THE GREAT WAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19845, 20 May 1927, Page 7

THE GREAT WAR

GERMANY’S PART Conduct Whitewashed by Reichstag Committee EVERYONE ELSE TO BLAME. [By Telegraph—Per Press Assn.—Copyright] (A. & N.Z.) BERLIN, May 18. The Reichstag Committee, after seven years’ investigating into Germany’s conduct of the war, reported declaring that “Germany waged the war no more cruelly or severely than her opponents. The reprisals were due to breaches of international law, which suffered from lack of clearness and should be remedied.’’ The chairman, speaking in the Reichstag, summarised the conclusions as follows: — (1) That unrestricted submarine warfare was justified as a reprisal against the illegal Britsish blockade. (2) The bombing of arsenals and docks in London was justified, but London itself was only bombed at night time or on Sundays, when it was empty of population. Paris was bombed as a reprisal for tne French bombing non-military towns. (3) The German gas war was in accoordance with international law, except that green and yellow gas was used only after the French employment of illegal gases. (4) Both sides violated international law regarding prisoners, but prisoners in German camps were treated in accordance with German military law, restricted by the blockade. (5) The Minority Committee report holds that Germanay deliberately violated international law regarding the deportation of 70,090 Belgian workers. (6) The economic war was begun by England, where the common law does not admit the inviolability of private property in war time. (7) Armed resistance by the Belgian population contravened the Hague Connvention. (8) The retreating German armies’ destruction in France and Belgium was due to military necessity, although it can no longer be proved whether this is so in individual cases.