firing on German troops by civilians. What did the Germans expect
after the way that they had invaded Belgium? If they had bothered
with trials and investigations, the conquerors say, sniping would have
kept up. They may have taken innocent lives and burned the homes
of the innocent, they admit, but their defence is that thereby they
saved many thousands of their soldiers and of Belgians, and
prevented the feud between the rulers and the ruled from becoming
more embittered.

Sniping over, the next step in policy was to keep the population quiet
with a minimum of soldiery, which would permit a maximum at the
front. In a thickly-settled country, so easily policed, in a land with the
population inured to peace, the wisdom of keeping quiet was soon
evident to the people. What if Boers had been in the Belgians' place?
Would they have attempted guerrilla warfare? Would you or I want to
bring destruction on neighbours in a land without any rural fastnesses
as a rendezvous for operations? One could tell only if a section of our
country were invaded.

A burned block cost less than a dead German soldier. The system
was efficacious. It was mercilessness mixed with craft. When
Prussian brusqueness was found to be unnecessarily irritating to the
population, causing rash Belgians to turn desperate, the elders of the
Saxon and Bavarian coreligionists were called in. They were amiable
fathers of families, who would obey orders without taking the law into
their own hands. The occupation was strictly military. It concerned
itself with the business of national suffocation. All the functions of
government were in German hands. But Belgian policemen guided
the street traffic, arrested culprits for ordinary misdemeanours, and
took them before Belgian judges. This concession, which also meant