19 to the end
of the month is contemporaneous with the period when the German Army's
need for a quick passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed
imperative.
Here let a distinction be drawn between two classes of outrages.
Individual acts of brutality--ill-treatment of civilians, rape, plunder,
and the like--were very widely committed. These are more numerous and
more shocking than would be expected in warfare between civilized
powers, but they differ rather in extent than in kind from what has
happened in previous though not recent wars.
In all wars many shocking and outrageous acts must be expected, for in
every large army there must be a proportion of men of criminal instincts
whose worst passions are unloosed by the immunity which the conditions
of warfare afford. Drunkenness, moreover, may turn even a soldier who
has no criminal habits into a brute, who may commit outrages at which he
would himself be shocked in his sober moments, and there is evidence
that intoxication was extremely prevalent among the German Army, both in
Belgium and in France, for plenty of wine was to be found in the
villages and country houses which were pillaged.
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