The Julesburg grit-advocate., 1917-12-27
GERMAN WAR POLICY
ONE OF FRIGHTFULNERS

This is the first of q series of ar
ticles made up from information in
the expose of German War Prae-
tices" which the United States con-
mittee on public information has Just
completed:
Germany PiaAged - Hagus Regsas-
tiaas-
For many yeaFs leaders in every
civilized nation have been trying to
make warfare less brutal. The great
landmarks in this nsovemsnt are the
Geneva and Hague eonveations. The
former made rules as to the care of
the sick and wounded and established
the Red Cross. At the first meeting
at Geneva, in 1864, it was agreed and
until the present war it has been taken
for granted, that the wounded and the
doctors and nurses who cared for them
would be safe from all attacks by the
enemy. The Hague conventions,
drawn up in 1899 and 1907. made ad-
ditional rules to soften the usages
of war and especially to protect nom
combatants and conquered lands.
Germany took = prominent part in
these meetings and with the other ma
tions solemnly pledged her faith to
keep all the rules except one article
in the Hague regulations. This was
article ~, which forbade the conquer
er to force any of the conquered to
give any information. All the other
rules and regulations she accepted in
the most binding manner.
German Policy Of Frighifulness.
But Germany's military leaders had
no intention of keeping these solemn
promises. They had been trained
along different lines. Their leading
generals for many years had been
urging policy of frightfulness. In
the middle of the nineteenth century
Won Clausewitz was looked upon as
the greatest military authority, and
the methods which he advocated
were used by the Prussian army in it's
successful wars of 1s66-1S71. Conse-
quently, because these wars had been
successful, the wisdom of Won Clause
Wits methods seemed to the Prussian
army to be fully proven.
Now, the essence of Won Clause
witz'e teachings was that successful
war involves the ruthless application
of force In the opening chapter of
his master work Won Kriege ION
War; he says:
"Violence arms itself with the in
ventions of art and science.
Self-imnosed restrictions, almost i'm
perceptible and hardly worth men
tioning, termed usages of international
law. ACCOMMODATING it without essent-
tally impairing its power.
Now. rhilanthropic souls might east
ly imagine that there is skilful
method of disarming or subduing an
enemy without causing too much
bloodshed, and that this is the true
tendency of the art of war. How
ever plausible this may appear. still
it is an error which must be destroyed;
for in such dangerous things as war,
the errors which proceed from a spirit
of 'good-naturedness' are precisely
force to the utmost extent by no means
excludes the cooperation of the intel
ligence, it follows that he who uses
force ruthlessly, without regard to
bloodshed, must obtain a superiority
if his enemy does not use it."
Frightfulness Advocated by German
Generals.
In 1877-78, in the course of a series
of articles upon Military Necessity
and Humanity" Gen. Won Hartmann
wrote, in the same spirit as Won
Clausewitz:
"The enemy state must not be
spared the want and wretchedness of
war; these are particularly useful in
shattering its energy and subduing its
WILL" "Individual persons may be
harshly dealt with when an example is
made of them, intended to serve as a
warning. Whenever a ma
tional war breaks out, terrorism be-
comes a necessary military principle"
"It is a gratuitous illusion to suppose
that modern war does not demand far
more brutality, far more violence, and
an action far more general than was
formerly the case" "When interna-
tional war has burst upon US, terror
ism becomes principle made neces-
sary by military considerations"
In 1881 Won Moltke, who had been
commander-in-chief of the Prussian
army in the Franco Prussian war, de-
clared:
Perpetual peace is dream and
not even beautiful dream. War is
an element in the order of the world
established by God. By it the most
noble virtues of man are developed,
courage and renunciation, fidelity to
duty and the spirit of sacrifice-the
soldier gives his life. Without war,
the world would degenerate and lose
itself in materialism." "The soldier
who endures suffering, privatisn, and