Two things clearly emerge from this observation. One is that had there been from the beginning of the campaign a regular system of inquiry at General Head-quarters into these things, _pari passu_ with their occurrence, the volume of evidence, great though it is, would have been infinitely greater; the other, that, as there is only too much reason to suppose that with the growing vindictiveness of the enemy things will be worse before they are better, the case for the establishment of such a system throughout the continuance of the War is one that calls for serious consideration. Although I have some claims to write as a jurist I have here made no attempt to pray in aid the Hague Regulations in order to frame the counts of an indictment. The Germans have broken all laws, human and divine, and not even the ancient freemasonry of arms, whose honourable traditions are almost as old as war itself, has restrained them in their brutal and licentious fury. It is useless to attempt to discriminate between the people and their rulers; an abundance of diaries of soldiers in the ranks shows that all are infected with a common spirit. That spirit is pride, not the pride of high and pure endeavour, but that pride for which the Greeks found a name in the word ὕβρις, the insolence which knows no pity and feels no love. Long ago Renan warned Strauss of this canker which was eating into the German character. Pedants indoctrinated it, Generals instilled it, the Emperor preached it. The whole people were taught that war was a normal state of civilisation, that the lust of conquest and the arrogance of race were the most precious of the virtues. On this Dead Sea fruit the German people have been fed for a generation until they are rotten to the core. CHAPTER III DOCUMENTARY I DEPOSITIONS AND STATEMENTS (FIFTY-SIX IN NUMBER) ILLUSTRATING BREACHES OF THE LAWS OF WAR BY THE GERMAN TROOPS, MAINLY OUTRAGES ON BRITISH SOLDIERS _Note._--These documents are here made public for the first time. They have not been published either in the Bryce Report or in the _Nineteenth Century and After_. I have selected the cases of Bailleul and Doulieu as typical of all the rest. Many other communes, _e.g._, Meteren, Steenwerck, La Gorgue, Vieux-Berquin, suffered a similar fate. As regards Bailleul itself I have given only one out of some twenty documents in my possession relating to the rapes committed there; the others are in no way inferior in authenticity, nor are they any less horrible. My object is not to multiply proofs, but to exemplify them. It will be observed that the evidence of British soldiers here given is that of eye-witnesses, except, of course, in cases of rape. As regards the latter, the hearsay evidence is fully corroborated by the French depositions of the victims.--J. H. M. (1)