for the world to know it; and it is not because I wish to cover up or
hide any of our actions from your eyes, and from the eyes of the
American people, that I am refusing you passes for your return to
Brussels to-day. But, you see, our men have been terribly excited by
these crimes of the Belgian populace, and in their excitement they might
make serious mistakes.

"Our troops are under splendid discipline, as you may have seen already
for yourselves. And I assure you the Germans are not a bloodthirsty or a
drunken or a barbarous people; but in every army there are fools and,
what is worse, in every army there are brutes. You are strangers; and
if you passed along the road to-day some of our more ignorant men,
seeing that you were not natives and suspecting your motives, might harm
you. There might be some stupid, angry common soldier, some over-
zealous under officer--you understand me, do you not, gentlemen?

"So you will please remain here quietly, having nothing to do with any
of our men who may seek to talk with you. That last is important; for I
may tell you that our secret-service people have already reported your
presence, and they naturally are anxious to make a showing.

"At the end of one day--perhaps two--we shall be able, I think, to give
you safe conduct back to Brussels. And then I hope you will be able to
speak a good word to the American public for our army."

After this fashion of speaking I heard now from the lips of Major Renner
what I subsequently heard fifty times from other army men, and likewise
from high German civilians, of the common German attitude toward
Belgium. Often these others have used almost the same words he used.
Invariably they have sought to convey the same meaning.

For those three days we stayed on unwillingly in Louvain we were not
once out of sight of German soldiers, nor by day or night out of sound
of their threshing feet and their rumbling wheels. We never looked;
this way or that but we saw their gray masses blocking up the distances.
We never entered shop or house but we found Germans already there. We
never sought to turn off the main-traveled streets into a byway but our
path was barred by a guard seeking to know our business. And always, as
we noted, for this duty those in command had chosen soldiers who knew a
smattering of French, in order that the sentries might be able to speak
with the citizens. If we passed along a sidewalk the chances were that
it