In other further Articles it was laid down that a belligerent is forbidden to force the inhabitants of territory occupied by him to furnish information about the army of the other belligerent, or about its means of defence. It was forbidden to confiscate private property, and also laid down that family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Pillage was forbidden, and prisoners must be humanely treated. Uncivilized Warfare. Stories of German brutality and ruthless disregard of these rules of civilized warfare as set out above were, from the opening of the war, continually reaching England. At first the public were sceptical about such tales of horror. Unfortunately, however, it was too clearly seen that the Germans made war in a manner which was very far from being civilized. Atrocities were being committed with a definite object--an object which was self-revealed, not only by the effacement of Louvain, “a shameless holocaust of irreparable treasures lit up by blind barbarian vengeance,” but by the disgraceful admissions sent forth from the German wireless station which I have already quoted. The character of the warfare of these modern Huns was to terrorize the inhabitants of a hostile country, so that the invader might proceed on his way without fear of molestation. Therefore, the unspeakable crimes of the Kaiser’s forces have not even the excuse of being outbursts of national savagery. The shameful record contained in these pages are the cold and calculated brutalities of a nation who boasted of its “culture,” whose prayerful Emperor held up his hands to his Maker invoking success for his horde of ruthless barbarians, but who has shown that in war he respects no law of God, and regards the solemn treaties of nations as “scraps of paper.” “We can only pray for a hastening of the day when all that is best in the German people will reassert itself as of old, and when the long reign of an arrogant and ruthless military caste will be looked back to by the countrymen of Schiller and Goethe as a nightmare that never can return.” --From the American _Nation_. I. Article XXIII. of The Hague Convention forbids:--“To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army.” From almost the first day of the war this undertaking, given by Germany along with the other Great Powers, has been treated by her as a “scrap of paper.”