A
shot fired, no one knows where, or by whom, or against whom, by a
drunken soldier, or an excited sentry, is enough to furnish a pretext
for the sack of a whole city. Individual plunder is succeeded by war
levies of a magnitude which it is impossible to satisfy and by the
taking of hostages who will be shot or kept in confinement until payment
of the ransom in full, according to the well-known procedure of classic
brigandage. It must also be stated that in order to establish the German
case all resistance offered by detachments of the regular army is laid
to the account of the civilian population, and that the invader
invariably avenges himself upon the civilians for the checks or even the
disappointments which he suffers in the course of the campaign.
In the course of this inquiry we use only facts supported by trustworthy
evidence. It should be noted that up to the present we have been able to
record only a small part of the crimes committed against law, humanity,
and civilization, which will constitute one of the most sinister and
most revolting pages in contemporary history. If an international
inquiry, like that which was conducted in the Balkans by the Carnegie
Commission, could be conducted in our country, we are convinced that it
would establish the truth of our assertions.
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