Newell Dwight Hillis, an American Protestant clergyman and popular lecturer, wrote this wartime polemic indicting the German Empire for atrocities committed during the invasion and occupation of Belgium and northern France. Drawing on Allied reports, refugee testimony, and press accounts, he catalogues the destruction of Louvain, the execution of civilians, and other violations of the laws of war.
The book is a document of First World War propaganda and public opinion rather than dispassionate history, but it is a valuable primary source on how the Allied cause was presented to American audiences before the United States entered the war in 1917.