A man in close touch with things military entered at midnight.  His eyes danced as he gave us new information about Antwerp.  Clearly the city was doomed.

I did not sleep that night.  I packed.  Next evening I was in Holland.  I saw a big story, hired a car, picked up a Times courier, and, after “fixing” things with the Dutch guards, dashed for Antwerp.  The long story of a retreat with the rearguard of the Belgian Army has no place here.  But there were scenes which contrasted with the boasting, confident, joyous capital I had left.  Belgian horses drawing dejected families, weeping on their household goods, other families with everything they had saved bundled in a tablecloth or a handkerchief.  Some had their belongings tied on a bicycle, others trundled wheel-barrows.  Valuable draught dogs, harnessed, but drawing no cart, were led by their masters, while other dogs that nobody thought of just followed along.  And tear-drenched faces everywhere.  Back in Bergen-op-Zoom and Putten I had seen chalk writing on brick walls saying that members of certain families had gone that way and would wait in certain designated places for other members who chanced to pass.  On the road, now dark, and fringed with pines, I saw a faint light flicker.  A group passed, four very old women tottering after a very old man, he holding a candle before him to light the way.

As I jotted down these things and handed them to my courier I thought of the happy faces back in Berlin, of jubilant crowds dashing from restaurants and cafes as each newspaper edition was shouted out, and I knew that the men in the luxurious club were figuring out to what extent they could mulct Belgium.

I pressed on in the dark and joined the Belgian army and the British Naval Brigade falling back before the Germans.  I came upon an American, now captain of a Belgian company.  “It’s a damn shame, and I hate to admit it,” he said, “but the Allies are done for.”  That is the way it looked to us in the black hours of the retreat.

Soldiers were walking in their sleep.  Some sank, too exhausted to continue.  An English sailor, a tireless young giant, trudged on mile after mile with a Belgian soldier on his back.  Both the Belgian’s feet had been shot off and tightly bound handkerchiefs failed to check the crimson trail.

London and Paris were gloomy, but Berlin was basking in the bright morning sunshine of the war.

Although the fronts were locked during the winter, the German authorities had good reason to feel optimistic about the coming spring campaign.  They knew that they had increased their munition output enormously, and their spies told them that Russia had practically run out of ammunition, while England had not yet awakened to the realisation that this is a war of shells.

The public saw the result in the spring.  The armies of the Tsar fell back all along the line, while in Germany the flags were waving and the bells of victory were pealing.