No doubt the German authorities knew long ago that the deportation of these civilians was a judicial error; or rather that they were sent into Germany to give the people there the occasion to torment and insult the "francs-tireurs captured alive." And yet they were not repatriated until the moment when the fear of famine forced Germany to organize the seizure of foodstuffs and to ration her population. It was not at all because of a spirit of justice that the civil prisoners from Belgium were sent home (and also part of those from France); it was only a measure of economy; the authorities merely wished to prevent their eating German bread, which had become too precious; they preferred to place them in the care of the American charities. And when they were at last sent home, how were they treated? Did the Germans at least show the consideration which the slave-dealers used to show for their black cargo? No; for the slave-dealers had a pecuniary interest in preserving the market value of their flock, while for German militarism the Belgian civilians do not count: _Es ist Krieg_. B.--The "Belgian Atrocities." _The Pretended Cruelty of Belgian Civilians toward the German Army._ In order to organize the massacres by means of which it expected to terrorize our country, the Great General Staff had to have at its disposal troops on which it could count without reserve, which would not shrink before the bloodiest task, and to which no repressive measures would seem excessive. The Staff had to be certain it would be obeyed without hesitation when it ordered, as at Dinant, the death of seven hundred men, women, and children. To obtain soldiers who would undertake such barbarous operations, and operations so contrary to the military spirit, the obsession of the "franc-tireur" would perhaps be insufficient; for there are soldiers even among such troops who are brave and who do not tremble at bogy-stories; there might be honest men among them to whom theft would be repugnant by whatever name one adorned it, and who would not be tempted by the bait of pillage; all were not so imbued with Kultur as that officer who proposed not to kill the "francs-tireurs" outright, but to wound them mortally, afterwards to leave them to die slowly, in agony, untended (p. 342).