The Adair County news. [volume] (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987, 1918-01-16
iFrightfulness Taught by German
Leaders Belongs to Age of
BarbariSm.
SOLEMN PLEDGE MERE WORDS
ikaiser's Statesmen Had No intention
of Keeping Faith With Their
Agreement on international Law
Horrors Told b. Diaries.

sued by the committee on public in
formation, the eUidence is drGWn
mainly from German and american
sources. The German sources in
clude official procEamatiOns and
other official utterances, letters and
diaries of German soldiers, and quo
tations from German newspapers.
The "RuEeS for Field Serrice" Of the
German army adUiseS each soldier
to keep such a diary whiIe on actiUe
service.
In the wars waged in ancient times
it was taken for granted that con-
quered peoples might be either killed,
tortured, or held as slaves; that their
property would he taken and that their
lands would be devastated. Vac vic
It's woe to the conquered" For two
centuries or more there has been
steady advance in introducing ideas of
humanity and especially in combining
the evils of warfare to the cOmbatantS.
The ideal seemed to have become SO
thoroughly established as a part of in
ternatiOnal law that the powers at The
Hague thought it sufficient merely to
state the general principles in Article
XLEI of the regulations: Family hon
orS and rights, the lives Of persons
and private property, rs well as re
ligi0uS convictions and practice, must
be respected. Private property cannot
be conf>cated." Germany. in common
with the other powers, solemnly
pledged her faith to keep this article,
but her military leaders had no inten-
ton of doing 50. They had been
trained i'm the ideas voiced by Gen. Won
Hartmann 30 wears ago: Terrorism
is seen to be- a relatively gentle pro
cedUre. useful To keep the masses Of
the people in state Of obedience"
This had been Bi~marck'S policy, too.
According to Noritz Busch, Bismark's
Oiogranher. Bismarck, eXaSperated by
the French resistance, which was still
continuing in January, 1871. said:
'If in the territory which we occupy,
we cannot supply everything for our
troops, from time to time we shall send
a flying column into the localities
which are recalcirant. We shall shoot,
hang and burn. After that has hap
pened a few times, the inhabitants will
finally come TO their senses"
Horrors Told in Soldiers Diaries.
The frightfulness taught by the Ger
man leaders held full sway in Belgium.
This is best seen in the entries in the
diaries Of the individual German sol
dieTs.
During the night of August 1916
Engineer CIR gave the alarm in the
town of Wise. Every one was shot or
taken prisoner. and the houses were
burnt. The prisoners were made to
march and keep up with the troops"
(FEom the diary Of nOncommiSsioned
officer ReinhoId Koehn Of the Second
battalion Of engineers, Third army
CORPSE
a. horrible bath Of blood. The whole
village burnt the French thrown into
the blazing houses. civilians with the
rest" (FrOm the diary of Private
HaSscmcr Of the Eighth army cOrps.)
'In the night Of August 1919 the vii
for having fired on German soldiers by
being burnt to the ground by the Ger
man troops (twO regiments, the
Twelfth landwehr and the Seven
teenth.) The village was surrounded,
men posted about a yard from one an
other, so that no one could get out.
Then the UhlanS set fire to if, house
by house. Neither man, woman, nor
child could escape; only the greater
part of the live stock we carried off
as that could be used. Anyone who
,ventured to come out was shot down.
All the inhabitants left in the village
were burnt with the houses" FrOm
the diary of Private Karl Scheufele of
the Third Bavarian regiment and land
wehr infantry.)
"At ten o'clock in the evening the
first battalion of the One hundred and
Seventy-eighth marched down the steer
incline into the burning village to the
burning village to the north Of Dinant
A terrific spectacle of CHASTITY beauty
AT the entrance to the village lay about
fifty dead civilians, shot for having
fired upon our troops from ambush. Il
the course Of the night many OtheT'
were also shot, so that we counted over
200. Women and children, lamp IL
hand, were forced to look On al tht
horrible scene. We ate our rice late
in the midst Of the cOrpses, for we haC
had nothing since morning. When W.
searched the houses we found plent!
of wine and spirit, but no eatables
Captain Hamann was drunk" (Ihi
last phrase in shorthand.) (From tn
diary of Private Philip Of the On
Hundred and Seventy-eighth regimen
of infantry, Twelfth army corps.)
Writing from Belgium in 1916 Irvil
S. Cobb said:
Briefly what / saw was this: saw