576
BGU
WAR INFORMATION SERIES
No. 11
February, 1918
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
Contrasted with
The War Manuals of the United States, Great
Britain, and France

PURI
COMMITTER
ON-PUBLIC
NOR
WASHINGTON
BY
GEORGE WINFIELD SCOTT,
Sometime Professor of International Law and Diplomacy,
Columbia University
JAMES WILFORD GARNER,
Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois
PUBLISHED BY
THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION
WASHINGTON, D. C.
The German War Code
Evidence of
Frightfulness.
Many good loyal Americans have hesitated to believe the
charges of wholesale brutality and ruthlessness made against
the German authorities. That there have been
individual instances of outrage by the Germans
is quite believable. That such things occur in
every war is well known. They are a part of the inevitable
horrors of war. We tend to excuse them as naturally incident
to the brutality of mind into which some soldiers seem to fall
when surrounded by carnage.
The difficult thing to believe is that the responsible authorities
of a highly civilized country should command their officers and
troops to commit fiendish outrages.
The facts here set forth are not new. They have been known
for years to those whose business it is to be informed on such
matters. They are, however, unknown to the general public.
We ask you to read them and then consider whether the bru-
tality, ruthlessness, terrorism, and violence of the German forces
have not been cold-bloodedly programmed for years by the
German authorities.
The statements advanced here are casily verified. They can-
not be refuted or belittled. They help to show what we and
the Allies are fighting for.
There are certain standards of human intercourse that are
absolutely vital to the very existence of civilized society. We
kept out of this awful war until it was certain beyond all question
of doubt that those standards were about to be crushed unless we
took up the fight.
It was the wholesale violation by Germany of the most sacred
standards of human society that caused our Government to
enter the war, coupled with the belief that Germany was about
to triumph largely through the advantages accruing to her from
violating the humanitarian restrictions that had gradually,
through centuries, been built up to prevent mankind from lapsing
into primitive savagery.
Ours is a truly defensive war, though on the face of it no
country ever went to war where the danger of actual physical
harm seemed so remote. However victorious we may be, not
2
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
3
نن
a single American expects to see his country obtain the slightest
material gain.
It is the practice of every civilized country to place in the
hands of its army and of its naval officers, and of students who
Law Manual.
are preparing for such careers, a book known
German Army- as the manual of military instructions. This
manual defines what are the rights and duties of
their armed forces when engaged in hostilities and dealings with
the enemy. This book is to the military man what the Bible is
to the Christian. It is the highest law he knows.
In 1902 Germany issued a new manual entitled Kriegsbrauch
im Landkriege. This was done apparently in compliance with
the injunction of the Hague treaties of 1899 to which Germany,
along with most other countries of the world, had solemnly
agreed. It would seem, however, from the way in which most
of the Hague provisions are denounced, ridiculed, and sneered
at in the manual, that the real reason for issuing the revised
instructions was to counteract any influence which these pro-
visions might have been expected to have upon German military
officers through Germany's having ratified the Hague treaties.
At the very outset the Kriegsbrauch repudiates one of the most
fundamental principles ever agreed upon by States to govern
Repudiates
their relations as enemies. This principle is em-
Declaration of St. bodied in what is known as the Declaration of
Petersburg of St. Petersburg of 1868, which declared that war
is a contest between armies rather than peoples,
and that the only legitimate object of war is to weaken the
military forces of its enemy. Prussia agreed to this international
treaty. It was later incorporated in the Hague treaties and again
agreed to by Germany.
1868.
Notwithstanding this, the Kriegsbrauch declares that war is
not to be regarded as a contest between armed forces, but that its
purpose is to destroy the spiritual and material power of the
enemy country.
The so-called
The Kriegsbrauch next declares that the laws and customs of war
(Kriegsmanier) must yield to the law of military necessity (Kriegs-
raison) whenever the observance of the law would
Law of Necessity. prevent or hinder the attainment of the object of
Law of Necessity. the war. Therefore, declares Germany in its war
manual, it is permissible to destroy private property, to devastate
systematically evacuated regions, to terrorize the civil population
of invaded districts, to deport them for compulsory service in the
enemy country, thereby releasing its own men for the army, to
compel them to aid the enemy in the construction of fortifica-
tions, to dig trenches, to serve as guides, and even to furnish
information regarding their own army. It is permissible to seize
4
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
prominent civilians of the occupied district and place them on
railway trains in order to insure the trains against derailment by
the civil population or by the armed forces of the enemy-this
notwithstanding the fact that "every writer outside Germany,'
as the German General Staff readily admits, "has declared this
measure to be contrary to the law of nations and as unjustified
toward the inhabitants of the country." This expedient was
resorted to by the Germans in France in 1870-71, and although
they themselves regarded it as "harsh and cruel," says the Kriegs-
brauch, it was a justifiable measure because it was effective.
The Kriegsbrauch cynically states that, "However much it may
ruffle human feelings to compel a man to do harm to his country,
and indirectly fight his own troops, nevertheless no army operat-
ing in an enemy's country will altogether renounce this expedient."
What is this so-called law of necessity which overrides the
laws of war when it conflicts with them, and in whom rests the
"Necessity"
absolutely
Abolishes all
War Law.
power and discretion to apply it? The rules
of war are always restrictive. They forbid the
use of poison and treachery as a means of de-
feating the enemy. They are never permissive
except in the sense that they lay down no positive prohibition to
the doing of a particular thing.
Germany is the only country whose great military leaders and
writers on international law have erected into a general principle
the exceptional rule that military necessity justifies the abroga-
tion of war law. Their doctrine is that the law must give way
whenever its observance would defeat or hinder the achievement
of military success.
Surely the purpose of human law is to control man's primitive
impulse to harm his fellows for his own personal gain. The
German authorities well know that the word law has two widely
different meanings. For them to declare that military necessity
is ever of itself law looks like the practice of deliberate sophistry
to deceive the public; an attempt to obscure the real meaning of
human laws (addressed, as these always are, to man's conscience)
with that law which at most describes the natural action of our
primitive human impulses toward one another, just as the law
of gravitation describes the natural action of things toward the
earth.
Were the German militarists quite frank in their manual of
war law they would instruct their officers and troops in this
wise: "Succeed, where possible, by an honest observance of war
law; but where such in your judgment is not possible, then
succeed. You are free, so far as the Imperial German Govern-
ment is concerned, to do anything to the enemy which you may
decide at the time is necessary in order to win."
What German
Officers are
Commanded to
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
10
5
In the application of this doctrine of necessity to specific cases,
the Kriegsbrauch goes on to nullify in more or less express language
nearly every important rule of warfare. It re-
pudiates the Hague rule that supplies taken by
requisition from the enemy country should be
do to the Enemy. paid for. The Hague rule that the quantity of
supplies requisitioned, or money demanded, under the form of
"Contributions" from the inhabitants of occupied territory
should bear a just relation to the resources of the country is
cynically dismissed with the statement that its justice will be
"willingly recognized in theory, but scarcely ever observed in
practice." In short, "War is War," and the last mouthful of food,
the last horse or cow, the last bushel of grain may be taken from
the country, and the non-combatant population-men, women
and children-left to starve, if the need of the occupying army
requires it. So the Kriegsbrauch enjoins German officers and
troops that "it is well to remember that in the changing and
stormy course of war, observance of the orderly conduct of
peaceful times is, with the best will, impossible."
Community fines, German officers are told, are among the most
effective measures for insuring the good conduct of the civil
population of enemy territory occupied by their forces. No
reference whatever is made to the Hague rule, which is also the
unanimous opinion of international law writers outside of
Germany, that community fines can be laid only when the
wrongful act for which they are imposed is one for which the
population as a whole is responsible; that is, one in which the
entire population were actively or passively accomplices.
The fining of a distant French commune merely because the
perpetrator of the wrongful act originally came from there; the
threat of Graf Renard to shoot a number of French civilians in
case certain laborers who had been requisitioned by the German
authorities should fail to report for duty the following day; these
are examples of vicarious punishments inflicted on French com-
munities in 1870 which the Kriegsbrauch brazenly defends, al-
though these acts have been universally condemned outside of
Germany as well as by some of their own publicists.
The Hague treaty of 1907 respecting the laws and customs of
war on land (Art. II), declares in plain language that the inhabi-
Why Prisoners of tants of an invaded district may, upon the ap-
War may be proach of the enemy, take up arms and resist
Killed by German him, and if they have not had time to organize
Troops.
and provide themselves with military uniforms
they shall nevertheless be treated as lawful combatants, pro-
vided only that they carry their arms openly and respect the
laws and customs of war. The German manual, however, re-
fuses to admit this inalienable right of defense guaranteed by
6
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
international treaty, and affirms the principle upon which the
Germans acted in 1870-71 and again in 1914, that detachments
of persons not under the command of responsible leaders, and
not clothed in uniform, may summarily be shot as francs-
tireurs.
Another application of the German doctrine of necessity
where success hangs in the balance relates to the case of prisoners
of war: When their presence is a danger to their German captors
they may be put to death.
The German Government further declares in its manual of war
law that "all measures" which conduce to the attainment of the
object of the war are permissible, and these "may
Every Means of be summarized in the two ideas of violence and
War Authorized.
cunning," which, it adds, may be formulated
in the following proposition: "What is permissible includes every
means of war without which the object of the war cannot be attained;
what is reprehensible, on the other hand, includes every act of
violence and destruction which is not demanded by the object
of the war.
All means which modern invention affords,
including the fullest, most dangerous, and most massive means of
destruction, may be utilized-the latter just because they contribute
to the attainment of the object of the war as quickly as possible,
are for that reason to be regarded as indispensable and, when closely
considered, the most humane." The usages of war, however, we
are told, condemn certain instruments and forms of violence
because the object of the war may be attained by milder means.
Such are the use of poison, soft-nosed bullets, assassination,
and the like; nevertheless, it is not reprehensible to hire third
parties to rob, burn, or assassinate the enemy. To be sure,
'considerations of chivalry, generosity, and honor" may con-
demn as indecent and dishonorable the utilization of the serv-
ices of others for such purposes, but the law, which is "less
touchy," permits it, and a belligerent should not allow an op-
portunity to use such an advantage to slip away from him.
The well accepted rule of war, also embodied in the Hague
regulations, that "the officer in command of an attacking force
must, before commencing a bombardment (except in cases of as-
sault), do all in his power to warn the authorities," is emphati-
cally rejected by the German Government as "completely incon-
sistent with war and must be repudiated by soldiers," and in
practice German commanders have flagrantly disregarded this
humane rule during the present war.
Such are some of the astounding provisions decreed by Ger-
many in 1902-twelve years before the outbreak of the Great
War-as the law of war which its military officers were com-
manded to apply in dealing with the enemies of Germany.
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
7
Throughout, it is evident, this manual proceeds upon the
assumption that the territory of Germany is not likely to be
Assumption that invaded by an enemy. Conscious of the supe-
Germany will rior strength of her tremendous armies, the Ger-
not be Invaded. man militarists foresaw that in a war with her
neighbors Germany would occupy their territories. It would
seem as if the responsible authorities of Germany who in 1902
drafted and published this manual of war had in mind the time
when, as conqueror, Germany should rule the subjugated peoples
of other countries with "blood and iron." To harden her
officers and troops against any appeals of humanity, she has
educated them for years on a war code that ridicules and scorns
the rules of war dictated by chivalry, honor, and generosity to
the enemy, as sickly sentimentality unworthy of a real soldier.
What such a systematic training produces in the way of cold
blooded military inhumanity is aptly illustrated
Von Bissing as an by the following conversation reported by Mr.
Example.
F. C. Walcott of the Belgium Relief Committee:
"I went to Belgium to investigate conditions, and while
there I had opportunity
to talk one day with
Governor General von Bissing, who died three or four weeks
ago, a man 72 or 73 years old, a man steeped in the 'system,'
born and bred to the hardening of the heart which that
philosophy develops. There ought to be some new word
coined for the process that a man's heart undergoes when it
becomes steeped in that system.
"I said to him, 'Governor, what are you going to do if
England and France stop giving these people money to
purchase food?'
"He said, 'We have got that all worked out and have had
it worked out for weeks, because we have expected this
system to break down at any time.'
"He went on to say, 'Starvation will grip these people in
30 to 60 days. Starvation is a compelling force, and we
would use that force to compel the Belgian workingmen,
many of them very skilled, to go into Germany to replace
the Germans, so that they could go to the front and fight
against the English and the French.
"As fast as our railway transportation could carry them,
we would transport thousands of others that would be fit for
agricultural work, across Europe down into southeastern
Europe, into Mesopotamia, where we have huge, splendid
irrigation works. All that land needs is water and it will
blossom like the rose.
""The weak remaining, the old and the young, we would
8
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
concentrate opposite the firing line, and put firing squads
back of them, and force them through that line, so that the
English and French could take care of their own people.'
"It was a perfectly simple, direct, frank reasoning. It
meant that the German Government would use any force in
the destruction of any people not its own to further its own
ends." (Frederic C. Walcott, in The National Geographic
Magazine, May, 1917.)
German Manual
The German war code abounds in evidences of unfairness and
gross partisanship and appears to have been intended to incul-
cate hatred in the hearts of the German army
Charges against the
Teaches Hatred. against their enemies.
French for violating certain of the laws of war in
1870-charges which had long before been proved to be abso-
lutely false are again revived and given currency, for no other
purpose than to justify their own indefensible acts and to furnish
alleged precedents for the doctrines enunciated in their own
code.
Wherever a shockingly cruel case has occured in previous wars
it is seized upon and exploited for the purpose of proving that
the practices sanctioned by the Kriegsbrauch have been common
in the past.
The only German writers on international law cited as au-
thorities in this war manual are those who hold the most extreme
militaristic views, such as Dahn, Hartmann, Loening, and
Leuder; the more modern and liberal jurists such as Geffcken, von
Bar, von Liszt, Wehberg, and others are never mentioned. As
for foreign publicists, their opinions are never invoked as au-
thority in support of doctrines laid down in the German manual.
The reason is obvious: they had all practically condemned these
laws and practices before they were incorporated in the Kriegs-
brauch.
Humanitarianism
Sneered at as
"Flabby Emo-
tion."
As has been said, the scant references to the Hague regulations.
are made either cynically to say that such laws will never in
fact be observed by armies in the field, or de-
risively to characterize them as theoretical and
impracticable. The enlightened and humane pur-
poses that actuated the calling of the great inter-
national conferences, to mitigate so far as possible the evils of
war by subjecting its conduct to restrictive rules, are again and
again referred to in a slighting manner. German army officers
are warned against being misled by the excessive humanitarian-
ism of the present age, which the German manual says has too
often degenerated into "sentimentality and flabby emotion."
(Sentimentalität und Gefühlsschwärmerei.)
United States
War Manual.
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
When we turn to the war manuals of the United States, Great
Britain, and France, and compare their rules with those of the Ger-
man code, we are struck by a refreshing contrast.
The United States manual, which was the first
prepared and issued to its armies by any country,
was drafted by Francis Lieber, a distinguished German jurist, who
came to this country somewhat earlier than Carl Schurz and for
the same reasons, namely to escape the oppression of their own
country. This handbook was promulgated by President Lincoln.
in 1863 under the title Instructions for the Government of the U. S.
Armies in the Field. It was superseded by a new manual in 1914,
which is mainly a revision of Lieber's code.
To appreciate the striking differences between our war law and
that of Germany, one should compare Articles 3, 7, 11, 13, 16, 22,
24, 28, 30, 33, 44, 51, 68, 173, 334, 345, 351 (as numbered in
the United States manual of 1914) with corresponding provisions.
in the German manual. The American manual at the outset im-
poses a very important restriction on its officers and troops in
respect to military necessity; it lays down the rule that only such
measures may be adopted against the enemy as "are lawful
according to the modern laws and customs of war."
One may
search in vain for any such restriction in the German code.
There, military necessity negatives all war law, thus making it
proper for German officers to employ, as they have done in the
present war, poisonous gases, to poison wells in Southwest Africa,
to drop bombs in the streets and plazas of undefended towns, to
bombard coast towns where not a battery or soldier was to be
found, to torpedo merchant vessels on sight without the slightest
attempt to save their passengers and crews, and to employ every
instrument or method calculated to contribute to the attainment
of military success. Such a systematic application of scientific
inhumanity has never been known or tolerated before, even amid
the horrors of war. The American rules conform strictly to those
laid down in all the great international treaties relating to the
conduct of war, and in no case are those rules repudiated or
sneeringly referred to as "impracticable" or "unlikely to be
observed in fact."
Manual.
Equally striking is the contrast between the British manual and
the German Kriegsbrauch. At the very outset the British manual
adopts by direct reference all the great interna-
British War-Law tional conventions beginning with the declaration
of St. Petersburg of 1868. As to all points on
which they speak, Great Britain declares them the law for the
British army.
On points that may arise not covered by these
conventions, the British officers shall be governed by the customs
and usages of civilized warfare. The provisions of the Hague
and other like conventions, are nowhere repudiated or derided
10
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
as excessively humane and impracticable, nor are they cynically
dismissed with the statement that they are unlikely to be ob-
served in actual warfare.
The British manual declares unequivocally that the means
which its army may use to overcome the resistance of its enemies
are restricted by the Hague and other international agreements,
by the customary rules of warfare, and also by the dictates of
religion, civilization, and chivalry. In amplification of this
principle the British code goes on to condemn assassination
under all circumstances, and to reject the rule of the German
code that a prisoner can be put to death whenever his pres-
ence is a handicap to his captors in their military operations.
It recognizes the right to take hostages, but declares that they
must be treated as prisoners of war and cannot therefore be
put to death, as has been done again and again by the Germans
during the present war. It even protests against the placing
of hostages on railway trains to insure the latter against destruc-
tion by the enemy's army or by its civilian population, although
this had been done by the British army in the Boer War.
Accords with
One will read the 510 sections of the British war manual in
vain to find a single one which is in conflict with the Hague regu-
British War-Law lations or out of accord with the more humane
and liberal practices heretofore observed in mod-
Hague Treaties. ern warfare. British officers must give warning
before beginning a bombardment. They are forbidden to compel
the inhabitants of occupied territory to perform work which
would involve participation in the military operations of their
own country. They are forbidden to take private property of
the enemy except under form of requisition and contribution.
Requisitions must be in proportion to the resources of the enemy
country, and paid for in cash or as soon as possible. Contribu-
tions can be levied on the enemy only for the actual needs of
the occupying army; they must not be excessive or laid for the
psychological purpose of breaking the spirit of the enemy and
inducing him to seek for peace.
British officers are forbidden to impose community punish-
ments on the enemy except where the community can be shown
to have been responsible, either actively or passively, for the
wrongful act in question. The right of the inhabitants of a dis-
trict invaded by the British army to take up arms and resist
the approach of the enemy without having a perfected organi-
zation or a military uniform, a right expressly affirmed by the
Hague treaty, is recognized. Such inhabitants when taken as
prisoners are not to be shot as francs-tireurs, as the German
manual provides, but rather treated as prisoners of war, pro-
vided only that they carry their arms openly and respect the laws
and customs of war. On the obligation to give warning before
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
11
beginning a bombardment of the enemy, the British manual
uses the identical language of the Hague treaty.
Manual.
The French war manual forms an equally striking contrast
to that of Germany. It reproduces textually the Hague and other
international treaties relating to the conduct of
French War-Law war. These are frequently accompanied with a
commentary in which their provisions are ap-
proved and given a liberal interpretation. France imposes the usual
enlightened restrictions upon its army as to the means which may
be employed in overcoming the resistance of the enemy, and also
as to the kinds of compulsory services that may be exacted
from the inhabitants of occupied territory. The rules laid down
in respect to the treatment of the inhabitants of occupied terri-
tory, in levying requisitions and contributions upon them, and
in taking hostages conform to the best standards. In the
French, as in the American and British manuals, there is no
denunciation or derision of the Hague regulations, nor are their
restrictions characterized as impracticable, over-humane, and
unlikely to be observed in practice.
Enough provisions of these manuals have been pointed out to
show that the American, British and French manuals are the
Effect on Minds very opposite of the German in the law which
of Officers and their Governments have laid down for their
Troops.
armies to observe in their dealings with the
enemy. The probable effects of these respective manuals
upon the attitude of mind of officers and troops toward
an enemy is very evident to any fair-minded man upon
a moment's reflection. The German officers and troops today
are the victims of a military education that has sneered at
chivalry and systematically held up the basest practices in
warfare as those which any army will resort to in order to achieve
military success. To one who knows the kindliness of the
German people, it is preposterous to assume that if they were
acting under the instructions laid down by other countries for
the treatment of an enemy, the German army would be any less
chivalrous or humane to its enemy than are Americans, British,
French and others. The responsibility for their excesses rests
upon the Government and military authorities who have made
the rules and directed their enforcement.
A word may be said about the practices of the German navy in
this war and the failure of the German Government to enforce
the law laid down in its naval code, first issued in
German Naval 1909 and reissued in revised form in 1914, for the
guidance of its naval officers. In conformity with
the Hague Convention, the unratified Declaration of London, and
the customs of naval warfare, this manual declares that, "before
Law Manual.
12
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
proceeding to the destruction of a merchant vessel, the safety
of all persons on board, and so far as possible their effects, is
to be provided for." The whole world knows the faithlessness
with which Germany has observed this rule. The German law
respecting visit and search, blockade, the immunity of hos-
pital ships and small fishing boats, has likewise been deliberately
violated on a scale that proves beyond all manner of doubt
that the German authorities of today hold in contempt all the
standards of warfare between civilized peoples.
Horror of Ger-
man Conduct.
Mad in their ambition to win, they have forgotten that the
German nation must live and do business with the other peo-
Detestation and ples of the world after this war is over. Though
international law lacks the administrative means
to judge and punish violations of its better
established rules, it is, like all human laws and customs, sup-
ported by a public opinion which never fails to manifest, in
numerous ways, its detestation and horror for those who fla-
grantly misconduct themselves. For years to come the German
Government and individual Germans in their intercourse with
foreign peoples will be made to feel the suspicion and distrust
in which they are held. This is bound to be a tremendous
handicap. It is the penalty which mankind will inevitably
exact from those who, while sneering at chivalry, and character-
izing the humanitarian tendencies of modern times as "flabby
emotion," have carried on a system of terrorism that knows no
bounds. Millions of foreign peoples are filled with dread of
Germany. For they have seen the German spy system pene-
trate their own countries and carry on political and social
machinations on such a huge scale as to feel for the time being
an utter helplessness to overcome it. Our own country is not
yet rid of this menace. We are at war with a country that openly
stands for the employment of hired assassins if necessary to
overcome its enemy.
The question that naturally comes to the mind of one in
comparing the German war law manual with those of other
Who Drafted and countries is: Who in Germany was responsible
Decreed the Ger- for drafting and decreeing it? In answering
man War Manual? this question we shall answer a further question:
Does the distinction which President Wilson has made between
the German Government and the German people exist in fact?
A fate has befallen the German people which might have
come upon any people. The German people as a whole have
German People never had any active share in determining the
Dominated by the political policies of their country. It is not a case,
Junkers.
as sometimes stated, of their having been de-
liberties. The fact is, as the Kaiser has often
prived of their
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
13
told them, whatever civil liberty they enjoy has come largely
through the establishment of an orderly government by the
Hohenzollerns and the grant, under royal leadership, of civil
rights and safeguards to the masses of Germany. Gradually
the totality of governmental power has come to be centralized
in the hands of a large reactionary group of the well-to-do and
those of a more or less aristocratic lineage. In many respects
the world has never known a group politically organized who
were at once so intelligent, ambitious, and determined as this
fairly well defined junker class who have been ruling Germany
for the past forty years.
Under the leadership of one of the most ambitious monarchs
in history, these junkers, as they are usually called, set about
making the economic and social conditions within Germany
such that every man, woman, and child counted for something
in the national strength. Strictly as a business proposition,
without sentimentality for the sick and poverty-stricken,
Germany, under their leadership, established institutions to
prevent the wastage of human energy such as inevitably occurs
where every individual is left to look out for himself. With an
attention to detail that is amazing, and with a sustained and
earnest effort no less amazing, the autocracy of Germany
patiently organized the human power of their country into living
institutions, and then so coordinated these that the State
moved practically as a single force one of the most marvelous
social phenomena the world has ever witnessed.
arations.
Along with these political and social preparations within the
Empire went the most systematic and foresighted preparations of
Their Aggressive a military and naval character. Prussia's three
Plans and Prep wars-in 1864 against Denmark, in 1866 against
Austria, and in 1870 against France-had been
amazingly successful. Each entailed little national sacrifice,
was over within a few short weeks, and brought most gratifying
returns in the way of territorial annexations, money indemnities,
and increased prestige. Encouraged by such results in the past,
it was but natural (having in mind the frailties of human nature)
that the ambitious leaders of Germany should stake their all
upon a trial of force in an effort to seize what they coveted from
the peoples outside of Germany. Their designs contemplate the
acquisition of Holland and the Flemish part of Belgium, possibly
Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Austria and the German parts
of Russia, in addition to a vast colonial empire. For years the
autocracy of Germany, under the leadership of the Kaiser,
cherished the conviction that Germany must expand territorially.*
*See Conquest and Kultur (published by the Committee on Public Information), especially
chapters vii-xi, xvii: Germany the Ruler of Middle Europe, Expansion in the Southeast,
Subordination of France, Sea Power and Colonial Expansion, The Lost Teutonic Tribes, The
Program of Annexations.
14
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
To advance this as a program became the great policy of
Germany's leaders. The influence of this policy was supreme
in every direction, both domestic and foreign. On a huge scale
the industrial and social life within Germany was adjusted to it;
the railroads and canals were located for their strategic military
value; and the teaching in the schools and universities, and the
publicity of the press, were skillfully and craftily gauged to
prepare the national mind for The Great Adventure. Exter-
nally, the subtle penetration of German commercial and social
life was carried forward into the very vitals of the business and
political life of foreign countries. With a singleness and fixity
of purpose never before seen, with a resourcefulness for the utili-
zation of all the materials and forces at hand, and with a capacity
for organization on a national scale unparalleled in history
the German nation went forward within and without their
country, led by the Kaiser and the great autocracy, to prepare
for Der Tag, the day when Germany should take what she needed
for the glory of the Fatherland.
Looked at objectively, no one can deny that this presents a
truly impressive spectacle. But when we think what it means
to the rest of the world, we shrink in horror before the spectacle
and rise in arms. For we have seen the Poles, the Alsatians,
the Lorrainese, and natives of German Africa subjected for
years to a most harrowing and cruel persecution by the military
bureaucrats sent from Berlin. The German autocracy has never
shown the slightest capacity to govern foreign peoples. That
harshness bristling in the German war law manual has dictated
everywhere the temper for the governing of subjected peoples.
The milk of human kindness is foreign to the heart of the German
officer commissioned to deal governmentally with dependents.
He thinks only in terms of "blood and iron."
Another question which comes to mind in this study of the
German war manual is: Why did not the Foreign Offices, whose
Germany's
business it is to protect their countries, protest
Neighbors
against the German war manual? The an-
Fail to Protest. swer is plain. The manual was a matter of
the internal policy of Germany, at least so it seemed in times of
peace. Germany would certainly have resented the raising of
such a question; its Foreign Office would have refused to discuss
the matter, as would that of any other country. Such, indeed,
are the limits imposed by the canons of diplomatic intercourse.
For years before the present war, the neighbors of Germany,
appreciating her confident strength and aggressive policy,
avoided raising questions of an irritating nature, especially
where it seemed likely that their discussion would lead to no
satisfactory results.
At the second Hague Conference, in 1907, when the German
THE GERMAN WAR CODE
15
delegation got wind that the conflict between their Kriegsbrauch
and the Hague treaty regulations was likely to come up for
discussion, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, head of the dele-
gation, adroitly forestalled the move by proposing the following:
"A belligerent which violates the provisions of the said regula-
tions shall, if the case demands, be liable to make compensation.
It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming
part of its armed forces." This was adopted. So it might be
possible, when Germany is conquered in this war, to fix upon
her the payment of very heavy fines.
Isolated as we are here from European politics, and engrossed
in our own affairs, Americans have failed to realize that for the
past dozen years Germany has ha her neighbors overawed, for
Germany moved always in a manner to brook no trifling.
Every country has its junkers, men of great ability and deter-
mination, whose successes in getting what they have sought has
made them intolerant of interforonce by those whom they feel
confident they can shove aside. They are, in their own estima-
tion, the supermen of Nietzsche. Their philosophy is Machtpoli-
tik wherever they live. What happened in Germany was that
these men obtained complete control of the forces of a great body
politic, and, working in unusual harmony, perfected a marvelous
organization to conquer the world if need be in order to give
Germany her "place in the sun."*
*The reader is urged to examine for himself the Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege, which is Part
31 of a volume entitled Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften, published in 1902 by E. S. Mittler
and Son, Berlin. It has been translated into English by Professor J. H. Morgan and published
in New York (in 1915) under the title, The War Book of the German General Staff. The German
naval law manual, Die Prisenordnung, was translated by a former professor of law at Stanford
University, C. H. Huberich, and published in New York in 1915. The American Rules of
Land Warfare was published in 1914 by the Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.
The British Manual of Land Warfare was published by the British War Office in 1914. The
French, Les Lois de la Guerre Continentale was published in Paris in 1913; there is no English
translation. To appreciate how the war manual of Germany is the product of her great military
leaders, historians and publicists, one should read von Clausewitz' work Vom Kriege (published
in 1832; translated into English, 3 vol., London, 1916); also the writings and views of von Hart-
mann, von Moltke, von der Goltz, von Bernhardi, von Hindenburg, von Bissing, von Treit-
schke, Leuder, Dahn, Loening and others. Extracts from these writings will be found in
German War Practices, edited by Professor Dana C. Munro, and War Cyclopedia, a Handbook
for Ready Reference, both published by the Committee on Public Information, Washington,
D. C.
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION
Washington, D. C.
(Established by Order of the President, April 14, 1917)
1. RED WHITE AND BLUE SERIES
1. How the War Came to America. 32 pages. (Translations into German, Polish,
Bohemian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese, Yiddish, and Croatian. 48 pages.)
2. Nationlal Service Handbook. 246 pages. (15 cents.)
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5. Conquest and Kulture. Quotations from German writers revealing the plans and
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7. War Cyclopedia: A Handbook for Ready Reference on the Great War. 321
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9. War, Labor and Peace: Some Recent Addresses and Writings of the Presi-
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101. The War Message and the Facts Behind It.
32 pages.
102. The Nation in Arms. Two addresses by Secretaries Lane and Baker. 16 pages.
103. The Government of Germany. By Charles D. Hazen. 16 pages.
104. The Great War: From Spectator to Participant. By A. C. McLaughlin. 16 pages.
105. A War of Self-Defense. Addresses by Secretary of State Lansing and Assistant
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107. Amerikanische Bürgertreue. German translation of No. 106.
108. American Interest in Popular Government Abroad. By E. B. Greene.
109. Home Reading Course for Citizen Soldiers. Prepared by the War Department.
62 pages.
16 pages.
110. First Session of the War Congress. Complete summary of all legislation. 48 pages.
111. The German War Code. By G. W. Scott and J. W. Garner. 16 pages.
112. American and Allied Ideals. By Stuart P. Sherman. (In press.)
113. German Militarism and its German Critics. By Charles Altschul. (In press.)
114. The War for Peace. By Arthur D. Call. Views of American Peace organizations
and leaders in the present war. (In press.)
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(Other issues are in preparation.)
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201. Friendly Words to the Foreign Born. By Judge Joseph Buffington. (Translations
into the principal foreign languages are in preparation.)
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