What has struck me particularly about the German trenches I have been in is the extraordinary collection of objects of all kinds that the men have accumulated there. The German soldier resembles the magpie in his pilfering and hoarding habits. Psychologists must explain the mental state of a man who will go into action with articles of ladies’ underwear in his haversack, or who will take ladies’ boots, a feather boa, or a plush-covered photograph-album with him into the trenches. Their predilection for looting ladies’ _lingerie_ gave rise to a legend which in its numerous versions resembles the story of the Russians or the Bowmen of Mons. This story, which was generally current after Neuve Chapelle, was to the effect that the infantry on entering the village had found some girls, half demented with fright, hiding in a cellar. The theory was that they had been carried off by the German troops for their own base uses. When going round the battalions collecting material for the story of Neuve Chapelle which I was writing--it was the first newspaper message of the kind to be written from the British front in France in this war--I came upon this tale of the women of Neuve Chapelle in every imaginable form. Now the victims were peasant women, now they were beautifully dressed _demimondaines_ from Lille, or, again, they were little more than children. Finally I reached the Rifle Brigade, the regiment that was first to enter the village, and heard the truth. In one of the cellars in which some German officers had been living a quantity of ladies’ undergarments were found. The sight of these lying on the ground outside the cellar apparently gave rise to a story that was firmly believed at the time right through the army. I saw these German trenches at Neuve Chapelle within ten days of the battle. They showed many grim traces of the fighting in the shape of dismembered bodies, blood-stained parts of uniform, and discarded equipment. I must say I was surprised to find that the trenches were extremely filthy. The straw in the dug-outs was old and malodorous, and must have been crawling with vermin. I believe that the plague of lice from which everybody in the trenches, be he never so cleanly in his personal habit, suffers more or less, was introduced by the German soldiers who had been brought from Poland, notoriously the most vermin-ridden country in the world. There were an extraordinary number of letters, documents, books, and newspapers scattered about. In some places the flooring of the trench disappeared under the litter. Our Intelligence must have spent weeks in going over this material. Such labours are well expended, however. Has not Von der Goltz himself, in his book on War, told us of the value of such captures of letters and documents to the Intelligence branch of the army?