The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1918-01-24
URGED TO SLAY
and SPARE NOT
German Soldiers lncited to Acts
of Cruelty by General Won
Bissing.
'EMaNaTIoN OF HIGH kULTUR
eeverner General Of Belgium on REQ
Aiord az Declaring the Innocent Must
Suffer With the ouiity-Irvln
cobb,s Tale Of Horrora-


cobb,s Tale Of Horrora
The horrors deliberately and sys-
femdtical!y inflicted upon the people
of Belgium by the German soldiers.
under the orders of their command
ing officers. are skorr IN all their
hideousness By official documents
and The testimony of cye-ritaesscs.
as nell as by letters written by Ger
man soldiers in the field. The bra-
sen effort of Emperor William to
cast the odium of the fearful deeds
on the Bel9ians IS also shopn. Quo
tations given are from documents
already male public or in the pos
session of tas government at Wash
ington.
This Interview was reproduced In
the BeriIner Tageblatt Of November
20. 1914.
Mr.. F. C. walcott Of the Belgian re-
lief commission tells in the Geograph-
icai Magazine for May. 1917. of meet
ing Gen Won Bernhard:
-As / walked OUT. Gen. Won Bern
hardi came into the room. an expert
nrtiiierynan. professor In one Of
their war colleges. l met him the
next morning. and he asked me II I
had read his book. Germany In the
Next War
II said 1 had. He said: DO you
know. my friends nearly ran me out
OF the country for thatr They said.
You have let the cat out Of the bag.
I said, NO. I have not. because nobody
will believe IT. What die you think
Of itr
81 said. General. did not believe a
word OF II when read II. but I now
feel that you did not tell the whole
truth md the old general looked
actually pleased"
Speaking on August -. 1914. at
Munster. of the extreme measures
which the Germans felt Obliged to take
against the civil population OF Bel
GUM. Gen. Won Bissing said:
"The innocent must suffer with the
guilty. In the repression OF
infamy. hnmnn lives cannot be spared.
and II isolated houses. fiourishing vii
lages, and even entire towns are ami
hilated. that Is assuredly regrettnble.
but IL must not excite ill-timed senti-
mentality. All this must not In our
eyes weigh as much as the life Of
single one Of our brave soidiers-the
rigorous accomplishment nj duty Is the
emanatiou OF a high kultur. and in
that. the population of the enemy
countries can learn q lesson from our
army
ofSeers Encouraged Atrocities
Gen. Won Kissing. after his appoint
ment rs governor general of Belgium.
repeated In substance the above opIn-
lon to n Dutch journalist. The inter
view Is published In the Dusseldorfer
Anxeiger Of December 8. 1914
Irwin s. Cobb states his conclusions
on the responsibility of the higher Ger
man command for the atrocities:
"But I WIS an eyewitness to crimes
which. measured by the standards OF
humanity and civilization. impressed
me AZ worse than any individual ex-
ever have been or can ever be; be-
cause these crimes indubitably were
instigated on a wholesale basis by or
der of officers Of rank. and must have
been carried out under their personal
supervision. direction. and approval.
taking the physical evidence offer
cd before our own eyes. and buttress-
ing II with the statements made to us.
not only by natives, hut German sol
diers and German officers. we could
reach but one conclusion. which wns
that here. in such and such n place,
those In command had said to the
troops. Spare this town and these
people, And there they had said:
Waste this town and shoot these peo-
ple.' Aud here the troops had dIscrim-
iunteiy spared. and there they had In
discriminatory wasted. In cxact ac-
cortinnce with the word OF their supe-
riors.''-Irvin Cobb. Speaking Of Prus-
SLAMS, New York, 1917. PIP. 1884.
Hoodwinked German People.
These ideas. then. were systemat-
icniiy impressed upon the military and
official classes. 1t was necessary.
however. to work upon the minds Of
the German people. 30 that they might
lend themselves to the inhuman poll
cies advocated by. the military leaders.
To do this wns difficuit. for. as has
been shown often, many Of the civil
ian leaders Of public opinion. time and
again. expressed their horror OF the
new spirit which was snlmnting the
military. authorities. The reichstag
debates give ample evidence OF this.
and the task Of thu military leaders
vould have been still more difficult II