To this imposing array, the patriots could only oppose a few pamphlets
issued by the editor Bryan Hill, soon prohibited, and copies of Belgian,
French and English papers, which were smuggled at great risk, and
consequently were very expensive. Still, before the fall of Antwerp, it
was practically impossible for the Germans to stop private letters and
newspapers passing from the unoccupied to the occupied part of the
country. Besides, they had more important business on hand. Here again,
it was only after the second month of occupation that the pressure
increased. During October and November, several people were condemned to
heavy fines and to periods of imprisonment for circulating written and
even verbal news. The Dutch frontier was closed, wherever no natural
obstacle intervened, by a continuous line of barbed wire and electrified
wire. Passports were only granted to the few people engaged in the work
of relief and to those who could prove that it was essential to the
interests of their business that they should leave the country for a
time. The postal service being reorganized under German control, any
other method of communication was severely prosecuted. At the end of
1914, several messengers lost their lives in attempting to cross the
Dutch frontier. Under such conditions it is easy to understand that, in
spite of the efforts made by the anonymous editors of two or three
prohibited papers, such as _La Libre Belgique_, the bulk of the
population was practically cut off from the rest of the world and was
compelled to read, if they read at all, the pro-German papers and the
German posters. The only wells left from which the people could drink
were poisoned.

* * * * *

The German Press Bureau in Brussels, openly recognised by the