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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027864291 
 
JOSEPH BEDIER'S "CRIMES 
 ALLEMANDS" 
 
 A CRITIQUE 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIS WADSTEIN 
 
 Professor in the University of Goteborg (Swedert) 
 
 A. KROCH & CO. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 1916 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 There was undisgiiised rejoicing in the camp of neutral America when 
 Professor Joseph Bedier of the College de France published his 
 pamphlet, Les Grimes Allemands d'apres des Temoignages Allemands. 
 The tales of German atrocities which our neutral press had printed so 
 conscientiously but which afterwards, quite atrociously, had been branded 
 as falsehoods by German as well as American writers, could now be relished 
 as thoroughly reliable. A noted French scholar trained in Germany had 
 taken the trouble to shatter the growing doubts of French veracity by pub- 
 lishing alleged facsimiles of diaries taken from imprisoned or killed German 
 soldiers and by interpreting them according to the most approved scientific 
 methods of French philological research. 
 
 In the March number of the Outlook of 1915 Professor Raymond Weeks 
 of Columbia University has the following to say concerning Professor 
 Bedier 's performance: "It is not necessary to introduce M. Bedier to the 
 university public in the United States, where the distinguished professor 
 of the College de France is esteemed the best living authority on mediaeval 
 French literature and the most recent molder of methods of research in 
 our literary seminaries. More than that: whoever says 'Joseph Bedier' 
 has not only spoken the watchword of scientific research, but that of 
 the most absolute, the most impeccable honesty. No qualified savant 
 can be found, even in Germany, who will doubt the integrity and fairness 
 of M. Bedier. Here, then, is a scholar who is trained as few are to know 
 the value of written documents, and who at the same time would not falsify 
 so much as a comma for any consideration on earth." 
 
 Almost simultaneously with Professor "Weeks 's touching tribute to his 
 patron saint, there appeared in the Svensk Tidskrift (1915, pp. 221-227), 
 one of the leading Swedish periodicals, a review of Bedier's pamphlet which, 
 strange to say, has hitherto remained concealed from Professor Bedier's 
 American friends. 
 
 It is for these friends and admirers of the great French savant that, 
 with the consent of its distinguished author, in the following pages the 
 Swedish review is published in English translation. Not only will they 
 find in it new evidence of the impeccable honesty, integrity and fairness 
 of the good man who would not falsify so much as a comma for any con- 
 sideration on earth, but they will also discover a new gem in tlie crown of 
 his accomplishments : his remarkable talent as a translator of German M^ho 
 can read from tlie documents whatever suits his purpose. 
 
 The readers who desire to gain further insight into the scientific methods 
 and the motives of Professor Bedier are referred to the excellent pamphlet, 
 Professor Bedier und die Tagebiicher deutscher Soldaten (Berlin, 1915), 
 by Professor Karl Larsen, the well-known Danish scholar, and to the book- 
 let, Deutsche Verbreohen (Bielefeld und Leipzig, 1915), by Professor Max 
 Kuttner. 
 
 t 
 1 
 
THE GEEMAN TESTIMONIALS ABOUT GERMAN ATROCITIES 
 
 J. Bedier's book, Les Grimes Allemands d'apres des Tenwignages Alle- 
 mands, is considered by many the most reliable support for the opinion that 
 in the war now going on the Germans have been guilty of atrocities and 
 acts of violence to a much greater extent proportionally than is usual during 
 the hard times of war. At first glance its proofs seem to be the most 
 authentic : documents coming from the Germans themselves. Its author 
 is a prominent scholar. The work also purports to be the product of the 
 most exact scholarly method. About the manner in which he has treated 
 his sources, the author says: "j'ai pris le soin d'en faire la critique avec 
 autant de minutie et de scrupule que naguere, lorsque, dans les travaux 
 de la paix, je discutais I'autorite d'une vieille chronique ou I'authenticite 
 d'une charte." The evidence presented in the book should accordingly be 
 particularly examined from the philological point of view. 
 
 The documents used, not quite forty in number, consist for the greater 
 part of diaries which have been kept by German soldiers later captured 
 by the French. Prom eleven such books the author has selected in all 
 fifteen pages, which he publishes in facsimile in their entirety or in part; 
 besides, he gives four facsimiles from articles from two German papers. 
 These facsimiles, eighteen in all, accordingly constitute his evidence proper, 
 and it is chiefly this evidence which is here to be made the subject of an 
 examination. The defects which I shall call attention to are to be explained, 
 no doubt, to a not inconsiderable extent, by the circumstance that the 
 author's scientific specialty is not the German language. 
 
 If we first examine the author's transcription of the soldiers' notes, 
 which are usually written in German script, we find that this has not always 
 been done with due care and exactness. A few inaccuracies the author has 
 no doubt allowed himself for the purpose of making the text more intelli- 
 gible to the general public. I shall only point out here the errors in tran- 
 scription which consist in the insertion of other words than those of the 
 original or of the omission of words and punctuation important for the 
 meaning or of the wrong arrangement of the different sections. I shall 
 confine myself here to passages quite legibly written. These errors are: 
 In place of the period befor "Hatte", page 8, line 8 from below, the fac- 
 simile, figure 1, line 1 from below, has a colon; instead of "verschossen", 
 page 18, line 2 from below, figure 7, line 7, has "erschossen"; page 24, 
 line 5 from below, "seit" is omitted, figure 10, line 3 ; instead of "gestort", 
 page 24, line 2 from below, figure 10, line 12, has "zerstort"; page 26, 
 line 1 from below, the dash of figure 12, line 4 from below, is missing; 
 instead of "schone Kuh nebst 1 Kalb eingeschossen", page 31, figure 13, 
 lines 12, 13, has "scheue Kuh nebst Kalb angeschossen"; page 38, there 
 is lacking between lines 4 and 3 from below the large space between lines 
 7 and 6 from below of figure 17. 
 
 Some of these errors are, to be sure, not of particular importance for 
 the interpretation, but they show that the author has not proceeded with 
 
 3 
 
due "minutie" and "scrupule", and they also shew, in part, that the 
 author does not have sufficient knowledge of the German language. Some 
 errors, on the contrary, are of decisive importance for the understanding 
 of the text. 
 
 Of such importance is, to begin with, the period of page 8, line 8, which 
 in the author's transcription has replaced a colon, figure 1, line 1 from 
 below, in the following passage: "Altar und Decken sind eingestiirzt: 
 Hatte aueh Telefon Verbindung mit dem Feind." This colon shows that 
 what follows has the purpose of explaining why the church had been fired 
 upon so that the altar and the arches had fallen down ; the reason was : (the 
 church) "had telephonic connection with the enemy", i. e., it was con- 
 nected by means of telephone wires with the place where the enemy was. 
 After the intimate connection between this clause and the preceding one 
 had been obscured by the exchange of a period for the colon, Bedier has in- 
 terpreted "Hatte auch Telefon- Verbindung mit dem Poind" (to which 
 he has added a "man" as subject) as belonging to the whole account of the 
 Germans' stern activities in the village and as giving the cause of all these 
 activities. And through the expression with which the author comments 
 on this interpretation: Juste repression, dit ee soldat: "on avait le tele- 
 phone avec I'ennemi", the reader not well familiar with the German lan- 
 guage easily gets the impression that the soldier had even expressly declared 
 that the telephone connection with the enemy had been the cause, and a 
 justifiable cause, of all the acts of violence, although the soldier's words 
 do not necessarily purport to give more than the cause of the destruction 
 of the church. 
 
 The above-mentioned omission of a dash in the author's transcription 
 and translation, figure 12, line 4 from below, has resulted in placing the 
 passage in question in an entirely wrong light. But more than that. The 
 passage has been entirely misinterpreted by the author because he has not 
 taken into account, and has in his transcription and translation not given, 
 enough of the context. From the passage in question he quotes only the 
 following : ' ' Einschlagen von Granaten in die Hauser. Abends Feldgesang : 
 Nun danket alle Oott", which he translates: "Lancements de grenades 
 incendiaires dans les maisons. Le soir, choral militaire : Nun danket alle 
 Gott! (Maintenant, remerciez tous Dieu!)." This B. gives as proof that 
 there are German soldiers "qui, leur laide besogne faite, ouvrent leur livre 
 de cantiques et chantent des psaumes." It should, however, be noted that 
 the passage immediately preceding dose not at all treat of any "laide 
 besogne" which the writer had committed. For this passage runs as fol- 
 lows (see figure 12 ; I put in parentheses unclear and uncertain letters) : 
 "Am Tage nach der Maasz zu vorgezogen. (Fe)i(n)d (in) Passen gedeckte 
 Stellung. Gewehrfeuer ii(ber) uns ( :) Ca. 5 Stunden (hier) ver 
 s(p)errt (.) Nachm. ge(g)en 4° (weiteres) Vorgehen nach den steilen 
 Ufem der Maasz. Hierselbst in einem Wald Sammeln des 1. Batallion(s) 
 Vor uns der Feind : starke Beschieszung der Stadt Dinant, helles Brennen 
 der Hauser. Umherirren von Franzosen, Belgiern [Beobachtungen dur(c)h 
 Glaser] Einschlagen von Granaten in die Hauser. — " Then there begins 
 on a new line a passage marked as a new section by the dash which Bedier 
 
 4 
 
omits: "Abends F(e)ldgesang: Nun danket alle GoU."— Accordingly 
 in this note tiiere are described a day of advance together with the effects 
 of the attack on the city of Dinant as seen at a distance by the writer. 
 And as far as the mentioned "Binschlagen von Granaten in die Hauser" 
 is concerned, the writer and his (battalion-) comrades did not take part in 
 this, as is clear from the fact that they were at a distance from Dinant and 
 were "du 177 :e d'infanterie" (B., page 26). The singing of a hymn of 
 thanksgiving told by the soldier does not, therefore, stand as the end of 
 any "laide besogne" committed by the writer and his comrades in song, 
 nor is there described here, as the author says (page 26), any "sac": pil- 
 laging of Dinant, which ended with the hurling of incendiary bombs into 
 the houses. The hymn-singing is mentioned, in a note separated by a dash 
 from what immediately precedes, as the conclusion of the entire day de- 
 scribed, with its hardships and dangers. 
 
 Further, the author's translation of "Einschlagen von Granaten in die 
 Hauser" as "Lancements de grenades incendiaires (incendiary bombs) 
 dans les maisons" is not correct. The word "incendiaires" has been added, 
 and has no equivalent in the original text, which merely speaks of grenades. 
 "Einschlagen" is not to be taken as "lancement" (hurling, throwing in), 
 but means "falling down", "striking"; (thus Bismarck speaks in a letter 
 of "das Sausen und Einschlagen der Granaten"). In the words in ques- 
 tion the soldier therefore merely relates that he and his comrades had seen 
 how, in the attack on Dinant, shells had struck the houses. — 
 
 By neglecting to take notice of the large space before line 6 from below 
 in the notes in figure' 17, the author has been strengthened in his inter- 
 pretation of these notes,- which have been the cause of one of the worst 
 accusations against the Germans. The section in question, together with 
 that preceding it reads: 
 
 "Neben der gerecht(en) Wut der Soldat(en) schreitet aber auch purer 
 Vandali In ganz leere(n) D6rf(em) setzen sie den roten Hahn ganz 
 willk(u)rlich auf die Hauser. (M)ir tun die Leute leit. "Wenn sie auch 
 unfaire Waff en gebrauch(en) so verte(i)digen sie doch nur ihr Vaterland. " 
 Then in line 6 from below there begins a new section, marked by a large 
 space (this new section the author in his transcription prints immediately 
 after the preceding section) : 
 
 "Die Grausamk(ei)te(n) dis ver(ii)bt wurde(n) & noch werde(n) 
 v(on) s(e)it(en) der Biirger werd(en) (er)nst geracht". 
 
 Thereupon there f oUows after a smaller space a new section : 
 "V(e)rstiimmlung(en) der yerwunde(ten) sind an Tagesord(nun)g." 
 Instead of "(er)nst geracht", line 3 from below, the author has read 
 "wiist geracht". Of the word preceding "geracht", however, the last 
 three letters appear clearly as -nst; in the first letter of the word, "e-", 
 the loop is, to be sure, a little blotted, but still it can clearly be made out ; 
 the letter between e- and -nst is in great part deleted, but "e nst" can not 
 be emended except so as to read "e(r)nst", wherefore this word is here 
 to be regarded as entirely certain. 
 
 Which is it now, Belgians or Germans, who have committed the mutila- 
 tions of wounded that are related in the notes? 
 
The author, who without taking note of the large space before line 6 
 from below has connected the matter beginning there with the following 
 section where the writer criticizes German acts of violence, has come hereby 
 to take for granted that also that which follows purports to be criticism 
 of the Germans. 
 
 When he in addition has read this matter in such a way that the writer 
 accuses the Germans of having taken vengeance "wiist" ("d'une faeon 
 sauvage"), he has been further strengthened iu this opinion and in accord 
 with it he has interpreted the mutilations of wounded mentioned in the 
 following as referring to the "wild", barbaric way in which the Germans 
 were supposed to have taken vengeance. But since the words "Die Grau- 
 samkeiten" begin a new section, which deals with atrocities committed by 
 the Belgians, it is evident that the writer is engaged in a new line of 
 thought and wants to show what the Belgians have been guilty of. Under 
 these circumstances it is most probable that in the next section he follows 
 up this line of thought and accordingly means by "Verstiimmlungen" to 
 give examples of the mentioned "Grausamkeiten" committed by the 
 Belgians. 
 
 Far from being able to be used "pour montrer a quel point il est usuel 
 dans I'armee allemande de mutiler des blesses", this note therefore on the 
 contrary rather shows that German wounded had been exposed to such 
 cruelty. 
 
 The same accusation against the Germans the author also tries to 
 strengthen by mleans of three facsimiles (figures 14, 15, 16) of passages 
 from a German country paper, in which a noncommissioned officer from 
 the place gives a description of the war. But in this it is a question of 
 giving the death-blow to the wounded — or to such as pretended to be 
 wounded — in the heat of battle, and in such a situation it can not be ex- 
 pected that the soldiers should have time and cold-bloodedness enough to 
 determine which enemies were sufiSciently wounded so that they could be 
 allowed to live without risk to the soldier in question or his comrades. — 
 Besides, the author gives another facsimile (figure 13), a page from a 
 German soldier's diary, where we read: "Im "Wald ein(e) sehr scheue 
 Kuh nebst Kalb angeschossen gefunden (und) wieder franz Leichen 
 schreek(lich) verstummelt. " This passage of course proves nothing, since 
 even the author has to admit that these bodies may have been "mutiles 
 par des armes loyales". Moreover, we notice here that in Bedier's tran- 
 scription the sentence has been changed (or made unclear) by placing a 
 semicolon after "gefunden"; for "wieder" belongs (cf. figure, lines 2, 3) 
 to "gefunden", not to "verstiimmelt". But the author does not confine 
 himself to producing such documents which prove nothing, as support for 
 the opinion that the Germans have mutilated the wounded. With the same 
 object he also gives (page 29), within quotation marks, a document that 
 he has never seen ! According to this, which is alleged to be an order of 
 the day issued by a German general, the general commanded his soldiers 
 to kill "Werwundete ob mit Waff en oder Wehrlos", as the author's "cita- 
 tion" reads. Bedier says, to be sure, that he can not "produire I'auto- 
 graphe meme du general", but the unsuspecting reader may on account 
 
of the quotation marks that are employed not help thinking that the author 
 has had access to a printed copy of the order of the day. Only in a later 
 edition of his work does Bedier feel that he ought to state openly that the 
 alleged order of the day had only been issued orally, and that, consequently, 
 the form in which he had published it — according to the reports of German 
 prisoners of war who had been examined — "peut-etre soit incomplete, 
 soit alteree"! 
 
 I have had occasion above to point out a passage ("Einschlagen von 
 Granaten") which has been incorrectly translated by the author. Certain 
 other translations also give occasion for comment. Most serious are the 
 following misinterpretations, on which he builds another particularly 
 serious accusation against the Germans. On page 19 the author translates 
 "Aber da gab es Feuer" (figure 8, lines 12, 13): "mais la, incendie". 
 As appears from the context and also from the fact that "Feuer" in the 
 German military language is the technical expression for firing (a gun), 
 the words mean, instead: "But then they fired" (cf., for example, in an 
 account of a battle which appears in one of the latest numbers of the 
 periodical Die Hilfe, number 9, page 136 : " es gibt Feuer iiber Feuer von 
 vom, von den Flanken, ja halb von hinten") ; "incendie" the soldier 
 would, on the contrary, certainly have expressed by some other common 
 word of this meaning ("Brand", perhaps). The passage in which the 
 words in question occur is the following, written mostly without marks of 
 punctuation, so that the reader must in part himself try to determine ihe 
 distribution of the sentences and clauses: "Die Binwohner die verziehen 
 woUten konnten sich nac(h) Wunsch ergeben, wo sie woUten Abe(r) der 
 sehosz der wurde erschossen Als w(i)r aus Ovele marschierten knatte(r)ten 
 die Gewehre Aber da gab es Feuer Weiber und AUe(s)." As is seen, the 
 soldier expresses himself very briefly. It is, however, clear (and Bedier 
 has also apparently interpreted it so) that the shots which "knatterten" 
 came from the local inhabitants. "Aber da gab es Feuer", on the contrary, 
 clearly refers to a volley with which the departing troops (ef. the pre- 
 ceding: "Aber der sehosz, der wurde erschossen"), replied to the attack. — 
 Through his misinterpretation of the word "Feuer" the author has also 
 incorrectly come to connect "Weiber und AUes" as accusatives with 
 "gab es". For, taking "Aber da gab es Feuer Weiber und Alles" as one 
 sentence, he translates it "mais la, incendie, femmes, et le reste ..." 
 This is supposed to imply (cf. also the author's note: "Je respecte en 
 eette phrase I'obscurite, sans doute volontaire, du texte original"), that the 
 departing troops not only set fire to the houses in Ovele, but also violated 
 the women en masse ! But as "da gab es Feuer" means "then they fired", 
 it is of course impossible that "Weiber und Alles" belongs directly with 
 these words. Professor Karl Larsen in an article about Bedier's book has 
 taken for granted that the soldier omitted an "auf " before "Weiber", so 
 that the passage in question would mean: "Then they fired (on) women 
 and everything". But since one of the most important principles of 
 scientific textual criticism is not to make additions in a text except when 
 absolutely necessary, it seems to me that another interpretation of the 
 passage is preferable: after "Feuer" a period should be placed, and the 
 three following words no doubt stand as an elliptical exclamatory sentence : 
 
 7 
 
"Weiber und AUes!" (ef. Bedier's justified procedure in adding an ex- 
 clamation point after "moment" in translating a passage at the beginning 
 of the notes in question). By this exclamation the soldier expresses his 
 pity over the fact that also "women and everything" could be subjected 
 to the shots; that this soldier was particularly tender-hearted in regard 
 to the women in the terrors of war is clear from a similar exclamation that 
 he has written farther up on the same page. Parallels to such elliptical 
 sentences are found also elsewhere in the diary notes, naturally often very 
 brief; cf., for example, the citation made above from figure 12, and par- 
 ticularly the elliptical sentence given by Bedier, bottom of page 8 : " Mutter 
 mit ihren beiden Kinder ! ' ' 
 
 Elsewhere in his book the author says (page 23) that of the 33 or 34 
 German soldiers in whose notes he had found accounts of acts of violence, 
 there were only three who "racontant des choses ignobles, s'etonnent, 
 s'indignent, s'attristent". From his own excerpts one can see, however, 
 that a considerably larger number have used expressions that show that 
 they had had their feelings aroused by the sights they had seen. Such 
 expressions are : pages 7, 8, "grauenhaft all(e)s anzusehen", "Schrecklich 
 alles mit anzusehen"; page 10, note 1: "Bin schrecMiches Blutbad"; 
 page 11: "solche Scheusslichkeiten kommen hoflentlich nicht wieder vor"; 
 page 13: "Frauen und Kinder . . . muszten dem entsetzlichen Schau- 
 spiele zusehen"; page 16: "Das Madel konnte mir leid tun", etc.; 
 page 18: "das war ein Anblick der Weiber". The number of soldiers in 
 question thus becomes 9 instead of 3. 
 
 If the author, accordingly, has arrived at too low a figure when it was 
 a question of finding out how many of the soldiers had had their feelings 
 aroused by the acts of violence they reported, he, on the contrary, puts 
 much higher the number of Germans who were compromised through these 
 acts. He declares (pages 27 f.) that these "crimes" almost all of which 
 were such as had been committed "en service commande", "engagent et 
 deshonorent, non pas I'individu seulement, mais la troupe entiere, I'offlcier, 
 la nation." The small number of documents whereupon the author bases 
 his charges, he thus multiplies into thousands through the reasoning that 
 "cest trente camets, . . . pris au hasard, en doivent representer des cen- 
 taines et des milliers d'autres tout semblables." But even if thousands 
 of such really could be shown, it does not necessarily follow from this that 
 the number of acts of violence had been equally large. For since the 
 German soldiers are required to keep diaries of their military activities 
 it of course happens not infrequently that the same case is related in hun- 
 dreds of notebooks; in at least two of the author's few sources it is thus 
 the question of one and the same occurrence. 
 
 Then as to the author's assertion that the acts of violence mentioned 
 were almost all committed "en service command^", it is often enough not 
 easy to determine which cases should be counted as belonging here. Such 
 an uncertain case is that of pillaging mentioned on page 8 with the words : 
 "alles wird gepliindert", which only in the author's translation "Tout est 
 livre au pillage", could with certainty be counted as being committed in 
 such a way; (for that matter, this case of pillage does not seem to have 
 
 8 
 
been very severe, to judge by what is added in the notes immediately after, 
 but which has been omitted by Bedier in his transcription: "Hiine alles 
 ward abges . . . tet" = "Hiihner aJles ward abge(schlach)tet; cf. with 
 ' ' H-ttne "the forms " sa " f or " sah " and " Einwohn-e ", " Donn-e " f or " -er " 
 in the same note). And even if commanders in several instances had 
 ordered acts of violence, this can not compromise their whole nation, since 
 they may often have had a special reason for it. 
 
 A circumstance that must be well noted in judging the acts of violence 
 mentioned in the notes is, that nlany of these have been reprisals under- 
 taken for the purpose of deterring the noncombatant population from 
 further mixing in the war, and thereby making it still more terrible. Such 
 is, for example, the case with the shooting of 50 civilians mentioned on 
 page 10, note. If the author in his transcription and translation of this 
 passage had given the continuation, even the reader who is but little 
 acquainted with the German language and German script would have found 
 out that by these shots which the civilians fired at the German troops, a 
 German regiment had lost several men, and that, in addition, a large number 
 of soldiers ("zahlreiche") had been wounded (see figure 3). After this 
 informlation the reader would no doubt not have been surprised that these 
 civilians were shot. That the German soldiers had repeatedly been exposed 
 to shooting or attacks of other kinds from the civil population, is something 
 that several of the notes published by Bedier show. Such cases are men- 
 tioned, according to the author's excerpts, pages 10, 11, 12, 14, 18 (2 or 3 
 cases on the same page), 21, and 37, and, to judge by the author's words, 
 page 9, middle, also in other writings that he had gone over. From at least 
 one note (figure 17) one sees, too, that the shooting of civilians had been 
 carried out "standreehtlich", after an investigation and a sentence. The 
 author ought not to forget, in regard to the "crimes" he tries to credit to 
 the Germans, that some such acts of violence committed by the civilians 
 were also crimes and transgressions that were the causes of the German acts. 
 
 If one takes sufficiently into consideration the circumstance just men- 
 tioned, and, furthermore, the fact that, as ha^ been shown above, the 
 author's worst accusations against the Germans : the mutilation of wounded, 
 and violation of women en masse, are not proven by the published docu- 
 ments, the remaining acts of violence mentioned in his book, lamentable 
 though they are, can in reality be ascribed to such things (cf. the author, 
 page 27) "eomme il pent s'en rencontrer, comme il s'en rencontre, h61as! 
 dans les plus nobles armies." 
 
 The author concludes with a sharp rebuke of the ninety-three repre- 
 sentatives of German science and culture who, according to him, have 
 stated: "II n'est pas vrai que nous fassions la guerre au mepris du droit 
 de gens, et nos soldats ne commettent ni actes d 'indiscipline ni cruautes". 
 He commits an error here, too. They did not say that German "soldiers" 
 commit no indisciplinary acts or atrocities, but that German "warfare" has 
 not been guilty of such. Their purpose need therefore not have been to 
 deny that individual soldiers may have committed acts of violence or that 
 individual commanders may have set aside the demands of international 
 law. "Wlien they expressed their conviction that the Germans are carrying 
 
 9 
 
on the war as a ciTilized people they merely defended, perhaps a little 
 broadly, their countrymen fighting in the army. But what does the author 
 himself do? In the same name of science and on the basis of a few docu- 
 ments that have been partly mistranslated and that deal in part only with 
 individual eases, he has set forth most serious accusations against the whole 
 German army and the German people. The ninety-three may have looked 
 a little too much with eyes of love; Bedier has surely looked too much with 
 eyes of distrust and enmity. 
 
 By that which I have said in this review I by no means want to assert 
 that the author has consciously and intentionally misinterpreted the docu- 
 ments he has published. This I do not wish to believe. The dark clouds 
 that have collected over his native country must have darkened his other- 
 wise clear vision. 
 
 Elis Wadstein. 
 
 Goteborg, Sweden. 
 
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