Coblenz, which we reached in due course, is a shabby city magnificently situated at the junction of the Rhine and the Mosel. No town in the Rhineland lies so nobly, overlooked as it is by the great rock of Ehrenbreitstein. The river front of Coblenz is second to none in the whole course of the stream. Yet the town itself is cramped and curiously dirty for a German city. It gives the impression of a poor place which has dropped behindhand in the race. Even the American occupation and the presence of the Rhineland High Commission have not galvanised it into life. Since the ratification of peace the Rhineland High Commission, one of the costly bodies set up by the Treaty, is technically the governing authority in occupied Germany. England, France, and Belgium are all represented on it, but by one of the ironies of the situation, though the Commission has its headquarters at Coblenz in the American area, America, being independent of the Peace Treaty, holds aloof. The wish to provide Germany with a civilian administration was no doubt excellent in theory, but the Germans are somewhat puzzled by the anomalous position of a body of this character alongside armies of occupation, and still more suspicious as to the flavour of permanence which civilian administration suggests. The Commission produces large numbers of ordinances, of which it is very proud, but it is not paper regulations, however excellent, but the power to enforce them which matters in a country under military occupation. That power rests not with the Rhineland High Commission, but with the armies. To the armies the Commission must turn when it wants anything done.