“In September, 1914, the following paragraph appeared in the papers:  ’Several ladies engaged in Red Cross work on Cologne Station were informed with every assurance of truth, that a hospital at Aix-la-Chapelle contained a whole ward full of wounded whose eyes had been gouged out on the battlefields of Belgium.’

“On September 26th the editor of the Catholic Koelnische Volkszeitung wrote to Dr. Kaufmann, a high Roman Catholic dignitary in Aix-la-Chapelle, begging him to ascertain whether the report were true.  Two days later that gentleman replied:  ’As regards the rumour mentioned in your letter, I beg to inform you that I at once put myself in communication with the authorities.  I inquired of the doctor in charge of a hospital here (he is, by the way, a famous specialist for the eyes), and he assures me that in all the local hospitals there is no ward for wounded whose eyes have been put out, AND SUCH A CASE HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED in the town, although the place is full of wounded.’

“A second report which the same journal exposed dates from October, 1914.  Recently Dean A., who is the Superior in a military hospital in the Franciscan Nunnery at S., came to us and reported that a wounded soldier had told him that he had heard[124] that in the monastery Bl. by V., in Holland, there were twenty-two wounded German soldiers whose eyes had been gouged out by Belgians.  The Dean begged us to write to the Mother Superior and ask for confirmation of the story.  We did write, and the lady answered that there was no hospital at all in the cloister Bl."[125]

[Footnote 124:  The words “hear” and “heard” occur very frequently in these legends.—­Author.]

[Footnote 125:  The Rev. Duhr’s book, pp. 11-12.]

The same lie travelled to Bonn, Sigmaringen, Potsdam, Bremen, and was successively nailed down by the Volkszeitung.  Inquiries were made in all directions wherever a case of gouged-out eyes was reported, the result being everywhere the same—­a fairy-tale.

Yet when the German Imperial Chancellor received a party of American journalists (representatives of the United Press and the Associated Press) on September 2nd, 1914, he communicated this statement:  “The English will inform your countrymen that German troops have burnt down Belgian villages and towns, but they will conceal the fact that Belgian girls have gouged out the eyes of our helpless soldiers lying on the battlefields.”

“Berlin papers informed the public that ’a large number of Belgian civilians were prisoners in Muenster.  They are the same bestial creatures who shot from their houses on our unsuspecting troops, and who, before the arrival of our invading armies in Belgium, had perpetrated all sorts of cruelties on helpless German citizens.  Indeed, when they were searched on their arrival at the prisoners’ camp fingers with rings on them, which they had hacked off their victims, were found in their pockets.  Justice will soon strike down these Belgians, among whom a very large number of priests are to be found.  Twenty to thirty have already been condemned to death by a court-martial.’