_Photo, Sport and General._ _Face p. 109._] XV. “=France must be so completely crushed that she can never again come across our path.=”--_Gen. Von Bernhardi._ (This statement was made long before war was declared.) What Our Soldiers Say. By innumerable acts of treachery and appalling savagery on the battlefield the German soldiers have forfeited for ever the right to the courtesies usually extended to an honourable foe. The opening phases of the war have shown them in the light of cold-blooded barbarians, rather than honourable soldiers. The well-attested stories of their shocking brutality have no parallel in the history of the world. And in practically every case these incredible acts of cruelty have been committed with the knowledge and approval of their officers. They are carrying out to the letter the advice of the Kaiser to act like the Huns of Attila. British soldiers who have returned wounded from the front are emphatic in their assertions that the German gunners deliberately fired on the hospitals and Red Cross men. One man remarked, “They seemed to take a delight in aiming at hospitals, which had the Red Cross over them. In fact, anything with the Red Cross acted as a target. A church was being used as a hospital, and one of our officers, who had a flesh wound, was taken inside for medical attention. Whilst he was there a shell blew away the roof of the church, and injured him a second time. Fifty men went out under the Red Cross to pick up wounded. They were fired on, and only two of them came back.” A member of the Red Cross organisation stated that the Germans have treated with actual brutality the British wounded who fell into their hands. Twenty-seven British soldiers who were being removed from the field in an ambulance were dragged away and made to march to the Town Hall of Mons, two falling unconscious in the streets on their way. A resident of Ostend, in a letter to this country, put into words the prevailing opinion in Belgium. “These Germans are not true soldiers,” he writes, “they are murderers in uniform. They kill the wounded and shoot the women and children. At one of the charges at Liége the Colonel of the 9th Regiment of the Line was shot through the head, and when his body was recovered later in the day it was found that these German cowards had inflicted at least twenty bayonet stabs on the already dead body.” Helpless Soldiers Maimed. These terrible allegations are borne out by information which has been received by a British officer from his son at the front, who states that the enemy, on coming across wounded British soldiers, proceed to stab them through the right hand with a bayonet, with a view to rendering the hand useless for holding a rifle again.