It was not unknown abroad, however, at any rate among jurists familiar with the work of the Hague Conferences, that there existed in Germany a “Code for War on Land” (_Kriegsgebrauch im Landeskriege_), published in Berlin by the Staff in 1902. The handbook, it was realized, had been written in quite a different spirit from that which animated the labours of the two Conferences. This special war-code for the use of German officers openly condemned all humanitarian ideas, all tender regard for persons or property, as incompatible with the nature and object of war; it authorized every means of attaining that object, and it left the choice and practice of those means to the entire discretion of the corps commanders. Still, however uneasy the exponents of international law may have felt as to the spread of such theories in Germany, they were reassured by the Imperial Government’s solemn acceptance of the 1907 Hague Convention and of the moral principles laid down therein. Accordingly it is with feelings of surprise and horror, shared by the whole civilized world, that they look on at the war waged in the Emperor’s name. The conduct of this war has indeed been ruthless in the extreme. Almost from the very outset the invader has worked as much havoc as possible, in order to terrorize the inhabitants and to reduce them more quickly to submission. The Germans of 1870 had shown too much tenderness towards the civilian, too much respect for historic monuments, too much consideration for private property. Murder, arson, and pillage have followed in the wake of their descendants. We have learnt how detachments of soldiers, specially drafted for this purpose from the engineers’ corps, used various incendiary appliances to destroy unoffending little towns and villages—Louvain, Tamines, Rethy, and other places in Belgium, and Orchies in France. Belgium was the first victim of this _furor teutonicus_ of which General von Moltke boasted—Belgium, who, after putting up a heroic fight against her violators, expected to be treated as a conquered country, but not to be flung as a prey to the disciplined brutes of the invading army. This is one of the processes on which the General relied for winning an early victory, that victory of which he spoke with the faith of a zealot. It has turned out, however, that these abominable methods, instead of forcing the Belgians to confess themselves beaten, have only steeled them to a more vigorous resistance.