The Wrangell sentinel., 1918-02-28
German Soldiers incited to Acts of Cruelty by GeneraEvon
 BisSing. '@
ELIMINATION OF HIGH KULTUR'
Governor General of Belgium on Rec. ord as Declaring the innocent Must Suffer WIth the GuIlty-irvIn
 Cobbs Tale of Horrors.

tematically imficted upon the people of Belgium by the German soldiers. under the orders of their oom maud ing officers, are Mown ia all their hideousness by ofci0l docaments and he testimony of eye-witnesses. as weH as by letters mritten bs Ger man soldiers in the field. Ihe bra- gen effort of Emperor William to cast 'he odium of the fearful deeds on Ne Belgians is also showa. Quo- tations giren are from documents dlready made public CT in tue pos sessioa of ihe gopernment d Wash sngfon.
 This interview was reproduced in the Beriiner Tageblatt of November 20. 1ol4 s
 Mir. r. C. Wnicott of the Belgian re- lief commission tells in the Geograph- ical Magazine for May. 1917, Of meet ing Gen von BcrR,saga!i:
 "As walked out. Gen. S"n Bern hard came into the rooin. an expert nrtiilcrynnn. a professor an afse or their wnr colleges. met him the ne1t morning, asA he asked tue if l had read hls b0a.k. EerInnny an the Next War
 '.I said l had. He said: 'D0 you know, my frieasis nearly ran nae out of the country far thntT They said. You have irt the Cat out af tine bag. I snid, 'No, I have nos beetu> nobody w1Il heliese it. What dld you think of itr
 Al said. Nenerni, l did net believe q word of it when I read it, but l now fee. that you did not tell the whole trnth;' and the old general looked aetaAay pleased"
 Speaking ex. August, ea. 1914. at Munster. of -+@es eStsene measures which the Germans fssll.. ss!aiged to take against the civil nlilni7ttion of Bel gium, Gen. vOn BissinE said:
 "The innocent must suffer with the guilty. In the repression of infamy, human lives cannot be spared. and If isolated houses. flOuriShing vii- iageS, and even entire towns are anni- Inflated, that is ASsuredly regrettable. but 1t must not excite ill-timed senti- mentality. All this must not in our eyes weigh as much as the life of a single one of our brave soldicrs--the rigorous accomplishment of duty Is the summation of high kultur. md In that. the population of the enemy countries can lenrn a lesson from our army"
 Officers Encouraged Atrocities.
 Gen. von Bissing, after his appoint ment as governor general of Belgium. repeated in substance the above opln- lon to q Dutch journalist. The inter- view Is published in the Dusseldorfer Anzeiger of December 8. 1914.
 Irwin S. Cobb states his conclusions on the responsibility of the higher Ger man command for the atrocities:
 "Isut l WAS an eyewitness to crimes which, measured by the standArds of humanity and civiiizati~a. iuapressed ne as verse tran any indislMafal ex- cess, any individual Satrngs, could ever have been or can ever be; be- cause these crimes indlfHtnbiy were lnStigated on q whoaesnle fa sis by or sler of officers of rank. and must have f,een carried cut under their personal supervision. direction, and approval.
 ~Tuklng the physical eSidenee offer ad before our own eyes. and buttress- ing 1t with the stnteanents made to us, not only by natives, but>AGer1a,n sol dlers aaad German officers, we could reach but one eOHeausion, which was that here, ir such HHd such q plnce, those in command had said to the troops: Spare this town and these pesple.' And there they had said: Waste this town and shoSt these peo- uae.' And here the troops hah discrim- snateiy spared. and there they had in- discriminatory wasted, in exact ac- cordanee with the word of thelr supe- risrs.~|Irvia CaaIb. Speaking of Prus- Saans. New York. 1917, pp. 32-34.
 Hoodwinked German People.
 TNese ideas, then, were systemat- feaily impressed epon the military and 0ddieial classes. 1t WIS necessary, however, to wofk upon the minds of xke German people go that tasey might lend themselves to the lmlMmaG poll eles nAroeated by the military leaders. To do ti,is WAS ditiicuat,- for, as has been shown oftea. many of the civil ian leaders of p,ibaie opiniOa, time and again, expressed their horror of the r,ew spirit which was animating the military authorlties. The reichstar debates give ample evidence Of this. and the task of the military leaders wss,1d have been still more difficult if the reichstag had any real power {See War Information Series No. 3. The Government of Germany" see nlso Gerard's "My Four Years in Ger many.~ chapter 2.) -
 The military authorities and those in sympathy with them have. done all in their power to stimulate q hatred of ether peoples in the minds of the Ger.