THE WITTENBERG HORRORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16201, 11 April 1916, Page 4

THE WITTENBERG HORRORS.

The most appalling feature of the Wittenburg prison camp is that all its horrors, cruelties, and inhumanities are quite consistent with the infamous spirit of German "Kultur." The indescribable treatment of unoffending Belgians and of the civilian population of the invaded French departments; the torpedoing of unarmed passenger ships; the bombing of unfortified towns and villages, with the consequent slaughter of women and children; the use of " gas," in violation of Hague agreements; the encouragement of Armenian massacres, with many other evidences of " t'rightfulnerss," are on a level with the treatment of prisoners at Wittenburg, treatment for which a civilised language has no adequate epithets. It would be incorrect to say that every German would practise such unparalleled inhumanities, but it is wholly correct to point out that every German who desires or assists the triumph of his national " Kultur" would impose upon mankind a tyranny whose' unscrupulous cruelty is beyond words. Germany is absolutely without sense of shame or instinct of chivalry. The defenceless and the vanquished find no protection in her heathen spirit; the sick and suffering prisoner of war finds no generosity in her " will to power." Yet these gallant countrymen of ours, condemned to unspeakable horrors and lingering death in this inferno of Wittenburg, have not suffered and died in vain if their sufferings and their deaths help to teach us that the only hope for human progress and the only safety for the free nations is in tearing'from Germany all power of realising her evil dreams of worlddominion. To talk of peace with such a state is to betray our homes and to abandon our own security; the only plea for humanity which Germany understands or appreciates is spoken by the mouths of guns and the marching of armies. Those who want peace must put their fightingmen into uniform. Every eligible man whose heart is hot at the story of Wittenburg should hasten to avenge our British brethren, or should bow his head in shame.