_In November, 1914, Professor Morgan was commissioned by the Secretary
of State for Home Affairs to undertake the investigation in France
into the alleged breaches of the laws of war by the German troops.
His investigations extended over a period of four or five months.
The first six weeks were spent in visiting the base hospitals and
convalescent camps at Boulogne and Rouen, and the hospitals at
Paris; during the remaining three months he was attached to the
General Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary Force.
Professor Morgan orally interrogated some two or three thousand
officers and soldiers, representing almost every regiment in the
British armies and all of whom had recently been engaged on active
service in the field. The whole of these inquiries were conducted by
Professor Morgan personally, but his inquiries at headquarters were
of a much more systematic character. There, owing to the courtesy
of Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, the late Chief of the
General Staff, he had the assistance of the various services--in
particular the Adjutant-General, the Provost-Marshal, the Director
of Military Intelligence, the Director of Medical Services and their
respective staffs--and also of the civil authorities, within the area
at present occupied by the British armies, such as the sous-prefets,
the procureurs de la République, the commissaires de police, and the
maires of the communes. In this way he was enabled not only to obtain
corroboration of the statements taken down at the base in the earlier
stages, but also to make a close local study of the behaviour of the
German troops towards the civil population during their occupation of
the districts recently evacuated by them. The following is extracted
(by permission of the Editor) from statements by Professor Morgan
which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for June, 1915_:--
[BY PROFESSOR J. H. MORGAN.]
A German military writer (von der Goltz) of great authority predicted
some years ago that the next war would be one of inconceivable
violence. The prophecy appears only too true as regards the conduct of
German troops in the field; it has rarely been distinguished by that
chivalry which is supposed to characterise the freemasonry of arms.
One of our most distinguished Staff officers remarked to me that the
Germans have no sense of honour in the field, and the almost uniform
testimony of our officers and men induces me to believe that the
remark is only too true.
Abuse of the white flag has been very frequent, especially in the
earlier stages of the campaign on the Aisne, when our officers,
not having been disillusioned by bitter experience, acted on the
assumption that they had to deal with an honourable opponent. Again
and again the white flag was put up, and when a company of ours
advanced unsuspectingly and without supports to take prisoners,
the Germans who had exhibited the token of surrender parted their
ranks to make room for a murderous fire from machine-guns concealed
behind them. Or, again, the flag was exhibited in order to give
time for supports to come up. It not infrequently happened that
our company officers, advancing unarmed to confer with the German
company commander in such cases, were shot down as they approached.
The Camerons, the West Yorks, the Coldstreams, the East Lancs, the
Wiltshires, the South Wales Borderers, in particular, suffered heavily
in these ways. In all these cases they were the victims of organised
German units, _i.e._, companies or battalions, acting under the orders
of responsible officers.
There can, moreover, be no doubt that the respect of the German troops
for the Geneva Convention is but intermittent. Cases of deliberate
firing on stretcher-bearers are, according to the universal testimony
of our officers and men, of frequent occurrence. It is almost certain
death to attempt to convey wounded men from the trenches over open
ground except under cover of night.
_=Killing the Defenceless Wounded.=_--A much more serious offence,
however, is the deliberate killing of the wounded as they lie helpless
and defenceless on the field of battle. This is so grave a charge that
were it not substantiated by the considered statements of officers,
non-commissioned officers, and men, one would hesitate to believe
it. But even after rejecting, as one is bound to do, cases which
may be explained by accident, mistake, or the excitement of action,
there remains a large residuum of cases which can only be explained
by deliberate malice. No other explanation is possible when, as
has not infrequently happened, men who have been wounded by rifle
fire in an advance, and have had to be left during a retirement for
reinforcements, are discovered, in our subsequent advance, with nine
or ten bayonet wounds or with their heads beaten in by the butt-ends
of rifles. Such cases could not have occurred, the enemy being present
in force, without the knowledge of superior officers. Indeed, I have
before me evidence which goes to show that German officers have
themselves acted in similar fashion.
Some of the cases reveal a leisurely barbarity which proves great
deliberation; cases such as the discovery of bodies of despatch-riders
burnt with petrol or "pegged out" with lances or of soldiers with
their faces stamped upon by the heel of a boot, or of a guardsman
found with numerous bayonet wounds evidently inflicted as he was in
the act of applying a field dressing to a bullet wound. There also
seems no reason to doubt the independent statements of men of the
Loyal North Lancs, whom I interrogated on different occasions, that
the men of one of their companies were killed on the 20th of December
after they had surrendered and laid down their arms. To what extent
prisoners have been treated in this manner it is impossible to
say--dead men tell no tales--but an exceptionally able Intelligence
Officer at the headquarters of the Cavalry Corps informed me that it
is believed that when British prisoners are taken in small parties
they are put to death in cold blood. Certain it is that our men when
captured are kicked, robbed of all they possess, threatened with death
if they will not give information, and in some cases forced to dig
trenches....