_THE PROMISE_

We shall never sheathe the sword which we have not lightly drawn until Belgium recovers in full measure all and more than she has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured against the menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon an una.s.sailable foundation, and until the military domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed.

H. H. ASQUITH, _Prime Minister of England._ _November, 1914._

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_THE RAID_

"_Do you remember Black Mary of Hamburg?_"

"_Aye, well._"

"_She got six years for killing a child, whilst we get the Iron Cross for killing twenty at Hartlepool._"

This morning a German cruiser force made a demonstration upon Yorkshire coast, in the course of which they sh.e.l.led Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough.

A number of their fastest ships were employed for this purpose, and they remained about an hour on the coast. They were engaged by patrol vessels on the spot.

During the bombardment, especially in West Hartlepool, the people crowded in the streets, and approximately twenty-two were killed and fifty wounded.

_British Admiralty report._ _December, 1914._

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_THE TYPHUS INFERNO AT WITTENBERG_

They were received in apathetic silence (Dec., 1914). The rooms were unlighted, the men were aimlessly marching up and down, some were lying on the floor, probably sickening for typhus. When they got into the open air again Major Fry broke down. The horror of it all was for the moment more than he could bear.

Major Priestly saw delirious men waving arms brown to the elbow with faecal matter. The patients were alive with vermin; in the half light he attempted to brush what he took to be an acc.u.mulation of dust from the folds of a patient's clothes, and he discovered it to be a moving ma.s.s of lice. In one room in Compound No. 8 the patients lay so close to one another on the floor that he had to stand straddle-legged across them to examine them.

What the prisoners found hardest to bear in this matter were the jeers with which the coffins were frequently greeted by the inhabitants of Wittenberg who stood outside and were permitted to insult their dead.

_Report of the British Committee._

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_REMEMBER WITTENBERG_

These medical officers protested with the camp commander against the herding together of the French and British prisoners with the Russians, who, as I have said, were suffering from typhus fever. But the camp commander said, "You will have to know your Allies"; and kept all of his prisoners together, and thus as surely condemned to death a number of French and British prisoners of war as though he had stood them against the wall and ordered them shot by a firing squad. Conditions in the camp during the period of this epidemic were frightful. The camp was practically deserted by the Germans.

At the time I visited the camp the typhus epidemic, of course, had been stamped out. The Germans employed a large number of police dogs in this camp and these dogs not only were used in watching the outside of the camp in order to prevent the escape of prisoners but also were used within the camp. Many complaints were made to me by prisoners concerning these dogs, stating that men had been bitten by them. It seemed undoubtedly true that the prisoners there had been knocked about and beaten in a terrible manner by their guards.

JAMES W. GERARD _in "My Four Years in Germany."_

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_THE WONDERS OF CULTURE_

On January 29, 1915, the first Zeppelin raid upon Paris took place.

Twenty-four people were killed outright by the exploding bombs and over 30 were injured. With one exception all the dead and injured were civilians and the majority were women and children.

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_TIRPITZ' LAST HOPE--PIRACY_

The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, are declared a war zone on and after February 18, 1915.

Every enemy merchant ship found in this war zone will be destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and pa.s.sengers.

Also neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British Government on January 31, and in view of the hazards of naval warfare, it cannot always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships endanger neutral ships.

Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and a strip of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way.

_German Navy Official Communication. Berlin, February 4, 1915._

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_ALCOHOLISM--BRITONS NEVER WILL BE SLAVES_