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                               GERMANY'S
                           DISHONOURED ARMY.

                     ADDITIONAL RECORDS OF GERMAN
                         ATROCITIES IN FRANCE.

                                  BY
                        PROFESSOR J. H. MORGAN.

            (Late Home Office Commissioner with the British
                         Expeditionary Force.)

                                 1915.

                THE PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITING COMMITTEE,
                       12, DOWNING STREET, S.W.




               (M 3942) Wt. w. 8147-565 500M 8/15 H & S




A DISHONOURED ARMY.


 _In November, 1914, Professor Morgan was commissioned by the Secretary
 of State for Home Affairs to undertake the investigation in France
 into the alleged breaches of the laws of war by the German troops.
 His investigations extended over a period of four or five months.
 The first six weeks were spent in visiting the base hospitals and
 convalescent camps at Boulogne and Rouen, and the hospitals at
 Paris; during the remaining three months he was attached to the
 General Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary Force.
 Professor Morgan orally interrogated some two or three thousand
 officers and soldiers, representing almost every regiment in the
 British armies and all of whom had recently been engaged on active
 service in the field. The whole of these inquiries were conducted by
 Professor Morgan personally, but his inquiries at headquarters were
 of a much more systematic character. There, owing to the courtesy
 of Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, the late Chief of the
 General Staff, he had the assistance of the various services--in
 particular the Adjutant-General, the Provost-Marshal, the Director
 of Military Intelligence, the Director of Medical Services and their
 respective staffs--and also of the civil authorities, within the area
 at present occupied by the British armies, such as the sous-prefets,
 the procureurs de la Republique, the commissaires de police, and the
 maires of the communes. In this way he was enabled not only to obtain
 corroboration of the statements taken down at the base in the earlier
 stages, but also to make a close local study of the behaviour of the
 German troops towards the civil population during their occupation of
 the districts recently evacuated by them. The following is extracted
 (by permission of the Editor) from statements by Professor Morgan
 which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for June, 1915_:--


 [BY PROFESSOR J. H. MORGAN.]

 A German military writer (von der Goltz) of great authority predicted
 some years ago that the next war would be one of inconceivable
 violence. The prophecy appears only too true as regards the conduct of
 German troops in the field; it has rarely been distinguished by that
 chivalry which is supposed to characterise the freemasonry of arms.
 One of our most distinguished Staff officers remarked to me that the
 Germans have no sense of honour in the field, and the almost uniform
 testimony of our officers and men induces me to believe that the
 remark is only too true.

 Abuse of the white flag has been very frequent, especially in the
 earlier stages of the campaign on the Aisne, when our officers,
 not having been disillusioned by bitter experience, acted on the
 assumption that they had to deal with an honourable opponent. Again
 and again the white flag was put up, and when a company of ours
 advanced unsuspectingly and without supports to take prisoners,
 the Germans who had exhibited the token of surrender parted their
 ranks to make room for a murderous fire from machine-guns concealed
 behind them. Or, again, the flag was exhibited in order to give
 time for supports to come up. It not infrequently happened that
 our company officers, advancing unarmed to confer with the German
 company commander in such cases, were shot down as they approached.
 The Camerons, the West Yorks, the Coldstreams, the East Lancs, the
 Wiltshires, the South Wales Borderers, in particular, suffered heavily
 in these ways. In all these cases they were the victims of organised
 German units, _i.e._, companies or battalions, acting under the orders
 of responsible officers.

 There can, moreover, be no doubt that the respect of the German troops
 for the Geneva Convention is but intermittent. Cases of deliberate
 firing on stretcher-bearers are, according to the universal testimony
 of our officers and men, of frequent occurrence. It is almost certain
 death to attempt to convey wounded men from the trenches over open
 ground except under cover of night.

 _=Killing the Defenceless Wounded.=_--A much more serious offence,
 however, is the deliberate killing of the wounded as they lie helpless
 and defenceless on the field of battle. This is so grave a charge that
 were it not substantiated by the considered statements of officers,
 non-commissioned officers, and men, one would hesitate to believe
 it. But even after rejecting, as one is bound to do, cases which
 may be explained by accident, mistake, or the excitement of action,
 there remains a large residuum of cases which can only be explained
 by deliberate malice. No other explanation is possible when, as
 has not infrequently happened, men who have been wounded by rifle
 fire in an advance, and have had to be left during a retirement for
 reinforcements, are discovered, in our subsequent advance, with nine
 or ten bayonet wounds or with their heads beaten in by the butt-ends
 of rifles. Such cases could not have occurred, the enemy being present
 in force, without the knowledge of superior officers. Indeed, I have
 before me evidence which goes to show that German officers have
 themselves acted in similar fashion.

 Some of the cases reveal a leisurely barbarity which proves great
 deliberation; cases such as the discovery of bodies of despatch-riders
 burnt with petrol or "pegged out" with lances or of soldiers with
 their faces stamped upon by the heel of a boot, or of a guardsman
 found with numerous bayonet wounds evidently inflicted as he was in
 the act of applying a field dressing to a bullet wound. There also
 seems no reason to doubt the independent statements of men of the
 Loyal North Lancs, whom I interrogated on different occasions, that
 the