he writer was in Ermeton. The exact
translation of the extract, grim in its brevity, is as follows:

"24.8.14. We took about 1,000 prisoners: at least 500 were
shot. The village was burned because inhabitants had also
shot. Two civilians were shot at once."

We may now sum up and endeavor to explain the character and significance
of the wrongful acts done by the German Army in Belgium.

If a line is drawn on a map from the Belgian frontier to Liege and
continued to Charleroi, and a second line drawn from Liege to Malines, a
sort of figure resembling an irregular Y will be formed. It is along
this Y that most of the systematic (as opposed to isolated) outrages
were committed. If the period from Aug. 4 to Aug. 30 is taken it will be
found to cover most of these organized outrages. Termonde and Alost
extend, it is true, beyond the Y lines, and they belong to the month of
September. Murder, rape, arson, and pillage began from the moment when
the German Army crossed the frontier. For the first fortnight of the war
the towns and villages near Liege were the chief sufferers. From Aug. 19
to the end of the month, outrages spread in the directions of Charleroi
and Malines and reach their period of greatest intensity. There is a
certain significance in the fact that the outrages around Liege
coincide with the unexpected resistance of the Belgian Army in that
district, and that the slaughter which reigned from Aug. 19 to the end
of the month is contemporaneous with the period when the German Army's
need for a quick passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed
imperative.

Here let a distinction be drawn between two classes of outrages.

Individual acts of brutality--ill-treatment of civilians, rape, plunder,
and the like--were very widely committed. These are more numerous and
more shocking than would be expected in warfare between civilized
powers, but they differ rather in extent than in kind from what has
happened in previous though not recent wars.

In all wars many shocking and outrageous acts must be expected, for in
every large army there must be a proportion of men of criminal instincts
whose worst passions are unloosed by the immunity which the conditions
of warfare afford. Drunkenness, moreover, may turn even a soldier who
has no criminal habits into a brute, who may commit outrages at which he
would himself be shocked in his sober moments, and there is evidence
that intoxication was extremely pre