That their officers and soldiers might understand in advance the use of
the atrocity as a military instrument, the General Staff of the German
army, in 1902, published a handbook of military tactics, entitled "The
Laws of War on Land." This handbook sets forth a deliberate system
of atrocity, and prepares the way for every species of villainy. In
clear and unmistakable language, the War Staff presents principles
that embody the ideas of savages. Witness the statements on page 35:
"By steeping himself in military history an officer will be able to
guard himself against excessive humanitarian notions. It will teach him
that certain severities are indispensable to war. What is permissible
includes _every means_ without which the object of the war cannot be
attained." Witness also the savagery outlined on page 52: "A war
conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the combatants
of the enemy states and the positions they occupy, but it will and must
in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material
resources of the latter. Humanitarian claims,--such as the protection
of men's lives and their property, can be taken into consideration
only in so far as the nature and object of the war will permit." Their
Handbook of Military Tactics is, therefore, nothing other than the
science of atrocity. With an army steeped in these vicious teachings,
with private soldiers trained by this handbook that teaches crime as
an art, and with the exhortation of their Kaiser to make themselves as
terrible as the Huns under Attila, the rape of Belgium, the crucifixion
of Poland, and the assassination of Northern France were logical and
inevitable results.