Hitherto we have considered only those German lies which were addressed to the Belgians. But there are better lies than these: they lie to their own troops. At the outset of the invasion of Belgium the German soldiers were led to believe that they were already in France, quite close to Paris, even in October and November 1914. Germans in cantonments near Roulers, in Flanders, believed that they were only eight miles from Paris, and they used to ask the correspondent of the _Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant_ to show them "a place they could see the Eiffel Tower from." This, it may be said, proves that in all armies there are soldiers of small intelligence, even in the German Army. No: it proves that in this latter army the officers lie with method. You may judge. The soldiers tended in the hospital of the Palais de Justice in Brussels used to date their letters "Paris"; and it was by order of their superior officers that they deceived their families. The official journal, _Deutsche Soldatenpost_, in its issue for the 16th October, 1914, contains a little poem entitled "Hindenburg," whose third stanza commences: _Vor Paris aber steht das deutsche Heer..._ (But the German host stands before Paris.) This, be it noted, on the 16th October, more than a month after the battle of the Marne. About the same time a soldier in Antwerp learned from his officers that if the German army had not yet entered Paris it was merely to avoid the plague, which was raging there (_N.R.C._, 20th October, 1914, morning). After that, who can doubt that systematic lying forms part of the duties of an officer towards his men? 2. PERSEVERANCE IN FALSEHOOD. Nothing is left to chance in the campaign of lies any more than in the military campaign proper. The Great General Staff organizes everything with the same care--the attacks of "francs-tireurs," the benzine syringes, the pastilles of fulminating cotton employed in the rapid starting of conflagrations--just as it organizes the manoeuvres of the Press intended to direct the mentality of the troops towards a policy of pitiless repression. They even try to educate (which means, to pervert the minds of) the prisoners of war in their concentration camps. Thus in No. 5 of _La Guerre_, a journal especially intended for prisoners of war (published the 10th March, 1915), a passage is reproduced from the "Records of the War," by Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Here is an extract: "Finally, one should read the notices on the detestable attitude of the civil population of Belgium, of both sexes, in the present war: notices officially confirmed and attested in writing by several priests: according to which the populace, behaving a hundred times worse than ferocious beasts, have horribly mutilated and gouged out the eyes of poor wounded German soldiers, afterwards slowly stifling them by pouring sawdust into their nose and mouth."