Conclusion.
I make no apology, and I trust that none is needed, for these speculations. Reports of atrocities can serve no useful purpose unless they move men to reflect no less resolutely than deeply upon what is to be done to deliver Europe from the scourge of their repetition. It may well be that my own reflections will seem cynical to one, depressing to another, arbitrary to a third. They are not the idols of the theatre, and in academic circles they may not be fashionable. But the catastrophe that has disturbed the dreams of the idealogues must teach jurists and statesmen to beware of the opiate of words and sacramental phrases. That, however, is a task which belongs to the future. The immediate enterprise is not for lawyers but for our gallant men in the field. They, and they alone, can lay the foundations of an enduring peace by an unremitting and inexorable war. They are the true ministers of justice.
Chapter II
THE BRITISH ENQUIRY IN FRANCE
In November of last year I 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, the inquiries in England being separately conducted by others. The results of my investigation were communicated to the Home Office, in the form of confidential reports and of depositions, diaries, proclamations, and other pièces justificatives, and were in turn submitted to the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister and presided over by Lord Bryce. The Committee made liberal use of this material, but, owing to the exigencies of space and the necessity of selection, some of it remains unpublished, and I now propose to place it and the conclusions I draw from it before the public. Some part of it, and that part the most important—namely, that which establishes proofs of a deliberate policy of atrocity by responsible German officers—came into my hands too late for use by the Committee. Moreover, the Committee felt that their first duty was to Belgium, and consequently the portion of the inquiry which related to France, and in particular to outrages upon British soldiers in France, occupies a comparatively small place in their publications. In this article I therefore confine myself to the latter branch of the inquiry, and the reader will understand that, except where otherwise stated, the documents here set out are now published for the first time.[77]
My 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 I was attached to the General Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary Force. In the course of my inquiries in the hospitals and camps I orally interrogated some two or three thousand officers and soldiers,[78] 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 me personally, but my 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, I 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 commissaries de police, and the maires of the communes. In this way I was enabled not only to obtain corroboration of the statements taken down in the base hospitals in the earlier stages of my inquiry, 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.[79] In pursuance of this latter inquiry I visited every town and commune of any importance now in our occupation and lately occupied by the Germans, including places within a few hundred yards of the German lines. As regards the conduct of the German troops in the earlier stages of the campaign and in other parts of France, I confined my inquiries to incidents which actually came under the observation of our own troops during or after the battles of Mons, the Marne, and the Aisne, and did not extend them to include the testimony of the French civil authorities, as I did not consider it part of my duty to attempt to do what was already being done by the Commission of Inquiry instituted by the President of the Council. But I freely availed myself of opportunities of corroboration of English evidence from French sources where such sources were readily accessible, and, by the courtesy of the French Ministry of War, who placed a Staff officer and a military car at my disposal, I was enabled to go over the ground to the north-east of Paris covered by our troops in their advance to the Aisne and to obtain confirmation of many incidents already related to me by British officers and soldiers. It was also my privilege frequently to meet M. Mollard, of the French Commission, and to examine for myself the depositions on oath and pièces justificatives on which the first Reports of the Commission are based, and which are as yet unpublished. In these different ways I have been enabled to obtain an extensive view of the whole field of inquiry and to arrive at certain general conclusions which may be of some value.