broken furniture
as they are; let the bullet marks and the bloodstains remain, and it
will do more than all the sermons that can be preached, than all the
pictures that can be painted, than all the books that can be written,
to drive home a realization of what is meant by that dreadful thing
called War.

The distance from Louvain to Brussels is in the neighbourhood of
twenty miles, and our car with its fluttering flags sped between lines
of cheering people all the way. Men stood by the roadside with
uncovered heads as they saw the Stars and Stripes whirl by;
women waved their handkerchiefs while tears coursed down their
cheeks. As we neared Brussels news of our coming spread, and
soon we were passing between solid walls of Belgians who waved
hats and canes and handkerchiefs and screamed, "Vive l'Amerique!
Vive l'Amerique!" I am not ashamed to say that a lump came in my
throat and tears dimmed my eyes. To these helpless, homeless,
hopeless people, the red-white-and-blue banner that streamed from
our windshield really was a flag of the free.

Brussels we found as quiet and orderly as London on a Sunday
morning. So far as streets scenes went we might have been in
Berlin. German officers and soldiers were scattered everywhere,
lounging at the little iron tables in front of the cafes, or dining
in the restaurants or strolling along the tree-shaded boulevards as
unconcernedly as though they were in the Fatherland. Many of the
officers had brought high, red-wheeled dogcarts with them, and
were pleasure-driving in the outskirts of the city; others,
accompanied by women who may or may not have been their
wives, were picnicking in the Bois. Brussels had become, to all
outward appearances at least, a German city. German flags
flaunted defiantly from the roofs of the public buildings, several of
which, including the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice and the
Cathedral, were reported to have been mined. In the whole of the
great city not a single Belgian flag was to be seen. The Belgian
police were still performing their routine duties under German
direction. The royal palace had been converted into a hospital for
German wounded. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was occupied by
the German General Staff. The walls and hoardings were plastered
with proclamations signed by the military governor warning the
inhabitants of the penalties which they would incur should they
molest the German troops. The great square in front of the G