Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1918-02-06
FrightfuIness Taught by German
/ Leaders Belongs to Age Of
Barbarism.
SOLEMN PLEDGE MERE WORDS
kaiser's Statesmen Had No intention
Of Keeping Faith With Their
Agreement on international Law
Horrors Told by Diaries

formation, The evidence IS dram
mainly from German and American
sources. The German sources in
clude Official proclamdtionsN and
other Official utterances, letters and
diaries of German soldiers, aud quo
tations from German newspapers
The Rules for Field Service" Of the
German army advises each soldier
TO keep such a diary while on actipe
service.
| In the wars waged IN ancient times
IT 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 you'd be devastated. "yae vic
! tbs woe TO the conqueredl' For tive
| centuries or more there has been a
I steady advance in Introducing ideas of
/ humanity and especially In combining
! the evils of warfare to the combatants.
4 The ideal seemed to have become so
| thoroughly established as part of In
ternational law that the powers at The
| Hague thought II sufficient merely TO
state the general principles in Article
XLyI 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 conftscated." Germany, In common
x,~tth A.a cnfatfnly
| pledged her faith TO keep this article,
but her military leaders had no inten-
ton Of doing so. They had been
trimmed In the ideas voiced by Gen. Won
Hartmann 40 years ago: Terrorism
is seen to be a relatively gentle pro-
cedure, useful TO keep the masses Of
the people in state of obedience"
This had been Blsmarck's policy, too.
According to MoritZ Busch, Bisrnark's
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
| a 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 frightfulness taught by the Ger
man leaders held full sway in 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 were made to
march and keep up with the troops"
| (From the diary of noncommissioned
officer Reinhold Koehn OF the Second
battalion of engineers, Third army
corps.)
"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
Hassemer of the Eighth army corps.)
'Tn the night of August 1919 the Va
iage of Saint-Maurice was punished
for having fired on German soldiers by
being burnt TO the ground by the Ger
man troops two regiments, the
Twelfth iandwehr and the Seven
teenth.) The village was surrounded,
men posted about yard from one an
other, so that no one could get ont.
Then the UhIans set fire to it, house
by house. Neither man. woman. nor
child could escape; only the greater
part of the live stock we carried on,
as that could be used. Anyone who
ventured TO come out was shot down.
All the inhabitants left In the village
were burnt with the houses" (From
the diary Of Private Karl Scheufeie OF
I the Third Bavarian 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 steer
| incline into the burning village to the
burning village to the north of Dinant
A terrific spectacle of CHASTITY beauty
At the entrance to the village lay about
, fifty dead civilians. shot for having
fred upon our troops from ambush. In
the course of the night many Others
/ we're also shot, so that we counted ovel
: 200. Women and children. lamp IL
I hand, were forced to look on at tn,
: horrible scene. We ate our rice late
J in the midst, of the corpses, for we hat
) had nothing since morning. When W,
Q searched the houses we found plent.
: Of wine and spirit, but no eatables
Captain Hamann was drunk" (Thi
last phrase in shorthand.) (From tn
diary Of Private Philip of the On
Hundred and Seventy eighth regimen
!, Of infantry, Twelfth army corps.)
i Writing from Belgium In 1916 Irvi
s. Cobb said:
Briefly what I saw was this: sa'