The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-24

stretcher bearers were busy bringing
in the wounded after the lines had
moved across a German trench and
that the doctor felt that in the name
of humanity he should go out into the
captured trenches and help to bring in
| the wounded. OF course most of the
wounded were English. But a few
Germans were there. He found a
German officer, wounded in the leg
The doctor helped the German officer
to his feet and was half carrying him.
half supporting him as they walked
back TO the first casualty station. They
were talking when for some reason as
the conversation stopped, the doctor
looked up and saw the Germans pis-
toll at the doctors head. He threw up
his hand and Knocked the gun away
just as the German fired. But the
BAH went thru the doctors hand. The
night before in the same sector, a
German officer on a stretcher had
tried to kill a doctor with a knife who
was bending over the patient dressing
his wound.
The American ambulance drivers
tell of scores of similar attempts of
the German officers to kill doctors
and nurses. Now that seems savage
and senseless. But when you re-
member that every time a doctor or a
nurse is killed a hundred men must
suffer. it has its scientific reason
Moreover. the bombing of the hospi-
tails by the airInen had a fine reaction
from a German viewpoint. During
the moonlight nights when the Ger
mans were coming to bomb the hos
pitfalls, the nurses in base hospitals
from Ostend to the Alps could not
sleep. Their work suffered in the
day time. The nurses had to be re-
placed by fresh nurses oftener and
oftener, and the whole hospital serv-
ice was more or less disorganized. The
result was easily foreseen by the Ger
-
splendid morale these atrocities
pumped into the hearts of the allied
soldiers The German always dis
counts the courage and conscience of
his enemies. He cannot see that so
low a civilization as that of his enc
ards and clods. He has never al
lowed for the stimulation of the NOR
ale of his enemies by German scien-
tifie conduct under military necessity.
Scientific Cruelty.
The air raids over London were not
planned and executed by a cruel peo-
pie, but by a scientific national mind.
These raids were sent to keep an
English army on English soil and out
of France, and also to keep English
fighting planes out of Flanders. To
keep English soldiers and English
planes at home, makes it that much
easier to win the war. And no senti-
children being slaughtered by the
bombs will stop the Germans from
their scientific program to win this
war. Germans have the only civiliza-
ton. 1t is righteous act to spread
it, and to smear it on in the blood
of noncombatants. whether of nurses
or doctors, or women and children
makes no difference. The world, if it
is saved from its highest efficiency
must have Germany uber allies" and
fhara iS no nfhar fh6fp6f in fha Ger
man mind.
One day in September of this year.
two Kansas pilgrims at the war front
saw a long stream of little carts NOV
ing out of the French town of Conn
mercy 1t was a fair little town, and
lay redroofed and gay in a snug little
valley. But the carts ten miles from
the firing line contained sad little
evacuation of the population We
asked why. THE Germans have be-
gun to throw bombs into their guns
from their big guns far back of the
lines" This was the answer. Why
they were bombing Commercy one
did not know. They had no hope of
taking it. The German line back of
the town had been blocked to Ger
mans for three years But they had
battered UP all the other French
Commercy, and very likely their air
men had told them that it was Com
mercys time, so in the war game,
Commercy was getting her frightful-
ness. 1t was part of the thoro. care
full, scientific German way of making
war.
Five days later the same Kansas
pilgrims were standing on the Italian
Alps overlooking the prettiest little
Austrian town you ever saw 1t was
five thousand feet below the italian
lines, and they could have wiped it
out merely by throwing stones into it.
Their guns. poor as the Italians guns
were, could have blistered that little
Austrian town in ten minutes. Across
the guloh five thousand feet above
the town were the Austrian trenches.