In the belief that this question was vital to the success of the second and all subsequent Liberty Loans, and for the full awakening of the American people, at the request of several bankers of New York, with Mr. Chamberlain I sailed for France late in June, and returned to this country in September. As guests of the British and French governments we had every opportunity of visiting the devastated regions of Belgium and France, and those long journeys through the ruined farms, villages and cities brought the opportunity of conversing with hundreds of victims of German cruelty, who gave us their testimony on the very spots where the atrocities had been committed. At the request of Henry M. and W. C. Leland of Detroit, and Richard H. Edmonds of Baltimore, I have brought together this simple record of the bare facts that came under our own personal scrutiny. In the nature of the case, many atrocities that were carefully studied cannot be presented in this report because the witnesses reasonably fear that their families, just behind the German lines, might be made to suffer were their testimony to become known. It should be added that Mr. Chamberlain will shortly make his report from the view-point of the financier and investigator of industrial conditions in Belgium and France. The first two of the following chapters embody the substance of addresses given in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Indianapolis, and some thirty other cities during October, 1917, in connection with the Second Liberty Loan. The third substantially presents views of addresses in Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Butte, Denver, and thirty other cities during the First Liberty Loan. N. D. H. _Brooklyn, N. Y., January, 1918._ Contents I. GERMAN ATROCITIES, THEIR NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY 13 II. THE PAN-GERMAN EMPIRE SCHEME, FOR WHICH GERMANY LOST HER SOUL 63 III. WHAT THE UNITED STATES AND HER ALLIES ARE FIGHTING FOR 101 IV. ASTOUNDING CLAIMS AND RECORDS FROM GERMAN SOURCES 141 V. ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAYING GERMAN ATROCITIES 161 I German Atrocities, Their Nature and Philosophy _Did the Kaiser's Charge Render the Later Atrocities Inevitable?_ When Charles IX of France was urged to kill Coligny, he finally consented, in these words, "Assassinate Admiral Coligny, but leave not a Huguenot alive in France to reproach me." That first assassination made the later atrocities inevitable. When the Kaiser and his War Staff determined to kill, they delayed for a time, but once their hands were dripping with blood, the first massacres made it necessary to go on, and kill the Belgians and Frenchmen who had witnessed the crimes. So came the unspeakable atrocities of the Germans.