Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1917-12-27
IeERMANY GUILTY
0E.bARBAR|T|ES
N WAR CONDUCT
Atrocious Treatment of the HeIp.
less Part Of Campaign Plans
] Of Military Leaders.
POLICY OF FRlGHTFuLNEss

=
talities May Be Said to Be pi-
rectly Attributable to the
Emperor Himself.
The committee on public snfor.
nation, appointed By the president,
and consisting Of the secretary Of
stats. secretary Of war, secretary Of
We nary, and George Crce1, official
censor, has made public a mass of
svsdence dealing Nth German acar
practices which shows the kaiiser's $
leaders IN the field and IN command
ct captured points to Be directzq re-
sponssble for the 5eastzimess whicb
has characterized tke operations of
the Huns" IN the present conflict.
Quotations from the pamphlet fol-
l0w::
For many years leaders in every civ.
liized nation have been trying to make
warfare less brutal. The great land
marks in this movement are the &c.
neva and Hague conventions. The for.
mer made rules as to the care of the
sick and wounded and established the
Ked Cross. At the first meeting at Ga-
neva, In 1864, it was agreed and until
the present war it has been taken for
granted, that the wounded, and the doc
tors and nurses who cared for them.
would be safe from all attacks BIZ the
enemy. The Hague conventions,
drawn up in 1899 and 1907, made adai.
tional rules to soften the usages of war
and especially to protect noncombat,
ants and conquered lands. Germany
took prominent part in these meet.
tngs, and with the other nations sol
emnly pledged her faith to keep all the
rules except one article in the Hague
regulations. This was article "a,
which forbade the conqueror TO force
any >the conquered to give inforrla-
tion. All the other rules and regula-
tiOns she accepted in the most binding
manner
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 urg.
ing 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 1966-1S71. Consequently be.
cause these wars had been successful,
the wisdom Of Won Clausewitz' meth.
DDS seemed to the Prussian army to be
fully proved.
Policy Of Frightfulness.
Now, the essence of Won Clausewitz'
teachings was that successful war in.
wolves the ruthless application of force,
In the opening chapter OF his master
work, "Vom Kriege" ("On Wary, he
says:
violence arms itself with the inven.
lions of art and science. Self,
imposed restrictions, almost impercep.
tible and hardly worth mentioning,
termed usages of international law,
accompany it without essentially i'm.
pairing its power. Now, philan'
thropic souls might easily imagine tha.
there is a skillfuf method of disar,n.
ing or subduing an enemy without
causing too much bloodshed, and that
this is the true tendency of the art Of
war. However plausible this may ap.
;e h; IT,, Il
destroyed; for in such dangerous
things as war, the errors which pro.
ceed from spirit of 'good-nafured.
ness are precisely the worst. As The
use of physical force to the utmost ex-
+ tent by no means excludes the co.
operation of the intelligence, it follows
that he who uses force ruthlessly, with.
out regard to bloodshed. must obtain
a superiority, If his enemy does not
so use II"
In 1877-7S, in the course of series
Of articles upon N"Military Necessity
and Humanity" General Won Hartmann
wrote, in the same spirit as Won Clau.
sewitz:
.sThe enemy state must not be spared
the want and wretchedness of war;
these are particularly useful in shat
tering its energy and subduing its will. =
individual persons may be harshly
dealt with when an example is made
of them, intended to serve as warn
ing. Whenever national wal
breaks out, terrorism becomes a nee.
essary military principle sit is q
gratuitous illusion to suppose that
modern war does not demand far more
brutality, far more violence, and an
action far more general than was for.
merly the case"
In 1881 Won Moltke, who had beer
commander in chief of the Prussian
army IN the Franco-P Prussian war, de
clared:
Perpetual peace is a dream and moi
even beautiful dream. War is an ele
nnent IN the order Of the world estab
tlished by God. By 1t 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
eSeaesate and lose itself in material