[To THE EDITOR OP Tu. "SPECTATOR."] SIR, — I observe that Lord
Cromer, in his interesting and suggestive review of Germany's Violations of the Laws of War in your issue of October 9th, remarks that "no amended edition" of the German Army Manual "has ever been issued, nor has it been replaced by any new manual." I am not sure that this statement is quite correct. It may interest Lord Cromer and your readers to knoW the facts so far as I have been able to arrive at them. When I arranged with Arr. John Murray to introduce the Eriegsbrauch in Landlcriege to English readers I was, of course, at sonic pains to discover the exact status of the book with the. German General Staff at the present day. I found.that the edition of 1902 to which Lord. Cromer refers was reissued in 1905 (it was this later edition which I used), and subsequently, when engaged in official duties at the Ministere do in Guerre in Paris, I learnt that the book had been cited as authoritative in another German publication (a kind of digest of German military law) issued only a short time before the war. I learnt this from the Marquis do Dampierro, who has made a profound study of German military literature. All this, of course, goes to confirm Lord Creamer's statement in substance, and it quite justifies him in accepting the Manual as an authoritative exposition of the views of the German General Staff. But when I was last at the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force I was informed by a distinguished Stuff officer, whose knowledge of German military literature is considerable, that he had reason to believe that during the present campaign, or shortly before it, a new and revised edition of the Manual has been issued by the German General Staff. He added that he had never seen it and that it was a confidential document, the secret of which was very jealously guarded. It seems to me not improbable, having regard to what we know of German conduct in the field and in occupied territory, that the new edition has left out the unimpeachable rules so ostentatiously paraded in the Manual and substituted the debilitating exceptions—the latter were sinister enough even in their original context.—I am, Sir, &o.,
1 Mitre Court Buildings, Temple, B.C. J. H. Monesm, •
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