626 33 B8 spy 1 K' THE HUN'S DIARY German Proofs ^ German Crimes translated (lom the origbal by PERCY S. BULLEN supplemented by reports of the official COMMISSIONS OF ENQUIRY appointed hy* France, Belgium and England. Publishing Agent, S. J. Clarke, P.O. Box 1 056, New York. C«pyiidil in U.S.A., I9l5,b]r Percy S. Bullea PRICE 10 CENTS POST FREE 12 CENTS THE HUN'S DIARY German Proofs if German Crimes translated from the original by PERCY S. BULLEN supplemented by reports of the ofiicial COMMISSIONS OF ENQUIRY appointed by" France, Belgium and England. Please address applications for this brochure to S. J. Clarke, Sales Agent, P.O. Box 1056, New York. .-^u L "HoTum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae" Caesar TO BRAVE BELGIUM Small in size, mighty^ in spirit, whose valiant people risked Death that honor might live; A dauntless barrier §f her Sons held back the invading tide. Rescued the sacred cause §f Christian Civilization and gave new birth to the Liberty gf Mankind. p. 5. B. Y MAR 12 1915 )CI,A393947 '4 **A ^tvnp of fupn" (by the COUPTSSY of the "new YORK TRIBUNE') CONTENTS PAGE Frontispiece - ''A Scrap ofPaper" Facsimile of Jl 'Diary I. German Proofs if German Crimes - - - 1 II. The Gospel gf Frightftilness - - - 5 III. Arson, Pillage, Murder - - - - 15 Official l^eports of France and Belgium IV. The Hun's Official Guidebook - . - 22 V. The War Premeditated - - - - 26 Kaiser's Speech in 1908 GERMAN PROOFS of GERMAN CRIMES There are two topics regarding the Great War upon which the majority of Americans are now agreed. The first concerns the imme- diate responsibility for the catastrophe and the second the violation of Belgian and Luxemburg neutrality by Germany. The country has been flooded for months with reprints of the diplomatic documents and the arguments of both sides have been heard. He who runs may read the answer to the question, "Who desired the War?", and even the Germans themselves do not seriously contend that the solemn trea- ties which guaranteed the neutrality of "the little sister of the nations" were merely "scraps of paper." There is another question with which I now propose to deal, upon which the majority of Americans have preserved an open mind: Do the Germans in the field actually practice the Gospel of Frightfulness preached by some of their most notable leaders and actually enjoined in "The German War Book?" That is the question which I shall try to answer by the evidence of Germans themselves. Americans love fair play for all sides and they have done well to suspend their judgment on a question so vexed as German atrocities. Hate, hysteria and panic, one may argue, come so largely into play in the compilation of French and Belgian reports on the doings of the Germans in the field that you, with your memories of kind friends and agreeable holidays in Germany, are loath to convict. Moreover, have we not been assured on the evidence of eminent American newspaper correspondents personally conducted over the scenes of recent devastation by members, of the German military stafif, that they "personally have neither seen nor heard reliable evidence of outrages on the field" and reports from Germany, we know, bear con- stant testimony to the scientific care and provision made for the wounded of friend and foe alike. It is equally true that the Germans we meet in the United States are not less refined and humane in their instincts than the citizens who are unhyphenated and we would refuse, without abundant evidence, to impute to their brothers in the Fatherland a red record of murder and burnings and plunderings. Tt is my purpose to supply the evidence to which American readers are entitled and it will be found within the covers of this book. You have heard a great deal from the German professors since the war began. Hear now one from the other camp — a man of great distinction and unquestioned good faith — Professor Bedier, of the famous College de France. Article 75 of the German Field Service Regulations expressly en- joins soldiers to keep "war diaries." Professor Bedier has gathered about forty of a large number of these diaries taken from prisoners of war and published them in a brochure, "Les Crimes Allemands," pending the issue of the whole collection now being prepared by the Marquis de Dampierre. Professor Bedier applies to his task the same keen analytical methods and impartiality which in times of peace have served him so well in discussing the authority of an ancient document or the au- thenticity of a map. He is by no means related to the Yellow Jour- nalist. And he addresses himself in his little book to all comers — to belligerents as well as neutrals, to the German people as well as to Americans ; in fact, to quote his own words, to all those "with eyes to see and hearts to feel." FACSIMILES OF ORIGINALS. It is easy to accuse and difficult to prove. Professor Bedier rec- ognizes that axiom and the evidence he supplies comes not from the victims but from the pens of the actual men who perpetrated or as- sisted at the atrocities, approvingly or unwillingly, according to their natures. By means of extracts from diaries found on German prisoners of war by the French he unfolds a plain unvarnished tale of horror, a chronicle of foul deeds, on which the facsimile reproduction of many sets the seal of truth. These diaries, as the war progresses, become in- creasingly numerous. It is proposed that one day, for the edification of everyone, the entire collection shall be deposited in the German De- partment of Manuscripts at the Great National Library in Paris. Meantime, Professor Bedier takes some forty from the collection available— just by way of a beginning. THE FACSIMILES WHICH HE REPRODUCES IN HIS BOOK ARE INCONTESTED AND INCONTESTABLE. So much, at least, may be conceded. They are, after all, similar to the loose pages of other scribbled diaries chronicling, in faded pencilling, the daily routine of the German soldier's life, what he ate, how long he slept, how he and his comrades fought, picked up on many a bloodstained field. Professor Bedier prints in "Les Crimes Allemands," issued under the auspices of the French Committee of Publication dealing with War Documents and Studies, a dozen or more facsimiles of the diaries. The characteristic faults of spelling in some of the extracts as well as little colloquial phrases indicating the writer's native region in Ger- many do not permit ctf their veracity being questioned. One of the facsimiles which I have reproduced from Professor Bedier's interesting and important work — more important in America than anywhere else in the world, probably, because of the very active and well-organized German press propaganda in the United States — appears on a page following this. It is chosen at random and is a trifle more legible than the others. The writer of the diary, in this case, was Reservist Schlauter (3rd battery of the 4th Regiment of the Guards Field Ar- tillery). The German text and the English translation are given below the photogravure. In the compass of this little book I am unable to reproduce all the diaries quoted but to those who desire further details, I will say that an authorized English translation of Professor Bedier's work, which is printed by the Librairie Armand Colin, 103, Boulevard Sainte Michel, Paris, is now in the press and will soon be seen on the American book- stalls. THIS WILL GIVE THE ENTIRE COLLECTION FROM WHICH THE SAMPLE ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE IS TAKEN. I do not think the genuineness of the facsimiles, produced under the auspices of the French committee — ^all men of national reputation and of the most high-minded calibre — will be questioned by American citi- zens, hyphenated or otherwise, but if there should be any doubters, I would remind them that the ORIGINALS REMAIN IN SAFE CUS- TODY IN PARIS OPEN TO INSPECTION— and, I regret to add, very many more like them. Extract from the Diary of Private Schlauter, (3rd Battery, 4th Regt. of German Guards Field Artillery) reproduced here as a sample of all the facsimiles of "War Diaries" quoted by Professor Bedier in "Les Crimes AUemandes." (German Text.) '/k.*-*'^' "Aus der Stadt wurden 300 erschossen. Die die Salve iiberlebten mussten Toten- graber sein. Das v^ar ein Anblick der Weiber; aber es geht nicht anders. Auf d e m Verfolgungsmarsch nach Wilot ging es besser. Die Einwohner, die verzie- hen wollten, konnten sich nach Wunsch ergeben, wo sie wollten. Aber der schoss, der wurde erschossen. Als wir aus Owele marschierten, knatterten die Gewehre: aber da gab es Feuer, Weiber, und Alles." (English Translation.) "Aug. 25 (in Belgium). Of the inhabitants of the town 300 were shot. Those who survived the volley were requisitioned as gravedig- gers. The women were a sight ! But it cannot be helped. Things went better on our march to Wilot: The inhabitants who wanted to leave were allowed to go where they desired. But those who fired at us were shot. As we were marching out of Owele rifles rang out, but there — there were fire, women and everything else." II.— THE GOSPEL OF FRIGHTFULNESS. It was Machiavelli who first preached the doctrine of "frightfulness" in war. Treitschke and Bernhardi were his modern disciples. That the Great General Staff of the German Army cannot be held guiltless as re- gards crimes committed by German soldiers in the present war is ap- parent to all who have studied "The German War Book" to which a more extended reference is made later in these pages. The "German War Book" gives the preceptj and this chapter will expose a few of its practitioners. The first war diary from which I will quote is that of a Berliner, Corporal Paul Spielman of the Reserve Battalion of the First Brigade of Footguards. It is not so well written as that of Reservist Schlauter, and is much underlined. Spielman describes a night alarm on September 1 in a village near Blamont : "The villagers fled. It was horrible. All the houses are spat- tered with blood and the faces of the dead are hideous. They were buried immediately, sixty of them. There were a lot of old women among them, and one woman enceinte, the whole thing a horrible sight, and three children who had clung to one another and died like that. The altar and the arches of the church have collapsed The villagers had telephoned to the enemy. This morning, Sep- tember 2 all the survivors were expelled. I saw four little boys aided by two sticks attached to a cradle carrying a child of five or six months old. It's a, case of a blow for a blow. Everything is plundered . . . And I saw, too, (among the fleeing vil- lagers), a mother and her two little children, and one had a great wound on the head and an eye put out . . ." As to villagers and the telephone; Professor Bedier reminds us that article 50 of the Hague Convention, 1907, signed in the name of the Kaiser by Baron Marschall Von Bieberstein expressly stipulates that "no collective punishment, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted on a population because of individual deeds for which they cannot be held collectively responsible." What tribunal, he asks, on that night of horrors, took the trouble to establish such responsibility? A private of the 32nd Reserve Infantry writes in his diary (un- signed :) "September 3. Creil. The iron bridge has been blown up. On that account we have set streets on fire and shot civilians." The remains of the great bridge across the Oise at Creil are an indes- cribable tangle of masonry blocks, twisted girders and broken strands. It is known that regular troops, either French or English, destroyed the bridge and such a work was an expert feat of engineering. One may recall that the German officer Home utterly failed in a much easier task at Vianceboro, Maine, and presumably he lacked neither the weap- ons nor the experience. To excuse such a massacre as reported at Creil the Germans, when they have condescended to furnish an excuse, have us- ually said that "civilians" or "franctireurs" had fired on their troops. But a "scrap of paper" signed by Germany — the Convention of 1907 — provides in its very first article that "the law^s, rights and privileges of w^ar apply not only to the army but also to militia and bodies of volun- teers" fulfilling certain conditions of which the chief is "to bear arms openly," and, in the second article it is agreed that "the population of a territory not occupied, who, at the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms in order to fight the invading troops without having the time to organize themselves in accordance with article one shall be deemed belligerents providing arms are borne openly and respect paid to the laws and customs of war." In the light of the foregoing please consider the tales of barbarism which follow : (a) Diary of Private Hassemer (Eighth Corps) : "3.9.1914. At Sommepy (Mar«e.) Frightful bloodshed, the village burnt to the ground, French thrown into the flaming houses, civilians and everything burnt to- gether." (b) Diary of Lieut. Kietzmann (2nd company, 1st Battalion of 49th Infantry Regiment) under date of Aug. 18th. "A little ahead of Diest there is the village of Schaffen. Fifty civ- ilians, about, were concealed in the tower of the Church and from above they fired upon our troops with a mitrailleuse. All the civ- ilians have been shot." (c) Diary of an anonymous Saxon officer (178th Regt., 12th Ami}' Corps, 1st Saxon Corps.) "August 26. The charming village of Gue-D'Hossus (Ardennes), though guiltless, as I think, has been burnt. I was told that a cyclist fell from his machine and that his gun as a result of the fall went off accidentally. Then they made a fire in that place. Male members of the population were literally thrown into the flames. One must hope that such atrocities will not be repeated." This was not the first time that the unknown Saxon officer had seen "such atrocities." On the evening of Aug. 25th, at Villersen- Fagne (Belgian Ardennes) where some killed and wounded Germans had been found, he had seen "the parish priest and other residents shot ;" and two days earlier, Aug. 23, at the village of Bouvigues, to the north of Dinant he had seen things which he thus describes : "By a gap in the rear we enter the property of a well-to-do resident and we occupy the house. Across a labyrinth of apartments we reach the threshold. There lay the dead body of the owner. In- side the house our men, like vandals, have destroyed everything. Everything has been ransacked. Along the countryside the spec- tacle of villagers lying dead on the ground bafiles description. The shooting at close quarters has almost decapitated them. Every house has been ransacked to its innermost recesses and the little savings of the people have been wrested from them. Men shot ; women and children locked up in a convent whence some shots had been fired. For this reason the convent is on the point of being burnt; nevertheless it can be ransomed if it will surrender the cul- prits and' pay tribute of 15,000 francs." (d) Diary of Private Phillipp (of Kamenz 1st Company, 1st Bat- talion of 178th Regiment.) 6 "At ten o'clock in the evening the 1st Battalion of the 178th went down to a village burnt north of Dinant. Terrifyingly splen- did spectacle. At the entrance of the village were about fifty vil- lagers shot for having fired on our troops from ambush. During the night many others were shot, so that we counted over 200. Women and children with lamps in their hands had to witness the terrible spectacle. We ate our rice among the corpses, for we had eaten nothing since morning." "Women and children with lamps in their hands had to witness the terrible spectacle." As to whether the spectacle was the actual mas- sacre or the numbering of the poor victims, or both, Private Philipp ofifers no information. Professor Bedier shows that the gallant colonel of the noble 178th on that fateful evening was merely acting in harmony with his comrades in arms elsewhere and, as I shall show in another chapter, in strict ac- cordance with the spirit of the official "German War Book." Some ex- tracts from the ignoble proclamations that the Germans posted in Bel- gium may be here cited in proof of the spirit that inspires Teuton arms in modern days. The first extract is from a proclamation by General Von Bulow placarded at Liege, Aug. 22, 1914. "The people of the town of Andenne, after protesting their peaceful intentions, have treacherously surprised our troops. Act- ing with my approval the General in command has burnt the entire district and about one hundred persons have been shot." Here's another extract, this time from a proclamation issued at Grivegnee, Sept. 8, 1914, by the Major Commandant Dieckmann : "He who fails to comply immediately with the order 'Hands up!' renders himself guilty (sic) of the penalty of death." The following extract is from a proclamation of Field Marshal Baron von der Goltz posted at Brussels Oct. 5, 1914: "In future the places nearest to the scene where similar acts (destruction of railroads and telegraph lines) have taken place — WHETHER ACCOMPLICES OR NOT MATTERS LITTLE— will be punished without mercy. To this end hostages have been taken from all districts adjacent to railroads threatened by sim- ilar attacks and at the first attempt to destroy* railroads, telegraph wires or telephone they will be immediately shot." If any critic feels inclined to doubt that the Germans in this case were not true to their word they are referred for a most convincing demonstration to the Sixth Report of the Belgian Commission of En- quiry (Havre, Nov. 10, 1914.) Women and Children Slaughtered. After the raid of the Zeppelins in England recently, a prominent German-American wrote to the American newspapers expressing a re- gret that a woman and a child should have been killed by the bomb throwing. He stated that the Germans "in war, as in peace, have a pro- found respect for women and children," and he defied any critic to say that any of the Kaiser's soldiers had been guilty of killing women and children in the present campaign. Accusations to the contrary he de- nounced as "malicious libels circulated by a subsidised press to defame the honor of German manhood and the glory of the GermanArmy." It was evident that the indignant correspondent had not read either the re- ports of the Belgian Commission of Enquiry, or the report of the French Commission presented to the President of the French Cabinet, Sept. 23, 1914, and that he was equally ignorant of the testimony of Germans themselves with which this work is more exclusively concerned. Here is the first extract from a German war diary — unsigned this time but the original is open for inspection — ^by way of answer to the prominent German-American. "Langeviller, (Aug. 22.) Village destroyed by the 11th Pio- neer Battalion. Three women hanged on trees — the first dead I have seen." Who were these three women? asks Professor Bedier. Had they fired on the troops or ''telephoned to the enemy" and were therefore "justly punished" by the Uth Pioneer Battalion? And was there no officer in the troops that followed after to cut down their bodies and con- sign them to the earth? No, they were left to swing, an example of "frightfulness" not only for the French but also for the German troops fresh from home "to season them." Yet he was not easily seasoned, the private who saw the dead women on the trees. A week after — a week with the German Army ! — he notes in his diary : "We thus destroyed eight houses with their inhabitants. In one alone two men with their wives and a girl of eighteen were killed with the bayonet. It went to my heart to see the girl killed, she had such an innocent look, but there was nothing to be done with the excited mass, for then they are not men but beasts." Just to show that the slaughter of women and children are not ex- ceptional crimes for German soldiers. Professor Bedier cites the author of another unsigned diary who reports that at Orchies (Nord) "a woman was run through for not having obeyed the command 'Halt!' whereupon we burnt the place." The officer of the 178th Saxon Regiment already quoted reports that on the outskirts of Lisognes (Belgian Ardennes) "an infantryman of Marburg having placed three women one be- hind the other brought them down with the same bullet." And then there is the evidence of Reservist Schlauter (3rd Battery, 4th Regiment of Field Artillery of the Guard) whose handwriting has already been reproduced in these pages in facsimile : "Aug. 25 (in Belgium.) Of the inhabitants of the town 300 were shot. Those who survived the volley were requisitioned as gravediggers. The women were a sight! But it cannot be helped. Things went better on our march to Wilot: the inhabitants who wanted to leave were allowed to go where they desired. But those who fired at us were shot. As we were marching out of Owele rifles rang out, but there- — there were fire, women and every- thing else." Schlauter mercifully leaves that "everything else" to one's imagina- tion! German Nation Dishonored. There are some crimes in war which dishonor not merely those who practice them but the army which permits them and the nation which can applaud them. Surely no excuse can be found for the action of German troops who, desiring to capture a position, deliberately placed before them civilians, men, women and children, a veritable bar- rier of living human flesh. It is base strategy which relies for success upon the appeal made to the humanity and chivalry of the enemy, as if one said to him "I am sure you won't be so mean as to fire upon these poor people and so I hold you, unarmed, at my mercy because you are less cowardly than I." French, Belgians and English have accused the Germans of such practices and the evidence seems incontrovertible. The official reports are the authority and they have not been disproved. Pro- fessor Bedier in "Les Crimes AUemands" asks this pertinent question: "How can you doubt that the German nation accepts these blackguardly exploits as deeds worthy of Germany, that she is indeed grateful for them, pleased with them, when the following narrative, signed by a Bavarian ofhcer, First Lieutenant A. Eberlein, is paraded in one of the most famous newspapers of Germany, the "Miinchner Neueste Nach- richten" in its issue of Wednesday, 7th* Oct., 1914 (no. 513, Vorabendr bladtt, p. 2) ? Eberlein describes the occupation of Saint Die at the end of August. Having entered the village at the head of a column, he was obliged to barricade himself in a house while awaiting reinforcements. Here is the story which he tells under an approving headline in the "Miinchner Neueste Nachtrichten," a somewhat conservative sheet in Germany and quite opposed usually to the traditions of saffron journal- ism: "After arresting three civilians a happy idea came to me. We placed them on chairs and gave them to understand that they must sit in the middle of the street. Their entreaties were answered by blows with the butt ends of our muskets. Little by little a man becomes ter- ribly hard. At last they are seated in the street as we direct. How many agonizing appeals they made I cannot say but all the time they held each other's trembling hands. I pitied them but the ruse answers. The enfilading fire directed upon us from the houses very soon de- creases ; now we are able to occupy the house opposite and in that way become the masters of the principal street. Henceforth anyone who shows himself in the street is shot. Meantime our artillery has also been hard at work and when, towards seven o'clock at night, the brig- ade advances to the attack in order to support us, I am able to make the report 'Saint-Die is empty of enemies.' "As I learnt later the . . . th Reserve Regiment which entered Saint-Die more to the north had experiences precisely similar to ours. The four civilians that they compelled to remain seated in the street were killed by French bullets. I saw them myself lying in the middle of the street near the hospital." Plunder and Arson. Article 28 of the Hague Convention, 1907, signed by Germany spe- cially forbids pillage of a town or even a place taken by assault, and Ar- ticle 47 says "pillage in occupied territory is forbidden." German soldiers, as we shall see, are not to be handicapped by mere conventions of the Hague — they also are "mere scraps of paper." Private Handschuhmacher (11th Battalion of Reserve Infantry) writes in his diary : "Aug. 8th 1914, Gouvy, (Belgium.) The Belgians having fired upon German soldiers we soon applied ourselves to the task of rob- bing the freight station. Boxes, eggs, shirts; everything that could be eaten was taken away. The safe was smashed open and the gold distributed amongst the men. The securities we des- troyed." This event took place on the fourth day of the war and it helps us to understand how in a technical article upon the operations of the Mili- tary Treasury (der Zahlmeister im Felde,) the Berliner Tageblatt, 26th November, 1914 (1. Beiblatt) notes in a simple incident a somewhat strange economic phenomenon. "How is it," the "Tageblatt"' asks, "that as a matter of experience there is sent by postal order much more money from the scene of operations towards Germany than vice versa . ." ("Da nun aber erfahrungsgemass viel mehr Geld vom Kriegs- schauplatz nach der Heimat gesandt wird. . .") The testimony of Petty Officer Herman Levith (160th Infantry, 8th Army Corps) is quoted as showing that pillage is only the prelude of incendiarism. "The enemy has occupied the village of Bievre and the out- skirts of a wood from behind. The third company advanced in the first line. We captured the village then plundered and burnt almost all the houses." Hear also the evidence of Private Schiller (133rd Infantry, 19th Army Corps) : "Our first fight took place at Haybes (Ardennes) on Aug. 24. The second battalion enters the village, runs through the houses, pillages them and burns those from which there had been shoot- ing." Private Sebastien Reishaupt (3rd Bavarian Infantry, 1st Bavarian Corps) writes : "Parux: (Meurthe-et-Moselle) was the first village we set afire ; after that the fun commenced ; one village succeeded another ; by field and meadow we cycled along to the ditches at the side of the road and there we ate cherries !" "Schnapps, wine, marmalade, cigars," writes this humble private — nothing escaped their clutches. And the distinguished officer of the 178th Saxon Reginjent who was at first indignant at the "vandalism" of his men confesses that he, in his turn, on Sept. 1st at Rethel has stolen "from a house near the Hotel Moderne a splendid waterproof and a camera outfit for Felix." They rob without distinction of rank or corps not excluding the doctors. Johannes Thode (4th Reserve Regiment) writes in his diary : "At Brussels 5|10|14. An automobile arrives at the hospital and brings spoils of war; a piano, two sewing machines, plenty of albums and all sorts of other things." Professor Bedier in his comments upon these warspoils — Kriegs- beute as the Germans call it — suggests that the two sewing machines had been stolen from two poor Belgian women. "And at whose instance?" he asks. 10 Soldiers Who Protest. Amongst the forty odd diaries reviewed by Professor Bedier there were only six or seven which failed to relate some misdeed and there were actually three in which the authors describing some disgraceful happenings expressed astonishment, indignation and grief. He does not tell us the names of the latter because they are deserving of our good-will and incidentally he does not wish to expose them to the risk of being blamed when they return home or even punished. Private X. . ., who belongs to the 65th Landwehr Infantry speaks thus of his comrades in arms : "They do not behave themselves like soldiers, but rather as highway robbers, bandits and brigands and are a disgrace to our regiment and army." Another soldier, Lieut. Y. . . ., of the 77th Reserve Infantry, says : "No discipline : . . . pioneers aren't worth much : as to the' gunners they are a band of thieves." And the third witness, Private Z.. . ,, of the 12th Reserve In- fantry (1st Reserve Corps) writes: "Unhappily I am forced to note a fact which ought never to have been possible; but even in our army there are some wretches unworthy to be called men, swine to whom nothing is sacred. Despite the locked door, one of them entered a Sacristy where the Holy Sacrament was kept. Out of respect a Protestant had re- frained from sleeping there but this man defecated there. Why do such beings exist? Last night a man of the Landwehr, more than 35 years old, married, wished to outrage the daughter of a villager in whose home he had found shelter — a young girl ; and because the father interfered he prodded him in the chest with his bayonet." Apart from these three soldiers the thirty other diarists seem made of the same base clay, differing from each other only in degree, some writing approvingly, some sneeringly, and there were some amongst them, their ugly work ended, who would open their book of canticles and sing psalms. Such a person was the Saxon Lieutenant Reislang who describes how he left an orgie to attend a "Gottesdienst" but having eaten and drunk too much he was obliged to hurry from the meeting house! Another was Private Moritz Grosse of the 177th Infantry who, after describing the sacking of Dinant (Aug. 23) wrote this sentence: "Discharge of fire grenades into the houses ; evening, military chorale: Nun danket alle Gott!" (Now thank we all our God!) Professor Bedier notes that the culprits resemble each other and he adds this trenchant summary: If, he says, you will just reflect that I can multiply the extracts given by others similar and not less cynical, taken, for instance, from the diary of Reservist Lautenschlager (1st Battalion, 66th Infantry Regiment,) or the diary of Private Edward Hohl (Eighth Army Corps,) or the diary of Petty Ofificer Reinhold Koelm (2nd Battalion of Pomeranian Pioneers,) or the diary of Petty Officer Otto Brandt (2nd Reserve Ambulance Section), or the diary of Reservist Martin Muller (100th Saxon^ Reserve), or the diary of Lieut. Karl Zimmer (55th Infantry,) or the diary of Private Erich Pressler 11 (100th Grenadiers, 1st Saxon Corps,) etc.; and if you will note that of the enormities already reported there are very few which may be charged to individual, isolated ruffians (such as may be met and are met, alas ! in the most noble of armies ;) and that I have confined myself here chiefly to crimes committed in routine service, (service commande) which concern and disgrace not the individual only but the entire com- pany, the ofhcer and the nation ; and if you will observe finally that these thirty diaries. Bavarian or Saxon, Baden or Rheinlander, Pomer- anian or Brandenburger, taken at random, are most certainly repre- sentative of HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS OF OTHERS EITHER SIMILAR OR OF SURPRISING UNIFORMITY, you will be forced, I believe, to conclude that M. Rene Viviani speaking from the elevation of the French tribune was well within the limit when he alluded to "THIS SYSTEM OF COLLECTIVE PLUNDER AND MURDER THAT GERMANY CALLS WAR." Prisoners Massacred. Belgian and French official reports, let alone unofficial statements by English and Russian, teem with proofs that the Hague Convention of 1907 which provides in article 24 for the safety of prisoners of war, and to which the Kaiser was a party, has been violated again and again. The following is the text of an Order of the Day addressed by Gen- eral Stenger, commander of the 58th German Brigade to his men on August 26th : "From this day forth there will be no more prisoners. All the prisoners will be slaughtered. Even prisoners already formed into convoys will be massacred. Behind us we will leave no liv- ing enemy, (signed) Stoy, 1st Lieutenant Commanding; Neubauer, Colonel Commanding; Stenger, General Commanding." It happens that thirty soldiers of Stenger's Brigade (112th and 142nd Regiments of Baden Infantry) were questioned in the French depots of prisoners. Professor Bedier saw their depositions, given under oath and signed with their names. All confirm that this terrible order was in fact conveyed to them on August 26th., to one unit by Major Mose- bach, to another by Lieutenant Curtius, and so forth, the majority pro- fessing to ignore whether the order was executed but three amongst them alleging that it was in their presence in the forest of Thiaville where ten or a dozen wounded Frenchmen, already received by a bat- talion as prisoners, were despatched. Two others saw the order executed along the Thiaville road where some wounded, found in the ditches by a company on the march, were slaughtered. The Professor does not, in this case, produce the autograph of General Stenger and naturally he is not giving away the names of the German prisoners who testified. He has no difficulty, however, with his great mass of evidence, in proving crimes quite similar and he presents a number of German autographs in his book. Here is an extract from the diary of Private Albert Delfosse (111th Reserve Infantry, Fourteenth Reserve Corps :) "In the forest (near Saint Remy, Sept. 4th or 5th) met a very fine cow and calf slaughtered ; and again some French corpses shockingly mutilated." 12 It is just possible, of course, that these corpses may have 'been cut to pieces by shells but in view of the following "Soldiers Letter" pub- hshed by the local paper of Jauer, a town of Silesia, other interpreta- tions are clearly permissible. Professor Bedier gives a facsimile of the Jauersches Tageblatt of Oct. 18, 1914. This letter written by Sergeant Klemt (1st Company, 154th Infantry) is published under the headline: "A day of Honor for Our Regiment." Klemt tells how on Sept. 24 his regiment which had left Han- nonville in the morning supported on the march by some Austrian bat- teries was suddenly fired upon by artillery and infantry. The enemy re- mained unseen and the losses were terrific. At last, he says, "we no- ticed that the bullets were coming from the tops of trees where some French troops were ensconced." Let Klemt's words tell the rest : "We made them scamper down like squirrels and gave them a hot reception with the butt ends of rifles and bayonets : they had no more need of doctors ; we were no longer fighting honorable en- emies but low brigands. By leaps and bounds we crossed the clear- ing. Here and there we found them hid in bushes and we go for them right and left. No quarter is given. Standing erect we let fly ; few indeed fire from the kneeling position; nobody thinks of shel- tering himself. We come to a dip in the ground, dead and wounded 'Red Trousers' (French) lie about in piles, the wounded are beaten or stabbed to death, for we know that as soon as we have passed these rascals will shoot us in the back. A Frenchy lies stretched out there, his face to the ground but he is only feigning death. A kick from a strapping private lets him know we are there. Turning over he cries : Tardon !' but the next moment he is pinned to the earth with the words : 'There you . . . that's how we give you some of your own-medicine.' The uncanny cracking by my side comes from the blows which one of our men is raining down with the butt end of his musket on the bald head of a Frenchman. He was sagely using a French rifle for this work in order not to smash his own. Particularly soft-hearted men finish off the Frenchmen with a bullet, the others hack and stab as hard as they can. Our foe struggled bravely; they were picked men we had before us; they had allowed us to approach within ten to thirty yards — too near! Knapsacks and arms thrown in a heap indicated that they had wished to run but at the sight of the Kaiser's Own, fright paralyzed their feet and upon the narrow path they took, German bullets gave them the command to halt! At the entrance of the leafy shelters they lie slightly and seriously wounded, vainly whinnying for quarter, but our brave soldiers spare the Fatherland the ex- pense of nursing our numerous enemies." The narrative goes on to say that His Royal Highness, Prince Oscar of Prussia being informed of the glorious achievements of the 154th and of the Grenadier Regiment, brigaded with the 154th, declared them both worthy of the title "Konigsbrigade" ("The King's Own") and winds up with this literary flourish : "Evening arrived, we went to sleep with a prayer of thanksgiving upon our lips and with hope for the day to follow." This German tale of war. is certified true by Lieutenant de Niem who signs his name. It is addressed by Klemt to his town of Jauer where he is assured in advance of a complaisant editor to accept, publishers to print and quite a population to enjoy. 13 The question naturally arises in what other country except Ger- many would such a disgraceful effusion be printed and heralded under big scare headlines — all faithfully reproduced in facsimile from the Jauer- sches Tageblatt in "Les Crimes Allemands"— and what is one's es- timate of the state of "Kultur" in which such a thing is possible let alone commendable? Speaking from experience of Europe and of eleven years on this side of the Atlantic, I believe that in Germany alone under the present system would a family newspaper become the accom- plice post facto of Klemt and his fellow Criminals. To approve by publi- cation such deeds as this "soldier" describes is to condone and encourage them. I need not add that it is no more "perfidious" or illegal to fire upon the enemy from the branches of a tree than to fire from the top of a window or the bottom of a trench and soldiers know perfectly well that such a practice is not less brave and dangerous. One might add in passing it is far more brave and dangerous for soldiers so ensconced to fire upon a well armed and numerically superior foe than, for ex- ample, battle cruisers to cannonade defenceless watering places on Eng- land's East Coast or for Zeppelins at night under the cover of darkness to drop bombs upon sleeping women and children in England's home counties — two vivid chapters in the Gospel of Frightfulness which have elicited the royal approval of the Kaiser and incidentally entailed a further depreciation in the value of the once coveted Iron Cross. 14 III.— ARSON, PILLAGE, MURDER. The numerous official reports made 'by French and Belgian Com- mittees of Investigation corroborate in every essential detail the crimes recorded by the German diarists and they add much other evidence which German apologists will find it impossible to contradict. In due course there will be another inquiry made by neutrals which will command special attention in the United States where we have been told that the accusations against German soldiers on the field are based either on the wild imaginings of irresponsible witnesses, or the malicious in- ventions of surviving belligerents in hostile armies. The Germans have not thought it worth while to institute an enquiry of any sort. If such a task is ever undertaken by them one may suggest by way of a start; that they study the "findings" of the highly authoritative and capable committees appointed by the Belgians, French and English. The French and the Belgian have been published in full in French ; both give details regarding places, dates, names, and testimony. The English has not yet left the press. I quote the following passage from the French "Journal Officiel" 8th January, 1915, which prints, in full, the report of the French Com- mission appointed to investigate German atrocities in France : "The proof upon which we rely for our findings consists of oui personal observations, photographic documents and numerous testi- monies given in judiciary form under oath. In a general way one may affirm that "never before has a war between civilized nations been marked by such savage and ferocious features as that now being waged upon our country by an implacable adversary. Pillage, rape, incen- diarism and murder are practiced commonly by our enemies and the facts which have been daily revealed, while they constitute as- tounding crimes against the common law punished by the codes of all countries with the most severe and exacting penalties, show incidentally that German mentality since 1870 has deteriorated amazingly. "Assaults upon women and girls have been of unheard-of fre- quency. We have proved a great number which represent, how- ever, only an infinitely small proportion of those with which we might have been able to deal, but for the sentiment of modesty upon the part of the victims of hateful acts who refuse generally to reveal them. No doubt there would have been less committed if the chiefs of an army in which discipline is most severe had taken the trouble to issue warnings. These crimes against the person may be considered as individual acts of unchained brutes but such cannot be said of the campaign of incendiarism, theft and assassination. For these commanding officers must be held responsible 'before humanity. "In most of the places where we made our investigations we were able to satisfy ourselves that the German Army showed a 15 perpetual disregard and contempt for human life; that its soldiers and even its chiefs did not think it wrong to slay the wounded; that they killed without pity inoffensive villagers of territories invaded and that they did not spare in their homicidal rage either women, aged men or children. The shootings of Luneville, Ger- beviller, Nomeny and Senlis are terrifying examples and you will read in the course of our report descriptions of scenes of bloodshed in which officers themselves were not ashamed to take part. "One's mind refuses to believe that all these killings took place without offence. Such, however, is the case. The Germans, it is true, always gave the same excuse, pretending that civilians had commenced by firing upon them. This allegation is untrue and those who have made it have been unable to give it a sem- blance of truth even when they went to the extent of firing their own rifles in the neighborhood of houses, as they were accustomed to do, in order to represent that they had been attacked by innocent people upon whose ruin and massacre they were bent. "Not alone human life but also personal liberty is an object of complete disdain on the part of the German military authority. Almost everywhere we found that citizens of all ages' have been dragged from their homes and led into captivity. Many died or were killed en route. Incendiarism is even a more customary prac- tice with the enemy than murder. It is constantly emplgyed by the Germans either as a means of systematic devastation or for pur- poses of intimidation. To this end the German Army possesses an up-to-date plant including torches, hand-grenades, fuses, pet- roleum pumps, rockets and finally, little packages containing tab- loids of a most inflammable powder. The rage for incendiarism ex- pressed itself chiefly against churches and monuments possessing an artistic or historical interest. In the various departments where we have investigated, thousands of houses have been found burnt but we have taken no record except of those which were the re- sult of exclusive criminal intention, ignoring fires caused by shells in the course of pitched battles or due to causes which it has not been possible to determine in precise fashion. Robbery, we re- port, has been perpetual and we do not hesitate to allege that wherever .an enemy troop has passed, the place has been handed over in the presence of the officers and often with their participa- tion, to a systematic and organized pillage. Cellars have been emp- tied of their last bottles, safes have been smashed open and con- siderable sums have been taken. A great quantity of silverware and jewels, also pictures, furniture accessories, artistic objects, linen, bicycles, women's clothes, sewing machines, even the chil- dren's playthings, have been taken away and placed upon vehicles destined for the frontier. "Against all such robbery, as against all manner of crime, there has been no appeal and if some wretched villager ventured to ask an officer to intervene in order to spare a life or to protect property, the only reply received, sometimes accompanied by threats was an unwavering formula to the effect that the war was respon- sible for everything, even the crudest of abominations." 16 The French report deals with the investigations of German crimes in the Provinces of Seine and Marne, The Marne, The Meuse, Meurthe and Moselle, Oise and Aisne, and deserves to be republished in full for the benefit of American readers, even of hyphenated citizens who desire conclusive proof of allegations to which unofficial reference has 'been made in the diaries of German soldiers already quoted. One might write an entire chapter describing deeds committed by German soldiers in violation of the rules of war as regards combatants, the murder of wounded or prisoners, ruses forbidden by international conventions and assaults upon ambulances, but all these things are treated fully in official reports and I need not further allude to them here. An International Report, The evidence already collected and the reports presented deal- ing with the criminology of the present war would fill a library, and notable additions are made daily. -It is noteworthy that the find- ings of the Commissioners, whether French, Belgian or English, agree in all important conclusions. An International Commission consisting of Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, K.C.B., formerly Under-Secretary for the British Home Department (president) ; Monsieur E. De Cartier de Marchienne, Belgian Minister to China ; Monsieur H. Lafontaine, Sen- ator; and Dr. H. Davignon (secretary), has recently presented a report dealing with the atrocities in Belgium — a new record of German "fright- fulness" — of arson, pillage, murder. It is too long to reprint here, but new proof — if that is necessary — is furnished to the effect that the German army of invasion carried out a system of intimidation, of reprisals, and of devastation against a dis- armed and inoffensive population on Belgian soil, without regard to any military or strategical objects, and among towns and villages al- ready evacuated by their opponents. This system is brought to view by three classes of acts which are offences alike against International Law and against Military Law. 1. The barbarous device of compelling bodies of civilians, old and young, male and female, to march in front of German troops in order to shield them from the fire of the Allies. 2. The imprisonment, either under the title of "hostages," or on other pretexts, of individuals, families, or groups of people, who were arrested at hazard and for no good reason, shut up without air, without sanitary precautions, and without food in churches, barns, and stables, and carried ofif to Germany, where they were kept under conditions which made hygiene and decency impossible. 3. Wholesale murders of civilians and the sack and burning of dwelling houses ; concerning these incidents the light of evidence grows daily stronger. Children As Shields. Dealing with acts under the first head, the report states that from the first moment when the German army came into touch with the Bel- 17 gian forces before Liege it sought to protect itself by thrusting before it groups of civilians. One witness described the way in which a German battery, which was firing at the Carmelite Monastery of Chevremont, sought to shelter itself from the fire of a fort by massing around itself people arrested from the neighboring villages, including women and even children. The same witness declares that he saw a body of German troops, who passed through the gap between the forts Fleron and Chaudefontaine, driving before them many civilians, whom they had picked up on the highway; most of them had their hands tied behind their backs. Another group was made to march in the middle of the column ; it included an old man of 80 years of age, whom two companions had literally to drag along. Another witness saw men, women, and children forced to spend the night on a bridge over the Sambre in order that the French might be prevented from bombarding it. Others, including four priests, were pushed forward toward the French firing line. On the following morn- ing the witness noticed eight nuns stationed on the bridge to preserve it against attempts at destruction. At Tamines, a witness who was looking on from a window, saw the combat between French and German troops along the line of the Sambre ; he noticed that the Germans thrust some civilians before them across the bridge. When these unfortunate people tried to save themselves by slipping into the first houses beyond the bridge, the Germans fired on them, and several ran mortally wounded into the very house in which the witness was standing, and died there. At Tournai the German troops madei their entry on Aug. 24, sheltering themselves behind several ranks of civilians. This method was not only used by bodies of troops in regular order of march, but by mere patrols. Barbarity to Hostages. By evidence from several quarters the delegates learnt that the number of civilian prisoners interned in Germany — men, women, and children— was large. Numerous refugees detailed to them the circum- stances under which they were separated from members of their fam- ilies. Some, after having been arrested without any cause, and marched about for .several days undergoing treatment of odious brutality and cruelty, succeeded in escaping. Others were taken off to Germany, where they were exposed to insults and maltreatment, and then Avere brought back to Belgium and turned loose at some chance spot in the fields. Everywhere there has been a system in vogue by which great numbers of individuals — whole families, and even the whole population of a hamlet or village — have been made prisoners en masse, under some mere pretext, or for no reason at all. The inhuman treatment meted out to various parties of civilian prisoners taken to Germany is described at length. One party were removed to Cologne from Louvain, the journey, made in filthy cattle- trucks, occupying four days, during which time the prisoners received no food, and were not allowed to open the doors. They spent one night in Cologne, receiving one loaf for every ten persons. Being fifteen days old (the date was stamped on it) the bread was too hard to eat. Next day the party entrained for Brussels, spending fifty hours in the train without food. 18 "We are assured that the moral sufferings of the prisoners are even worse than their physical sufferings. They have to live in unpleasant and dangerous contiguity with individuals suffering from contagious diseases. These civilians are of all ranks of life. All alike are con- demned to complete idleness. The German soldiery, alleging that they are dealing with 'franc-tireurs and murderers," treat them with the brutality. Can we wonder at the fact that many of the prisoners have become insane? , "Especially hard was the lot of certain 'hostages' who were arrested in many places in order to secure the delivery of war contributions ab- solutely disproportionate to the resources of the localities on which they were imposed. The venerable Bishop 'of Tournai, an old man and an invalid, was shut up for five days at Ath, in a nauseous place, where he had only a mattress to lie upon, and no food save what certain devoted ladies brought him." Wholesale Executions. A large proportion of the civilians arrested by the German troops were set aside for execution. Several refugees described the casual way in which they were arrested, then released, then arrested again and led about like a flock of sheep — then how they were separated into two groups and shut up for the night, with a warning that they would be shot next day — lastly how they were placed in line against a hedge or a wall, how the rifles were levelled against them, and then they were al- lowed to go scot free ! "On the other hand numerous witnesses saw with their own eyes 'hostages' shot dead by a German firing-party. It is remarkable that these executions took place not during a combat but long after. They were the systematic vengeance of the invading army on the harmless inhabitants of places at which they had met unexpected resistance from our regular troops." At a certain village in the province of Liege the parish priest and the secretary of the commune were shot by the roadside, after having been arrested in the house of the latter. This happened under the eyes of a witness, who only escaped a similar fate by slipping behind a hedge. At Gelrode seven young men were seized in the church where the village people had sought shelter at the enemy's approach ; they were taken out and shot, after having been slashed about with sabres. At Ermeton the Abbe Schlogel, parish priest of Hastieres, M. Pon- thieres, a professor of the University of Louvain, and the village school- master, with certain others, were shot. Among the groups of persons gathered together for an execution en masse there was a preliminary system of separation. Generally women, children, and old men were let off. In one instance a boy of about 14 was shifted several times from one side of the road to the other, and finally left on the side where everyone was shot. "In these executions there was no question of a trial — there was an arbitrary selection among a mass of innocent people, of whom some were chosen 'to pay for the acts of the guilty.' But who were the guilty? 19 And what crimes had they committed ? No one knows ! Of sixty-two witnesses who appeared before us, and were cross-examined with care on this point, not one admitted that any civilians had been firing on the enemy. On the contrary, they all described to us the terror of the countryside on the approach of the invaders, and declared that the in- structions issued by the local authorities concerning the surrender of firearms had been faithfully carried out. Very many witnesses declared that German soldiers, in a state of drunkenness, discharged their rifles at large, and then reported to their officers that they had been fired on by civilians. On the faith of such stories their superiors at once or- dered 'the customary reprisals' — pillage, arson, and the shooting of in- habitants seized at haphazard." Two Village Massacres. Two peculiarly atrocious examples of wholesale murder are men- tioned. At Surice, while the village was burning, a group of some fifty or sixty persons of both sexes were driven together. The eighteen men were separated from the women and told that they were to be shot. Among them were the parish priests of Anthee, Onhaye, and Surice, and another ecclesiastic. There were fathers and sons side by side. Oppo- site them were their mothers and daughters wailing and praying. The massacre was carried out under their eyes^ — all the men fell together mowed down by a volley. One or two showed signs of life, whereupon the soldiers finished them ofif with the butt-ends of their rifles. They then turned out the pockets of the dead and stripped ofif some of their clothes. At Bueken the massacre took place long after that hamlet had been occupied by the German troops. They had been staying there for ten days, and the panic-stricken inhabitants had been doing their best to keep them in good temper by every possible means. On Aug. 29 the men were all arrested and led to a meadow, with their hands tied behind their backs. Then, according to the evidence of the witness who de- scribed the scene, eighteen men were shot, including an old man of 70 and his three sons. They were executed in the presence of their wives and children. The women, in the hope of saving the lives of their husbands, tried to call out, "Long live Germany and the Kaiser !" When the massacre was over, the women and children were shut up in a small room, so small that no one could lie down. These poor folks were confined there for two days, and given neither food nor drink. Meanwhile the village was entirely destroyed. Arson and pillage, it is added, always accompanied these massacres. Everything seemed to be done systematically — the arrest of the inhabi- tants seems to have been very often a preliminary to the complete sack of their houses, and their subsequent destruction and burning. Some witnesses, however, have reported cases where houses still inhabited were set on fire, and where charred corpses were found in the ruins. The pillage seems to have been more or less complete, and the devas- tation more or less violent, according as the soldiery were more or less intoxicated. Their officers thought it no harm to set the example of drunkenness. 20 Lord Bryce's Commission. Then there is the official report of the English Commission which has special interest for Americans because Viscount Bryce was the President. This report had not been presented at the time "The Hun's Diary" was sent to press, but I am able to state on the authority of the London correspondent of "The New York Times" that in the opinion of Lord Bryce and the other members of the British Commission who were appointed to investigate the charges of atrocities, the evidence obtained of the guilt of the German military system is considered "la- mentably and appallingly convincing." As to the ruthlessness of the methods employed by the German military organization in its conduct of the war, the findings of the British commission are emphatic, and so far as the German nation is responsible for the system which created these horrors, it must, in the opinion of Lord Bryce and his colleagues, be held guilty. The evidence upon which the commissioners chiefly based their conclusions is evidence obtained from German sources of information, and the report, when issued, is calculated to niake a great impression. 21 IV.— THE HUN'S OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK. It is my firm belief that the Teuton is by nature and instinct not less refined and gentle than the peoples of other civilized nations. If he has fallen from the path of grace in latter years it is because he has been blinded by the military ambition of his rulers and the false prophets who, from kindergarten to University, have crammed him with teach- ings based upon false and meretricious philosophy. From the cradle to the grave he has been lured by false ideals of state, by the phantoms of military ascendency and by the dreams of a Pan-Germanism which should dominate the globe. In Germany the People and the Army are to a great extent interchangeable terms and the amazing way in which the nation has from the standpoint of morals deteriorated since 1870, as proved by the crimes of the soldiers in the field, which have failed so far to elicit the censure of their people at home, is mainly due to these false teachers and the military caste and practice for which these teach- ers have provided the foundation. Both are jointly and separately re- sponsible. The Supremacy of the State, the Religion of Personal Valor, Mediaeval ideas of the Crown, the "World Mission" of the German peoples, the mysticism and preposterous claims of the Kaiser in all that relates to his position, prerogatives and rights — all these things have loomed so largely in the daily life of the nation that a people naturally virtuous in their domestic life and in many things a pattern to the world, have for a time lost their mental balance. No people normally sane would have been willing to risk all in a single throw of the dice, and yet Bernhardi, in outlining the prospect of the present war, declared frankly it was a case of "World-power or Downfall" ("Weldmacht oder niedergang") — "neck or nothing," as we say in America. It is not an entire people that we can indict in the first instance for^ the "whole Gospel of Frightfulness," as illustrated in the preceding- pages and corroborated times without number by the ofificial reports of Belgian and French Commissions of Enquiry, but the responsible rulers including the German General Stafif. To think otherwise would be to libel a great nation whose role in the scheme of civilization still offers a most brilliant vista of possibility and conjecture. By their Professors and Teachers ye shall know them and by that same token I direct the special attention of American readers to "The German War Book," a work of the most singular interest at the present time because it teaches the world what to expect from the German Army. It is a translation of "The Usages of War," a handbook issued by the German General Staff for the guidance of German officers, with a critical introduction by Professor J. H. Morgan. It may be described as the Hun's com- plete guide or the official statement of the gospel of "frightfulness." The spirit which pervades it is that of Clough's famous lines: , Thou shalt not kill ; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive, though it does not scruple to lay down the most atrocious doctrines ' 22 and to support them with citations from obsequious German professors. Thus it begins with banning the use of poison, assassination, the kilHng of prisoners, but qualifies its prohibition in the most remarkable manner : International law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy. So that you may not poison or assassinate members of the enemy's forces yourself, but you may pay third parties to do so. And to ease any qualms of sentimentality the German officers are reminded that : Considerations of chivalry, generosity and honor may de- nounce in such cases a hasty and unsparing exploitation of suet advantages as indecent and dishonorable, but law which is less touchy allows it. "The ugly and inherently immoral aspect of such methods cannot affect the recognition of their lawfulness. The necessary aim of war gives the belligerent the right and im- poses upon him, according to circumstances, the duty not to let slip the important, it may be decisive, advantages to be gained by such means." — (Professor Liider.) So prisoners may be murdered : In case of overwhelming necessity, when other means of pre- caution do not exist and the existence of prisoners becomes a danger to one's own existence. Professor Morgan's biting remark is justified that the War Book, "when it inculcates frightfulness is never obscure, and when it advises forbearance is always ambiguous." Thus the duty of terrorizing the civil population is stated in these uncompromising terms : A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, but it will, and must in like manner, seek to destroy the total intellectual and material resources of the latter. Humani- tarian claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can only be taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object of the war permit. It is true, the German General Staff proceed, that chivalry. Chris- tian thought, higher civilization, and recognition of one's own advantage have led to attempts to modify the severity of war hy creating a codex belli, a law of war. But — thej usual qualification : All these attempts have hitherto, with some few exceptions to be mentioned later, completely failed If, therefore, the ex- pression "the law of war" is used, it must be understood that by it is meant not a lex scripta introduced by international agreements 'but only a limitation of arbitrary behavior which cus- tom and convention, human friendliness, and a calculating egotism have erected, but for the observance of which there exists no express sanction, but only "the fear of reprisals" decides. That is to say, the German officer may order what crimes he likes to be committed upon non-combatants, women and children, or prisoners, provided only he is fairly sure that there will not be retaliation. Moreover, it is his duty to be inhumane. The efforts of the nine- teenth century, as in the Geneva and Hague Conventions, to prevent unnecessary cruelty, are denounced as "sentimentality and flabby emo- tion." The officer must be on his guard against such weakness. He is 23 a child of the times, and as such liable to be corrupted by sentiment: The danger that in this way he will arrive at false views about the essential character of war must not be lost sight of. The dan- ger can only be met by a thorough study of war itself. By steeping himself in military history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive humanitarian notions, it will teach him that certain severities are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the onlj true humanity very often lies in a ruthless application of them. Yet out of their own mouths the Germans are condemned. One "law of perfect obligation" which this treatise does admit is the duty of observing the inviolability of neutral States : The belligerent States have to respect the inviolability of the neutral and the undisturbed exercise of its sovereignty in its home affairs, to abstain from any attack upon the same even if the necessity of war should make such an attack desirable. The invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium is proclaimed unpardon- able even by the cynics who compiled this handbook of treachery. Further than this, the German Staff declare that the neutral State not only may, but must, forbid the passage of troops through its country, and thus make nonsense of the diatribes against Belgium which fill the German Press and are being scattered broadcast through neutral countries. Again, dealing with the offenses committed by the German armies in Belgium, we have the following unexceptionable passage : Movable property, which in earlier times was the incontestable booty of the victor, is held by modern opinion to be inviolable. The carrying away of gold, watches, rings, trinkets, or other ob- jects of value is therefore to be regarded as robbery, and correspond- ingly punishable. No plundering but downright burglary is it for a man to take away things out of an unoccupied house or at a time when the occupant happens to be absent. Any form of violence may be applied to the non-combatant popu- lation so as to "smash their spiritual and material life." They may be compelled "to furnish information about their own Army, its strategy, its resources, and its military secrets. The majority of writers of all nations are unanimous in their condemnation of this measure. Never- theless it cannot be entirely dispensed with ; doubtless it will be applied with regret, but the argument of war .will frequently make it necessary." Applied it has been by the Germans in this war, in some cases with the tortures of the Inquisition, to compel brave men and women to betray their motherland. Again, though public opinion and, as the German Staff should have added, the Hague Convention signed by the German diplomatists forbid the taking of hostages and their execution for the real or alleged offences of others, this was the only method which promised to be effective against the doubtless unauthorized, indeed the criminal, behavior of a fanatical population. Herein lies its justification under the laws of war, but still more in the fact that it proved completely successful. War, then, as the Germans and their leaders know it, is restrained and governed by no laws, no sentiment, no religious feeling, not love for suffering and heroic man. It is, to quote Professor Morgan, whose 24 critical introduction to "The Usages of War" — The German War Book — should be made available to American readers in this crisis, an orgy of calculating, undeviating cruelty, the only limitation on which is the fear that the enemy may retort in kind. The Germans in this century have retrograded deplorably and betrayed civilization. They have gone back to the savagery of the Thirty Years' War. "Practice follows precept." "Like Master like man." The gallant German diarists from whom I have quoted so freely have at least some excuse to offer for their crimes — the soldier's law which enjoins obedience and bans argument. In the military library of France — ■ "France, the Mother of Arts, laws and armies" — the Hun's Handbook is catalogued, but on the fly leaf there is a note which directs the student to read the rules and refrain from their practice. 25 V. — The War was Premeditated, The immediate cause of the war was Austria's insolent note to Servia, backed by Germany. The predisposing- cause of the war was Germany's ambition to "secure a place in the sun" — "world-power or downfall." During the last decade, at least, every chancellery in Europe has known that Germany was preparing to attack England. A prelim- inary war with France was a mere incidental but not the final object. To secure "weldmach" England must be conquered and her possessions taken. That the scheme to subdue France 'first and separately went astray and that England was from the first found aligned on the side of France and Russia was one of the extraordinary miscalculations com- mitted by Germany, In German messes, naval and military, the toast of the "Tag", — the day for war against England- — has been drunk for at least 16 years. Naval and military men in Germany have spoken of nothing else. In September, 1901, I was present as a guest of the General Staff of the German Army at the Kaiser Manoeuvres in East Prussia. It may be recalled, perhaps, that special interest attached to these manoeuvres because of the presence of the Kaiser and the Czar. From the time I left Berlin until I entrained at Dantzig for home all the talk was of the coming fight with England. On this occasion one heard most of the German Navy whose plans for aggrandizement were then taking shape. The English people alone refused to take the idea seriously, and in a military sense, at least, they made no preparation. The Navy, it is true, was kept, as usual, at the highest degree of efficiency. It is necessary to emphasize that Germany deliberately, carefully and con- tinuously prepared for war with the object, when the hour of destiny sounded, to strike hard and victoriously for world-power in order to determine the nature of the guilt of the conspirators and later to ap- portion the punishment to the crime. A man who murders in the heat of passion and without premeditation is less culpable before the law than the man who, with malice aforethought, kills in cold blood. The responsibility of the Kaiser has been, from the first, a vexed question which will not be discussed here. It is certain, however, that many of his public speeches with the exalted references to Divine Power, Shining Armor, the Archangel Michael's Sword, the great Elector's Spirit, My Grandfather's Immortal and Invincible Memory, the Future of My Kingdom is upon the Sea, the Mailed Fist, God and me — one might say all the spread eagle, "Deutschland over all" series of ora- tion — though doubtless only symbolical in some instances, were no1 in their general essence either designed or intended to allay the unrest and quieten the suspicions of Europe. The most remarkable speech by the Kaiser is that reported to have been made at a secret council meeting in Potsdam in June, 1908 — please note the date as seven years ago — at which the German Emperor an- nounced his decision to go to war. 26 The Kaiser began by declaring : "After long hours of fervent prayer, light has at last come to me. The outlook is, I admit, dark, but we need not despair, for God, our great ally, has given into our hands the means of saving our empire from the dangers vv^hich are threatening its happiness and welfare. "You know what I mean. It is that wonderful invention which his Excellency Count Zeppehn was enabled, through the grace of the Lord, to make for the safeguarding and glory of our beloved Fatherland. "In this invention God has placed the means at my disposal to lead Germany triumphantly out of her present difficulties and to make once and for all good the words of our poet, 'Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles.' "Yes, gentlemen, Germany over everything in the world ! The first power on earth, both in peace and war! That is, the peace which I have been ordained by God to conquer for her, and which I will conquer for her with the help of the Almighty." The Emperor then went on to unfold a scheme by which this end was to be accomplished. When sufficient large Zeppelins were built, England's North Sea, Channel, and Atlantic fleets would be destroyed, "after which nothing on earth can prevent the land- ing of our army on British soil and its triumphant march to Lon- don." Fast steamers belonging to the Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd lines would be relied on for the transport of the invading army. The war would be against Great Britain and France, said the Kaiser. Russia was suffering too much from the effects of her war with Japan to enter the conflict. The Emperor went on to speak of the United States as a country, "where even now I rule supreme, where almost half the population is either of German birth or German descent, and where 3,000,000 German voters do my bidding at the Presidential elec- tions." That country would next be taught a lesson. German power would be supreme in South America and South Africa, and, among other things, the German flag would "wave over the holy shrines of Jerusalem." Time will show ! 21. LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS