Front matter (continued 3)

POLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN SYSTEM.

September, 1917.

Poland—Russian Poland—is perishing. And the German high command, imbued with the Prussian system, is coolly reckoning on the necessities of a starving people to promote its imperial ends.

West Poland, which has been Prussian territory more than a hundred years, is a disappointment to Germany; its people obstinately remain Poles. This time they propose swifter measures. In two or three years, by grace of starvation and frightfulness, they calculate East Poland will be thoroughly made over into a German province.

Devastation of Poland.

In the great Hindenburg drive one year ago, the country was completely devastated by the retreating Russian army and the oncoming Germans. A million people were driven from their homes. Half of them perished by the roadside. For miles and miles, when I saw the country, the way was littered with mudsoaked garments and bones picked clean by the crows—though the larger bones had been gathered by the thrifty Germans to be ground into fertilizer. Wicker baskets—the little basket in which the baby swings from the rafters in every peasant home—were scattered along the way, hundreds and hundreds, until one could not count them, each one telling a death.

Warsaw, which had not been destroyed—once a proud city of a million people—was utterly stricken. Poor folks by thousands lined the streets, leaning against the buildings, shivering in snow and rain, too weak to lift a hand, dying of cold and hunger. Though the rich gave all they had, and the poor shared their last crust, they were starving there in the streets in droves.

In the stricken city, the German governor of Warsaw issued a proclamation. All able-bodied Poles were bidden to go to Germany to work. If any refused, let no other Pole give him to eat, not so much as a mouthful, under penalty of German military law.

The policy of starvation.

It was more than the mind could grasp. To the husband and father of broken families, the high command gave this decree: Leave your families to starve; if you stay, we shall see that you do starve—this to a high-strung, sensitive, highly organized people, this from the authorities of a nation professing civilization and religion to millions of fellow Christians captive and starving.

Country to be restocked with Germans.

General von Kries, the governor, was kind enough to explain. Candidly, they preferred not quite so much starvation; it might get on the nerves of the German soldiers. But, starvation being present, it must work for German purpose. Taking advantage of this wretchedness, the working men of Poland were to be removed; the country was to be restocked with Germans. It was country Germany needed—rich alluvial soil—better suited to German expansion than distant possessions. If the POLAND that was had to perish, so much the better for Germany.

Remove the men, let the young and weak die, graft German stock on the women. See how simple it is: with a crafty smile, General von Kries concluded, "By and by we must give back freedom to Poland. Very good; it will reappear as a German province."

Slowly, I came to realize that this monstrous, incredible thing was the PRUSSIAN SYSTEM, deliberately chosen by the circle around the all-highest, and kneaded into the German people till it became part of their mind.

German people are material for building the State—of no other account. Other people are for Germany's will to work upon. Humanity, liberty, equality, the rights of others—all foolish talk. Democracy, an idle dream. The true Prussian lives only for this, that the German State may be mighty and great.

German system of frightfulness everywhere.

All the woes in the long count against Germany are part of the Prussian system. The invasion of Belgium, the deportations, the starving of subject people, the Armenian massacres, atrocities, frightfulness, sinking the Lusitania, the submarine horrors, the enslavement of women—all piece into the monstrous view. The rights of nations, the rights of men, the lives and liberties of all people are subordinate to the German aim of dominion over all the world.

Frederick C. Walcott.

CONCLUSION.

STATEMENT OF MR. VERNON KELLOGG, SEPTEMBER, 1917.

(Prepared for this pamphlet.)

It was my privilege—and necessity—in connection with the work of the Commission for Relief in Belgium to spend several months at the Great Headquarters of the German armies in the west, and later to spend more months at Brussels as the Commission's director for Belgium and occupied France. It was an enforced opportunity to see something of German practice in the treatment of a conquered people, part of whom (the French and the inhabitants of the Belgian provinces of East and West Flanders) were under the direct control of the German General Staff and the several German armies of the west, and part, the inhabitants of the seven other Belgian provinces, under the quasi-civil government of Governor General von Bissing. I did not enter the occupied territories until June, 1915, and so, of course, saw none of the actual invasion and overrunning of the land. I saw only the graves The graves of the massacred. of the massacred and the ruins of their towns. But I saw through the long, hard months much too much for my peace of mind of how the Germans treated the unfortunates under their control after the occupation.

It would be an unnecessary repetition to describe again the scenes in Louvain, Dinant, Visé, Andenne, Tamines, Aerschot, and the rest of the familiar long list of the ruined Belgian towns. But too little has been said of the many, many ruined villages all over the extent of the occupied French territory from Lille in the north to Longwy in the south, and from the eastern boundary of France to the fatal trench lines of the extreme western front.

As chief representative for the Commission, it was my duty to cover this whole territory repeatedly in long motor journeys in company with the German officer assigned for my protection—and for the protection of the German army against any too much seeing. As I had opportunity also to cover most of Belgium in repeated trips from Brussels into the various provinces, I necessarily had opportunity to compare the destruction wrought in the two regions.

I could understand why certain towns and villages along the Meuse and along the lines of the French and English retreat were badly shot to pieces. There had been fighting in these towns Towns untouched by war but ruined. and the artillery of first one side and then the other had worked their havoc among the houses of the inhabitants. But there were many towns in which there had been no fighting and yet all too many of these towns also were in ruins. It was not ruin by shells, but ruin by fire and explosions. There were the famous "punished" towns. Either a citizen or perhaps two or three citizens had fired from a window on the invaders—or were alleged to have. Thereupon a block, or two or three blocks, or half the town was methodically and effectively burned or blown to pieces. There are many of these "punished" towns in occupied France. And between these towns and along the roadways are innumerable isolated single farm houses that are also in ruins. It is not claimed that there was any sniping from these farmhouses. They were just destroyed along the way—and by the way, one may say. When the roll of destroyed villages and destroyed farmhouses in occupied France is made known, the world will be shocked again by this evidence of German thoroughness.

Heartlessness of German rule.

The rigor of the control over the inhabitants of the occupied French territory is almost inconceivable. The lines delimiting the regions occupied by the various distinct German armies are lines of impassable steel for the inhabitants. If a member of the family in one town was visiting friends or relatives in another town a few kilometers away at the time of the outbreak of the war that family has remained separated through all the long months that have since elapsed. No messages can pass except by dangerous subterranean ways from town to town.

The requisitioning of everything from food to furniture, from farm animals to the blankets and mattresses from the beds, has been carried to such an extent that the people live on nothing, amid nothing. These requisitions in the earlier days had a more or less official seeming in that quartermaster's bons were given for the things taken. Even then the German sense of humor too often made the bon a crude jest. False receipts for requisitioned property. The bons were written in the German language in German script, illegible and beyond the understanding of the simple natives. A bon might be given for a chicken when it was a pair of horses that was taken. But later, when these jests palled on the German soldiers, the requisitioning was simplified by the omission of bon-giving. Where the villagers and peasants had tried to save something that could be buried or concealed, the searching out of these pitiful hiding places became a great game with the German soldiers. One ingenious Frenchman had secreted a few choice bottles of wine in a famous tomb on heights above the Meuse. But these bottles found their way to special tables at the Great Headquarters.

In the spring of 1916 the army authorities devised the plan of deporting a number of men and women from Lille and the industrial towns near it to the agricultural regions further south. These French were to work in the fields and help produce food for the German army. As a matter of fact this plan had at bottom something to recommend it. The congestion in the industrialized northern region made the food problem there very difficult. Our Commission had more trials in connection with the provisioning of the great city of Lille and the lesser but crowded towns of Valenciennes, Roubaix, and Tourcoing than with all the rest of the occupied territory. Also these people had no work to do, as the great factories were still. To come south and work in the open air in the fields and be allowed a fair ration would have been a real advantage to these people. It would also have helped in the whole food supply situation.

But the horrible methods of that deportation were such that we, although trying to hold steadfast to a rigorous neutrality, could not but protest. Mr. Gerard, our Ambassador to Berlin, happened at the very time of this protest to make a visit to the Great Headquarters in the west and the matter was brought to the attention of certain high officers at Headquarters on the very day of Mr. Gerard's visit and in his hearing. So that he added his own protest to that of Mr. Poland, our director at the time, and further deportations were stopped. But Horrors of deportations. a terrible mischief had already been done. Husbands and fathers had been taken from their families without a word of good-bye; sons and daughters on whom perhaps aged parents relied for support were taken without pity or apparent thought of the terrible consequences. The great deportations of Belgium have shocked the world. But these lesser deportations—that is, lesser in extent, but not less brutal in their carrying out—are hardly known.

No American can fail to oppose Prussianism.

I went into Belgium and occupied France a neutral and I maintained while there a steadfastly neutral behavior. But I came out no neutral. I can not conceive that any American enjoying an experience similar to mine could have come out a neutral. He would come out, as I came, with the ineradicable conviction that a people or a government which can do what the Germans did and are doing in Belgium and France to-day must not be allowed, if there is power on earth to prevent it, to do this a moment longer than can be helped. And they must not be allowed ever to do it again.

Civilization must crush Prussian system.

I went in also a hater of war, and I came out a more ardent hater of war. But, also, I came out with the ineradicable conviction, again, that the only way in which Germany under its present rule and in its present state of mind can be kept from doing what it had done is by force of arms. It can not be prevented by appeal, concession, or treaties. Hence, ardently as I hope that all war may cease, I hope that this war may not cease until Germany realizes that the civilized world simply will not allow such horrors as those for which Germany is responsible in Belgium and France to be any longer possible.

Vernon Kellogg.

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