" All steal, without distinction
or grade, or of arms, or of cause, and even in the ambulances the
doctors steal. Take this example from the notebook of the soldier
Johannes Thode (Fourth Reserve Regiment of Ersatz):
At Brussels, Oct. 5, 1914.--An automobile arrived at the
hospital laden with war booty--one piano, two sewing machines,
many albums, and all sorts of other things.
"Two sewing machines" as "war booty." From whom were these stolen?
Beyond a doubt from two humble Belgian women. And for whom were they
stolen?
VI.
I must admit that, out of the forty notebooks, or thereabout, that I
have handled, there are six or seven that do not relate any exactions,
either from hypocritical reticence or because there are some regiments
which do not make war in this vile fashion. And there are as many as
three notebooks whose writers, in relating these ignoble things, express
astonishment, indignation, and sorrow. I will not give the names of
these, because they deserve our regard, and I wish to spare them the
risk of being some day blamed or punished by their own.
[Illustration: Figure 10.]
The first, the Private X., who belongs to the Sixty-fifth Infantry,
Regiment of Landwehr, says of certain of his companions in arms, (Fig.
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