an be no justification, it is hard for Americans to reason fairly
in questions involving Teutonic methods of warfare. I am therefore
appending the notes in spite of a rather careful study of the Bryce
Report on German atrocities in Belgium. They are, of course, to be
taken into consideration merely as the evidence of what one man happened
to see or as was often more the case, not to see.

In order that there may be no misunderstanding, it is well to define the
meaning of the word "atrocity."

I suppose all will agree with me that the term does not include what may
be called the necessary horrors of war--such as hunger and poverty
resulting from the destruction of homes and loss of livelihood, the
suffering of refugees driven by necessity from captured towns,
starvation through no fault of the invader, the accidental wounding of
noncombatant peasants, farmers, etc. For the present purpose the word
is intended to include all cases of unnecessary, unprovoked personal
cruelty, as well as, of course, the outraging of women. Such acts, for
example, as the reported gouging-out of the eyes of prisoners, cutting
off the wrists of children, the alleged stabbing of old women, cutting
off the wrists and ears of nurses, and the more refined cruelties of
which I have heard reports, are, it goes without saying, atrocities.
Let us examine one or two of these.

Near Osnabruck, Germany, an American visitor, pacing up and down a
railroad siding early one morning, chewing a mouthful of stale sausage
meat between thick crusts of rye bread, heard a particular cruelty story
which may be used here as an example. It was told by an army surgeon
with whom he was having his peripatetic breakfast. On the track
alongside stood a so-called Red Cross train, consisting of a combination
of well-equipped hospital coaches with their triple rows of berths slung
one above the other as in a sleeper; attached in the rear were a few
coal carriages and freight trucks. This train was waiting for the
outbound traffic to pass by. You see, the outbound traffic consisted of
fresh troops, being rushed to the front in one of those quick
transcontinental shifts which have played so important a part in German
strategy. But the eastbound train carried only wounded and dying on
their way back home. So, of course, the hospital cars must wait as long
as necessary, since they had no right or standing in the ruthless game
called war.

In the cheerless interior of