To get any message out of Brussels it was necessary to use an automobile, and nearly every automobile had taken itself off to Antwerp.

If a motor-car appeared it was at once commandeered.

This was true also of horses and bicycles.

All over Brussels you saw delivery wagons, private carriages, market carts with the shafts empty and the horse and harness gone.

After three days a German soldier who did not own a bicycle was poor indeed.
Requisitions were given for these machines, stating they would be returned after the war, by which time they will be ready for the scrap- heap.