The rooms of the huge building was singularly bare, having been stripped by the Germans before their departure of everything portable.

But _en revanche_ the entering French, finding nothing left in the fine old house, even of the _mobilier_ which had been left there in 1871, discovered a _chateau_ belonging to the Kaiser close by, and requisitioned from it some of the necessaries of life.
Bordeaux drunk out of a glass marked with the Kaiser's monogram had a taste of its own.

In the same way, when on the British front we drew up one afternoon, north of St.Omer, at a level crossing to let a goods train go by, I watched the interminable string of German trucks, labelled Magdeburg, Essen, Duesseldorf, and saw in them, with a bitter satisfaction, the first visible signs of the Reparation and Restitution to be.
The relations between the General and his Staff were very pleasant to watch; and after dinner there was some interesting talk of the war.

I asked the General what had seemed to him the most critical moment of the struggle.

He and his Chief of the Staff looked at each other gravely an instant and then the General said: "I have no doubt about it at all.