated--that they were brought down at the last by hunger. They still assure you their armies were magnificent--never were there such soldiers. But towards the end rations failed, and morale broke through stories of starvation at home. “We had not plenty of bully beef like you,” said a German soldier to us; “you did not get letters saying your wife and children had nothing to eat. We could have gone on fighting if we had had food.” He spoke with that curious lack of resentment which is a constant puzzle among these people. Consistent and growing hunger spread over a term of years is not a pleasant experience. Germany, unlike France, has been spared the horrors of the invader on her soil. But no mistake could be greater than to imagine that the war she provoked has proved a frolic for her, while all the rest of the world suffered.