"Have they been put into Concentration Camp?" I asked.
"No; only the young fellows are detained, and they are, I believe, the most fortunate. A lot of French women and children are starving, as the fathers are refused work everywhere, and even the shopkeepers refuse to sell stuff to them."
I waited for her to write the letter to her son, and I left the little bit of France in German territory with a sense of distress. The last words of the old lady were, "Walk out quickly, if you please; and don't stop outside the door. A polizist is generally there, and if you are seen walking out of this place there will probably be trouble for you."
No polizist saw me leaving the presbytery; I walked down Iäger Strasse to the house of a well-known writer on military subjects, who holds a high position at the Embassy of a neutral Power in Berlin, and who was the only person who knew the reason of my visit. He was rather surprised at the way I managed to get on, and when I gave him my impressions he agreed on most points.
"I believe," he said, "that the war will in a month's time or so assume a sort of defensive character as far as the Germans are concerned. They will occupy the whole of Belgium, and cover at the west a front strengthened with temporary fortification works like those which are being fully carried out at the back of the German fighting line. Then the war will assume a more careful character; I daresay the Kaiser will start economising the lives of his men, which he has freely spent up to now. The attempt to take Paris by storm with a daring march forward, coute que coute, which was not the plan of the German military command, but the Kaiser's, has completely failed."
"Germany realises that her soldiers are none too many, and wants to make the best of them. That's why they will use any amount of temporary fortification, and will abstain from the compact formations which were quite all right forty years ago, but have proved complete failures on this occasion.
"When the Germans are on their fortified line they will wait for a fresh supply of men and guns. The guns used in Belgium are mostly done for, and have gone back to Essen to be repaired, and in many cases to be melted down again.
"As you have noticed, Germany seems to despise the Austrians' help. That is very wrong; if nothing else, Austria has taken away from Germany the shock of the largest part of the Russian Army, at least for the present moment.
"The war will only come to an end for one of the three following reasons:—
"(1) The Triple Entente obtains successes in both theatres of operation and breaks the line of temporary fortification I just told you about; then France and England would have the way open to Berlin, and if the Russians were successful in the East, Germany would be forced to ask for peace.