Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1918-01-07
lAtroCiOuS Treatment Of the Help
less Part Of Campaign Plans
Of Military Leaders.
IPOLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS
Terrorlsm Declared Necessary Prin'
ciple in National Warfare-Bru-
talities May Be Said to Be d.
rectly Attributable to the
Emperor Himself.

-
and consisting of the secretary of
state, secretary Of war, secretary Of
the nary, and George Creel, official
censor, has made public mass of
svidence dealing wih German wdr
practices which shoWs the kaiser'S
Readers in the feH and in command
Of captured points 10 be directly re-
BpOnsible for the beaStlineSS which
Has characterized the operations Of
Me Huns, in the present conflict.
Quotations from the pamphlet fol-
V0w.
For many years leaders in every civ
1lized 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 MS to the care Of the
sick and wounded and established the
Red Cross. At the first meeting nj Ge-
neva, in 1864. II was agreed, and until
the present war II has been taken for
granted, that the wounded. and the doe
tors and nurses who cared for them,
would be safe from all attacks by the
enemy. The Hague conventions.
drawn up in 1899 and 1907, made addi-
Jinua1 r,,Iac IN cofton tho ,tcoUoc of WON
and especially to protect nmc0mhat-
ants and conquered lands. Germany
took prominent part in these meet
ingS. 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 c0nquerOr to force
any of the conquered to give informa-
lion. 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
nl0ng 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 its successful
wars of 1S66-1S71 Consequently he
cause these wars had been successful,
the wisdom of Won ClausewtZ' meth
OdS seemed to the PruSsian army to be
fully proved.
Policy Of Friehtfuness.
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, "yom Krlege' con War'O, he
says:
evidence arms itself with the inven.
tionS 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 It's power Now, philan
fhropic souls might easily imagine that
there is skillful method of disarm
ing or Subduing an enemy without
causing too much bloodshed and thai
this is the true tendency Of the art Of
war. However plausible this may ap
pear. still II is an error which must ht
destroyed: for in such dangerous
things as war, the errors which pro
ceed from a 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
that he who uses force ruthlcSSly with
out regard tn bloodshcd, must obtain
n superiority, if his enemy does not
so use IT,"
In lS77-7s in the course Of series
of articles upon Military Necessity
and Humanity" General Won Hartmann
wrote. in the same spirit as Won Gnu.
sewItz:
"The enemy state must not be spared
the want and wrctchedncSS Of war;
these are particularly useful in shat.
tering its energy and Suhduing It's will. "
"Indvidual persons may he harShly
dealt with when un example is made
of them. intended 10 serve rs n warn
ing. Whenever Il national war
breaks out. terrorism becomes nee
esSary military principle" at is Il
gratutous illusion 10 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 NOn Moltke. who had beer
commander in chief of the PluSsiar
army in the Franco-PrusSian war. de
clared:
perpetual peace is dream and moi
even beautiful dream. War is an ele
ment in the order Of the world estab
Iished by God by IT the most noble
virtues Of man are developed, courag,
and renunciation. fidelity 10 duty ans
the spirit of sacrifice-the soldier gives
bls.llfe. Without war, the world wOut
degenerate and lose Itself in material