officer killed a Turkish officer with a sword thrust in single combat. A body of a German officer with a white flag was afterward found here, but there is no proof that the white flag was used. Finally all the enemy were killed, captured or put to flight. With this the fighting ended, and the subsequent operations were confined to the rounding up of prisoners, and the capture of a considerable amount of military material left behind. The Turks, who departed with their guns and baggage during the night of the 3d, still seemed to be moving eastward.

So ended the battle of the Suez Canal.

Two more incidents in the Turkish campaign remain to be noticed. Report having come that the town of Akaba on the Red Sea was being used as a mine-laying station, H. M. S. Minerva visited the place, and found it occupied by soldiers under a German officer. The Minerva destroyed the fort and the barracks and the government buildings. Another British cruiser, with a detachment of Indian troops, captured the Turkish fort at Sheik Said, at the southern end of the Red Sea. And so for the time ended all Turkish movements against Great Britain. That such movements should have been possible seems hard to believe. For a century the

British had been the friends and allies of the Turkish Government. In the Crimean War their armies had fought side by side with the Turkish troops against Russia. In the Russo-Turkish War Lord Beaconsfield, in the negotiations which preceded the treaty of Berlin, had saved for Turkey much of its territory. It was only the British influence and the fear of the British power which had prevented Russia from taking possession of Constantinople a half a century before. The English had always been popular in Turkey and there was every reason at the beginning of the war to believe that their popularity had not waned. There is reason to believe that the average Turk had little sympathy with the course of his government, and if a free expression of the popular will had been possible the Turkish army would never have been sent against either the Englishmen or the Frenchmen. But long years of German propaganda had done their work. The power of Enver Pasha was greater than that of the weakling Sultan and the war was forced upon the Turkish people by German tools and German bribes.

CHAPTER XII

RESCUE OF THE STARVING

HE sufferings of Belgium during the German occupation were terrible, and attracted the attention and the sym

T

pathy of the whole world. To understand conditions it is necessary to know something of the economic situation. Since it had come under the protection of the Great Powers, Belgium had developed into one of the greatest manufacturing countries in the world. Nearly two million of her citizens were employed in the great industries, and one million two hundred thousand on the farms. She was peaceful, industrious and happy. But on account of the fact that more than one-half of her citizenship earned their living by daily labor she found it impossible to produce foodstuff enough for her own needs. Seventy-eight per cent of her breadstuffs had to be imported. From her own fields she could hardly supply her population for more than four months.

The war, and the German occupation, almost destroyed business. Mines, workshops, factories and mills were closed. Labor found itself without employment and consequently without wages. The banks would extend no credit. But even if there had been money enough it soon became apparent that the food supply was rapidly going. The German invasion had come when the crops were standing ripe upon the field. Those crops had not been reaped, but had been trampled under foot by the hated German.

One feature of Belgian industrial life should be understood. Hundreds of thousands of her workmen were employed each day in workshops at considerable distances from their own homes. In times of peace the morning and evening trains were always crowded with laborers going to and returning from their daily toil. One of the first things seized upon by the German officials was the railroads, and it was with great difficulty that anyone, not belonging to the German army, could obtain an opportunity to travel at all, and it was with still greater difficulty that supplies of food of any kind could be transported from place to place.

Every village was cut off from its neighbor, every town from the next town. People were unable even to obtain news of the great political events which were occurring from day to day, and the food supply was automatically cut off.

But this was not the worst. One of the first moves of the German occupation was to quarter hundreds of thousands of troops upon their Belgian victims, and these troops must be fed even though the Belgian and his family were near starvation. Then followed the German seizure of what they called materials for war. General von Beseler in a despatch to the Kaiser, after the fall of Antwerp, speaks very plainly:

The war booty taken at Antwerp is enormous-at least five hundred cannon and huge quantities of ammunition, sanitation materials, highpower motor cars, locomotives, wagons, four million kilograms of wheat, large quantities of flour, coal and flax wool, the value of which is estimated at ten million marks, copper, silver, one armored train, several hospital trains, and quantities of fish.

The Germans proceeded to commandeer foodstuffs and raw materials of industry. Linseed oil, oil cakes, nitrates, animal and vegetable oils, petroleum and mineral oils, wool, copper, rubber, ivory, cocoa, rice, wine, beer, all were seized and sent home to the Fatherland. Moreover, cities and provinces were burdened with formidable war contributions. Brussels was obliged to pay ten million dollars, Antwerp ten million dollars, the province of Brabant, ninety millions of dollars, Namur and seventeen surrounding communes six million four hundred thousand dollars. Finally Governor von Bissing, on the 10th of December, 1914, issued the following decree:

A war contribution of the amount of eight million dollars to be paid monthly for one year is imposed upon the population of Belgium. The payment of these amounts is imposed upon the nine provinces which are regarded as joint debtors. The two first monthly payments are to be made by the 15th of January, 1915, at latest, and the following monthly payments by the tenth of each following month to the military chest of the Field Army of the General Imperial Government in Brussels. If the provinces are obliged to resort to the issue of stock with a view to procuring the necessary funds, the form and terms of these shares will be determined by the Commissary General for the banks in Belgium.

At a meeting of the Provincial Councils the vice-president declared: "The Germans demand these $96,000,000 of the

country without right and without reason. Are we to sanction this enormous war tax? If we listened only to our hearts, we should reply 'No! ninety-six million times no!' because our hearts would tell us we were a small, honest nation living happily by its free labor; we were a small, honest nation having faith in treaties and believing in honor; we were a nation unarmed, but full of confidence, when Germany suddenly hurled two million men upon our frontiers, the most brutal army that the world has ever seen, and said to us, 'Betray the promise you have given. Let my armies go by, that I may crush France, and I will give you gold.' Belgium replied, 'Keep your gold. I prefer to die, rather than live without honor.' The German army has, therefore, crushed our country in contempt of solemn treaties. 'It is an injustice,' said the Chancellor of the German Empire. "The position of Germany has forced us to commit it, but we will repair the wrong we have done to Belgium by the passage of our armies.' They want to repair the injustice as follows: Belgium will pay Germany $96,000,000! Give this proposal your vote. When Galileo had discovered the fact that the earth moved around the sun, he was forced at the foot of the stake to abjure his error, but he murmured, 'Nevertheless it moves.' Well, gentlemen, as I fear a still greater misfortune for my country I consent to the payment of the $96,000,000 and I cry 'Nevertheless it moves.' Long live our country in spite of all."

At the end of a year von Bissing renewed this assessment, inserting in his decree the statement that the decree was based upon article forty-nine of The Hague Convention, relating to the laws and usages of war on land. This article reads as follows: "If in addition to the taxes mentioned in the above article the occupant levies other moneyed contributions in the occupied territory, they shall only be applied to the needs of the army, or of the administration, of the territory in question." In the preceding article it says: "If in the territory occupied the occupant collects the taxes, dues and tolls payable to the state, he shall do so as far as possible in accordance with the legal basis and assessment in force at the time, and shall in consequence be bound to defray the expenses of the administration of the occupied territories to the same extent as the National Government had been so bound."

The $96,000,000 per annum was more than six times the amount of the direct taxes formerly collected by the Belgian state, taxes which the German administration, moreover, collected in addition to the war assessment. It was five times as great as the ordinary expenditure of the Belgian War Department.

But this was not all. In addition to the more or less legitimate German methods of plunder the whole country had been pillaged. In many towns systematic pillage began as soon as the Germans took possession. At Louvain the pillage began on the 27th of August, 1914, and lasted a week. In small bands the soldiers went from house to house, ransacked drawers and cupboards, broke open safes, and stole money, pictures, curios, silver, linen, clothing, wines, and food. Great loads of such plunder were