t November, had the Allies' campaign not ended when
it did. There was a bright sun on all the wide and lovely landscape,
on the shining rivers, the flooded spaces and the old towns, and
magnificent clouds lay piled above the purple Vosges, to the south
and east. We caught up a French division on the march, with long lines
of lorries, artillery wagons, guns and field-kitchens, and as our car
got tangled up with it in passing through the small towns and
villages, we had ample time to notice the behaviour of the
country-folk, and the reception given to the troops. Nothing, it
seemed to me, could have been warmer and more spontaneous, especially
as soon as we crossed the boundary of Alsace. The women came running
out to their door-steps, the children formed a tumultuous escort, men
and women peered smiling out of the covered country carts, and
tradesmen left their counters to see the show.

[Illustration: _British Official Photograph_
The wonderful exploit of one Brigade of the 46th Division, consisting
of the South Staffords and North Staffords Regts., who crossed the St.
Quentin Canal, which is part of the Hindenburg Line, by swimming in
life-belts. They gained their objectives and also captured two bridges
which allowed the guns to be taken across. The Brigade is seen on the
steep slope of the Canal.]

At Metz I was conscious of a hostile and bitter element in the town,
not to be wondered at when one remembers that Metz has a population of
25,000 immigrant Germans out of a population of less than 70,000. But
in the country towns of Alsace and in Strasbourg itself, my own
impression, for what it is worth, was everywhere an impression of
solid and natural rejoicing in the new order of things. That there are
a large number of Germans in Strasbourg and Alsace generally is, of
course, true. There were some 450,000 before the war, out of a
population of rather more than two millions, and there are now at a
rough estimate about 300,000, of whom nearly 100,000 are to be found
in Metz and Strasbourg. The whole administration of the two provinces,
with very few exceptions, was a German administration, imported from
Germany, and up to the outbreak of war, the universities and the
schools--_i.e._, the whole teaching profession--were German, and many
of the higher clergy. The leading finance of the provinces was German.
And so on. But I cannot see any reason to doubt that the real feeling
of the native population in the two provinc