German prisoner murder began before Antwerp on October 6, 1914, when the Captain of the 85th Regt. IXth Corps, 4th Company, said to his men: "I do not want to see any Englishmen prisoners in the hands of this company!" To which the company cried, "Bravo!" And Richard Gerhold, 71st Regiment Reserve, 4th Army Corps (killed in September, 1914), wrote in his precious diary thus: "Great atrocities are of course committed upon Englishmen and Belgians. Every one of them is now knocked on the head without mercy."
The famous Stenger order of August 26, 1914, brings us to a capital case. A German Brigadier-General, Stenger by name, issued this written order to his brigade:
"To date from this day, no prisoners will be made any longer. All the prisoners will be executed. The wounded, whether armed or defenseless, will be executed. Prisoners, even in large and compact formations, will be executed. Not a man will be left alive behind us."
The instances of the murder of helpless prisoners by Germans are far too numerous to be cited in detail. Beyond reasonable doubt, a hundred thousand soldiers were murdered on the Stenger basis.
And after the war is over, if we resume friendly "relations" with Germany, we may see Stenger in Washington as Military Attaché to his Excellency the German Ambassador, shaking hands with the President of the United States.
3. THE BOMBING OF CIVILIANS IN LONDON AND ELSEWHERE.
The Kaiser and Zeppelin, and the German people, have spent many millions of dollars in deliberate attempts to slaughter the unarmed inhabitants of London, and strafe England. All the German talk about attacking "the fortress of London" is beneath contempt. Rarely indeed has a soldier been injured in London, or any other English city, by a Zeppelin or an airplane bomb. It has been the helpless women, school-children and other non-combatants who have been blown to pieces.
These murders of civilian men, women and children have served only to send furious Englishmen rushing to the trenches in droves, for vengeance! Had the square-heads deliberately attempted to stimulate British enlistments, the dropping of bombs on London would have been the ideal plan. At last the British public demand reprisals, on the basis of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; which would be absolutely right.
But thus far the statesmen of England firmly say:
"No! We will not descend to the low level of the Huns of Germany."