KAISER'S ORDER TO SLAUGHTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 March 1916, Page 8

KAISER'S ORDER TO SLAUGHTER.

NEUTRAL DECLARES HE SAW IT. ' ' I INSPIRED BY THE DEVI I* Paris, January 7. Lc Matin prints the following, written by Count Melgar, former secretary and confidant of Don Carlos, and now a leading member of the Carlist party, the sympathies of which are strongly proGerman:— "I was at Frohsdorf when the war broke out. I was then Gertnanophile and was pleased over the prospect of German success, on which I counted. I hurried to Vienna, and the first thing I saw was the secret document written by tha German Emperor to the Emperor of . Austria to inform him of the order to carry on a war of extermination. "My , soul is bursting with grief,' wrote the' Kaiser, 'but it is absolutely 'necessary to put everything to fire and the sword; men and women, children and aged must be slaughtered; not. a single tree must be left upright, nor a | roof intact. With such a system of terror, the only one to be followed against | a people so debased as the French, it [ is certain that the war will not last two i months, while by 'proceeding with humanitarian consideration it might be prolonged for years. lam having recourse, then, whatever it may cost me, to this method, which, in spite of appearances, will greatly diminish bloodshed." "Such atrocious words made the first breach in my admiration for Germany. A few days later I read in an evening paper a speech delivered by the Kaiser to his soldiers in which he declared that he. had learned that two French military doctors had entered Metz and poisoned the garrisrm wells with cholera microbes. Then I understood that such a man was not merely cruel but a shameless liar and calumniator. "I also had an opportunity of learning of the grief of the Russian Ambassador, who bad told one of his friends how he had, in an interview with Emperor Francis Joseph, declared his Government ready to make important concessions to avoid war. ■* "The aged monarch had yielded to his prayers and authorised him to telegraph to Petrograd that all danger of war was over. The next morning the Ambassador was hurriedly summoned to the Emperor, who said that he was obliged to take back his word, as the Kaiser Wilhelm had telegraphed to him, 'Tf Austria h afraid, Germany fears nobody, and tn burn the bridges I have just declared war on Russia.' "This revelation compelled my conver- ' sion. I felt sure that the Kaiser Wilf helm, instead of being the instrument of i God, was inspired by the devil."