“Der Herr Hauptmann rief uns um sich und sagte: ‘In dem Fort, das zu nehmen ist, sind aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach Engländer. Ich wünsche aber keinen gefangenen Engländer bei der Komp. zu sehen.’ Ein allgemeiner Bravo der Zustimmung war die Antwort.”
(“The Captain called us to him and said: ‘In the fortress [_i.e._, Antwerp] which we have to take there are in all probability Englishmen. But I do not want to see any Englishmen prisoners in the hands of this company.’ A general ‘Bravo’ of assent was the answer.”)
This malignant frenzy against British troops, so carefully instilled, is borne out by a passage in another diary, now in the possession of the French Ministry of War, which was found on April 22nd on the body of Richard Gerhold, of the 71st Regiment of Infantry of the Reserve, Fourth Army Corps, who was killed in September at Nouvron:
“Auch hier kommen ja Sachen vor, was auch nicht sein darf, kommt aber doch vor. Grosse Greultaten kommen natürlich an Engländern und Belgiern vor. Nun da wird eben jeder ohne Gnaden niedergeknallt, aber wehe dem armen Deutschen der in ihre Hände kommt....”
(“Here also things occur which should not be. Great atrocities are of course committed upon Englishmen and Belgians; every one of them is now knocked on the head without mercy. But woe to the poor German who falls into their hands.”)
As regards the last sentence in this diary, which is one long chapter of horrors and betrays a ferocious credulity, it is worthy of remark that I have seen at the French Ministry of War the diary[85] of a German N.C.O., named Schulze, who, judging by internal evidence, was a man of exceptional intelligence, in which the writer refers to tales of French and Belgian atrocities circulated among the men by his superior officers. He shrewdly adds that he believes the officers invented these stories in order to prevent him and his comrades from surrendering.
A less conclusive passage, but a none the less suspicious one, is to be found in a diary now in my possession. It is the diary of an Unter-offizier, named Ragge, of the 158th Regiment, and contains (under date October 21st) the following:
“Wir verfolgten den Gegner soweit wir ihn sahen. Da haben wir machen Engländer abgeknallt. Die Engländer lagen wie gesäht am Boden. Die noch lebenden Engländer im Schützengraben wurden erstochen oder erschossen. Unsere Komp. machte 61 Gefangene.”