Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1918-03-15
FrightfuIness Taught by German
, Leaders Belongs to Age Of
Barbarism.
SOLEMN PLEDGE MERE WORDS
kalser's Statesmen Had No Intention
Of Keeping Faith With Their
Agreement on international Law
Horrors Told by Diaries.

tty IN Belgium, says a pamphlet IS
sued By the committee on public in
formation, the euidence is drawn
mainly from German and american
sources The German sources in
clude official proclamations and
other official utterances, letters and
diaries of German soldiers, and quo
tations from German newspapers.
The Rules for Field Service" of the
German army advises each soldier
to keep such a diary while on active
service.
! In the wars waged in ancient times
II was taken for granted that con-
quered peoples might be either killed,
tortured. or held as slaves; that their
property would be taken and that their
lands would be devastated. "Vae vic
Ais woe to the conquered" For two
centuries or more there has been a
steady advance In introducing ideas of
humanity and especially in combining
the evils of warfare to the cOmbatants.
The ideal seemed to have become so
thoroughly established as a part of in
ternational law that the powers Mt The
Hague thought 1t sufficient merely to
state the general principles in Article
XLVI of the regulations: Family hon.
ors and rights, the lives of persons
and private property. as well as re-
ligious convictions and practice, must
be respected. Private property cannot
be confiscated." Germany, in common
with the other powers, solemnly
pledged her faith to keep this article,
but her military leaders had no inten-
ton of doing so. They had been
trained in the ideas voiced by Gen. Won
Hartmann 40 years ago: Terrorism
rs seen to be relatively gentle pro-
lcedure, useful to keep the masses of
the people in a state OF obedience
This had been Bismarck's policy, too.
According to MOritz Busch, Bfsmarks
biographer, Bismarck, exasperated by
the French resistance, which was still
continuing in January, 1871, said:
! IF In the territory which we occupy,
we cannot supply everything for our
troops, from time to time we shall send
1t flying column into the localities
which are recalcitrant We shall shoot
hang and burn. After that has hap
pened few times. the inhabitants will
finally come to their senses"
Horrors Told In Soldiers Diaries.
The frightfuness taught by the Ger
man leaders held full sway I'm Belgium.
This Is best seen in the entries In the
diaries of the individual German sol
diers.
During the night of August 1916
Engineer Cir gave the alarm in the
town of Wise. Every one was shot or
taken prisoner and the houses were
burnt The prisoners We're made to
march and keep up with the troops"
(From the diary OF reconnaissance
officer Reinhold Koehn Of the Second
battalion of engineers, Third army
CORPSE
"a horrible bath of blood. The whole
village burnt, the French thrown into
the blazing houses, civilians with the
rest" (From the diary of Private
Hasscmer of the Eighth army corps.)
an the night of August 1910 the vii
lage of Saint-Maurice was punished
for having fired on German soldiers by
being burnt to the ground by the Ger
man troops 1.-TWO regiments, the
Twelfth landwehr and the Seven
teenth.) The village was surrounded,
men posted about IA yard from one an
other, so that no one could get out.
Then the Uhlans set fire To ii. house
by house Neither man, woman, nor
child could escape; only the greater
part of the live stock we carried off,
as that could be used. Anyone who
ventured Ia come out was shot down.
All the inhabitants left in the village
were burnt with the houses" (From
the diary of Private Karl Schcufele of
the Third Bavaran regiment and land
wehr Infantry
AT ten o'clock In the evening the
first battalion of the One hundred and
seventy eighth marched down the steep
incline into the burning village to the
burning village to the north of Dinant.
n leTflnc Spp'lNCle III SllHSllN btduly'
At the entrance to the village lay about
/ fifty dead civilians, shot for having
/ fired upon our troops from ambush. In
/ the course of the night many others
were also shot, so that we counted over
POO. Women and children, lamp In
! hand. were forced to look on Mt the
| horrible scene. We ate our rice later
! in the midst of the corpses, for we had
/ had nothing since morning. When we
searched the houses we found plenty
of wine and spirit, but no eatables.
Captain Hamann was drunk" (This
last phrase in shorthand) (From the
diary of Private Philip of the One
Hundred and Seventy-eighth regiment
of infantry, Twelfth army CORPSE
Writing from Belgium In 1916 Irwin
| s. Cobb said:
Briefly what saw was this: saw