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.”

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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.”

[44]
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.

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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).

[46]
Use of the Same Kind of Bullets in the Colonies

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