"Not only have they themselves employed this cruel weapon, but the Belgian Government has openly encouraged the civil population to take part in this war, which it had carefully for a long time prepared. The cruelties inflicted, in the course of this guerilla war, by women and even by priests, upon wounded soldiers, doctors, and hospital nurses (doctors have been killed and hospitals fired on) have been such that my generals have finally found themselves obliged to resort to the most rigorous means to chastise the guilty and to prevent the bloodthirsty population from continuing these abominable, criminal, and hateful acts. Many villages, and even the city of Louvain, have had to be demolished (except the very beautiful Hôtel de Ville) in the interest of our defence and the protection of our troops. My heart bleeds when I see that such measures have been rendered inevitable, and when I think of the innumerable innocent persons who have lost their homes and their belongings as a result of the deeds of the criminals in question. "WILHELM I.R." THE GERMAN MILITARY GOVERNMENT. DECLARATION OF THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EMPIRE TO THE ASSOCIATED AND UNITED PRESS, NEW YORK. ... In this way England will tell your compatriots that the German troops have burned and sacked Belgian towns and villages, but she will carefully conceal the fact that young Belgian girls have gouged out the eyes of wounded men stretched defenceless on the field of battle, that the functionaries of Belgian towns have invited German officers to dinner and have treacherously shot them dead at table. Contrary to international law, the whole civil population of Belgium has been called to arms[33] and has treacherously risen against our troops with concealed arms and a perfidy incredible after having first of all feigned a friendly welcome. Belgian women have cut the throats of German soldiers quartered on them while they slept.... _Journal de la Guerre_ (an organ of German propaganda). We will suppose, for the time being--to be extremely generous to the Kaiser and his Chancellor--that they accepted, in good faith, the accusations of cruelty brought against the Belgians, and that they carefully refrained from investigating them, so that they should not be forced to recognize their imbecility. _Voluntary Blindness of the "Intellectual._"