But, as though not satisfied with the success of the first attempt, the Germans determined upon another dastardly raid. A few nights after the first outrage a Zeppelin again appeared over the city in the dead of night. Ten bombs were discharged, and damaged a number of houses. No lives were lost, however. A boy of fifteen had his right arm injured by a flying splinter, while his father and sister and one or two others were slightly injured. A graphic description of the raid is given by the Daily Telegraph correspondent. “I was awakened,” he relates, “by the rattle of rifle-fire from neighbouring roofs and the hideous crash of exploding bombs. Hurriedly descending into the Place Verte, I was just in time to see an airship disappearing southward. She was at a tremendous height, but could be clearly seen in the rays of the searchlight. There was an incessant rattle of shots from rifles and machine guns from the darkened town, and shrapnel could be seen exploding like meteorites in the trail of the flying marauder. All round the Place Verte from the roadway, and from points of vantage on the high buildings, spurts of flame indicated the efforts of the firers to bring down the hated ship. Immediately the searchlights fixed upon her the Zeppelin made off at great speed.”
Worse than the Boxers.
Surgeon-Major Seaman, of the United States Army Reserve Corps, who helped to tend the wounded, was so indignant with these cowardly tactics on the part of the Germans that he communicated with his Government, asking it to join at once in exacting reparation from Germany for such infamies. He declared that in all his eight campaigns, of which one was against the Boxers in China, he had never seen an act of war so ruthless, so horrible, as the sight of three young girls mutilated and defaced, and of the dead young mother, all attacked in their beds at night. And with him the civilized world will agree.
Other airship and aeroplane raids were made on Antwerp and also upon Paris, but fortunately none has been attended with either great loss of life or destruction of property. But that such should be the case affords no excuse for crimes which rank among the greatest committed by the ruthless German army.
“At this moment the words ‘German culture’ are synonymous for rapine, murder, and hideous cruelty. This is a state of things which ought to be grasped by the people of Germany.”
—From the Morning Post.
XVII.
“Against ordinary though severe reprisals upon civilians who have fired upon the German troops we have not a word to utter; but outrage, mutilation, burning alive, and so forth are not reprisals; they are atrocities which make the name of Germany stink in the nostrils of mankind. It is hard to believe that a civilized nation should have so reverted to savagery, but unfortunately the facts admit of no dispute.”—From the Globe.
“The Hussar-like Stroke.”