19133 Not Unheard-of Atrocities 



phrase I objected, as like atrocities had marked every 

 European war of which I knew. And I asked him 

 whether the Balkan business was any worse than the 

 affair at Chateaudun, Bazeilles, or even the bom- 

 bardment of Strasbourg. A cynically complacent 

 French proverb says: "A la guerre comme a la guerre." 

 Let me also quote from an account printed in Bell's 

 Messenger in London a hundred years ago: 



Wednesday the 24th was certainly the most dreadful day Woerden 

 ever known in this town ... in general sorrow and extreme 

 misery. . . . This town was taken by storm. Now commenced 

 the dreadful plunder, devastation, and inhuman murder. The 

 houses which could not be opened on account of doors and 

 windows being fastened were beaten open by artillery. Cabinets, 

 chests, and boxes were cut and broken into. . . . Death and 

 destruction had at length penetrated into every habitation. The 

 blood of the most virtuous husbands and fathers, of the best 

 mothers, of gray-haired ancients, of tender infants, stained the 

 walls of the peaceful habitations and streamed out of the houses 

 into the streets. . . . Not even the ministers of any religion were 

 spared, even though they fled to the altar. Old men upwards of 

 eighty years and infants in their mothers' arms were immediately 

 shot or slain by the sword. A woman in child-bed who would 

 have been delivered of twins . . . was uncovered, shot, and 

 the bedstead set on fire. . . . They carried their cruelties so 

 far as to commit their murders before the eyes of the nearest 

 relations, throwing out the bleeding bodies ... in the pres- 

 ence of despairing widows and shrieking children and commit- 

 ting all sorts of abuses on the naked corpses. 



This massacre occurred in the village of Woerden, French 

 Holland. The victims were Dutch, the assailants a * ain f* 

 French. Has war changed its nature? No! There 

 have been humane soldiers, humane generals, humane 

 episodes, but no humane wars. No form of war 

 atrocity can be called "unheard of." 



From Switzerland came Albert Gobat, editor of Gobat 



C 499 3 



