Show OUTSIDE PALE OF HUMANITY frightfulness taught by german leaders belongs to age of 1 barbarism f SOLEMN PLEDGE MERE WORDS kaisers keisers Kai sers statesmen had no intention of keeping faith with their agreement on international law horrors told by diaries I 1 in giving to the american people the knowledge of german inhuman tty ity in belgium says a pamphlet issued by oy the committee on public information the evidence is drawn mainly from german and Arne american rican sources ces the german sources include official proclamations proc lamat ions an and other official utterances letters and diaries of german soldiers and quotations from froin german newspapers the rules for field service of the german army advises each soldier to fo keep such a diary while on active service i in the wars wa waged erl in n ancient times it t was taken for granted that conquered peoples m arlit be either cither killed tortured or held is as slaves that their property would nouli lie be taken and that their lands would be devastated vac vic vl ls woe to the conquered fortio for two icon or more there lins lias been a steady advance in introducing ideas of humanity and especially rivel tilly in confining the evils of warfare to the combatants combatant the ideal to have become so thoroughly established as a part of international ter ier law that the powers at the clague thought it sufficient merely to state the general principles in article of the regulations family honors and rights the lles les of persons and private property as well as re 11 igloos Ilg lous convictions and practice must be respected private property cannot the be confiscated germany in common inith the other powers solemnly pledged lodged her falth faith to keep this article it but ut her military leaders had no anten atlon of doing so they had been trained in the ideas voiced by gen von II Ill artmann 40 years ago terrorism is seen to be a relatively gentle pro Ice ledure ce dure useful to keep the masses of the people in ft a state of obedience i this had been Els Bis marcks policy too according kee to moritz busch ni folo grapher bismarck exasperated by r line the french resistance which was still continuing in january said I 1 j it if in the territory which we occupy we cannot supply everything for our troops from time to time we shall send la a flying column into the localities are recalcitrant we shall shoot hang and burn after that has happened a few times the inhabitants will finally come to their senses horrors told in soldiers diaries the frightfulness taught by the german leaders held full fall sway in belgium this is best seen in the entries in the diaries of the individual german sol idlers during the night of au august ut 1510 15 10 engineer or gr rave gave the in the town of vise every one was shot or taken prisoner and ni the houses were burnt the pilson prisoners ers were made to find keep up etli the troops from the diary of noncommissioned officer reinhold koelin kodin of the second battalion of engineers third army corps |