“I do not know,” continued the Arch-presbyter, where the doctor of whom the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ speaks has got his information. “I think it necessary to state here again that in the hospitals of Aix-la-Chapelle there is not a single wounded man to be found whose eyes have been gouged out, and no Red Cross sister who has suffered the above-mentioned mutilation.” In this way was the device foiled. The attempts made to disguise the German crimes as reprisals led to nothing. REPRISALS AMONG THE ALLIES These took place on account of the treatment of German prisoners of war after their internment. Even on this question complete equality has not yet been reached, as the Allies did not desire to treat their prisoners in the least like Germany treats hers. In their behaviour towards civilians the Allies have always confined themselves to the limits prescribed by martial law, without having recourse to the right of reprisals. In Alsace, German immigrants very nearly gave occasion for reprisals. At Cernay, a French section which had deployed lost thirty-eight men, who had all been struck in the back; the shots had been fired in the town, before any German soldier could have reached there. At Lutran, the German teacher fired on a cavalry patrol and killed two horses. This attitude of the Germans of Alsace, as well as the numerous arrests of German spies caught red-handed in the course of operations in Upper Alsace, brought several persons before a court-martial. In these citations the procedure of war was scrupulously observed. This was particularly the case with the Mayor and the comptroller of the post office of Thann, as also with the wife of a German forester of Schlierbach, who was condemned to death by the court-martial for having led several soldiers into an ambuscade. Only on one occasion did the French speak of reprisals and threaten to carry them out. This threat was delivered by aeroplanes, which threw down proclamations declaring “We have many hostages in our hands. For every Alsatian killed, we shall kill ten Germans; for every Alsatian wounded, we shall kill a German.” The object was to protect Alsatian civilians, who had fallen into the hands of the Germans again, against the vengeance of the latter. CONCLUSION To sum up, while the Allies, in face of the cruelties committed by their enemies, waived or restricted their right of reprisals; the Germans, on the contrary, not only exercised it, but boldly exceeded it, using it as a random excuse to justify a policy of vengeance and terrorisation. Acts of little importance were repressed by them like outrages. The doings of a single individual brought about the ruin of a village. Still more, these doings were invented to justify gratuitous excesses practised for the mere purpose of terrorisation. These general remarks were necessary before embarking on the story of the excesses and crimes which Germany wished to dispute and the details of which we are about to read.