vois sans cesse ce moment là: tout le village en flammes, portes et
fenêtres brisées, tout gît épars dans la rue; seule une maisonnette
subsiste et à la porte de cette maison une pauvre femme, les mains
hautes, avec six enfants implore pour qu’on l’épargne elle et ses
petits; il en va ainsi tous les jours.
Dans le village voisin la compagnie se fait remettre les armes
naturellement avec la plus grande prudence. A peine nous sommes-nous
mis en marche que des maisons on tire sur nos troupes; on fait
demi-tour et en quelques instants tout est en flammes; il n’y a pas de
place pour la pitié, il arrive fréquemment que cette sale engeance de
curés prenne part à la fusillade; _c’est pour moi une folle joie quand
on peut se venger de cette canaille de curés_;[95] ici naturellement
tout est foncièrement catholique. Quelle vie agréable la population
pourrait avoir ici si elle ne se laissait pas conduire sur une mauvaise
voie par cette hypocrite canaille de pretres; ... la population ne
serait pas inquiétée le moins du monde de la part des Allemands; mais
puisqu’il en est ainsi par ici, il n’y a pas de notre côté à garder le
moindre ménagement....
... Le 18, nous atteignons Tongres: ici aussi c’est un tableau de
destruction complète, c’est quelque chose d’unique en son genre pour
notre profession (c’est un verrier qui parle)....
... Le 25 août, nous prenons un cantonnement d’alerte à Grinde
(Sucrerie); ici aussi tout est brûlé et détruit. De Grinde nous
continuous notre route sur Louvain; ici c’est partout un tableau
d’horreur; des cadavres de nos gens de nos chevaux; des autos tout en
flammes, l’eau empoisonnée; à peine avons-nous atteint l’extrémité
de la ville que la fusillade reprend de plus belle; naturellement on
fait demi-tour et on nettoie; puis la ville est mitraillée par nous
complètement.
Chemin faisant passent devant nous des cortèges de prisonniers, homines
femmes et enfants poussant des cris....
... Le 1º septembre, nous sommes embarqués dans Bruxelles-Paris; sur
cette ligne le même tableau se renouvelle: villages consumés, fossées
énormes, etc....
... Aujourd’hui, 7 septembre, c’est le jour le plus pénible que jusqu’à
présent nous ayons vécu; l’endroit s’appelle Attichy; nous atteignons
cet endroit en faisant de longs détours, car on a fait sauter beaucoup
de ponts. A 5 h. du matin, on repart, et cela au pas accéléré parce que
beaucoup de cochonneries y ont été commises....
... Le 9 septembre, après un bon cantonnement, mais qui dure trop peu,
nous partons la nuit à 1 h. 1/2 après avoir mis des chemises fraîches
et nous avançons vers l’ennemi vers 6 h. du matin et livrons un combat
après lequel nous sommes complètement désorganisés. Notre régiment
actuellement se compose d’un bataillon du 71º, d’une compagnie du 2º
bataillon, de compagnies cyclistes des 14º, 46º et 27º et de nombreux
autres éléments encore. Vers 11 h. du matin nous tombons sous une grêle
de shrapnells, nous n’avons pas d’artillerie, ni d’autre couverture;
l’après-midi nous sommes engagés dans une chaude lutte.... Ici c’est
Ormoy. Nous nous joignons au 9º Corps et nous portons vers la position
occupée hier par l’ennemi.... Nous faisons au feu d’artillerie très
vif, mais nous ne pouvons rien faire jusqu’à ce que notre artillerie
ait nettoyé la place. Nous bivouaquons en forêt après que l’ennemi
s’est retiré et nous nous avançons pour chercher de l’eau; la nuit
vers 3 h. nous rentrons à la compagnie. A 4 h. nous repartons: ainsi
en 3 jours 8 heures de sommeil et avec cela, nourris comme cela
arrive parfois à la guerre et la marche continue de plus belle avec
des efforts physiques les plus grands pour envelopper l’ennemi vers
Compiegne. Nous nous heurtons au 94º qui a été repoussé avec de fortes
pertes; plusieurs compagnies de ce régiment sont fondues et réduites
à 40 hommes; nous cantonnons ici; mais quelque chose de bien! Dieu!
quelles délices!... Nous faisons un brin de toilette, mangeons et
buvons à cœur joie et songeons en rêve à vous là-bas!
Le 11 septembre, mouvement tournant vers Chaulny.... Nous arrivons
en cantonnement d’alerte à Chaulny vieux repaire de brigands. Après
quelques heures de sommeil, nouveau départ à 3 h. du matin. Le 12
septembre nous nous fortifions à 10 Klm de Chaulny dans des tranchées:
il ne s’y passe pas longtemps que nous y sommes vivement bombardés par
l’artillerie; à ce moment s’engage un violent combat d’artillerie. Vers
5 h. du soir, nous entrons dans l’action, mais nous ne pouvons avancer
que jusqu’à une pente abrupte où nous restons couchés sous des torrents
d’eau jusque dans la nuit....
... Malheureusement nous sommes encore trop faibles dans cette
position; le rapport vient à l’instant que notre 2º Corps arrivera ou
doit arriver dans l’après-midi: de ces sortes de promesses, on nous en
fait toujours, mais? Celui qui va croire ou se laisser conter que les
Français fuient devant quelques fusils ou canons allemands se trompe
joliment et ne sait rien. Jusqu’à présent nous sommes obligés de dire
que les Français sont un adversaire honorable que nous ne devons pas
juger au-dessous de sa valeur. _Ici, aussi, il se passe des choses qui
ne devraient pas être; oui, des atrocités sont commises ici aussi, mais
naturellement sur les Anglais et les Belges, tous sont abattus sans
pardon à coups de fusil...._
VI
DOCUMENTS SELECTED FROM THE REPORTS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY
COMMISSION OF INQUIRY APPOINTED BY HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF
RUSSIA
I. Violation of a Sister of Mercy.
A Sister of Mercy, wearing the sign of the Red Cross, was seized by
German and Austrian troops on April 20th, 1915, at the station of
Radzivilishki and shut up in a cart-shed.
“On the fourth day several officers visited her in the cart-shed
and demanded information from her as to the positions of the Russian
troops. They then beat her with swords and pricked her body with
needles. On the same day she was taken to the third line of German
entrenchments and lodged in a ‘dug-out’ occupied by German officers.
Here she was violated, and during a week and a half several German
officers frequently committed violent acts of copulation with her, and
kept her in the ‘dug-out’ without clothes under a special guard. At
last she succeeded in escaping from the trenches. With the help of a
Lithuanian peasant she made her way to the Russian positions, where
she arrived in an almost unconscious state. First medical aid was at
once administered, as it was found she was suffering from inflammation
of the peritoneum and cellular membrane surrounding the matrix. On
examining her for marks of violence, bruises were visible in the region
of the shoulder and on the thighs and legs.”
II. Violation of a Girl.
At the beginning of the war, when the Germans entered the town of
Kalish, a girl named X---- was arrested and led out to the public
place, or square, for execution. Here the Germans tied her to a tree
and told her that she would be shot. Others of the inhabitants, also
condemned to be shot, were drawn up on the same open space. Among
these victims was an acquaintance of the girl X----, a student named
N. Davuidov. The German soldiers proceeded to stab this Davuidov with
their bayonets before the very eyes of the girl X----, and then they
tore out hair from his head and finally shot him dead. This scene of
murder gave the girl such a shock that she fainted. On coming to her
senses she found herself in an apartment occupied by German officers.
No sooner did she revive, than one of these officers committed a rape
upon her and destroyed her virginity. During the following days she
remained a captive in the same apartment, where she was forced to yield
to the brutal lust of the officer who first violated her, and to the
solicitations of two of his comrades, who threatened to cut her to
pieces with their swords if she offered any resistance. These officers
then told her “that the Germans had invented a new method of making war
on the Russians, which would exterminate them by means of poisonous gas
without the waste of any more bullets.”
The girl was subsequently rescued by the Russian troops.
A combined judicial and medical examination of the girl X---- on June
4th, established the fact that she had been deprived of her maidenhood
and an inflammatory condition of the sexual organs was still plainly
visible.
III. Murder of Wounded Soldiers.
On April 25th, 1915, when an infantry regiment retreated from the
station of Krosno in Galicia, the unarmed wounded soldiers, who were
unable to follow, and many of whom were crawling away on their hands
and knees, were overtaken and stabbed to death, or despatched by blows
with the butt end of rifles by the Austro-Hungarian troops.
The foregoing facts have been confirmed by the evidence of junior
subaltern B---- of the regiment, Serge Yakovlev Sudarikov, aged thirty,
who was interrogated as a witness by the Examining Magistrate of the
1st ward of Kharkov.
IV. Murder of Wounded Soldiers.
On May 12th, 1915, near the village of Bobrovka, forty versts from
Yaroslav in Galicia, after the withdrawal of the “platoon sotnias” of
dismounted cossacks from their trenches, the latter were occupied by
German guardsmen, who drove out the Russian wounded at the point of the
bayonet.
Private Nikita Davidenko, who was one hundred paces from the trenches
taken by the Germans, saw how they used their bayonets to thrust out
four or five of his wounded comrades, whose groans were distinctly
audible.
When the Russian troops advanced on May 15th, Davidenko saw the bodies
of many cossacks, who had been bayoneted or sabred to death in the
trenches abandoned on May 12th.
The above facts have been confirmed by the evidence of Davidenko, who
was interrogated as a witness by the Examining Magistrate of the second
ward of Kharkov.
V. Murder of Wounded Soldiers.
On the retirement of the Russians, after the battle near Gumbinnen, in
Eastern Prussia, August 7th, 1914, a junior subaltern, named Alexander
Lappo, aged twenty-six, who had been wounded in the back by a piece of
an exploded shrapnel, was left behind, lying on the field.
He soon perceived a group of about fifteen Germans, headed by an
officer and a colour sergeant, following up their detachments, and
shooting all the wounded Russians within reach as they marched along.
There was no consideration for the fact that these Russians had been
struck down at a considerable distance from the actual fighting,
without having fired a shot. One of the Germans in this squad caught
sight of Lappo and fired at him with his rifle. Lappo received the
bullet in his left elbow. A second shot, fired by the same German
soldier, hit a wounded Russian private Tartar, lying next to Lappo.
The Tartar made one or two convulsive movements and expired. The pain
from the wound in his elbow made Lappo moan rather loudly, and this
attracted the attention of the German officer, who at once levelled his
revolver and shot him in the neck. This second wound rendered Lappo
unconscious and he only recovered his senses towards evening, when he
was picked up by Russian Red Cross men. Lappo then noticed that his
leather wrist band with a black watch, worth ten roubles, had been
stolen, evidently by the Germans.
It is not certain to what troops of the enemy’s forces this German
officer and the men under his command belonged, but the German soldiers
killed in the battle near Stalupenen, on August 4th, 1914, in which
Lappo took part, had the figures “41” on their shoulder straps.
The above described facts have been verified and established by a
combined judicial and medical examination, and by the evidence of
Lappo, given under oath before the Examining Magistrate of the Circuit
Court of Vitebsk, district of Gorodok.
VI. Burning the Russian Wounded.
_Evidence of the Private Nicholas Semenov Dorozhka_
In the latter half of June the regiment in which this witness was one
of the rank and file took part in a battle near Ivangorod. When the
fighting was over, the regiment settled down to rest. Some of the
men, however, went to help the sanitary attendants to bring in the
wounded and place them in a wooden cart-house or shed, roofed with
straw, at one end of the village. According to statements made by
the Red Cross bearers, from sixty-six to sixty-eight men were lodged
in this building. At eleven o’clock at night there was a sudden and
violent rattle of rifle fire. The village had been surrounded by the
Germans. The witness seized his rifle and started to leave with three
comrades, but in the darkness they stumbled into a German trench, and
were taken prisoners. Their weapons were taken from them, and all four
Russians were led to the same cart-shed, to which the witness Dorozhka
had assisted to carry the Russian wounded. A German officer on the
spot gave an order to his German soldiers and then he gathered up an
armful of the straw, littered over the floor of the shed, placed it
against one of the corners of the building, and set fire to it with a
match. The witness declares, that he almost fainted when he saw this
officer setting fire to the shed. The straw blazed up at once, the
flames began to envelop the wooden walls, and when it reached the roof,
piercing shrieks came from the wounded inmates, calling for help. At
this moment the officer who fired the shed approached the prisoners,
who were standing near, and without uttering a word, he discharged
his revolver point blank at one of the comrades of the witness, who
instantly fell to the ground dead. Then this officer struck witness’s
other comrade with something in the lower part of the body, and by the
light of the conflagration witness noticed that the man’s intestines
were protruding. Dorozhka rushed to one side and managed to break away
from a group of German soldiers and escaped unhurt, although three
shots were fired after him. The witness, after tramping all night, fell
in with one of the Russian pickets.
The foregoing was deposed to by the witness Dorozhka on examination by
the Examining Magistrate of the 1st Dnieprovsky District.
VII. Ill-Treatment of Prisoners of War.
In June, 1915, three Russian officers, Captain Kosmachevsky, Lieutenant
Griaznov, and Sub-lieutenant Yarotsky, escaped from German captivity
and reached Russia in safety.
They were made prisoners in East Prussia in August, 1914. Together
with other captured officers, they were driven on foot to the town of
Neidenburg, and at one place on the way were made to serve as cover for
a German battery, which was in danger of attack from Russian artillery
fire.
For this purpose the prisoners were put into two-wheeled carts and
ordered to wave white flags and flags with the Red Cross, and these
carts were placed in front of the battery. At the same time the
prisoners were warned, that if only a single projectile fell into this
German battery, they would all be shot for it.
Four days these prisoners were on the march. At night they were
compelled to sleep in the open in roadside ditches, although there were
villages near by, and all that time they received no food, but only
coffee, without sugar, milk or bread, served up in pails. Along the
road the inhabitants and troops whom they met cursed and insulted them,
tore off their shoulder straps, threatened them with their fists, spat
at them and shouted “To Berlin!”
Before the prisoners were put into the train they were searched,
and in this way many of them lost their gold watches and money. The
Cossack officers especially were subjected to very strict search, in
the course of which they were stripped naked. These Cossack officers
were separated from the others and sent off with the private soldier
prisoners.
In the first instance the officer prisoners were interned in the
fortress of Neisse in Silesia, and were subsequently removed to
Kreisfeld, beyond the Rhine.
The prisoners, according to their own account, were kept in horrible
conditions. They were lodged in dirty barracks where the windows were
shut fast and the glass of the panes covered with oil paint. It was
forbidden to approach these windows under pain of being fired at by
the sentries. This threat was once carried out, when an officer wished
to make a drawing at one of the windows. Fortunately nobody was hurt.
The imprisoned officers had to sleep in dirty beds full of bugs, lice,
and other vermin. Their meagre fare was served up on dirty tables,
littered with straw, whilst alongside were other tables, covered with
clean tablecloths and decently furnished even to the extent of glasses
for beer, and on these tables dinner was served for the sentries,
German subalterns, who looked on at the prisoners and their wretched
accommodation in the most insolent manner.
All the imprisoned officers were formed into companies, commanded by
rough and rude sergeant-majors, who treated them like common soldiers.
In November, 1914, two of the officer prisoners attempted to escape
by bribing the shopman at the stores of the officers’ canteen. This
shopman, however, turned out to be a German officer in disguise, and
the attempt failed, but it cost the officers concerned very dear. They
were put in irons and kept in prison six months in a far worse state
than in the barracks.
The above is attested by the evidence of Captain Kosmachevsky,
Lieutenant Griaznov, and Sub-lieutenant Yarotsky, given to
Major-General Semashko, a member of the Extraordinary Commission of
Inquiry, and the deponents were admonished that they would be required
to swear to the truth of their statements.
VIII.
Peter Shimchak, a peasant from the province of Warsaw, who fled from
German captivity, being examined on oath, deposed to the following:--In
August I was made prisoner while serving as a sailor on board a vessel
under the British flag, going from Denmark to England.
As a Russian subject I was not set free, but was placed in solitary
confinement for seven days in a prison at Hamburg, and then sent to a
camp for prisoners of war near Berlin, at Zel, where there were already
many English, French, and Belgian prisoners. In that camp there was a
small yard where offending prisoners were generally punished. On one
occasion four Cossacks were brought into the camp. I recognised them
by the yellow stripes down the sides of their trousers. They were
taken out into the yard and placed about ten feet from the wall of the
barrack, and through the crevices I was able to watch the proceedings.
They took the first Cossack and placed his left hand on a small wooden
post or block, and with a sword bayonet one of the German soldiers
chopped off successively half of the Cossack’s thumb, half of his
middle finger and half of his little finger. I could plainly see how
these finger pieces flew off at each stroke of the sword-bayonet and
fell to the ground. The Germans picked them up and put them into the
pocket of the Cossack’s overcoat and then took him into a barrack,
where there was a reservoir of running water. The second Cossack
was brought up and had holes drilled through his ears, the point of
the sword-bayonet being turned in the cut several times in order,
evidently, to make the hole as large as possible. This Cossack was then
led away to the barrack where the first one had been taken. When the
third Cossack was brought to the place of torture his nose was chopped
off by a downward stroke of a sword bayonet, but as the severed piece
of nose was still hanging by a bit of skin, the Cossack made signs that
they should cut it off completely. The Germans then gave him a pocket
knife, and with this the Cossack cut off the hanging piece of his nose.
Finally, the fourth Cossack was brought forward. What they intended to
do with him it was impossible to say, but this Cossack with a rapid
movement drew out the bayonet of the nearest soldier and dealt a blow
with it at one of the Germans. There were about fifteen German soldiers
present, and they all set upon this Cossack and bayoneted him to death,
after which they dragged the body outside the camp. What was the fate
of the remaining three Cossacks I do not know, but I think, says the
witness Shimchak, in concluding his account of the case, they must have
been also killed, for I never saw them again.
IX.
Evidence of the senior surgeon of the 73rd Artillery Brigade, Gregory
Dimitrovich Onisimov, who was captured by the enemy on August 30th,
1914, near “Malvishek” in East Prussia, but has since been released.
The most striking and characteristic part of this ex-prisoner’s
testimony is a description of the insulting treatment received by
Russian prisoners from the soldiers of their German escort on the road
to Insterburg. “The peaceful temper of our German convoy did not last
long. We soon began to meet detachments of German troops, who swore
and shook their fists and levelled their rifles and revolvers at us,
shouting, ‘Why lead these men about when they can be settled here on
the spot?’ This kind of remark was shouted at us in German, Polish,
and broken Russian. The peaceful inhabitants also reviled us, and
called upon the soldiers to despatch us there and then. They shouted
‘nach Berlin--to Berlin with them! ... to Welhau! ... Russischer
schweinhund--Russian swine,’ and so forth. The soldiers of the escort
were taken into houses on the road and made drunk, so that they also
began to amuse themselves at our expense. The German soldier walking on
my right took his rifle from his shoulder, as if tired, and held it in
such a way that the muzzle touched my right temple, and then he played
carelessly with the lock of it, as though unaware of what he was doing.
When I moved out of the way, he said: ‘Ah! you’re afraid of losing your
head, there’s no danger.’ As soon as the guard on one side had had
his little joke, his comrade on the other side began. Another soldier
on a cart came along purposely handling his rifle so as to stick the
muzzle into my chest, and when I warded it off he roared with laughter
and seemed highly delighted. When going down a steep part of the road
the driver of a cart behind intentionally drove into us and struck me
on the legs with the shafts. I shouted to him to stop and not break my
legs. He simply replied: ‘Bad to have no legs.’ This kind of thing went
on throughout the march. Sometimes we were driven forward like horses,
and the wounded men in the carts were so shaken about that they groaned
with pain. The guards did not allow us to turn round to speak with
them, and no attention was paid to our entreaties to drive them slowly.”
ALEXIS KRIVTSOV, Senator,
President of the Extraordinary
Commission of Inquiry.
VII
THE GERMAN WHITE BOOK
The Introductory Memorandum.
Immediately after the outbreak of the present war there arose in
Belgium a violent struggle by the people against the German troops
which forms a flagrant violation of international law and has had the
most serious consequences to the Belgian country and people.
This struggle of a population which was under the dominion of the
wildest passions continued to rage throughout the whole of the advance
of the German army through Belgium. As the Belgian army fell back
before the German troops after obstinately contested engagements, the
Belgian civil population attempted by every means to impede the German
advance in those parts of the country which were not yet occupied; but
they did not scruple to injure and weaken the German forces by cowardly
and treacherous attacks, also in places which had long been occupied
by the German troops. The extent of this armed popular resistance
can be seen from the attached general plan (Appendix 1) on which
were marked the lines of the German advance, and the Belgian places
in which the popular struggle chiefly raged. We have an overwhelming
amount of material resting on official sources, especially on evidence
given under oath and official reports, that on these routes and in
these places the Belgian civil population of every rank, age, and sex
took part in the struggle against the German troops with the greatest
bitterness and fury. In the Appendices is given a selection from this
material which, however, embraces only the more important events and
can at any time be increased by further documents.
According to the attached material the Belgian civil population fought
against the German troops in numerous places in the provinces of Liège
(Appendices 2-10), Luxembourg (Appendices 11-30), Namur (Appendices
12, 17, 31-42), Henegau (Appendices 3, 7, 10, 40, 43-46, 49), Brabant
(Appendices 47-49), East and West Flanders (Appendices 49, 50). The
conflicts in Aerschot, Andenne, Dinant, Louvain assumed a particularly
frightful character, and special reports have been provided on them
by the Bureau which has been appointed in the Ministry of War for
investigation of offences against the laws of war (Appendices A, B,
C, D). Men of the most different positions, workmen, manufacturers,
doctors, teachers, even clergy, and even women and children were seized
with weapons in their hands (Appendices 18, 20, 25, 27, 43, 47; A 5; C
18, 26, 29, 31, 41, 42-44, 56, 62; D 1, 19, 34, 37, 38, 41, 45, 48).
In districts from which the Belgian regular troops had long retired,
the German troops were fired on from houses and gardens, from roofs
and cellars, from fields and woods. Methods were used in the struggle
which certainly would not have been employed by regular troops, and
large numbers of sporting weapons and sporting ammunition and some
old-fashioned revolvers and pistols were discovered (Appendices 6,
11, 13, 26, 36, 37, 44, 48, 49; A 2, C 52, 81; D 1, 2, 6, 20, 37).
Corresponding with this were numerous cases of wounds by shot and also
by burns from hot tar and boiling water (Appendices 3, 10; B 2; C 5,
11, 28, 57; D 25, 29). According to all this evidence there can be
no doubt that in Belgium the People’s War (_Volkskrieg_) was carried
on not only by individual civilians, but by great masses of the
population.
* * * * *
The conduct of the war by the Belgian civil population was completely
irreconcilable with the generally recognised rules of international
law as they have found expression in Articles 1 and 2 of The Hague
Convention: The Laws and Customs of War on Land, which had been
accepted by Belgium. These regulations distinguished between organised
and unorganised People’s War. In an organised People’s War (Article 1),
in order that they may be recognised as belligerents, the militia and
volunteer corps must satisfy each of the following conditions: They
must have responsible leaders at their head; they must bear a definite
badge which is recognisable at a distance; they must bear their weapons
openly; and they must obey the laws and usages of war. The unorganised
People’s War (Article 2) can dispense with the first two conditions,
that is, responsible leaders and military badges. It is, however, bound
instead by two other conditions; it can only be carried on in that part
of the territory which has not yet been occupied by the enemy, and
there must have been no time for the organisation of the People’s War.
* * * * *
The two special conditions required for the organised People’s War were
certainly not present in the case of the Belgian _francs-tireurs_. For,
according to the reports of the German military commands, which agree
with one another, the civil persons who were found taking part in the
struggle had no responsible leaders at their head, and also wore no
kind of military badge (Appendices 6, 49; C 4-7, 14, 15, 22, 24, 25,
31; D). The Belgian _francs-tireurs_ can therefore not be regarded as
organised militia or volunteers according to the laws of war. It makes
no difference in this, that apparently Belgian military and members of
the Belgian “Garde Civique” also took part in their enterprises; for
as these individuals also did not wear any military badge but mingled
among the fighting citizens in civilian dress (Appendices 6; A 3; C
25; D 1, 30, 45, 46), the rights of belligerents can just as little be
conceded to them.
The whole of the Belgian People’s War must therefore be judged
from the point of view of an unorganised armed resistance of the
civil population. As such resistance is only allowed in unoccupied
territory, it was for this reason alone, without any doubt, contrary
to international law in all those places which were already in
occupation of German troops, and particularly at Aerschot, Andenne,
and Louvain. But the unorganised People’s War was also impermissible
in those places which had not yet been occupied by German troops, and
particularly in Dinant and the neighbourhood, as the Belgian Government
had sufficient time for an organisation of the People’s War as required
by international law. For years the Belgian Government has had under
consideration that at the outbreak of a Franco-German war it would be
involved in the operations; the preparation of mobilisation began, as
can be proved, at least a week before the invasion of the German army.
The Government was therefore completely in a position to provide the
civil population with military badges and appoint responsible leaders,
so far as they wished to use their services in any fighting which might
take place. If the Belgian Government in a communication which has been
communicated to the German Government through a neutral Power, maintain
that they took suitable measures, this only proves that they could
have satisfied the conditions which had been laid down; in any case,
however, such steps were not taken in those districts through which the
German troops passed.
* * * * *
The requirements of international law for an unorganised People’s War
were then not complied with in Belgium; moreover, this war was carried
on in a manner which alone would have been sufficient to have put
those who took part in it outside the laws of war. For the Belgian
_francs-tireurs_ regularly carried their weapons not openly, and
throughout failed to observe the laws and usages of war.
It has been shown by unanswerable evidence that in a whole series of
cases the German troops were on their arrival received by the Belgian
civil population in an apparently friendly manner, and then, when
darkness came on or some other opportunity presented itself, were
attacked with arms; such cases occurred especially in Blegny, Esneux,
Grand Rosère, Bièvre, Gouvy, Villers devant Orval, Sainte Marie, Les
Bulles, Yschippe, Acoz, Aerschot, Andenne, and Louvain (Appendices 3,
8, 11-13, 18, 22, 28, 31, 43; A, B, D). All these attacks obviously
offended against the precept of international law that arms should be
borne openly.
What, however, is the chief accusation against the Belgian population
is the unheard-of violation of the usages of war. In different places,
for instance, at Liége, Herve, Brussels, at Aerschot, Dinant, and
Louvain, German soldiers were treacherously murdered (Appendices 18,
55, 61, 65, 66; A 1; C 56, 59, 61, 67, 73-78), which is contrary to
the prohibition “to kill or treacherously wound individuals belonging
to the hostile nation or army.” (Article 23, Section 1 (_b_) of The
Hague Convention: The Laws and Customs of War on Land.) Further, the
Belgian population did not respect the sign of the Red Cross, and
thereby violated Article 9 of the Convention of Geneva of July 6th,
1906. In particular, they did not scruple to fire on German troops
under the cover of this sign, and also to attack hospitals in which
there were wounded, as well as members of the Ambulance Corps, while
they were occupied in carrying out their duties (Appendices 3, 4, 12,
19, 23, 28, 29, 41, 49; C 9, 16-18, 32, 56, 66-70; D 9, 21, 25-29, 38,
47). Finally, it is proved beyond all doubt that German wounded were
robbed and killed by the Belgian population, and indeed were subjected
to horrible mutilation, and that even women and young girls took part
in these shameful actions. In this way the eyes of German wounded
were torn out, their ears, nose, fingers, and sexual organs were cut
off, or their body cut open (Appendices 54-66; C 73, 78; D 35, 37).
In other cases German soldiers were poisoned, hung on trees, deluged
with burning liquid, or burnt in other ways, so that they suffered
a specially painful death (Appendices 50, 55, 63; C 56, 59, 61, 67,
74-78). This bestial behaviour of the population is not only in open
contravention of the express obligation for “respecting and taking care
of” the sick and wounded of the hostile army (Article 1, Section 1, of
the Convention of Geneva), but also of the first principles of the laws
of war and humanity.
* * * * *
Under these circumstances, the Belgian civil population who took
part in the struggle could of course make no claim to the treatment
to which belligerents have a right. On the contrary, it was
absolutely necessary, in the interests of the self-preservation of
the German Army, to have recourse to the sharpest measures against
these _francs-tireurs_. Individuals who opposed the German troops
by fighting had, therefore, to be cut down; prisoners could not
be treated as prisoners of war according to the laws of war, but
according to the usage of war as murderers. All the same, the forms
of judicial procedure were maintained so far as the necessities of
war did not stand in the way; the prisoners were, so far as the
circumstances permitted, not shot till after a hearing in accordance
with regulations, or after sentence by a military court. (Appendices
48, D 19, 20, 37, 40, 41, 43, 44, 48.) Old men, women and children
were spared to the widest extent, even when there were urgent grounds
of suspicion (Appendices 49; C 5, 6, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 41, 47, 79);
indeed, the German soldiers often looked after such persons so far as
was in any way possible in the most self-sacrificing manner by taking
helpless people who were in danger under their protection, sharing
their bread with them and taking charge of the weak and sick, although
their patience had been subjected to an extraordinary difficult test by
the treacherous attacks (Appendices C 45, 47, 51-53, 55, 58, 80-86).
* * * * *
There can be no doubt that the Belgian Government was essentially
to blame for the illegal attitude of their population towards the
German Army. For apart from the fact that a Government has, under all
circumstances, to bear the responsibility for deeds of this kind which
give a general expression of the popular will, the serious charge must
at least be made against them that they did not stop this guerilla
war, although they could have done so (Appendices 33, 51-53; D 42,
43, 48). It would certainly have been easy for them to provide their
officials, such as the Burgomasters, the soldiers, members of the
“Guarde Civique,” with the necessary instructions to check the violent
excitement of the people which had been artificially aroused. Full
responsibility, therefore, for the terrible blood-guiltiness which
rests upon Belgian attachés to the Belgian Government.
The Belgian Government has made an attempt to free itself from this
responsibility by attributing the blame for the events to the rage
of destruction of the German troops, who are said to have taken to
deeds of violence without any reason. They have appointed a Commission
for investigating the outrages attributed to the German troops, and
have made the findings of this Commission the subject of Diplomatic
complaint. This attempt to pervert the facts into their opposite has
completely failed. The German Army is accustomed to make war only
against hostile armies, and not against peaceful inhabitants. The
incontrovertible fact that from the beginning a defensive struggle in
the interests of self-protection was forced upon the German troops in
Belgium by the population of the country cannot be done away with by
the inquiry of any commission.
The narratives of fugitives which have been put together by the Belgian
Commission, and which are characterised as the result of careful and
impartial investigation, bear the stamp of untrustworthiness, if not
of malicious invention. In consequence of the conditions of things,
the Commission was not in a position to test the reports which were
conveyed to it as to their correctness or to grasp the connection of
events. Their accusations against the German Army are, therefore,
nothing but low calumniations, which are simply deprived of all their
weight by the documentary evidence which is before us.
The struggle of the German troops with the Belgian civil population at
Aerschot did not, as is suggested on the Belgian side, arise through
the German officers violating the honour of the Burgomaster’s family,
but because the population ventured on a well-considered attack on the
Commanding Officer, and murdered him treacherously (Appendix A). At
Dinant it was not harmless, peaceful citizens who fell as a sacrifice
to the German arms, but murderers who treacherously attacked German
soldiers, and thereby involved the troops in a struggle which destroyed
the city (Appendix C). In Louvain the struggle of the civil population
did not arise through fleeing German troops being by mistake involved
in a hand-to-hand contest with their comrades who were entering the
town, but because the population, blinded as they were and unable to
understand what was going on, thought they could destroy the returning
German troops without danger (Appendix D). Moreover, in Louvain, as
in other towns, the conflagration was only started by the German
troops when bitter necessity required it. The plan of the destruction
of Louvain (Appendix D 50) shows clearly how the troops confined
themselves to destroying only those parts of the city in which the
inhabitants opposed them in a treacherous and murderous manner. It was
indeed German troops who, so far as was possible, tried to save the
artistic treasures, not only of Louvain, but also of other towns. On
the German side, a Special Commission has shown to what a high degree
works of art in Belgium were protected by the German troops.
The Imperial German Government believes that by the publication of the
material contained in this work, they have shown that the action of the
German troops against the Belgian civil population was provoked by the
illegal guerilla war, and was required by the necessity of war. For
their part, they expressly and solemnly protest against a population
which has, with the most despicable means, waged a dishonourable war
against the German soldiers, and still more against the Government
which, in complete perversion of their duties, has given rein to the
senseless passions of the population, and even now does not scruple to
free itself from its own heavy guilt by mendacious libels against the
German Army.
Berlin, _May 10th, 1915_.
VIII
MASSACRE OF BRITISH PRISONERS BY GERMAN SOLDIERS AT HAISNES ON
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 1915
I, Captain J. E. A----, 8th Batt. ---- Highlanders, make oath and say
as follows:--
(1) I command C Co. of the 8th Batt. ---- Highlanders. My company
took part in the attack on September 25th, 1915. Between 5 and 6 p.m.
on that day we were attacked and compelled to retire from an advanced
position about Haisnes. We moved into Pekin Trench, and later to Fosse
Alley. The battalion commenced to reorganise there.
(2) Just before 8 p.m. 2nd Lieut. G. T. G----, of my battalion,
reported to me that Sergeant D. M----, who had been attached to my
company for the day, had just returned in an exhausted condition,
and that he reported that the Germans had collected our wounded and
prisoners and bombed them.
Instructed Lieut. G---- to bring Sergeant M---- to me at once. This was
done. 2nd Lieut. G. T. G---- has since died of wounds.
(3) Sergeant M---- reported to me that he and a party of men had been
collected in a traverse by the Germans and bombed from both sides, that
he and a Highlander had jumped out of the traverse, and that he had
escaped into a shell hole, whilst the Highlander had been shot.
The Sergeant, D. M----, was very exhausted and covered with mud and
water up to the neck. He was not in an excited condition.
He carried on with his duties reorganising the company.
(4) The story as told to me by Sergeant M---- at that time has been
adhered to by him ever since without any material alteration.
This Sergeant is a most reliable man in every way.
(Signature of Deponent) J. E. A----,
Captain.
Sworn at Poperinghe in Belgium on active service this first day
of October, 1915.
Before me,
A. M. H. S----, Captain,
D.A.A.G., 1st Army,
Commissioner for Oaths.
I, No. 6546, Sergeant D. M----, of D Co., 8th ---- Highlanders, make
oath and say as follows:
(1) On September 25th, 1915, I was attached to C Co., 8th ----
Highlanders. I took part in the attack on Haisnes on that day.
About 5 p.m. the part of this company commanded by Lieut. A---- with
which I was in trenches just west of Haisnes, and was going to retire.
Lieut. A---- ordered me to collect stragglers from Pekin Trench.
(2) I went 400-500 yards along Pekin Trench and found about twenty
wounded men of various regiments, all Scottish, whose names I did not
know.
I left these men sitting down and went about 100 yards further on and
found about twenty men of the ---- Highlanders, about ten of whom were
wounded.
(3) It was now 5.15 p.m., and I could see that the Germans had cut me
and all these men off from our own troops. I took the men of the ----
Highlanders back to where the others were. I now had about forty men
with me. For the sake of the wounded men we decided to surrender.
(4) We all took off our rifles and equipment and put them on top of the
parapet.
I stood on top of the parapet and held up my hands.
A large party of Germans then advanced both in the open and by the
trenches towards us.
When they drew near I said, “We surrender.” One German, speaking
English, said, “All right. Come along this way, every one.” We all
followed him up Pekin Trench towards the north, helping the wounded
along, and leaving our rifles and equipment behind. It now began to
pour in torrents of rain.
(5) The German who spoke English was dressed in dark khaki and wearing
a cape down to his thighs. He had khaki trousers with a thin red stripe
and long black boots. He wore a helmet with a dark khaki cover on it.
He had no badges showing. His cape blew open and I saw a figure 6 in
red on his shoulder and, I think but am not sure, a figure 2 in part of
it, making 26.
All these Germans were big men and were dressed alike, quite clean and
fresh as though they had only just come into the trenches. I did not
notice anyone in command of them.
Their manner was not threatening.
(6) About thirty of these Germans led us into a circular traverse in
Pekin Trench, and the English-speaking German said, “Pack in there and
stay.” All the Germans then went out of sight. The wounded men sat on
the fire-step and the unwounded remained standing. It was now about
5.30 p.m.
(7) After we had been there about two minutes a bomb was thrown into
the traverse where we were, one bomb from one side and one from the
other.
I shouted to the men to clear out if possible. Only one man and myself
jumped over the parapet. I seized an English rifle lying on the parapet
and fired down the trench. I then jumped into a shell hole about 15
yards from the traverse. It was almost full of water, in which I stood
up to my neck. The other man was shot.
I heard the Germans bombing this circular traverse continuously for
about fifteen minutes. At first the men I left were crying out, but
after about ten minutes this ceased.
(8) I was over an hour in the shell hole, and left it after dark.
2nd Lieut. G. T. G----, of D Co., 8th ---- Highlanders, was the first
person to whom I told my experiences. This was at about 7.45 p.m.
(9) The second person to whom I told them was Capt. J. E. A----, also
of the 8th ----, whom I saw at about 8 p.m. the same evening.
(Signature of deponent) D. M----, Sergeant.
Sworn at Poperinghe in Belgium on active service this first day
of October, 1915.
Before me,
G. M. H. S----, Captain,
D.A.A.G., 1st Army,
Commissioner for Oaths.
IX
REPORTS RELATIVE TO THE USE OF INCENDIARY BULLETS BY GERMAN TROOPS[96]
To:
The Commanding Officer,
2nd Batt. The ---- Regiment.
From:
2nd Lieut. L. E. S----,
B Co., 2nd ---- Regiment.
18/6/1915.
USE OF INCENDIARY BULLETS BY THE ENEMY
SIR,--I have the honour to report as follows:
During the action on 15th to 16th instant my platoon occupied the
right of the old German trench running from ---- to ---- between 7.30
p.m. and 10.30 p.m., 15th instant. Seventy-five yards to my front I
saw six or seven men lying down in the grass. One of them attracted
my attention immediately as he appeared to be smoking or to have lit
a small fire. I observed him carefully and saw that his clothes were
smouldering. Later on they were entirely charred black: he did not
move and was apparently dead. The enemy were sniping at these men,
unquestionably using incendiary bullets, as I saw three or four of
these strike the ground and set the grass around on fire. The flames
could be seen distinctly.
About 9 p.m. one of these bullets struck the bottom of the parapet of
the trench, and burned with a brilliant white flare for about fifteen
seconds, at the same time giving off heavy phosphorus fumes and burning
the sand-bags which it had struck.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) L. E. S----,
2nd Lieut.
The following statements were made by N.C.O.’s of the 2nd Batt. ----
Regiment and 2nd Batt. ---- Regiment (7th Division), relative to the
alleged use by the enemy on June 15th, 1915, of incendiary bullets:
C.S.M. G. M----, C Co., 2nd Batt. ---- Regiment, states:
On the night of the 15th and 16th I saw German rifle bullets cause a
flash as they struck the ground. The flash seemed to rise about 2 feet
from the ground. My attention was called to this by an Officer of the
3rd Co. (?) Grenadier Guards. The Guards were on my left and I was near
----. It was some time between 11 p.m. and 12 midnight.
(Signed) G. M----,
C.S.M.,
C Co., 2nd ----.
Sergeant N----, B Co., 2nd ---- Regiment, states:
Just before dusk on the evening of the 15th I was in the disused German
trench ----, and saw a man fall in front of the trench hit by a bullet.
As he lay on the ground he seemed to be on fire in the right shoulder
and breast, and was clawing the ground in agony. (The grass, which was
green, was set on fire round him.) He was not more than 100 yards from
me--hardly that. I could not do anything for him as the Germans had
been following me and were almost on top of me, and I was nearly alone
at the time.
Very shortly afterwards I saw another man (a Lance-Corpl. in the ----
I think), run out apparently to fetch in the first man. He slewed off,
and must have seen the Germans, who were then crawling through the
grass. He fell, seemingly hit in the stomach, and whilst rolling about
on his back, his right knee and his puttees down to his boot caught
fire. I think he must have been hit in the knee. He too seemed to be in
agony, and the grass caught fire round him also. I could not swear that
his second wound was not caused by a bomb, though I did not see any
bomb burst there.
(Signed) E. H. M. N----,
Sergeant.
Corporal D----, B Co., 2nd Batt. ---- Regiment, states:
Shortly after the bombardment on the evening of the 15th instant, I was
just on the left of the crater (near ----)--about 30 yards from the
crater--and saw a man on fire in the grass in front of and below me.
Another man ran out of a disused trench towards the first man, when he
appeared to be hit in the chest. He fell forward on his chest, and as
he did so flames spurted out of his chest. As he lay on the ground he
was burning all over, and the cartridges in his bandolier went off.
He burned for about an hour and the grass was set on fire. Both men
were rather less than 100 yards from me. I called the attention of my
Officer Mr. L. J---- (subsequently wounded) to the second man. I am
quite sure the second man was hit by a bullet, not a bomb.
(Signed) J. W. D----,
Corporal.
X
DEPOSITIONS RELATIVE TO THE EMPLOYMENT BY THE GERMAN TROOPS OF
RUSSIAN PRISONERS ON THE WESTERN FRONT[97]
(_a_) Statement of a German Prisoner (Translation) Captured in
Northern France.
I, the undersigned Stephan Grzegoroski, a recruit in the 6th Co. (5th
Section) 2nd Batt. No. 143 Infantry Regiment, XV. German Army Corps,
hereby declare on oath that in the course of the month of October,
I have frequently seen Russian prisoners of war in Russian uniform
employed upon the construction of the third line trenches of my
regiment.
There were some 150 to 200 Russians altogether so employed. During the
course of their work they occasionally came under fire. Two were killed
and four wounded. Seven Russians tried to escape--two succeeded: one
was shot dead, and four were retaken.
The men were guarded by soldiers of my regiment.
I spoke personally with some of the Russian prisoners, and they
complained that they had much work to do, but only very little to eat.
(_b_) Statement of Two Russian Soldiers (Translation) taken
down in November, 1915, at British Headquarters in France.
Michael Klokoff, Russian soldier, private in the Novo Skolsky Regiment;
taken prisoner by the Germans on the Bzura on December 26th, 1914 /
January 8th, 1915; and Andrei Slizkin, Russian soldier, private in the
41st Siberian Regiment, taken prisoner by the Germans near Prasnysz on
January 29th/February 11th, 1915, _declare that_: we were interned
as prisoners of war at Strzalkowo until October 7th/20th, 1915. We
then came with 2,000 other Russian prisoners to Belgium. Some of the
prisoners were taken to build railways; others, among them ourselves,
were employed to dig trenches. During our work we came under shell fire
and sustained casualties.
We escaped on October 31st, and reached the British lines on November
2nd. We were promised pay, but did not receive any.
(_c_) Statement of Two Russian Soldiers (Translation) taken
down in December 1915, at British Headquarters in Northern
France.
Anastasius Nietzvetznie, 231 Dragoon (Infantry) Regiment, and Nicholas
Nevaskov, 210 Infantry Regiment, _declare_: When we were prisoners
with the Germans we worked at digging trenches. Each day we were under
English artillery fire. We received 30 pfennigs per day, and we worked
against our will. When we refused to work, we got twenty-five strokes
with an iron rod, and were tied up with our hands behind our backs in a
cold room with windows open and nothing to eat.
(Signed) ANASTASIUS NIETZVETZNIE,[98]
231 Dragoon Regiment.
(Signed) NICHOLAS MIKHAILOVITCH NEVASKOV,[98]
210 Infantry Regiment.
A REVIEW OF
GERMAN ATROCITIES
BY
THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE
Published in _The Westminster Gazette_, London, March 20, 1916
A FRESH EXAMINATION OF GERMAN WAR METHODS[99]
Professor Morgan, whose bright little book, called “Sketches From the
Front,” has given to us some of the most fresh and vivid pictures of
the actualities of warfare in France, presents in the present volume
the evidence he has been busy in collecting regarding the behaviour
of the German troops in the western theatre of war. Some of this
has already been made known to the public by what he published in
the _Nineteenth Century and After_ in June, 1915, and also by the
depositions which he obtained under the instructions of the Home Office
and submitted to the British Committee on Alleged German Outrages.
(Many of these were published in the Appendix to their Report last
May.) Since that time he has spent four or five months in collecting
further important data and still more months in collating the results
of the facts he has collected, having been granted by the British
Headquarters Staff in France those facilities for moving to and fro
along the front and getting into touch with eye-witnesses which
were essential for arriving directly at the facts. The evidence thus
obtained is supplemented by several diaries of German soldiers never
before published in England, and by some extracts from documents
issued by the Russian Government describing cruelties committed by the
Germans in the fighting on the Eastern front. As respects the data he
has himself collected, Professor Morgan explains, in his introduction,
the methods he has followed in taking evidence and testing its value,
showing himself sensible, as a lawyer ought to be, of the need for care
and caution in such a matter. The large experience which his months
of work at the front have given him adds weight to his assurance that
what he submits is worthy of all credence as well as to the conclusions
at which he has arrived. But before adverting to these conclusions a
preliminary question deserves to be considered.
It has been asked--and it is natural that it should he asked--“What
is the use of multiplying tales of horror?” “Why do anything that can
aggravate the bitterness of feeling, already lamentably acute, between
the belligerent nations? All war is horrible; why add fresh items to
the list of offences which are making us think worse of human nature
than we supposed two years ago we ever could think?”
These questions need an answer. Such a painful record as the present
book contains, such a record as can be found in the reports already
officially published by the Belgian, French, and British Governments,
might, perhaps, have been better left unpublished if it did not serve
some definite tangible aim, looking to some permanent good for mankind.
Now such a definite, tangible, practical aim does exist, and seems
to justify, and, indeed, to require, the publication of the facts
contained in this book and also in the reports which have been
published by the Belgian, French, and British Governments. It is an
aim which can be stated quite shortly; and the need for pursuing it is
shown by what has happened during the last twenty months.
In most parts of the ancient world, and among the semi-civilised
peoples of Asia till very recent times, wars were waged against
combatants and non-combatants alike. Even in the European Middle
Ages indiscriminate slaughter of combatants and non-combatants alike
sometimes occurred, especially where, as in the case of the Albigenses,
religious passion intensified hatred. As late as the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries there were campaigns in which frightful license
was allowed to soldiery, private property was pillaged or ruthlessly
destroyed, and women were habitually outraged.
A reaction of sentiment caused by the horror of the Thirty Years’
War, coupled with a general softening of manners, brought about a
change. During the last two centuries, though every war was marked by
shocking incidents, there was a growing feeling that non-combatants
should be protected, and a serious purpose to restrain the excesses of
troops invading a hostile country. The wars of the eighteenth century
were less cruel and destructive than those of the seventeenth, and
the wars of the nineteenth showed some improvement on those of the
eighteenth. The war of 1870-71, if those of us in Britain who remember
it can trust our recollection, seemed better in both the above-named
respects than had been the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars between
1793 and 1814. Till the outbreak of the present conflict men who
sought for signs of the progress of mankind were cheered by the hope
that war would hereafter be waged only between regular disciplined
forces on each side; that these forces would abstain from needless
cruelty, that women would be protected from lust, and that the lives of
non-combatants would not be endangered. There was even a prospect that
private property would not be destroyed except in so far as a definite
military aim made its destruction unavoidable, as when a hostile force
had to be shelled out of its shelter in a village. The Hague Convention
had passed rules which ameliorated the practices of war as regards the
combatant forces and had solemnly proclaimed the duty of respecting the
lives and property of non-combatant civilians.
The present war has, however, brought a rude awakening. The proofs
are now overwhelming that in Belgium and Northern France--as to other
regions the evidence is not fully before us--non-combatants have
been slaughtered without mercy by the orders of the German military
authorities, while the mitigations of war usages as regards combatants
have been openly and constantly disregarded. Private property has been
constantly destroyed where no specific military reason existed, but
only for the sake of terrorising the civil population, or perhaps out
of sheer malice. A license has been practised by, and in many cases
obviously permitted to, the soldiers which has led to acts of wanton
cruelty. Outrages upon women have been far more numerous than in any
war between civilised nations during the last hundred years. One crime
deserves special condemnation, because it is done deliberately and
is justified by its perpetrators. This is the practice of seizing
innocent non-combatants, usually the leading inhabitants of a town or
village, calling them hostages and executing them in cold blood if the
population of the town or village whom “the hostages” cannot control,
fail to obey the commands of the invaders. Civilians who fire upon
invading troops without observing the requirements which the Hague
Convention prescribes may, no doubt, be shot according to the customs
of war; but there must be some proof that these particular civilians
have done so. To put to death a quarter or more of the adult male
inhabitants of a village because some shots have been fired, or are
supposed by an excited soldiery to have been fired, out of its houses,
is mere murder. All the paragraphs in the Manual of War issued by the
German Staff cannot make it anything else.
Though we may hope, and indeed must hope, that the horror caused by
this war may lead to measures which will diminish the risks of war in
the future, he must be indeed a sanguine man who can think that war,
the oldest of the curses that have afflicted mankind, is likely to
be eradicated within this century. It is therefore an urgent duty to
do all that can be done for a regulation of the methods of war and a
mitigation of the sufferings that it causes.
Now the cruelties that have been perpetrated on land, no less than the
ruthless murder of innocent passengers on unarmed vessels at sea, are
an aggravation of those sufferings. They are a reversion to the ancient
methods of savagery, a challenge to civilised mankind, to neutral
nations as well as to the now belligerent States. Neutral nations
ought to be fully informed of the facts of these methods, for they are
themselves concerned. The same methods may be used against them if they
are attacked by Germany or by some other nation which sees that Germany
has used them with impunity. If the public opinion of the world does
not condemn these methods, war will become an even greater curse than
it has been heretofore. Unless an effort is made as soon as ever the
present conflict ends to regulate the conduct of hostilities between
combatant forces, and, which is of even greater importance, to provide
more effective safeguards for non-combatants, there may be a terrible
relapse towards barbarism everywhere.
The Allied belligerent nations who are now fighting in the cause of
humanity are called upon to take up this matter and deal with it
effectively. So are neutral nations. It is a pity that they did not
protest long ago. But a word may be said regarding the German people
also. Professor Morgan thinks that they share in all the guilt of
their Government, but the reasons he gives for this belief do not
warrant so melancholy a conclusion. The behaviour of the mobs that
were wont to insult and ill-treat the prisoners of war led through the
streets of German towns, and the ferocious language of creatures like
Von Reventlow and some other writers in the German Press, shocking as
they are, cannot be taken as evidence of the sentiments of a whole
people. Neither can we suppose that the declarations of professors,
victims of a doctrine and a practice which compels them to approve
every act of the State are more to be accepted as expressing what may
be felt by the less vocal Germans. We must remember how severe is the
German censorship, how accustomed the Germans are to believe what
their Government tells them, how habitually mendacious the military
authorities have been in the accounts they supply of the conduct of
the Allied Powers and their troops. The German mind has had little
but falsehood to feed upon ever since the outbreak of the war, and it
now believes, absurd as the belief is, that it is the innocent victim
of an unprovoked aggression. When any voice is raised in Germany to
proclaim even a part of the truth and to plead for humanity and good
feeling, that voice is instantly silenced. Silence will doubtless be
enforced as long as the war lasts. But we may well venture to hope
that when, after the war, the facts hitherto concealed from the people
have become known and can be reflected on with calmness, there will be
a condemnation of the practices I have described, and that in Germany
and Austria, as well as in all neutral countries, there will be a wish
to join in the efforts which both the Allies and the leading neutral
Powers are sure to make to regulate and mitigate the conduct of war. In
order to call forth these efforts by showing how great is the need for
strengthening the existing rules of war, and providing more effective
means of securing their observance, it is essential that the facts
should be made known and studied, and that the world should see how the
present rules, imperfect as they are, have been trampled under foot
by the German authorities. This is what makes it right and necessary
to publish the data contained in the Reports already referred to, and
those data also which have been gathered by Professor Morgan with such
earnest labour.
So much for the justification--an ample justification--which exists
for publishing the horrible record which this book contains. I need
not here analyse it or quote from it or comment upon it. The facts
speak for themselves. Professor Morgan’s general conclusions as to the
behaviour of the German troops in France seem to be borne out by the
facts which he adduces. They are further supported by the facts set
forth in the Belgian, French, and British Reports. This accumulation of
testimony is convincing, and it becomes even abundantly more convincing
when one remembers that the German Government has scarcely attempted to
deny the contents of those reports. To the French report, strengthened
as it is by numerous extracts from the diaries of German soldiers
(translated by M. Joseph Bédier), in which they describe, sometimes
with shame, sometimes with satisfaction, the conduct of their comrades,
no answer seems to have been made, although a few trivial objections
were raised to the translations. Neither has the German Government
ventured to meet the British report, except by a vaguely worded general
contradiction in a semi-official newspaper. As regards the Belgian
reports, no more to them than to the others has any examination and
specific contradiction been vouchsafed. But a White Book has been
published which tries to turn the tables by accusing Belgian civilians
generally of firing on German troops and committing outrages upon
them. Professor Morgan, in one of the most illuminative parts of his
book, subjects this White Book to a critical analysis, exposes its
hollowness, and shows conclusively that while it does not prove the
German case against the civilian population and the Government of
Belgium, it virtually admits, in its attempts to justify, the shocking
cruelties perpetrated by the German Army upon that population. As the
lawyers say, _habemus confitentem reum_.
Let me add that he who wishes to understand German military ideas and
military methods, ought to read along with this book (and the reports
already referred to) another book, the German “Manual of the Usages of
War on Land,” of which Professor Morgan has published a translation,
under the title of “The German War Book.” Each of these is a complement
to the other. The “War Book” sets forth the principles: this book
and the Reports display the practices. The practice shocks us more,
because concrete cases of cruelty rouse a livelier indignation; but the
principles are a more melancholy proof of the extent to which minds of
able men may be so perverted by false ideals and national vanity as to
lose the common human sense of right and wrong.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The writer’s chief contributions to the Bryce Report will be found
on pages 190, etc., of the Committee’s Appendix [_cd._ 7895.]
[2] Published by the German Foreign Office under the title of
“Die völkerrechtswidrige Führung des belgischen Volkskriegs.” The
abbreviation “G. W. B.” will be used in the notes to this chapter.
[3] The Reports have been translated, but not the evidence. I am
indebted to M. Mollard for providing me with copies of the latter, to
which reference is made below.
[4] Speech in the Reichstag, August 4th, 1914. But, so far as I know,
no one in this country has noticed that the absolute inviolability
of Belgium, under all circumstances and without exception, has been
laid down in the leading German text-book on International Law, which
declares that such treaties are the great “landmarks of progress”
in the formation of a European polity, and that the guarantors must
step in, whether invited or uninvited, to vindicate them. “Nothing,”
it is added, “could make the situation of Europe more insecure than
an egotistical repudiation by the great States of these duties of
international fellowship.”--Holtzendorff _Handbuch des Völkerrechts_
III. (Part 16), pp. 93, 108, 109.
[5] Regulations, Arts. 1 and 2.
[6] _cf._ Von Bieberstein at the Hague Conference of 1907, “The
international law which we wish to create should contain only those
clauses the execution of which is possible from a military point of
view.” (_Actes et Documents I._, page 282.)
[7] Holtzendorff, IV., 385.
[8] _Ibid._, IV., 374. This is an important admission in view of what
the Germans allege to have happened in Belgium.
[9] German White Book: Introductory Memorandum.
[10] German White Book: Introductory Memorandum.
[11] Belgian Grey Book (Correspondance Diplomatique relative à la
Guerre de 1914), No. 8 (dated July 29th, 1914).
[12] _Ibid._, No. 2 (July 24th, 1914).
[13] British Blue Book (Great Britain and the European Crisis), Nos. 85
and 122.
[14] G. W. B. (Appendix C), General Report on Dinant.
[15] _Ibid._, Introductory Memorandum.
[16] G. W. B., Appendix 51.
[17] _Ibid._, Appendix 53.
[18] G. W. B., Memorandum.
[19] _Ibid._, Appendix 59.
[20] G. W. B., Appendix 56.
[21] _Ibid._, Appendix 63.
[22] _Ibid._, Appendix 56.
[23] G. W. B., Appendix B.
[24] This is the normal figure of such German units according to the
basis of calculation arrived at, after careful inquiry, by our own
Headquarters Staff.
[25] G. W. B., Appendix B 1.
[26] G. W. B., Appendix 29.
[27] _Ibid._, No. 22.
[28] _See_ the Appendix to the Bryce Report, pages 25-29. Any one
who reads the depositions of the Belgian witnesses there set out,
and compares them with the depositions of the German soldiers in the
White Book cannot fail to be struck by certain notable differences
in quality. The Belgian witnesses never generalise, they betray no
malice, and they mention instances of German forbearance. The exact
converse is true of the German evidence. Lord Bryce’s Committee came to
the conclusion that they “have no reason to believe that the civilian
population of Dinant gave any provocation.” (Report, page 20.) _See
also_ the Eleventh Belgian Report (_Rapports officiels_, page 137).
[29] G. W. B., Appendix C. Summary and also C 5, 7, 10, 31, 35, 40, 44
for references in the text.
[30] G. W. B., Appendix C.
[31] C 44.
[32] C (Summary Report).
[33] C 51.
[34] The story of Aerschot is peculiarly horrible. It was here that the
priest was placed against the wall with his arms raised above his head;
when he let them fall through weariness, the German soldiers brought
the butt-ends of their rifles down upon his feet. He was kept there for
hours, and as German soldiers passed they used him as a lavatory and
a latrine until he was covered with filth. Eventually they shot him.
This is but one of many such horrors (_see_ the Bryce Report, Appendix,
pages 29, 46. _See also_ the fourth and fifth Belgian Reports). The
German White Book admits (Appendix A 2) that “every third man was shot.”
[35] Appendix A 5.
[36] Appendix A 3.
[37] The 1st Company of the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Neuss Mobile
Landsturm.
[38] Belgian Collected Reports, Tenth Report, page 127.
[39] Bryce Report (popular edition), pages 29-36. And see the diary,
No. 14 of Appendix to Bryce Report recording the shooting of German
troops by other German troops; to the same effect another diary quoted
on page 41 of Bryce Report.
[40] “No other troops were stationed at Louvain on that day.”--(D 8.)
[41] _See_ the Sixth Belgian Report and, in particular, the
Proclamations issued at Hasselt, Namur, Wavre, Grivegnée, and Brussels.
[42] _See_, in particular, _Les Violations des lois de la Guerre par
l’Allemagne_, issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pages
77, 92, 99, 100, 101, 119.
[43] Press Bureau (Belgian communiqué), March 18th. The German
authorities substituted the word “convention” for “conversation,” in
order to convict Belgium of a secret treaty with England.
[44] Foreign Office communiqués of May 20th and July 5th.
[45] The case of the _Ophelia_.
[46] P. P. Cd. 7595.
[47] The case of the _Iberia_ (_Times_ Law Report, November 11th,
1915). It is not the only one.
[48] _The International Review_, published in Zurich, and controlled by
a Committee consisting almost entirely of German Professors. Its title
is obviously fraudulent. The June issue (page 14) contains an article
of ingratiating impudence by a German psychologist discrediting all
reports of atrocities, and, in order to prove their unreliability and
justify the policy of the _Review_ in excluding them when they emanate
from British, French, or Belgian sources, it attempts to disprove them
all. On page 32 the writer refutes circumstantially the stories that
German soldiers had had their eyes gouged out.
[49] Note transmitted on July 8th to the American Minister by Herr von
Jagow.
[50] Proclamations issued at Namur and Wavre.--(Sixth Belgian Report.)
[51] _Ibid_ Proclamation issued at Grivegnée. _See also Les Avis,
Proclamations, et Nouvelles de la Guerre allemandes affichés a
Bruxelles_, for a copy of which I am indebted to my friend Colonel E.
D. Swinton, D.S.O. (“Eye-witness.”)
[52] The reader should also study the diaries given in the Bryce
Appendix, in the French official volume _Les Violations_, and in
Professor Bedier’s _Les Crimes Allemands_: expressions of pity are as
rare as exultations that “We live like God” are frequent.
[53] The full story will never be known, but the Russian Report, the
Second French Report, the Belgian Reports (especially the Tenth), and
the narrative of Major Vandeleur, published by the Foreign Office
as a White Paper, together with the Report of the American Minister
published on November 20th, 1915, may be referred to.
[54] The instances which follow are taken from official reports. I may
add another illustration here published for the first time. A German
soldier, recording the story of how the _maire_ of a French town was
torn from his home and carried off by the troops, writes: “In spite of
his protests we put him into our company and made him march with us.
He called us names and shouted and protested, _and kept us all in good
spirits_.”
[55] The _Munchner Neueste Nachrichten_, October 7th, 1914.
[56] Press Bureau (Belgian communiqués), August 5th.
[57] French official communiqués, October 12th, August 1st.
[58] _Velut e conspectu libertas tolleretur_ (Tacitus, _Agricola_,