Red Cross and Iron Cross

This book was published in 1916.. Excerpts from the Foreword:The day of reckoning will come. The day when the civilized world sets to work to pick out the criminals from the barbarians the criminals responsible for the atrocities and infamies committed by the savage foe. The documents for the accusation furnished by the accused themselves a most valuable contribution to the sombre study of German criminology establish beyond doubt that it is on the leaders and not on the men that the heaviest responsibility will fall. The hanging evidence against several of the commanding German Generals in Belgium is overwhelming their proclamations to their victims and their orders to their troops contain damning proofs that they are morally and legally responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of helpless civilians men women and children. Accusations of instigation to murder even of the wounded are brought against officers of all ranks by their men in their note-books now in the hands of the Belgian French and English authorities. As to the men themselves the writers of these precious human documents most of them have already gone to their doom and all we know of them are the horrors they have witnessed and the atrocities they have com- mitted. Many are still alive and prisoners of war. Others have died in our ambulances side by side with their former foes now their comrades in suffering and as often as not almost their friends. I have had some deal- ings with several of these men. I have read their note-books I have heard from their own lips their gruesome tales of recorded and unrecorded horror. Those dying men told no lies. Man speaks the truth when he is aware that Death is listening to what he says. Suffering has no nationality and Death wears no uniform. There are neither friends nor foes on no-man''s- land on all men''s land on the borderland between life and death dreaded by all. Men die as best they can. Most men fear death all men fear dying. All men are more or less alike when they are about to die. What they did with their life whilst it belonged to them may concern the priest if he is at hand but Death does not care he welcomes them all in his own rough way good men and bad men are all the same to him. So they are to the doctor. Now and then I tried to say to myself that I disliked these dying Boches but I cannot honestly say I did; in fact I rather liked them. These were all so forlorn so patient so humble so grateful for the little one was able to do for them. They were all delighted to come across a man who knew their language those who could smile grinned all over with joyous surprise those who could not greeted the familiar sound with a friendly look or a tear in their tired eyes. Those who could speak or nearly all of them spoke with humiliation and shame of what they had witnessed and what they had done. They certainly did not spare themselves; on the contrary they seemed to like to talk of their evil deeds as if it gave them some relief in fact they did not want to talk of anything else. I saw several of these men die. They died as brave men die.