HOW THE SOLDIERS HATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15748, 24 October 1914, Page 4 (Supplement)

HOW THE SOLDIERS HATE.

EFFECT OF GERMAN BARBARITIES

A correspondent at the front in the French Army writes to the London Daily Telegraph :—

" I went to the battlefield to fight the hostile invaders of my country with no hatred at all towards the Germans. My feelings would have been no different had they been Eskimos or Hottentots; I simply swore, to defend my country, I abhorred the Government which declared war upon France, but I was not prejudiced against the individuals whom I was going to fight.

"I emphasise these facts in order clearly to make it understood that what I am going to record now has not been inspired by hatred, but is a true statement of facts, so utterly disgusting, atrocious, and horrible, so absolutely alien from ' fair warfare,' and so obviously committed with the sole purpose of satiating mere thirst of blood and a craving to destroy, that I am at a perfect loss how to express my thoughts and feelings. I think no language has got the right words to describe the thoughts which oppress one's mind and the feelings which sicken one's heart after having witnessed such things as I have. " Years ago I had seen, accidentally, a man being strangled in Spain: during the revolution in China I saw two Chinese being decapitated in Canton. For a long time I was haunted by terrible visions. That man in Madrid was a criminal, and, according to the laws of his country, he had to be put to death. Those men in Canton were rebels, and as such had their heads cut off. From the points of view of tho respective Governments those actions were all right. " But I have witnessed how German soldiers butchered a woman. . . . "I have witnessed how German soldiers placed two little boys of four or five years old against a wall, and shot them dead, ' because the evil must be killed in tho germ.' . . -. "I have witnessed how German soldiers who occupied a house threw, purposely, a heavy piece of brickwork out of the window on an old man's head. . . . " I have seen the carbonised bodies of a man, woman, and their child, who could not or would not comply with the demands of the Germans, and whose house, according to the terrified neighbours, was firmly nailed up and subsequently set on fire. ... I " A credible stop.- was told me of G«rI mans shelling purposely two Red Cross I vans and killing several nurses. I "What names are we to giye to these I criminals V