Then he began an apologia which I heard repeated identically again and again, as if it were learned by rote:  “The Germans had peacefully entered the land; boiling hot water was showered on them from upper stories; they were shot at from houses and hedges; many soldiers had thus been killed; the wells had been poisoned.  Such acts of treachery had necessarily brought reprisals, etc., etc.”  It was the defense so regularly served up to neutrals that we learned in time to reproduce it almost word for word ourselves.

We all rise to the glorification of suffering little Belgium.  Whatever brief we may hold for her though, we ought not to picture even her peasant people as a mild, meek and inoffensive lot.  That isn’t the sort of stuff out of which her dogged and continuing resistance was wrought.  That isn’t the mettle which for two weeks stopped up the German tide before the Liege forts, giving the allies two weeks to mobilize, and all they had asked the Belgians for was two or three days of grace.  But before the German avalanche hurled itself on Liege it was this peasant population which bore the first brunt of the battle.

A mistake in the branching roads brought this home to me.  I turned off in the direction of Verviers and was puzzled to see the road on either side strewn with tree-trunks, their sprawling limbs still green with leaves.  It was along this highway that the invaders first entered Belgium.  The peasants, turning their axes loose on the poplars and the royal elms that lined the road, had filled it with a tangle of interlocking limbs.

The Imperial army arrived with cannon which could smash a fort to pieces as though it were made of blue china, but of what avail were these against such yielding obstructions?  Maddened that these shambling creatures of the soil should delay the military promenade through this little land, officers rushed out and held their pistols at the heads of the offenders, threatening to blow their brains out if they did not speedily clear the way.  Many a peasant did not live to see his house go up in flames—­his dwelling dyed by his own blood was now turned into a funeral pyre.  These were the first sacrificial offerings of Belgium on the altar of her independence.

I now entered Vise, or rather what once had been the little city of Vise.  It was almost completely annihilated and its three thousand inhabitants scattered.  Through the mass of smoking ruins I pushed, with the paving-stones still hot beneath my feet.  Quite unawares I ran full tilt into a group of soldiers, looking as ugly and dirty as the ruins amongst which they were prowling.

The green-gray field-uniform is a remarkable piece of obliterative coloration.  I had seen it blend with grass and trees, but in this instance it fitted in so well with the stones and debris they were poking over that I was right amongst them without warning.  They straightened up with a sudden start and scowled at me.  Hollanders and Belgians had faithfully assured me that such marauding bands would shoot at sight.  Here was an excellent test-case.  Three hundred marks, a gold watch and a lot of food which crammed my pockets would be their booty.