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Yote Iisor BIN
TOLIS 709
Hongkong, 6th. February, 1915.
As requested by the G. 0.0. I note below certain
particulars regarding the Court Martial in C. Bitzer of which I was
President:-
The main evidence against him consisted of a dozen
or more circulars dated Hongkong, st. August, 1914, addressed to
different branches of the Basel Lission in China, which mentioned
decisive victories of Germans over the Allies in France and stated
specifically that Belfort, Epinal, Luneville, Nancy, Toul and Ver-
dun had been captured by the Germans. In his defence he said he
thought he had seen this news in a copy of the "Ostiastische
Lloyd", but it was proved that he could not have seen it in that
paper. These circulars were being sent by ordinary post; but it
transpired during the evidence that Bitzer had sent other letters out of Hongkong during the first weeks of the war other than by the recognised postal channels and the presumption was that these
letters contained still more inaccurate information than the
first mentioned circulars. It was Bitzer's business, as Treasurer
to the mission in Hongkong to keep the different branches of the mission in South China supplied with news and it was admitted by
the German members of the Mission, whom he called as witnesses,
that such news was in practice always disseminated by the different branches amongst the Chinese servants, converte and
clientele generally; more especially if it was pro German and
Anti British. A further letter from Mr. Bitzer to one of the
Missionaries at an outstation was produced, in which he had stated
that the German prisoners on Stonecutters Island were employed
in washing soldiers' clothes. He admitted that he had no proof at
all of the truth of this remark and he could not give the source
of the information.
The general impression he left in the minds of the Court Martial members and myself was, that he was quite un-
-scrupulous as to what be spread in the way of anti British