of the cold-blooded policy of "frightfulness" as
a necessary weapon of war? That is the wickedest excuse of all. It is
really an accusation. The probable truth of it is supported by what
happened later, when the Germans came to Poland, and when the Turks,
their allies and pupils in the art of war, slaughtered 800,000 Armenians
or drove them to a slow, painful death. It means just what the title of
this article says. The Werwolf was at large.

The first evidence of this spirit in the German conduct of the war that
came to my personal knowledge was on August 25. Two or three days
before, our American Consul-General in Antwerp, which was still the
temporary seat of the Belgian Government, had written to me saying that
he was absolutely destitute and begging me to send him some money for
the relief of his family and other Americans who were in dire need. The
Tennessee was lying off the Hook of Holland at that time, and there were
several of our splendid army officers ready and eager for any service.
One of the best of them, Captain Williams, offered himself as messenger,
and I sent him in to Antwerp, with three thousand dollars in gold in a
belt around his waist, on August 24. He had a hard, slow journey, but he
went through and delivered the money.

That very night, while he was in the city, a Zeppelin air-ship, the
first of its devilish tribe to get into action, sailed over sleeping
Antwerp dropping bombs. No military damage was done. But hundreds of
private houses were damaged and sixty destroyed. One bomb fell on a
hospital full of wounded Belgians and Germans. Scores of innocent
civilians, mostly women and children, were killed. "In a single house,"
writes an eye-witness, "I found four dead: one room was a chamber of
horrors, the remains of the mangled bodies being scattered in every
direction."

Mark the exact nature of this crime. The dropping of bombs from aircraft
is not technically illegal. The agreement of the nations to abandon and
prohibit this method of attack for five years unfortunately expired by
limitation of time in 1912 and was not renewed. But the old-established
rules of war among civilized nations have forbidden and still forbid the
bombardment of populous towns without due notice, in order that the
non-combatants may have a chance to find refuge and safety. This German
monster of the air came unannounced, in the dead of night, and, having
wrought its hellish surprise, vanished into the darkness ag