ld like interest to
be specially concentrated, for their situation is far more precarious,
unprotected as they are by any international convention. These are the
civil prisoners. They are one of the innovations of this unbridled war,
which seems to have set itself to violate all the rights of humanity. In
former wars it was only a question of a few hostages arrested here and
there as a guarantee of good faith for the pledge of some conquered
town. Never until now had one heard of populations taken bodily into
captivity on the model of ancient conquests--a custom actively revived
since the beginning of this war. Such a contingency not having been
foreseen, no conventions existed to regulate the situation in the laws
of war, if the words have any meaning. And as it would have been awkward
to formulate fresh laws in the midst of the struggle, it seemed more
simple to overlook them. It has been as though these unfortunates did
not exist.

But they do exist, and in thousands. Their number seems about equal on
both sides. Which of the belligerents took the initiative in these
captures? At present certainty is impossible. It seems clear that in the
second half of July Germany ordered the arrest of a number of Alsatian
civilians. To this France replied the day after her mobilization by
declaring prisoners Germans and Austrians then to be found on her
territory. The casting of this vast net was followed by similar action
in Germany and Austria, though, perhaps, with less result. The conquest
of Belgium and the invasion of the North of France brought about a
redoubling of these measures aggravated by violence. The Germans, on
retiring after their defeat on the Marne, methodically made a clean
sweep in the towns and villages of Picardy and Flanders of all persons
capable of bearing arms--500 men at Douai, at Amiens 1,800 summoned
before the citadel on some apparently harmless pretext, and carried off
without even the possibility of returning for a change of clothes.

In many cases the captures had not even the excuse of military utility.
In the village of Sompuis (Marne) on September 10th, the Saxons seized a
helpless village priest of seventy-three, scarcely able to walk, and
five old men of ages from sixty to seventy, one of whom was lame, and
took them away on foot. Elsewhere women and children are taken, happy if
they can remain together. Here a husband, mad with grief, searches for
his wife and son aged three, who have disap