This incident occurred during the fighting before Charleroi, cables a
war correspondent:
“Yet another band of Uhlans was captured Sunday at the gates of Courtrai
by a detachment of French chasseurs. Their chief officer was found to be
Lieut. Count von Schwerin, a nephew of the Kaiser. The young commander
is only 25 years old and has been married only seven months. The officer
commanding the French detachment found that the Count’s sword was a
present from the Emperor himself and bore an inscription to that effect
on the blade.
“The Count’s saber, belt and helmet were brought to-day to St. Ouen and
presented to the wife of the officer who made the capture. The sword was
blood-stained and its point twisted.”
“CRIME TO SPARE SPY’S LIFE”
The correspondent of the Paris _Temps_, who had occasion to follow them
on the way to the front, is loud in his admiration of the British
soldiers’ discipline, equipment and commissariat arrangements. But what
he admired most was the summary methods of dealing with spies, every one
convicted being shot immediately. A British captain explained his
attitude through a French interpreter as follows:
“You French pride yourselves on your humanity in cases where humanity is
a mere useless sentimentality. To spare the life of a spy by postponing
his trial is a crime against our own troops. A spy may be able by some
means to convey a harvest of news to his own side, so as to enable the
enemy to surprise us precisely when we hoped to surprise him. In such
cases, inopportune indulgence may cost the lives of several hundreds of
our own troops.”