were
beaten with the butt-ends of rifles to such an extent that they died of
their wounds. The young son of one of them who tried to protect his
father was tied to a stake for a week on end.

On oath, Dr. Page deposes: "Those who had no money almost died of
hunger. When a little soup was left, a crowd of unfortunates rushed to
get it, and the non-commissioned officers got rid of them at last by
letting the dogs loose on them." But what is the need of all these
details and of all this evidence? Look at the 10,000 who came back after
being repatriated and see what the bandits have done to them. Reader,
summon up your courage and peruse to the bitter end the conclusions of
the Official Commission of Enquiry. "It is impossible to conceal the
melancholy and indignation we felt on seeing the state of the
'hostages'[22] whom the Germans had returned to us after they had
kidnapped them in defiance of the rights of nations. During our enquiry
we never ceased hearing the perpetual coughs that rent them. We saw
numbers of young people whose cheerfulness had disappeared apparently
for ever, and whose pale and emaciated faces betrayed physical damage
probably beyond repair. In spite of ourselves we could not help thinking
that scientific Germany had applied her methodical ways to try and
spread tuberculosis in our country. Nor were we less profoundly moved to
thought by the sight of women mourning their desolated hearths and
missing or captive children, or by the moral impression left on the
faces and bearing of many prisoners by the hateful regime which was
intended to destroy, in those who were subjected to it, the feeling of
human dignity and self-respect."[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[18] _Prisoners_, as well as wounded, have very often been massacred on
the field of battle. As to the treatment that prisoners--French,
Belgian, Russian and English--have undergone in German camps, it is a
pitiful tale that we do not intend to begin here. Some day it must be
written. With the actual evidence before us, the lot of the German
prisoners in England, Russia and France must be compared with that of
ours in Germany. The most indifferent reader will feel his heart stirred
within him, and will hesitate to say whether we were "generous," or
whether we were "fools."

[19] We speak of those who have left--but what of those who have
remained in Belgium and France, under the German heel? The time has not
yet come for writing this piece of history