[Illustration: THE HARVEST IS RIPE]
“Unmasked”
“The Yellow Book,” it may be remembered, was the official publication
of some of the details of atrocities committed by the Huns on the
defenceless women and children of ravished Belgium. It told in cold and
unimpassioned sentences, in plain and simple words more terrible than
the most fervid outpourings of patriot or humanitarian, the tale of
brutalities, of cold-blooded crimes, of murders and rape and mental and
physical tortures beyond the capabilities or the imaginings of savages,
possible only in their refinements of cruelty to the civilised apostles
of Kultur. There are many men in the trenches of the Allies to-day
who will say that the German soldier is a brave man, that he must be
brave to advance to the slaughter of the massed attack, to hold to his
trenches under the horrible punishment of heavy artillery fire.
As a nation we are always ready to admit and to admire physical
courage, and if Germany had fought a “clean fight,” had “played the
game,” starkly and straightly, against our fighting men, we could--and
our fighting men especially could, and I believe would--have helped her
to her feet and shaken hands honestly with her after she was beaten.
But with such a brute beast as the unmasking of the Yellow Book has
revealed Germany to be we can never feel friendship, admiration, or
respect.
The German is a “dirty fighter,” and to the British soldier that
alone puts him beyond the pale. He has outraged all the rules and
the instincts of chivalry. His bravery in battle is the bravery of
a ravening wolf, of a blood-drunk savage animal. It is only left to
the Allies to treat him as such, to thrash him by brute force, and
then to clip his teeth and talons and by treaty and agreement amongst
themselves to keep him chained and caged beyond the possibility of
another outbreak.