The Belgians, in contempt of German markmanship, had forced the enemy to the attack, which had been made from three points of the field simultaneously.  The fighting had been fierce, but now that both sides had swept on, no one seemed to know how those in the fight had really fared.  Only by the heaps of dead could one make estimate: 

“At least, there were most dead on the side toward the bridge.  A charge of 300 Uhlans, who were held in check for a short time by seventeen Belgians at a corner, seems, however, to have come near success.  The derelict helmets and lances that covered the fields show that the charge pressed well up to the guns and to the trenches in the turnip fields where the Belgian soldiers lay.  On the German left mitrailleuses got in their work behind, and in the houses on the outskirts of the villages.  Five of these houses were burned to the ground, and two others farther out broken all to pieces and burned.  In a shed was a peasant weeping over the dead bodies of his cows.

“It would be easy now at the beginning of this war to write of its tragedy.  The villages have each a tale of loss to tell.  All of the twelve hundred men in the long grave were men with wives, sweethearts, and parents.  All the Belgian soldiers and others who were buried where they fell have mourners.  A LETTER FROM THE GRAVE

“A letter which I picked up on the field and am endeavoring to have identified and sent her for whom it is intended will speak for all.  It is written in ink on half a sheet of thin notepaper.  There is no date and no place.  It probably was written on the eve of battle in the hope that it would reach its destination if the writer died.  This is the translation: 

“’Sweetheart:  Fate in this present war has treated us more cruelly than many others.  If I have not lived to create for you the happiness of which both our hearts dreamed, remember my sole wish now is that you should be happy.  Forget me and create for yourself some happy home that may restore to you some of the greater pleasures of life.  For myself, I shall have died happy in the thought of your love.  My last thought has been for you and for those I leave at home.  Accept this, the last kiss from him who loved you.’

“Postcards from fathers with blessings to their gallant sons I found, too, on the field, little mementos of people and of places carried by men as mascots.  Everywhere were broken lances of German and Belgian, side by side; scabbards and helmets, saddles and guns.  These the peasants were collecting in a pile, to be removed by the military.  High up over the graves of twelve hundred, as we stood there, a German biplane came and went, hovering like a carrion crow, seeking other victims for death.

“In the village itself death is still busy.  A wounded German died as we stood by his side and a Belgian soldier placed his handkerchief over his face.  Soldiers who filled the little market-place may be fighting for life now as I write.  The enemy is in force not a mile away from them, and in a moment they may be attacked.  It is significant that all German prisoners believed they were in France.  The deception, it appears, was necessary to encourage them in their attack, and twelve hundred dead in the harrowed field died without knowing whom or what they were fighting.”