THE TREACHEROUS "GERMAN SOUVENIR"
The word "souvenir" means a remembrance. The Huns have certainly left a
number of things which will be remembrances of them for a long time to
come. At one of the battles near S---- after a successful charge in
which the French had succeeded in capturing the first and second line
German trenches, the boys found some of these souvenirs. One of them, a
lad of twenty-two, picked up a fountain pen which had apparently been
dropped by some soldier in the hasty retreat. The young poilu started to
examine the pen and in doing so unscrewed the cap from it. Just as he
had it about off, an awful explosion occurred and the fellow's face was
blown half off, and his right hand was torn to pieces. We carried him to
the hospital where he was treated by the surgeons but he hardly came to
consciousness and the next day died in horrible agony.
Two days later another Frenchman discovered a watch hanging on a nail.
It was a cheap thing without any intrinsic value, but when he saw it he
thought it would be a nice little relic of the war and reached up to
take it down. It went off with a boom and as a result he has no eyes.
That will be his remembrance of the savage Huns to his dying day. He had
been through many months of war and seen much severe fighting, but the
only thing he will remember about the enemy is their treachery.
Sometimes in war even the vanquished will praise the gallantry and the
bravery of the enemy and will acknowledge that the fight was a fair one,
but all the way through the present conflict the evidence against the
Germans has been more damning and conclusive than has been brought to
light against the most savage peoples that ever lived. Primitive Indians
have done some fearfully horrible deeds in days gone by, but the Indian
never had a fraction of the ingenious power for deviltry that the
followers of Attila possess. A chair was found in one of the dugouts and
when a soldier sat in it he was blown to atoms. There was not enough
left of his body to be recognizable and the pieces were gathered
together and buried in a nameless grave.
One British Tommy started to move a shovel which was found to be
connected with wires leading to a large amount of high explosives. It
happened that the connection was not good and fortunately he received no
harm, but he came within an ace of being blown to pieces. The Germans in
their retreat left behind them poisoned food and flour and very often
poisoned the water in the wells. No man is allowed to taste the water
from any of the wells until it is thoroughly and carefully analyzed for
strychnine and other deadly poisons.
On one occasion some Frenchmen saw a picture hanging on the wall of a
captured dugout. It was noticeably crooked and their first impulse
naturally was to straighten it. For some reason they did not do so
immediately, but a few minutes later a Belgian boy took hold of a corner
of it to pull it straight. He was killed outright and several others
were stunned by the terrific explosion which crumbled the walls and
buried two men with earth. The shelling of cathedrals and the burning of
homes are only insipid pastimes to the Germans.
Sometimes clocks are arranged and the explosions are delayed, and the
clock will tick away for days before it sets off the treacherous bomb.
The I. W. W. anarchists have nothing on the Huns for sneaking, murderous
trickery. Germs of one kind and another were frequently discovered in
bedding and hay, and all of it had to be burned. The placing of germs in
court-plaster and bandages in this country is but a faint echo of the
similar atrocious deeds done over there.
Cases of high explosives were found under road beds, so that when any
heavy weight passed over them they would go off. Men have now been
appointed to study and investigate all these suspicious murder traps and
report them, for the double purpose of forewarning the Allied soldiers
and of bringing undisputable evidence into the peace conference. These
enemies of civilized man must not be allowed to emerge from this
conflict without a day of reckoning for their deeds, whether they be
good or whether they be evil. One good German I did know of on the
Western front, and I will not withhold the highest praise from him. His
name was Kellar. Together with another wounded German named Bauman he
had been taken prisoner. They were both transported to the hospital and
put into adjoining beds. The hospital physician was examining and caring
for Bauman, and in doing so stepped over to a little stand for an
instrument, whereupon Bauman drew a concealed revolver from under the
sheet and shot the doctor. Everybody rushed up to see what was the
matter, but hardly ten seconds passed before Kellar drew a revolver and
shot Bauman dead. He then said that his company had orders to conceal
their weapons and do such things, but he said he was human, and when he
saw the kind and gentle doctor shot down by the patient whom he was
caring for, it made him so mad that he didn't care if Bauman was a
fellow-German, and so he shot him and was glad of it. That man ought to
be an American.