any; a bullet had entered his chest and passed out of his back; the
blood was oozing out of a wound about the size of a shilling. The horror
was too much for me, and I crept to the other end of the strip.

"There I found everything far worse, but I cannot describe the terrors
which I saw. One poor fellow begs for a drop of water; there is just
another draught in my bottle. With grateful eyes he hands it back to me,
and in the same moment I feel a stinging pain in the shoulder. My arm is
numbed and helpless; hardly one of us who is not wounded.

"We can offer no resistance to the enemy; but the awful way back! At
last the run back over eight hundred yards of open field begins. Now and
again a comrade sinks to the ground, never to rise again. My breath is
nearly gone; one last effort, and in truth I have escaped from the hail
of bullets."

It is remarkable and noteworthy that German writers charge the French
armies with looting and destruction in their own country. Probably this
is merely a device to get rid of unpleasant accusations raised against
the German army. Furthermore, the most reckless charges of uncleanliness
are made. In commenting on the lot of the Landsturm troops quartered in
the villages of Northern France, one author[168] writes: "The Landsturm
men pass their time as best they can in these holes, whose most
conspicuous quality is their filth."

[Footnote 168: Erich Koehrer: "Zwischen Aisne und Argonnen" ("Between the
Aisne and the Argonnes"), p. 25.]

The same author gives his impressions of a visit to Sedan. "Only one
house has been completely and another partly destroyed, otherwise
appearances are peaceful, and as far as possible, life goes on as usual.
Here, too, many of the inhabitants have left their homes and fled. The
stupidity of this flight becomes evident at every step. In numerous
small hotels whose proprietors have remained, one sees German soldiers
buying bottles of splendid Burgundy wine at a shilling a bottle.

"But in another hotel whose proprietor had fled, is it a matter for
surprise that the men caroused on discovering a cellar containing three
thousand bottles of wine? On the route I have myself purchased some of
the oldest and best wines from our men at a price of three cigars a
bottle, and the recollection of them belongs to the pleasantest memories
of my sojourn at the front.

"Certainly the owner of Chateau Frenois, situated a few minutes' walk
from the town, will be more un