WHO ARE THE HUNS?

118 Franc-Tireur Warfare and Cruelty.
said that some 3000 Germans were rendered incapable of fighting
by this means. Old men and children also took part in this
defence."
All these facts and descriptions furnish the clearest proof
that we have to deal here with systematic, long-prepared
violations of international law, violations which justified the
German soldiers in resorting to the most severe measures of
reprisals and which annulled all claim the guilty ones might
make upon the Rules and Regulations of Warfare on Land, or
upon the consideration of humanity.
Whosoever desires to fire upon our soldiers, or do battle
with them, might follow the example of our two million German
volunteers, who do not adopt the cowardly methods of these
assassins and shoot unsuspecting men from ambush, or strangle
the helpless wounded, stab out their eyes or cut off their ears and
noses, but meet the enemy in the open field and in honorable battle.
In order to approximate correctly the gravity of this lawless
procedure on the part of the two governments, it is necessary
to examine somewhat more closely the motives of the governments
in the conclusions to the 4th Agreement of the 2nd
Peace Conference of October 18th, 1907. These agreements as
to the Rules and Regulations of Warfare by Land of October 18th
1907 (R.G.B1. 1910, Page 107) were, as has been repeatedly
emphasized, concluded and ratified by nearly all the 44 governments
of the earth, these naturally including all the belligerent
powers engaged in the present war. The slight reservations
made by some of the nations are of no particular weight so far
as the points in question here are concerned. Montenegro and
Servia through their ratification of the corresponding resolutions
of the Hague Peace Conference, have acknowledged the
validity of the same principles.
In the introductions to these two important international
agreements we may read these words:
"In accordance with the views of the high contracting
parties, those regulations whose acceptance has been inspired
by the wish to alleviate the afflictions of war so far as this is
rendered possible by military necessity, are to serve the
belligerents as a general guide of conduct for their demeanor
to one another and to the population."