e.
And before them all the King created a new order, without ribbon or
button or medal, and made Hoover its only member. He was simply but
solemnly ordained "Citizen of the Belgian Nation, and Friend of the
Belgian People."

I have spoken only of Belgium. But of the ten million in the occupied
regions for whom Hoover waged his fight against starvation, two and a
half million were in occupied France. Over in that territory things were
harder both for natives and Americans than in Belgium. Under the
rigorous control of a brutal and suspicious operating army both French
and Americans worked under the most difficult conditions that could be
imposed and yet allow the relief to go on at all.

The French population, too, was an especially helpless one, for all the
men of military age and qualifications had gone out as the Germans came
in. They had time and opportunity to do this; the Belgians had not. Each
American was under the special care--and eyes--of a German escort
officer. He could only move with him at his side, could only talk to the
French committees with his gray-uniformed companion in hearing. He had
his meals at the same table, slept in his quarters. The chief
representative of the Commission in occupied France had to live at the
Great German Headquarters at Charleville on the Meuse. I spent an
extraordinary four months there. It is all a dream now but it was, at
the time, a reality which no imagination could equal. The Kaiser on his
frequent visits, the gray-headed chiefs of the terrible great German
military machine, the _schneidige_ younger officers, were all so
confident and insolent and so regardless, in those early days of
success, of however much of the world might be against them. One night
my officer said at dinner: "Portugal came in today. Will it be the
United States tomorrow? Well, come on; it's all the same to us." When
the United States did come in we Americans were no longer at
Headquarters, so what my officer said then I do not know. But I am sure
that it was not all the same to him.

And so the untellable relief of Belgium and Northeast France went on
with its myriad of heart-breaks and heart-thrills following quickly on
each other's heels, its highly elaborated system of organization, its
successful machinery of control and distribution, and all, all
centering and depending primarily on one man's vision and heart and
genius. He had faithful helpers, capable coadjutors. One cannot make
compari