I felt as certain
now as then that the Allies had that clean intention. One farmer
chuckled when he told me that Germany must give up a hundred and
fifty U-boats, because, he said, she had no such number.

One of the political parties, I am afraid I cannot remember
which, published a manifesto stating that Germany had been
deceived and betrayed by the military party, whereby among other
things she inflicted great wrongs on Belgium and the Allies, and
that she must pay in full for those wrongs. I do not doubt that
is a widespread feeling in Germany. If, however, the terms of
peace are to be vindictive, we shall in turn be in the wrong,
and the new Germany may have better cause than the old to hate
us.

When we were fighting the Kaiser, we took pains to tell the
German people that we were fighting their battle against their
enemies. We were, in fact, liberating the traditional distressed
damsel from the clutches of the ogre. It was a pity that so many
of our blows fell upon the damsel and not on the ogre. It would
be not only a pity but a crime and a grievous blunder if, now
that the damsel is free, we proceeded to thrash her for the
faults of the ogre.

The Germans, apart from their late Government, are not
Orientals intent upon deceiving us at every turn. They say they
have turned over a new leaf, and I am thoroughly persuaded that
they speak the truth. In business of all kinds, under
circumstances that made it very easy for them to have cheated
me, I found them, during my stay at Duelmen, the straightest
people I ever had anything to do with. They think the same of
us. Feldwebels and others who have had to do with us both
assured me that they much preferred the British to any other
class of prisoner, because we are blunt and true, say what we
mean, and stick to what we say. Certainly the Germans are the
most English of the great peoples on the Continent.

CONCLUSION.

Our survey of the reliable evidence at present available seems to me to
prove that there has usually been a serious effort in Germany to treat
military prisoners well. This does not imply that their lot is otherwise
than hard, and the prolongation of the imprisonment adds terribly to the
hardship. It is impossible to banish from one's mind such horrors as
those of Wittenberg, but it is quite plain that these were very f