Poison Germs in War The Nineteenth Century for July opens
Ha' pages to an article by Mr: Wickham Steed in which he quotes from certain documents that have come into his -possession emanating—he is convinced—from a secret deptuithent of the German War Office. The scientific investigations described in these documents are set forth with a wealth of diabolical scientific detail; but the Upshot of the Matter is—according to Mr. Steed and to the Editor of the Nineteenth Century,-who has also examined the documents —that the Air Gas Attack Department of the German War Office' " has been conducting - experiments and measurements in Paris and -London since 1931 for the purpose of ascertaining how the • underground 'railway systems - can best be • infected with deadly' germs or poison gas, or with both; whenever attack •is thought expedient." • Assuming these documents to -be -authentic, the public may well feel indignation, but it ought not to turn the whole of its angeragainst' any one particular Government: 'It - will be observed in the -first place that these odious experiments are alleged to have started before the present regime in Germany came into existence. And we may be sure that if there are scientific departments under ' the War Office in Germany conducting such experiments,. there are also scientific departments in other countries conducting similar experiments. Where- ever war is being prepared it is being prepared on the assumption that it may be directed against civilian populations, that it will be utterly ruthless, and that it will stop short of no form of barbarism. That is a fact which ought to, be broadcast among the peoples of eygry country in the world.
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