Gunnison news-champion., 1919-02-21
Atrocious Treatment Of the Help
less Part Of Campaign Plans
Of Military Leaders.
POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNess
rsrrerIsm Declared . Necessary prin
eipIe in National warfsre-Bv-
taIities May Be Said to Be 0i.
reetiy Attributable to the
Emperor himself.

and consisting Of the secretary Of
state, secretary Of uar. secretary OF
the nary. and George C,sel, Official
censor, has made public q mass OF
eridenes dealing nth German IRA,
practices rkieh shous the Laiser's
leaders in the field and in com mand
! Of captured points TO be directly re-
sponstbis for the bsastliness uhieh
has characterized the operations Of
the Huns" in the present conflict.
Quotations from the pamphlet fol-
lop:
For many years leaders in every CIV
ilized nation have been trying TO make
warfare less brutal. The great land.
marks In this movement are the Ge-
neva and Hague conventions. The for
mer made rules as TO the cnre OF the
sick and wounded and established the
Red Cross. At the first meeting at Ge-
neva, in 1864. II was agreed, and until
the present war II has been taken for
| granted, that the wounded. and the doc
tors 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 addi-
tional rules to soften the usages Of war
and especially to protect noncombat-
ants and conquered lands. Germany
took a prominent part in these meet
ings, and with the other nations SOL
emnly pledged her faith to keep all the
rules except one article In the Hague
regulations. This was article A,
which forbade the conqueror to force
any of the conquered to give informa-
| tion. All the other rules and regula-
tions she accepted In the most binding
manner.
But Germnny'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 urg.
Ing q policy OF frIghtfulness. In the
middle of the nineteenth century Won
Clauscwitz was looked upon as the
greatest military authority. and the
methods which he advocated were used
| by the PruSsinn army in Its successful
wars OF 1sGS-lSTl Consequently be-
cause these wars had been successful
the wisdom OF Won Clausewitz' meth
ods seemed to the Prussian army to be
fully proved.
Policy Of Friehtfulness.
Now, the essence of Won Clausewitz'
teachings was that successful war In
wolves the ruthless application of force.
In the opening chapter of his master
work. "vom Kriege" con WARY. he
says:
violence arms itself with the inven-
tons Of art and science. Self
imposed restrictions. almost impercep-
tible and hardly worth mentioning.
termed usages Of international law.
accompany II without essentially i'm
pairing its power. Now, philan-
thropic souls might easily imagine that
there is a skiilful method Of disarm-
ing or subduing an enemy without
causing too much bloodshed. and that
this is the true tendency Of the art Of
war. However plausible this may ap-
pesr. still It il an error which must be
destroyed: for In such dangerous
things as war. the errors which pro-
ceed from q spirit Of 'good-natured-
ness are precisely the worst. As the
use of physical force to the utmost ex-
tent by no means excludes the Co
operation Of the intelligence, 1t follows
that he who uses force ruthlessly. with
out regard to bloodshed. must obtain
a superiority. II his enemy does not
20 use It."
In 1s77-76, in the course Of q series
Of articles upon military Necessity
and Humanity" General von Hartmann
wrote, in the same spirit as Won Clau-
seWitx:
''The enemy state must not be spared
these are particularly useful in shat
tering Its energy and subduine Its will" ."
Individual persons may be harshly
1ealt with when an example II made
of them. intended to serve as a warn.
ing. Whenever Q national wal
breaks ont, terrorism becomes nee.
essary military principle" TT II 4
gratuitous Illusion to suppose that
modern war does not demand far more
brutality. far more violence, and m
action far more general than was for
mefiy the case"
In 1881 Won Moltke, who had beer
commander in chief u the Prussiar
army in the Franco-Prussian var. e
elafed:
) Perpetual peace II Q dream and no'
even beautiful dream. Wat = m ele
ment In the order of The world estab
ished BY God. BY II the most nohsl
sirtues Of man are developed. csuaeI
md renunciatioa. A6elity b dsty ani
ne TT sSnessAes-tAe seaef ~,