valent among the German Army, both in
Belgium and in France, for plenty of wine was to be found in the
villages and country houses which were pillaged. Many of the worst
outrages appear to have been perpetrated by men under the influence of
drink. Unfortunately, little seems to have been done to repress this
source of danger.

In the present war, however--and this is the gravest charge against the
German Army--the evidence shows that the killing of noncombatants was
carried out to an extent for which no previous war between nations
claiming to be civilized, (for such cases as the atrocities perpetrated
by the Turks on the Bulgarian Christians in 1876, and on the Armenian
Christians in 1895 and 1896, do not belong to that category,) furnishes
any precedent. That this killing was done as part of a deliberate plan
is clear from the facts hereinbefore set forth regarding Louvain,
Aerschot, Dinant, and other towns. The killing was done under orders in
each place. It began at a certain fixed date, and stopped, (with some
few exceptions,) at another fixed date. Some of the officers who carried
out the work did it reluctantly, and said they were obeying directions
from their chiefs. The same remarks apply to the destruction of
property. House burning was part of the program; and villages, even
large parts of a city, were given to the flames as part of the
terrorizing policy.

Citizens of neutral States who visited Belgium in December and January
report that the German authorities do not deny that noncombatants were
systematically killed in large numbers during the first weeks of the
invasion, and this, so far as we know, has never been officially denied.
If it were denied, the flight and continued voluntary exile of thousands
of Belgian refugees would go far to contradict a denial, for there is no
historical parallel in modern times for the flight of a large part of a
nation before an invader.

The German Government have, however, sought to justify their severities
on the grounds of military necessity, and have excused them as
retaliation for cases in which civilians fired on German troops. There
may have been cases in which such firing occurred, but no proof has ever
been given, or, to our knowledge, attempted to be given, of such cases,
nor of the stories of shocking outrages perpetrated by Belgian men and
women on German soldiers.

The inherent improbability of the German contention is shown by the fact
that after the f