as possible; they helped to put out fires and to restore quiet and order
amongst the civilians.

At Maubeuge I met with a similar state of affairs, though I came to this
town to find that my father, one of the citizens, had only the day
before come out of prison, where the Germans had kept him for 28 days;
on a false charge of trying to incite the inhabitants of Maubeuge
against the Germans, he and two other men had been arrested. According
to their own account the three of them were given a very fair trial and
were acquitted. My father did not in any way complain of the treatment
he had met with.

I must admit, however, that the three prisoners did not all speak of
their adventure in the same spirit. My father, always quiet and
cool-headed by nature, resolved to make the best of a bad job, and
having obtained paper and ink, wrote about half of a book whilst in
prison. He found the food wholesome, though not always plentiful, and
asked my mother after his release, to make him a pea soup like that he
had had in his cell. The other two, however, one a mere lad, the other
an old-maidish man of 50, complained bitterly of the food and other
things. While narrating his part of the story the middle-aged man turned
to me exclaiming: "Why, your father, no one would believe that he is a
good bit over 60. He took it all so quietly, just as if he were still a
young man!"

I could not but infer from this that in times of such great crisis and
passion a man over there in the invaded parts is often treated by "the
enemy" according to the way in which he himself behaves towards the
so-called "enemy." Coolness of head and courtesy on the one side more
often than not met with the same qualities on the other side.

I suspect it was this, that, after the trial of the three, caused the
President of the Court to apologise to my father, who had proved himself
a man, but not to think of doing so to the two other prisoners, who had
been more sheepish than human.

On the average, the relations between the Germans and the inhabitants,
from stories I have heard and facts I have witnessed, might roughly be
summed up in the following statement:

Arrogance, temper, haughtiness on the one side, provoke arrogance,
temper and haughtiness on the other; while quietness and coolness of one
party inspire the other with the same quietness and moderation. Provided
we bear in mind that it takes less to provoke the victor than to provoke
the vanquished