CHAPTER VI

GERMAN USE OF PROHIBITED IMPLEMENTS OF WAR

Among savage races, or even nearer home, before certain agreements had been made between nations, poisoned or barbed arrows, small shot, pounded glass, and soft-nosed bullets were used to aggravate the condition of wounded enemies to the worst possible extent. To-day all these contrivances are prohibited, with the consent of Germany, who signed the conventions which embodied this prohibition. German jurists like Bluntschli approved this concurrence of opinion, and the German General Hartmann declared that for a long time these kinds of projectiles have gone into the lumber-rooms of arsenals.

This fact, however, did not prevent Germany from resorting in this war to the use of weapons of the same kind, or even the still more formidable dum-dum bullets. Moreover, dum-dum bullets are expressly specified among the list of prohibitions laid down by the Hague Conference, 29th July, 1899, prohibitions signed by Germany and her ally Austria. These declare that “the contracting parties forbid the use of bullets which expand or easily get flattened in the human body, such as bullets with a hard outer case which does not completely cover the core or is notched at the end.”

THE USE OF DUM-DUM BULLETS IN BELGIUM

The report of the military governor of Ghent, Lieutenant-general L. Clooten, and the results of experiments made by M. V. Rousseaux, armoury expert at Antwerp, prove indisputably that these bullets were in use among the Germans. The following is the report—

“_Headquarters at Ghent, 26th September, 1914._

“SIR,

“I have the honour to send herewith some cartridges with bullets of the kind called ‘dum-dum,’ seized on the Hanoverian Lieutenant von Halden, who was taken prisoner at Ninove, by my troops, on the 29th inst.

“This officer’s pistol, which he threw away shortly before his capture, could not be found again.

“LIEUTENANT-GENERAL L. CLOOTEN, “Military Governor.”

The following is the result of the experiment made by M. V. Rousseaux—

“The box with green label which you send me (20 cartridges for Mauser self-loading pistols of calibre 7·63) must have contained full cartridges. It contains three rows of expanding dum-dum bullets, taken from the special boxes with yellow labels. These bullets were made to expand by the process of manufacture, and it is impossible to make them so by hand.

“V. ROUSSEAUX, “Armoury Expert.

“_Antwerp, 28th September, 1914._”

THE USE OF DUM-DUM BULLETS ON FRENCH SOIL

The first instance of the use of dum-dum bullets on French soil goes back to the early days of the war. It was denounced by the French Government in the protest which they addressed (21st August, 1914) to the signatory powers of the Hague Convention.

This protest points out that “on the 10th August, 1914, after an engagement between French and German troops, a surgeon-major sent to the general in command of the Infantry Brigade” a case found on the road to Munster “close to the German Custom-House,” which contained five cartridges primed with cylindro-conical bullets cut at the end, the nickel cover of which was incomplete and left bare the upper portion of the lead slug.

This was not the only instance. On the 14th September, Dr. Chas. Lavielle, superintendent of the auxiliary hospital of Baignots-à-Dax, sent to the sub-prefect of the department of Landes a report on the operations which had been performed on patients, and declared that four of them had been struck by expanding bullets. Photographs were appended to the report.

Doctor Napieralski, physician-in-chief of the 7th auxiliary hospital of the third French army corps à Pont Audemer, noted the case of a foot soldier wounded in the shoulder with a huge scar as big as an open hand. It was not an ordinary wound.

The wounded man’s name was Adrien Bousquet, the foreman of some electricity works at Verdalles. He related (said the report) that on the 2nd November, in a battle to the East of Ypres, he found himself cut off with his section from the rest of his company.

For three days his comrades and he fired from a trench, but at last, on the 5th November, they were outnumbered. The majority surrendered. Bousquet, however, not wishing to be made prisoner, tried to escape towards the main body of his troop. He was fired at from different sides. All at once he felt in his shoulder so violent a concussion that it actually turned him round. Still, it was only a bullet which had struck him.

Dr. Napieralski noted that there could be no question of a wound caused by a bursting shell, for the wound showed no trace of powder nor any blackish stain of metallic oxide.

As the wounded man was carrying his knapsack on his back, Dr. Napieralski adds that the explosive force of the bullet was increased by the pressure of the knapsack. The result was that the sinews were torn over a wide surface and the bone formation of the shoulder-blade was shattered.

The depositions of the other wounded men who took part in the battle in which Bousquet was wounded confirm all his statements. On that day, at this point on the front, no artillery battle took place, and the Germans made use of many explosive bullets; no mistake is possible on this point, for it is easy to recognise them because as soon as they touch the ground, or any obstacle whatever, they burst with a dry, crackling noise. All the wounded who were questioned quote typical examples of deaths and wounds caused by these bullets; they also mention numerous witnesses, soldiers, their own comrades, whose evidence it is easy to collect and who will confirm their statements (_Temps_, 29th December).

USE OF THE SAME KIND OF BULLETS IN THE COLONIES

German troops have used dum-dum bullets on all fronts and at every point where military operations were in progress. The fact that they have done so was proved particularly in the Togoland battles and confirmed by the English Governor of the Gold Coast in his report to the Colonial Minister in London (September 1914).

COUNTER-ACCUSATIONS BY THE GERMANS

The discovery of these facts could not fail to arouse universal indignation which Germany tried to forestall by accusing her enemies of similar acts. The Kaiser used the Wolff Bureau to make this accusation against France and England, and lodged a complaint against both with the President of the United States. France immediately issued a denial in a telegram under date 11th September, 1914. Another denial drawn up on September 8 had come from England.

The _Lokal-Anzeiger_ and the _Tag_ of Berlin (September 10) published facsimiles of cartridges, and of pouches of cartridges alleged to be _dum-dum_, found by German troops at Longwy. Now, the very inscription on these pouches—“Practice Cartridges”—showed the futility of the accusation, for it proves that here we have to do merely with ammunition for use at the rifle-ranges of military training clubs. As these ranges sometimes had to be prepared in a hurry, it was a case of necessity to send them cartridges crushed at the end, so that the speed of the bullet should be reduced and that it should not go right through targets which were not thick enough.

These cartridges were not even used at the regimental rifle-range, and the fact that they neutralise the projectile capacity of the French rifle was a still stronger reason why nobody ever thought of using them in war.

Moreover, the Germans left at Compiègne, and on several battlefields of France, pouches, carefully put in a conspicuous position, of French cartridges which they had made into dum-dum bullets by scooping out the protruding end. The object of this artifice was to give currency to the belief that these prohibited missiles were used by the French troops.

The following is the reply made by the President of the United States to the Emperor of Germany. “In reply to your protest, the United States can do nothing. I do not think your Majesty expects me to say more.”

DOCTORS ATTACHED TO THE GERMAN MEDICAL SERVICE HAVE ADMITTED THAT THE GERMAN ACCUSATION WAS FALSE

People who allowed themselves to be deceived by an accusation which had its origin in Germany soon received proof, and from Germany too, that the accusation was false.

Professor Straub, of Freiburg in Bresgau, published in a Munich medical journal the results of his inquiry into the nature of the French bullet. He admitted that, from the medical point of view, this bullet was composed of an admirable alloy, which could not poison, and he came to the conclusion that it was humane. Dr. Haberlin, a Swiss doctor attached to the hospitals at Arlon and at Louisburg, where he had chiefly German wounded under his care, declared on his honour that he had never heard tell of wounds inflicted on Germans by dum-dum bullets.

DUM-DUM BULLETS USED AGAINST THE RUSSIANS

That the Germans used dum-dum bullets against the Russians was proved in a hospital at Vilna, where a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian infantry, wounded in the leg, chanced to be under treatment. The wound, which at its entrance was smaller than a penny, was as large as a hand where the bullet left the body.

The photograph of one of the dum-dum bullets used in this way was given by the _Novoïé Vrémia_ on 17th September, 1914.

Moreover, the German missiles used against the Russian troops often gave off poisonous gases which caused the death of the wounded, and which were expressly forbidden by the Hague Conventions (1899) under the category of “projectiles, the sole purpose of which is to spread asphyxiating or noxious gases.”

THE SAME PRACTICES FOLLOWED IN AUSTRIA

The use of explosive bullets by the German troops was regularly followed by their allies, the Austrians, both on the Russian front and the Serbian.

The superintendent of the Red Cross at Petrograd was informed at the beginning of the war by his deputy at the first outpost detachment that, after Austrian field works had been taken, a large quantity of explosive bullets in special pouches and in belts for use in machine-guns had been found, and also many spent cartridges which had been adapted for this kind of bullet. These bullets bore the date 1914, and were used on every occasion that the Russians took the offensive.

On the other hand, “The use of explosive bullets by the Austrians,” declared an official note of the Russian Government, “has been often proved by medical reports and photographs of wounds.” Cartridges and bullets which have been captured leave no doubt on that point. The Russian troops which had succeeded in taking the village of Lajenki, near Nemirof, found there 10,000 explosive bullets, the place of origin of which is obvious from the fact that they had the stamp of an Austrian arsenal upon them.

On the 21st October, near Przemsyl, the Russian troops took some machine-guns, the belts of which were full of cartridges with explosive bullets.

Moreover, all the Serbian generals without exception declared that the Austrians employed explosive bullets on the whole Serbian front. The first ten rounds from the machine-guns were always, they said, made with this kind of bullet, and the Austrian soldiers were provided with explosive cartridges in the proportion of 20 per cent.

Again, Dr. Reiss, professor at the University of Lausanne, who was sent to Serbia as a special commissioner of the _Gazette de Lausanne_, and who returned from his expedition on the 10th December, told of numerous Austrian bullets which had been found on Balkan battlefields and which all the marksmen to whom they were shown declared to be explosive.