The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1915. THE KAISER'S WAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 60, 13 March 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1915. THE KAISER'S WAR.

In liis introduction to Austin Harrison’s remarkably interesting book entitled “The Kaiser’s War,” Frederic Harrison, the well-known English writer and publicist, remarks that the enormous ambitipn imputed to the German War Lord, the inhuman barbarities charged against German troops, are crimes against humanity so revolting to our age that good people of Britain even now can hardly believe such folly and such wickedness to have possessed a great and highly educated people of modern Europe. In his books and in the “English Review” (of which he is editor), Mr Austin Harrison has for years endeavoured to explain from his own personal know-1 ledge the tremendous conspiracy which' the German military and naval lead-1 ors were concocting against the peace! of Europe, the independence of States 1 and especially against the British Empire, and his present work is a summary of ten years’ collection of firsthand knowledge of the schemes of William 11. and his nautical experts to wrest from Britain her Colonial Empire and her command of the seas. Mrj Harrison deals scathingly with the German tinsel art movement and its] spread over , Europe, and how such things contributed to promote the idea] of German peacefulness and culture,j whereas the truth is that Germans! of all orders and ranks, professors, ar-j tists, workmen, and bourgeois, are all ( simple privates in the tremendous, army worked by the military caste, which for a generation lias menaced j Europe and befooled the British public. The German War Book issued by the General Staff of the German Army is proof enough that all Mr Harrison j claims is true, and it is at least in-, teresting to find authority for outrages and brutalities and violations of regulations set out for the instruction its troops by the General Staff itself, j The book, which was evidently drawn up before the war negm, has just been translated into English, and long extracts from it appear in late British papers. The peculiar logic ■ of the volume, as its trails-) lator, Professor Morgan, points! out, consists for the most) part in ostentatiously laying down unimpeachable rules and then quietly destroying them by exceptions. What makes the hook particularly mischievous is that the line sentiments with which it teems are always very vague, while the exceptions that are held to justify brutal conduct or the breach of rules are made so explicit and com-' prehensive that excuse might he found in them for almost every crime. 'Touching upon “assassination, incendiarism, robbery,” and similar methods of gaining an advantage, which most nations have avoided and condemned, it is set forth that “considerations of chivalry,

generosity, and honor may dcndunc in such, cases a hasty and unsparing ox ploitation of such advantages as in decent and dishonorable, but In\ which is less touchy allows it. Tin ugly and inherently immoral aspect of such methods cannot affect the re cognition of their lawfulness. Tin necessary aim of war gives the belligerent the right and imposes upon him according to circumstances, the dutj not to let slip the important, it may be the decisive, advantages to he gained by such means.” in short, in every case- where German “necessity” arises, every principle of honor and humanity is ruthlessly set aside—to further German ends! For example, property, we are told, should be respected, but if the “necessity of war” makes it advisable, “every sequestration, every appropriation, temporary or permanent, every use, every injury, and all destruction, are permissible. . If, in the following work the expression ‘the laws of war’ is used, it must he understood that by it is meant not a ‘lex scripta’ introduced by international agreements; but only a reciprocity of mutual agreement; a limitation of arbitrary behaviour, which custom and conventionality, human friendliness and a calculating egotism have erected, but for the observance of which there exists no express sanction, but only ‘the fear of reprisals’ decides.” When one does realise what this actually means, one is better able to realise what infamy the Allies are to-day combatting for the sake of humanity itself. \