GERMAN STORY OF THE ARMISTICE.

IN A LONELY WOOD.

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. ROTTERDAM, Nov. 21 (delayed). A member of the German Armistice Delegation communicates to the Vossische Zeitung the following account of the meeting with Marshal Foch and the Allied delegates: When on Nov. 5 we left Spa in motor-cars and reached the French lines, we found enemy carriages waiting. This motor tour lasted 10 hours, and it appears likely was prolonged to drive us all over the devastated province, and prepare us for what was shortly to be put before us in the way of hatred and revenge in the extremely severe armistice conditions. In the evening, where-ever it was, a train stood ready. When we awoke next morning the train stood in the midst of a wood. We know now that the negotiations took place in the forest of Compiègne, but a week ago we knew nothing. On the railway line stood two trains, one occupied by Marshal Foch and his people, the other by ours. Here for three days we lived, worked, and deliberated. The introduction to the half-dozen French officers who conducted the negotiations with us “in plenum” and the greetings were of the coldest. Foch gave us no word of the particular politeness that in earlier times distinguished the most chivalrous nation in the world, and his officers just as little. As each was to speak his own language and everything was translated, the reading of the conditions alone occupied nearly two hours. It was moreover a discovery when Foch answered that there were to be no negotiations, and only dictated matter. Then we retired to our train. As we had been sent by the old Government, and had certainly not been authorised to sign everything without conditions, we proceeded to divide the various points under three heads, military, naval, and diplomatic. The enemy maintained, in the persons of all his representatives, the same objective; their coldness was mitigated by no single word that bordered upon the human. The English admiral adopted the tone of the French. There was really no negotiation, and we could only try to obtain concessions. When the enemy demanded delivery of 160 U-boats we could only point out we had not 160 to give. The chief point was that of food, and of this we were in a certain measure able to obtain assurance. Foch himself went off twice to Paris, and couriers were able in two hours to arrive with the papers. Thus it was possible for the enemy on Sunday to hand us the Paris newspapers with the abdication of the Kaiser. We read no laughter, no triumph, in their faces, but we saw in their hearts that our work was not interrupted. We placed before the enemy in the German language our protest against the treaty, but in the end we had to sign.

“NO NEGOTIATIONS.”