Note 64 — Chapter V · PATRIOTISM AND POWER IN WAR AND PEACE

The following—which appeared in The Times of April 17, 1915—is merely a type of at least thirty or forty similar reports published by the German Army Headquarters: ‘In yesterday’s clear weather the airmen were very active. Enemy airmen bombarded places behind our positions. Freiburg was again visited, and several civilians, the majority being children, were killed and wounded.’ A few days later the Paris Temps (April 22, 1915) reproduced the German accounts of French air-raids where bombs were dropped on Kandern, Loerrach, Mulheim, Habsheim, Wiesenthal, Tüblingen, Mannheim. These raids were carried out by squads of airmen, and the bombs were thrown particularly at railway stations and factories. Previous to this, British and French airmen had been particularly active in Belgium, dropping bombs on Zeebrugge, Bruges, Middlekirke, and other towns. One German official report tells how a bomb fell on to a loaded street car, killing many women and children. Another (dated September 7, 1915) contains the following: ‘In the course of an enemy aeroplane attack on Lichtervelde, north of Roulers in Flanders, seven Belgian inhabitants were killed and two injured.’ A despatch from Zürich, dated Sept. 24, 1915, says: ‘At yesterday’s meeting of the Stuttgart City Council, the Mayor and Councillors protested vigorously against the recent French raid upon an undefended city. Burgomaster Lautenschlager asserted that an enemy that attacked harmless civilians was fighting a lost cause.’