(2) that in cases where the offence has been committed by individual non-combatants, reprisals must not be inflicted on their fellow-citizens, as the aggrieved army has its legitimate remedy under what is called martial law. Now the Germans have violated this rule and these principles. REPRISALS AND THE GERMANS On many occasions the Germans have had recourse to the plea of reprisals to justify acts of violence committed by them. We shall show that this plea is a misuse of terms. One of the excuses which they have most frequently put forward is that civilians have taken part in the war, in Belgium, in France, in Poland. But the question of the civilian population taking part in military operations is bound up with the question of francs-tireurs, which Germany wanted to solve to suit herself and which will occupy our attention later on. Let us here point out one thing—that the circumstances under which, even according to the German version of events, civilians have taken part in the war, are very often quite enough to condemn Germany. For example, Herr de Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor, thought he could persuade the whole world of the innocence of the German soldiers, whose admitted excesses, so far as Louvain was concerned, were due, he said, to the fact that the young girls of the town had gouged out the eyes of the German soldiers. Let us assume the Chancellor’s good faith in making such a statement. Assuredly he cannot have supposed that this happened in many instances or that it went so far as a general execution. It can only have been reported to him, and he can only have been induced to believe it as an exceptional act. It is not of the nature of such an act, alike from the cruelty which it assumes in women and from the difficulty of carrying it out, to be repeated often, and this is the reason for destroying a town, burning Louvain and pillaging the whole country. “A plea of self-defence like this,” said M. Hanotaux, “by itself gives you a picture of the German soul.” GERMAN SLANDERS WHICH ATTEMPT TO DISGUISE CRUEL ACTS OF THE IMPERIAL TROOPS AS REPRISALS