All that you saw on either side of the road that was fertile and beautiful was the result of their hard, unceasing personal effort.

Then the war came, like a cyclone, and in three weeks the labor of many years was wasted.

The fields were torn with shells, the grain was in flames, torches destroyed the villages, by the roadside were the carcasses of the cows that had been killed to feed the invader, and the horses were carried off harnessed to gray gun- carriages.

These were the things you saw on every side, from Brussels to the German border.

The peasants themselves were huddled beneath bridges.