out the year. President Wilson in an address
before the League to Enforce Peace, May 27, had said that the United
States was ready to join any practical league for preserving peace and
guaranteeing the political and territorial integrity of nations.
November 29 our government sent a protest to Germany against the
deportation of Belgians.

Almost immediately upon the invasion of Belgium the German authorities,
in pursuance of their system of terrorization, shipped to Germany
considerable groups of the population. On October 12,1915, a general
order was issued by the German military government in Belgium providing
that persons who should "refuse work suitable to their occupation and in
the execution of which the military administration is interested,"
should be subject to one year's imprisonment or to deportation to
Germany. Numerous sentences, both of men and women, were imposed under
that order.

The wholesale deportation of Belgian workmen to Germany, which began
October 3, 1916, proceeded on different grounds, for, having stripped
large sections of the country of machinery and raw materials, the
military authorities now came forward with the plea that it was
necessary to send the labor after it. The number of workmen deported is
variously estimated at between one and three hundred thousand.

"The rage, the terror, the despair" excited by this measure all over
Belgium, our minister, Brand Whitlock, reported, "were beyond anything
we had witnessed since the day the Germans poured into Brussels. I am
constantly in receipt of reports from all over Belgium that bear out the
stories of brutality and cruelty.

"In tearing away from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and
a father or a son and brother, the Germans have lighted a fire of hatred
that will never go out. It is one of those deeds that make one despair
of the future of the human race, a deed coldly planned, studiously
matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel
that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution, and so
monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed." Poland
and the occupied parts of France experienced similar treatment.

CHAPTER VI

THE HOUR AND THE MAN

A BEACON AMONG THE YEARS--TRYING PERIOD FOR PRESIDENT WILSON--GERMANY
CONTINUES DILATORY TACTICS--PEACE EFFORTS FAIL--ALL HONORABLE MEANS
EXHAUSTED--PATIENCE CEASES TO BE A VIRTUE--ENEMY ABANDONS ALL
SUBTERFUGE--UNRESTR