sians in East Prussia led to reprisals that not even the strict
discipline of the German army could curb. Not only were the peasants'
homes pounded to bits by the opposing artillery fire, but the armies as
they fought back and forth took all the cattle, horses, and stock that
came to their hands. Disease added to the suffering of the stricken
people.

THOUSANDS OF VILLAGES DESTROYED

Henry Sienkiewicz, the great Polish writer and author of "Quo Vadis," a
refugee in Switzerland, said, on March 15, 1915:

"In the kingdom of Poland alone there are 15,000 villages burned or
damaged; a thousand churches and chapels destroyed. The homeless
villagers have sought shelter in the forests, where it is no
exaggeration to say that women and children are dying from cold and
hunger by thousands daily.

"Poland comprises 127,500 square kilometers. One hundred thousand of
these have been devastated by the battling armies. More than a million
horses and two million head of horned cattle have been seized by the
invaders, and in the whole of the 100,000 square kilometers in the
possession of the soldiers not a grain of corn, not a scrap of meat, nor
a drop of milk remain for the civil population. "The material losses up
to the present are estimated at 1,000,000,000 rubles ($500,000,000). No
fewer than 400,000 workmen have lost their means of livelihood.

"The state of things in Galicia is just as dreadful for the civil
population--innocent victims of the war. Of 75,000 square kilometers all
except 5,000 square kilometers around Cracow are in possession of the
Russians. They commandeered 900,000 horses and about 200,000 head of
horned cattle and seized all the grain, part of the salt fields, and the
oil wells.

"The once rich province is a desert. Over a million inhabitants
have sought refuge in other parts of Austria, and they are in sheer
destitution."

Truly, "War is hell!"

RELIEF FOR BELGIAN SUFFERERS

Following the invasion and over-running of Belgium by the Germans, the
problem of feeding the Belgian population became an urgent one. The
invaders left the problem largely to the charitable sympathies of the
civilized world, and from almost every quarter of the globe aid was sent
in money or provisions for the stricken people. In spite of the enormous
war drains upon the resources of the British Empire, every one of the
Overseas Dominions did its full share in Belgian relief, while the
United States, through the Rockefeller