ome men of particularly sensitive soul grant the French
wounded the grace to finish them with a bullet, but others
scatter here and there, wherever they can, their clubbings and
stabbings. Our adversaries have fought bravely. They were
elite troops that we had before us. They had allowed us to
come within thirty, and even within ten, meters--too close.
Their arms and knapsacks thrown down in heaps showed that they
wanted to fly, but upon the appearance of our "gray phantoms"
terror paralyzed them, and, on the narrow path in which they
crowded, the German bullets brought them the order to halt!
There they are at the very entrance of their leafy hiding
places, lying down moaning and asking for quarter, but whether
their wounds are light or grievous, the brave fusiliers saved
their country the expensive care which would have to be given
to such a number of enemies.

Now the recital continues very ornate, very literary, and the writer
relates how his Imperial Highness Prince Oscar of Prussia, being advised
of the exploits (perhaps, indeed, other exploits than these) of the
154th and of the Regiment of Grenadiers, which forms the Brigade with
the 154th, declared them both worthy of the name of "King's Brigade,"
and the recital closes with this phrase: "When night came on, with a
prayer of thankfulness on our lips we fell asleep to await the coming
day." Then adding, by way of postscript, a little phrase "Heimkehr vom
Kampf." He carries the notebook--prose and verse together--to his
Lieutenant, who countersigns it: "Certified as correct, De Niem,
Lieutenant Commanding the Company," and then he sends his paper to his
town of Jauer, where he is quite confident that he will find some
newspaper publisher to accept it, printers to set it up, and a whole
population to enjoy it. Now, let me ask any reader--whatever be his
country--if he can imagine it possible for such a tale to be spread
abroad in any paper in his language, in his native town, for the
edification of his wife and his children. In what other country than in
Germany is such a thing conceivable? Not in France, at all events. Now,
if my readers want another document to show how customary it is in the
German Army to mutilate the wounded, well, I will borrow one from the
notebook of Private Paul Gloede of the Ninth Battalion of Pioneers, Ninth
Corps, (Figs. 17 and 18:)

Aug. 12, 1914, in Belgium.