WHO ARE THE HUNS?

Atrocities of Allied Troops. 145
had agreed to ignore these principles from the very first day
of the war. This systematized breach of the accredited laws
of nations is of the most momentous significance and is bound
to lead to a brutalization of the entire conduct of war.
The Author gives specific details in the original edition of
the barbarous treatment to which civilians were subjected in
Russia, England and France. See original German version,
3rd edition, page 191 et seq., especially the descriptions of the
condition of German civilians in English concentration camps.
A. The number of complaints which have been published
in the press in connection with the maltreatment of prisoners of
war is naturally exceeded by the reports concerning abuses of the
usages of war in battle of which the Frenchmen, the Belgians,
the Russians and the English have made themselves guilty with
regard to our armies. The same accusations are made on the
part of the Allies against our own troops. It must be conceded
that elements enter inte these questions which make an objective
judgment and a thorough supervision of the various statements
exceedingly difficult. The entire passionate sur-excitation of
these participating in the battle, a state of mind which often
amounts to pathological illusion, the frightful physical and
psychological impressions and effects of modern warfare, especially
where huge modern guns are used, etc., make it almost
impossible for either side to judge its own actions or those
of its opponents in a calm, judicial manner. A certain amount
of scepticism is therefore most natural in connection with all
battle reports. The actual and the merely imagined mingle
in an inextricable confusion. The talk of the trenches riots
luxuriantly in a mixture of truth and fiction.
Of course, exception must be made between these fantastic
ideas of what is supposed to happen during the battle and
detailed and special investigations made after the battle.
We shall also do our best when considering the following
stories, to weed out all fantastic yarns from irresponsible soldiers'
letters, whenever there is no way of ascertaining the
truth. So far as we are now able to judge, it is upon such evidence
that most of the nonsense of the French, Belgian and English
press stories (things like the famous "bridge of the dead,"
etc.) is based, as well as the latest Belgian and French "Red
Miiller, Who are the Huns? 10