GERMAN BARBARISM
A NEUTRAL’S INDICTMENT
BY
LÉON MACCAS
DOCTOR OF LAW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
WITH PREFACE BY
M. PAUL GIRARD
OF THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXVI
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
This new volume on Germany’s conception andpractice of war is the work of a neutral, a fact whichwould alone suffice to secure it our sympathies. Moreover,it is a book which is systematically arranged,based on documentary evidence, serious and obviouslysincere, qualities too weighty not to compel the respectnot only of the French public, but of all those, towhatever nationality they may belong, who may careto read it or merely to glance through it with anunprejudiced eye.
The author is a Greek, who loves France and whoknows her. He knows her because he has lived there;he is not blind to her weak points, but having beenearly captured by her, he knows the profound mistakeinto which a stranger falls who is content to judgeher by appearances: he has fathomed the depths ofher character and discovered the inexhaustible resourcesof will and energy concealed beneath an apparent, yetmuch exaggerated, levity. It is for this reason thatin the dread crisis through which she is passing, andfrom which, as he well knows, she will emerge victorious,he has been willing to fight on our side, at leastwith the pen. Let us thank him, and may our gratitudeextend beyond him to his noble country, to thatGreece whose feelings have long been known to us,who has not changed them, notwithstanding the ebb[vi]and flow of her domestic policy or of transitory influences,and who will not change them, we areconvinced: otherwise she would not be Greece.
So much for the author of these pages which weare about to read. When I add that M. Léon Maccasbelongs to the best society in Athens: that while stillvery young he won the degree of doctor of law in hisown country by a remarkable thesis; that he came tous with the intention of pursuing further, thanks tothe assistance which we can give him, his studies ininternational law and diplomatic history, I shall haveconcluded a very inadequate introduction of authorto reader.
As for the contents of this volume, what is the goodof dwelling upon them? It is an established fact, atthe present moment, that the Germans have introducedinto war a new law, a new morality. This lawand this morality are obviously contrary to the ideaswhich humanity has hitherto formed of these greatsubjects and to the impulses which urged and still urgehumanity to endeavour to mitigate the permissiblesufferings and horrors which war between civilisednations entails. The Germans have taken quite adifferent line. They appear to have made it theirbusiness to practise everywhere, in different forms, theabuse of force. It is a method, and one, too, whichhas something spacious about it. But a method issomething which confesses or proclaims itself. Wedo not blush fo