car in the Liege freight yards, had run a quarter of a mile to the
nearest army kitchen depot, and had stolen for us a couple of
heaping blankets' full of warm, dry straw.

It was impossible to believe that these men had committed the
atrocities reported at Termonde and Roosbeek, at Malines and
Louvain. At close range it was easy to see that the prevalent
conception of the "barbarians" was the purest kind of rot--the
picture created and fostered by the Allied press, of a vicious and
besotted beast with natural brutality accentuated by alcoholic rage.
With such men as individuals it seemed to us that neutral observers
could have no quarrel. To the Kaiser's privates who have been
fighting for a cause they do not thoroughly understand, was due, we
thought, the greatest respect; to the officers, too, who understand
what they are doing and are game in the face of odds; and most of all
to the suffering German people. But to the German war machine, we
reflected, was due a terrible punishment--the lesson it must learn
not only for Germany's enlightenment, but for the sake of civilization
and humanity.




Chapter IV

A Clog Dance On The Scheldt



When the German major at Aix-la-Cha-pelle stamped on our passports:--