At present the instances are isolated, and we will hope that they do not
represent any general condition. But the stories come from sure sources.
There is the account of the brutality which culminated in the death of
the gallant motor cyclist Pearson, the son of Lord Cowdray. There is the
horrible story in a responsible Dutch paper, told by an eyewitness, of
the torture of three British wounded prisoners in Landen Station on Oct.
9.
The story carries conviction by its detail. Finally, there are the
disquieting remarks of German soldiers, repeated by this same witness,
as to the British prisoners whom they had shot. The whole lesson of
history is that when troops are allowed to start murder one can never
say how or when it will stop. It may no longer be part of a deliberate,
calculated policy of murder by the German Government. But it has
undoubtedly been so in the past, and we cannot say when it will end.
Such incidents will, I fear, make peace an impossibility in our
generation, for whatever statesmen may write upon paper can never affect
the deep and bitter resentment which a war so conducted must leave
behind it.
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