et at the same spot, it will be seen Termonde
was an important centre, and that it must have been a wealthy town.
The Dendre runs right through the centre of the town to the point
where it joins the Scheldt, and on each side runs a long stone quay
planted with trees, with old-fashioned houses facing the river. With
the little wooden bridges and the barges on the river it must have
been a very pretty picture. Now it was little better than a heap of
ruins.

The destruction of the town was extraordinarily complete, and
evidently carefully organized. The whole thing had been arranged
beforehand at headquarters, and these particular troops supplied with
special incendiary apparatus. There is strong evidence to show that
the destruction of Louvain, Termonde, and of several smaller towns,
was all part of a definite plan of "frightfulness," the real object
being to terrorize Holland and Denmark, and to prevent any
possibility of their joining with the Allies. It is strictly scientific
warfare, it produces a strictly scientific hell upon this world,
and I think that one may have every reasonable hope that it
leads to a strictly scientific hell in the next. After a town has
been shelled, its occupants driven out, and its buildings to a
large extent broken down, the soldiers enter, each provided
with a number of incendiary bombs, filled with a very inflammable
compound. They set light to these and throw them into
the houses, and in a very few minutes each house is blazing. In half
an hour the town is a roaring furnace, and by the next day nothing is
left but the bare walls. And that is almost all that there was left of
Termonde. We walked along the quay beside a row of charred and
blackened ruins, a twisted iron bedstead or a battered lamp being all
there was to tell of the homes which these had been. A few houses
were still standing untouched, and on the door of each of these was
scrawled in chalk the inscription:

"GUTE LEUTE,
NICHT ANZUNDEN,
BREITFUSS, Lt."

One wondered at what cost the approval of Lieutenant Breitfuss had
been obtained. His request to the soldiers not to set fire to the houses
of these "good people" had been respected, but I think that if the
Belgians ever return to Termonde those houses are likely to be
empty. There are things worse than having your house burnt down,
and one would be to win the approval of Lieutenant Breitfuss.

We crossed the Dendre and wandered up the town towards th