Bombardments without Notice
We should not forget that the notice of bombardment required by the laws of war was impossible in more cases than one. Moreover, it is admitted that attacking troops are absolved from the charge of breach of these laws, when they do all they can to give warning. Besides, warning of bombardment is not always required to make an attacked town expect it. We could not, therefore, regard as a contravention of law all bombardments, without exception, which the Germans had made without giving notice. But, this said, can we allow to pass the circumstance that, of all these bombardments, only two, those of Antwerp and Reims, were preceded by the necessary warning? German callousness and cruelty stand self-condemned by the fact that the proportion is so small. Add that the bombardment of Reims, started on the pretext that two German bearers of a flag of truce, who had lost their way in the French lines, were not brought back quickly enough, was in itself a sheer outrage.