end to these murders
and rescue the victims? Where is Christianity?
Where is right? Might is right.

_"A Soldier and Man Who Is No Barbarian."_

The first two letters refer to the battle of the Masurian Lakes,
when the troops of Hindenburg, in checking the invading
Russians, indulged in a needless slaughter of prisoners.

I heard in Berlin of many cases of insanity of both German
officers and men who were driven insane by the scenes of
slaughter at this battle and especially by the great cry of
horror and despair uttered by the poor Russians as they were shot
down in cold blood or driven to a living death in the lakes and
marshes.

An American newspaper said this could not be true, asking why did
I not publish the letters in my first book. But my first book did
not contain all I have to relate, and the letters in question
were sent by me to the State Department early in the war, and
were not at hand on the publication of my other series.

But speaking of anonymous letters, shortly before I left Germany
I received a package containing a necklace of diamonds and pearls
with a letter, which, translated, reads as follows:

"The enclosed jewelry was found in the fully
destroyed house of Monsieur Guesnet of 36 Rue de
Bassano, Paris. It is requested that this jewelry,
which is his property, be returned to him."

The package was addressed to the Embassy of the United States. I
took it with me on leaving Germany and restored it to the family
of the owner in Paris. The Guesnet country house lay within the
German lines and the sending of the jewelry to me shows
conscience somewhere in the German army.

CHAPTER XIV

AIMS OF THE AUTOCRACY

I have shown how the Kaiser is imbued with a desire of conquest,
how, as he himself states, he dreamed a dream of world empire in
which his mailed fist should be imposed upon all the countries of
the earth.

But the Kaiser alone could not have driven Germany into war. His
system could.

The head of one of the great banks of Germany told me in the
first few weeks of the war that the Kaiser, when called upon at
the last moment to sign the order for mobilisation by the General
Staff, hesitated and did so only after the officers of the
General Staff had threatened to break their swords over their
knees.

If this story is true, what a pity that the Kaiser did not allow
the officers to break their swords! What would have happened?
Would the mil