Let an assassin go at
liberty and he will commence his killing all over again; send him to
the electric chair and he will regret his crime.
* * * * *
Just as France and Paris were not long in understanding what war meant
in Germany's mind, France and Paris were not long in accounting for
the danger they had passed through on account of the German spy
system, on account of the formidable web of espionage the German
agents had woven around all France.
People felt that this German spy system was there, speculated about it
and talked about it for years and years, but it was only in the first
days of the war that they really appreciated how diabolical it was and
how far it had penetrated into the heart of France.
What happened at Amiens at the beginning of September, 1914, is
especially characteristic of this.
Amiens was occupied twice by the enemy. To use the expression of a
military historian, it seemed as if "the French and the Germans were
playing hide-and-seek around the town." As soon as the blue caps of
the French appeared over the horizon, the yellow pointed helmets of
the Germans disappeared, rapidly. German occupation meant the same
thing it did everywhere else--exactions, brutalities, rape.
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