OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY GERMAN AUTHORITIES AND PRIVATE PERSONS AGAINST
ENEMY SUBJECTS
The most celebrated German writers on international law, Heffter,
Klueber, Geffcken, have taught that the State which declares war can
neither keep enemy subjects who happen to be on its territory nor their
property, for as they came into this territory in reliance upon public
law and have received permission to stay there, they can avail themselves
of the tacit promise made by the State that every freedom and safety
are guaranteed them for their return. If the State wishes them to go,
it must allow them a reasonable time to go away with their property; if
not, enemy subjects, who are subject to the regulations of the police and
of public safety have the right, so long as they respect these laws, to
appeal for protection to them. In any case deliberate ill-treatment of
enemy subjects cannot be permitted.
This principle, by the confession of the Germans themselves, condemns
the methods to which Germany has resorted by empowering her officials
to behave cruelly to French and Russian subjects who happened to be in
Germany on the 3rd August, and by tacitly approving the behaviour of the
mob to them.
The fear of spying, of which it appears that all these people were
suspected, perhaps because of the audacity which the Germans themselves
showed in resorting to it in foreign countries, was invoked by the
Germans as the excuse for all these outrages and the justification for
all these annoyances.
GERMAN MISCONDUCT TOWARDS PEOPLE INCAPABLE OF ESPIONAGE
Nevertheless, ill-treatment could not be justified in this way. As a
precaution against spying, foreigners may be compelled to leave a country
_en masse_. A straightforward and honest supervision may be exercised
over them at their departure, but no one has the right to allow them to
be struck, nor to expose them to the clamours of a mob, nor to speak
to them as if they were prisoners in the dock. Only definite suspicion
falling upon individuals would justify such conduct, and by justifying it
would give, in addition, the rights of arrest and cross-examination.
People who are merely being brought back to their own country in case of
war have the right to be shown every consideration by the authorities.
In all the disgraceful situations which German officials and private
citizens brought about in Germany in their dealings with enemy subjects
of Germany, we can, therefore, see merely the expression of a cowardly
hatred of everything that belongs to the powers hostile to Germany,
powers which the Germans think they are hitting when they insult and
ill-treat their peaceful and harmless citizens. The same feeling which
animated German officials against the Dowager Empress of Russia, against
the Grand Duke Constantin, against the ambassadors, ministers and consuls
of Russia and France, could only assert itself with still greater fury,
devoid of all consideration and all scruple, against plain French
citizens or Russian subjects. In this letting loose of evil passions
there were manifested features of grotesque arbitrariness. For example,
such was these people’s whim, every woman who wore spectacles was
subjected to a more minute search than other travellers, on the ground,
it was alleged, that there was more likelihood of her being a spy!
HOW THE GERMANS TREATED RUSSIAN TRAVELLERS
Thirty-two Russians belonging to the highest aristocracy, who were
passing the summer at Baden and other bathing resorts, were arrested at
Hamburg and detained for several days. Thanks to the intervention of the
Spanish consul, M. Veler, they were able eventually to continue their
journey; but at Neumunster, M. Schebeko, on the authority of a telegram
from Berlin, was suddenly arrested in the train, compelled to get out of
the carriage guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, in the midst of a
crowd shouting “Shoot him!” He was then dragged off to prison, where he
spent twenty-four hours in a dark cell, in the company of malefactors
under the common law.
The Countess of Vorontsoff, daughter of the Viceroy of the Caucasus,
went so far as to protest. Immediately the soldiers, in a rage, forced
themselves into her carriage, pushed her with the butt-ends of their
rifles on to the platform and began to search her. It was only with
great difficulty that the travellers were able to resume their journey,
which, from Baden to the Danish frontier, lasted seven days. At Reudsburg
station they were again dragged from their carriage and carefully
searched: at the Fleusburg station they were detained for four hours
under a guard of armed soldiers. Other Russian travellers of note were
at first brought to the frontier town of Eydtkuhnen, and then dispatched
again to Mecklenburg, and the Island of Ruegen.
The travellers were fearfully crowded together. Some of them were put
into cattle-trucks and had nothing to eat or drink. Even women were not
spared blows with the fist and with the butt-ends of rifles, nor threats
of death. Several had to make long marches on foot between rows of armed
soldiers, and at stopping-places had no shelter but pig-sties. A large
number of men aged from seventeen to fifty were stopped.
Husbands were taken away from their wives, children were harshly treated,
and left alone at the stopping-places in spite of the cries of their
mothers, who were forced to continue their journey.
In the sanatorium at Frankfurt, which was filled with a large number of
foreigners, especially Russians, several of whom had just been operated
on, shameful behaviour of the same kind took place. The sanatorium was
cleared in twenty-four hours. A woman who had just been confined was sent
to Berne, where she arrived in a dying condition. Her baby died on the
way.
After stories like these, we can easily imagine what bad treatment
travellers of less distinction had to endure. The vicissitudes through
which they passed not merely astound, but revolt, the hearer. The
Russians who were brought to Sasuitz, for the most part robbed of all
that they had, agreed to make the following declaration—
“Those who wish to do so may take the boat to go back to Sweden. Those
who do not wish to return to Sweden _will remain here, as prisoners
of war, until the end of the war_. The women will sew linen for our
soldiers, the men will be employed in making trenches. Whoever departs
from the appointed place where he is to stop will be brought before a
court-martial and will be shot. We do not guarantee regular food.”
HOW THE GERMANS BEHAVED TO FRENCH RESIDENTS AND TRAVELLERS
The French were no more spared than the Russians. At Kembs, fronting
Istein, the German authorities blew up with dynamite Monsignor
Kannengieser’s dwelling-house. The noble prelate, who was almost blind,
was shamefully ill-treated, because (such is the statement of the
_Liberté de Fribourg_) he had in his possession plans of Istein.
As for French travellers going back to France, their journey was checked
at any moment by the police, who stopped them for long hours, if not
for whole days, at every station. Several found that they were treated
like regular prisoners; on the slightest suspicion they were shut up in
dark cells, and in order to intimidate them or to drag confessions out
of them, they were threatened with death. Those who were not stopped by
the police were unmercifully beaten by the crowd, who loaded them with
insults.
At Hanover a child who was wearing the inscription _France_ on the ribbon
of its hat was dragged from its mother and ill-treated.
At Donaueschingen a certain number of women were compelled by the German
military authorities to discontinue their journey, and were brought to a
school, where they had to sleep on straw.
They got the benefit, however, of the sole and only act of charity
which was performed during the whole of this time in Germany towards
an enemy subject, for the Princess of Fürstenberg, whose castle is at
Donaueschingen, hearing of their condition, had beds given them in a
hospital of which she is patroness.