VIOLATIONS OF THE HAGUE CONVENTION
A.--The "Reprisals against Francs-tireurs."
Under the pretext that France was making ready to attack her, Germany
hastened to invade Belgium and Luxemburg. But France was not preparing
to invade the Rhine provinces of Prussia, and this pretended threat of
aggression was merely a trick, intended to frighten Parliament, and
to obtain a vote approving the actions of the Ministry and giving it
_carte blanche_. The manoeuvre completely succeeded; the Government
received a unanimous vote, in spite of the Chancellor's admission: "We
are committing an injustice, and we are violating the law of nations;
but when one is driven into a corner as we are, all means are good."
We discovered immediately, alas! what these words meant. Hardly had
the German soldiers crossed the frontier, when they began to burn and
massacre.
_Murders committed by the Germans from the outset._
On the very day of the invasion--the 4th August--a motor-car carrying
four German officers arrived at Herve, and then pulled up. One of the
officers demanded information of a youth of sixteen, one Dechêne; the
latter did not understand, or perhaps refused to reply (which was his
right, and even his duty towards his country); we do not know, but in
any case the officer shot him with his revolver.
On the 4th of August, too, the Germans shot peaceful citizens at Visé,
when the 2nd battalion of the 12th regiment of the line, under Major
Collyns, had the audacity to resist them. Of course they pretended that
the civilians took part in the fighting. A few days later they burned
the church and the greater part of the town.
One sees plainly from these, and too many other examples, what
was the object of our enemies: (_a_) They wished to terrorize the
population, in order to make them more amenable to requisitions and
demands of all kinds; (_b_) they wished to make their own troops
believe that in fighting the Belgians--which they at first did with
great unwillingness--they were merely defending themselves against
treacherous attacks; (_c_) they wished to multiply opportunities of
pillage; (_d_) finally, perhaps, they reckoned that by displaying to
the Belgian Government the horrors to which its first refusal had
exposed the country, they would induce it to reconsider its position
and could obtain from it a free passage.
_Were there any "Francs-tireurs"?_
It would be impossible at this moment to state that the Belgians never,
at any point of the frontier, fired upon the invaders. Let us remark,
moreover, that if they did they would have been, from the purely human
point of view, perfectly excusable.[14] What! here is Germany, who,
pretending to be in a state of legitimate defence, falls unawares
upon an inoffensive third party! And this third party had no right to
oppose force to violence! In all logic, was it not Belgium that was in
a state of legitimate defence; was it not for Belgium that all means
were good? And notice, please, that it was not against an imagined and
imaginary menace that we were defending ourselves: the Germans had
most undeniably invaded Belgium. Would it have been astonishing if
the Belgians, exasperated by this unspeakable aggression, had seized
their rifles? In sane justice, one could not regard such action as
a grievance; on the contrary. Does this mean that we believe in the
story of civilians attacking the German army? Most certainly not;
because we know from reliable sources that in _every_ case where it
has been possible to hold an inquiry, this inquiry has shown that the
"francs-tireurs" were merely the pretext; the real motive for all the
devastation and massacre was the desire to terrorize the population.
It is, therefore, in a fashion entirely theoretical, and with the
most express reserves, that we admit, in default of opportunity to
investigate, in each case, the affirmations of our enemies, that in
some cases, certainly extremely rare, isolated civilians, or small
groups of civilians, may have been taken with arms in their hands. But
our enemies will please admit also that the attitude of these civilians
would have been amply excused by the more than brutal fashion in which
the Germans behaved from the very first moments of the war. Let us
add that when one erects terror into a system, as the Germans do, one
should understand the defensive reflexes of the victims.
What were the rights of our enemies in these exceptional cases? They
could, as they themselves proclaim, have shot the individual offenders,
and, for once in a way, have burned their houses. But nothing in
the world could justify the executions _en masse_ and the wholesale
burnings to which the Germans surrendered themselves.
_The Obsession of the "Franc-tireur" in the German Army._
One point at first remained obscure to us in the German "reprisals":
how did the German officers induce their men to commit this horrible
carnage? Very simply: their minds were worked upon beforehand; they
were crammed with legends of francs-tireurs dating from the war of
1870-71, and were made to believe that the Belgian population was
revoltingly brutal. So as soon as they set foot on our territory they
expected to be attacked by civilians, and, very naturally, prepared to
sell their lives dearly.
Nothing is more typical in this respect than the collection of
soldiers' letters published for the edification of the German nation
in _Der Deutsche Krieg in Feldpostbriefen_.--_I. Lüttich, Namur,
Antwerpen._ In more than half is there mention of "francs-tireurs"; but
scarcely ever does the writer speak of having himself seen them. Read,
for example, the first letter (that is No. 2 in the volume, for Letter
No. 1 is not a soldier's letter). The writer, an officer, asserts that
during the attack on the forts of Liége, on the night of the 6th of
August, the night was so dark that it was impossible to distinguish
friends from enemies, and that the Germans were firing on one another.
Nevertheless, as they were fired on, and as they saw three men running,
they immediately shot them as "francs-tireurs." During this same night
their baggage-column having been surprised (he does not say by whom),
a village was burned and the inhabitants were shot.
The whole mentality of the German soldier in respect of civilians is
reflected in this letter; it is so dark that the Germans fire on one
another, but that does not prevent them from recognizing that those
attacking them are "francs-tireurs," even though their men are "falling
_en masse_," which excludes all idea of francs-tireurs.
Francs-tireurs! From the very first days of the war it is a fixed idea,
an obsession, engendered by previous reading and conversation, and
carefully nourished by the leaders.
_The Obsession of the "Franc-tireur" in the Literature of the War._
Francs-tireurs! This idea invades the whole of their contemporary
literature. All the books on the campaign in Belgium and France swarm
with tales of this kind. Let us add that the authors do not assert that
they themselves have seen the attacks of the "francs-tireurs." But they
have been told of them, and they hasten to repeat the story without the
slightest means of verification.
Thus, in _Kriegsfahrten_, by Herren Koester and Noske, there is mention
of "francs-tireurs" on pages 10, 12, 13, 20, and 22; and they return to
the subject in the last chapter (p. 113).
Herr Fedor von Zobeltitz, in _Kriegsfahrten eines Johanniters_, also
constantly heard mention of attacks by Belgian civilians: at Tirlemont
(p. 39), at Louvain (pp. 39, 53, 54, 91), at Malines (p. 49), at
Eppeghem (p. 86), and in Antwerp (p. 154).
The volume entitled _Die Eroberung Belgiëns_ is full of stories of the
same sort. Thus, of thirty-eight illustrations, which are neither maps
nor portraits, ten are devoted to the attacks of Belgian civilians.
It is interesting to compare the tales of people who have not been
present in the battles fought in Belgium, and who speak only from
hearsay, with the narrative of Herr Otto von Gottberg, _Als Adjutant
durch Frankreich und Belgiën_. He took part in September in the
battles which accompanied the siege of Antwerp. Nowhere did he see
francs-tireurs. Yet he by no means loves the Belgian civilians, and
he certainly would have been tremendously pleased to shoot down a
few. Read, for example, what he says of the provocative attitude of
the people of Brussels, and above all of the women of Brussels (p.
55), and of passing through the streets of Lebbeke (near Termonde),
where his soldiers proposed to fall upon the inhabitants who scowled
at them (p. 65). However, he says, he did not burn a single house (p.
67). We may remark that Herr Gottberg's companions showed themselves
less amiable, or at least equitable, than he, for the "reprisals"
against Lebbeke were particularly atrocious (see _9th Report_). It is,
however, highly improbable that the inhabitants would have deprived
themselves of the pleasure of firing on the little patrol led by Herr
Gottberg, afterwards to take up arms against troops which were much
more numerous. However it may be, the legend of the "francs-tireurs"
of Lebbeke was willingly accepted by Herren Koester and Noske
(_Kriegsfahrten_).
_The Obsession of the "Franc-tireur" in Literature and Art._
The obsession of the "franc-tireur" is also found outside the limits of
military literature properly so-called. Herr Bredt has just published
a book on _Le caractère du peuple belge révélé par l'art belge_. The
illegal attacks of the Belgian population upon the regular German
troops, he says, were not in the least surprising to those who were
acquainted with the productions of Belgian art.
It would be difficult to surpass, in this respect, an article which
appeared in the January number of _Kunst und Künstler_. It gives the
reproduction of an engraving by Callot: a camp in which musketeers
are putting to death condemned men bound to stakes. "Execution of
francs-tireurs," says the legend in German. That there should be a
question of "francs-tireurs" in the time of Callot, who died in 1635,
may in itself seem somewhat strange. But the engraver has taken care
to inscribe, under his work, some lines describing the scene which it
represents, which may be translated as follows:--
"Those who to give their evil nature sway,
Failing in duty, take the tyrant's way,
Infringing right, delighting but in ill,
Whose acts are full of treason and self-will,
Cause in the camp full many a bloody brawl,
So die this death, the end of traitors all."
It is enough to read this legend to realize that they are traitors who
are being punished; but the German mind of to-day is so steeped in
the idea of "francs-tireurs" that the artists no longer understand
what their predecessors wrote, and, like the soldiers, they see
francs-tireurs everywhere.
_Responsibility of the Leaders._
But it is above all the great massacres of Andenne, Tamines, Dinant,
Termonde, Aerschot, Louvain, and Luxemburg, which are for ever
inexcusable, and will remain, an eternal disgrace, as a stain upon the
German flag. Their appetite whetted by the atrocities committed during
the first days of the invasion, the soldiers themselves invented or
simulated attacks of "francs-tireurs," in order to have the pleasure
of afterwards repressing them, killing, pillaging, and burning entire
cities. Let us say, to be just, that not the soldiers but their leaders
will bear, before the bar of history, the responsibility of this
revival of the monstrosities of barbarism. Is it not obvious that in an
army as highly disciplined as the German, an army in which the officers
drive their men into battle under the threat of their revolvers, and in
which the soldiers obey such injunctions, such deliberately prepared
tragedies as that of Louvain are possible only with the complicity
of the officers, or rather by their orders? How else can we conceive
that soldiers would post themselves in a garden and thence fire their
rifles into the streets? (_N.R.C._, 10th September, 1914, evening
edition). And it is not the subaltern officers that we have to call
to account for these butcheries, but the generals, such as Baron von
Bissing, since become Governor-General of Belgium, who counsels the
soldiery to show themselves pitiless, and not to allow themselves to be
swayed by any humanitarian consideration, for compassion would be an
act of treason (_compare_ p. 336). The soldiers are advised that it
is permissible for them "to make the innocent suffer with the guilty"
(p. 84); that they may hang, without further ceremony, those who have
committed the crime of being found present, for whatever reason, in a
house where munitions or arms have been found (p. 335); and also those
who have attempted to escape while they were being held as hostages (p.
151). The previous Governor-General of Belgium announced that soldiers
need not be sure whether suspects are accessories or not, but that "if
any hostility is displayed towards them they may raze a city to the
ground." Such is the fate that General von Bülow promised the city of
Brussels. The same general thought it incumbent upon him officially
to inform the people of Brussels, Liége, and Namur that it was with
his consent that the town of Andenne was burned, and about one hundred
persons shot (_6th Report_, IV).
By these proclamations and others equally sanguinary the military
authorities wished to influence both the Germans and the Belgians.
The former were absolved beforehand of the horrors they committed,
and were assured of impunity for all the "reprisals" they might be
pleased to undertake. Moreover, they were kept in perpetual horror of
"francs-tireurs." Are they assailed unexpectedly by soldiers of the
enemy's army? They fall back without assuring themselves of what has
really happened, and return with the main body of the army to expend
their rage against the "francs-tireurs." This is what took place at
Tamines where more than four hundred citizens were shot down by rifle
or machine-gun fire, and also in a dozen villages of Bas-Luxembourg,
which were razed to the ground, and in which a thousand inhabitants
were shot.
_Animosity toward the Clergy._
The military chiefs bear an especial grudge against the clergy. In
the manifestoes against "francs-tireurs" the priests are specially
mentioned, which amounts to recommending them quite specially to the
savagery of the troops. The latter are convinced that the priests
incite their flocks from the pulpit, and that they place machine-guns
in the belfries. So, in the sack of a village, the worst treatment is
always reserved for the priests and the churches.
The pastoral letter of His Excellency Cardinal Mercier gives a list of
forty-three priests shot or executed.[15]
There is no ignominy the troops have not inflicted on the priests. A
few examples among hundreds will suffice.
They forced members of the Louvain clergy to lie naked in the dung of
a pig-sty.
The curé of Pont-Brûlé was beaten, by order of the German soldiery, by
his own parishioners.
The January number of _Kunst und Künstler_ gives a drawing representing
a curé hanging from a tree.
At Cortemarck it was the priests who were punished because an
inhabitant was in communication with the enemy (read, "the Belgians").
On the 30th August, 1914, the Germans arrested the dean and vicar of
a village in Brabant, under the pretext that they had made luminous
signals from the church tower. Now the priests had been prisoners
since 2.0 o'clock of the afternoon; how then could they have ascended
the tower at 5.30 p.m.? Despite their protestations they were taken
to Louvain, whence a so-called Council of War sent them to Germany.
Arriving in a prisoners' camp, they were accommodated in the latrines,
which consisted of a trench and a plank perforated with holes. Each
time a German soldier had to satisfy his need, he took the opportunity
of insulting the priests in the most filthy manner. A German major sent
for them and informed them that they were about to be shot. The vicar
asked that he might confess. "No," he was told, "hell is good enough
for you." They were led away to die ... but were sent to a seminary,
where they remained prisoners until January 1915.
_Animosity toward Churches._
Against the churches their rage was unloosed with even greater fury.
In the part of Brabant that lies north of Vilvorde there is hardly
a belfry left erect: Beyghem, Capelle-au-Bois, Haecht, Humbeek,
Pont-Brûlé, Sempst, Eppeghem, Houtem, Weerde, Hofstade, Elewijt,
Werchter, Boortmeerbeek, etc., are all burned.
At Termonde all the churches have been either burned or profaned. But
in the midst of this city, where twelve hundred houses were burned out
of fourteen hundred, the Béguinage remained intact, an oasis of calm
isolated amid the calcined ruins. On the grassy plain that surrounds
the bright little houses of the béguines stood the chapel. This did
not find favour with the Germans, and its blackened walls attest that
Kultur has passed that way. Were the béguines perhaps "francs-tireurs"?
We have already stated that the peculiar irritation of the Germans
against the clergy and their sanctuaries was due to the fact that they
regarded the curés as the leaders of the "francs-tireurs." The falsity
of this allegation was recognized by Dr. Julius Bachem, the editor
of the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_, one of the most prominent Catholic
newspapers in Germany. Dr. Bachem published, in the issue for April
1915 of the _Süddeutsche Monatshefte_, which was principally devoted
to Belgium, an article on the religious problem in Belgium. He based
his proofs on the authority of Baron von Bissing, Commandant of the
7th Army Corps, at present Governor-General in Belgium, and also on
the special inquiry undertaken by the Union of the Catholic Priests of
the Rhine, _Pax_. This inquiry, mostly conducted with the aid of the
present military authorities in Belgium, proved that the clergy was
absolutely innocent, and that all the accusations brought against it
were purely imaginary.[16]
The Emperor did not wait for the confirmation of the crimes attributed
to the priests before making violent accusations against them in his
telegram to the President of the United States. He has not retracted
these.
_Intentional Insufficiency of Preliminary Inquiries._
Never was there the least justification for reprisals. Read the Reports
of the Commission of Inquiry, and the narratives of ocular witnesses,
and you will find that the most horrible things are continually done
without any pains being taken to verify the facts. Soldiers greedy for
pillage say, without justification, _Die Civilisten haben geschossen_;
and that is enough. The order is given to kill the men and reduce
the neighbourhood to ashes. Or shots have really been fired on the
Germans; the civilians are suddenly accused, and without listening to
the unhappy prisoners, who offer to prove that the shots were fired by
Belgian or Allied soldiers, the Germans proceed to execution.
A very typical case is that of Charleroi. We knew that French troops
were still occupying the town when the Germans entered. But these last
immediately accused the civilians, since, they said, shots were fired
from the interior of the houses, as though their adversaries had not
the right, quite as much as they, to take cover in the buildings.
Moreover, when they later were confronted with the proof that the
French were there, they merely remarked that the latter's mission was
to organize and to discipline the civic guards and "francs-tireurs"[17]
(_see_ Heymel's article, p. 196). Could one imagine a finer example of
preconceived opinion?
M. Waxwieler insists emphatically on the unspeakable frivolity with
which the Germans carry out "reprisals." He cites notably the case of
Linsmeau (p. 256) and that of Francorchamps (p. 270). As this is an
essential point, I may perhaps be permitted to relate a few more cases.
On entering Wépion on the 23rd August the Germans pretended that the
citizens had fired on them, and they shot, then and there, six of them,
among whom were the two younger Bouchats. Now those who had fired
were Belgian soldiers armed with machine-guns, who were covering the
retreat of the Belgian troops. A moment's reflection would have enabled
the Germans to realize their error, since civilians obviously had no
machine-guns at their disposal. While they were being led to their
death, one of the Bouchats begged a glass of water of their mother. But
the Germans refused to allow it to be given him: "It's not worth the
trouble now," they said.
In August 1914 a French patrol and a German patrol came into collision
at Sibret (Belgian Luxembourg) and exchanged shots; they then retired,
leaving a wounded German on the ground. Two inhabitants of Sibret
carried the wounded man toward an ambulance; the clerk to the _Justice
de Paix_ of Bouillon, M. Rozier, accompanied them. He was carrying the
rifle slung over his shoulder and the soldier's knapsack in his hand. A
German patrol came up and questioned M. Rozier, telling him, no doubt,
to raise his hands or throw down his rifle. As neither M. Rozier nor
any of his companions understood German, and were unable to comply with
the order, the Germans fired on M. Rozier, killing him.
Every time it has been possible to obtain any kind of inquiry from the
Germans it has resulted in their confusion; at Huy the bullets found in
the bodies of Germans were German bullets; the General was forced to
stop the burning of the village; he even admitted that a mistake had
been made.
An example of another kind, also taken from the _N.R.C._, is equally
characteristic. During the night a German soldier fired a rifle-shot,
no one knew why, in a village of Western Flanders. Great alarm
immediately. "The village is going to be burned!" But before they
had time to get to work an important piece of evidence, the empty
cartridge-case, proved that it was really a German soldier who fired.
However, if by chance this blessed cartridge-case had not come to hand
the village would have burned. Too often, alas! the German army does
not trouble to postpone the reprisals awhile ... and the houses are in
ashes before the falsity of the accusations has been proved. It is to
be remarked, indeed, that it is never the Germans who prove the truth
of their allegations, but the Belgians who have to prove the Germans in
error. It is justice reversed.
It is easy to understand that a _non-lieu_ does not please the German
authorities. In fact, their object is not to render justice but to
terrorize the population; and if it were necessary to examine the
_bona-fides_ of their accusations they would not be able to exercise
"reprisals," which would not suit them at all!
If the accusations had really been justified by the attacks of
"francs-tireurs" the Germans would have taken care to establish their
existence irrefutably. For we must not forget that according to Article
3 of the Hague Convention they ought to indemnify us for all the
burnings and massacres commanded by them.
_A "Show" Inquiry._
They know, however, how contrary these summary executions are to the
spirit of justice, and they sometimes attempt to lay a false trail.
Read, for example, the chapter devoted by Dr. Sven Hedin to the
"francs-tireurs." The great Swedish geographer, of whose wonderful
Asiatic journeys every one has heard, made a tour along the Western
front. He therefore visited the occupied portion of France and
Belgium, and wrote an enthusiastic book on the German Army, _Ein
Volk in Waffen_. In the course of this work, he describes the manner
in which an inquiry is held into the circumstances of an attack by
"francs-tireurs." Everything is done as regularly as possible, and
the affair ends in an acquittal. Was the tribunal authentic, or was
it merely a parody?[18] It matters little; the essential thing for us
is that it was desired to prove to Dr. Hedin that the Germans are not
barbarians, and that they observe the forms of justice even while on
campaign.
_Mentality of an Officer charged with the Repression of
"Francs-tireurs."_
Let us now compare with the account of Dr. Hedin that of a German
officer entrusted with the repression of "francs-tireurs." Captain Paul
Oskar Höcker gives a few curious details in his interesting book, _An
der Spitze meiner Kompagnie_. He had to clear of "francs-tireurs" a
portion of the territory comprised between the German frontier and the
Meuse. His mission consisted in this: to present himself at houses,
to ask if there were arms, and in case of a reply in the negative, to
search the house; if arms were discovered the householder was shot on
the spot; in case of resistance the house was burned (p. 83). The first
farm he visits is Jungbush, near Moresnet; the inhabitants assure him
they have no arms. They are told that if they are hiding one rifle
they will be punished with death; they repeat that they have none. And
now the soldiers bring up a boy of fifteen who was hiding under the
straw with a Belgian rifle and five cartridges. He is shot without
further inquiry (p. 26). It is permissible to ask whether it would
not have been juster and more humane to have looked into the matter a
little more closely. The remainder of the book instructs us as to the
psychology of Captain Höcker. At the house of the vicar of Thimister,
where he passed the first night in Belgium, his bedroom door did not
lock, and this was enough to make him shake with fear (p. 29). On the
following morning he had a pigeon shot, which he suspected of being a
carrier of despatches to "francs-tireurs"; "and in truth," he says,
"the pigeon bore a stamp on the left wing" (p. 30). This proof is
perhaps somewhat slender in a country where all pigeons which take part
in matches have a mark of this kind. He confiscates all the small-arms
and parts of arms in the establishments of the innumerable armourers of
the district, and smashes everything in their workshops. On one such
occasion he burns a house whose owner does not consent with good grace
to the destruction of his plant (p. 30). On the same day he finds that
all the houses from which shots were fired have been burned; in his
satisfaction he does not even ask himself whether those who fired were
soldiers or civilians (p. 31). Neither has he a word of reprobation
for the fury which the Germans display against Belgium: Belgium,
forced to take the side of the Allies when her territory was violated
by Germany. He reaches Visé at the moment of its burning; he accepts
immediately the legend according to which the bridge has been destroyed
by "francs-tireurs" (p. 34). According to him, the Belgians of good
society do not become soldiers; he is convinced that substitution
is still in force with us, and that for 1,600 francs (£64) one can
escape from one's military obligations (p. 39). To him, therefore, all
civilians appear cowards, and he is not surprised to see them become
"sneaking francs-tireurs." When he passes through the streets of
Louvain he listens to the story that Germans have that very day been
fired upon (p. 47). Further on he admits without hesitation that the
German soldiers taken prisoners before Liége must have expected to be
shot by the Belgians (p. 71).
We do not question the sincerity of Captain Höcker. But why was so
credulous and so suggestible a person selected to search out and punish
"francs-tireurs"? Assuredly because it was desired that "reprisals"
should be carried out without previous discussion, and by some one
whose conscience should, nevertheless, be at rest.
_Drunkenness in the German Army._
We have just seen that massacres very frequently took place without any
pretext having been brought forward to excuse them. In nearly all cases
alcoholism was the cause of these, for the German soldiers, and above
all the officers, are scandalously addicted to drink.
The first thing requisitioned by the officers is always wine, by
hundreds of bottles at a time.
Turn over a collection of German illustrated papers: every time a
meeting of officers is photographed there are bottles and glasses on
the table. At the ambulance installed in the Palais de Justice of
Brussels the military surgeons have not been ashamed to steal the
wine of the wounded men, wine offered by the citizens of Brussels. The
general and his staff who installed themselves on the 21st August,
1914, in the Palais Royal of Laeken levied such vast contributions on
the cellars of the Palais that on the following morning an officer was
found, in the costume of Adam, dead-drunk in front of a bath which he
had not had the strength to enter. When they left the Palais they took
with them many hampers of wine, and a few days later they had a search
made for further hampers of the vintages which were their preference.
The cellars were soon empty.
They were drunken soldiers who provoked the burning of Huy, the
assassinations at Canne (_N.R.C._, 23rd August, 1914, morning edition),
and in part at least the massacres of Louvain. When they occupied Gand
the police had to collect them, dead-drunk, on the very first morning;
they had already begun to fire revolver-shots.
It was after a tavern brawl between drunken soldiers that the burning
of a portion of Tongres was decreed (_N.R.C._, 22nd August, 1914,
morning edition). In Brussels, on the 28th September, 1914, some
drunken soldiers in a German cabaret situated in the Rue de la Grande
Ile, were firing rifle-shots to amuse themselves; bullets lodged in the
house-fronts opposite. The officer whom some one went to fetch that
he might witness this misbehaviour believed that an attack was being
delivered by "francs-tireurs," and, trembling like a leaf, refused to
go thither. The _N.R.C._, 28th January, 1915 (morning edition) states
that a young girl of Eelen was arrested as a "franc-tireur" because
rifle-shots had been fired by drunken soldiers.
Let us add that drunkenness might have had harmless consequences if
the authorities had not exerted themselves to make the troops believe
that every unexpected shot is necessarily fired by a "franc-tireur,"
and that so black a crime can only be paid for by a general massacre
accompanied by the burning of the village concerned.
* * * * *
There is only one fashion of explaining the horrors committed by the
Germans: it is to admit that they are modelled beforehand according to
a carefully devised system of intimidation: the systematic inhumanity
of their treatment of the enemy population being intended to facilitate
other military operations.
_Cruelties necessary according to German Theories._
Compare, for example, the laws of war according to the German Great
General Staff[19] with the stipulations of the Hague Convention. As
the last is based on humanitarian considerations and seeks to lighten
the scourge of war for non-combatants, so the Germans systematically
refuse to make war less cruel; on the contrary, they start with the
principle that the more terrible the war the more swiftly and surely
will its object be attained. Read the chapter, "The Object of War,"
and you will be edified. Even jurists like Baer, blinded by warlike
passions, dare to maintain that all must yield to military necessities,
including--what blasphemy!--the law of nations. The characteristic
theory that war should be "absolute" and barbarous is the idea
underlying the manifesto of von Bissing which has already been cited
(p. 70). In fewer words Hindenburg says the same thing[20] (p. 206).
So that Belgium might realize the fate that awaited her the German
authorities made haste to advertise their opinion. It is true that they
have since then posted up reassuring phrases as to the humanitarian
sentiments of the German Army for the moment. Had our butchers
renounced their attempts at terrorization?
_Terrorization: "Reprisals" as a "Preventive."_
According to this hypothesis, that the great "reprisals" undertaken at
the outset of the war would serve as examples, the Germans wished to
instil terror into the very marrow of our bones, so that they might
then be able to rule us with a small garrison of Landsturm. Reflect,
for example, that Brussels, an agglomeration of 700,000 souls, has
never had a garrison of more than 5,000 men, and has often had only
1,000.
Such a calculation is so abominable, so fundamentally inhuman, that we
shrank from the harshness of this supposition, and accepted it with
all manner of reservations.[21] Well, our hesitation was futile. In an
article whose frankness is calculated to make one's hair stand on end,
Captain Walter Blöm, adjutant to the Governor-General, published in the
officially-inspired _Kölnische Zeitung_ of the 10th February, 1915, the
confirmation of that which we hardly dared to imagine. Here are his
exact words:--
"The principle according to which the whole community must be punished
for the fault of a single individual is justified by the _theory of
terrorization_. The innocent must suffer with the guilty; if the latter
are unknown the innocent must even be punished in their place; and
note that the punishment is applied not _because_ a misdeed has been
committed, but _in order that_ no more shall be committed. To burn a
neighbourhood, shoot hostages, decimate a population which has taken
up arms against the army--all this is far less a reprisal than the
sounding of a _note of warning_ for the territory not yet occupied. Do
not doubt it: it was as a note of warning that Battice, Herve, Louvain,
and Dinant were burned. The burnings and bloodshed of the opening of
the war showed the great cities of Belgium how perilous it was for them
to attack the small garrisons which we were able to leave there. No
one will believe that Brussels, where we are to-day as though in our
own home, would have allowed us to do as we liked if the inhabitants
had not trembled before our vengeance, and if they did not continue to
tremble. War is not a social diversion."
Any commentary would weaken the force of these declarations.
_Incendiary Material._
We are not in the confidence of the German Staff, and we can only form
hypotheses as to its mentality. But here are two facts, easy to verify
and interpret, which show that the atrocities were committed with
premeditation.
Firstly, the existence of various incendiary materials. When a town
is condemned to be burned the execution of the command is confided to
a special company of the engineers. (The _carnet_ of an officer of an
"incendiary company" was picked up in a commune of Hainaut.) Generally
a first squad breaks the windows and shutters; a second pours naphtha
into the houses by means of special pumps, "incendiary pumps"; then
comes the third squad, which throws the "incendiary bombs." These last
are of many different kinds. Those most commonly employed in Brabant
and Hainaut include discs of gelatinous nitro-cellulose, which jump
in all directions. Thanks to the inflammable vapours which fill the
houses, the latter catch fire on all their floors simultaneously. It
took only half an hour to set fire to the Boulevard Audent at Charleroi.
No one can suppose that so perfect an organization was improvised
during the campaign. Moreover, where and how could the discs of
fulminating cotton have been procured?
At Termonde the Germans probably employed cylinders of naphtha. At all
events one can still see, in houses which did not catch fire, holes
made in the ceilings and floors, into which holes long strips of linen
are introduced to serve as wicks. The Germans sprinkled them with
naphtha, and it was enough to put a match to such a wick in order to
set fire to the joists of the floor overhead. At Termonde 1,200 houses
were burned in a single day.
_The Two Great Periods of Massacre._
We discover, then, that the great destructive operations were conducted
according to a general plan. Let us place in chronological order the
most important of the massacres and the conflagrations, that is, those
which could not have been carried out except by order of the officers,
omitting, therefore, the killings in detail and the burning of farms
and isolated houses, attributable, no doubt, to soldiers acting on
their own initiative, or to small bands greedy for pillage. What do
we see? That apart from the atrocities which marked the outset of the
campaign, the majority of the great killings and burnings, in France
as well as in Belgium, were ordered during two periods: one from the
19th to the 27th August, and one from the 2nd to the 12th September,
1914. Now it is quite certain that in a country already occupied,
and deprived of means of communication, the "francs-tireurs" could
not possibly have agreed among themselves as to the moment of their
attacks. The only people who could transmit an order were the Germans;
and the legitimate conclusion which one forms from this lamentable list
is that the pretended attacks of francs-tireurs were elaborated in
Berlin, whence they were ordered by telegraph to break out on a given
date.
Another interesting fact revealed by a chronological list is that
the so-called attacks of "francs-tireurs" very often do not coincide
with the entrance of the Germans into a given locality, but break
out a few days later. One might at a pinch understand that poachers,
or impulsive individuals, might fire a rifle at a patrol; but it is
wholly improbable that they would make their attempt at a moment when
they were already impressed by the formidable warlike equipment of our
enemies. This is so contrary to common sense that the Germans try to
get out of it by lying. Let us cite a case. They assert that on Tuesday
the 25th August, 1914, there was in Louvain only a weak garrison of
Landsturm, and that the civil population profited by this circumstance
to attempt an attack, which could only be repressed by incendiarism and
massacre. Now the people of Louvain had been warned that very morning
that 10,000 men were to arrive during the day, and that many houses
which had not yet billeted soldiers would do so the following night.
And, indeed, that afternoon several fresh regiments were seen to enter,
notably the 53rd, 72nd, and 7th Hussars.
When, by exception, the Germans assert that the "francs-tireurs" have
attacked a column on the march, one almost always remarks the three
following points: (1) the attack takes place while a village is being
traversed; (2) it happens when a great part of the column has already
passed, so that the "francs-tireurs" are caught between two fires; (3)
the "francs-tireurs" are concealed in the houses. A moment's reflection
suffices to show that these are precisely the most unfavourable
circumstances which civilians could choose for their attack.
_Protective Inscriptions._
All this shows that we have not to deal with acts of indiscipline,
which are, God knows, the inevitable accompaniment of any war, yet
which are almost excusable. We have here a maturely considered system,
prepared at the Great General Headquarters, and then frigidly applied.
In other words, the "reprisals against francs-tireurs" form part of
the plan of campaign of the German army. If additional proof were
needed that they are disciplined cruelties, as the Minister of State,
M. Emile Vandervelde, remarks, it would be found in the inscriptions
and placards placed upon property which is to be respected.
Besides the inscription which says simply that the house must not be
burned save with the authorization of the _Kommandantur_ (at Louvain,
after the great fires of the 25th and 27th August, nearly all the
houses which were spared received one of these placards), there are
others giving the reasons for the protection accorded to the building.
Here are some of these reasons: the inhabitants are respectable
(_gute_) people; they have German sympathies; they have already given
the troops all they possessed; they are protected by the Legation; an
officer knows them personally. The fact that with very few exceptions
these houses escaped disaster well demonstrates the strength of German
discipline. It is by no means astonishing, therefore, that in the
localities which are still intact the inhabitants should have taken
precautions; thus, there have been houses in Brussels which were
provided with a protective inscription. Other buildings have been
marked on a plan (_N.R.C._, 14th September, 1914, evening edition).
This reminds one of the tenth plague of Egypt and the sign which the
Jews had to place upon the lintel of their dwelling, that the Lord
might recognize it. When the Lord passed, He spared the marked houses
(Exodus xii. 7, 22). In the German plague which has settled upon our
poor country, the Destroying Angel has the aspect of an officer with a
single eye-glass.
_Accusations against the Belgian Government._
What makes the German accusations against the "francs-tireurs"
particularly serious is, firstly, the terrifying, infernal nature of
the punishments which follow these accusations; and secondly, the
fact that they involve our constituted authorities.[22] "The Belgian
Government has openly[23] encouraged the civil population to take part
in this war," says one whose word has weight in Germany, for he is
none other than the Emperor in person. And he did not content himself
with telegraphing this to America; he spread this impudent assertion
over the walls of our cities (p. 208). Had he at least the excuse of
believing what he said? Most certainly not; for years he had been
informed by his spies of the details of our military organization; he
knew, then, perfectly, what Belgium was or was not doing.
At the time the first accusations of this kind were made the Belgian
authorities had informed Germany that, conformably with the laws of
war, they were fighting only with their regular troops (2nd _Grey
Book_, Nos. 68, 69, 71). And they posted everywhere proclamations
recommending the people to keep calm, forbidding civilians to take part
in the fighting, and counselling the citizens to deliver their arms to
the communal administrations (2nd _Grey Book_, No. 71). At the same
time the principal daily papers repeated, day by day, on the first page
and in large type, the text of these placards.
These appeals were heard, and our compatriots, if they owned rifles,
immediately took their arms to the _maisons communales_. Would you
believe it, this measure of precaution was exploited against us! For
later, when the Germans occupied our _hôtels de ville_, and discovered
the presence of rifles, each ticketed with its owner's name, they
pretended to have brought to light a proof of premeditation (_N.R.C._,
4th September, 1914, evening edition): "Look!--say the officers--with
what care the Belgian authorities have prepared for the guerilla war!
Each citizen has his rifle ready to hand at the _hôtel de ville_!"
The soldiers must indeed have been ridden by the "fixed idea" of the
"franc-tireur," or they must have realized the poltroonery of such
suggestions!
But the Germans made assertions much more extravagant than this. In
Belgium repairs to buildings are effected with the assistance of
scaffoldings suspended against the outer walls; and at the time of
building the house openings are left immediately under the cornice,
in which the cross-beams supporting the scaffolding are fixed when
required. These openings are closed outwardly by some sort of
decorative motive. Now, a German captain gives a detailed description
of these arrangements, and arrives at the conclusion that these are
_loopholes for francs-tireurs_!
What a mentality for an officer! So fantastic an explanation evidently
will not bear a moment's reflection; but that matters nothing; it is
none the less reprinted by the work _Die Wahrheit über den Krieg_, to
be served to the Germans remaining in the country. The authors of the
statement know that their compatriots have lost the critical sense and
that they are ready to accept, their eyes closed, and their minds also,
anything that is told them.
This example shows that while inciting the soldiers in order to bring
them to the required pitch of irritation, the rulers of Germany are
equally concerned to create a violent current of hatred in their own
country. It was necessary, in fact, since there was nothing with which
the Belgian nation could be reproached, and since nevertheless they
were making war upon it, to invent a few serious motives of animosity.
In a preceding chapter we examined the wretched diplomatic accusations
which the Germans have forged in an attempt to compromise our political
circles. We shall presently deal with the abominable accusations of
cruelty brought against the Belgians. Here we will content ourselves
with citing yet one more fact relating to the "francs-tireurs."
When the civil population of a locality was accused--or convicted, as
the butchers said--of having borne arms against the German troops,
the procedure was generally as follows: The houses were fired, and
the inhabitants driven towards a public square, or into the church.
They were divided into two groups: one of men, the others of women,
children, and old folk. Then a certain number of men were shot;
often, too, a few of the women, children, and old people. After the
execution, which took place in the presence of the whole village, the
women, children, and old people were set free to wander amid the
smoking ruins. The officers used to make it their duty to be present
at these operations, as much to encourage and, at need, to assist the
executioners, as to enjoy the spectacle. At Tamines they sat at table
in the open, drinking champagne, while the victims were being buried.
The Germans themselves realized what disgust such behaviour excited;
they tried to deny the facts, but these were proved.
_Treatment of Civil Prisoners._
What was done with the men not killed? They were sent into Germany
in order to show the "francs-tireurs" to the people. One can easily
imagine what the journey was like: in cattle-trucks, where they
remained packed together for several days, without even having room
to sit down; tortured by hunger and thirst to the point of losing
their reason--which meant being shot there and then. The stoppages in
the railway stations, when the population came to insult them, making
gestures of cutting their throats ... one can picture it all. Then the
life in camp, where they are even less well treated than the soldiers,
for at least these latter are regarded as prisoners of war, and, in
that quality, as being protected, up to a certain point, by the Hague
Convention; while the "francs-tireurs" are criminals in common law,
who are given, for food, scarcely anything but soup made of beet,
fish-heads, and slaughter-house offal.
It is extremely difficult to obtain information as to their sojourn
in Germany from those who have returned. Before leaving, it seems,
they were forced to make a promise to reveal nothing, under penalty
of being sent back to Germany. We know, however, that certain of
these prisoners, coming from an agricultural district, were forced
to go down the coal-pits of Essen (_N.R.C._, 10th October, 1914,
evening edition), while others were made to gather in the harvest in
Westphalia. When they refused to go to work they were beaten with
sticks; a young man on the outskirts of Brussels still bears the marks
of such treatment.
This is a revival of the deeds of antiquity. The ancients also reduced
the able-bodied inhabitants to slavery, employing them in agriculture
or the mines. It only remains for the Germans to sell us at auction,
as Julius Cæsar did in the case of the 53,000 Belgians captured at
Atuatuca (_De Bello Gallico_, ii. 33).
They sent not only "francs-tireurs" into Germany. They made prisoners
also in localities where nothing had happened. Thus they took all
the inhabitants of the non-active civic guard of Tervueren. The list
bore 135 names; as many of the men had left the commune, the Germans
completed the number by taking the first civilians who came to hand;
for they had to have 135 prisoners from Tervueren to exhibit in Germany.
On several occasions it happened, during the period of the great
massacres, from the 20th to the 27th August, that bands of prisoners
taken into Germany were not accepted and were sent back to Belgium.
Such was the case with numerous prisoners from Louvain, who were taken
back to Brussels, then taken to near Malines, and there left in the
open country; the same was done with several hundreds of men, women,
children, and old folk from Rotselaer, Wesemael, and Gelrode. Here, in
a few words, is their Odyssey. To begin with, they were expelled from
their houses, that these might be burned, on the 25th and 26th August.
Then they were driven by the troops as far as Louvain, and there
crammed by force into cattle-trucks, which in two days conveyed them
to Germany. There they were witnesses of a violent dispute of which
they were the object, and finally, after they had been given a little
food in the railway station, they were put back into their trucks.
They reached Brussels on the 31st August, where they were restored to
liberty; that is, they were told: "Get out of here, and be off with
you." And there were these unhappy folk, turned out of the railway
station, dejected, bewildered, their glances vacant, almost dead with
drowsiness and fatigue, the men supporting the old people, the women
carrying the children. The people of Brussels who saw this lamentable
procession go by will never as long as they live forget the impression
of misery which they received. Assistance was organized immediately,
and our poor compatriots were given shelter in the various public
establishments of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. They remained there several
weeks before daring to return "home."
How many civil prisoners were there in the various camps of Germany:
Celle, Gutersloh, Magdeburg, Münster, Salzwedel, Cassel, Senne, Soltau,
etc.? The lists which have been published in _Le Bruxellois_ are
very incomplete. On the other hand, persons who were believed to be
prisoners in Germany have in reality been shot. Thus, in the little
garden facing the railway station of Louvain a trench was opened on
the 14th and 15th January, 1915, in which were found a Belgian soldier
of the 6th line regiment and twenty-six civilians of Louvain, who were
believed for the most part to be in Germany; among them were two women
and the curé of Herent.
Many of the people of Tintigny, Rossignol, and other localities, who
had been taken away as civil prisoners, were shot by the roadside.
Those of Musson escaped only because the order had come from Germany
not to kill any more prisoners: by July 1915 they were not as yet
repatriated.
_The Return of Civil Prisoners._
In November and December there returned to their "homes" (we mean to
their native towns, not to their houses, which were burned) about 450
inhabitants of Dinant, more than 400 of Aerschot, and several hundred
people of Louvain, of the 1,200 which had been taken away.
Many of them bore, painted in white oil paint on the back of their
waistcoats the words: _Kriegsgefangene-Münsterlager_. Until March 1915
those living at Dinant had to present themselves regularly before the
military authorities.
On the occasion of their return the communal administration of Dinant
was compelled publicly to thank the Germans.
CITY OF DINANT.
On the occasion of the return of a portion of our civil prisoners,
I believe it my duty to invite the whole population to observe the
most absolute calm. Any demonstration might be severely repressed.
The return of a portion of our fellow-citizens, held in captivity
for nearly three months, constitutes an act of benevolence, an act
of generous humanity on the part of the military authorities, to
whom we offer the thanks of the administration and those of the
people of Dinant. By its tranquillity the latter will endeavour to
manifest its gratitude.
I also beg the returning prisoners immediately to resume their
labours. This measure is necessary, as much in the interest of
their families as in the interest of society.
For the Burgomaster, absent,
E. TAZIAUX,
_Communal Councillor_.
DINANT, _the 18th November, 1914_.
At the end of January 1915 about 2,500 inhabitants of Brabant were sent
back in a body. They had left the camps on Sunday, the 24th January,
and they reached Louvain on Friday the 29th, and Brussels and Vilvorde
on Saturday the 30th. During this five days' journey they had not been
allowed to leave the trucks into which they were crammed; for all
nourishment they received some black bread and water, and on occasion
a turnip or a beet. The Louvain prisoners had the greatest trouble
in the world to walk as far as the ruins of their houses. Those from
beyond Assche were set down at the Gare du Nord in Brussels; they
had to be carried as far as the tram for Berchem; their swollen feet
refused all service. These unhappy people were still wearing the light
clothes which they were wearing in August, when they were dragged from
their villages, and since then they had never had a fire. Those from
Tervueren were taken from the trucks at Schaerbeek; they were driven
home in carts.
_German Admission of the Innocence of the Civil Prisoners._
What crime had these unhappy folk committed to be treated in so
terrible a fashion? None. The Germans themselves admit it; none (2nd
_Grey Book_, No. 87). The German authorities communicated the following
note to the Belgian newspapers--we copy it from the _Écho de la presse
internationale_ of the 30th January, 1915:--
The Commander-in-Chief of the German Army has authorized the return
to Belgium of the Belgian civilian prisoners: (1) against whom no
inquiry of any military tribunal is in progress; (2) who have not
to undergo any penalty of any kind. Consequently all the women (17)
and 2,577 men will be able to re-enter the country.
The Commander-in-Chief of the German Army is the Emperor. It was he,
then, who recognized the innocence of the civil prisoners.
No charge, therefore, could be brought against them; these prisoners
were recognized as being completely innocent; the authorities admitted
that it was without any motive that they were kept five months in
Germany, without care, without fire, almost without food, herded
together like beasts, in perpetual fear of being shot, knowing nothing
of their families--for they were unable for many weeks either to write
or receive news. Some of them succumbed under their privations; others
were shot; many have become insane; all were so aged and enfeebled by
ill-treatment, methodically applied, that their neighbours hesitated to
recognize them. Will they ever recover from such an experience?
No doubt the German authorities knew long ago that the deportation
of these civilians was a judicial error; or rather that they were
sent into Germany to give the people there the occasion to torment
and insult the "francs-tireurs captured alive." And yet they were not
repatriated until the moment when the fear of famine forced Germany to
organize the seizure of foodstuffs and to ration her population. It
was not at all because of a spirit of justice that the civil prisoners
from Belgium were sent home (and also part of those from France);
it was only a measure of economy; the authorities merely wished to
prevent their eating German bread, which had become too precious; they
preferred to place them in the care of the American charities.
And when they were at last sent home, how were they treated? Did the
Germans at least show the consideration which the slave-dealers used to
show for their black cargo? No; for the slave-dealers had a pecuniary
interest in preserving the market value of their flock, while for
German militarism the Belgian civilians do not count: _Es ist Krieg_.
B.--The "Belgian Atrocities."
_The Pretended Cruelty of Belgian Civilians toward the German Army._
In order to organize the massacres by means of which it expected to
terrorize our country, the Great General Staff had to have at its
disposal troops on which it could count without reserve, which would
not shrink before the bloodiest task, and to which no repressive
measures would seem excessive. The Staff had to be certain it would be
obeyed without hesitation when it ordered, as at Dinant, the death of
seven hundred men, women, and children. To obtain soldiers who would
undertake such barbarous operations, and operations so contrary to the
military spirit, the obsession of the "franc-tireur" would perhaps be
insufficient; for there are soldiers even among such troops who are
brave and who do not tremble at bogy-stories; there might be honest
men among them to whom theft would be repugnant by whatever name one
adorned it, and who would not be tempted by the bait of pillage; all
were not so imbued with Kultur as that officer who proposed not to kill
the "francs-tireurs" outright, but to wound them mortally, afterwards
to leave them to die slowly, in agony, untended (p. 342).
But these soldiers, even the more gentle, would regard it as a sacred
duty to avenge crimes committed against innocent persons. Let them be
led to believe that the Belgians have tortured peaceable tradesmen, or
have mutilated wounded soldiers incapable of defending themselves, or
that they employ dum-dum bullets, producing frightful wounds from which
recovery is almost impossible ... and immediately these soldiers will
have only one thought: to make the first Belgian encountered expiate
the crime of which his fellow-countrymen have been guilty. Before their
thirst for vengeance all distinctions disappear: children, old people,
men and women, all equally deserve to be punished. From that moment
it will be needless to order reprisals, for the army will be only too
ready to show itself pitiless, and to call for an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth, in order to make all the Belgians indifferently pay
for the offences committed upon inoffensive Germans.
_Some Accusations._
It is precisely this psychology which the rulers of Germany have
exploited. Immediately after the opening of the campaign their
newspapers began to publish articles describing the horrors committed
by the Belgians; articles which make one's flesh creep. Belgian women
pour petrol over the wounded and set fire to it; they throw out of
the windows the wounded confided to their care in the hospitals; they
pour boiling oil over the troops, and thereby put two thousand out of
action; they handle the rifle and revolver as well as the men; they cut
the throats of soldiers and stone them; they cut off their ears and
gouge out their eyes; they offer them cigarettes containing powder,
whose explosion blinds them. Even the little girls ten years of age
indulge in these horrors. The men are no better; to begin with, they
are all "francs-tireurs," even when they assume the appearance of
respectable schoolmasters; besides which they crawl under motor-cars to
kill the chauffeurs; they kill peaceable drinkers with a stab in the
belly; they foully shoot an officer who is reading them a proclamation;
they saw off the legs of soldiers; they finish off the wounded on the
field of battle; they cut off their fingers to steal their rings; they
fill letters with narcotics in order to poison those who open them;
they set traps for soldiers in order to torture them at leisure; even
the humanitarian symbol of the Red Cross does not stay their homicidal
hands; they fire on doctors, on ambulance men, on motor-cars removing
the wounded.
That the soldiers leaving for Belgium were made to believe that their
adversaries were horrible barbarians, and that the troops were inspired
with an ardent desire to avenge the innocent victims of the Belgians,
is amply proved by all the tales dating from the beginning of the war.
See, for instance, in the story of _La journée de Charleroi_ (p. 195)
the impatience with which the author awaits the moment of entering
Belgium to take part in the reprisals, and his delight when he at last
sees houses burned to ashes and a curé hung from a tree.
Let us note in passing that the Austrians also, desirous of declaring
war upon us, resorted to the invention of "Belgian atrocities." In
its reply to the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war, our Government
protested against this defamation (1st _Grey Book_, Nos. 77, 78).
* * * * *
All these stories appeared, in the first place, in the newspapers.
We must not be surprised if in time of war, when men's minds are
over-excited, the journalists willingly publish articles containing
statements of the kind we have cited, without troubling to verify
their authenticity. But it is unpardonable that they should have been
reprinted in cold blood, when their falsity had become so obvious that
it must have struck even the most prejudiced. We know of two pamphlets
devoted entirely to atrocities committed by the Belgians: _Die
Belgischen Greueltaten_ and _Belgische Kriegsgreuel_. The work already
cited, _Die Wahrheit über den Krieg_, also deals at length with these
atrocities. Finally, there is no lack of information concerning them in
the pamphlets _Lüttich_ and _Die Eroberung Belgiëns_.
One remark occurs to us immediately. The narratives are based on
details given by witnesses "worthy of credence." Now all verification
is impossible, for we are never given a hint as to the date; moreover,
the locality is very rarely mentioned; in _Die Wahrheit_ there are only
three place-names: Gemmenich, Tavigny, and Demenis.
Demenis does not exist, and we have in vain sought to discover what
locality is meant. And what did really happen in the other two
communes mentioned? At Tavigny the Germans never had occasion to
commit any reprisals; not a man was killed, not a house burned; the
troops merely proceeded systematically to loot the place. Nor did
anything more happen in any neighbouring commune which the narrator
might have confused with Tavigny. Nor was there any confusion of names
with Tintigny; in the latter village the Germans behaved in the most
atrocious fashion, but the mode of operation was quite different. As
for Gemmenich, we have no information as to what passed there, But we
can assert that not a single house was burned there. Now it is very
certain that if the Belgians had committed the atrocities of which the
Germans tell, the latter would have set fire to the village; it is
therefore highly probable that nothing happened there. In short, of the
only three place-names given all three are incorrect.
We cannot be expected to refute all these allegations. Many are
utterly ridiculous: for example, the story of the narcotics at the
Liége Post Office; that of the fingers cut off the dead and wounded
and then carefully preserved in a bag (one may well ask why); that of
the boiling oil is no better: try to imagine the incredible store of
oil that must have been possessed by the women who killed and wounded
therewith 2,000 Germans; moreover, either the German army does not
march down the middle of the street, or else the women had special
apparatus to throw jets of boiling liquid to a distance without danger
to themselves.
Let us confine ourselves to examining the legend of the gouged-out
eyes. It is that which crops up most frequently under the pens of
the German publicists, so well calculated is it to arouse horror and
indignation in the readers. Well! its falsity appears from an inquiry
made by the Germans themselves. Not only have their newspapers--notably
the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ and _Vorwärts_--on several occasions done
justice upon this lie, but an official commission, instituted by the
German Government, has also admitted that there is not _a single case_
in which a wounded German soldier has been intentionally blinded (see
_Belgian Grey Books_, Nos. 107, 108).
The Germans themselves admit that the accusation is unfounded. Has
their Press for that reason ceased to make use of it? We little know
the Germans if we imagine that it has. The entire Press continues
imperturbably to spread these abominable calumnies. The _Kölnische
Zeitung_ of the 15th February (four o'clock edition), referring to an
article by Étienne Girau, pastor of the Walloon community of Amsterdam,
once more declares that the Belgians have ill-treated the German
wounded. It is enough to make one ask whether the Belgians have not
_morally_ blinded all the "intellectuals" of Germany.
Another example. In February 1915--that is, when no honest German could
any longer believe in the legend of the gouged-out eyes--_Vorwärts_
protested against a little work by a Pastor Conrad, of which
150,000 examples were printed and sold at 8 pfennigs per copy to
school-children, in which the Belgians were still accused of having
blinded their prisoners (_N.R.C._, 12th February, morning edition).
The Berlin Government also acts as though it was ignorant of the
conclusions of its own commissions of inquiry. Wishing to refuse
General Leman, a prisoner in Germany, the privilege of receiving a
visit from his daughter, it based its refusal on the atrocities of
which German soldiers have been the victims in Belgium, and on the
inhuman fashion in which the Belgians have treated the wounded and
prisoners in their hands. The second accusation is as ill-founded as
the first. The German soldiers taken prisoner by the Belgians were
interned in Bruges; they made no complaints, far from it (pp. 56-8); as
for the wounded in our hospitals, here are precise facts.
Let us quote, first of all, from the correspondence published in the
_Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant_, giving a few details from letters
written by the German wounded under treatment in Antwerp.
_How the Belgians treat their German Prisoners._
A private correspondent writes to us from Antwerp:--
The fact of knowing that the prisoners of war of the belligerent
States are treated as well as possible should also touch the hearts
of the Dutch.... I give you here some extracts from the letters of
wounded Germans under treatment in the hospitals of Antwerp.
I am in a very good Belgian hospital and they treat me very well.
KARL HINTZMAN, Military Hospital, Antwerp.
I am very well looked after and have very good food.
GEORG STORCK.
They treat us very well in Belgium. What the German papers said in
the summer about the Belgians is utterly untrue. The Germans could
not look after us better. Moreover, the nation is highly developed.
FRANZ CRAUWERSKI.
A number of comrades are here. We are extraordinarily well looked
after. Everybody is very kind to us.
RICHARD KUSTERMANN.
Several comrades of my company are here. I am very well looked
after. One could not look after us better in Germany.
PETERS.
We could not hope for better care.
WALTER SCHUMANN.
The medical treatment is very good. We are sounded every day, and
our wounds are dressed daily. The doctors are very capable here. We
have food in abundance; all is excellent.
HOSSBACH,
SÖLLIGER (Braunschweig).
It must not be forgotten that the majority of these prisoners fell
into the hands of the Belgians at Aerschot, where the Germans had
imprisoned several hundreds of civilians in the church, at the
time of the investment of the town. I can speak from experience.
The German prisoners are treated with fully as much kindness in
other parts of the country. At the house of the commandant of the
_service de garde_ in Bruges I saw an assortment of German books
and card games which had been sent by Mme. E. Vandervelde, who had
visited the prisoners a few days earlier in the company of her
husband, Minister of State and the Socialist leader of Belgium. The
latter wished to make sure that the prisoners lacked for nothing.
We can say that Belgium does not seek to avenge her unheard-of
sufferings by maltreating the German victims of the war. Suffering
evokes pity in a sane mind. I can only express the hope that these
proofs may fall into the hands of German readers.
(_N.R.C._, 8th October, 1914, morning edition.)
But we have something better than these documents of a private nature.
The German authorities exhibited, at Spa, a statement that the German
wounded there were perfectly well cared for. At the moment when the
Germans dispensed with the collaboration of the clinical staff of the
Red Cross in Brussels, they did homage to its devotion and competence.
SPA, _18th August, 1914_.
_To the Burgomaster of Spa._
The Commander-General of the 10th Army Corps thanks the Burgomaster
of Spa for the good reception accorded to his troops by the city
of Spa on the 11th and 12th August, 1914. Thanks to his care and
efforts, he recognizes that the wounded in the hospitals of Spa are
particularly well cared for.
HOFFMANN,
_Lieutenant-General_.
FREDERIC-AUGUST,
_Grand Duke of Oldenburg_.
(_Les Nouvelles_, published under control of the German military
authority, 22nd September, 1914.)
GERMAN GOVERNMENT,
_Headquarters, Medical Service_.
BRUSSELS, _31st August, 1914_.
_To MM. the President and Members of the Red Cross of Belgium, Rue
de l'Association, 24._
GENTLEMEN,
The German Government assures you of the expression of its grateful
sentiments for the devoted care which you have given to all the
wounded collected in the capital.
Ambulances have been organized in great numbers, and the necessity
of a concentration henceforth indispensable compels us immediately
to take the following measures....
In bringing these measures to your knowledge and in begging you to
assist us to realize them promptly, we again express to you the
thanks which we address to all the members of your association and
especially to the ladies of the Red Cross, whose complete devotion
we have appreciated.
I beg you to accept, Gentlemen, the assurance of my high
consideration.
Prof. Dr. STUERTZ,
_Oberstabarzt_.
It is useful to observe that these declarations have been made
spontaneously, since it is obvious that we were powerless to exert any
pressure on the Germans. They have, therefore, nothing in common with
those which the Germans have forced the Belgian wounded or prisoners to
sign.
_The Pretended Massacres of German Civilians._
There remain the famous massacres of Germans in Brussels, Antwerp,
Liége, etc. According to witnesses "worthy of credence," inoffensive
Germans, even women and children, were killed and martyred in various
Belgian cities. At Liége alone more than 150 persons, of whom
three-fourths were women and children, were said to have lost their
lives.
As to Liége, we have inquired of inhabitants of the city, several of
whom are closely connected with the administration of justice; no
one had any knowledge of any such occurrences. They have therefore
been invented, lock, stock, and barrel, by the "witnesses worthy of
credence," and we defy the Germans to mention the name of a single one
of these 150 "victims."
At Antwerp we can oppose, to the testimony of those who were "present"
on the occasion of murders and serious assaults upon German women,
the official report, which admits that shops were broken into by
the populace, but which at the same time attests that no German was
wounded. Let us add that the German Weber was _not_ assassinated, but
is quietly living in Antwerp.
Let us proceed to the doings in Brussels; and let us quote, from
_Greueltaten_, the most serious occurrences there mentioned. We have a
story, based on hearsay, which tells, of course, of gouged-out eyes,
as well as three reports of ocular witnesses. The first is that of a
witness "worthy of credence" who saw a child thrown from a window and a
woman dragged by the hair until she was insensible; he also witnessed
the murder of a German druggist, one Frankenberg, who was betrayed by
his own wife, a Belgian. The second witness is the correspondent of
the Wolff Agency. He saw only what the people of Brussels themselves
witnessed: that is, that the populace pillaged the German shops and
cafés on the 4th and 5th August. But he had not been able to discover
any acts of violence against the person; those he mentions, in a couple
of words, without insisting on them, had been related to him; but he
does not even add that the witnesses were "worthy of credence."
Finally we have a priest, who complains that he was arrested as a spy
and beaten by the gendarmes. Perhaps he was a spy; in any case, not a
few German spies disguised as priests have been discovered in Belgium.
If we confine ourselves to the really serious occurrences, to the
cases in which Germans have been killed by the populace, we find that
as against some 155 anonymous cases, which cannot be verified, there
are only two in which names are mentioned. These names are Weber and
Frankenberg. Now these two cases are apocryphal. Herr Weber has quietly
reopened his hotel in Antwerp; Herr Frankenberg continues to breathe
the air at Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels. Compare with these two
cases the three names of places mentioned in _Die Wahrheit_ (p. 101).
* * * * *
_Preventive and Repressive Measures taken by the Belgian Authorities._
The truth is that in the various cities of Belgium there was, quite
at the beginning of hostilities, an intense popular effervescence,
by which evildoers profited to pillage the German shops. These
disturbances were so unexpected and assumed, with such rapidity, such
large proportions, that the police were at first powerless to restrain
them.
Moreover, it must be remembered that the police had just been reduced,
a large proportion of the police agents and gendarmes having left for
the front.
But measures were promptly taken, and by the 7th August there was
no longer anywhere the least disorder of this kind. As for the "spy
mania," it raged in Belgium as in all countries affected by the
war.[24] But the newspapers, and the official measures taken, got the
better of this fresh cause of disturbance.
The newspapers of the neutral countries, for example the _Nieuwe
Rotterdamsche Courant_, also reported material damage, but they do not
relate more serious occurrences in any part of Belgium.
We can consequently assert, in the most categorical fashion, basing our
statement on the official data furnished by the courts, that no serious
offence against the person has been proved either in Brussels or
elsewhere. Does this mean that we excuse the fishers in troubled waters
who sacked the German shops? Obviously not; but it must be owned that
there are bad elements in all agglomerations, and that the populace of
Berlin behaved no better than that of Brussels: witness the remarks
of the British Ambassador in Berlin, and the excuses put forward by
the German authorities when his windows were broken as the result of
an article in the _Berliner Tageblatt_. Here we immediately perceive
a contrast of mentalities: the German newspapers incite their readers
against foreigners, while ours, on the contrary, do their utmost to
calm popular manifestations.
A detail which we regard as symptomatic, and particularly revolting,
in the German publications, is the fact that in these cases, as in
the matter of the "francs-tireurs," our enemies seek to involve the
legal administration of our country. Now, not only did our authorities
immediately intervene to repress the disturbances and to provide a
military guard for the _Deutsche Bank_ and the _Deutscher Verein_ in
Brussels, but they did more than their strict duty in protecting German
families, and enabling them to return to their own country. Nothing
is more characteristic in this respect than that which happened in
Brussels on the nights of the 8th, 9th and 10th of August, at the time
of the Germans' departure from the city. The latter assembled at night
in a building belonging to the city; in the trams which took them
thither every one hastened to render them every imaginable service; at
the place of assembly the Civic Guards prepared hot drinks for them;
then, during the short journey to the Gare du Nord, the same Civic
Guards helped them to carry their children and their luggage. Mr. Brand
Whitlock, United States Minister in Brussels, who was looking after the
interests of Germany, was present in that quality at the departure of
the German families, and he expressed his gratitude to the Belgians in
a letter made public at the time.
THE UNITED STATES MINISTER DOES HONOUR TO THE HEROISM AND THE
KINDNESS OF THE BELGIANS.
The German Minister, before leaving Brussels, requested the United
States Minister, Mr. Brand Whitlock, kindly to take over the
interests of Germany in Belgium.
The United States Minister consented to protect the archives of the
German Legation.
It was in this capacity that Mr. Brand Whitlock was the witness,
two days ago, of the goodness of the people of Brussels, who, with
Mme. Carton de Wiart, the wife of the Minister of Justice, and our
brave Chasseurs of the mounted Civic Guard at their head, provided
hot drinks and refreshments for the four thousand Germans leaving
Belgium who were assembled at the Royal Circus.
The spectacle profoundly affected the eminent diplomatist.
Thanking the Belgian Government, His Excellency, Mr. Brand
Whitlock, writes to the Minister of Justice:--
"The Belgians display a heroism in dying on the field of battle
which is equalled by their humanity to non-combatants."
(_Le Soir_, 11th August, 1914.)
In Germany the United States Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, had also occasion
to intervene; but there it was to protect the British Ambassador from
the fury of the populace.
These examples will suffice, we think, to show that the Belgians
were as thoughtful in their behaviour towards their non-combatant
adversaries as the Germans were violent and brutal. And what was the
result of our courtesy? Our enemies picked a groundless quarrel with us
in order to inflame the minds of their soldiers against us.
C.--Violations of the Hague Convention.
Nothing would be easier than to show that our enemies have not
respected a single one of the articles of the Hague Convention. But it
is not our intention to draw up this inventory. We prefer to confine
ourselves to a few facts which no one can dream of contesting, so
patent are they and so well known to every one in Belgium. And we
shall refer only to those which will enable us to compare the two
mentalities: that of the German, crafty and tyrannical, and that of the
Belgian population, refusing to bow the head to military despotism. We
exclude from our list those data which have already been recorded in
other publications: Belgian _Grey Books_, _Reports of the Commission
of Inquiry_, _La Belgique et L'Allemagne_, etc. Lastly, we shall deal
only with what has happened in Belgium itself, so that we shall speak
neither of prisoners of war nor of the wounded.
These eliminations lead us to omit the whole of Section I: _The
Belligerents_. The three first articles apply to "francs-tireurs,"
Articles 4 to 21 relate to prisoners, the wounded, etc.
ARTICLE 22.
_Belligerents have not an unlimited choice of means of injuring the
enemy._
ARTICLE 23.
_Besides the prohibitions established by special conventions, it is
notably forbidden_:--
(_a_) _To employ poison or poisoned weapons;_
(_b_) _To kill or wound by treachery individuals belonging to the
hostile nation or army;_
(_c_) _To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or
no longer having means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;_
(_d_) _To declare that no quarter will be given;_
(_e_) _To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause
unnecessary suffering;_
(_f_) _To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national
flag, or of the military insignia or uniform of the enemy, as well
as of the distinctive signs of the Geneva Convention;_
(_g_) _To destroy or seize enemy property, unless such destruction
or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;_
(_h_) _To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible the
right of the subjects of the hostile party to institute legal
proceedings._
_A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the subjects of
the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed
against their own country, even if they were in the service of the
belligerent before the commencement of the war._
The violations of this Article are numerous. The Germans themselves
cannot deny that the employment of toxic gases, such as those which
were used in the attack upon Ypres on the 22nd April, falls under the
condemnation of paragraph (_a_). We shall recur to this matter further
on. Let us remark for the moment that we are not speaking of gas
released by the bursting of shells, but of clouds of gas intentionally
produced.
As to paragraph (_e_), the _7th Report_ speaks in a precise manner of
the employment of dum-dum bullets. After the German occupation we shall
be able to mention other irrefutable cases, of which it would now be
too dangerous to speak.
The prescriptions of paragraph (_f_) have often been violated. At the
fort of Boncelles, on the 7th August, and at Landelies, near Charleroi,
on the 22nd, our enemies abused the white flag. At Ougrée and at
Grez-Doiceau they wore Belgian uniforms to deceive their enemies. This
action was repeated during the siege of Antwerp; but this time the
Belgians were warned of the German mimicry, so that the "asses clad in
lions' skins" were nearly all left on the battle-field.
We shall deal later on, when speaking of pillage, with the infractions
of paragraph (_g_).
_Military Employment of Belgians by the Germans._
The last paragraph of Article 23 forbids belligerents to compel their
adversaries to take part in operations of war directed against their
own country. Let us see how the Germans respect this principle where
civilians are concerned. At Liége (_N.R.C._, 23rd August, evening), at
Vilvorde (_N.R.C._, 27th August, morning), at Anderlecht (_N.R.C._,
28th August, evening), at Dilbeek (N.R.C., 31st August, evening), at
Eppeghem (_see_ photograph in _1914 Illustré_, No. 5), at Soignies, and
at Neder-Over-Heembeek, the inhabitants were compelled to dig trenches
for the Germans. A Dutchman (an extreme Germanophile, however), saw
peasants from the outskirts of Spa compelled to perform the same task.
SPA, _15th August, 1914_.
... The man, who had to return home (it was about noon),
accompanied us, and, while conversing, he pointed to the road to
Creppe, parallel to that which we were following, and at some
ten minutes' distance from the latter. They were working hard at
entrenchments there, about a quarter of an hour from the city.
There were some 150 Belgian workmen there, excavating the soil
under the threat of the rifles of German soldiers placed behind
them.
(_N.R.C._, 22nd August, 1914, evening edition.)
At Bagimont, on the 24th August, 1914, the inhabitants were forced
to prepare the ground for the landing of German aeroplanes. The same
villagers were forced to build huts for their enemies.
We have the names (at the disposal of a commission of inquiry) of
twenty-nine inhabitants of a village of Brabant, who were forced,
with horses and carts, to follow the German troops for several weeks,
transporting munitions and baggage. The Germans had the right to
requisition horses and vehicles, but not to compel our countrymen to
accompany their teams.
Let us remark, while dealing with these violations of Article 23 of the
Hague Convention, that Germany signed this Convention. But on her part
this was merely a comedy, for it is a rule with her rulers that they
cease to follow its prescriptions as soon as they are in opposition to
the _Usages of War_, according to the Great General Staff. Now among
the duties which the occupier may impose on the inhabitants--according
to Germany--is the supply of transport and the digging of trenches.
In other words, Germany, though she readily approved of the Hague
Conference, makes war according to her own principles, which are far
less humane; but she none the less demands that her adversaries should
observe the rules of the Convention.
* * * * *
_Measures of Coercion taken by the Germans._
On several occasions our enemies have sought to force the Belgian
population to manufacture explosives and munitions for them. But the
Belgians have always refused, even when their resistance inevitably
condemned them to starvation. The workers of the explosives factory of
Caulille, in the north of Limburg, resumed their tasks only under the
most terrible threats (_K.Z._, 21st December, morning edition).
The case of Caulille, announced to its readers by a German newspaper,
shows the cynicism with which our enemies violate the Hague Convention,
which is in part their own work.
The same effrontery appears in the placard of the 19th November, 1914;
this threatens severe penalties against Belgians who dissuade their
compatriots from working for Germany. One could understand that the
Germans might punish those who used force or threats to prevent any
one from working for them; but to punish those who "attempt" to act by
simple persuasion!
This was a mere timid beginning. On the 19th June, 1915, our enemies
posted about Gand a placard stating that severe measures were about to
be applied to factories which, "relying on the Hague Convention, had
refused to work for the German Army."
The Communal Administration of Gand has supplied us with the following
notice:--
NOTICE.
By order of His Excellency the Inspector de l'Étape,[25] I call the
attention of the commune to the following:--
"The attitude of certain factories which, under pretext of
patriotism and relying on the Hague Convention, have refused to
work for the German Army, proves that there are, in the midst of
the population, tendencies whose object is to place difficulties in
the way of the administration of the German Army.
"In this connection I make it known that I shall repress, by all
the means at my disposal, such behaviour, which can only disturb
the good understanding hitherto existing between the administration
of the German Army and the population.
"In the first place I hold the Communal authorities responsible for
the spread of such tendencies, and I call attention to the fact
that the population will itself be responsible if the liberties
hitherto accorded in the most ample measure are withdrawn and
replaced by the restrictive measures necessitated by its own fault."
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRAF VON WESTARP,
_Commandant de l'Étape_.
GAND, _10th June, 1913_.
Here, then, they declare that they are on the point of intentionally
violating the Hague Convention.
Certain articles which appeared in _Het Volk_, a Christian-Democratic
journal of Gand, on the 15th, 17th, 19th, and 22nd June, 1915, tell us
what these measures are.
The workers of the Bekaert factory at Sweveghem having refused to
make barbed wire for the Germans, the latter began by arresting three
notables, of whom two were promptly released. Then, to force the men
to resume work, they decided that the commune should be placed under a
ban; it was forbidden to ride a bicycle or to use a wheeled vehicle,
and the introduction of foodstuffs was prohibited. The men still
persisted in refusing to make the barbed wire on which their sons and
brothers were to be caught in the battles of the Yser. Sixty-one men
were sent to prison. The rest hastened to leave the village. What did
the Germans do then? They seized the wives of the fugitives, shut them
up in two great waggons, and took them to Courtrai; at the same time
they posted up the names of those who had fled, and enjoined them to
return. Before the threat of seeing their wives remain in prison until
their children perished in their empty homes, the workers, with death
in their hearts, had to resume their fratricidal task. Truly _Kultur_
is a fine thing!
In Brabant they went a different way to work. They had requested M.
Cousin to make barbed wire for them in his factory at Ruysbroeck (in
the south of Brussels). He refused. They offered to buy his factory. He
refused. They requisitioned his works. He was forced to submit. They
installed themselves in the factory and tried to begin making barbed
wire. But the machinery was worked by electricity, and the electricity
was provided by a central station situated in Oisquercq. Naturally
the Oisquercq works refused to supply current. The Germans arrested
M. Lucien Beckers, the managing director of the company, and kept him
several weeks in prison.
* * * * *
_Living Shields._
It remains to examine a final violation of Article 23; a violation so
revolting that neither those present at the Hague Conference nor the
Germans themselves in their _Kriegsbrauch_ had been willing to consider
it. We are referring to the use of "living shields" (_7th Report_).
* * * * *
_A German Admission._
_Belgians placed before the Troops at Charleroi._
Our enemies are aware of the abomination of which they are guilty in
placing, in front of their troops, Belgians intended to serve as a
shield. They are eager to deny such acts. Unfortunately for them one of
their own officers has described a case of the kind (p. 196). His first
care on reaching the suburbs of Charleroi was to capture civilians
in order to force them to walk in front of and among the cavalry. He
waxes indignant over the lamentations uttered by the wives of these
unfortunates. "If nothing happens to us," he told them, "nothing will
happen to the civilians either." Could one more cynically express the
idea that the Germans made use of these hostages in order to prevent
their adversaries from firing on their troops? At the first volley
fired by the French, who were posted behind a barricade, some of the
hostages were killed. The Germans promptly replaced them by others,
notably by priests.
At Nimy and Mons, the same method was employed. The burgomaster of
Mons, M. Lescart, was himself placed before the German troops.
At Tirlemont, on the 18th August, 1914, during their march on Louvain,
they seized upon certain "notables," including the burgomaster, M.
Donny, and pushed them before them in order to obtain shelter from the
Belgian bullets. They did not release them until the following day, at
Cumptich.
* * * * *
_Belgians placed before the Troops at Lebbeke, Tirlemont, Mons._
More significant still was their conduct at Lebbeke, near Termonde, on
the 4th September, 1914. Scarcely had they entered the village, in the
early morning, when they seized as many civilians as possible--about
300--and forced them to march before them. On passing through St.
Gilles-lez-Termonde they requisitioned more men to serve as "living
shields." When the Belgians attacked the German troops ten civilians
were killed; many were wounded (_9th_ and _10th Reports_).
The same evening the survivors were sent into Germany as
"francs-tireurs."
_Belgian Women placed before the Troops at Anseremme._
At Anseremme it was behind women that the Germans took refuge. They
had committed the blunder of sending all the men to Germany, as civil
prisoners, on the 23rd and 24th August, so that only the women were
left. They placed these in a line along the river-wall on the bank of
the Meuse, and prudently hidden behind their skirts they rested their
rifles on the women's shoulders in order to fire at the French on the
opposite bank.
The French ceased fire as soon as they saw that they were firing on
women. At night the Germans herded the unhappy women, with their
children, in a field; but on the following morning they brought them
out again to serve as a protective screen along the river.
Such is German heroism! As we at present understand the real sense of
the words _Den Heldentod Gestorben_ (died a hero's death), which the
Germans inscribe on the tombs of their soldiers, they mean that these
soldiers were unable to avoid the bullets, although they heroically hid
themselves behind Belgian women.
As far as we know one must go back to Cambyses, in the sixth century
B.C., to find another example of the "living shield." At the time of
his expedition into Egypt this prince, who was, the historians tell
us, famed for his cruelty, conceived the idea of placing cats, which
animals were worshipped by the Egyptians, in front of his troops.
Thanks to his stratagem he prevented the Egyptians from attacking his
soldiers. Neither Attila, nor Ghenghis Khan, nor Tamerlane made use of
this method; it was left for the Germans of the twentieth century once
more to put it into practice, with the increased ferocity suggested by
_Kultur_.
_Belgians forcibly detained at Ostend and Middelkerke._
There are other circumstances also under which the Germans have made a
rampart of the Belgians. From the middle of October 1914 they occupied
that portion of the Belgian coast comprised between Lombartzyde and the
Zeeland frontier. From time to time the British ships and aeroplanes
bombarded the coast; they would undoubtedly have continued to do so
if the Germans had not taken pains forcibly to retain numbers of
Belgians in these localities. According to the _Nieuwe Rotterdamsche
Courant_ of the 1st November they forbade the people of Middelkerke
and Ostend to leave those towns. Obviously the British were as far as
possible sparing Ostend and Middelkerke, and directing their fire by
preference on the road joining these two places, and on that running
from Middelkerke to Westende. The Germans were perfectly aware of
this, and had precisely for this reason forbidden any Belgian to leave
Ostend or Middelkerke. An officer at the _Kommandantur_, from whom our
informant tried to obtain some favour for a couple of Belgians, replied
as follows: "If we allowed the population to leave these places the
English would hasten to bombard the two towns, and we should be the
sufferers" (_N.R.C._, 1st November, 1914).
However, at the end of December they expelled all the men from
Middelkerke, with the exception of four. But the means of transport
placed at the disposal of the expelled inhabitants were insufficient
to enable them to take their families with them, so that they had to
leave many of their wives and children behind. Every time the British
drop shells on the coast the Germans hasten to post up the news in
Brussels, adding that the bombardment has resulted in fatalities among
the Belgians.
NEWS PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL GERMAN GOVERNMENT.
BOMBARDMENT OF COAST.
BERLIN, 24th _November_ (official, noon to-day).--British vessels
arrived yesterday off the French coast and bombarded Lombartzyde
and Zeebrugge. Among our troops they caused only very slight
damage. A certain number of Belgian citizens, on the other hand,
were killed and wounded.
THE GERMAN MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
BERLIN, 28th _December_ (official telegram, noon to-day).--Near
Nieuport the enemy renewed his attempted attacks without success.
In these he was supported by firing from the sea, which however did
us no harm, but killed or wounded some inhabitants.
THE GERMAN MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
BERLIN, 26th _January_ (official telegram, noon to-day).--The
enemy yesterday fired as usual on Middelkerke and Westende. A
considerable number of inhabitants were killed or wounded by
this fire, among them the burgomaster of Middelkerke. Our losses
yesterday were very insignificant.
THE GERMAN MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
BERLIN, 13th _February_ (official telegram).--Along the coast enemy
aviators yesterday again dropped bombs, which did very considerable
damage among the civil population, while we suffered no appreciable
damage from a military point of view.
THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT IN BELGIUM.
BERLIN, 8th _March_ (official telegram, noon to-day).--Enemy
aviators dropped bombs on Ostend, which killed three Belgians.
THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT IN BELGIUM.
They therefore fully appreciate the advantage to be derived from
retaining on the coast a population which serves as a living buckler.
_Belgians imprisoned in the Lofts of the Ministries._
At Brussels they behaved in a similar fashion in order to prevent the
Allied aviators from bombarding the premises which they occupy in the
Ministries. Inhabitants of Brussels are sent to the _Kommandantur_ on
the most impossible pretexts. They first remain for several days shut
up in the lofts of the Ministries. Then, after trial--and, obviously,
sentence--they are again confined in the lofts until there is room for
them in the ordinary prisons. Every one in Brussels knows this, and of
course the Allied aviators are aware of it.
ARTICLE 25.
_The attack or bombardment, by any means whatever, of undefended
towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings is forbidden._
_Bombardment of Open Towns._
Many violations of this Article have been discovered by the Commission
of Inquiry (_7th Report_). Here again clearly appears the contradiction
between the fashion in which the Germans make war and that which they
require of their enemies. When their dirigibles drop bombs on open,
undefended districts--as they did on the night of the 26th September,
at Deynze, when they wounded an old man in the hospital of the Sisters
of St. Vincent de Paule--their newspapers related this prowess
exultingly (_Düsseldorfer Tageblatt_, 29th September; _Düsseldorfer
Zeitung_, 29th September, 1914). They may do such things, but no one
else. When the Allied aviators bombarded Freibourg in Brisgau on
the 10th December, 1914, the Germans denounced them amid universal
indignation. One can only agree with the writer in the _Times_ who
said: "If we want to know what conduct we should observe in this war it
is useless to consult the laws; we must simply ask the Germans if our
conduct is agreeable to them or not."
ARTICLE 26.
_The officer in command of an attacking force must do all in his
power to warn the authorities before commencing a bombardment,
except in case of assault._
General von Beseler followed the prescription of this Article
during the siege of Antwerp; he announced on the 8th October that
the bombardment of the city would commence at midnight (_K.Z._, 9th
October, first morning edition). Everywhere else the Germans have
thrown their shells without previous warning. This was notably so in
the attack upon Antwerp by a dirigible on the night of 24th August;
the bombs found twenty victims. It is true that Herr Bernstorff has
declared that previous advice is not necessary. In this he is in
agreement with the laws of warfare according to the Germans.
ARTICLE 27.
_In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken
to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to public
worship, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments,
hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected,
provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes._
Not content with setting fire to our monuments, as they did at Louvain,
Dinant, Termonde, and a host of villages, the Germans never hesitate to
bombard those they cannot otherwise reach.
The most characteristic example is that of the Cathedral of Reims.[26]
On Tuesday, the 22nd September, we learned of the bombardment from
a placard. The telegram, dated Monday, the 21st, asserted that the
monument would as far as possible be spared. That was enough; we knew
then that it was destroyed. And sure enough, the French newspapers
smuggled through to us on the following day--Wednesday--stated that the
cathedral had been burning since Saturday, the 19th.
Little by little the information received grew more precise. The French
certified that they had not placed any military post of observation on
the towers; neither were there batteries near the cathedral. Moreover,
they declared that the cathedral should have been doubly respected,
since an ambulance had found asylum there--which, be it said in
passing, is denounced as an infamy by the German newspapers (_K.Z._,
4th January, morning edition; _Niederrheinische Volkszeitung_, 4th
January).
The Wolff Agency reported the bombardment of Reims Cathedral as quite
a natural thing, a commonplace operation. But before the indignation
of the entire civilized world (_N.R.C._, 22nd September, 1914, evening
edition) the Germans were forced to display a hypocritical regret and
to justify their aggression.