modern campaign conducted
by one of the leading nations in Europe.

Do you imagine that the thing has been exaggerated? Far from it--the
volume of crime has not yet been appreciated. Have not many Germans
unwittingly testified to what they have seen and done? Only last week we
had the journal of one of them, an officer whose service had been almost
entirely in France and removed from the crime centres of Belgium. Yet
were ever such entries in the diary of a civilized soldier? "Our men
behaved like regular Vandals." "We shot the whole lot," (these were
villagers.) "They were drawn up in three ranks. The same shot did for
three at a time." "In the evening we set fire to the village. The priest
and some of the inhabitants were shot." "The villages all around were
burning." "The villages were burned and the inhabitants shot." "At Leppe
apparently two hundred men were shot. There must have been some innocent
men among them." "In future we shall have to hold an inquiry into their
guilt instead of merely shooting them." "The Vandals themselves could
not have done more damage. The place is a disgrace to our army." So the
journal runs on with its tale of infamy. It is an infamy so shameless
that even in the German record the story is perpetuated of how a French
lad was murdered because he refused to answer certain questions. To such
a depth of degradation has Prussia brought the standard of warfare.

And now, as the appetite for blood grows ever stronger--and nothing
waxes more fast--we have stories of the treatment of prisoners. Here is
a point where our attention should be most concentrated and our action
most prompt. It is the just duty which we owe to our own brave soldiers.
At present the instances are isolated, and we will hope that they do not
represent any general condition. But the stories come from sure sources.
There is the account of the brutality which culminated in the death of
the gallant motor cyclist Pearson, the son of Lord Cowdray. There is the
horrible story in a responsible Dutch paper, told by an eyewitness, of
the torture of three British wounded prisoners in Landen Station on Oct.
9.

The story carries conviction by its detail. Finally, there are the
disquieting remarks of German soldiers, repeated by this same witness,
as to the British prisoners whom they had shot. The whole lesson of
history is that when troops are allowed to start murder one can never
say how or when it will stop. It may no longer b