Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1918-02-15
GERMANY GUILTY
d. bARbAR|T|ES
IN WAR CONDUCT
Atrocious Treatment of the Help
less Part of Campaign Plans
of Military Leaders.
POLICY OF FRlGHTFULNESS
Terrorism Declared a Necessary Prin.
ciple In National Warfare---esu-
talities May Be Said TO BE Di-
rectly Attributable to the
Emperor Himself.


The committee on public infor-
nation, appointed By The president,
and consisting Of the secretary Of
state, secretary Of wdr, secretary OF
the nary and George Creel, official
censor, has made public a mass Of
eridcace dealing with German war
practices which ShowS the kdiser's
leaders in The field and in command
Of captured points 10 be directly re-
sPonStble for the beastliacss which
has characterized The operations of
the "Huns." in The present conflict.
Quotations from the pamphlet fol-
low:
For many years leaders in every civ
ilized nation have been trying to make
warfare less brutal. The great land
marks in this movement are the Ge-
neva and Hague conventions. The for
mer made rules as to the care Of the
sick and wounded and established the
Red Cross. AT the first meeting Mt Ge-
the present war II has been taken for
granted, that the wounded, and the doc
tors and nurses who cared for them,
would be snfe from all attacks by the
enemy The Hague conventions,
drawn up in 1890 and 1907, made nddl-
tional rules to soften the usages of war
and especially to protect noncombat-
ANTS and conquered lands. Germany
took n prominent part in these meet
ings, and with the other nations sol
EMMY 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 of the conquered to give Informal
ton. All the other rules and regula-
tions she accepted in the most binding
manner
But Gcrmany'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 n 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 Prussinn army In Its successful
wars of 1SG6-1S71. Consequently be-
cause these wars had been successful,
the wisdom of Won Clausewitz' meth
DDS seemed to the Prusslan army to be
fully proved.
Policy Of FrishtfuIness.
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" con Wary, he
says:
violence arms itself with the inven-
tions of art and science. Self
Imposed restrictions. almost lmpercep'
tble and hardly worth mentioning,
termed usages of international law,
accompany II without essentially Inn
pairing its power. Now, philan'
thropic souls might easily imagine that
there is a sl,illful method of dlsarm.
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'
pear still II Is an error which must be
destroyed for In such dangerous
things as war, the errors which pro-
ceed from spirit Of 'good-natured'
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, II follows
la ttfth IA.
out regard to bloodshed, must obtain
superiority, If his enemy does not
so use IT,"
In 1ST7-7S. In the course of series
of articles upon military Necessity
and Humanity" General Won Hartmann
wrote in the same spirit as Won Clau'
sewitz:
1.-THE enemy state must not be spared
the want and wretchedness of war
these are particularly useful in shat
terlng its energy and subduing it's 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
cssary military principle" ut is
gratuitous illusion 10 suppose thai
modern war does not demand far more
brutality, far more violence, and M
action far more general than was for
merly the case"
In 1881 Won Moltke. who had beer
commander in chief of the PrussiaT
army In the Fraaco-Prussian war, de
clared:
perpetual peace is dream and no
even II beautiful dream. War Is an e.e
ment In the order of the world estab
lshed by God. BY 1t the most noble
virtues of nan are developed, courage
and remuneration, fidelity to duty an'
the spirit of sacrlfice-the soldier give
his life Without war, the world woul'
degenerate and lose itself In material
uN11EVrr- III fe--lss-.-