A vile feature of German “frightfulness” is this: that she mixes poison
with her prisoners’ rations. Not content with starving their bodies,
she hides truth from them and floods their minds with lies. Those in
command--officers, educated men, claiming the service of their soldiers
and civil guard and the respect of their nation--deliberately hash a
daily meal of falsehood and serve up German victories and triumphs
on land and sea as sauce to the starvation diet of their defenceless
captives.
In the earlier months of the war, while yet the spiritual slough
into which Germany had sunk was unguessed, and the mixture of child
and devil exemplified by “frightfulness” continued unfathomed, these
daily lies undoubtedly answered their cowardly purpose, cast down the
spirit of thousands, and added another pang to their captivity. But
our armies know better now, and those diminishing numbers likely to be
taken prisoner in the future see the end more clearly than the foe can.
Lies will be met with laughter henceforth, for our enemies have put
themselves beyond the pale. They may starve and insult our bodies; but
their power to poison our brains has passed from them for ever. We know
them at last. They have spun a web of barbed villainy between their
souls and ours; and the evil committed for one foul purpose alone--to
terrify free men and break the spirit of the sons of liberty--has
produced results far different and created a situation more terrible
for them than for their outraged enemies.
For in this matter of misrepresentation and lying, born of Prussia and
by her spoon-fed pack of martinets, professors, and Churchmen, mingled
with Germany’s daily bread for a generation, it is she and not we who
will reap the whirlwind of that sowing; it is she and not we who must
soon pant and tear the breast in the pangs of the poison.
Between the mad and the sane there can be only one victor; and when the
time comes, may Germany’s robe of repentance be a strait-waistcoat of
the Allies’ choosing. For she has drunk deep of the poison, and those
who anticipate a speedy cure will be as mad as she. When the escaped
tigress is back in her cage, men look to the bars, for none wants a
second mauling.