Pudor inde et miseratio.
Tacitus.

I intend to prove that the German armies cannot wholly escape from the reproach of sometimes violating the law of nations, and I mean to prove my case according to French custom from absolutely trust worthy sources.

I shall make use only of documents most rigorously examined, and I have taken care to criticize their text as minutely as if in times of peace I were questioning the authority of some old chronicle or the genuineness of some old chart. And I shall do so perhaps from professional habit, perhaps impelled by an inward longing to get at the truth, in any case for the good of the case I am pleading: for these pages are intended for every one; for the casual reader, for the indifferent, and indeed for the enemy of my country. I wish that the casual reader who may by chance open this pamphlet in an idle moment should be struck by the genuineness of the documents, if he has eyes to see, just as their sordid character will touch his heart, if he has a heart that feels.

My aim has been that these documents whose authenticity is obvious should carry an equally obvious authority. It is easy to make accusations difficult to prove them! No belligerent has ever been at a loss to bring against his enemy a heap of evidence, true or false. But though the evidence may be collected in accordance the most solemn forms of justice by the highest magistrates, it will unfortunately long remain useless, so long as the adversary has not had an opportunity of disputing it, everyone is entitled to consider statements as lies, or at least as open to refutation. That is why, I shall abstain here, from quoting French or Belgian testimony true though I know it to be. I have preferred that the evidence which I shall call shall be of such a nature that no living man, not even in Germany shall attempt to refute it. German atrocities shall be proved by German documents.

I shall take the evidence chiefly from those war diaries, which Article 75 of the Rules for Field service of the German Army advises soldiers to keep on the march, which we have confiscated from prisoners[1], as being military papers. It goes without saying that their number increases daily. I should like some day the complete collection to be deposited in the collection of German manuscripts in the BibliothÈque Nationale for everyone’s instruction. In the meantime, the Marquis of Dampierre, a former student of the École des Chartes, archivist and paleographer, is preparing and will shortly bring out a book in which the greater part of these roadside journals will be minutely described, copied, and brought into the full light of day. For my part I have examined but forty. They will suffice for my task. I shall make some extracts from them, taking care that each quotation bears sufficient proof of its genuineness.

In what order shall I arrange them? For many reasons, but chiefly because some of these documents only ten lines long contain proof of crimes of many kinds, I shall not attempt to adopt any rigid order of classification. I shall dip haphazard into the heap; certain associations of ideas or pictures, and a certain similarity in the texts will alone enable me to group them.

I

I open haphazard the Diary of a soldier of the Prussian Guard, Gefreiter Paul Spielmann (I Kompagnie, Ersatz-Bataillon, I Garde-Infanterie-Brigade). Here is his account of a night alarm in a village near Blamont on the 1^st September. At the bugle call, the Guard wakes, and the massacre begins (Plates 1 and 2.)

«The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. Blood was plastered on all the houses, and as for the faces of the dead, they were hideous. They were all buried at once, to the number of sixty. Among them many old men and women, and one woman about to be delivered. It was a ghastly sight. There were three children who had huddled close to one another and had died together. The altar and the ceiling of the church had fallen in. They had been telephoning to the enemy. And this morning, 2 September, all the survivors were driven out and I saw four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle in which was a child of 5 to 6 months old. All this was horrible to see. A blow for a blow. Thunder for thunder. Everything was pillaged. And I also saw a mother with her two little ones: and one had a large wound in the head, and had lost an eye.»[2]

«They had been telephoning to the Enemy» says this soldier, the punishment was deserved. Let us remember the terms of Art. 50 of the Hague Convention of 1907 signed in the name of the German Emperor by a gentleman, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein. «No collective punishment, pecuniary or other, can be inflicted upon a community for individual acts for which they cannot be held responsible as a body.» What tribunal, during this night of horrors took the trouble to make sure of the guilt of the community at large?

II

In an unsigned note-book of a soldier belonging to the 32^nd Infantry (IV Reserve Corps) we come across the following statement.

«3^rd September. Creil. The iron bridge has been blown up. Consequently we burnt the streets and shot the civilians.»[3]

The regular French troops alone—the Engineers—had blown up the iron bridge at Creil; the civilians had nothing to do with it. To excuse these massacres, when they condescend to make any excuse these note-books usually say: “civilians” and “sharpshooters” had fired on our men. But the Convention of 1907, that “scrap of paper”, signed by Germany, stipulates that by its first Article the laws, rights, and duties of war apply, not only to the army, but also to the militia and volunteer corps, adding certain conditions, the chief one of which is the bearing of arms openly and in Art. 2. “The population of unoccupied territory, who, at the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms against the invading forces without having had time to organize according to the conditions of Art. 1, shall be considered as belligerent, if the population bears arms openly and respects the laws and customs of war.” Read in the light of this text the savage stories which follow will take their true proportions:

a) Diary of P^te Hassemer VIII Corps.

«3. 9. 1914. Sommepy (Marne). Horrible massacre. The village burnt to the ground, the French thrown into houses in flames, civilians and all burnt together.»[4]

b) Diary of Lt Kietzmann (2^nd Company, 1^st Battalion of the 49^th Reg^t of Infantry), dated 18^th August (Plate 3).

«A little in front of Diest[5] lies the village of Schaffen. About 50 civilians had hidden in the church tower and had fired on our men with a machine-gun. All the civilians were shot.»[6]

c) Diary of a Saxon officer (unsigned) (178^th Reg^t XII Army Corps, I Saxon Corps).

“26^th August. The pretty village of GuÉ-d’Hossus in the Ardennes has been burnt, although innocent of any crime, it seemed to me. I was told a cyclist had fallen off his machine, and that in doing so his gun had gone off: so they fired in his direction. Thereupon, the male inhabitants were simply consigned to the flames. It is to be hoped that such atrocities will not be repeated.”[7]

The Saxon officer however had already seen such “atrocities” the previous day, 25^th August, at Villers en Fagne (Belgian Ardennes). “Where some Grenadiers of the Guard had been found dead or wounded”, he had seen the priest and other villagers shot; and three days earlier the 23^rd August, in the village of Bouvignes to the north of Dinant, he had seen things which he describes as follows:

“We got into the property of a well-to-do inhabitant, by a breach effected in the rear, and we occupied the house. Through a maze of rooms we reached the threshold. There was the body of the owner on the floor. Inside our men destroyed everything, like Vandals. Every corner was searched. Outside in the country, the sight of the villagers who had been shot defies all description. The volley had almost decapitated some of them.

“Every house had been searched to the smallest corner, and the inhabitants dragged from their hiding-places. The men were shot; the women and children shut up in a convent, from which some shots were fired. Consequently, the convent is to be burnt. It can be ransomed however on the surrender of the guilty and on payment of 15.000 francs.”[8]

Sometimes, as we shall see, the diaries supplement one another.

d) Diary of Private Philipp. (Kamenz, Saxony. 1^st Company. 1^st Battalion of the 178^th Regt.) The same day 23^rd August, a soldier of the same regiment saw a similar scene to that described above, probably the same, but the point of view is a different one (Plate 4).

“In the evening, at 10 o’clock the first battalion of the 178^th Regt went down to the village that had been burnt to the north of Dinant. A sad and beautiful sight, and one that made you shudder. At the entrance of the village there lay about 50 dead bodies strewn on the road. They had been shot for having fired on our troops from ambush. In the course of the night, many others were shot in the same way, so that we could count more than two hundred. The women and children, lamp in hand, were obliged to watch the horrible scene. We then ate our rice, in the midst of the corpses, for we had not tasted food since morning.”[9]

A fine military subject indeed, and worthy to compete at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. One passage in the text however is obscure, and might embarrass the competitors. “The women and children lamp in hand were obliged to watch the horrible scene.”

What scene? The shooting, or the counting of the corpses? Painters, who wish to elucidate this point need only consult the colonel of the 178^th Regt. What a gallant soldier!

He did, that night, but carry out the spirit of his superiors and comrades in arms. He who wishes to be convinced need but read in the Sixth Report of the Belgian Enquiry Commission on the violation of the laws of nations (Le Havre, 10 Nov. 1914) the base proclamations which the Germans placarded in Belgium. Three short excerpts will suffice.

Extract from a Proclamation of General von BÜlow posted up at LiÈge on the 22^nd of August 1914:

“The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having protested their peaceful intentions, treacherously surprised our troops. It is with my full consent that the general in command had the whole place burnt, and about a hundred people were shot.”[10]

Extract from a Proclamation of Major Commander Dieckmann[11] posted up at GrivegnÉe on the 8^th of September 1914:

“Everyone who does not at once obey the word of command “Hands up!” is guilty (sic) of the penalty of death.”

Extract from a Proclamation of Marshall, Baron von der Goltz posted up in Brussels on the 5^th of October 1914:

“In future, all places near the spot where such acts have taken place (destruction of railway lines or telegraph wires)—no matter whether guilty or not—shall be punished without mercy. With this end in view, hostages have been brought from all places near railway lines exposed to such attacks, and at the first attempt to destroy railway lines, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot.”[12]

III

This (Plate 5) is the first page of an unsigned note-book:

“Langeviller, 22 August. Village destroyed by the 11^th Battalion of the Pioneers. Three women hanged on trees: the first dead I have seen.”[13]

Who are these three women? Criminals surely, guilty no doubt of having fired on the German troops, unless they had been telephoning to the enemy; and the 11^th Pioneers had no doubt punished them justly. But they have expiated their crime now, and the 11^th Pioneers have gone by, and of their crime, the newly advancing troops know nothing. Among these new troops will there be a commander, a Christian, to order the cords to be cut and to release these dead women. No, the regiment will march by under the gibbets, and the flags will brush by these corpses; they will pass along Colonel and officers, gentlemen and KulturtrÄger.

And they know full well what they are doing: these dead women must remain these, as an example; as an example, not for the other women in the village—these had already no doubt understood—, but as an example for the regiment, and for other regiments who were to come afterwards. These must be made warlike, they must be taught their duty, that is to shoot women when the opportunity occurs. The lesson bore fruit indeed. Here is sufficient proof: the young soldier who had that day seen and told us of “dead for the first time” makes the following note on the 10^th and last page of his diary (Plate 6).

“In this way we destroyed 8 houses with their inmates. In one of them two men with their wives and a girl of eighteen were bayonetted. The little one almost unnerved me so innocent was her expression. But it was impossible to check the crowd, so excited were they, for in such moments you are no longer men, but wild beasts.”[14]

And to prove that this murder of women and children is all in the days work of the German soldier, here is further evidence.

a) The author of an unsigned note-book (Plate 7) relates that at Orchies (Nord) a woman was shot for not having stopped at the word of command Halt! Thereupon, he adds, the whole place was burnt.[15]

b) The officer already mentioned of the 178^th Saxon Regt reports that in the outskirts of Lisognes (Belgian Ardennes) “a scout from Marburg having placed three women one behind the other brought them all down with one shot”.

c) Let us now quote a few lines from the diary of a reservist a certain Schlauter (3^rd Battery of the 4^th Regt, Field Artillery of the Guard, Plate 8):

25^th August (in Belgium): Three hundred of the inhabitants were shot and the survivors were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen the women at this moment! But you can’t do otherwise. During our march on Wilot, things went better: the inhabitants who wished to leave could do so and go where they liked.[16] But anyone who fired was shot. When we left Owele, shots were fired: but there, women and everything were fired on[17]....

IV

Often when German troops wish to carry a position, they place civilians, men, women and children before them, and take shelter behind this shield of living flesh. As the stratagem consists essentially in speculating upon the noblemindedness of the adversary, of saying to him: “You will not fire upon these unhappy people, I know, and I hold you at my mercy, disarmed, because I know you are less cowardly than I”, as it implies a homage to the enemy, and humiliation of oneself, it is almost inconceivable that soldiers can resort to it, and that is why it represents a new invention in the long list of human cruelties, and the most fearful Penitentiels (SummÆ peccatorum) of the middle ages have not recorded it. And it is also why, in presence of accounts, French, English or Belgian accusing the Germans of such practices I for a long time doubted, I admit if not the truth of the evidence, at least its importance: such acts must, it seemed to me, prove only the unavowed crimes of officers, individual acts which do not dishonour a nation, for a nation on learning them would repudiate them. But now can we doubt that the German nation accepts such ruffianly exploits as worthy of her, that she recognizes and acquiesces in them, when the following narrative, signed by a Bavarian officer, Lt. A. Eberlein is laid before us in one of the best known newspapers in Germany, in the issue of 7^th Oct. 1914 (n^o 513 Vorabendblatt p. 2 of the MÜnchner Neueste Nachrichten)? Lt Eberlein describes the occupation of St DiÉ at the end of August. After entering the town at the head of a column, he was obliged to barricade himself inside a house until reinforcements came up (Plate 9):

We had arrested three civilians, and suddenly a good idea struck me. We placed them on chairs and made them understand that they must go and sit on them in the middle of the street. On one side entreaties, on the other blows from the butt-end of a gun. One gets terribly hardened after a while. At last they were seated outside in the street. I do not know how many prayers of anguish they said; but they kept their hands tightly clasped all the time. I pitied them; but the devise worked immediately. The shooting at us from the house at the side stopped at once; we were able to occupy the house in front, and became masters of the principal street. Every one after that who showed himself in the street was shot. The artillery, too did good work during this, and when towards seven in the evening, the brigade advanced to free us, I was able to report that “St DiÉ is free of the enemy”.

As I learnt later on, the ... regiment of reserve which had entered St DiÉ more from the north had had similar experiences to ours. The four civilians that had been made to sit in the street had been killed by French bullets. I saw them myself, stretched out in the middle of the street, near the Hospital.

V

Article 28 of the Hague Convention of 1907, signed by Germany, runs thus “It is forbidden to pillage a town or locality even when taken by assault.” Article 47 runs: “(In occupied territory), pillage is forbidden”.

This is how the armies of Germany interpret these articles.

Private Handschuhmacher (of the 11 battalion of JÄgers, reserve) writes in his diary:

“8^th August 1914. Gouvy, (Belgium). There as the Belgians had fired on German soldiers we at once pillaged the Goods Station. Some cases, eggs, shirts and all eatables were seized. The safe was gutted and the money divided among the men. All securities were torn up.”[18]

This took place on the fourth day of the war and enables us to understand why in a technical article on the Military Treasury (der Zahlmeister im Felde) the Berliner Tageblatt of the 26^th Nov. 1914 (1 Supplement) notices as a mere incident an economic phenomenon which is however curious: “As it is a fact that far more money orders are sent from the theatre of operations to the interior of the country than vice versa ...” «Da nun aber erfahrungsgemÄss viel mehr Geld vom Kriegsschauplatz nach der Heimat gesandt wird ...».

But as, according to the common practice of the German armies, pillage is but the prelude to incendiarism, non-commissioned-officer Hermann Levith (of the 160^th Regt. VIII^th Army Corps) writes:

“The enemy had occupied the village of BiÈvre and the skirts of the wood. The 3^rd Company advanced in first line. We carried the village and pillaged and burnt nearly all the houses.”[19]

And P^te Schiller (133 Inf. XIX^th Corps) writes:

“It was at Haybes (Ardennes) on the 24^th of August that we had our first battle. The 2^nd Battalion entered the village, searched the houses sacked them and burnt all those from which shots had been fired.”[20]

Private Seb. Reishaupt (3 Bavarian Inf. 1^st Bavarian Corps) writes:

“Parux (Meurthe-et-Moselle) is the first village we burnt; then the dance began: villages one after the other; by field and meadow on bicycle to the ditches by the roadside, there we ate cherries.”[21]

They vie with one another in stealing, they steal everything and anything, and they keep a record of their loot: “Schnaps, Wein, Marmelade, Zigarren” so writes this plain soldier; and the smart officer of the 178^th Saxon, who at first was indignant at the “Vandalismus” of his men, confesses in his turn, that the 1^st of September at Rethel, he stole “in a house near the HÔtel Moderne, a splendid mackintosh and a camera for Felix”. Without distinction of grade, nor of arms, nor of Corps, they steal, and even in the ambulances the doctors steal. Here is an example from the diary of Private Johannes Thode (4. Reserve-Ersatz Regiment):

“Brussels 5. 10. 14. A motor arrives at the hospital with booty, a piano, two sewing machines, a lot of albums and all sorts of other things.”[22]

Two sewing machines, as «booty» (Kriegsbeute). Stolen from whom? No doubt from two humble Belgian women. And for whom?

VI

I must admit that out of the forty diaries I have examined, there are six or seven that tell of no exactions, either from hypocritical reticence or because certain regiments wage war less vilely. And I even know of three diaries, whose authors, as they narrate sordid details, are astonished, moved to indignation, saddened. I shall withhold their names, because they deserve our consideration, and to spare them the risk of being one day blamed or punished. The first, P^te X ..., who belongs to the 65^th Inf. of the Landwehr, says of some of his fellow comrades (Plate 10):

“They do not behave like soldiers, but like common thieves, highwaymen and robbers, and are a disgrace to our regiment and our army.”[23]

The second, Lt Y ..., of the 77^th Inf. Reserve, says:

“No discipline ... The Pioneers are not worth much; as for the artillerymen they are a gang of robbers.”[24]

And the third, Private Z ..., 12^th Inf. Reserve (1 Corps Reserves) writes (Plate 11):

“Unfortunately, I am obliged to mention something which ought never to have happened; but there are even in our army ruffians who are no longer men, swine to whom nothing is sacred. One of them entered a sacristy that was locked, in which was the blessed sacrament. Out of respect a protestant avoided sleeping there; he polluted the place with his excrements. How can there be such beings! Last night, a man of the Landwehr, a man of thirty-five, and a married man, tried to rape the daughter of a man in whose house he had been quartered, she was a child; and as the father tried to interpose he kept the point of his bayonet on the man’s breast.”[25]

With the exception of these soldiers, who are worthy of the name, the thirty other writers are the same, and the same soul, if the word be allowed, seems to animate them all, uncontrolled and low. They are all alike, yet with some shades of difference. There are some who make distinctions, like subtle lawyers, sometimes blaming, sometimes disapproving: “Dort war ein Exempel am Platze”. And there are some who sneer: “Krieg ist Krieg”; or in French, by preference to add to their scorn “Ja, ja, c’est la guerre”; and there are some who having done their ugly work, open their Hymn Book, and sing psalms: for instance the Saxon officer Rieslang, who relates how one day he left a feast to go to “Gottesdienst”, but was obliged to leave hurriedly, having eaten and drunk too much; or again Private Moritz Grosse of the 177^th Inf. who after describing the sack of St Vieth (22^nd August) and that of Dinant (23^rd August) writes this sentence (Plate 12):

Throwing of bombs in the houses. In the evening, military chorale: Nun danket alle Gott (Now, thank ye all God).[26]

They are all alike. Now, if we consider that I could substitute for the preceding examples others similar and no less cynical, taken for instance from the diary of the reservist Lautenschlager, of the 1^st Battalion of the 66^th Inf. Reg^t, or from the diary of P^te Eduard Hohl of the VIII Corps, or from the diary of non-commissioned officer Rheinhold Koehn, of the 2^nd Battalion of Pomeranian Pioneers, or from the diary of the non-commissioned officer Otto Brandt of the 2^nd section of the ambulance corps (reserves) or from the diary of the Reservist Martin Muller, of the 100^th Saxon Reserves, or from the diary of Lt Karl Zimmer, of the 55^th Inf. or from the diary of P^te Erich Pressler of the 100^th Grenadiers, 1^st Saxon Corps, etc.; and if we notice, that among the extracts already given, there are very few isolated cases of brutality (as can be and are found, alas in the most noble minded of armies) and that I have scarcely noted here any crime that was not done by order, any crime that does not implicate and dishonour not only the individual soldier, but the whole regiment, the officer, the very nation; and if we consider that these thirty diaries, whether they be Bavarian or Saxon, Baden or Rhenish, Pomeranian or from Brandenburg, taken haphazard must represent hundreds and thousands of similar ones, all of a fearful monotony, we shall be obliged to allow, I think, that, M. RenÉ Viviani in no way overstated the case when from the French tribune he spoke of “this system of collective murder and pillage which Germany calls war”.

VII

H. M. the German Emperor, in ratifying the Hague Convention of 1907 agreed (Article 23) “that it is forbidden ... (c) to kill or wound an enemy, who having laid down his arms and having no means of self-defence, gives himself up as a prisoner; (d) to declare that no quarter will be given”.

Has the German Army respected these conventions? In the French and Belgian reports, evidence is plentiful resembling the following which comes from a Frenchman captain in the 288^th Infantry: “On the evening of the 22^nd I learnt that in the wood a hundred and fifty metres from the cross-roads formed by the intersection of the great trench at Calonne and the road from Vaux-lÈs-Palameix to St RÉmy there were some dead bodies of French soldiers who had been shot by the Germans.

I went there, and saw some thirty soldiers in a small space, for the most part lying down, some however on their knees and all having the same kind of wound, a gun-shot in the ear. Only one, very severely wounded was able to speak. He told me the Germans had, before leaving, ordered them to lie down, then had killed them by a shot through the head; that he had been spared on telling them he was the father of three small children. Their brainpans had been blown some distance away, the guns broken at the stock were scattered here and there, and the blood had so bespattered the bushes that as I came out of the wood the front of my cape was all smeared with blood; it was a real charnel-house.”

I have quoted this man’s testimony, not to rely on it as evidence but merely to make clear the nature of my indictment; as for justifying it I shall take care not to depart from the rule I have laid down to resort to German sources of information only.

Here is an order of the day given on the 26^th August by General Stenger commanding the 58^th German Brigade to his troops:

Von heute ab werden keine Gefangene mehr gemacht. SÄmtliche Gefangene werden niedergemacht. Verwundete ob mit Waffen oder Wehrlos niedergemacht. Gefangene auch in grÖsseren 6 geschlossenen Formationen werden niedergemacht. Es bleibe kein Feind lebend hinter uns.

Oberleutnant und Kompagnie-Chef Stoy; Oberst und Regiments-Kommandeur Neubauer; General-Major und Brigade-Kommandeur Stenger.

Translation. After to-day no more prisoners will be taken. All prisoners are to be killed. Wounded, with or without arms, are to be killed. Even prisoners already grouped in convoys are to be killed. Let not a single living enemy remain behind us.

Some thirty soldiers of Stenger’s Brigade (112 and 142^nd Reg^t of the Baden Infantry), were examined in our prisoners camps. I have read their evidence, which they gave upon oath and signed. All confirm the statement that this order of the day was given them on the 26th August, in one unit by Major Mosebach, in another by Lt Curtius, etc.; the majority did not know whether the order was carried out; but three of them say they saw it done in the forest of Thiaville, where ten or twelve wounded French soldiers who had already been spared by a battalion were despatched; two others saw the order carried out on the Thiaville road, where some wounded found in a ditch by a company were finished off.

No doubt, I cannot produce the autograph of General Stenger, and it is not for me to communicate the names of the German prisoners who gave this evidence. But I have no difficulty in producing here German autographs in proof of crimes precisely similar.

For example (Plate 13), here is an extract from P^te Albert Delfosse’s diary (III Inf. Reserve, XIV Reserve Corps):

“In the forest of St RÉmy, 4^th or 5^th September, saw a fine cow and calf destroyed and once more corpses of Frenchmen, frightfully mutilated.”[27]

Are we to understand from this that these dead bodies had been mutilated in fair fight torn to pieces for example by shells? It may be; but this would be a kindly interpretation which the documents (Plates 14 and 15) disprove:

Here is a fac simile on a reduced scale from a newspaper picked up in the German trenches, the Jauersches Tageblatt of the 18^th October 1914. Jauer is a town in Silesia, about 50 kilometres west of Breslau; two battalions of the 154th regiment of the Saxon Infantry are stationed there. One Sunday (Sonntag, den 18 Oktober) no doubt at the hour when the inhabitants with their women and children were going to church, this local newspaper was distributed in the peaceful little town and in the hamlets and villages of the district, bearing these headlines.

EIN TAG DER EHRE FÜR UNSER REGIMENT.
24 SEPTEMBER 1914.
(A day of honour for our Regiment.
24^th September 1914.)

It is the title of an article of two hundred lines, sent from the front by a soldier of the regiment. Non-commissioned-officer Klemt. 1. Komp. Infanterie Reg^t 154.

Klemt tells how on the 24^th of September his regiment which had left Hannonville in the morning and supported on the march by Austrian batteries was suddenly received by a double fire from artillery and infantry. The losses were enormous. And yet the enemy was invisible. At last, however, it was seen that the firing came from above, from trees where French soldiers were posted. From now on I shall no longer summarise, but quote. (Plate 16).

We brought them down like squirrels, and gave them a warm reception, with blows of the butt and the bayonet: they no longer need doctors; we are no longer fighting loyal enemies, but treacherous brigands.[28]

“By leaps and bounds we got across the clearing. They were here, there, and everywhere hidden in the thicket. Now it is down with the enemy! And we will give them no quarter. Every one shoots standing, a few, a very few fire kneeling. No one tries to take shelter. We reach a little depression in the ground: here the red trousers dead or wounded lie on a heap ground. We knock ‘down’ or bayonet the wounded, for we know that those scoundrels fire at our backs when we have gone by. There was a Frenchman there stretched out, full length, face down, pretending to be dead. A kick from a strong fusilier soon taught him that we were there. Turning round, he asked for quarter, but we answered: “Is that the way your tools work, you,—” and he was nailed to the ground. Close to me I heard odd cracking sounds. They were blows from a gun on the bald head of a Frenchman which a private of the 154^th was dealing out vigorously; he was wisely using a French gun so as not to break his own. Tenderhearted souls are so kind to the French wounded that they finish them with a bullet, but others give them as many thrusts and blows as they can.

Plate 15.

“Our adversaries had fought bravely, we had to contend with picked men; they let us get within thirty, even ten metres of them—too near. Sacks and arms thrown away in quantities showed that they had try to run, but at the sight of the “grey phantoms” fear paralyzed them, and on the narrow path they had to take, German bullets brought them the word of command, Halt. At the entry into the screen of branches, there they lay groaning and crying for quarter. But whether wounded slightly or severely, the brave fusiliers spare their country the cost of caring for many enemies.”

The narrative goes on, full of literary ornaments. The writer reports that H. R. H. Prince Oscar of Prussia who had been told of these brave deeds (perhaps too of others) of the 154^th regiment, and of the regiment of grenadiers who were brigaded with the 154^th declared that they were both worthy of the name of KÖnigsbrigade, and ends up with this sentence “When evening came, after a prayer of thanksgiving we fell asleep in the expectation of the morrow”. Then the author having added as a postscript a few more touches in verse takes his composition to his lieutenant, who affixes his seal thereupon.

Certified to be exact
De Niem, Leutnant und Kompagnie-FÜhrer.

Then he addresses his article to the town of Jauer, where he is sure that an editor will accept it, compositors will print it, and an entire population will delight in it.

Now, I ask my reader, no matter of what nationality: can he imagine such an article being printed in his own language, in the town in which he lives, and read by his wife and children? In what country, except Germany is such a thing conceivable? Not in France, at least.

Here is still one further convincing proof of how usual it is for the German army to mutilate the wounded. It is taken (Plates 17 and 18) from the diary of P^te Paul GlÖde, of the 9^th Battalion of the Pioneers (IX Corps):

“12^th August 1914. In Belgium.—It is easy to imagine the state of fury of our soldiers, when you see the villages that have been destroyed. There is not one house left undamaged. All eatables are requisitioned by the soldiers no longer commanded. We have seen heaps of dead men and women who had been executed after trial. But the righteous anger of our soldiers goes hand in hand with sheer vandalism. In some villages which had already been deserted they “set up the red cock” on all the houses (burnt them). The inhabitants sadden me. If they use disloyal weapons, after all they are but defending their country. The atrocities that these civilians have been and are guilty of are avenged in a savage manner. Mutilation of the wounded is the order of the day.”[29]

This was written on the 12^th of August, only eight days after innocent Belgium had been invaded, and the wounded who were tortured were only defending, against Germany that land, their native land which Germany had sworn to respect and if necessary to defend. But in many a country, the Pharisees who having read these lines will calmly go to their churches or Chapels, their bank-parlours or their chancelleries murmuring: “In what way do these things concern me? Ja, Ja, it is war”.

Yes, it is war, but a war such as was never waged by the soldiers of Marceau, nor ever will be waged by the soldiers of Joffre, such as never has been nor ever will be waged by France, “mother of the arts, of arms and of law”. Yes, it is war, but such as even Attila would not have waged, had he agreed to certain engagements, for, to agree to them would have been to awake to the conception which alone distinguishes the civilized man from the barbarian—the nation from the horde—the respect of the given word.—Yes, it is war, but a war whose insolent principles could be constructed only by pedantic megalomaniacs, the Julius von Hartmanns, the Bernhardis, the Treitschkes; principles that presume to authorize the people elect to blot out from the laws and customs of war all the humanity that centuries of Christianity and chivalry have with difficulty introduced; principles of systematic ferocity, the odious side of which is already obvious enough; but still more the senseless and ridiculous side. Is it not indeed ridiculous that they should be already obliged to deny it at least in words,—they the burners of Louvain, Malines and Reims, they the assassins of women, children, and wounded men! and that they should have imposed upon their slavish ninety-three KulturtrÄger the denials which we know so well: “It is not true, say they, that we wage war contrary to the laws of nations, and our soldiers do not commit acts of indiscipline or cruelty[30]”, and again: “We will carry on this war to the bitter end as a civilised people, for this we will answer in our name and on our honour”. Why this pitiful and humble denial? Perhaps because their theory of war presupposes as a postulate their invincibility, and as at the first shudder of their defeat on the Marne it collapsed, they now repudiate it at the first threat of retaliations.

I shall draw no conclusion: the allied armies who are marching on towards victory will do that.

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ADDITIONAL NOTE

General Stenger’s order of the day, mentioned on page 29 was communicated orally by various officers in various units of the brigade. Consequently the form in which we have received it may possibly be incomplete or altered. In face of any doubt, the French government has ordered an enquiry to be made in the prisoners’ Camps. Not one of the prisoners to whom our magistrates presented the order of the day in the above mentioned form found a word to alter. They one and all declared that this was the order of the day which had been orally given in the ranks, repeated from man to man; many added the names of the officers who had communicated the order to them; some related in what a vile way it had been carried out under their eyes. All the evidence of these German soldiers was collected in a legal manner, under the sanction of an oath, and it is after reading their depositions that I wrote the order of the day.

The text of all this evidence was transmitted to all the French embassies and legations in foreign countries on the 24^th of Oct. 1914. Every neutral wishing to clear his conscience is at liberty to obtain it from the representatives of the French Republic who will certainly respond willingly.