THE ALLEGED GERMAN ATROCITIES. [To Tar EDITOR or VIZ "Spigot...1'074"]
Sin,—If a judicial investigation of these charges is made, it is to be hoped that a distinction will be drawn between the acts of the rank-and-file and those for which officers are responsible. There are brutes in every army, and when their blood is up not even the utmost vigilance and sternest repression on the part of the officers will keep them wholly free from crime. It would be wrong, therefore, to condemn a whole army for isolated cases of atrocity, especially as such offences as the murder of the wounded and the mutila- tion of the dead are usually the work, not of the soldiers, but of the camp followers. But in this war it is the German officers themselves who are indicted. The bombard- ment of unfortified towns, the use of civilians as a screen to the advancing infantry, the murder of women and children, the concealment of machine-guns in Red Cross waggons, &c., cannot have occurred without their consent or even orders; while there are many stories to the effect that officers have themselves robbed museums, assaulted women, and fired on wounded prisoners. It is these charges which require investi- gation, and which, if established, will show the whole world that the German Army, so far from being the champion of "culture," is a horde of thieves and murderers.—I am, Sir,
Mayfield House, Farnham.
HENRY BURY.
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