FEAR AND FEROCITY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 90, 19 May 1916, Page 1

FEAR AND FEROCITY.

I think fear was at the heart of a good deal of those atrocious acts by which the German- troops stained the honor of their race in the first phases of the war. Advancing into hostile country among a people whom they knew to bo reckless in courage and of a proud spirit, the generals iand high officers were obossed with tho thought of peasant warfare, rifle-shots finm windows, murders of soldiers billeted in farms, spies everywhere, and the peril of fraivcs-tireurs goading their troops on the march. .. . The proclamations posted on the walls of invaded, towns reveal fear as well as cruelty These bald-headed' officers, in pointed helmets, so scowling behind their spectacles, had fear in their hearts and concealed it by cruelty. . .". It is no wonder that the subordinate officers and their men were nervous of the dangers suggested in those documents, and found, perhaps without any conscious dishonesty, clear proof of civilian plots against them. A shot rang out down a yillaae street. "The peasants are firing on us!" shouted a German soldier of neurotic temperament. "Shoot them at sight!'' said an officer who had lea nit his lesson of ruthlessness. "liurn these wasps out! Leiber Gott, we will teach them n pretty lesson!"— Mr Philip Gibbs in "The' Soul of the War."