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Show MIL OF ATROCITY Oil EUROPEAN . BATTLEFIELDS DIFFICULT TO TRACE War Correspondent Hears Plenty of Cruel Stories, but Gets Little Proof Mistake Made of Blaming a Country for Acts of a PossiWy Criminal Individual Each Nation Makes Accusations Against Enemy. cer told me that he believed taut sucn I an order had been given in only one; corps of soldiers facing the English.! Certainly it was not with his corps,' as I myself talked to two English' wounded prisoners in one of the little; , field hospital r. few miles behind tho! trenches. "Why did you fire on the Red; Cross?" I asked them. ', "The Germans are doing it, too,"i they said. The handsome old chateau, where I was a guest of the commanding general gen-eral for two days, had been previously previous-ly occupied by the English, and the. general himself took me about the) place and showed me where the Eng-i lish had smashed open the magnifi-l cent pieces of antique furniture in(. their search for loot. Chey had bro- ken the glass case containing a rare old coin collection, and had left a few pieces of a jewel collection. German Looter Punished. Later I learned that the onl. Ger-, man caught at "Bouvenir hunting" in; the castle had been given a sentence) of six months at hard labor. The quiet and picturesque old village vil-lage which this castle watched overbad over-bad been plundered by the English, as villagers themselves told me, add-; ing that many of their girls had been; cruelly treated by the allied soldiers.; They said they wore glad to have thei Germans there, for the Germans paid, for everything, and German army doctors doc-tors even took care of their sick lit the village. I could not, however, get, any accurate information as to the extent of English offenses. I have by no means retold all the stories I heard about the English, confining con-fining myself to those which have the best authority. I heard several stories from Germans Ger-mans about their own misdeeds. When one is with privates he soon finds that war is a great instigator of latent talents of story telling, and I was so ready a listener that some-, thing extraordinary had to be pre-i pared for me. Most of these stories had as hero the story teller himself, and while occasionally one dealt with more serious crime, the majority were-rather were-rather fascinating accounts of the stealing of chickens, eggs, occasionally occasional-ly an ox. One story I heard repeated several times, so that there may be some foundation for it. But when comparing com-paring the two most extreme versions one has a clear glimpse of the unreliability unre-liability of many of the stories told about the war. "Slaughter" of English Prisoners. The worst version of the story is that 70 English prisoners were being conducted by some Bavarians to Liege on their way to Germany. When the car arrived only six Englishmen were left. Thg Bavarians were questioned as to the whereabouts of the 64. "The poor fellows died on the way," the Bavarians replied. "And if Liege had only been a little farther away the other six would have died also." I was horrified by this story until I heard the milder version, which had all the same details with the somewhat some-what important difference that six were killed and sixty-four remained. Later I heard a story that a Bavarian, conducting English prisoners, had been insulted by a strapping six-foot English private and had broken his neck by one twist of his powerful hands. This may be the whole truth. It may be another incident or it may be that both stories are without foundation. It is my deep conviction that one of the gravest and most terrible features fea-tures of the war is the unjustified and seemingly unlimited publicity whieh has been and will be given to alleged atrocities committed in the war. 1 do not mean to show the slightest coldness to the horrors of the unquestionably un-questionably large number of crimes which have been committed, but I am convinced that the publicity has been unmeasured, and given without much success in bringing cool judgment to bear on the accuracy and significance of the evidence published. I am grateful that I cau conclude this statement by telling a few instances in-stances of gallantry and decency. It is a pleasure to find such a story as Mr. Mead brought back from Wehlau, where a crude Russian soldier, entering enter-ing a small cafe, struck the aged woman, wom-an, who was waiting on him, and demanded de-manded "schnapps." An officer who witnessed the brutality waited until the soldier came out and remounted his horse. The officer dragged him from his horse and thrashed him with his riding whip ir the presence of his comrades. By RAYMOND E. SWING. (Correspondence of The Chicago Daily News.) Berlin, Germany. The task of gathering gath-ering material about atrocities is perhaps per-haps the simplest of the activities of those reporting this war, but the task of confirming these stories is one to drive a trained juryman mad. After spending several days among soldiers at the front I have come to the conclusion con-clusion that one of the horrors of war is the wildly exaggerated stories about atrocities, and that these stories are nearly as harmful as the verified atrocities themselves. They will make any sane and progressive peace movement extremely difficult, which must find its support from a people believing with bitterest hate every exaggerated ex-aggerated statement about an enemy and refusing to believe the crimes of its own army. There are plenty of atrocities with incontrovertible evidence. Such cases are not difficult to find, particularly in East Prussia. Henry C. A. Mead, who went to East Prussia for The Chicago Daily News, brought back a report of which I quote the following: "In tho hospital of Soldau there lies a woman who can speak with terrible terri-ble conviction about the bestiality of Cossacks. When the Russians came through Soldau she was working as nurse in the little Soldau hospital. With three aged men she hid in a shed behind the hospital. A shell burst near the shed and drove them from their hiding place. They ran to the street as the Cossacks were riding past. The three men were immediately immediate-ly killed and she was attacked by five Cossacks and then shot. The bullet struck her shoulder and she survived to tell her story. I had it from her own lips as she lay in the hospital." Swears to Mutilations. 'Mr. Mead continues to quote from an affidavit of August Kurz of the Fifth company, landwehr: "We were marching from Lauten-burg Lauten-burg to Hohenstein when attacked. Our company entered the woods, and in the woods I was separated from my comrades. In the woods I came on the bodies of 11 women, all of them mutilated." This affidavit is supported by another anoth-er member of the same detachment of troops who saw the same gruesome sight. In East Prussia there are many stories sto-ries where conclusive proof of this sort is lacking, but which apparently bear the earmarks of truth, and which will make it difficult for the East Prussians to believe that the Cossack Cos-sack is better than his reputation. The cruelties inflicted on women, the murder mur-der of old men and the horrible abuse of children are told in many quarters. There are several instances where Russian officers themselves warned the population to flee, as they declined to be responsible for the actions of the Cossacks. Saw Evidence of Plundering. Mr. Mead himself saw many evidences evi-dences of plundering. Tapiau, Wehlau, Weh-lau, Soldau and Allenburg were ruthlessly ruth-lessly robbed by the Russians. Shops and homes were in the greatest disorder dis-order when he was there ten da., s after af-ter Russian evacuation. Allenstein, Insterburg and Tilsit, however, were not plundered, though in Tilsit were found papers indicating that the city was to have been plundered in two days. General Hindenburg's victory of Tanneburg intervened. In these three latter cities the Russians behaved be-haved well, paid for everything they bought in the shops and gave "bonds" for commandeered supplies. Mr. Mead heard conflicting stories about a general massacre in Absch-wangen. Absch-wangen. All versions agreed that the Russians had killed nearly all the population, pop-ulation, and the likeliest reason he could find was that the invaders, believing be-lieving that the landsturm troops there were civilians, had revenged what they thought to be franc-tireurism. The number of dead is variously estimated from 150 to 300. The evidence about Abschwangen is confusing and the out and tongue torn out by the roots. "Can you hear me?" he said to the observer. "I am going to shoot you!" The mutilated man barely nodded, and the other held his revolver to his friend's head and put him out of his misery. "I staggered away," he said, in telling tell-ing of this experience, "and if I had found any civilian crossing my path I should not have been content to kill, I should have tortured him to death." Charges Against the English. There are comparatively few stories of atrocities told against the French. There have been isolated cases of franc-tireurism and cases of the B'rench firing on the Red Cross and destroying food, even cases of the French plundering their own villages. But these stories, were they all true, would not make in bulk anything like the stories told against thd English. Everywhere in the German army there is a deep respect for the French and their gallant and civilized fight. Such a feeling, however, is not felt for the English. The story I heard most often repeated re-peated about the English was that they had given the sign of surrender, and then, when the Germans advanced, ad-vanced, had fired upon them. I have heard several versions of this story, generally from intelligent, cool-minded officers who seemed to know what they were talking about. The- last time I heard the story was in Frank-fort-on-the-Main from a personal friend who had just come from general gen-eral headquarters to which he is assigned. as-signed. The English, he said, had given the sign of surrender, their officers offi-cers standing at the edge of the trenches, hands raised. The Germans advanced, and when they came quite close up they were met by a deadly fire from English troops firing from between the officers' legs. "So now there is no more quarter being given English soldiers," he ended. Some English Ingenuity. Another story about the English which has the authority of a German army officer who witnessed it is the following: In a small engagement in France the Germans were facing the English aid were suffering from artillery fire of a rather uncanny nature. In the first place, the location of the enemy's ene-my's artillery was a mystery, and no reason could be found for its deadly accuracy. Before long the artillery, was disclosed. It was in a large building flying the Red Cross flag and was firing from the windows of this "hospital." Later it was found that an English officer was in the town where the Germans had their headquarters, head-quarters, and had walled himself in the cellar. Hera he communicated with the outer world through an air-shaft, air-shaft, where the village priest gave him observations about the accuracy of the English artillery, which he then telephoned to the "hospital." With the army corps where I had the privilege of mingling freely with soldiers behind the lines I heard innumerable in-numerable stories about the English firing on the Red Cross. It was so terrific, this inhr.man battle, that during dur-ing the early days of the trench fighting, I was told, Germans were forced to lie in their trenches for 48 hours with the dead and their dying comrades about them. No Red Cross assistance could be brought because the enemy ruthlessly shot down anyone any-one coming with relief. "No More English Prisoners." These stories were always concluded conclud-ed by the statement, always significantly signifi-cantly added, that "now no more Eng-glish Eng-glish are being taken prisoners." I tried to find out just what truth there was in this of' repeated statement, and, while I found it believed everywhere, every-where, I could never run across an officer in whose particular corps or regiment this order had been given. It was always in the "next corps" or the "next regiment." Finally an Offi truth is hard to determine. Seeking to Poison Water. Another story, for which there was good authority, though no direct evidence evi-dence was found by Mr. Mead, was that a man had been captured in Koenigsberg with several tubes of typhoid ty-phoid bacilli, with which he was trying try-ing to poison the water supply of the city. With the western armies stories about atrocities and plundering are as plentiful as in East Prussia. The world is fairly familiar with accounts of alleged German and Belgian atrocities atroci-ties in Belgium. There are many variations of these stories; they seem to include all the most horrible crimes which the human mind can conceive. I shall add only one to this list- A German flyer in Belgium, a man whose reputation is exemplary and who bears a name known to the world, was forced to descend with his machine when his observer wa3 wounded. He left his observer with the aeroplane while he went back to seek help. When he came back he found his observer who was his most lntir-i;'e friend with eyes gouged |