(Prepared for this pamphlet.)
[Sidenote: The graves of the massacred.]
It was my privilege--and necessity--in connection with the work of
the Commission for Relief in Belgium to spend several months at the
Great Headquarters of the German armies in the west, and later to
spend more months at Brussels as the Commission's director for Belgium
and occupied France. It was an enforced opportunity to see something
of German practice in the treatment of a conquered people, part of
whom (the French and the inhabitants of the Belgian provinces of
East and West Flanders) were under the direct control of the German
General Staff and the several German armies of the west, and part, the
inhabitants of the seven other Belgian provinces, under the quasi-civil
government of Governor General von Bissing. I did not enter the
occupied territories until June, 1915, and so, of course, saw none of
the actual invasion and overrunning of the land. I saw only the graves
of the massacred and the ruins of their towns. But I saw through the
long, hard months much too much for my peace of mind of how the Germans
treated the unfortunates under their control after the occupation.
It would be an unnecessary repetition to describe again the scenes in
Louvain, Dinant, Visé, Andenne, Tamines, Aerschot, and the rest of
the familiar long list of the ruined Belgian towns. But too little
has been said of the many, many ruined villages all over the extent
of the occupied French territory from Lille in the north to Longwy in
the south, and from the eastern boundary of France to the fatal trench
lines of the extreme western front.
As chief representative for the Commission, it was my duty to cover
this whole territory repeatedly in long motor journeys in company with
the German officer assigned for my protection--and for the protection
of the German army against any too much seeing. As I had opportunity
also to cover most of Belgium in repeated trips from Brussels into
the various provinces, I necessarily had opportunity to compare the
destruction wrought in the two regions.
[Sidenote: Towns untouched by war but ruined.]
I could understand why certain towns and villages along the Meuse and
along the lines of the French and English retreat were badly shot to
pieces. There had been fighting in these towns and the artillery of
first one side and then the other had worked their havoc among the
houses of the inhabitants. But there were many towns in which there
had been no fighting and yet all too many of these towns also were in
ruins. It was not ruin by shells, but ruin by fire and explosions.
There were the famous "punished" towns. Either a citizen or perhaps
two or three citizens had fired from a window on the invaders--or were
alleged to have. Thereupon a block, or two or three blocks, or half the
town was methodically and effectively burned or blown to pieces. There
are many of these "punished" towns in occupied France. And between
these towns and along the roadways are innumerable isolated single
farm houses that are also in ruins. It is not claimed that there was
any sniping from these farmhouses. They were just destroyed along the
way--and by the way, one may say. When the roll of destroyed villages
and destroyed farmhouses in occupied France is made known, the world
will be shocked again by this evidence of German thoroughness.
[Sidenote: Heartlessness of German rule.]
The rigor of the control over the inhabitants of the occupied French
territory is almost inconceivable. The lines delimiting the regions
occupied by the various distinct German armies are lines of impassable
steel for the inhabitants. If a member of the family in one town was
visiting friends or relatives in another town a few kilometers away at
the time of the outbreak of the war that family has remained separated
through all the long months that have since elapsed. No messages can
pass except by dangerous subterranean ways from town to town.
[Sidenote: False receipts for requisitioned property.]
The requisitioning of everything from food to furniture, from farm
animals to the blankets and mattresses from the beds, has been carried
to such an extent that the people live on nothing, amid nothing. These
requisitions in the earlier days had a more or less official seeming
in that quartermaster's _bons_ were given for the things taken. Even
then the German sense of humor too often made the _bon_ a crude jest.
The _bons_ were written in the German language in German script,
illegible and beyond the understanding of the simple natives. A _bon_
might be given for a chicken when it was a pair of horses that was
taken. But later, when these jests palled on the German soldiers, the
requisitioning was simplified by the omission of _bon_-giving. Where
the villagers and peasants had tried to save something that could be
buried or concealed, the searching out of these pitiful hiding places
became a great game with the German soldiers. One ingenious Frenchman
had secreted a few choice bottles of wine in a famous tomb on heights
above the Meuse. But these bottles found their way to special tables
at the Great Headquarters.
In the spring of 1916 the army authorities devised the plan of
deporting a number of men and women from Lille and the industrial towns
near it to the agricultural regions further south. These French were
to work in the fields and help produce food for the German army. As a
matter of fact this plan had at bottom something to recommend it. The
congestion in the industrialized northern region made the food problem
there very difficult. Our Commission had more trials in connection
with the provisioning of the great city of Lille and the lesser but
crowded towns of Valenciennes, Roubaix, and Tourcoing than with all the
rest of the occupied territory. Also these people had no work to do,
as the great factories were still. To come south and work in the open
air in the fields and be allowed a fair ration would have been a real
advantage to these people. It would also have helped in the whole food
supply situation.
[Sidenote: Horrors of deportations.]
But the horrible methods of that deportation were such that we,
although trying to hold steadfast to a rigorous neutrality, could not
but protest. Mr. Gerard, our Ambassador to Berlin, happened at the
very time of this protest to make a visit to the Great Headquarters in
the west and the matter was brought to the attention of certain high
officers at Headquarters on the very day of Mr. Gerard's visit and in
his hearing. So that he added his own protest to that of Mr. Poland,
our director at the time, and further deportations were stopped. But
a terrible mischief had already been done. Husbands and fathers had
been taken from their families without a word of good-bye; sons and
daughters on whom perhaps aged parents relied for support were taken
without pity or apparent thought of the terrible consequences. The
great deportations of Belgium have shocked the world. But these lesser
deportations--that is, lesser in extent, but not less brutal in their
carrying out--are hardly known.
[Sidenote: No American can fail to oppose Prussianism.]
I went into Belgium and occupied France a neutral and I maintained
while there a steadfastly neutral behavior. But I came out no neutral.
I can not conceive that any American enjoying an experience similar to
mine could have come out a neutral. He would come out, as I came, with
the ineradicable conviction that a people or a government which can do
what the Germans did and are doing in Belgium and France to-day must
not be allowed, if there is power on earth to prevent it, to do this a
moment longer than can be helped. And they must not be allowed ever to
do it again.
[Sidenote: Civilization must crush Prussian system.]
I went in also a hater of war, and I came out a more ardent hater of
war. But, also, I came out with the ineradicable conviction, again,
that the only way in which Germany under its present rule and in its
present state of mind can be kept from doing what it had done is by
force of arms. It can not be prevented by appeal, concession, or
treaties. Hence, ardently as I hope that all war may cease, I hope
that this war may not cease until Germany realizes that the civilized
world simply will not allow such horrors as those for which Germany is
responsible in Belgium and France to be any longer possible.