German Atrocities. A Record of Shameless Deeds

XVII

“Against ordinary though severe reprisals upon civilians who have fired upon the German troops we have not a word to utter; but outrage, mutilation, burning alive, and so forth are not reprisals; they are atrocities which make the name of Germany stink in the nostrils of mankind. It is hard to believe that a civilized nation should have so reverted to savagery, but unfortunately the facts admit of no dispute.” – From the Globe.

“The Hussar-like Stroke.”

The laying of mines in neutral waters in contravention of the rules by which civilized warfare was to be conducted was in itself a most dastardly act. To place contact mines in the open sea and then to skulk behind them was declared by the Kaiser’s wireless press bureau to be a “Hussar-like stroke.” The Kaiser himself referred with satisfaction to the fact that his navy had sown the North Sea with death. The laying of mines is only admissible for the purpose of guarding estuaries and harbours, and by The Hague Convention it was specifically laid down that neutral waters must not be mined. In consequence of this cruel action of the enemy many crews of British and Danish trawlers, the hard toilers of the sea, were sent to their deaths, while the Wilson liner Runo, on a voyage to Archangel, and His Majesty’s ships Amphion and Speedy were sent to the bottom with great loss of life. In addition, several trawlers, while engaged in mine-sweeping operations, were also destroyed. All craft and cunning in naval warfare was, of course, admissible, including the alteration and extinguishing of lights, the removal of landmarks and buoys, and the disguising of warships as merchantmen; but to scatter death indiscriminately along a neutral waterway was a stab-in-the-back method worthy, indeed, of the pinchbeck Napoleon.

Such is the case against the German Soldier – the terrible and overwhelming record which makes the very heart sick with horror, and the blood run chill. One of our great poets called upon the human race to “move upward, working out the beast, and let the ape and tiger die.” Apes and tigers are noble creatures beside the living apostle of German “culture.” He has built himself a monument upon the heights of infamy, a monument from which, through all the ages yet to come, every honest man will turn away in loathing and disgust.

JOHN RUSKIN’S words: —

“For blessing is only for the meek and merciful, and a German cannot be either; he does not understand even the meaning of the words … but a German, selfish in the purest states of virtue and morality … but no quantity of learning ever makes a German modest…

“Accordingly, when the Germans get command of Lombardy, they bombard Venice, steal her pictures (which they can’t understand a single touch of), and entirely ruin the country, morally and physically, leaving behind them misery, vice, and intense hatred of themselves, wherever their accursed feet have trodden. They do precisely the same thing by France – crush her, rob her, leave her in misery of rage and shame, and return home, smacking their lips, and singing Te Deums.” —Fors Clavigera.

THE DAY

By THE “BATH RAILWAY POET”

[This very striking poem, which we reproduce below by kind permission of the Daily Express, is published in leaflet form at a halfpenny, for the benefit of the National Relief Fund. The author is Mr. Henry Chappell, a railway porter at Bath. Mr. Chappell is known to his comrades as the “Bath Railway Poet.” The Express acclaims the author of “The Day” as a national poet – an opinion which is very largely shared by the general Press.]

 
YOU boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day,
And now the Day has come.
Blasphemer, braggart, and coward all,
Little you reck of the numbing ball,
The blasting shell, or the “white arm’s” fall,
As they speed poor humans home.
 
 
You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day,
And woke the Day’s red spleen.
Monster, who asked God’s aid Divine,
Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine;
Not all the waters of the Rhine
Can wash thy foul hands clean.
 
 
You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day;
Watch how the Day will go.
Slayer of age and youth and primes
(Defenceless slain for never a crime),
Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime,
False friend and cowardly foe.
 
 
You have sown for the Day, you have grown for the Day;
Yours is the harvest red.
Can you hear the groans and the awful cries?
Can you see the heap of slain that lies,
And sightless turned to the flame-split skies,
The glassy eyes of the dead?
 
 
You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day
That lit the awful flame.
’Tis nothing to you that hill and plain
Yield sheaves of dead men amid the grain;
That widows mourn for their loved ones slain,
And mothers curse thy name.
 
 
But after the Day there’s a price to pay
For the sleepers under the sod,
And He you have mocked for many a day —
Listen and hear what He has to say:
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”
What can you say to God?