1 kleiner sous = 4 pfennig. 1 grosser sous = 8 " 1/2 sous = 2 " He has a vocabulary of French words in his own handwriting. His record is one of honest distress at the pillage done by his comrades. When the French soldiers say "C'est la Guerre"--"that's the way it is with war"--they refer to the monotony of it, or the long duration, or some curious ironic contrast between a peaceful farmyard scene and a Taube dropping bombs. The Germans say it again and again in their diaries, sometimes in the French phrase, sometimes "Das ist der Krieg," and almost always they use it in speaking of a village they have burned or peasants they have shot. To them that phrase is an absolution for any abomination. It is the blood-brother of "military necessity." Carl Zimmer, Lieutenant of the 57th Infantry of the VII Corps, has a diary that runs from August 2 to October 17, 1914. On August 29 he tells of marching through a village of Belgium. "Very many houses burned whose inhabitants had shot at our soldiers. 250 Civilians shot." At the head of his diary he writes: "Mit Gott für König und Vaterland." His record is in ink. Bielefeld in Westphalia is his home town. Prussia has Prussianized Germany. These diaries cover the Empire. The writers are Rhenish Pomeranian and Brandenburgian, Saxon and Bavarian. And the very people, such as the Bavarians and Saxons, whom we had hoped were of a merciful tradition, have bettered the instruction of the military hierarchy at Berlin. What Prussia preached they have practiced with the zeal of a recent convert eager to please his master. Fahlenstein, a reservist of the 34 Fusiliers, II Army Corps, writes on August 28th: "They (the French troops) lay heaped up 8 to 10 in a heap, wounded and dead, always one on top of the other. Those who could still walk were made prisoners and brought with us. The severely wounded, with a shot in the head or lungs and so forth, who could not make further effort, received one more bullet, which ended their life. That is indeed what we were ordered to do." [Illustration: "The severely wounded received one more bullet. That is what we were ordered to do."--The diary of Reservist Fahlenstein of the 34 Fusiliers.] [Illustration: Photograph of the German Diary, examined by the writer of this book. It was written by Corporal Menge of the 8th. Company of the 74th. Reserve Infantry. He reports: "A curé and his sister hanged, houses burned."] ("Die schwer verwundeten ... bekamen dennoch eine Kugel zu, dass ihr Leben ein Ende hatte. Das ist uns ja auch befohlen worden.") His unwillingness to do the wicked thing must be subordinated to the will of the officer. Corporal Menge of the Eighth Company of the 74th Reserve Infantry, 10 Reserve Corps, writes in his diary for August 15: