This malignant frenzy against British troops, so carefully instilled, is borne out by a passage in another diary, now in the possession of the French Ministry of War, which was found on April 22nd on the body of Richard Gerhold, of the 71st Regiment of Infantry of the Reserve, Fourth Army Corps, who was killed in September at Nouvron:
“Auch hier kommen ja Sachen vor, was auch nicht sein darf, kommt aber doch vor. Grosse Greultaten kommen natürlich an Engländern und Belgiern vor. Nun da wird eben jeder ohne Gnaden niedergeknallt, aber wehe dem armen Deutschen der in ihre Hände kommt....”
(“Here also things occur which should not be. Great atrocities are of course committed upon Englishmen and Belgians; every one of them is now knocked on the head without mercy. But woe to the poor German who falls into their hands.”)
As regards the last sentence in this diary, which is one long chapter of horrors and betrays a ferocious credulity, it is worthy of remark that I have seen at the French Ministry of War the diary[85] of a German N.C.O., named Schulze, who, judging by internal evidence, was a man of exceptional intelligence, in which the writer refers to tales of French and Belgian atrocities circulated among the men by his superior officers. He shrewdly adds that he believes the officers invented these stories in order to prevent him and his comrades from surrendering.
A less conclusive passage, but a none the less suspicious one, is to be found in a diary now in my possession. It is the diary of an Unter-offizier, named Ragge, of the 158th Regiment, and contains (under date October 21st) the following:
“Wir verfolgten den Gegner soweit wir ihn sahen. Da haben wir machen Engländer abgeknallt. Die Engländer lagen wie gesäht am Boden. Die noch lebenden Engländer im Schützengraben wurden erstochen oder erschossen. Unsere Komp. machte 61 Gefangene.”
Which may be translated:
“We pursued the enemy as far as we saw him. We ‘knocked out’ many English. The English lay on the ground as if sown there. Those of the Englishmen who were still alive in the trenches were stuck or shot. Our company made 61 prisoners.”[86]
So far I have only dealt with the acts of small German units—i.e. companies of infantry. I now come to the most damning proofs of a policy of coldblooded murder of wounded and prisoners, initiated and carried out by a whole brigade under the orders of a Brigadier-General. This particular investigation took me a long time, but the results are, I think conclusive. It may be remembered that some months ago the French military authorities published in the French newspapers what purported to be the text of an order issued by a German Brigadier-General, named Stenger, commanding the 58th Brigade, in which he ordered his troops to take no prisoners and to put to death without mercy every one who fell into their hands, whether wounded and defenceless or not. The German Government immediately denounced the alleged order as a forgery. I determined to see whether I could establish its authenticity, and in February last I obtained a copy of the original from M. Mollard, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is a member of the Commission appointed by the French Government to inquire into the alleged German atrocities. The text of that order was as follows:
“Befehl (Armee-befehl) vom 26. Aug. 1914, gegen 4 Uhr nachm. wie er von Führer der 7 Komp. Reg. 112 (Infant.) bei Thionville, am Eingang des Waldes von Saint-Barbe, seinen Truppen als Brigade-oder Armee-befehl gegeben wurde:
“Von heute ab werden keine Gefangene mehr gemacht Sämtliche Gefangene werden niedergemacht. Verwundete ob mit Waffen oder wehrlos niedergemacht. Gefangene auch in grösseren geschlossenen Formationen werden niedergemacht. Es bleibt kein Mann lebend hinter uns.”
(“Army Order of 26 Aug., 1914, about 4 p.m., such as was given to his troops as a Brigade or Army Order by the leader of the 7th Company of the 112th Regiment of Infantry at Thionville, at the entrance of the wood of Saint Barbe.
“To date from this day no prisoners will be made any longer. All the prisoners will be executed. The wounded, whether armed or defenceless, will be executed. Prisoners, even in large and compact formations, will be executed. Not a man will be left alive behind us.”)
Taking this alleged order as my starting-point, I began to make inquiries at British Head-quarters as to the existence of any information about the doings of the 112th Regiment. I soon found that there was good reason to suspect it. Our Intelligence Department placed in my hands the records of the examination of two men of this regiment who had been captured by us. One of them volunteered a statement to one of our Intelligence Officers on November 23rd to the effect that his regiment had orders to treat Indians well, but were allowed to treat British prisoners as they pleased. This man’s testimony appeared to be reliable, as statements he made on other points, i.e., as to the German formations, were subsequently found to be true, and his information as to discrimination in the treatment of Indians entirely bore out the conclusions I had already arrived at on that particular point. The German witness in question further stated that 65 out of 150 British prisoners were killed in cold blood by their escort on or about October 23rd on the road to Lille, and that the escort were praised for their conduct. Other German prisoners have, I may add, also made statements that they had orders to kill all the English who fell into their hands.