r assaulting a woman."

"Apropos of Louvain," I remarked, "why did you destroy the library?"

"We regretted that as much as anyone else," was the answer. "It
caught fire from burning houses and we could not save it."

"But why did you burn Louvain at all?" I asked.

"Because the townspeople fired on our troops. We actually found
machine-guns in some of the houses. And," smashing his fist down
upon the table, "whenever civilians fire upon our troops we will teach
them a lasting lesson. If women and children insist on getting in the
way of bullets, so much the worse for the women and children."

"How do you explain the bombardment of Antwerp by Zeppelins?" I
inquired.

"Zeppelins have orders to drop their bombs only on fortifications and
soldiers," he answered.

"As a matter of fact," I remarked, "they destroyed only private
houses and innocent civilians, several of whom were women. If one
of those bombs had dropped two hundred yards nearer my hotel I
wouldn't be here to-day smoking one of your excellent cigars."

"That is a calamity which, thank God, didn't happen," he replied.

"If you feel for my safety as deeply as that, General," I said,
earnestly, "you can make quite sure of my coming to no harm by
sending no more Zeppelins."

"Well, Herr Powell," he said, laughing, "we will think about it. And,"
he continued gravely, "I trust that you will tell the American people,
through your great paper, what I have told you to-day. Let them
hear our side of this atrocity business. It is only justice that they
should be made familiar with both sides of the question."

I have quoted my conversation with General von Boehn as nearly
verbatim as I can remember it. I have no comments to make. I will
leave it to my readers to decide for themselves just how convincing
were the answers of the German General Staff--for General von
Boehn was but its mouthpiece--to the Belgian accusations. Before
we began our conversation I asked the general if my photographer,
Thompson, might be permitted to take photographs of the great
army which was passing. Five minutes later Thompson whirled
away in a military motor-car, ciceroned by the officer who had
attended the army school at Fort Riley. It seems that they stopped
the car beside the road, in a place where the light was good, and
when Thompson saw approaching a regiment or a battery or a
squadron of which he wished a picture he would tell the officer,
whereupon the officer would blo