The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-10-02
THE REAL LESSON.

THE REAL LESSON.
What is the real lesson of the afro
cities Germany has committed in the
war?
Do they prove that Germans are
different species of human beings?
This would do violence to the obser-
vations which nearly all broad minded
men have reached, who have come
into contact with many breeds of men.
Scientists, travellers and just plain
folk are pretty we'll agreed that in his
own home, in normal surroundings the
average man of one cline or race is
very much like the man of any other
breed. Certainly the war has proved
that in the primitive qualities Of cour-
age, endurance and loyalty the rank
and file of the combatant races are
very much alike.
Relying on these facts the defend
ers of German crime have continued
to whisper. "Oh, all soldiers are alike,
if the allies had been on German soil
they would have done just as badly. y
This is a SANDER on the living
heroes of every army, except the Ger
man. Even the Turkish fighting man
has a better record. 1t is also Sian.
der on the dead of our American
armies of the Revolution and the Civil
war
No such outrages as the German
crimes were recorded in any American
war, by either side.
Even in the track of Sherman's
march across Georgia today there is
not a tradition OF anything like the
hellish things which marked the Ger
man tide through Belgium. In the
South African war there was not one
instance of British soldier even in.
sulting black or white woman.
The Germans in 1870 did not do
such things in France To match the
atrocities of 1914-lI one must travel
back to the massacres and rapine OF
the religious wars of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
The answer to the whole anomaly is
very simple and doubly damning tC
the ruling caste in Prussia today. ,,.
All soldiers are very much alike
but ARMIES and OFFICERS are not
Any army contains a percentage Of
men who will, if not held by rigid dis
cipline, tperpetrate outrages of the
blacklist kind.
Every city, every village, every
countryside has individuals of the
same sort.
But every army in the world today
and for 300 years back, except the
German army, has been controlled by
a set OF officers and a system Of disci
pline, which held such troops in check
and Kept them under the control OF
the decent majority.
The fact that the German army
with its iron discipline, did not do so
| proves that the German crimes were
DELIBERATELY ENCOURAGED and
ORDERED by the government through
its officer class.
That is the real lesson of the Ger.
man atrocities. They teach that the
German government, and it's military
| system, are different from sall other
governments and all other military
systems. For enduring such a system
the German people and the German
| private soldiers must bear full blame
In that sense all soldiers are not
alike. We can hardly imagine the
clean minded and independent young
fellows now gathered in our training
camps committing any such acts as
the loot of Louvain, even if their Off
GERS told them to. Military discipline
in the American, French and British
armies has we'll defined limits, be
cause Americans and their allies are
not reared to believe that any set
of men on Gods earth has any divine
rights.
And that is the real difference be
tween the soldiers of the fighting
armies-a difference which explains
atrocities and everything else.