Chapter II: Introduction

The reader will find in the pages which we herewith offer him a detailed picture of the cruelties committed by Germany in the war which involves half the nations of Europe.

In this war, which she let loose upon the world, Germany is not attacking merely armies and fortresses. She takes her victims even from the civil population, and systematically harries even the property of private individuals. She revives under our eyes the times of Attila: to every soldier whom she dispatches against her enemies she recalls the saying of the Scourge of God that “wherever he rode there the grass must cease to grow.” She devotes herself to pillage and destruction; aye, and to pollution and desecration. From her captains, her leaders, her diplomats down to her plain citizens and private soldiers she has disclosed her barbarous spirit, her base instincts; under the blazing light of the devouring flames which she has kindled she lays broad the infamous groundwork and shameful foundations of what she dares to call her civilisation, and which, on the plea of its superiority, she claims to impose upon the whole universe.

Great towns have perished in the flames by her hands, with all the treasures of science, art and industry which they contained; innumerable districts, less populous but no less prosperous, have likewise been plundered, looted and abandoned to the ravages of fire and sword; whole regions have been laid waste without a shadow of military necessity; thousands of peaceful residents, and harmless citizens of these areas, priests and women, children and old folk, have been shot, killed, executed, martyred; women and young girls have been violated and subjected to the most frightful tortures; prisoners have been ill-treated or even shot; the wounded have been dispatched on the field of battle; young people below the military age have been carried off to Germany and treated as prisoners at common law. In the field, the German armies have been guilty of shameful acts of treachery: weapons forbidden because they cause horrible wounds have been used without scruple and without shame. Towns have had monstrous levies imposed upon them, which they had to pay on penalty of seeing their inhabitants massacred. And these things were repeated everywhere: in Belgium, in France, in Poland, in Galicia, in Serbia. Fire, sword, bloodshed, dishonour, slaughter, murder, torture have been flaunted before the eyes of astonished Europe.

That is the story we are going to tell. And with the evidence in the case ready to hand, we shall draw a picture of German barbarism. We shall appeal to the civilised world and ask it to reflect upon the monstrous exhibition of the instincts, the character and the principles of the German nation, which claimed to be gifted with fine feelings and to be punctilious about morals. The facts which will be narrated to the reader will pass judgment upon this claim. In face of the flattering or mendacious pleas, circulated for the last fifty years by Germany herself or by her dupes, this book, the author is fully persuaded, will but anticipate the verdict of history.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I THE GERMAN THEORY OF WAR 1

II GERMAN ACTIONS CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED ON THE PLEA OF REPRISALS 7

III THE GERMAN TREATMENT OF OFFICIALS 17

IV OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY GERMAN AUTHORITIES AND PRIVATE PERSONS
AGAINST ENEMY SUBJECTS 30

V OUTRAGES ON NEUTRAL SUBJECTS 35

VI GERMAN USE OF PROHIBITED IMPLEMENTS OF WAR 42

VII GERMAN TREACHERY ON THE BATTLEFIELD 50

VIII BOMBARDMENT OF UNDEFENDED TOWNS. CRIMES COMMITTED DURING
BOMBARDMENT. DEFINITION OF BOMBARDMENT 55

IX KILLING OF THE WOUNDED BY GERMANS 83

X ILL-TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR 97

XI THE MURDER, TORTURE AND VIOLATION OF WOMEN IN INVADED
TERRITORY 104

XII OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN, OLD PEOPLE AND PRIESTS 117

XIII OUTRAGES ON CIVILIANS AND FRANCS-TIREURS 134

XIV SYSTEMATIC ARSON. DESECRATION OF CHURCHES 171

XV SYSTEMATIC PILLAGE AND THEFT. ROBBING THE WOUNDED AND
THE DEAD 185

XVI DEGREES OF RESPONSIBILITY. CONCLUSION 216