The Times has received, " from a trustworthy source," the text
of the German Emperor's Army Orders of August 19th,
in which a particular reference was made to Sir John French's Army. The words are as follows :—
"It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little Army."
The Royal and Imperial logic is not good. As the Emperor plainly knew that his General Staff would need to" concen- trate their energies " and address "all their skill" and " all the valour " of the German soldiers to the task of walking over the British force, the epithet "contemptible" does not seem to be well chosen. Not well chosen, we mean, on military grounds—we say nothing of the Emperor's taste in other respects. The contemptible Army, having saved itself from extermination, proceeds unabashed to the next treacherous duty of saving others—particularly unhappy Belgian civilians —from the same fate.
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