Article 28 of The Hague Convention of 1907, subscribed to by Germany,
uses this language: "The sacking of any town or locality, even when
taken by assault, is prohibited." And Article 47 runs: "[in occupied
territory] pillage is forbidden."
We shall see how the German armies interpret these articles.
Private Handschuhmacher (Eleventh Battalion of Chasseurs Reserves)
writes in his notebook:
Aug. 8, 1914, Gouvy, (Belgium.)--There, the Belgians having
fired on some German soldiers, we started at once pillaging
the merchandise warehouse. Several cases--eggs, shirts, and
everything that could be eaten was carried off. The safe was
forced and the gold distributed among the men. As to the
securities, they were torn up.
This happened as early as the fourth day of the war, and it helps us to
understand a technical article on the operations of the military
treasury (Der Zahlmeister im Felde) in the Berliner Tageblatt of the
26th of November, 1914, in which an economic phenomenon of rather
unusual import is recited as a simple incident: "Experience has
demonstrated that very much more money is forwarded by postal orders
from the theatre of operations to the interior of the country than vice
versa."
As, in accordance with the continual practice of the German armies,
pillaging is only a prelude to incendiarism, the sub-officer Hermann
Levith (160th Regiment of Infantry, Eighth Corps) writes:
The enemy occupied the village of Bievre and the edge of the
wood behind it. The Third Company advanced in first line. We
carried the village, and then pillaged and burned almost all
the houses.
And Private Schiller (133d Infantry, Nineteenth Corps) writes:
Our first fight was at Haybes (Belgium) on the 24th of August.
The Second Battalion entered the village, ransacked the
houses, pillaged them, and burned those from which shots had
been fired.
And Private Sebastian Reishaupt (Third Bavarian Infantry, First Bavarian
Corps) writes:
The first village we burned was Parux, (Meurthe-et-Moselle.)
After this the dance began, throughout the villages, one after
the other; over the fields and pastures we went on our
bicycles up to the ditches at the edge of the road, and there
sat down to eat our cherries.
They emulate each other in their thefts; they steal anything that comes
to hand and keep records of the thefts--"Schnaps, Wein, Marmelade,
Zigarren," writes this private soldier; and the elegant officer of the
178th Saxon Regiment, who was at first indignant at the "vandalismus" of
his men, further on admits that he himself, on the 1st of September, at
Rethel, stole "from a house near the Hôtel Moderne a superb waterproof
and a photographic apparatus for Felix." All steal, without distinction
or grade, or of arms, or of cause, and even in the ambulances the
doctors steal. Take this example from the notebook of the soldier
Johannes Thode (Fourth Reserve Regiment of Ersatz):
At Brussels, Oct. 5, 1914.--An automobile arrived at the
hospital laden with war booty--one piano, two sewing machines,
many albums, and all sorts of other things.
"Two sewing machines" as "war booty." From whom were these stolen?
Beyond a doubt from two humble Belgian women. And for whom were they
stolen?