Moreover, the Germans left at Compiègne, and on several battlefields of France, pouches, carefully put in a conspicuous position, of French cartridges which they had made into dum-dum bullets by scooping out the protruding end. The object of this artifice was to give currency to the belief that these prohibited missiles were used by the French troops.
The following is the reply made by the President of the United States to the Emperor of Germany. “In reply to your protest, the United States can do nothing. I do not think your Majesty expects me to say more.”
Doctors attached to the German Medical Service have admitted that the German Accusation was False
People who allowed themselves to be deceived by an accusation which had its origin in Germany soon received proof, and from Germany too, that the accusation was false.
Professor Straub, of Freiburg in Bresgau, published in a Munich medical journal the results of his inquiry into the nature of the French bullet. He admitted that, from the medical point of view, this bullet was composed of an admirable alloy, which could not poison, and he came to the conclusion that it was humane. Dr. Haberlin, a Swiss doctor attached to the hospitals at Arlon and at Louisburg, where he had chiefly German wounded under his care, declared on his honour that he had never heard tell of wounds inflicted on Germans by dum-dum bullets.
Dum-dum Bullets used Against the Russians
That the Germans used dum-dum bullets against the Russians was proved in a hospital at Vilna, where a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian infantry, wounded in the leg, chanced to be under treatment. The wound, which at its entrance was smaller than a penny, was as large as a hand where the bullet left the body.
The photograph of one of the dum-dum bullets used in this way was given by the Novoïé Vrémia on 17th September, 1914.
Moreover, the German missiles used against the Russian troops often gave off poisonous gases which caused the death of the wounded, and which were expressly forbidden by the Hague Conventions (1899) under the category of “projectiles, the sole purpose of which is to spread asphyxiating or noxious gases.”