It is the most bestial part of this most bestial thing that it is
calculated and a matter of orders. The private soldier takes his share
of the loot, and is generally the instrument of the cold and ordered
killing; but it is the officer-class which most profits in goods, and it
is the higher command which dictates the policy. It was so in 1870. It
is much more so to-day.
This note of calculation is particularly to be seen in the fluctuations
through which that policy has passed. When the enemy was absolutely
certain of victory, outnumbering the invader by nearly two to one and
sweeping all before him, we had massacres upon massacres: Louvain,
Aerschot, the wholesale butchery of Dinant, the Lorraine villages (and
in particular the hell of Guebervilliers). Even at the very extremity of
his tide of invasion, and in the last days of it, came the atrocities
and destruction of Sermaize. In the very act of the defeat which has
pinned him and began the process of his destruction he was attempting
yet a further repetition of these unnameable things at Senlis under the
very gates of Paris.
Then came the months when he felt less secure. The whole thing was at
once toned down by order. Pillage was reduced to isolated cases, and
murder also. Few children suffered.
A recovery of confidence throughout his Eastern successes last summer
renewed the crimes. Poland is full of them, and the Serbian land as
well.
In general, you have throughout these months of his ordeal a regular
succession, of excess in vileness when he is confident, of restraint in
it when he is touched by fear.
This effect of fear upon the dull soul is a characteristic familiar to
all men who know their Prussian from history, particularly the wealthier
governing classes of Prussia. It is a characteristic which those who are
in authority during this war will do well to bear in mind. Properly
used, that knowledge may be made an instrument of victory.