affairs in Belgium could henceforward be entrusted to the American Ambassador at Berlin.  But Mr. .Whitlock, who had received his training in shirt-sleeve diplomacy as Socialist Mayor of Toledo, Ohio, was as impervious to German suggestions as he had been to the threats and pleadings of party politicians, and told Baron von der Golz, the German Governor, politely but quite firmly, that he did not take his orders from Berlin but from Washington.  “Gott in Himmel!” exclaimed the Germans, shrugging their shoulders despairingly, “what is to be done with such a man?”

Before the Germans had been in occupation of Brussels a fortnight the question of food for the poorer classes became a serious and pressing problem.  The German armies, in their onset toward the west, had swept the Belgian country-side bare; the products of the farms and gardens in the immediate vicinity of the city had been commandeered for the use of the garrison, and the spectre of starvation was already beginning to cast its dread shadow over Brussels.  Mr. Whitlock acted with promptness and decision.  He sent Americans, who had volunteered their services, to Holland to purchase food-stuffs, and at the same time informed the German commander that he expected these food-stuffs to be admitted without hindrance.  The German replied that he could not comply with this request without first communicating with his Imperial master, whereupon he was told, in effect, that the American Government would consider him personally responsible if the food-stuffs were delayed or diverted for military use and a famine ensued in consequence.  The firmness of Mr. Whitlock’s attitude had its effect, for at seven o’clock the next morning he received word that his wishes would be complied with.  As a result of the German occupation, Brussels, with its six hundred thousand inhabitants, was as completely cut off from communication with the outside world as though it were on an island in the South Pacific.  The postal, telegraph and telephone services were suspended; the railways were blocked with troop trains moving westward; the roads were filled from ditch to ditch with troops and transport wagons; and so tightly were the lines drawn between that portion of Belgium occupied by the Germans and that still held by the Belgians, that those daring souls who attempted to slip through the cordons of sentries did so at peril of their lives.  It sounds almost incredible that a great city could be so effectually isolated, yet so it was.  Even the Cabinet Ministers and other officials who had accompanied the Government in its flight to Antwerp were unable to learn what had befallen the families which they had in many cases left behind them.