M. Bédier has reproduced in his book the actual original of this document. TREATMENT OF PRISONERS IN GERMANY Once they had left the battlefields for the German fortresses, where they were to be kept under guard, it was inevitable that prisoners of war should be exposed to the most brutal ill-treatment, death, wounds and blows. A regular prison regimen following upon possible outrages on the field of battle would, of course, absolutely prevent that. But all the penalties which the prisoners could possibly be made to suffer under these new circumstances were heaped upon them in profusion. They were not allowed to have their letters; customs duties were imposed on the packages sent to them from their own country, and the transmission of these packages was irregular and uncertain; finally, some of these consignments were constantly and systematically looted. The French Government complained. In fear of reprisals the Germans had to alter their ways, though in some respects they continued as before. They refused to sanction the pay of private soldiers and non-commissioned officers, who had been taken prisoner; they fixed the pay of inferior and superior officers at the ridiculous amounts of sixty and a hundred marks; they refused to serve out allowances of tobacco and cruelly cut short the supply of food. These measures are significant. They show Germany’s view of the prisoner of war. The only favour she allows him is not to kill him, not to beat him, not to let him die outright of hunger. We speak here of orders given and measures taken by the higher command, for which no excuse that pleads the inhumanity of war could be admitted. CHAPTER XI THE MURDER, TORTURE AND VIOLATION OF WOMEN IN INVADED TERRITORY The present and following chapters will contain the most abominable part of this indictment. We shall read the story of outrages of which women have been made victims by the German scoundrels. Were not these outrages, established as they are by certain reports, and confirmed by confessions which the Germans themselves have inadvertently made, the result of the unbridled instincts of an army in a state of delirium? We should like to think so, but the details to hand with regard to the circumstances under which these acts were performed compel us to recognise that something more is involved in them. They reveal the presence of cruelty and thirst for innocent blood in the perpetrators of these murders and acts of violence. Crimes committed against octogenarian old women seem to issue from a special hatred, directed against those who gave birth to their enemies of to-day. The number of acts of violation committed by these invaders proves that there is inherent in the German mind a peculiar contempt for all human laws, a regular bestiality, a cynical audacity, which, if the reins are given to it, borders on madness.