Early in the war the much-vaunted German "men of science" invented
poisonous gases (chiefly of chlorine), liquid fire apparatus, and other
forms of deviltry forbidden in civilized warfare. The "flammenwerfer"
is now a favorite German institution; but occasionally it gets into
trouble by being exploded by shell fire, in the hands of the men using
it. One result of poison gas and liquid fire is the everlasting odium
that it has fastened upon the German army. The British soldiers say
that "the Germans are dirty fighters"; and the name will stick forever.
In German South-West Africa, when the Boer General, Louis Botha,
captured Swakopmund he found that all six of the wells had been
poisoned with arsenical cattle-dip. Bags of the poison hung in the
wells; and the crime was acknowledged and defended in writing by
Lieut.-Col. Franke, commander of the German forces. Previous to that
time, the new German governor had murdered in cold blood 208 of the
leading natives of the capital town, to teach the surviving Hereros the
advantages of life under the black vulture of Germany.