The Natchitoches enterprise., 1917-07-19
A German Prisoner In En-
gland Tells of His
Nations Plight

This war is the greatest crime th'
world has ever seen. The crimes tina
made the French Revolution are moth
ing if you compare them with the
crimes of the beasts who are running
Germany today, and keeping this wal
going. They were only thieves anc
brigands when they began it, anC
thought they'd bring it off but now
they're the bloodiest murderers by
wholesale that the world ever produced
There never was anything like it be-
fore. They know perfectly well they We
lost the war they've known for months
that the last chances they ever had
have gone. But they are too fright
ened for their own skins to admit it
and call halt, and because they are
frightened of what the people might
do when they learned the truth, they
keep the thing going and sacratice
many thousands of Germans every sim
gle day and millions of money-what
for? To shield the regulations of a
handful of princes and politicians. It's
the greatest crime the world has ever
known. Here on this front our people
are being killed like flies. Your artill-
cry kills them in punches. There isn't
minute of, the day but legs and arms
are being blown off. Our men would
gladly give themselves up to end it,
but you know they cannot. When
! there seems to be chance, there is
always an officer or non-commissioned
officers about. 1t is not only your guns
that kill Many Germans fall every
day with German bullets in them. They
! 4 fn GrrlT
And to what end? Because our cursed
kaiser and the creatures we call states
men are afraid of their lives for what
will happen to them when the people
know it. all up.
"But plenty of them know it now.
Many knew before ever | was forced
to join up. And perhaps never should
have been made to join up If | had
known less, and meyer said a word of
what | know. talked a little of what
knew. And that is enough. In Ger
many today the man who will tell the
truth must be hustled out Of the way.
That is why see no hope for Ger
many, because those who are left in
the country have no spirit, can do
nothing. All the strength of the coun-
try, such as it is, is in the fighting
lines-helpless as slaves. The others,
there in Germany, they are slaves
starving, starving quietly, meyer dar-
ing to say word. The few who speak
soon find themselves hustled into the
front line-and no more is heard of
them. They go on paying the price;
thousands of lives every day, every
single day. The central powers cas-
ualties now must be 100,0U0 a week
all fer what2 The crazy dreams of
a few bankers and merchants. and the
cowardly fears of few politicians and
of-of the Hohenzollerns. They say
the HapsSurgs, too; but the Austrians
would be thankful to make peace to-
morrow, but they cannot. There are
as much sacrificed by Berlin as we
poor devils here on the front. All the
bloody slaughter of this war, with it's
miliards of money and thousands of
lives lost-eveIy single day-what
keeps it going long after it has been
finally decided, is not the will of nat
ions. No, it is the muderous criminal
ity and cowardice of little handfel of
men in Berlin, who never have been
anything but a pest in Europe. /
is not that the greatest crime the
world has ever known? And is it not
strictly true2 Does any sane German
suppose the appointed end can be al-
tered wheA tbs whole New World ID
ranged against Germany, as well as
the Old? They know all about the
hundred millions in the states, and
the millions of millions of money; the,
factories and shipyards.
They know that America can put hund-
reds of thousands of fresh troops on
this front next spring, and that the ex-
haustion of Germany long before then
will be frightful-is frightful now has
been frightful for a year and more.
They know it all, and, brute devils
that they are, they chose to keep the
awful slaughter going, not because
they hope it can alter the end, but for
what you call wait and see" "-because
they fear to face today what they can
put off till tomorrow at the cost of
another few thousand decent lives,
another few milliards of money.
''Never before since the world began
has twentieth part of suoh suffering
been allowed to continue day after day
and month after month to protect a
handful of exalted criminals from gen
eral recognition of their crimes. The
Russian people rose and smashed the
bonds that bound them. But not our
people. Our tyrEnts have been much
Their minds were free. No
German mind in Germany has been free
since 1870. The Berlin criminals have
seen too well to that. Our people think
they have been we'll educated. So they
have; very well, very carefully, for
just what they are doing now-for the
blindest and most damnable kind of
slavery the world has ever seen, for a
slavery in which the will of the mas
ters must be paid for daily by steadily
running streams of the blood of their
victims-vlctims taught to bare their
own throsts to the knife on the word
of command.
eff your armies could reach Ger
many itself the slavery might end sud-
denly. But Germany today is one vast
prison full of starving slaves, who can
not lift hand to help themselves, and
that it will remain while William the
Murderer can go on buying a daily
reprieve for his own miserable family
in return for the blood of 10000 of his !
slaves. Thank God am out of itv'