Many a stout-hearted man can “bite upon the bullet” and bear pain up
to the varying but inevitable limit when unconsciousness puts an end
to literally unbearable agony. But is there anyone who could face with
any show of courage the unutterable terror of slow asphyxiation? This
is indeed a horrible picture. Raemaekers has helped us to realise the
unrealisable, setting down with his swift and merciless pencil the
oft-repeated incident of the despair, even to tears, of surgeons and
nurses who, God knows, might well have thought they had little to learn
about human suffering.
The German will blush for this devilry till the last day of history.
One other deed of his was near as bad--the attempt to fasten on the
French the guilt of this infamous departure from the laws of chivalry
in war. One other deed was worse--that of the Prussian officer prisoner
who, as reported by our “Eye-witness,” saw some of our men writhing on
the ground in the throes of this agony and--laughed.
This bad business of the poison-gas was a damnable crime and a
short-sighted. It tempered the fighting resolution of our men. Ask in
particular any Canadian since Ypres, and certainly after and because
of that day many a German in the field has received a bayonet wound
instead of quarter and a kindly cigarette. It is for Germans after
repentance to ask themselves whether after all such initiative has
really any military value--except to the other side.