n pursuance of a set
purpose. That purpose was to strike terror into the civil population and
dishearten the Belgian troops, so as to crush down resistance and
extinguish the very spirit of self-defense. The pretext that civilians
had fired upon the invading troops was used to justify not merely the
shooting of individual francs-tireurs, but the murder of large numbers
of innocent civilians, an act absolutely forbidden by the rules of
civilized warfare.[A]

[Footnote A: As to this, see, in appendix, the Rules of The Hague
Convention of 1907, to which Germany was a signatory.]

In the minds of Prussian officers war seems to have become a sort of
sacred mission, one of the highest functions of the omnipotent State,
which is itself as much an army as a State. Ordinary morality and the
ordinary sentiment of pity vanish in its presence, superseded by a new
standard, which justifies to the soldier every means that can conduce to
success, however shocking to a natural sense of justice and humanity,
however revolting to his own feelings. The spirit of war is deified.
Obedience to the State and its war lord leaves no room for any other
duty or feeling. Cruelty becomes legitimate when it promises victory.
Proclaimed by the heads of the army, this doctrine would seem to have
permeated the officers and affected even the private soldiers, leading
them to justify the killing of noncombatants as an act of war, and so
accustoming them to slaughter that even women and children become at
last the victims. It cannot be supposed to be a national doctrine, for
it neither springs from nor reflects the mind and feelings of the German
people as they have heretofore been known to other nations. It is a
specifically military doctrine, the outcome of a theory held by a ruling
caste who have brooded and thought, written and talked, and dreamed
about war until they have fallen under its obsession and been hypnotized
by its spirit.

The doctrine is plainly set forth in the German Official Monograph on
the usages of war on land, issued under the direction of the German
Staff. This book is pervaded throughout by the view that whatever
military needs suggest becomes thereby lawful, and upon this principle,
as the diaries show, the German officers acted.[A]

[Footnote A: "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," Berlin, 1902, in Vol. VI., in
the series entitled "Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften," published in
1905. A translation of this monograph, by Profes