Its newspapers had been invited to continue their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion, but of course under the German Censorate and martial law.

As one editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would all be shot in a week." But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press.
Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a direction favourable to German policy.

The German Government had already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old dominions of the House of Burgundy.

On the contrary, in their tenure of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were under a German regime to give it a new literature.

Whether or not they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian.