WHAT CONQUEST MEANS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 26, 15 September 1911, Page 2

WHAT CONQUEST MEANS.

Those people i\ho say “we have n0 ‘ thing to lose and nothing to fear from invaders” will be interested in a book, “War Rights on Land,” lately published by Macmillan’s. This volume is a valuable contribution to military literature. In it the author, Mr Speight, gives a clear account of the customs and laws of war on land. Ho takes the articles of the various treaties and conventions and illustrates them in the most, effective manner from recent struggles. It is worth knowing that the German field regulations forbid levies on masse, and that the German .administration of military law which has sometimes been held up to us for admiration, has usually been marked by extreme severity. Thus it was death in 1870 for a Frenchman to have arms in his house;, it was death for him to cut a telegraph wire or to destroy anything needed for the Service of the German army. ,If, from j any village, a shot was fired at a German soldier, six of the inhabitants were seized and shot. A number of workmen were ordered to appear at Nancy and execute without pay certain work. It was added that if they did not come forward a proportion of workmen would lie shot. Hugo fines were levied on Frpnch, towns and villages where the FrancTirends attacked the Germans. And Franc-Tircurs when captured were mercilessly shot. The iporal of the book is salutary. Woe to the people that fails i to, ;prepare for war. Hr. sons will be shot; its homes burned; vast sum? will be levied on its population,;’"its workmen will be compelled bo laboifr without pay for the alien ; starvation' will stalk abroad in its streets ; it-will know the emotions of the sheep in the clutch of the tiger.