with blood and roused the civilized
world into resentful horror. As the tide of barbarity swept forward into
Northern France, stories of the horrors filtered through the close web
of German censorship. There were denials at first by German
propagandists. In the face of truth furnished by thousands of witnesses,
the denials faded away.

What caused these atrocities? Were they the spontaneous expression of
dormant brutishness in German soldiers? Were they a sudden reversion of
an entire nation to bestiality?

The answer is that the private soldier as an individual was not
responsible. The carnage, the rapine, the wholesale desolation was an
integral part of the German policy of schrecklichkeit or frightfulness.
This policy was laid down by Germany as part of its imperial war code.
In 1902 Germany issued a new war manual entitled "Kriegsbrauch im
Landkriege." In it is written this cold-blooded declaration:

All measures which conduce to the attainment of the object of war are
permissible and these may be summarized in the two ideas of violence and
cunning. What is permissible includes every means of war without which
the object of the war cannot be attained. All means which modern
invention affords, including the fullest, most dangerous, and most
massive means of destruction, may be utilized.

Brand Whitlock, United States Minister to Belgium, in a formal report to
the State Department, made this statement concerning Germany's policy in
permitting these outrages:

"All these deliberate organized massacres of civilians, all these
murders and outrages, the violation of women, the killing of children,
wanton destruction, burning, looting and pillage, and whole towns
destroyed, were acts for which no possible military necessity can be
pleaded. They were wilfully committed as part of a deliberately prepared
and scientifically organized policy of terrorism."

[Illustration: Painting]
From a Painting by F. Gueldry to illustrate an official report.
GERMAN ATROCITIES
At Senlis, Department of Oise, on September 2,1914, French captives
were made to walk in the open so as to be hit by French bullets. Many
were killed and wounded. The townsman on the left was struck in the
knee. A German officer asked to see the wound and shot him through the
shoulder. On the right a German officer is seen torturing a wounded
French soldier by beating him in the face with a stick.

[Illustration: Photographs]
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