e Germans
offered this rescue to them all the time. Never a day in all the four
years when German placards offering food and money for their work did
not stare in the faces the five hundred thousand idle skilled Belgian
workmen and the other hundreds of thousands of unskilled ones shut up in
the country.

Germany, also, had two opinions about Belgian relief. There were zu
Reventlow and his great party of jingoes who cried from beginning to
end: Kick out these American spies; make an end of this
soft-heartedness. Here we have ten million Allied hostages in our hands.
Let us say to England and France and the refugee Belgian cabinet at Le
Havre: Your people may eat what they now have; it will last them a month
or two; then they shall not have a mouthful from Germany or anywhere
else unless you give up the blockade and open the ports of Belgium and
Germany alike to incoming foods.

On the other side were von Bissing and his German governing staff in
Belgium, together with most of the men of the military General Staff at
Great Headquarters. Von Bissing tried, in his heavy, stupid way, to
placate the Belgians; that was part of his policy. So he would offer
them food--always for work--with one hand, while he gave them a slap
with the other. He wanted Belgium to be tranquil. He did not want to
have openly to machine-gun starving mobs in the cities, however many
unfortunates he allowed to be quietly carried out to the _Tir National_
at gray dawn to stand for one terrible moment before the ruthless firing
squad. And the hard-headed men of the General Staff knew that starving
people do not lie down quietly and die. All the northern lines of
communication between the west front and Germany ran through the
countries of these ten million imprisoned French and Belgians. Even
without arms they could make much trouble for the guards of bridges and
railways in their dying struggles. At least it would require many
soldiers to kill them fast enough to prevent it. And the soldiers, all
of them, were needed in the trenches. In addition the German General
Staff earnestly desired and hoped up to the very last that America would
keep out of the war. And these extraordinary Americans in Belgium seemed
to have all of America behind them; that is what the great relief
propaganda and the imposing list of diplomatic personages on the C. R.
B. list were partly for. Hoover had realized from the beginning what
this would mean. "No," said the higher G