These cases which I witnessed appear in the Bryce Report under the
heading of "Alost."[B] Of such is the Bryce Report made: first-hand
witness by men like myself, who know what they know, who are ready for
any test to be applied, who made careful notes, who had witnesses.
"Why do the Germans do these things? It is not war. It is cruel and
wrong," that is a remark I heard from noblemen and common soldiers
alike. Such acts are beyond the understanding of the Belgian people.
Their soldiers are kindly, good-humored, fearless. Alien women and
children would be safe in their hands. They do not see why the Germans
bring suffering to the innocent.
A few understand. They know it is a scientific panic which the German
army was seeking to cultivate. They see that these acts are not done in
the wilful abandon of a few drunken soldiers, beyond discipline, but
that they belong to a cool, careful method by means of which the German
staff hoped to reduce a population to servitude. The Germans regard
these mutilations as pieces of necessary surgery. The young blond
barmaid of the Quatrecht Inn told us on October 4 that a German captain
came and cried like a baby in the taproom on the evening of September 7,
after he had laid waste Quatrecht and Melle. To her fanciful, untrained
mind he was thinking of his own wife and children. So, at least, she
thought as she watched him, after serving him in his thirst.
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