l. It
is written in ink on half a sheet of thin notepaper. There is no date
and no place. It probably was written on the eve of battle in the hope
that it would reach its destination if the writer died. This is the
translation:

"'Sweetheart: Fate in this present war has treated us more cruelly than
many others. If I have not lived to create for you the happiness of
which both our hearts dreamed, remember my sole wish now is that you
should be happy. Forget me and create for yourself some happy home that
may restore to you some of the greater pleasures of life. For myself, I
shall have died happy in the thought of your love. My last thought has
been for you and for those I leave at home. Accept this, the last kiss
from him who loved you.'

"Postcards from fathers with blessings to their gallant sons I found,
too, on the field, little mementos of people and of places carried by
men as mascots. Everywhere were broken lances of German and Belgian,
side by side; scabbards and helmets, saddles and guns. These the
peasants were collecting in a pile, to be removed by the military.
High up over the graves of twelve hundred, as we stood there, a German
biplane came and went, hovering like a carrion crow, seeking other
victims for death.

"In the village itself death is still busy. A wounded German died as we
stood by his side and a Belgian soldier placed his handkerchief over his
face. Soldiers who filled the little market-place may be fighting for
life now as I write. The enemy is in force not a mile away from them,
and in a moment they may be attacked. It is significant that all German
prisoners believed they were in France. The deception, it appears, was
necessary to encourage them in their attack, and twelve hundred dead
in the harrowed field died without knowing whom or what they were
fighting."

THOUGHT THEY WERE IN FRANCE

A number of German prisoners were taken by the Belgians during the
fighting at Haelen-Diest. From these it was learned that the German
soldiers really believed they were fighting in France. At Diest it is
said that 400 surrendered the moment they lost their officers and were
surprised to learn that they were in Belgium.

King Albert of Belgium was constantly in the field during the early
engagements of the war, moving from point to point inside the Belgian
lines by means of a high-powered automobile, in which he was slightly
wounded by the explosion of a shell. He was thus enabled to keep in
to