It is very difficult to obtain from the German Kommandantur in Belgium permission to travel anywhere past the line of Ghent, Brussels, and Charleroi. The permits are not readily granted even to Germans and Belgians, and a foreigner, whatever his nationality, finds it almost impossible to secure one. The parties of American, Italian, and German journalists taken to visit the trenches and the supposed firing line were really shown only a few places previously arranged. In no case were they allowed to see the things they really wanted to see, nor were they permitted to talk to the population or to the soldiers. If I wished to get near the front I realised that I must find a very convincing pretext. I happened to have some friends, proprietors of large motor works in Tournai, so I managed to obtain a pass for this town, alleging some business transactions as my excuse. From Brussels the train only took me as far as Enghien, from which little town I had to proceed by road in an impossible vehicle pulled by an old horse, so old and worn out that it had escaped German requisition. It must have been a very old horse to escape that. Curiously enough, the part of Belgium I crossed while approaching the German front seemed to have suffered very little. No ruins and no burned houses. Indeed, but for the sentries posted on the road every quarter of a mile, one could have thought the country was at peace. But a few miles before Tournai was reached the country began to assume a warlike appearance. Numerous trenches, which evidently had never been used, and which were filled with ice-covered water, lay ready for an eventual retreat. From this point up to the front there were long lines of trenches at frequent intervals. Before reaching Tournai I passed a military aerodrome, which had been arranged in a large treeless piece of ground near Basècles. Two large Zeppelin shelters and some temporary hangars, capable of holding about ten aeroplanes, had been erected. One of the Zeppelins was just coming back from the direction of Brussels when we passed; two aeroplanes had been taken out in the open air, and a number of soldiers were busy round them. Though Tournai is not very near the front the town is completely occupied by German troops, and is treated as a town in the battle zone. This is because the town occupies a very important position on the River Schelde and because Lille, about twenty kilometres westward is too close to the firing line to permit of its being used as a base. All the bridges on the river are mined, most of the houses have been converted into temporary hospitals for slightly wounded soldiers, and the town is filled with officers and men just back from the trenches.