But what I desire now is the opportunity to say this: In the face of the present plight of this little country we need not look for individual atrocities.

Belgium herself is the capsheaf atrocity of the war.

No matter what our nationality, our race or our sentiments may be, none of us can get away from that.
Going south into France from the German border city of Aix-la-Chapelle, our automobile carried us down the Meuse.

On the eastern bank, which mainly we followed during the first six hours of riding, there were craggy cliffs, covered with forests, which at intervals were cleft by deep ravines, where small farms clung to the sides of the steep hills.
On the opposite shore cultivated lands extended from the limit of one's vision down almost to the water.

There they met a continuous chain of manufacturing plants, now all idle, which stretched along the river shore from end to end of the valley.