The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1918-02-28
FriuhtfuIness 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.

sued by the committee on public IN
formation, the evidence IS drawn
mainly from German and American
sources. The German sources an
c1ude official proclanations and
,ther official utterances, letters ana
liaries of German soldiers. and quo
lations from German newspapers.
The "Rules for Field Service OF the
German army advises each soldier
to keep such diary tchile on act've
service.
Tn the wars waged in ancient times
It was taken for granted tnat con-
uuered 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
Hs!-woe to the conquered" For two
centuries or more there has been
steady advance in introducing ideas Oh
humanity and especially In connning
the evils of warfare to the combatants.
The ideal seemed to have become SO
thoroughly established as part OF IN
ternational law that the powers at Inc
Hague thought it 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-
Iligious convictions and practice, must
be respected. Private property cannot
common
with the other powers, solemniy
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
is seen to be relatively gentle pro-
cedure. useful to keep the masses OF
the people in state Of obedience.
J This had been Bismarck's policy. too.
. according to MOritz Busch, Bismark
biographer, Bismarck, exasperated by
1.-The French resistance, which was still
lcontinuing in January, 1871, said:
eff in the territory which we occupy
we cannot supply everything for our
troops. from time to time we shall send
la fiying column into the localities
(which are recalcitrant. We shall shoot
hang and burn. After that has hap
lpened q few times, the inhabitants VIII
finally come to their senses.
Horrors Told in Soldiers Diaries.
The frightfulness taught by the Ger
d man leaders held full sway in Belgium
This is best seen in the entries In tn'
diaries of the individual German sol
liers.
"During the night of August 15-1'
Engineer CIR gave the alarm In TIN
town of Wise. Every one was shot
taken prisoner, and the houses wer
burnt. The prisoners were made t
march and keep up with the troops.
From the diary of nOncommissione
officer Reinhold Koehn of the Secon
battalion of engineers, Third arm
corps.)
"A horrible bath of blood. The Who'll
village burnt, the French thrown int
the blazing houses, civilians with tn
. rest" (From the diary, of Privat
Hassemer of the Eighth army corps.)
sIn the night of August 1919 the vi
lage of Saint Maurice was punishe
for having fired on German soldiers
being burnt to the ground by the &c
man troops 1.-TWO regiments, Il
Twelfth landwehr and the SIEVE
teenth.) The village was surrounde
men posted about yard from one a
other, so that no one could get OF
Then the Uhlans set fire to it, hou
by house. Neither man, woman.
child could escape; only the great
part of the live stock we carried
as that could be used. Anyone W
yentured to come out was shot dow
All the inhabitants left in the villa
were burnt with the houses" (Fr'
the diary of Private Karl Scheufele
the Third Bavarian regiment and lal
wehr Infantry
cat ten o'clock in the evening
first battalion of the One hundred @
Seyenty-eighth marched down the ST.
incline into the burning village to
burning village to the north OF Dina
terrific spectacle of CHASTITY Deat
At the entrance to the village lay ap
fifty dead civilians, shot Tor nav
fred upon our troops from ambush.
the course of the night many otn
were also shot, so that we counted Q
900. Women and children, lamp
hand. were forced to look on at
horrible scene. We ate our rice IL
I'm the midst of the cOrpses, for we
had nothing since morning. when
searched the houses we found pie
of wine and spirit, but no eatat
Captain Hamann was drunk.
last phrase in shorthando (From
diary of Private Philip of the
Hundred and Seventy-eighth regin
of infantry, Twelfth army corps.)
Writing from Belgium in 1916
s. Cobb said:
"Briefly what saw was this: