Those provocative shots from German rifles have surely been the most profitably engineered basenesses in the whole war. They have justified—but in German eyes only—every committable crime, and they cost nothing—except the souls of their perpetrators.
"It's your money we want—and your land—and your property—and, if necessary, your lives! You are weak—we are strong—and so——!" That is the simple Credo of the Hun.
But for all these things there shall come a day of reckoning and the account will be a heavy one.
May it be exacted to the full—from the rightful debtors!
"What have you done?" You have at all events put the rope round the necks of your murderers, and the whole world's hands are at the other end of it.
JOHN OXENHAM.