It is clear that the treatment of civilians is regulated by no more
rational or humane policy than that of intimidation or, even worse, of
sullen vindictiveness. As the German troops passed through the communes
and towns of the arrondissements of Ypres, Hazebrouck, Bethune, and
Lille, they shot indiscriminately at the innocent spectators of their
march; the peasant tilling his fields, the refugee tramping the roads,
and the workman returning to his home. To be seen was often dangerous,
to attempt to escape being seen was invariably fatal. Old men and boys
and even women and young girls were shot like rabbits. The slightest
failure to comply with the peremptory demands of the invader has been
punished with instant death.
The curé of Pradelle, having failed to find the key of the church
tower, was put against the wall and shot; a shepherd at a lonely
farmhouse near Rebais who failed to produce bread for the German troops
had his head blown off by a rifle; a baker at Moorslede who attempted
to escape was suffocated by German soldiers with his own scarf; a
young mother at Bailleul who was unable to produce sufficient coffee
to satisfy the demands of twenty-three German soldiers had her baby
seized by one of the latter and its head dipped in scalding water; an
old man of seventy-seven years of age at La Ferté Gaucher who attempted
to protect two women in his house from outrage was killed with a rifle
shot.
=_No Value on Human Life._=--I select these instances from my notes
at random--they could be multiplied many times--as indications of the
temper of the German troops. They might, perhaps, be dismissed as the
unauthorised acts of small patrols were it not that there is only too
much evidence to show that the soldiers are taught by their superiors
to set no value upon human life, and things have been done which could
not have been done without superior orders.
For example, at Bailleul, La Gorgue, and Doulieu, where no resistance
of any kind was offered to the German troops, and where the latter were
present in force under the command of commissioned officers, civilians
were taken in groups, and after being forced to dig their own graves
were shot by firing parties in the presence of an officer. At Doulieu,
which is a small village, eleven civilians were shot in this way; they
were strangers to the place, and it was only by subsequent examination
of the papers found on their bodies that some of them were identified
as inhabitants of neighbouring villages. If these men had been guilty
of any act of hostility it is not clear why they were not shot at once
in their own villages, and inquiries at some of the villages from which
they were taken have revealed no knowledge of any act of the kind.
It is, however, a common practice for the German troops to seize the
male inhabitants (especially those of military age) of the places they
occupy and take them away on their retreat. Twenty-five were so taken
from Bailleul and nothing has been heard of them since. There is only
too much reason to suppose that the same fate has overtaken them as
that which befell the unhappy men executed at Doulieu.
=_A Possible Explanation._=--I believe the explanation of these
sinister proceedings to be that the men were compelled to dig trenches
for the enemy, to give information as to the movement of their own
troops, and to act as guides (all clearly practices which are a
breach of the laws of war and of the Hague Regulations), and then,
their presence being inconvenient and their knowledge of the enemy's
positions and movements compromising, they were put to death. This is
not a mere surmise. The male inhabitants of Warneton were forced to
dig trenches for the enemy, and an inhabitant of Merris was compelled
to go with the German troops and act as a guide; it is notorious
that the official manual of the German General Staff _Kriegsbrauch
im Landskriege_ condones, and indeed indoctrinates, such breaches of
the laws of war. British soldiers who were taken prisoners by the
Germans and subsequently escaped were compelled by their captors to dig
trenches, and in a field note-book found on a soldier of the 100th
Saxon Body Grenadiers (XIIth Corps) occurs the following significant
passage:--
My two prisoners worked hard at digging trenches. At midday I got the
order to rejoin at village with my prisoners. I was very glad, as I
had been ordered to shoot them both as soon as the French attacked.
Thank God it was not necessary....