ADDITIONAL RECORDS OF GERMAN
ATROCITIES IN FRANCE.
by
Professor J. H. Morgan.
(Late Home Office Commissioner with the BritishExpeditionary Force.)
1915.
THE PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITING COMMITTEE,
12, DOWNING STREET, S.W.
(M 3942) Wt. w. 8147-565 500M 8/15 H & S
In November, 1914, Professor Morgan was commissionedby the Secretary of State for Home Affairs to undertake theinvestigation in France into the alleged breaches of the lawsof war by the German troops. His investigations extendedover a period of four or five months. The first six weeks werespent in visiting the base hospitals and convalescent camps atBoulogne and Rouen, and the hospitals at Paris; during theremaining three months he was attached to the General HeadquartersStaff of the British Expeditionary Force. ProfessorMorgan orally interrogated some two or three thousand officersand soldiers, representing almost every regiment in the Britisharmies and all of whom had recently been engaged on activeservice in the field. The whole of these inquiries were conductedby Professor Morgan personally, but his inquiries at headquarterswere of a much more systematic character. There,owing to the courtesy of Lieutenant-General Sir ArchibaldMurray, the late Chief of the General Staff, he had the assistanceof the various services—in particular the Adjutant-General,the Provost-Marshal, the Director of Military Intelligence, theDirector of Medical Services and their respective staffs—andalso of the civil authorities, within the area at present occupiedby the British armies, such as the sous-prefets, the procureursde la République, the commissaires de police, and the mairesof the communes. In this way he was enabled not only toobtain corroboration of the statements taken down at the basein the earlier stages, but also to make a close local study of thebehaviour of the German troops towards the civil populationduring their occupation of the districts recently evacuated bythem. The following is extracted (by permission of the Editor)from statements by Professor Morgan which appeared in the"Nineteenth Century" for June, 1915:—
[By Professor J. H. Morgan.]
A German military writer (von der Goltz) of great authoritypredicted some years ago that the next war would be one of inconceivableviolence. The prophecy appears only too true as regards theconduct of German troops in the field; it has rarely been distinguishedby that chivalry which is supposed to characterise the freemasonryof arms. One of our most distinguished Staff officersremarked to me that the Germans have no sense of honour in thefield, and the almost uniform testimony of our officers and meninduces me to believe that the remark is only too true.
Abuse of the white flag has been very frequent, especially in theearlier stages of the campaign on the Aisne, when our officers, nothaving been disillusioned by bitter experience, acted on the assumptionthat they had to deal with an honourable opponent. Again andagain the white flag was put up, and when a company of oursadvanced unsuspectingly and without supports to take prisoners,the Germans w