K> . fOL. XL JHOUJfl AIRY, JfORTB CAMOLIJfA, Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis' Picture of Germany's War Plans and Her Atrocities in Belgium and France Rrprintnl from MANUFACTURERS RECORD, October IS, 1»17. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, one of America's fere mwt miaistrrs, pastor of Plymouth Church in Brook lyn, Hpenl July and Augunt in a personal iarestiga tion of the hattlefielda of France and Belgium from which the Geraut bad been eipelled. in order to learn far himself the exact condition* prevailing and to find out whether ail the reports of German atro cities would be coaArmsd by this persaaal study. The followiag tells the story. "Terrorism it a principle made neceasary by military considerations."—General Von Hertmann. "Strike him dead. The Day of Judgement will auk 70a no questions."—Inscription on the aluminum token carried by the German soldier. Every American who has passed through France and the edge of Belgium this year has retamed home a per manently saddened man. German cruelty and French •Cony have cut a bloody gash m the heart, and there ia no Dakin solution that can heal the wound. Here upon this pulpit rests a reproduction of an iron coin given aa a token to each German soldier. At the top is a German portrait of Deity, and underneath are courage the German soldier to cruelty and atrocity against Belgians and French the Deity holds a weapon in his right hand, and to dull his conscience and steel his heart to mur der the token holds these words: "Smite your enemy dead. The day at Judgement will not ask you for your reasons." To this native characteristic Goethe was referring when he said: "The Prussian is naturally cruel; civilization will intensify that cruelty and make him a savage" The German artocities of the last three years simply illustrate Goethe's words, for we must confess that German efficien cy rca< hed its highest point in the discovery of new and horrible devices for torturing old men, helpless women and little children. For three years German-Americans have protested that the stories of German atrocities were to be disbelieved as English inventions, Belgian lie* and French hypocrisies, but that day has gone by forever. When the representa tives of the nations assemble for the final settlement, there will be laid before the representatives of Germany affida vits, photographs, with other legal proofs that make the German atrocities to be far better established than the acalpings of the Sioux Indians on the Western frontiers, the murders in the Black Hole of Calcutta or the crimes of the Spanish Inquisition. On a battle line 300 miles in length, in whatsoever village the retreating Germans pas sed, the following morning accredited men hurried to the Scene to make the record against the day or judgement. The photographs of dead and mutilated <irls, children and «ld men tell no liea. Jurists rank high two forms of testi mony—the testimony of what mature men have seen and heard and the testimony of children too innocent to invent their statements, but old enough to tell what they saw. For the first time ia history the German has reducnd savagery to a science; therefore, thia great war for peace must go on until the German cancer U cut clean out of the body. The cold catalogue of German atrocities now documented and in the government archives of the different nations makes up the most sickening page in history. Days spent upon the records preserved in Southern Belgium. Northern France or in and about Paris, days spent in the ruined vil lages of Alsace and Lorraine, leave one nauseated, physi cally and mentally. It is one long, black series of legally - documented atrocities. Every solumn pledge that Ger many signed a year and a half before at the Hague Con vention as to safeguarding the Red Cross, hospitals, cath edrals, libraries, women and children and unarmed citizens are scoffed at as a "scrap of paper." These atrocities al so were committed not in a mow! of drunkenne.s nor an kour qi anger, but were organized by a so-called Gorman efficiency and perpetrated on a deliberate, cold, precise, scientific policy of German frightfulness. It is not simply that they looted factories, carried away machinery, rob bed houses, bombed every farm hou • iyid granary left no plough nor reaper, chopped lown every pear tree and plum tree with every grapvine and poisoned all wells! The Ger mans slaughtered old men and mn1 ons. mutilated cap tives in ways that can only be spoken of by men in whis pers; violated little girls until they were dead; finding a calfskin nailed upon a ham door to be dried, they nailed A bahv beside It and wrote beneath the word "7.wei"; they thrust women and children l-etween themselves and •oMiers coming up to defend their native land; bom Sod and looted hospitals, Rod Cross buildings; violated the white flag—while the worst atrocities cannot even be aaaseJ In this mixed audience. The Kaiser Brands his People as "Huns." Ne one aaderciamia the Gorman people as, well as the Kaiser. Ours President, in a spirit of magnanimity, pi ttance and geed-wtll, distinguished between the Kaiser am] th« Prussian Government, and over against them put German people. But Germany's Chambers of Commerce. Hamburg's bord of Trade and certain popular assemblies would have none of this, and in the fury of their angar pas sed resolutions, saying: "What our Government is we are. Their acts are our acts. Their deeds and military plans are our plans." Knowing his people through and through, the Kaiser called his soldiers before him and gave them this charge: "Make yourselves more fright ful than the Huns under AtUla. See that for a thousand years no enemy mentions the very name of 'Germany' without shuddering." Why do the German people say they feel so terribly because the authors of the world call them "IIuns" and "barbarians?" Who named them "Huns" Their Kaiser. Who christened them barbarian* * Their Kaiser. Who likened the German soldiers to blood hounds held upon the.lesh by the Kaiser's thong as they strained Apon the lash with bloody jaws, longing to tear their French and Belgian prey? With bloody Angers the Kaiser said: "I baptise thee 'Han' and 'barbarian.'" Let the Kaiser's words stand— "for a thousand years no man shall speak the word 'Hun' without shuddering." All wise men trace deeds, wicked or good, back to the philisophic thinking of the doer, just as they trace bitter water back to a poisoned spring. What the individual or the nation thinks to his heart, that he does in the life. Judas thinks in terms of avarice and greed, and his ptuhSo phy results in treason and murder. The Kaiser, Nietz sche, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Von Biasing and Plauss think and teach the theory of iron force, the right of big Germany to loot little Belgium or Northern France and asked by a just God on the Day of Jodgwnt. This war began in a conference in the Potsdam Palace in 1892. The pamphlet distributed by the Kaiser begins with these words: "The Pan-German Empire: From Ham burg on the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. Our immedi ate goal: 260,000,000 of people. Our ultimata goal: the Germanization of the world." The explanation of the Kaiser contains these words: "From childhood I have been under the influence of Ave men—Alexander, Julius C'easar. Theodore II, Frederick the Great, Napoleon. Each of the.se men dreamed a dream of the German world Empire— and my mailed fist shall succeed." He printed one map headed "The Roman Empire," with all the great states captured and their capitals—Athens, Epbesus, Jeru salem, Alexander, Carthage—reduced to county-seat towns paying tribute to Koine. But th« Kaiser prints side by , sine wun uui map inomer worm map, wiui Berlin uie Capital; and by 1915 St. Petersburg, Paris and London were to be county-seat t wns, subdued provinces of Ger many —and Washington and Ottowa were to follow, with the word"G«rmania" stum pad on the United States and Canada. That is why the Kaiser told Mr. Gerard: "After this war I shall not stand any nonsense from the United States." The President heard, but he did not tremble. The originator of this world war was the Kaiser; Treit schke was its historian; Nietzsche its philosopher; Von Biasing and Von Hindenburg its executives. The murder of Edith Cavell. hundreds of women and children on the Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, the assassination of Nor thern France, were the outer exibition in deeds of the in ner philosophy of farce. Their great ■ aster, whom they celebrate and never tire of praising, Nietzsche, judges Ger many aright. On page 36, in his Ecce Homo, Nietzsche says; "Wherever Germany extends her sway she ruins culture." On page 124 of the same, volume he says: "I feel it my duty to telll the Germans that every crime against culture lies on their conscience." By "culture" Nietzsche means painting, sculpture, cathedrals, interna tional laws, the Athenian sweetness, reaaonahlcnesa and; light. "Germany's gual should be a super-Hercules or I Goliath, with the club. Germany has no gift for culture of the intellect. As to that there is no other culture be-' side France." Consider the reflex influence of Germany's philosophy of militarism upon her statesmen and diplomats. In one i of his greatest s/eeches Edmond Burke speaks of "the pe > euliar sanctity attaching U> the wonl of a foreign minis-1 ter." Kross Phocion to John Hay prime ministers have Keen jealous of their pledges. Lincoln speaks of the fail ure of a government to make good its word as "a crime :<gainst civilization.'* Business man scoff at the trickster, who docs not count his written pledge more precious than life itself. With the standards of civilized states In mind, recall the intellectual and moral atrocities of the Kaiser and i Itethmann-llollweg. In 1011 the German Foreign Office realfiirmed the Treaty with England and France to observe the neutrality of Belgium in the event of war with France. On July 31, lt)M, the Kaiaer'z Prime Minister telegraphed lx>rd Grey that Germany would of course keep her treaty obligations as to Belgium. The French and English gov ernments now have full knowledge of the conference be tween the Austrian Emperor and the Kaiaer at the Pote dam Palace oa July t, with the agreement to launch the war August 1. When the war proclamation was delayed until August 8. the Kaiser'a representative used this sen tence in his speech in the Reiahstag: "We must not post pone the agreement entered into with Austria at the con ference of July R." For more than three weeks, therefore .before war »»• de. larfd Germany and Austria were pre | paring cannon, funs, equipment, and as soon as the last buckl* «u on ifcs hinHH and the last > tfle in lh« hindi of th« soldiers, on August 3, war was declared. Thon Hethmann-Hoilweg ««nt oat this itatsmsnt to the world a* to «kj tkc Kaiser and himself counted an international treaty a "scrap of papor." Ho said: "As to Belgium—we ara now in a utato of necessity and necessity know* no law. Tha wrong- I speak openly—that wo ara committing we will endaavor to make good aa toon as our military goal ha* boon ranch od. Wo have now only ono thought—how to hack tha way through." So tha international burglar's excuse is that ho must hack his way through tho neighbor's house and kill his family because that house stands between himself and tho Frenchman's vault whose gold ha wants to steal! That to why our President, answering tha Pope, said thai no treaty signed by the Kaiser and his government means anything. And here to Bernstorif, German Ambassador in Washington, who forgets that cannibals and savages, even, consider that eating salt in another Indian's tent or white man's house to a pledge of truth; while this Judas Ambassador dined at the White House at night and goes on plotting seditions in Mexico, blowing up of our muni tion factories and the killing of our people. Bemstorff smiled and smiled as he kept one hand above the table and in the other hand under the table whetting a dagger on his boots with which to stab his host in tha back. witness we discovery or treacnery to Norway two montha ago. After several Norweigian »teamen had mys teriously sunk at sea the German Consul was found travel ing hack and forth from Foreign Office in Berlin, Ail ing his trunk with bomba and glass tubes containing the cultural of glanders to spread on* of the most deadly dis eases, to annihilate men, horses and cattle, and protecting these instruments of death by the seals of the Berlin For eign Office. The substance of Germany's answer to Nor way's protest was the sneering answer: "What are you going to do about it?" While Germany's Ambassador to the Argentine Be public, advising the sinking of Argentine ships so aa to leave no trace behind is a part of the same cunning, devilish, German diplomacy that exhibits these German Ambassadors aa a complete Judas, Macchiavelli and Mephistopholes, united and carrieJ up to the nth power of diabolism. No wonder the Kaiser baptized them "Huns" and "barbarians!" German Philosophy Degrades German Officers and Soldier*. The German philosophy has dehumanized Germany's officers and men. Later on I shall givs a detailed account of the devastated regions of Northern France, but here and now let us conflne the obeervations to the ruined vil lages and towns of Easter?) France. Pullini* his irc.n token out of his pocket—that exhibited Deity u a destroying sol dier—the German officer and private reada the words be neath: "Saute your enemy dead. The day of Judgement. M?w!«5^Se«?Ae!t''8eS!!a5iSe«wm?ti?iSnER? The plan had been "Brussels in one week, Paris in two weeks, London in two months," and then two pockets filled with rings, bracelets and watches from Paris or Nancy for the sweethearts at home. When the German army in Lorraine was defeated by one-half ita number, it fall northward, passing through French towns and villages where there were no Frenchmen, no guns, and where no shota were fired. During July and August we went slowly from one ruined town to another, talking with the women and the children, comparing the photographs and the full official records made at the time with the statements of the poor, wretched survivors, who lived in cellars where once there had lean beautiful houses, orchards, vineyards—but now was only desolation. In Gerbevillier, standing beside thfir graves, I studied the photograph of 15 old men whom ths Germans lined up and shot because there were no younk" soldiers to kill; heard the detailed story of a woman wkt.ee son was first hung to a pear tree in the garden, and wben the officer and soldier had left him and were besy setting rir« t? the next house, she cut the rope, reviving the strangled youth, only to And the soldiers had returned, and while the ofirer held her hands behind her hack, km assistant poured petrol oa the son's head and clothing, set Are to him and, while he staggered about, a flaming torch, they shrieked with laughter. When they had burned all the houses and re treated. the next morning, the prefect of Lorraine reached the Gethesmane and photographed the bodies of 30 aged men lying as they fell, the bodies of women stripped and at last slain. In the next village stood the ruined square belfry into which the Germans had lifted machine guns, then forced every woman and child—275 in number—into the little church, and notified the French soldiers that if they A red upon the machine guns, they would kill their own women and children. After several days' hunger and thirst, at midnight these brave women slipped a little boy through the church wirdow and bade their husbands fire upon the Germans in the belfry, saying they preferred death to the indignities they were suffering And so these French men turned their guns, and in blowing that machine gun out of the belfry killed 20 of their own wives and children. In a hundred years of history, where shall you find a record of any other race, who call themselves civilized, who are such sneaking cowards that they could not fight like men or play the game fairly, but in their chattering terror pul women and children before them as a shield. Proof overwhelming. Here are, in a brief, Uie records of more than a thousand individual atrocities that go with the original photographs, affidavits and documents rest ing in the archies of France against the day of reckoning. What is more important still, here are the letters taken from the bodies of dead German soldeir* with their diaries. Out of the large number, note these: Photographs of th»! dead bodies of aged priests, some of whom were dead be-1 cause they had been staked down and used as a lavatory until they perished. Dead girls, with breasts cut off —and for this reason: every German soldier Is examined for lyphilis by the surgeon of the regiment, and only healthy ones receive the card giving access to the ramp women If the syphilitic German contaminates Uie camp women, his disease is handed on to his brother soldier, and that means he will be shot. This syphilitic *o!dier, therefore, finds hi* only ohance with the rapturad French gtrta, hot, having contaminated a girl he fsan that she la tan will contaminate the next German soldier and therefore ho ma tllates her body to warn away Germans. The girl's life weighs nothing against a German soldier's last or the poe nibility of the brute's handing his contaminatioa to the next soldier. Hera la German sAcieocy for ynu — 4 ntgaalssd by the devil IummU. Take Umm p.(M found m tha dtanaa of i;«mi aoidtera August St; note book of Mm> Mar Hmmc: "Ow hHIih are *o tiaud we are like heaata. Today daatroyed eight ho»m, with tMr inmate* Bayonetted two man with their wivee acJ a girl of ti Tha IttUa ona almoet unnarvad Ma, *o itinerant waa bar am praaaton." Diary of Eitel Andara; "In Vandra all tha la habitanu without eiception, wara brought out and afeat This (hooting waa heartbreaking aa thay ail knetd daw and prayad. It ia real aport, yet It waa really terrtbie ta watch." "At Haacht I aaw tha daad body of a young girl nailed to tha outaide door of a cottage by her handa. She waa about 14 or Ifl year* old." Page 21. Affidavit* H-47. In returning from Malinee eight drunken soldier* ware marching through tha atreet. A little child of two yaart rama out and a aoldiar akewered tha child on hia bayoaat and carried it away, while hia comrade* aang. D. 10-44. Withdrawing from Hofatade, in addition to other atro -*tiaa, tha fterman* cut off both handa of a boy of IS. At tha inqueet affidavit" were taken from 35 witneaaee, who -aw tha boy before he died or juat afterward*. Paaaing through Haecht in addition to tha young wom en whom they violated and killed, affidavit* were taken and tha photograph of a child three year* old nailed to a door by it* handa and feet. Affldavita D. 100-8. That all theae atrocities were carefully planned in ad vance for terrorizing the people is proven by the fact that on the morning of Auguxt 25 the officer* who had received great kindneaa from Madame Roomana, a notary'* wifa. warned her to make her encape immediately, aa the lootiaa and killing of all the citizens, men, women and children, was about to begin. These records could be multiplied by the thousand*. Up on the retreat from one city alone, inquests were held upon the bodies of over 600 victims, including very aged men and women and babies unborn, removed bv the bavnnet from their mothers. It is the logical result of the charge of the Kaiser to his army: "Give no quarters and take no prisoners. Let all who fall into your hands be at jomr mercy." The general staff of the German army published a manual several years before they began this war. They explicitly charged their soldiers to break the will of the enemy by cruelty. Witness this page from the War Man ual on page 52: "A war is conducted with energy merely against the combatants of the enemy states and the posi tions they occupy, but it will and must In like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and materia] resources of the later." And witness this injunction to atrocity, page 35: "By steeping himself in military history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive humanitarian ism. It will teach him that certain severities are indispensable to war. Humanitarian clams, such as the protection of seen and the'r goods, rnn on token, large as a silver dollar, bidding the soldier "Strike him dead. The Day of Judgement will ask you no ques tions." Jesus said: "Take heed that ye offend not one at My little ones." The Kaiser says: "I have done away with Jesus' teachings." The Master who loved the lit tle children said: "I was an hungered and ye gave mm no meat. I was athirst and ye gave me no drink. There fore, depart from me into everlasting Are. prepared for the devil and his fellows." The war staff answers: "Don't be afraid. Look at your token. The Kaiser will take care of you in the Day of Judgement. Kill old men and little children, loot merchants' houses, violate women: 'he Kaiser will see that God of Justice asks you no questions." The result was logical and inevitable. These horrible atro cities! On August 27 General Von Ueber irave out this proclamation: "The town of Waevre will he set on fir* ind destroyed without distinction of persons. The inno cent will suffer with the guilty." After this town was destroyed and all the inhabitants killed, from the body of a soldier slain on the retreat we find this page in his •iary: "We lived gorgeously; two or three bottle of -hampagne at each meal; all the girls we want. It is fine ".port." Are we surprised that many of the letters and journals taken from the bodies of Germans qoote General Von Hartman's sentence: "Terrorize is a principle mad* necessary by military considerations." German-Ameri can objections that these towns were destroyed because the inhabitants had flred upon the invading army from the windows of their homes is conclusively met and answered by another letter, written by a German officer to his wife: "On approaching a village a soldier is sent on in advance to insert a Belgian rifle in the cellar window or stable, and, of course, when this weapon is found we taken it to the Burgomaster, and then the sport begins." On a little board in one ruined village I read these words: "Marie; aged 16; dead Augst 24. 191S. Ven geance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The hun dreds of atrocities personally investigated only serve to interpret Ambassador Mongenthau's statement as to Armenia—that the Turkish soldiers and German officers massacred in Armenia half a million people, that they might move into their farm houses and little shops and stores. German Philosophy of Militarism Has Debauch ed Germany's University Professors. The glory of every great city and country is K* vhol ars, with their love of truth ami their stainless lives. We have had our civilization at the hands of men who loved the truth supremely, pursued the truth eternally and cherished the truth above their fear of hell or hope at heaven. The world has its liberty, its science and its law .it the hard* of the heroe* who preferred the truth above life. Concerning the patriots, the reformers and the statesmen, we can say they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were cracilted in Jerusalem, poisoned la Athens, t< rtued in Rphesus, exiled in Florence. barn*4 at the stake in Oxford, assassinated in Washington, rrmllrf in Jerusalem. Rut the iron autocracy and militarism, of Germany debauched her university men. Her* in my hand in an address to the civilised world, signed by tt German profc^ors. They all receive their salaries tnm state endowments. Any hour the Kaiser or Bethmana* Hollweg ran rut off their income. When the indigratia* of the civilised world flamed out against Germany la the winter of 191K. the German Government asked these pre> fessors te rn s document, and these men had been so tie graded by the German philosophy of militarism and auto cracy that they obeyed—losing their souls to save their •alary. And consider what they signed! hi prevteoa (Continued to Ptfe Few) j - .m .. .c

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