d of a wounded
German in his left hand to support it. With his right hand, very
carefully, he was giving him a drink. I pointed that out to the German
major, saying:

"There! That is war--at least it's war as we understand it."

This time he made no answer.

But all the German prisoners repeated what he had said to me as a set
phrase. On the whole, when you have seen ten German prisoners you
have seen a thousand; when you have questioned one German officer you
have questioned fifty. The characteristic of the race is that they
have abolished all individuality. You find yourself in an amorphous
mass, cast in a uniform mold, not in the presence of human beings who
think their own thoughts.

I often saw trains stop in what is called a _gare regulatrice_, where
the prisoners are questioned and distributed. These trains bring in
prisoners and their officers. The commandant of the station, in
accordance with his duty, has the officers appear before him so that
he can question them:

"Your name? Your rank?"

The German states his name and rank, offering of necessity his
identification card.

"Your regiment?"

"Such and such a regiment."

"Your army corps?"

"Such and such an army corps."

"Who is the general in command?"

Like an automaton the officer replies:

"_Das sage ich nicht._" ("I can not answer that.")

And you know that it would be an easier matter to make the stone
beneath your feet talk than one of these prisoners.

However, the commandant frowns slightly, glances over his notes, and
says coldly:

"I know who your general is. If you belong to such and such an army
corps, the general in command must be General von Bissing."...

"I have nothing to say."

As a general thing one of the staff had something to say. The
interpreter, the convoy officer or the station master would get a lot
of fun out of reciting to the German passages from von Bissing's
famous and ferocious proclamation ordering that no quarter be given
and that the troops should not encumber themselves with prisoners.
Then he would ask:

"What would you say if we were to put such a principle into practice?"

The German often became very pale. He would content himself with a
shrug of the shoulders--the shrug of the brute who knows that he is
safe among civilized men.

The men I questioned were often doctors who ranked as majors or held
some commission in the German medical corps. They were less stiff and
automaton-like than th