Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBEB 22, 1918. DEVASTATION AND BRUTALITY

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBEB 22, 1918. DEVASTATION AND BRUTALITY

Tie unofficial summary of Germany's reply to President Wilson, which is forwarded from Amsterdam to-day, ■ shows that even in defeat her consciousness of virtue and her sense of humour shine aa brightly as ever. " Germany consents to the evacuation of Belgium, and urges that the negotiations regarding the evacuation, which will probably last for months, should v begin at once." On the other hand, the German Note " protests regarding President Wilson's allegations of cruelties, about which he has received one-sided information." Germany is still the victim of the slanders of her opponents, as she was when, after the destruction of the unique treasures of Louvain, the Kaiser was moved by his bleeding heart to explain to President Wilson that the real responsibility lay with " the way in which this war is being waged by our opponents, whose methods are making it one of the-most barbarous in history." To burn books and libraries and ancient buildings was the only way " to punish the guilty and frighten the bloodthirsty population from continuing their shameful deeds." Calumny which had thus set out in the first month of the war to blacken the character of the innocent heroes of Germany has dogged their footsteps ever since, and she notes with intense pain that it has not even spared the reputation of her submarine heroes. Now and then, in an excess of zeal, they may have " mistakenly torpedoed " a passengership and slaughtered women and children and other non-combatants, but these occasional lapses must not be allowed to impugn the excellence of their motives or the humanity of the Government which gave them their orders. Germany has suffered no change of heart, because none was needed, but she deeply regrets that, owing to the imperfect information which has reached President Wilson, he should havo so seriously misunderstood her.

From the German point of view it is X'ortunate that the calumnies which deplores are being extended and intensified by the process • of involuntary evacuation, which is being pressed as fast as the deepening mud of France and Flanders will allow. Without waiting for those negotiations to begin " which," aa the German Note naively says, " will probably last for months," the Allied armies have already'cleared the Flemish coast and the whole of West Flanders, and there is a steady advance along substantially the whole line. Every town that is recovered brings fresh evidence of the sincerity of the enemy's professions of a humanity which has been consistent throughout, and distinguished by a special tenderness during its latest phases. <lln the interests of peace," says the unofficial summary of the, German Note, " the German Government is disposed to stop the submarine war until further notice." In the interests of peace and to save her own skin, Germany was credited with the decision to stop the policy of wholesale devastation of which even that apostle of gentleness and goodwill, Prince Maximilian, had recently published a sophistical and utterly irrelevant defence. Yet devastation and brutality appear to ,be the one point in their orders which the sapped morale of the retreating German armies permits them to carry out to the letter. The" latest report of their performances suggests that in looting and arson and the destruction of every kind of property,' public and private, that is worth destroying, the Germans in retreat are able to add lustre to the laurels which their conquering legions won at Louyain and Aerschadt when they first broke into Belgium.

The GermaDs. (we are told to-day) sacked Douai perhaps more completely than any other town. The contents of the houses were destroyed and many houses, were burned. The streets wcra strewn with furniture, all the shop windows were broken, and two-thirds of the pictures in the museum are missing. Stained windows and organs in the churches wore smashed, and the sacred ornaments flung on the flagstones. Nor is Douai an isolated instance. Wholesale spoliation and destruction, both in town and in country, is evidently still among the instructions of the German General Staff, and the exceptions seem to be more reasonably attributable to surprise and lack of time than to any change of heart or plan. Roulers had a few days before been, treated in much the same way as Douai. The representatives of " Kultnr" had " looted the last fragment of furniture from every house, and have even stripped off panelling and removed doors and window panes, leaving nothing but the shell of a town." But in some respects Roulers was worse • than j the normal shell of a town; it was the kind of shell that might go off at any moment. As the French troops entered, the Mayor rushed forward to say, '' Be careful! The town is mined," and big charges of dynamite were discovered by the French engineers at the cross-roads and under the floors of the churches. .German humanity and German humour would have been equally gratified if the strains of a " Te Deum " for the deliverance of the town had been interrupted by an explosion which lifted both church and congregation sky-high. What is to be done with such devilry as this? It should at least serve to steel our hearts .agsiflefc aliasing ». generosity which would, ba treachery to our cauge to 4s-

lude us into granting easy terms to an enemy whose professions of righteousness are illuminated by a practical commentary of this description. So far as treachery and murder or attempted murder are concerned, it is not easy to see what retort is possible. We cannot answer the enemy's murder with murder, or his wickedness with wickedness, lest we become like unto him, and the actual criminals may be hard to place. But Mfc is surely time that with regard to so simple, clear, and easily assessable a matter as devastation, destruction, and loot, the enemy should be told in absolutely definite terms that, if not town for town, at any rate pound for pound will be exacted at the final reckoning. Nor would it be unreasonable to say that from now onward a double penalty will be exacted for every act of destruction or spoliation that is not fully covered by the laws of war. It is perfectly clear that in defeat, as in victory, no other argument will touch the German mind.