German army crossed the frontier. For the first fortnight of the war the towns and villages near Liège were the chief sufferers. From the 19th of August to the end of the month, outrages spread in the directions of Charleroi and Malines and reach their period of greatest intensity. There is a certain significance in the fact that the outrages round Liège coincide with the unexpected resistance of the Belgian army in that district, and that the slaughter which reigned from the 19th August to the end of the month is contemporaneous with the period when the German army's need for a quick passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed imperative.

"Here let a distinction be drawn between two classes of outrages.

"Individual acts of brutality ill-treatment of civilians, rape, plunder, and the like were very widely committed. These are more numerous and more shocking than would be expected in warfare between civilized Powers, but they differ rather in extent than in kind from what has happened in previous though not

recent wars.

"In all wars many shocking and outrageous acts must be expected, for in every large army there must be a proportion of men of criminal instincts whose worst passions are unloosed by the immunity which the conditions of warfare afford. Drunkenness, moreover, may turn even a soldier who has no criminal habits into a brute, who may commit outrages at which he would himself be shocked in his sober moments, and there is evidence that intoxication was extremely prevalent among the German army, both in Belgium and in France, for plenty of wine was to be found in the villages and country houses which were pillaged. Many of the worst outrages appear to have been perpetrated by men under the influence of drink. Unfortunately little seems to have been done to repress this source of danger.

"In the present war, however and this is the gravest charge against the German army - the evidence shows that the killing of non-combatants was carried out to an extent for which no previous war between nations claiming to be civilized (for such cases as the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks on the Bulgarian Christians in 1876, and on the Armenian Christians in 1895 and 1896,

do not belong to that category) furnishes any precedent. That this killing was done as part of a deliberate plan is clear from the facts hereinbefore set forth regarding Louvain, Aerschot, Dinant, and other towns. The killing was done under orders in each place. It began at a certain fixed date, and stopped (with some few exceptions) at another fixed date. Some of the officers who carried out the work did it reluctantly, and said they were obeying directions from their chiefs. The same remarks apply to the destruction of property. House burning was part of the programme; and villages, even large parts of a city, were given to the flames as part of the terrorizing policy.

"Citizens of neutral states who visited Belgium in December and January report that the German authorities do not deny that non-combatants were systematically killed in large numbers during the first weeks of the invasion, and this, so far as we know, has never been officially denied. If it were denied, the flight and continued voluntary exile of thousands of Belgian refugees would go far to contradict a denial, for there is no historical parallel in modern times for the flight of a large part of a nation before an invader.

"The German Government have, however, sought to justify their severities on the grounds of military necessity, and have excused them as retaliation for cases in which civilians fired on German troops. There may have been cases in which such firing occurred, but no proof has ever been given, or, to our knowledge, attempted to be given, of such cases, nor of the stories of shocking outrages perpetrated by Belgian men and women on German soldiers.

"The inherent improbability of the German contention is shown by the fact that after the first few days of the invasion every possible precaution had been taken by the Belgian authorities, by way of placards and hand-bills, to warn the civilian population not to intervene in hostilities. Throughout Belgium steps had been taken to secure the handing over of all firearms in the possession of civilians before the German army arrived. These steps were sometimes taken by the police and sometimes by the military authorities" (pp. 39, 40).

"That these acts should have been perpetrated on the peaceful population of an unoffending country which was not at war with its invaders but merely defending its own neutrality, guaranteed by the invading Power, may excite amazement and even incredulity. It was with amazement and almost with incredulity that the Committee first read the depositions relating to such acts. But when the evidence regarding Liège was followed by that regarding Aerschot, Louvain, Andenne, Dinant, and the other towns and villages, the cumulative effect of such a mass of concurrent testimony became irresistible, and we were driven to the conclusion that the things described had really happened. The question then arose how they could have happened. Not from mere military licence, for the discipline of the German army is proverbially stringent, and its obedience implicit. Not from any special ferocity of the troops, for whoever has travelled among the German peasantry knows that they are as kindly and good-natured as any people in Europe, and those who can recall the war of 1870 will remember that no charges resembling those proved by these depositions were then established. The excesses recently committed in Belgium were, moreover, too widespread and too uniform in their character to be mere sporadic outbursts of passion or rapacity.

"The explanation seems to be that these excesses were committed in some cases ordered, in others allowed on a system and in pursuance of a set purpose. That purpose was to strike terror into the civil population and dishearten the Belgian troops, so as to crush down resistance and extinguish the very spirit of self-defense. The pretext that civilians had fired upon the invading troops was used to justify not merely the shooting of individual francs-tireurs, but the murder of large numbers of innocent civilians, an act absolutely forbidden by the rules of civilized warfare" (pp. 43-44).

§ 11. RESTRICTIONS FOR THE GENERAL INTEREST OF

HUMANITY

(a) Restrictions against unchivalric warfare based upon the idea of a man-to-man fight

RED-HOT SHOT (1801)

THE following is an extract from a letter sent by Admiral Lord de Saumarez to Don Joseph de Mazzaredo, Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish ships at Cadiz:

H.M.S. Cæsar, off Cadiz, 17th August, 1801.

"Having been informed that reports were circulated in Spain, ascribing the destruction of the two first-rates, Real Carlos and San Hermenegildo, in the engagement of the 12th July last, to red-hot balls from His Majesty's ships under my command, I take this present opportunity to contradict, in the most positive and formal manner, a report so injurious to the characteristic humanity of the British nation, and to assure Your Excellency that nothing was more void of truth. This I request you will be pleased to signify in the most public way possible. To assuage, as far as lay in my power, the miseries that must necessarily result from a state of warfare, has ever been my strenuous endeavour, and such will be the rule of my conduct in carrying on the blockade of Cadiz, or any other service committed to my charge."

The Spanish Commander-in-Chief replied in quaint English that such reports "existed only among the ignorant public, and have not received credit from any persons of condition, who well know the manner of combating of the British navy." The biographer remarks: "We need only add that Sir James's request was complied with, and that several communications were subsequently made by flags of truce for the exchange of prisoners, by which the sufferings on both sides were much alleviated."

(Memoirs of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, by Sir John Ross [London, 1838], vol. II, pp. 10–14.)

GENERAL JOHNSTON DEFILES ALL POTABLE
WATERS (1863)

GENERAL SHERMAN, in his narrative of his pursuit of Johnston, immediately after the surrender of Vicksburg [July 4, 1863], says: "On the 8th all our troops reached the neighborhood of Clinton, the weather fearfully hot, and water scarce. Johnston had marched rapidly, and in retreating had caused cattle, hogs, and sheep, to be driven into ponds of water, and there shot down; so that we had to haul their dead and stinking carcasses out to use the water."

(W. T. Sherman's Memoirs [New York, 1875], vol. 1, p. 331.)

GERMANS POISON WELLS IN AFRICA (1915)

THE Secretary of State for the Colonies issues the following communication:

"On the occupation of Swakopmund on January 14, 1915, by the Union troops, it was discovered that six wells from which water was to be drawn for human consumption had been poisoned by means of arsenical cattle dip. In some instances bags full of this poison were found in the wells.

"On February 13 General Botha addressed a letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Franke, the Commander of the German forces, drawing his attention to the fact that such an act was contrary to Article No. 23 (a) of the Hague Convention, and informing him that, if the practice was persisted in, he would hold the officers concerned responsible and he would be reluctantly compelled to employ such measures of reprisal as might seem advisable.

"To this letter Lieutenant-Colonel Franke replied on February 21 that the troops under his command had been given orders:

"If they can possibly prevent it not to allow any water supplies to fall into the hands of the enemy in a form which allows such supplies to be used either by man or beasts. Accordingly, the officer in charge when Swakopmund was evacuated had several sacks of cooking salt thrown into the