I must admit that out of the forty diaries I have examined, there
are six or seven that tell of no exactions, either from hypocritical
reticence or because certain regiments wage war less vilely. And I even
know of three diaries, whose authors, as they narrate sordid details,
are astonished, moved to indignation, saddened. I shall withhold their
names, because they deserve our consideration, and to spare them the
risk of being one day blamed or punished. The first, P^{te} X ..., who
belongs to the 65^{th} Inf. of the Landwehr, says of some of his fellow
comrades (_Plate 10_):
"They do not behave like soldiers, but like common thieves,
highwaymen and robbers, and are a disgrace to our regiment and our
army."[23]
The second, Lt Y ..., of the 77^{th} Inf. Reserve, says:
"No discipline ... The Pioneers are not worth much; as for the
artillerymen they are a gang of robbers."[24]
[Illustration: _Plate 10._]
And the third, Private Z ..., 12^{th} Inf. Reserve (1 Corps Reserves)
writes (_Plate 11_):
"Unfortunately, I am obliged to mention something which ought never
to have happened; but there are even in our army ruffians who are no
longer men, swine to whom nothing is sacred. One of them entered a
sacristy that was locked, in which was the blessed sacrament. Out of
respect a _protestant_ avoided sleeping there; he polluted the place
with his excrements. How can there be such beings! Last night, a man
of the Landwehr, a man of thirty-five, and a married man, tried to
rape the daughter of a man in whose house he had been quartered, she
was a child; and as the father tried to interpose he kept the point
of his bayonet on the man's breast."[25]
[Illustration: _Plate 11._]
With the exception of these soldiers, who are worthy of the name, the
thirty other writers are the same, and the same soul, if the word be
allowed, seems to animate them all, uncontrolled and low. They are
all alike, yet with some shades of difference. There are some who
make distinctions, like subtle lawyers, sometimes blaming, sometimes
disapproving: "_Dort war ein Exempel am Platze_". And there are some
who sneer: "_Krieg ist Krieg_"; or in French, by preference to add
to their scorn "_Ja, ja, c'est la guerre_"; and there are some who
having done their ugly work, open their Hymn Book, and sing psalms: for
instance the Saxon officer Rieslang, who relates how one day he left
a feast to go to "Gottesdienst", but was obliged to leave hurriedly,
having eaten and drunk too much; or again Private Moritz Grosse of
the 177^{th} Inf. who after describing the sack of St Vieth (22^{nd}
August) and that of Dinant (23^{rd} August) writes this sentence
(_Plate 12_):
Throwing of bombs in the houses. In the evening, military chorale:
_Nun danket alle Gott_ (Now, thank ye all God).[26]
They are all alike. Now, if we consider that I could substitute for
the preceding examples others similar and no less cynical, taken for
instance from the diary of the reservist Lautenschlager, of the 1^{st}
Battalion of the 66^{th} Inf. Reg^t, or from the diary of P^{te} Eduard
Hohl of the VIII Corps, or from the diary of non-commissioned officer
Rheinhold Koehn, of the 2^{nd} Battalion of Pomeranian Pioneers, or
from the diary of the non-commissioned officer Otto Brandt of the
2^{nd} section of the ambulance corps (reserves) or from the diary of
the Reservist Martin Muller, of the 100^{th} Saxon Reserves, or from
the diary of Lt Karl Zimmer, of the 55^{th} Inf. or from the diary of
P^{te} Erich Pressler of the 100^{th} Grenadiers, 1^{st} Saxon Corps,
etc.; and if we notice, that among the extracts already given, there
are very few isolated cases of brutality (as can be and are found, alas
in the most noble minded of armies) and that I have scarcely noted
here any crime that was not done by order, any crime that does not
implicate and dishonour not only the individual soldier, but the whole
regiment, the officer, the very nation; and if we consider that these
thirty diaries, whether they be Bavarian or Saxon, Baden or Rhenish,
Pomeranian or from Brandenburg, taken haphazard must represent hundreds
and thousands of similar ones, all of a fearful monotony, we shall be
obliged to allow, I think, that, M. René Viviani in no way overstated
the case when from the French tribune he spoke of "this system of
collective murder and pillage which Germany calls war".
[Illustration: _Plate 12._]