GERMAN USE OF PROHIBITED IMPLEMENTS OF WAR
Among savage races, or even nearer home, before certain agreements had
been made between nations, poisoned or barbed arrows, small shot, pounded
glass, and soft-nosed bullets were used to aggravate the condition
of wounded enemies to the worst possible extent. To-day all these
contrivances are prohibited, with the consent of Germany, who signed
the conventions which embodied this prohibition. German jurists like
Bluntschli approved this concurrence of opinion, and the German General
Hartmann declared that for a long time these kinds of projectiles have
gone into the lumber-rooms of arsenals.
This fact, however, did not prevent Germany from resorting in this war to
the use of weapons of the same kind, or even the still more formidable
dum-dum bullets. Moreover, dum-dum bullets are expressly specified among
the list of prohibitions laid down by the Hague Conference, 29th July,
1899, prohibitions signed by Germany and her ally Austria. These declare
that “the contracting parties forbid the use of bullets which expand or
easily get flattened in the human body, such as bullets with a hard outer
case which does not completely cover the core or is notched at the end.”
THE USE OF DUM-DUM BULLETS IN BELGIUM
The report of the military governor of Ghent, Lieutenant-general L.
Clooten, and the results of experiments made by M. V. Rousseaux, armoury
expert at Antwerp, prove indisputably that these bullets were in use
among the Germans. The following is the report—
“_Headquarters at Ghent, 26th September, 1914._
“SIR,
“I have the honour to send herewith some cartridges with
bullets of the kind called ‘dum-dum,’ seized on the Hanoverian
Lieutenant von Halden, who was taken prisoner at Ninove, by my
troops, on the 29th inst.
“This officer’s pistol, which he threw away shortly before his
capture, could not be found again.
“LIEUTENANT-GENERAL L. CLOOTEN,
“Military Governor.”
The following is the result of the experiment made by M. V. Rousseaux—
“The box with green label which you send me (20 cartridges
for Mauser self-loading pistols of calibre 7·63) must have
contained full cartridges. It contains three rows of expanding
dum-dum bullets, taken from the special boxes with yellow
labels. These bullets were made to expand by the process of
manufacture, and it is impossible to make them so by hand.
“V. ROUSSEAUX,
“Armoury Expert.
“_Antwerp, 28th September, 1914._”
THE USE OF DUM-DUM BULLETS ON FRENCH SOIL
The first instance of the use of dum-dum bullets on French soil goes back
to the early days of the war. It was denounced by the French Government
in the protest which they addressed (21st August, 1914) to the signatory
powers of the Hague Convention.
This protest points out that “on the 10th August, 1914, after an
engagement between French and German troops, a surgeon-major sent to the
general in command of the Infantry Brigade” a case found on the road
to Munster “close to the German Custom-House,” which contained five
cartridges primed with cylindro-conical bullets cut at the end, the
nickel cover of which was incomplete and left bare the upper portion of
the lead slug.
This was not the only instance. On the 14th September, Dr. Chas.
Lavielle, superintendent of the auxiliary hospital of Baignots-à-Dax,
sent to the sub-prefect of the department of Landes a report on the
operations which had been performed on patients, and declared that four
of them had been struck by expanding bullets. Photographs were appended
to the report.
Doctor Napieralski, physician-in-chief of the 7th auxiliary hospital of
the third French army corps à Pont Audemer, noted the case of a foot
soldier wounded in the shoulder with a huge scar as big as an open hand.
It was not an ordinary wound.
The wounded man’s name was Adrien Bousquet, the foreman of some
electricity works at Verdalles. He related (said the report) that on the
2nd November, in a battle to the East of Ypres, he found himself cut off
with his section from the rest of his company.
For three days his comrades and he fired from a trench, but at last,
on the 5th November, they were outnumbered. The majority surrendered.
Bousquet, however, not wishing to be made prisoner, tried to escape
towards the main body of his troop. He was fired at from different sides.
All at once he felt in his shoulder so violent a concussion that it
actually turned him round. Still, it was only a bullet which had struck
him.
Dr. Napieralski noted that there could be no question of a wound caused
by a bursting shell, for the wound showed no trace of powder nor any
blackish stain of metallic oxide.
As the wounded man was carrying his knapsack on his back, Dr. Napieralski
adds that the explosive force of the bullet was increased by the pressure
of the knapsack. The result was that the sinews were torn over a wide
surface and the bone formation of the shoulder-blade was shattered.
The depositions of the other wounded men who took part in the battle in
which Bousquet was wounded confirm all his statements. On that day, at
this point on the front, no artillery battle took place, and the Germans
made use of many explosive bullets; no mistake is possible on this point,
for it is easy to recognise them because as soon as they touch the
ground, or any obstacle whatever, they burst with a dry, crackling noise.
All the wounded who were questioned quote typical examples of deaths and
wounds caused by these bullets; they also mention numerous witnesses,
soldiers, their own comrades, whose evidence it is easy to collect and
who will confirm their statements (_Temps_, 29th December).
USE OF THE SAME KIND OF BULLETS IN THE COLONIES
German troops have used dum-dum bullets on all fronts and at every point
where military operations were in progress. The fact that they have done
so was proved particularly in the Togoland battles and confirmed by the
English Governor of the Gold Coast in his report to the Colonial Minister
in London (September 1914).
COUNTER-ACCUSATIONS BY THE GERMANS
The discovery of these facts could not fail to arouse universal
indignation which Germany tried to forestall by accusing her enemies of
similar acts. The Kaiser used the Wolff Bureau to make this accusation
against France and England, and lodged a complaint against both with the
President of the United States. France immediately issued a denial in
a telegram under date 11th September, 1914. Another denial drawn up on
September 8 had come from England.
The _Lokal-Anzeiger_ and the _Tag_ of Berlin (September 10) published
facsimiles of cartridges, and of pouches of cartridges alleged to be
_dum-dum_, found by German troops at Longwy. Now, the very inscription
on these pouches—“Practice Cartridges”—showed the futility of the
accusation, for it proves that here we have to do merely with ammunition
for use at the rifle-ranges of military training clubs. As these ranges
sometimes had to be prepared in a hurry, it was a case of necessity to
send them cartridges crushed at the end, so that the speed of the bullet
should be reduced and that it should not go right through targets which
were not thick enough.
These cartridges were not even used at the regimental rifle-range, and
the fact that they neutralise the projectile capacity of the French rifle
was a still stronger reason why nobody ever thought of using them in war.
Moreover, the Germans left at Compiègne, and on several battlefields
of France, pouches, carefully put in a conspicuous position, of French
cartridges which they had made into dum-dum bullets by scooping out the
protruding end. The object of this artifice was to give currency to the
belief that these prohibited missiles were used by the French troops.
The following is the reply made by the President of the United States to
the Emperor of Germany. “In reply to your protest, the United States can
do nothing. I do not think your Majesty expects me to say more.”
DOCTORS ATTACHED TO THE GERMAN MEDICAL SERVICE HAVE ADMITTED THAT THE
GERMAN ACCUSATION WAS FALSE
People who allowed themselves to be deceived by an accusation which had
its origin in Germany soon received proof, and from Germany too, that the
accusation was false.
Professor Straub, of Freiburg in Bresgau, published in a Munich medical
journal the results of his inquiry into the nature of the French bullet.
He admitted that, from the medical point of view, this bullet was
composed of an admirable alloy, which could not poison, and he came to
the conclusion that it was humane. Dr. Haberlin, a Swiss doctor attached
to the hospitals at Arlon and at Louisburg, where he had chiefly German
wounded under his care, declared on his honour that he had never heard
tell of wounds inflicted on Germans by dum-dum bullets.
DUM-DUM BULLETS USED AGAINST THE RUSSIANS
That the Germans used dum-dum bullets against the Russians was proved in
a hospital at Vilna, where a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian infantry,
wounded in the leg, chanced to be under treatment. The wound, which at
its entrance was smaller than a penny, was as large as a hand where the
bullet left the body.
The photograph of one of the dum-dum bullets used in this way was given
by the _Novoïé Vrémia_ on 17th September, 1914.
Moreover, the German missiles used against the Russian troops often gave
off poisonous gases which caused the death of the wounded, and which were
expressly forbidden by the Hague Conventions (1899) under the category
of “projectiles, the sole purpose of which is to spread asphyxiating or
noxious gases.”
THE SAME PRACTICES FOLLOWED IN AUSTRIA
The use of explosive bullets by the German troops was regularly followed
by their allies, the Austrians, both on the Russian front and the Serbian.
The superintendent of the Red Cross at Petrograd was informed at the
beginning of the war by his deputy at the first outpost detachment that,
after Austrian field works had been taken, a large quantity of explosive
bullets in special pouches and in belts for use in machine-guns had been
found, and also many spent cartridges which had been adapted for this
kind of bullet. These bullets bore the date 1914, and were used on every
occasion that the Russians took the offensive.
On the other hand, “The use of explosive bullets by the Austrians,”
declared an official note of the Russian Government, “has been often
proved by medical reports and photographs of wounds.” Cartridges and
bullets which have been captured leave no doubt on that point. The
Russian troops which had succeeded in taking the village of Lajenki,
near Nemirof, found there 10,000 explosive bullets, the place of origin
of which is obvious from the fact that they had the stamp of an Austrian
arsenal upon them.
On the 21st October, near Przemsyl, the Russian troops took some
machine-guns, the belts of which were full of cartridges with explosive
bullets.
Moreover, all the Serbian generals without exception declared that the
Austrians employed explosive bullets on the whole Serbian front. The
first ten rounds from the machine-guns were always, they said, made
with this kind of bullet, and the Austrian soldiers were provided with
explosive cartridges in the proportion of 20 per cent.
Again, Dr. Reiss, professor at the University of Lausanne, who was sent
to Serbia as a special commissioner of the _Gazette de Lausanne_, and
who returned from his expedition on the 10th December, told of numerous
Austrian bullets which had been found on Balkan battlefields and which
all the marksmen to whom they were shown declared to be explosive.