Trustees of the British Museum, the National
Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Galleries
of Scotland; the Director and Principal Librarian of the British
Museum; the Directors of the National Gallery, the Victoria and
Albert Museum, and the National Galleries of Scotland and Ireland;
the Keepers of the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery of
British Art; Keepers in the British Museum; the Joint Honorary
Secretaries of the National Art Collections Fund, and many critics
and others prominent in the art world._

The whole civilized world has witnessed with horror the terrible effects
of modern warfare on helpless inhabitants of Belgium and France, and on
ancient buildings and other works of art which are the abiding monuments
of the piety and culture of their ancestors.

Some of the acts of the invading German army against buildings may be
defensible from the military standpoint; but it seems certain from
present information that in some signal instances, notably at Louvain
and Rheims, this defense cannot hold good against the mass of evidence
to the contrary.

The signatories of this protest claim that they are in no sense a
partisan body. Their contention in this matter is that the splendid
monuments of the arts of the Middle Ages which have been destroyed or
damaged are the inheritance of the whole world, and that it is the duty
of all civilized communities to endeavor to preserve them for the
benefit and instruction of posterity. While France and Belgium are
individually the poorer from such wanton destruction, the world at large
is no less impoverished.

On these grounds, therefore, we desire to express our strong indignation
and abhorrence at the gratuitous destruction of ancient buildings that
has marked the invasion of Belgium and France by the German Army, and we
wish to enter a protest in the strongest terms against the continuance
of so barbarous and reckless a policy. That it is the result of a
policy, and not of an accident, is shown by the similarity of the fate
of Louvain, Malines, Termonde, Senlis, and finally Rheims.

Many of us have had the opportunity of showing that our love and respect
for art are not bounded by our nationality, but we feel compelled to
publish to the world our horror and detestation of the barbarous acts
committed by the army that represents a country which has done so much
to promote and advance the study of