Hyde In War Time (1914-16) Page15-16

How Germany Makes War

At a lecture in the Primitive Methodist, Hoviley Brow, on September 28th, Dr. Hulme, who had visited Germany, and was intimately acquainted with many prominent Germans before the war, aroused his audience to an intense feeling of indignation and disgust as he tore away the veil of hypocrisy, and portrayed the hideousness of Teuton “Kultur,” showing with lucid emphasis how the Hun was insidiously working to destroy British prestige, and so become the Dominant World Power. Dr. Hulme’s statements were not mere hearsay, for he had talked to German military officers, business men, and manufacturers; and had discovered, beyond a shadow of doubt, they were all inspired by the same determined purpose, and were prepared, if possible, to accomplish that purpose whatever the cost. Some of the German atrocities upon unfortunate and helpless Belgians which he described were absolutely diabolical. He told of a Belgian who saw every member of his household murdered before his eyes by Germans; of little children’s noses being slit from their faces, arms cut for their bodies, and hands from their wrists, of Germans having entered a place as “members of the Red Cross,” armed with revolvers and knives, and murdered people as they lay in their beds. And, worst of all, he related that 550 inhabitants of the Belgian town of Dinant were taken into the public square, and, in batches of 110 at a time were blown pieces by the Germans with field artillery some of the victims being old men over eighty, some children under five. Some of the horrible incidents narrated by Dr. Hulme had been told to him by actual eye-witnesses. It is well that people of Hyde should understand the character of the Teuton, and bestial brutality of the Hum, and then they will be better able to realise that Britain and her Allies did not enter war without adequate reason, and that the gallant lads of Hyde who have fought and fallen in the war have not given their lives in vain. If the treacherous German jackboot could have swept over England as it swept through Belgian, the fate of thousands of our women and children would have been quite as horrible as that of the Belgians.

ASHTON BROS’. MATES’ PLATOON.

Front row : A. W. Smith, J. Hurst, R. Hickson. J. W. Bury, J. Brookes, Tom Lees, W. Dimelow, J. Higginbottom, John Hardy, J. Hannible, F. Knowles, T. Bramhall, W. Livett, J. Hallows.
Middle row : H. Rowland, F. Robbins, J. T. Robbins. H. Kirby, P. Preston, E. Moores, J. Rowland. J. Booth. A. Bennet, J. Oldham, W. Ainsworth, -- Finch, Tom Taylor, C. Booth, H. Pimblett, J. Charlesworth, C. Eyre.
Back row : E. Williamson, A. Dawson, O. Parrott, W. Wild, E. Marshall, W. Kennion, H. Ingleson.
In the centre (standing) is Councillor A. M. Fletcher. J.P.

Photo by A.E. Searle, Hyde.