XI. War de Luxe...
XII. The Rut of Big Guns in France..
XIII. Those Yellow Pine Boxes..
XIV. The Red Glutton..
XV. Belgium--The Rag Doll of Europe .
XVI. Louvain the Forsaken.




Chapter 1

A Little Village Called Montignies St. Christophe


We passed through it late in the afternoon--this little Belgian town
called Montignies St. Christophe--just twenty-four hours behind a dust-
colored German column. I am going to try now to tell how it looked to
us.

I am inclined to think I passed this way a year before, or a little
less, though I cannot be quite certain as to that. Traveling 'cross
country, the country is likely to look different from the way it looked
when you viewed it from the window of a railroad carriage.

Of this much, though, I am sure: If I did not pass, through this little
town of Montignies St. Christophe then, at least I passed through fifty
like it--each a single line of gray houses strung, like beads on a cord,
along a white, straight road, with fields behind and elms in front; each
with its small, ugly church, its wine shop, its drinking trough, its