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The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 31, 1916. THE UNSPEAKABLE GERMAN

There is a very real danger that we may become accustomed by family arity to the criminal atrocities of the German and accept them as an inevitable part of. the war. The world.has ueen subjected to shock after shock by the fiendish and calculated outrages perpetrated against unoffending citizens in defiance of all the laws of nations and of humanity, and there is a risk that our feelings may become' 'deadened in a measure to. the full horror of' these crimes. The frightful atrocities committed against the Belgian and Serbian civil population; •the unspeakable horrors which can only be hinted at in the Press, and which but. for the unanswerable evidence on record would be unbelievable, aro even now little but unpleasant memories with many people. The crime of, the Lusitania, with its brutal and calculated murder of hundreds of inoffensive women and children, has lost some .of its power to stir the hearts of men by the very frequency with which it has been systematically repeated wherever opportunity ottered to German submarines. The bombardment of undefended towns and the murder of women and little children by Gorman raiding vessels and tho equally inhuman and organised raids by Zeppelins seeking to .terrorise the civilian population by dropping bombs on residential quarters of undefended towns —these have become familiar occurrences, and we havo come to treat them almost as a recognised feature of war. Yet are horrors invented by German inhumanity and opposed to all the principles of honourable warfare—the deeds of an utterly criminal nation planned by monster's of heartless cruelty. The-bru-tal shooting of Nurse Ca,vell, and the. despicably callous starving and maltreating of their prisoners of war, are but additions to the terrible list with which the German nation_ has befouled the' name of Christianity and outraged every canon of humanity. And into this cup of horrors, full to overflowing, the master criminals of this shameful and dishonoured people continue to pour fresh iniquities. To-day v<i are told of the murder of the captain of the steamer Brussels, captured by German submarines. This gallant British seaman, to save his steamer from being sunk by a submarine, ( stcered his vessel straight at the underwater pirate, forcing it to dive, and thus escaped destruction. On a subsequent voyage the Brussels was captured_ owing to the fog and the captain.has now been tried by a German Court-martial on the technical pretext that as a civilian lie had no right to attack an armed German vessel and has beon sentenced to death and shot. It is a shameful crime cloaked under the name of martial law—a cruel and cowardly act prompted by a spirit of vindictive hatred backed by the hope that it will strike terror into the hearts of British seamen and make easier the lot of the submarine pirates in their campaign of piracy and murder. We must never allow ourselves ,to forget these crimes. Yet another horror, typically German, is related in connection with what has beon termed "thje slave raids" at Lille and other French towns in the hands of the Germans. The story is told in our cable' news. Thousands of French girls and young women have been abducted without warning at night from the homes of their heartbroken parents by the Kaiser's bru- 1 tal soldiers and sent like cattle— God knows where. The pretext in this case is that they arc wanted for labour elsewhere; but the abductions appear to have been carried out in a manner calculated to cause the greatest possible agony and distress of mind to the French families affected, whose sufferings have beon accentuated in every possible way with devilish ingenuity by the monsters of iniquity who conceived this latest outrage. There must be a full reckoning for these dreadful deeds. It would bo to our everlasting shame if wo as a nation permitted any settlement of this war which failed to provide that those responsible for the inhuman practices of the Germans at sea and ashore were fittingly punished. Tho men mainly responsible are those at the head of the nation—the Kaiseu and his advisers, military and civil. The progress of events in the war should not be allowed to dull our memory of the needless "horrors; the terrible agony and suffering inflicted on inoffensive citi-

Zens and helpless women and children by the frightfulness. deliberately and systematically planned and executed by these vile assassins and torturers.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19160731.2.28

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2837, 31 July 1916, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
745

The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 31, 1916. THE UNSPEAKABLE GERMAN Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2837, 31 July 1916, Page 6

The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 31, 1916. THE UNSPEAKABLE GERMAN Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2837, 31 July 1916, Page 6

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