From ‘German outrages in Belgium‘, The Spectator, 15 May 1915:
TOWARDS the end of last year the Prime Minister appointed a Committee to inquire into the outrages committed by German troops during the present war, and the Report of the Committee was issued on Wednesday.
As the Committee indicate, the inference to be drawn is that the German military authorities made up their minds that it was desirable to terrorize the Belgian people in order to overcome Belgium’s resistance to the German Army, and in order to maintain the German communications without having to devote too large a force to protect them. In other words, the military interests of Germany were held to justify any kind of cruelty that might con- ceivably contribute to the success of German arms. There is, as the Committee point out, abundant German evidence that this view of the nature of war and the means of warfare is held by German military authorities :—
“The spirit of war is deified; obedience to the State and its war lord loaves no room for any other duty or feeling ; cruelty becomes legitimate when it promises victory. . . . If this explanation be the true one the mystery is solved, and that which seemed scarcely credible becomes more intelligible though not loss pernicious. This is not the only case that history records in which a false theory disguising itself as loyalty to FL State or to a Church has perverted the conception of duty and become a source of danger to the world.”
This Report shows that, apart from the outrages organized and ordered by the German military authorities, there were also outrages due to the drunkenness or the lust of individual German soldiers. But, while drawing this distinction, it is important to bear in mind that the German Army cannot escape responsibility even for these individual crimes, for of all armies in the world the German is subject to the most rigid discipline, and if the German military authorities had wished to hold their troops in check they certainly could have done so. Indeed, in some places German troops behaved as well as any troops could possibly behave, and therefore the inference is irresistible that where they behaved badly they were either ordered or permitted so to do. The whole story as told in this Report in carefully weighed language constitutes one of the most terrible reflections upon European civilization. We seem to have gone back in the standard of civilization for several centuries at least. In the words of the Committee: “Murder, lust, and pillage prevailed over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilized nations during the last three centuries.”
The Committee end their Report with the expression of a hope which all our readers would be inclined to share, but which at the moment seems too remote from the realities of the present international situation. The Committee hope that these disclosures will “touch and rouse the conscience of mankind,” and that when the war is over “the nations of the world in council will consider what means can be provided and sanctions devised to prevent the recurrence of such horrors.”
The pity of the matter is that most of the nations of Europe other than those actually-engaged in fighting appear to be terrorized by the very horrors which they ought to be engaged in checking. Instead of acting together as one unit to defend the civilization of the world, the neutral Powers, with few exceptions, seem to be considering only their own interests, and to be wondering whether it would be more profitable to them to remain outside as spectators or to rush into the fray in the hope of extracting some advantage for themselves.
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