The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-04-12

to shoot at sight a civilian caugh
redhanded, or any one who. though
not caught redhanded, is prove,
guilty on inquiry. But this was no
the practice followed by the Ger
man troops. They do not seem t
have made any inquiry. They seizet
the civilians of the villages inNis
criminately and killed them, or sucl
as they selected from among them
without the least regard to guilt o.
innocence. The mere cry, "CivilisteI
haben geschossen!" was enough tt
hand over a whole village or district
and even outlying places, to ruthless
slaughter.
We gladly record the instances
where the evidence shows that hui
manity had not wholly disappeared
from some members of the German
Army. and that they realized that
the responsible heads of that or
ganization were employing them not
in war, but in butchery: II am
merely executing orders, and
should be shot if / did not execute
them" said an officer to witness at
Louvain. At Brussels another Of
ficer says: Il have not done one
hundredth part of what we have
been ordered to do by the high Ger
man military authorities"
AS we have already observed, it
would be unjust to charge upon the
German Army generally acts of
cruelty which, whether due to
drunkenness or not, were done by
men of brutal instincts and un-
bridled passions. Such crimes were
sometimes punished by the officers.
They were in some cases Offset by
acts of humanity and kindliness.
But when an army is directed or
permitted to kill noncombatants on
a large scale the ferocity of the
worst natures springs into fuller
life, and both lust and the thirst of
blood become more widespread and
more formidable. Had less license
been allowed to the soldiers and had
they not been set to work to slaugh-
ter civilians there would have been
fewer of those painful cases in which
4 depraved and morbid cruelty ap-
pears.
Two classes of murders in par
ocular require special mention be-
cause one of them is almost new and
he other altogether unprecedented
The former is the seizure of peace
'ul citizens as so-called hostages, tof
De kept as pledge for the conduct
If the civil population or as means
o secure military advantage or to
compel the payment of contribu-
ion, the hostages being shot If the
imposed by the arbitrary
will of the invader is not fulfilled.
Such hostage taking, with the pen
lily Of death attached, has now and
hen happened, the most notable case
,eing the shooting of the Archbishop
# Paris and some of his clergy by
he Communards Of Paris in 1871,
,ut it is opposed both to the rules
# war and to every principle of JUS
ice and humanity. The latter kind
# murder is the killing of the limo
,ent inhabitants Of a village because
hots have been fired, or alleged to
lave been fired, on the troops by
ome one in the village. For this
Practice no previous example and no
have been or can be
pleaded. Soldiers suppressing an in
may have sometimes slain
civilians mingled with insurgents,
md Napoleon's forces in Spain are
aid to have now and then killed
,romiscuously when trying to clear
,uerrillas out of village. But in
Belgium large bodies of men, some
lines including the Burgomaster and
he priest, were seized, marched by
Ulcers to a spot chosen for the pur-
'ose, and there shot in cold blood,
Without any attempt at trial or even
inquiry, under the pretense of in
letting punishment upon the village,
hough these unhappy victims were
lot even changed with having them
elves committed any wrongful act,
nd though, in some cases at least,
he village authorities had done all
n their power to prevent any mo-
of the invading force. Such
cts are no part of war, for inno-
eDce is entitled to respect even in
var. They are mere murders, just
s the drowning of the. innocent
and crews on a merchant
hip is murder and not an act of
var.
That these acts should have been
erpetrated on the peaceful popula-
ion of an unoffending country which
yas not at war with it's invaders, but
lerely defending its own neutrality,