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122 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
22nd August. Dear Comrade, I have arrived safely at Mans,
and have sent my certificate direct to the chief. I hope I
shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you again. H. . .
."
Has this Crombez, I wonder, ever received the greeting of
his comrade and been able to enjoy the pretty picture of the
landscape where the tranquil waters of the Huisne and Sarthe
flow together ? Or has his name gone to make up the list of
dead or of those who are missing, never to be found ?
The little square in front of the church is planted with trees.
Many of them have been cut down and lie piled into logs for
fuel, and the leaves are yellow and shrivelled. In a line with
the church and looking on to this open space, stands the
riddled and shapeless frontage of a house over whose portals
I fancy I can read the words Hotel de Ville, and the year 1731.
Its entrance hall, leading to the Bureau de Police, is one
big rubbish heap of rags, broken furniture and paper.
The archives of the police station lie scattered about. Here
we find the whole edition of a little pamphlet : Traité pour
VÉclairage au Gaz de la Ville de Longwy du g Janvier 1912 au
23 Décemhre 1961, that is to say, covering a period of fifty
years. They little thought in printing it that the gas would
go out in 1914. I hear a rustling sound among the scraps of
paper as the wind passes through the bleak ruins.
The lower part of the town, at the other end, reveals no
other signs of war than the none too numerous German
uniforms. The German soldiers wander calmly through the
streets of the conquered town, in the central parts of which
the civil population is quite well represented.
A moment later we are driving over the frontier into Luxem-
burg, and as the sun sets gorgeously we reach the little Grand
Ducal capital, where once more I take up my quarters at the
Hotel Staar. That very evening I had the good fortune to
meet Prince Waldemar of Prussia, Admiral von Miiller and
Major Nicolai of the General Staff. The Chief of the General
Staff, von Moltke, was absent from the town.
As regards my immediate plans, I decided to proceed on
the following morning, the 26th September, at 9 a.m. by a
Landsturm train to Sedan, partly in order to see what sort
of accommodation the troops had on the railways. The rest
of the day was taken up by various tasks. My purse needed
replenishing and accordingly I withdrew a thousand marks on
the strength of my Swedish letter of credit. The payment was
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