THE HORRIBLE HUN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12215, 12 January 1918, Page 4

THE HORRIBLE HUN.

“GOSPEL TRUTH” ABOUT GERiI ATROGSTiES.

WHY CRUELTIES HITHERTO 11 EXPLAINED WERE INFLICTED OH HELPLESS BELGIUM.

The following report of an interview with Dr Newell Dwight Rillis, pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, appeared in the San hrancisco “CTn'onide.” “Dr HiUis’ exposition of the facts about Belgium and northern France” (says the “Chronicle”) “and his inquiry into the morale of German troops, as affected by their own ‘ frightfulness,’ constitutes a real contribution to our fund of authentic information -about that much mooted phase of the world conflict.”

“Over the German troops in the trenches flame the white stars, accusing things to their awed minds, questioning eyes of God. Behind them roars the flaming, wavering curtain of continuously exploding shells that cuts off succour from their reserves. It is the famous creeping barrage. Their own artillery cannot reply in kind because the famed German ingenuity cannot . supply shells enough for that titanic expenditure. In the night sky the Germans see the faces of murdered infants and ravaged women- It is only conscience, of course, but conscience is the greatest of all intimidators.” Dt Newell Dwight Hillis spoke with a vibrant 'voice, holding out one of the volumes of affidavits that attest the truth of oft-repeated charges of German atrocities in Belgium and northern France. The eminent divine has but recently returned from a trip to tho battle-front,"and his lectures‘upon what he had sCen there have stimulated American patriotism and determination in all- of the larger cities of the East. HOW CRIMES REACT UPON THEIR .DOERS. . “ The psychological reaction of German ' frigbtfulness. is a wonderful thing,’*’--continued Dr Hillis. “The Germans lack the firm purpose to avenge wrongs that has kept the magnificent ".•soldiers:, of France ■ invincible. Their minds, quickened with apprehension, rove back over the scenes they have witnessed, the dread events they have participated in. Small wonder that before, the fury of the French bayonet'attack or the’gallantry of the British,.charges, they throw down their arms and caU out ‘ Kamerad.’ “ ‘Frightfulness’ is not the creation of imaginative pro-Ally journalists. It is integral with the German method of attaining- the -dominion of the world- " Witness the testimony of the Kaiser, of the firm of me und Gott.’ On thousands of dead German soldiers- has been found the famous invasion medallion. ’This depicts the ‘ God of the Germans -—a bearded deity after tli'A'conventional concept—and underneath is. an instruction to the soldier for the treatment of the enemy —man, woman and child. ‘ Strike him dead,’ rt reads, ‘ the day of judgment will ask you no questions.’ * ‘ Obeying the Kaiser’s order and the precept of-General r von Hartmann, the invading Germans plumbed the depths of brutalijiy' ; . K ;’) Forty volumes compiled by the French Government are filled with the swbfn; declarations of people who hake witnessed-, the unspeakable cruelties of.the invading German .armies. This array of evidence cannot be intelligently gainsaid. It is no doubt true that the? l excitement of war will lend itself to "‘some exaggeration and inaccuracy * PROOFS SWORN TO AND.PHOTO- ' GRAPHED. “ But- that idea is a feeble rebuttal to bring-against"-facts supported by scores of affidavits, sworn to after mature deliberation by people whose faith in and fear of their God is proverbial. ; “It is true that German soldiers have impaled babies upon their bayonets. It is absolutely true that they have nailed an infant's body to the wall of a barn in-sardonic imitation of the calfskin they .f°und already nailed there. '■ “ The^testimony-ttakes so many forms that people who have had the task of compiling it are sickened by the min-

u ten ess of detail- There are the sworn declarations of eye-witnesses, the photographs taken and smuggled into the French lines, the diaries in good, strong, unmistakable German of dead soldiers; and last, and most gruesome of all, the chemically preserved bodies of men, women and children profaned, now kept to overwhelm the apologists for Germany. Literally out of the grave their victims will rise to accuse them when they come to the triumphant Allies seeking terms of peace. “Terrorism rampant overshot its mark. It did inspire awe and terror, as the philosophers of militarism had hoped. But instead of sickening the souls of the defenders so they would lay down their arms and surrender in abject submission to the “ frightful" Huns, it steeled them to prodigies of valour- The weary French and Belgian troops fought with a disdain for death that was a consequence of their knowledge that all of France would be a shambles if the German drive went through. “ They thought of the crucified mother superior of a Belgian conventmartyred because she resisted the officer who was assaulting one of the young nuns- They thought of babies skewered on bayonets and young girls stripped and tied to trees, that all of the Hunnish hordes who wished might ravish therm These incidents have the incontrovertible support of ten thousand proofs. f DIARIES OF MEN CONTAIN CONFESSIONS. “ ‘ Terrorism is a principle made necessary by military considerations,' wrote von Hartmann. 1 By steeping himself in military history an officer will be able to guard himsoflf excessive humanitarian notions-’ It is a roundabout way of saying that a taste for sheer brutality must he cultivated. But the military caste in Germany believed and cultivated it. No element of the population was spared. But those whom civilised society has always given preference where a distincitioiU must be made are the very l ones that Germany wreaked heaviest vengeance upon. Women and children —helpless non-combatants, looking to chivalry that does not exist —constitute with their claims a majority of the cases that are the strongest indictments against Germany that have ever been adduced- “ Sex rapacity has free rein in the Hun scheme of things. The diaries of dead and captured Germans prove that conclusively. Their language is unmistakable. Everywhere in letters to friends at home the allurements of their location have been cataloguedChief among these have been good food, champagne and women! “ Obviously this freedom of discussion of rapine could not have had existence if the officers of the German armies had made even a pretence of respecting international law. German military discipline—where it chooses to be—is the strictest in the world- Certainly, if there had ever been a mandate against the violation of innocent women there would never have been this added testimony—the callous letters of private soldiers who boast of the young girls they have outraged. “I have heard things in ravaged France and ruined Belgium that have sickened me. I have seen their truth attested by scores of affidavits for each incident. I went over there wondering if it were true that German -soldiers bad ever cut the breasts off a Belgian

woman. I know now that it has been done, not once, but scores of times. “I know that it is the fearful, ruthless hall-mark of the German social pariah who dare not transmit his unspeakable malady to one of the camp) women following his own regiment. Because the penalty for spreading M social diseases among other men of the German army is death, these men make prey of helpless women and girls in captured territory. “ Then—that others in the uniform of the Hun may know and heed jthe warning—they mutilate these outraged women and girls. They are mutilated strikingly and fearfully, that even the Germans drunk upon champagne and careless of consequences cannot disregard the warning. SUCH IS THE FEARFUL EXPLANATION. “That is the fearful explanation that, has so long been demanded by those in this country who said of the earlier reports: ‘They are absurd; why should men do these things?’ To understand atrocities such as those perpetrated by thousands in captured territory of I? ranee and Belgium one must; understand the Hun philosophy of war. “The scenes following the German occupation of Bailleul, for instance, have never been exceeded in barbarity. TV hen appealed to by the terrorised townspeople the German officers merely shrugged their shoulders. Something in tue town had been genant (inconvenient) for 'the captors. That,palliated every outrage. Indeed, there is no doubt in the minds of men who have followed the entire course of the German invasion of Belgium and France that plunder and rapine were open inducements to the German troops. “Letters written before the Marne and taken from the bodies qf Germans killed in the sanguinary fighting that represented the Huns’ ‘ nearest Paris ’ drive promised relatives and friends various watches, jewels and other lootexpected when Paris had surrendered. ‘ I will bring you a handful of diamonds,’ runs one letter now hi possession of the French Government. “ Other writers’ ambitions ran to watches, to money, to women, as their natures inclined. Certainly in an army drilled like the Kaiser’s, if discipline had been exerted to compel a respect for international law and humanitarian principles, no such letters would ever nave been penned. “ Efforts of German apologists to deny and excuse the outrages at Dinant and elsewhere are, singularly enough, brushed aside by the German staff itself. The famous ‘ francstireurs’ canard was cast to the wind. The German white hook concedes that large numbers of people were executed. In judging the attifade which tiba troops of the Twelfth Corps took against such a population our starting point must be that ‘ the tactical object of the Twelfth Corps was to cross the Meuse with speed and to drive the enemy from the left bank of the Meuse; speedily to overcomei the opposition of the inhabitants who are working in direct opposition to this was tone striven for in every way. . . Hostages were shot at various places, and this procedure is amply justified.’ “ It ‘ justified ’ apparently the shooting of old men, women, little children, in groups or battues. And the crowning mockery of it all was the fact that where no real opposition was manifest the Germans thoughtfully fabricated or framed, as an American would say, a case against the. people. “One soldier—l myself have seen the letter—tells how he had acted under instructions from the captain of his company in hiding a German infantry rifle under a mattress in a peasant’s little cottage. This manoeuvre was adopted after thorough search had failed to reveal any arms whatsoever. The inhabitant)* had been crowded into the village church and the captain, triumphantly returning with the planted gun, declared that the death sentence had been passed upon the entire village. They were all massacred there. “ ‘One little girl.’ this highly edifying chronicle recites, / almost moved him to pity, she was so innocent.’ It is a worthy tribute to German theory that it was * almost’ and not an actuality. She,died with the rest, beside her aged grandfather. No doubt this soldier by ‘ steeping himself in military history ’ had been able to guard himself against ‘ excessive humanitarian notions.’ “ I don’t know what history he could have ‘ steeped ’ himself in. Neither Apache Indians nor the original hordes of Attila could rival the thoroughness of his devilish work. In one town where a purposelv secreted gun had been 1 discovered ’ by a patrol, the commanding

officer’s revenge was of a character at once unique and demoniacal. The twelve most recently married couples of the district were declared forfeit to vengeance for the hidden arms and were stood up in a long lino and all executed. These are facts, documentary proof of which I have seen and which will be available when the defeated Germans are called to account by the victors. SMALL WONDER THEY FLEE FROM THE FRENCH. " Crimes against age, against virtue, against the unborn, the helpless, against even nature itself, are all included in tho grisly mass of documents, photographs and exhibits that are being preserved for later accounting. Girls stripped on the ground or tied to trees, helpless against the brutality of their captors: priests tied to the ground and offended against in a fashion I cannot even commit in detail to print; old men and little girls shot in battues because of alleged firing by the civil population all of these things prove the mockery of the claim that the. invaders tried .even feebly to keep within the dictates of international rules of warfare or h u m a n i ta ri a n p rinci p 1 es. “Small wonder that the Germans flee in superstitious terror of the French. ‘The French are the greatest soldiers in the wbrld,’ said a British officer to me. ‘ I am not tarnishing the glory of the English or Irish, Scotch or Canadians, when I say they are the best fighters in this war. Here is the

> reason: Our men are perfectly equip- • P e d ; every gun, every hat. every accou- ' trement is the same. They are well - drilled and snappy in action. The ? Frenchmen often have four kinds of ; uniform in a company. They may hare f good shoes or no shoes. They may have > red trousers or blue-grey or black. They 5 have a rather looser discipline than we , have. But they are. fighting for j France! Their patriotism is a won--1 derfnl thing. I “‘Each Frenchman counts himself i I already dead in the defence of his rav- > ' aged country. He counts every sunset ■ a,s a mere respite granted by God. He > has rediscovered a personal immortalC ity. And when lie fights it is with a 5 ; fierceness, with an expression in his i ; eyes, with a consuming passion for vic- '' tory, that awes the conscience-stricken I German private soldiers. ; FACING DEATH WITHOUT , JUSTIFICATION, i " ‘ But the attitude of the Germans r when the poilus go over the top is no 1 ' less extraordinary. I think I unders | stand the psychology of it- A man • caught robbing his neighbour’s house has the worst of the encounter from the. i outset. He lacks justification, and faci ing death without justification is a : hard thing to do.’ “ FVanoe is tired,” concluded Dr i Hillis. “ But she sees the dawn of ric- • j tory. It is our duty to help that dawn > j broaden into the full day of just retris ! button and restitution. A peace in any

respect inconclusive would leave the strange war psychology of the Central Powers unchanged. We cannot compromise on the issues of this war any more than we can compromise with evil. If we do —if we pause long enough to give the unrepentant German a breathing spell he will come again, ‘ steeped ’ in the brutal history of the present invasion and ready to duplicate his crimes if he cannot even descend to greater depths of depravity. “ Of the atrocities of which I have seen so many proofs that no reasonable man could withhold utter conviction, I have this to say: They are the gruesome proof of a sinister spirit and purpose on the part of Germany. I believe that it is really in the hearts of all Germans. After all, the men who have committed these crimes are from the rank and hie of the German masses. Whatever the causes, they have been coloured with hate and lust and belief in their moral immunity.”