mann-Hollweg, that
the German dispatches are a source on which one can rely
with full confidence, and one would imagine, too, since he
had thus reproached us, that the German newspapers published
the French dispatches.

As a matter of fact, they do not and if it is necessary to
hear both sides to know the truth then the Germans are quite
ignorant of it. They are indeed very far removed from
knowing it, and it is a constant surprise to our officers
and our soldiers to discover when they question their
prisoners, the profound illusions under which they labor.

Dr. von Bode's Polemic

Some time ago Dr. Wilhelm von Bode, the well-known director of the
Berlin Art Museums and Germany's authority in matters of art, issued a
justification of German conduct in Rheims and Louvain, which he
supported by a review of Germany's world-contribution to art. "The
German Science of Art and the War," was the title of the article.
Jacques Mesnil, writing in the Mercure de France, presents a reply to
Dr. von Bode's polemic.

He brands as infantile the reasoning by which Dr. Bode proves the
German soldier incapable of destroying a work of art. The German
professor stated that civilization, and with it art, could not have
survived were it not for the protection of German militarism. M.
Mesnil replies:

M. Bode should have been able to separate a little better
two things which have nothing to do with each other:
strategy and the history of art. He should have explained
the conduct of the soldiers by the service which is required
of them; he should have pointed out precisely the point of
view of the archaeologist as incompatible with that of the
warrior and he should have freed of responsibility those
who, loving the picturesque old cities and the pure
creations of artists, could not sympathize with those who
destroy them.

Far from this, he has invoked the merits of German science
to justify the outrages of the soldiery and in his eyes the
fact that German savants have added to the progress of
archaeology suffices to prove that the German army is
incapable of destroying works of art.

Examination of Professor von Bode's claim that Germany leads the world
in the "science of art," would seem to M. Mesnil to show that the
German art-scientist is little more than a painstaking classifier, a
mere cataloguer.