The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1918-02-28
GERMAN WAR PRACTICES
Edited by Dana c. Munro, Princeton UNI
versity; George c. Sellery, University
of Wisconsin, and August c krey,
University of Minnesota
Issued bv the Committee on Public Information
Introduction.
University of Minnesota

For many years leaders i'll every
civilized nation have been trying to
make warfare less brutal. The great
landmarks in this movement are the
Geneva and Hague conventions. The
former made rules as to the care OF
the sick and wounded and establish
ed the Red Cross. At the first meet
. ing at Geneva, in 1864, it was agreed,
and until the present war, it has
been taken for granted, that the
wounded, and the doctors 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 additional rules to
soften the usages of war and es-
pecially to protect noncombatants
and conquered lands. Germany took
a prominent part in these meetings
and with the other nations solemnly
pledged her faith to keep all the rules
except one article in the Hague regu-
lations. This was article A, which
forbade the conqueror to force any
of the conquered to give information.
All the other rules and regulations
she accepted in the most binding
Z manner.
Germany Policy of Frightfulness.
But Germany's military leaders
had no intention of keeping these
solemn promises. They had been
trained along different lines. Their
leading generals for many years had
been urging a policy of frightfulness.
In the middle Of the nineteenth cen
tury 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 1S66-1871. Con-
sequently, because these wars had
I been successful, the wisdom of Won
& Clausewitz's methods seemed to the
sPrussian army to be fully proven.
5SSs.. Now, the essence of 'Fon Clause
Wits teachings was that successful
war involves the ruthless application
of force. In the opening chapter OF
his master work, Won Kriege (On
VAR, he says:
violence arms itself with the in
ssventions of art and science.
Self-imposed restrictions, almost I'M
perceptible and hardly worth men
.tioning, termed usages of internation-
al law, accompany it without essen.
tally impairing it's power. Now,
philanthropic souls might easily
Imagine that there is a skillful meth
cd Of disarming or subduing an enc
my without causing too much blood
shed, and that this is the true ten
dency of the art Of war. However
plausible this may appear, still it is
an error which must be destroyed;
for In, such dangerous things as war,
= the errors which, proceed from a
spirit of 'good-naturedness' are pre-
cisely the worst. AS the use of ply
sical force to the utmost extent by
no means excludes the cooperation
of the intelligence, it follows that he
who uses force ruthlessly, without
regard to bloodshed, must obtain a
superiority, if his enemy does not
SO use it,
Y In 1S77-78, in the course of a Sc
ries of articles upon Military neces-
sity and humanity" Gen. yon Hart
mann wrote, in the same spirit as
Won Clausewitz:
Frightfulness Advocated by German
Generals.
''The enemy must not-be spared
the want and wretchedness of war;
these are particularly useful in shat
tering it's energy and subduing it's
will" Individual persons may be
harshly dealt with when an example
is made of them, intended to serve
as warning. ** Whenever a
national war breaks out, terrorism
becomes a necessary military princi-
pie" ''It is gratuitous illusion to
suppose that modern war does not
demand far more brutality, far more
violence, and an action far. more
general than was formerly the case.''
when international war has burst
upon us, terrorism becomes a prin
ciple made necessary by military con-
siderations."
In 1881 Won Moltke, who had been
commander in chief of the Prussian
army in the Franco-Prussian war, de-
clared:
Perpetual peace is a dream and
not even beautiful dream. War is
an element in the order of the world