Towns bombarded behind the Lines
One kind of bombardment for which there is no excuse is that in which German aircraft engaged over towns and villages behind the enemy lines, out of the reach of German guns and sometimes even outside the theatre of war. It is certain that the intention to give oneself up to such acts absolutely precludes respect for open towns and for preliminary warnings. It is the proof of an absolute contempt for the laws of war, and of a fixed determination to act contrary to ordinary good sense.
The bombing of Paris, Antwerp (25th August to 2nd Sept.), Dunkirk, Warsaw—towns all of which were situated, when the attack took place, out of the range of German cannon, is an outrage of a special kind. No military object was in view, but merely a desire to terrorise the civil population. At Paris six people were killed and about thirty wounded: at Antwerp there were twelve people killed and twenty-five wounded; at Dunkirk about fifteen were killed and more than twenty wounded; at Warsaw 106 people were injured. All these victims—except at Warsaw, where among the people struck were nine soldiers—were civilians, for the most part women, children and old men. Hence we understand the indignation aroused among neutrals by these bombardments, and the care which several nations took to protest against them.
The American Committee, founded by the United States ambassador in Paris, and consisting of the most influential Americans resident in Paris, was entrusted with the duty of keeping an eye upon the conduct of Germans on the outskirts of the French capital and above it. They were indignant at the deadly acts of the German aeroplanes in Paris, and dispatched a report on the subject. As for the throwing of bombs on Antwerp, the American newspapers denounced it and emphatically assigned it to its category. The World described this kind of attack as “murder, pure and simple”; “dynamite for children,” said the New York Herald; the New York Times spoke of “crime against humanity”; and the Tribune energetically protested against the repetition of murder so blind, so purposeless and so unpardonable.