THE GOSPEL OF HELL.

"The attack or bombardment, by any means whatever, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings is forbidden." (Article 25.) " The giving over to pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is forbidden." (Article 28.) "Family honour and rights, individual life, and private property, as well as religious convictions and worship, must be respected. Private property may not be confiscated." (Article 46.) " Pillage is expressly forbidden." (Article 47.)

"No collective penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible." (Article 50.) —From the Hague Convention Act, 1907.

"And if you will respect the truth you will be convinced with us that where the German troops have had to accomplish work of destination, they acted according to the pitiless laws of defence in war."

—A protest to foreign Universities by the heads of twenty-two German Universities.

THERE is no situation more impressive, and none more satisfactory from the point of view of public justice, than when a plaintiff's counsel, after he has listened to the speech of counsel for the defendant, is able to rise without calling any evidence or using any arguments and ask for a verdict on the admissions made in the course of the defence. A verdict which rests on such admissions rests on the surest of founda- tions. There must always be doubts as to the validity of evidence brought by the plaintiff or as to the validity of his arguments, but when he wins on the admissions of his opponents there is no room for doubt and anxiety as to whether justice has been done. In dealing with the indictment brought against the action of the German Army in Belgium we have always felt the difficulty of substantiating the stories of wrong and horror by formal evidence to be very great indeed. In many cases the only people who could testify to the acts have been killed and only hearsay evidence is available. Again, confident German denials that any brutalities have ever taken place produce a conflict, or an apparent conflict, of evidence which may well puzzle the investigator and make him ask in bewilderment whom he is to believe. His scepticism is apt to be increased by the fact that a certain number of vague and sensational stories of atrocities have already been disproved, and he is therefore inclined to rush to the other extreme and to hold that when people are excited and terrified by war it is impossible to believe anything on either side. If, however, we take the official admissions of the Germans, it will be seen that the Belgians can with a perfect sense of security claim a verdict at the bar of history in their favour. The admis- sions made in German Proclamations and Orders by German officers show that the Germans deliberately claim the right to do what the Belgians accuse them of having done.

We mean by this that the admissions by German General Officers of their adoption of what we have termed " the gospel of hell " were not merely abstractions, but that they were followed by deeds of blood and rapine. Ample proofs are to be found in the striking book by the American journalist, Mr. Alexander Powell, Fighting in Flanders, which we review in another column. These acts have, indeed, never been seriously denied. Therefore we shall not go into the general evidence that towns have been bombarded and pillaged and hostages shot. Again, we shall not deal with the German defence that, even if terrible things have been done in Belgium, they were justified by the provo- cation given by the Belgians, and need no defence under the laws and customs of war. As a matter of fact, instead of being justified by the laws and customs of war, the acts committed by the Germans have been specifically repudiated by all the Powers, headed by Germany, who signed the Regulations respecting the laws and customs of war on land, agreed to at the Hague Convention in 1907. The Germans there agreed not to do what they now claim the right to do in their Proclamations. Therefore they cannot plead provocation. There is absolutely no justifica- tion for saying that, if A, B, and C resist their armies by firing out of houses contrary to the express wish of the inhabitants of the town, hostages may be shot and the town given up to pillage. The whole notion of vicarious punishment is abandoned in the Hague Con- vention. Let us take a specific example, which we deal with at length in our review of Mr. Powell's book. Even if the son of the Burgomaster of Aerschot in an act of fury, whether excusable or not does not matter, murdered the Chief of the German General Staff, that was no reason why a large number of the principal inhabitants of the town should have been seized and shot and the town given up to pillage. Unless, then, Germany's assent to the Regulations of the Hague Convention can be regarded from the " scrap of paper " view of public agree- ments, it is not necessary to go into the evidence as to provocative acts. The German Proclamations and Orders show that the Germans deliberately abandoned what we may term the gospel of the Hague, and adopted " the gospel of hell," in dealing with conquered towns and villages. In fine, the Germans cannot plead, to use the words of the German Professors which we have put at the head of this article, that they acted according to " the pitiless laws of defence in war." They acted contrary to those laws, and returned to the laws of barbarism, which may fairly be said to have been obsolete for the last two hundred years.

The Belgian " Commission of Inquiry on the Violation of the Rules of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws and Customs of War" have just added to their previous Reports a collection of the Proclamations of the German Generals in Belgium. These Proclamations are authentic and official, and not coloured by Belgian imagination. If they condemn the Germans, then the Germans are self- condemned. The first German Proclamation, issued on August 4th, attempts to wheedle the Belgians into yielding up their country without a struggle. The next, issued on August 9th, still tries to win over the population, but ends with the warning : " But we will act severely on any attempt by the population to show resistance to the German troops or to do injury to our military interests." In the Belgian collection the first flagrant violation of the Hague Conven- tion is the notice posted by the Burgomaster of Hasselt on August 17th, in which, " in agreement with the German higher military authorities," he warns the population that, " in the case of civilians shooting on the German Army, a third of the male population will be shot." Note that there is nothing here about collective responsibility. It is apparently assumed that for any shooting the whole town will be responsible, however much the mass of the population may have desired to stop it. Next comes an " Extract from a Proclamation to the Communal Authorities of the Town of Liege," put forward by General von Billow. It deserves to be quoted in full :— " August 22, 1914.

The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having pro- tested their peaceful intentions, made a treacherous surprise attack on our troops. It was with my consent that the General had the whole place burnt down, and about 100 people shot. I bring this fact to the knowledge of the town of Liege, so that its inhabitants may know the fate with which they are threatened if they take up a similar attitude.

The General Commanding-in-Chief, Vox BilLow."

The compilers of the Belgian Report tell us that there is no evidence in support of the charge of treacherous surprise, which is contradicted by the inhabitants. Further, they tell us that not one hundred persons, but more than two hundred, were shot. This action was, of course, entirely contrary to the Hague Convention. Here are some extracts from a Proclamation posted up at Namur on August 25th :—

" (3) Every street will be occupied by a German guard, who will take ten hostages from each street, whom they will keep under surveillance. If there is any rising in the street the ten hostages will be shot.

(4) Doors may not be locked, and at night after eight o'clock there must be lights in three windows in every house.

(5) It is forbidden to be in the street after eight o'clock. The inhabitants of Namur must understand that there is no greater and more horrible crime than to compromise the existence of the town and the life of its citizens by criminal acts against the German Army. The Commander of the Town, Von Bo ow."

Note that the hostages were not first told that they were collectively responsible, and then turned out to keep order under the threat of being shot. Though that would have really been unfair treatment, because it would have assumed their power to keep order, there would at any rate have been some sense in it. Hostages kept under lock and key—for such no doubt is the meaning of " surveillance "—as were the Namur hostages, could do nothing to calm the population. They were, in effect, deprived of their power of saving their lives by persuading the inhabitants to show no sign of resistance. Another very striking document in the letter sent by Lieutenant- General von Nieber to the Burgomaster of Wavre on August 27th, in which he makes a war levy of £120,000, to be paid in nine days, " to expiate the heinous conduct, contrary to the Laws of the Rights of Nations and the Customs of War, which the inhabitants showed in making a surprise attack on the German troops." As a matter of fact, there was no attack by the population. The letter ends with the grim menace that the town had put itself "beyond the pale," and that if the levy were not paid by September 1st it would be "set on fire and destroyed . . . without distinction of persons, the innocent will suffer with the guilty." Perhaps the worst of all the Proclama- tions is that posted in Brussels on October 5th, " and probably in most of the Communes of the Kingdom." It runs as follows :— " During the evening of September 26 the railway line and the telegraph wires were destroyed on the line Lovenjoul-Vertryck. In consequence of this, these two localities have had to render an account of this, and had to give hostages in the morning of September 30.

In future, the localities nearest to the place where similar acts take place will be punished without pity ; it matters little if they are accomplices or not. For this purpose hostages have been taken from all localities near the railway line thus menaced, and at the first attempt to destroy the railway line, or the telephone or telegraph wires, they will be immediately shot.

Further, all the troops charged with the duty of guarding the railway have been ordered to shoot any person who, in a suspicious wanner, approaches the line, or the telegraph or telephone wires.

The Governor-General of Belgium,

(S.) BARON VON DIR GOLT; Field-Marshal."

Here the injustice of the plan of taking hostages is seen in all its naked horror. To the ruthless German nothing matters but the preservation of the line. The " localities nearest to the place " where the crime is committed are to be punished without pity whether they are accomplices or not. The hostages, of course, could have no possible control over a few wandering and desperate men intent on wrecking the tunnels or bridges. In all probability the latter would not have heard that hostages had been seized.

What is the civilized world to do in the face of deeds of this kind ? It is clear that the Allies can do nothing more than they are doing to support the spirit of the Hague Convention Regulations, and to bring us back at least to the basis of warfare as conducted forty years ago, for they are already doing their utmost to subdue German militarism. It seems to us, however, that the neutral nations, headed by America, might, and indeed should, as signatories to the Hague Convention, draw the attention of Germany to the Regulations to which she plighted her word, and ask her whether she still ad- heres to them. Let America at the same time ask the ether combatants whether they will give the assurance that they will carry out those Regulations in the letter as well as the spirit, and will refuse to seize and shoot hostages, or practise any of the other horrors of vicarious and collective punishment. We are quite sure what the answer would be from this country, and indeed from the Allies generally. The Americans very naturally do not want to inflame German feeling unnecessarily, or to appear to be opposed to Germany in sentiment. It would also be monstrous for us to make any suggestions which if adopted might expose America—which we can only regard as one vast " undefended town or place "—to the peril of German anger and German reprisals should victory in the end rest with the Germans. We do think, however, that, without being unduly provocative, the American Government might fairly do something to save the civil population from the miseries suffered by civilians in Belgium, and from being exposed to that "gospel of hell" which is set forth in the Proclamations, Orders, and letters which we have quoted above. America would not make any claim to judge on the evidence one way or the other, but merely point out that, if Germany asserted her right to revolutionize the rules of civilized warfare, the world ought to have notice, and that she should at once withdraw from the Hague Convention of 1907. Germany cannot have it both ways.