"Mechanical skill, and especially qualified mechanical skill, is
for the moment a more important factor than usual, and as it must
be obtained where it can be obtained, Belgium has had to suffer in
accordance with the old saying which always holds good: _Vae victis_
(woe to the vanquished). In Poland, mechanical skill and the arms
which exist there are mobilized under 'the glorious and fortunate
banners of Poland'; in Belgium under 'the banner of necessity.'"
[Sidenote: The Germans are using the Belgians for war work.]
"* * * The question remains: for what kind of work will the Germans
use the Belgians? * * * Every kind of work in Germany is war work,
whether it is called agricultural or industrial work. As the deported
Belgians have not given their consent, their use is contrary to
international law, and the policy of the Germans in Belgium and Poland
is equally to be deplored. Instead of aiming at bringing us nearer
peace, it serves to embitter our opponents and to rouse more hatred
towards us amongst the neutrals. Many times and more and more we have
had occasion to observe that the neutrals show more sympathy for
Belgium than for any other belligerent."
[Sidenote: Belgians still being deported, September, 1917.]
The news dispatches indicate that the deportation and forced labor of
Belgians still continue. In a dispatch from Havre (New York _Evening
Post_, September 13, 1917) it is stated: "The removal of the civilian
population of Belgium continues, according to advices received here.
The town of Roulers, immediately behind the battle line in Flanders,
has been evacuated completely. Ostend is being emptied gradually, and
two thousand persons already have been sent from Courtrai." In another
dispatch from Havre (_Washington Post_, September 24, 1917) it is
stated that "the German military authorities at Bruges, Belgium, are
conscripting forcibly all the boys and men of that city between the
ages of 14 and 60 to work in munition factories and shipyards. The
rich and poor, shopkeepers and workmen, all are being taken, only the
school-teachers, doctors, and priests escaping."
REPORT OF MINISTER WHITLOCK (concluded).
[Sidenote: German capacity for blundering.]
"_One interesting result of the deportations remains to be noted,
a result that once more places in relief the German capacity for
blundering, almost as great as the German capacity for cruelty. Until
the deportations were begun there was no intense hatred on the part
of the lower classes, i.e., the workingmen and the peasants. The
old Germans of the Landsturm had been quartered in Flemish homes;
they and the inmates spoke nearly the same language; they got alone
fairly well; they helped the women with the work, the poor and the
humble having none of those hatreds of patriotism that are among the
privileges of the upper classes. It is conceivable that the Flemish
population might have existed under German rule; it was Teutonic in
its origin and anti-French always. But now the Germans have changed
all that._
[Sidenote: Germans will be hated for generations.]
"_They have dealt a mortal blow to any prospect they may ever have
had of being tolerated by the population of Flanders; in tearing away
from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and a father or a
son and brother they have lighted a fire of hatred that will never go
out; they have brought home to every heart in the land, in a way that
will impress its horror indelibly on the memory of three generations,
a realization of what German methods mean, not, as with the early
atrocities, in the heat of passion and the first lust of war, but by
one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human
race, a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and
systematically executed, a deed so cruel that German soldiers are
said to have wept in its execution, and so monstrous that even German
officers are now said to be ashamed._
"WHITLOCK."
Mr. Hoover's mature conclusions on the German practices in Belgium,
which he has written for this pamphlet, reinforce the detailed evidence
already presented.