rmous, if natural, exaggeration A journey through the
devastated areas of France is impressive to the eye and the imagination
beyond description. During the winter of 1918-19, before Nature had
cast over the scene her ameliorating mantle, the horror and desolation
of war was made visible to sight on an extraordinary scale of blasted
grandeur. The completeness of the destruction was evident. For mile
after mile nothing was left. No building was habitable and no field fit
for the plow. The sameness was also striking. One devastated area was
exactly like another--a heap of rubble, a morass of shell-holes, and a
tangle of wire.[80] The amount of human labor which would be required to
restore such a countryside seemed incalculable; and to the returned
traveler any number of milliards of dollars was inadequate to express in
matter the destruction thus impressed upon his spirit. Some Governments
for a variety of intelligible reasons have not been ashamed to exploit
these feelings a little.

Popular sentiment is most at fault, I think, in the case of Belgium. In
any event Belgium is a small country, and in its case the actual area of
devastation is a small proportion of the whole. The first onrush of the
Germans in 1914 did some damage locally; after that the battle-line in
Belgium did not sway backwards and forwards, as in France, over a deep
belt of country. It was practically stationary, and hostilities were
confined to a small corner of the country, much of which in recent times
was backward, poor, and sleepy, and did not include the active industry
of the country. There remains some injury in the small flooded area, the
deliberate damage done by the retreating Germans to buildings, plant,
and transport, and the loot of machinery, cattle, and other movable
property. But Brussels, Antwerp, and even Ostend are substantially
intact, and the great bulk of the land, which is Belgium's chief wealth,
is nearly as well cultivated as before. The traveler by motor can pass
through and from end to end of the devastated area of Belgium almost
before he knows it; whereas the destruction in France is on a different
kind of scale altogether. Industrially, the loot has been serious and
for the moment paralyzing; but the actual money cost of replacing
machinery mounts up slowly, and a few tens of millions would have
covered the value of every machine of every possible description that
Belgium ever possessed. Besides, the cold statistician mu