“Certainly the owner of Chateau Frenois, situated a few minutes’ walk from the town, will be more unpleasantly surprised on his return than the hotel proprietor.  In his home, French marauders and plunderers have destroyed and devastated the entire contents.  It is impossible to comprehend the senselessness of this conduct, for which no reasons of military necessity can be advanced.

“Ancient family pictures which could not be taken out of their frames have been ruined by bayonet stabs, and from the shape of the cuts they were certainly the work of French bayonets.  Even the library, which contained a valuable collection of old prints, had been robbed.

“Not far from this scene of desolation stands Chateau Bellevue, where King William met Napoleon in 1870.  There, too, the traces of French plunderers are painfully evident; it was left to the ‘Hun-Kaiser’ to save this historic spot from complete annihilation.  In September Wilhelm II. visited the chateau and seeing the signs of rapacity, ordered the place to be strictly guarded to prevent further desecration."[169]

[Footnote 169:  Ibid., pp. 22-3.]

It did not occur to Herr Koehrer to connect the carousals with the plundering; in one sentence he admits that French soldiers respected the wine-cellars and in the next accuses them of stealing books, etc.  Every German writer, in describing the German advance, comments on the immense number of haversacks, weapons and equipment thrown away by the French in their “wild flight.”  Yet they desire their readers to believe that the same soldiers had time to rob and destroy, indeed, carry their plunder with them!

Since September no French troops have been in the district, yet the Kaiser found it necessary to place guards round Chateau Bellevue.  Is it not more reasonable to assume that the precaution was taken against the predatory instincts of his own soldiery, who, admittedly, are in occupation of the province?

Herr Koehrer finds it almost beneath his dignity to reply to charges of barbarism and Hunnism; yet he devotes several pages to the art of white-washing.  “The inhabitants who remained in their homes, and those who have returned since the flight—­unfortunately it is only a small part of the entirety—­have recognized long ago that the German soldier is not a barbarian.  The terrible distress which prevails among the French is often enough relieved by the generosity of the German troops.  Throngs of women and children from the filthy villages of the Argonne and the Ardennes gather round our field-kitchens and regularly receive the remains of the meals; while many a German Landsturm man, recollecting his own wife and children, fills the mouths of dirty French children instead of completely satisfying his own hunger."[170]

[Footnote 170:  Ibid., p. 34.  Herr Koehrer has evidently never visited many Bavarian villages:  otherwise he would be more careful with his adjectives when describing the villages of France.—­Author.]