After all, the picture does not seem so terrible as this good missionary would make out. In any case he has failed to make out a case which will bear comparison with that already proved against the German army in Europe, or even so bad as the treatment dealt out by German civilians to their fellow-countrymen during August, 1914. Furthermore it may be safely assumed that the bitterness of the natives is to be ascribed to German tyranny, which culminated, as Norden relates on p.16 of his book, in the strangling of a number of natives, including chiefs of tribes just before the advent of the British. Still his book has had due influence on German public opinion. A German lady in a book full of hysterical hate[223] has based a foul charge upon Norden's statements (besides publishing his experiences the missionary has delivered many public lectures), that the English and French left German women to the mercies of the natives! [Footnote 223: Louise Niessen-Deiters: "Kriegsbriefe einer Frau" ("The War Letters of a Woman"), p. 56.] "In the hearts of all those Germans who in this great time, are banished from the Fatherland and who do not know how things really stand, there burns a great hate, hate for England and the ardent desire to fight against her--the basest and most hated of all our enemies. "I have come to the end of my report, which contains only a fraction of the outrages committed by Albion. And this nation talks of German atrocities! If all the lies spread by the English Press were true, even then England would have every reason to be dumb. Only he who has felt the effects of English hate upon his own person can understand the brutal deeds perpetrated recently on Germans in London and Liverpool. There, England's moral depth is revealed only too clearly, and before the world she seeks to drag us down to the same level."[224] [Footnote 224: Norden's book, p. 43 _et seq_.] Considering that the total number of Germans captured in the Cameroons is only equal to the number of civilians murdered or wounded in British towns by Zeppelin bombs, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the German Government, one begins to wonder whether Norden and his countrymen possess any sense of proportion. Germans are assiduous students of Shakespeare, but have seemingly overlooked the comedy: _Much ado about Nothing_. Ireland is another text for long and windy sermons of German hate, but the conclusion of one of these tirades[225] will suffice to show Germany's real motive. [Footnote 225: Dr. Hans Rost: "Deutschland's Sieg, Irland's Hoffnung" ("Germany's Victory, Ireland's Hope"), p. 25 _et seq_.]