elgian people have kept their spirits up.

One can, to a certain extent, understand the bright courage and the grim
humour of the fighting soldier; he has the excitement of battle to
sustain him through danger and suffering. But that an unarmed
population, which, having witnessed the martyrdom of many peaceful
towns, is threatened with utter destruction, which, ruined by war
contributions and requisitions, is on the brink of starvation, which,
persecuted by spies and subjected constantly to the most severe
individual and collective punishments on the slightest pretext, is
obliged to refrain from any manifestation of patriotic sentiments--that
such a population, completely cut off from its Government and from most
of its political leaders, and, moreover, poisoned every day by news
concocted by the enemy, should remain unshakable in its courage and
loyalty and should still be able to laugh at the efforts made by its
masters to bring it into submission, is truly one of the most amazing
spectacles which we have witnessed since the war broke out. General von
Bissing has declared that the Belgians are an enigma to him. No wonder.
They are an enigma to themselves. I am not going to explain the miracle.
I will only attempt to show how inexplicable, how miraculous, it is.

* * * * *

The German occupation of Belgium may be roughly divided into two
periods: Before the fall of Antwerp, when the hope of prompt deliverance
was still vivid in every heart, and when the German policy, in spite of
its frightfulness, had not yet assumed its most ruthless and systematic
character; and, after the fall of the great fortress, when the yoke of
the conqueror weighed more heavily on the vanquished shoulders, and when
the Belgian population, grim and resolute, began to struggle to preserve
its honour and loyalty and to resist the ever increasing pressure of the
enemy to bring it into complete submission and to use it as a tool
against its own army and its own King.

I am only concerned here with the second period. The story of the German
atrocities committed in some parts of the country at the beginning of
the occupation is too well known to require any further comment. Every
honest man, in Allied and neutral countries, has made up his mind on the
subject. No unprejudiced person can hesitate between the evidence
brought forward by the Belgian Commission of Enquiry and the vague
denials, paltry excuses and insole