THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON GERMAN SOLDIERS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—By many the ruthless manner in which war is being waged by the German armies is attributed to a moral degeneracy brought about by the teachings of Treitscbke, Nietzsche, and Bernhardi, and the " blood and iron" doctrine of Bismarck. Reflecting upon this idea, I received something of a shock whilst re-reading the other day Sir Herbert Maxwell's Life of Wellington. The passage so impressed me that I have thought some of your readers might care to have it recalled to them. Writing to his mother in August, 1807, Wellesley, after describing the operations against the Danish Army and the failure properly to co-operate of the German contingent under General von Linsingen, goes on to say : " I can, however, assure you that, from the General of the Germans down to the smallest drum boy in their legion, the earth never groaned with such a set of murdering infamous villains." "They murdered," he says further on, " robbed, and ill-treated the peasantry wherever they went."—I am, Sir, &c., Belmont Villa, R SEYMOUR-RAM/MALE. Dexter Street, Derby.
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