[56] [Professor] Lueder, Das Landkriegsrecht, p. 73.
[57] What completely false notions about the right of killing prisoners of war are prevalent even among educated circles in France is shown by the widely-circulated novel Les Braves Gens, by Margueritte, in which, on page 360 of the chapter “Mon Premier,” is told the story, based apparently on an actual occurrence, of the shooting of a captured Prussian soldier, and it is excused simply because the information given by him as to the movements of his own people turned out to be untrue. The cowardly murder of a defenseless man is regarded by the author as a stern duty, due to war, and is thus declared to be in accordance with the usages of war. [The indignation of the German General Staff is somewhat overdone, as a little further on (see the chapter on treatment of inhabitants of occupied territory) in the War Book they advocate the ruthless shooting or hanging of an inhabitant who, being forced to guide an enemy army against his own, leads them astray.—J. H. M.]
[58] In Austria the giving of one’s parole whether by troops or officers is forbidden.
[59] Monod, Allemands et Français, Souvenirs de Campagne, p. 39: “I saw again at Tours some faces which I had met before Sedan; among them were, alas! officers who had sworn not to take up arms again, and who were preparing to violate their parole, encouraged by a Government in whom the sense of honor was as blunted as the sense of truth.”
[60] In the year 1870, 145 French officers, including three Generals, one Colonel, two Lieutenant-Colonels, three Commandants, thirty Captains (Bismarck’s Despatch of December 14th, 1870), were guilty of breaking their parole. The excuses, afterwards put forward, were generally quite unsound, though perhaps there may have been an element of doubt in some of the cases so positively condemned on the German side. The proceedings of the French Government who allowed these persons without scruple to take service again were subsequently energetically denounced by the National Assembly.
[61] To a petition of the diplomatists shut up in Paris to be allowed to send a courier at least once a week, Bismarck answered in a document of September 27th, 1870, as follows: “The authorization of exchange of correspondence in the case of a fortress is not generally one of the usages of war; and although we would authorize willingly the forwarding of open letters from diplomatic agents, in so far as their contents be not inconvenient from a military point of view, I cannot recognize as well founded the opinion of those who should consider the interior of the fortifications of Paris as a suitable center for diplomatic relations.”
[62] “In the year 1870 the greatest mildness was practised on the German side towards the French fortresses. At the beginning of the siege of Strassburg it was announced to the French Commander that free passage was granted to the women, the children, and the sick, a favor which General Uhrich rejected, and the offer of which he very wisely did not make known to the population. And when later three delegates of the Swiss Federal Council sought permission in accordance with the resolution of the Conference at Olten, of September 7th, to carry food to the civil population in Strassburg and to conduct non-combatants out of the town over the frontier, both requests were willingly granted by the besieger and four thousand inhabitants left the fortress as a result of this permission. Lastly, the besiegers of Belfort granted to the women, children, aged, and sick, free passage to Switzerland, not indeed immediately at the moment chosen by the commander Denfert, but indeed soon after” (Dahn, I, p. 89). Two days after the bombardment of Bitsch had begun (September 11th) the townsfolk begged for free passage out of the town. This was, indeed, officially refused; but, none the less, by the indulgence of the besieger, it was effected by a great number of townspeople. Something like one-half of the 2,700 souls of the civil population, including the richest and most respectable, left the town (Irle, die Festung Bitsch. Beiträge zur Landes- und Völkerkunde von Elsass-Lothringen).
[63] Hartmann, Krit. Versuche, II, p. 83.
[64] Staatsanzeiger, August 26th, 1870.
[65] Considering the many unintelligible things written on the French side about this, the opinion of an objective critic is doubly valuable. Monod, p. 55, op. cit., says: “I have seen Bazeilles burning; I have informed myself with the greatest care as to how things happened. I have questioned French soldiers, Bavarian soldiers, and Bavarian inhabitants present at this terrible drama; I am able to see in it only one of the frightful, but inevitable, consequences of the war.” As to the treatment of Chateaudun, stigmatized generally on the French side as barbarous, the author writes (p. 56): “The inhabitants of Chateaudun, regularly organized as part of the National Guard, aided by the franctireurs of Paris, do not defend themselves by preparing ambushes but by fighting as soldiers. Chateaudun is bombarded; nothing could be more legitimate, since the inhabitants made a fortress of it; but once they got the upper hand the Bavarians set fire to more than one hundred houses.” The picture of outrages by Germans which follows may be countered by what the author writes in another place about the French soldiers: “The frightful scenes at the taking of Paris by our troops at the end of May, 1871, may enable us to understand what violences soldiers allow themselves to be drawn into, when both excited and exhausted by the conflict.”