Germany's Dishonoured Army: Additional records of German atrocities in France

ADDITIONAL RECORDS OF GERMAN ATROCITIES IN FRANCE.
by Professor J. H. Morgan.
(Late Home Office Commissioner with the British Expeditionary Force.)
1915.
THE PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITING COMMITTEE, 12, DOWNING STREET, S.W.


(M 3942) Wt. w. 8147-565 500M 8/15 H & S
In November, 1914, Professor Morgan was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Home Affairs to undertake the investigation in France into the alleged breaches of the laws of war by the German troops. His investigations extended over a period of four or five months. The first six weeks were spent in visiting the base hospitals and convalescent camps at Boulogne and Rouen, and the hospitals at Paris; during the remaining three months he was attached to the General Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary Force. Professor Morgan orally interrogated some two or three thousand officers and soldiers, representing almost every regiment in the British armies and all of whom had recently been engaged on active service in the field. The whole of these inquiries were conducted by Professor Morgan personally, but his inquiries at headquarters were of a much more systematic character. There, owing to the courtesy of Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, the late Chief of the General Staff, he had the assistance of the various services—in particular the Adjutant-General, the Provost-Marshal, the Director of Military Intelligence, the Director of Medical Services and their respective staffs—and also of the civil authorities, within the area at present occupied by the British armies, such as the sous-prefets, the procureurs de la République, the commissaires de police, and the maires of the communes. In this way he was enabled not only to obtain corroboration of the statements taken down at the base in the earlier stages, but also to make a close local study of the behaviour of the German troops towards the civil population during their occupation of the districts recently evacuated by them. The following is extracted (by permission of the Editor) from statements by Professor Morgan which appeared in the Nineteenth Century for June, 1915 :—