The Rev. Duhr writes:  “The incredible speed with which these lying tales of horror spread on all sides must be classed as a morbid phenomenon, a sort of blood-cult.  Their consequences could only be to act upon the national soul as a stimulant, inspiring fear and brutality."[128]

[Footnote 128:  Ibid., p. 9.]

The author of this work is prepared to go much farther than the Rev. Father, and maintain that the foul, diseased imaginations which could invent such monstrous horrors are also capable of perpetrating them.  They did not spring from the imagination of an Edgar Allan Poe, but arose in the minds of Germany’s brutal peasantry and bloodthirsty working classes, who together every year commit in times of peace 9,000 acts of brutal, immoral bestiality, and maliciously wound 175,000 of their fellow German citizens.[129]

[Footnote 129:  Vide Vol. 267 Vierteljahrshefte, published by the Berlin Government, 1914.]

To-day Germany shouts in ecstasy that she is the chosen power of God; that her Kultur will regenerate the world.  Let it first regenerate the “Augean Stable” known to the world as Germany.  Without further comment readers are left to form their own opinion of a Press which breeds such filth, and the cultural level of a people which consumes such garbage.  But the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Rev. Bernhard Duhr, S.J., and the “Pax” Society in Cologne.

The accusations of plundering on the part of German soldiers is naturally denied in toto by all parties in the Fatherland.  Indeed, it has been discovered that the British army was guilty of wilful destruction in Belgium.  A certain Major Krusemarck, commanding the 2nd battalion of the 12th Infantry Reserve Regiment, is responsible for the story.  “On October 10th I entered Wilryk, near Antwerp, and took up my quarters in the Italian Consulate.  All the houses had been deserted by the inhabitants.  Immediately after entering the house I perceived that English soldiers had been here and behaved in a barbarous manner.  Mirrors, valuable objects of art, etc., had been smashed in a way which betrayed purpose.”  The major’s report continues:  “The destruction which I have described had undoubtedly been perpetrated by members of the English army, and as proof of this I may state that in one of the rooms about a dozen visiting-cards were found with the name:  Major E.L.  Gerrard, Royal Marine Light Infantery (sic).

“During the subsequent pursuit of the Belgian and English armies we heard repeated complaints from the inhabitants that especially the English troops had acted in the most inconsiderate manner, purposely destroying furniture, etc., in civilian houses."[130]

[Footnote 130:  Richard Grasshoff:  “Belgien’s Schuld,” p. 84.]

Without doubt the story belongs to the group of legends exposed by the “Pax” Society, for which reason it is quoted here, as a fitting supplement to them.  Yet it is psychologically interesting to note how difficult it is for Germans who burn, destroy and violate in their own country to believe that they behave otherwise than as lambs when playing the role of invaders.