. . .Not they. It was cafés, billiards, dinners and an easy life for them to the end. But the rest of us. Ah, yes, we have suffered. Had the siege lasted another week we should all have been black in the face for want of food.”

An Austrian sister who had been working in the hospital confirmed the story. “Is it true that people were starving here?” I asked her. “Indeed it is true,” she told me, “the soldiers had almost nothing and the civilians were little better off. As for us in the hospitals—well, we really suffered for want of food.” “But how about the officers?” I asked. She looked at me sharply out of the corner of her eyes, for she evidently did not care to criticize her own people, but she seemed to recall something and her face suddenly hardened as she snapped out: “The officers starve? Well, hardly. They lived like dukes always.” More she would not say, but the evidence of th. . . Read More