No nation today is suffering as great misery,
as great want, as great destitution as the
Lithuanian.
Nowhere has the present European cataclysm
left such rampant desolation, such untold
distress, such severe calamity.
About four million of Lithuanians, the old-
est and purest Aryan race, dwelling along
the shores of the Baltic sea, from Memel, in
Prussia, to Riga in Russia-and from the
Baltic eastward to Vilna, their old historic
capital, are practically without shelter, food,
and the most primitive necessities.
The greater number of the Lithuanian cities
and villages are razed. Sections where once
rich fields and prosperous farms were sup-
porting a peaceful and industrious Lithuanian
nation-are today a mass of ruin and desola-
tion.
Although neutral and absolutely unguilty
Lithuania has borne and is bearing the
heaviest burden in the fearful struggle of
two giant nations. Her men have unwillingly
been forced into both the German and Rus-
sian armies.
The first shot of the war was fired in Shir-
vinta, Lithuania. It was in Lithuania that
the German field marshall, von Hindenburg,
struck the heaviest blow upon the Russians.
Vast Russian and German armies have
crossed and recrossed Lithuania four times,
fiercely struggling with each other requisi-
tioning, destroying and devastating the entire
country.
Practically all children up to five years are
dead from lack of food and care.
The starving population which is left is being
fearfully decimated by disease and epidemic.