To strike not only at the enemy’s armed forces, but to terrorise him by striking at his “material and moral resources,” i. e. his home and property, his wife and children.
These injunctions of the German Code of 1902 have been fully carried out in Belgium, and have converted the German army into “a horde of barbarians and a band of incendiaries.”
The “ethics” of the German Military Code have also been supported by German jurists inoculated with the germ of the same “Kultur.”
Meurer, in his book on the Hague Peace Conference, says that there is no violation of international law “when an act of war is necessary to support the troops or to defend them against a danger which cannot be avoided by any other means, or when the act is necessary in order to realize or assure the success of a military operation which is not in itself prohibited.”
(“Die Haager Friedenskonferenz,” II Band, page 14)
In other words “Necessity Knows No Law.” It is the same doctrine proclaimed by the Imperial German Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, and upheld by other German jurists such as Dr. Karl Strupp, who says:
“A body of troops may be obliged to let their prisoners starve, if the commander thinks this is the only means of carrying out an order which he has received, for example, an order to reach, at a certain time, a place indispensable for the proper conduct of the operations.
“The stipulations of the Laws of War may be disregarded whenever the violation of them seems to be the only means of carrying out a military operation or of assuring its success, or, indeed, of supporting the armed forces, even though it be only one soldier.”
(“Das Internationale Landkriegsrecht,” 1914,
pages 7 and 8)