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being placed with their own men. Besides,
it mattered little where they were placed,
they were invariably dissatisfied anyhow.
Those I saw were sullen, arrogant and often
insolent; displeased with everything and
everybody and most difficult to deal with.
They always spoke of their rank and their
Iron Cross—unavoidable it seemed to me, as
I never came across an officer without
it—as if entitling them to privileges shared by
no one else. They were well pleased with
themselves and their doings, frightfulness
and all, and never did I hear from any of
them a word which sounded like disapproval
of the atrocities they had witnessed.
Personally I only know of one German officer who
disapproves this frightfulness, and his mother
was a Russian. On the contrary, I heard a
captain say that the Belgians had been
treated much too leniently, and that all the
civil population ought to have been driven
out of their country and those who resisted
shot on the spot. This officer was a Prussian.
The marked difference between Prussians
and South Germans, well known to those
who have visited Germany in times of peace,
has been amply illustrated by the conduct
of the different units in this war.
“The Prussian is cruel by birth,
civilization will make him ferocious,” said Goethe,
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