correspondent who is not under
arrest. Then we gathered about a table on which was spread a staff
map of the war area and got down to serious business.

The general began by asserting that the accounts of atrocities
perpetrated by German troops on Belgian non-combatants were
lies.

"Look at these officers about you," he said. "They are gentlemen,
like yourself. Look at the soldiers marching past in the road out
there. Most of them are the fathers of families. Surely you do not
believe that they would do the unspeakable things they have been
accused of?"

"Three days ago, General," said I, "I was in Aerschot. The whole
town is now but a ghastly, blackened ruin."

"When we entered Aerschot," was the reply, "the son of the
burgomaster came into the room where our officers were dining and
assassinated the Chief of Staff. What followed was retribution. The
townspeople got only what they deserved."

"But why wreak your vengeance on women and children?" I asked.

"None have been killed," the general asserted positively.

"I'm sorry to contradict you, General," I asserted with equal
positiveness, "but I have myself seen their bodies. So has Mr.
Gibson, the secretary of the American Legation in Brussels, who
was present during the destruction of Louvain."

"Of course," replied General von Boehn, "there is always danger of
women and children being killed during street fighting if they insist
on coming into the streets. It is unfortunate, but it is war."

"But how about a woman's body I saw with the hands and feet cut
off? How about the white-haired man and his son whom I helped to
bury outside of Sempst, who had been killed merely because a
retreating Belgian soldier had shot a German soldier outside their
house? There were twenty-two bayonet wounds in the old man's
face. I counted them. How about the little girl, two years old, who
was shot while in her mother's arms by a Uhlan and whose funeral I
attended at Heyst-op-den-Berg? How about the old man near
Vilvorde who was hung by his hands from the rafters of his house
and roasted to death by a bonfire being built under him?"

The general seemed taken aback by the exactness of my
information.

"Such things are horrible if true," he said. "Of course, our soldiers,
like soldiers in all armies, sometimes get out of hand and do things
which we would never tolerate if we knew it. At Louvain, for
example, I sentenced two soldiers to twelve years' penal servitude
each fo