GERMAN ACTIONS CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED ON THE PLEA OF REPRISALS
THE PLEA OF REPRISALS
Violations of the law of nations and, still more, acts of cruelty
committed in war, have almost always escaped punishment properly so
called. The victim usually finds himself powerless to exact retribution
for them. Only one course is permitted to him: that of reprisals, by
which he counters acts of violence with other acts of violence. His aim,
therefore, is not vengeance: the point is to compel the enemy to keep
to what is permissible, through fear of penalties to which he will be
exposed if he persists in wrongdoing. Reprisals may frequently involve
great violence, but one rule is universally admitted—that they never
justify acts of cruelty properly so called. Amongst the latter are the
massacre of women and children, mutilation, cunningly devised torture,
etc. Two other principles are likewise admitted as regards reprisals, to
wit—
(1) that the severity of reprisals must not be out of
proportion to the gravity of the offence.
(2) that in cases where the offence has been committed by
individual non-combatants, reprisals must not be inflicted
on their fellow-citizens, as the aggrieved army has its
legitimate remedy under what is called martial law. Now the
Germans have violated this rule and these principles.
REPRISALS AND THE GERMANS
On many occasions the Germans have had recourse to the plea of reprisals
to justify acts of violence committed by them. We shall show that this
plea is a misuse of terms. One of the excuses which they have most
frequently put forward is that civilians have taken part in the war,
in Belgium, in France, in Poland. But the question of the civilian
population taking part in military operations is bound up with the
question of francs-tireurs, which Germany wanted to solve to suit herself
and which will occupy our attention later on. Let us here point out one
thing—that the circumstances under which, even according to the German
version of events, civilians have taken part in the war, are very often
quite enough to condemn Germany. For example, Herr de Bethmann-Hollweg,
the Imperial Chancellor, thought he could persuade the whole world of
the innocence of the German soldiers, whose admitted excesses, so far
as Louvain was concerned, were due, he said, to the fact that the young
girls of the town had gouged out the eyes of the German soldiers. Let us
assume the Chancellor’s good faith in making such a statement. Assuredly
he cannot have supposed that this happened in many instances or that it
went so far as a general execution. It can only have been reported to
him, and he can only have been induced to believe it as an exceptional
act. It is not of the nature of such an act, alike from the cruelty which
it assumes in women and from the difficulty of carrying it out, to be
repeated often, and this is the reason for destroying a town, burning
Louvain and pillaging the whole country. “A plea of self-defence like
this,” said M. Hanotaux, “by itself gives you a picture of the German
soul.”
GERMAN SLANDERS WHICH ATTEMPT TO DISGUISE CRUEL ACTS OF THE IMPERIAL
TROOPS AS REPRISALS
All the other excuses of the Germans are of the same kind. Their
very weakness proves that they are slanders. For example, Germany
has endeavoured to spread in foreign countries, and especially in
Switzerland, a rumour to the effect that people on their way back from
enemy countries who had stopped in France, and also Swiss subjects, had
been ill-treated by the French authorities. The object of this grotesque
report was obviously to forestall charges under the same heading which
would fall on Germany, and to prepare the public opinion of the world
to think that charges outstanding against them were cancelled by the
necessity of resorting to reprisals for acts committed in France. The
Swiss newspapers did not fail to denounce the German manœuvre. To show
the extent to which the policy of lying was being carried, the _Journal
de Genève_ published a letter from the Swiss Consul at Besançon, giving
the highest praise to the manner in which Germans and Austrians had been
treated in France.
Moreover, of what value can these slanders be when, on the other hand,
documentary evidence proves that the French authorities have behaved
to the Germans with an excess of indulgence. It is certain, at least,
that nowhere in France has any hatred been shown to the prisoners. Even
prisoners of war have been most energetically protected by the heads of
the army against the passions of crowds. On this head here is a note
which a French general, Commandant at Angers, addressed to the newspapers
of this town—
“For some days convoys of prisoners of war have been passing
through the Angers railway station.
“Part of the civil population, and not always the best part,
crowds on the bridge above the station and utter cries when
they think they recognise an enemy uniform on the platform.
These demonstrations are unbecoming; if the Germans behave like
brutes to their prisoners, there is no reason why we should
imitate them. A nation like France, which boasts with good
right of being the most civilised of all, cannot, by acting
like them, follow in the footsteps of the barbarians whom we
are on the way to conquer at our will and pleasure, with arms
in our hands. I beg, therefore, the staff of the local press to
be good enough to invite civilians to maintain the calmness and
dignity which are the qualities of strong races, conscious of
their place in civilisation.
“GÉNÉRAL D’ORMESSON.”
TRIVIAL ACTS HAVE SOMETIMES BEEN THE CAUSE OF TERRIBLE REPRISALS
One of the manœuvres practised by the Germans consists in their firing
some gunshots themselves, at the moment when they were entering a
village evacuated by enemy troops, and pretending that these shots came
from civilians. Consequently they began to resort to what they called
reprisals. All the more did they resort to them when the smallest actual
offence gave them any pretext.
In his book, _German Evidence for German Crimes_, M. Bédier tells how at
Orchies “a woman was shot for not having obeyed the word of command to
halt. The result, the whole district burnt!” The disobedience of this
peasant woman was considered by the German, Major Mehring, the Commandant
at Valenciennes, a “terrible atrocity.” In the belief that other equally
terrible atrocities had been, according to report, committed at Orchies
this Major decided on the destruction of the town. Moreover, he was
extraordinarily proud of it, for he issued a proclamation saying that
“unfortunately” he had been compelled to the most rigorous measures of
martial law against the town of Orchies. “In this locality,” he adds,
“the most terrible atrocities were committed. I have drawn the due
inferences therefrom, and have destroyed the whole town. _The old town of
Orchies, a town of 5000 inhabitants, is no more …_ The dwelling-houses,
town hall and church are annihilated.” As a matter of fact the Germans
directed a furious bombardment against Orchies; incendiary bombs, benzine
sprinklers, every means was employed. For a radius of six leagues the red
lights of the conflagration could be seen rising.
IN POLAND
A circumstance quite as trivial as the disobedience of the Orchies
peasant woman was the occasion for the monstrous acts of cruelty and
extortion of which the Germans were guilty at Kalich, in Poland. In that
place, because some one threw a stone at a patrol, Lieutenant-colonel
Prenster, in command of the garrison, caused all the residents in one
house to be shot, and then, thinking that that was not enough, he had all
the people who lived in Rue Vroclavska brought out of their houses and
riddled with grapeshot. About a hundred were killed. Another inhabitant
of Kalich, Sokolof, the treasurer, was shot “for having burnt, the
evening before the Germans entered, the banknotes in the departmental
bank.” Another, named Dernbourg, was hanged on the mere charge of having
“carried a lantern in his hand.” This fact proved him to have been a
spy! The truth is that the unfortunate man had used the lantern only for
the purpose of carrying out certain necessary repairs to his mill. Four
workmen engaged in the mill were also put to death, after some forms of
trial. Four hundred houses were destroyed in this town, representing
a loss of sixty million roubles. The leader of the Germans in this
performance was an individual of German extraction, Michel by name, the
former head of a brothel at Kalich, whom the German Commandant appointed
mayor of the town.
THE GERMANS ADMIT THAT THEIR PLEAS OF DEFENCE ARE A SHAM
The Germans have been trained in a rigorous school, but they are lacking
in flexibility of mind. Moreover, they were unable to avoid admissions
which confute their falsehoods.
So it happened that when the _Berliner Tageblatt_ recorded acts of
cruelty which it alleged had been committed by the Allies, a refutation
of its charges came from Germany itself. This paper told that in France
cigars and cigarettes filled with powder were given to German prisoners:
_Vorwaerts_ took up the task of replying to this piece of stupidity,
showed that a great number of stories of the same kind had been admitted
to be false, and that in particular the story of the cigarettes was
a mere invention. The legend that German soldiers had had their eyes
gouged out by francs-tireurs was also denounced as a mere imagination.
On this point _Vorwaerts_ wrote: “No proof has been made out on official
authority that German soldiers have had their eyes gouged out by
francs-tireurs. A certain well-known Berlin newspaper declared that there
were at the Grosslichterfeld hospital ten slightly wounded soldiers, who
had had their eyes gouged out by the enemy. When Herr Liebknecht asked
the superintendent of the hospital if the report was correct, the latter
replied, ‘Fortunately, these rumours are devoid of all foundation.’”
_Vorwaerts_ recurred to this same question on the 6th December, 1914,
when it published the results of an inquiry made of the management of the
Hanover hospitals and the grand charity hospital at Berlin.
The management of the Hanover hospitals addressed the following reply to
the Socialist journal. “As a result of inquiry made among the doctors of
the different sections of hospital 3, we are able to inform you that we
have not at present at the hospital a single wounded person whose eyes
have been gouged out. We have never had one.”
Similarly, the management of the charity hospital at Berlin communicated
the following note to _Vorwaerts_: “The charity hospital has admitted no
wounded who have had their eyes gouged out.”
Finally, the great Catholic newspaper, the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_,
having published in the month of November an article in which the same
legend reappeared, Arch-presbyter Kaufmann had a conclusive document
inserted in this paper.
A doctor, M. Saethre, who said he had visited the Cologne hospitals,
had written, “There can be no doubt about the atrocities committed by
francs-tireurs. I myself saw at Aix-la-Chapelle a Red Cross sister whose
breast had been cut off by francs-tireurs, and a Major whose eyes had
been gouged out whilst he lay on the field of battle.” He replied, under
date 26th November, in a letter to the paper from which we make this
extract: “You asked me to write to you what I thought about this report.
I, therefore, applied to the competent military authorities to know if
the statements made by Doctor Saethre were correct. The superintendent of
the hospital writes me under date 25th November, ‘The atrocities of which
you tell me have not been committed, at least as far as Aix-la-Chapelle
is concerned. We have not seen the Red Cross sister referred to nor the
Major either.’
“I do not know,” continued the Arch-presbyter, where the doctor of whom
the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ speaks has got his information. “I think it
necessary to state here again that in the hospitals of Aix-la-Chapelle
there is not a single wounded man to be found whose eyes have been
gouged out, and no Red Cross sister who has suffered the above-mentioned
mutilation.”
In this way was the device foiled. The attempts made to disguise the
German crimes as reprisals led to nothing.
REPRISALS AMONG THE ALLIES
These took place on account of the treatment of German prisoners of war
after their internment. Even on this question complete equality has not
yet been reached, as the Allies did not desire to treat their prisoners
in the least like Germany treats hers.
In their behaviour towards civilians the Allies have always confined
themselves to the limits prescribed by martial law, without having
recourse to the right of reprisals. In Alsace, German immigrants very
nearly gave occasion for reprisals.
At Cernay, a French section which had deployed lost thirty-eight men, who
had all been struck in the back; the shots had been fired in the town,
before any German soldier could have reached there. At Lutran, the German
teacher fired on a cavalry patrol and killed two horses. This attitude of
the Germans of Alsace, as well as the numerous arrests of German spies
caught red-handed in the course of operations in Upper Alsace, brought
several persons before a court-martial. In these citations the procedure
of war was scrupulously observed. This was particularly the case with the
Mayor and the comptroller of the post office of Thann, as also with the
wife of a German forester of Schlierbach, who was condemned to death by
the court-martial for having led several soldiers into an ambuscade.
Only on one occasion did the French speak of reprisals and threaten to
carry them out. This threat was delivered by aeroplanes, which threw down
proclamations declaring “We have many hostages in our hands. For every
Alsatian killed, we shall kill ten Germans; for every Alsatian wounded,
we shall kill a German.” The object was to protect Alsatian civilians,
who had fallen into the hands of the Germans again, against the vengeance
of the latter.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, while the Allies, in face of the cruelties committed by their
enemies, waived or restricted their right of reprisals; the Germans, on
the contrary, not only exercised it, but boldly exceeded it, using it as
a random excuse to justify a policy of vengeance and terrorisation. Acts
of little importance were repressed by them like outrages. The doings
of a single individual brought about the ruin of a village. Still more,
these doings were invented to justify gratuitous excesses practised for
the mere purpose of terrorisation. These general remarks were necessary
before embarking on the story of the excesses and crimes which Germany
wished to dispute and the details of which we are about to read.