OUTRAGES ON CIVILIANS AND FRANCS-TIREURS
THE GERMAN THEORY OF FRANCS-TIREURS
The behaviour of the Germans to civilians gives us the opportunity of
considering, before we proceed further, a theory which they promulgated
at the outbreak of war, and which referred to the distinction that would
be made as regards non-combatants who took up arms against invasion.
In the early days of the war the German Government, through the agency of
a neutral power, communicated the following two documents to France and
Belgium. In order to show that the principle is both technically wrong
and inhuman, we propose to reproduce them in full. The first of these
documents is as follows—
“TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
“_The reports of German troops show that in contempt of the
law of nations, a national war has been organised in France.
In many cases the inhabitants of the country, under the
protection of civilian garb, fired surreptitiously on German
soldiers. Germany is opposed to this method of making war,
which is a violation of the law of nations. The German troops
have been instructed to stamp out this kind of resistance by
the most rigorous measures. Every non-combatant inhabitant who
carries arms, impedes communications, cuts telegraph wires,
uses explosive appliances—in short, any one who takes any
illegitimate part in the war, will at once be brought before
our courts-martial and shot. If by this means the war becomes
violent Germany declines all responsibility for it, and France
alone will be responsible for the floods of blood that will be
shed._”
The second document is in the following terms—
“TO THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT
“_His Majesty’s Government of Belgium have rejected Germany’s
sincere offer to spare them the horrors of war. Belgium has
willed war and has replied to our proposal by armed opposition._
“_Notwithstanding the note of the 8th August, by which the
Belgian Government intimated that, in accordance with the laws
of war, they would wage it only with soldiers, many civilians
took part in the battles at Liège, under the protection of
civilian garb. They not merely fired on the German troops, but
they cruelly killed the wounded and the doctors who were doing
their duty._
“_At Antwerp also civilians barbarously looted the property of
Germans, and brutally massacred women and children. Germany
asks the whole civilised world to take note of the blood of
these unoffending people and of the Belgian method of waging
war which shows the low grade of their civilisation. If
henceforth the war becomes cruel the fault lies with Belgium.
In order to protect the German troops against the unbridled
passions of the people, it is decreed that henceforth every
man who takes part in the conflict without being in uniform
and wearing the recognised distinguishing marks, who impedes
the communications of our troops, cuts telegraph wires, uses
explosive appliances—in short, who takes any illegitimate part
whatsoever in the war, will be treated as a franc-tireur,
brought before a court-martial, and shot._”
THE GERMAN MILITARY AUTHORITIES AND NON-COMBATANTS
German generals and officers have quibbled about inhumanity in their
proclamations. The Burgomaster of Hasselt could communicate to his
fellow townsmen on the 17th August the decision of the German military
authorities, by which, “_in case civilians fired on the soldiers of
the German army, a third of the male population would be shot_.” The
German Generalissimo Bülow announced, in a proclamation addressed to the
communal authorities of Liège (22nd August), that “the inhabitants of
the town of Andenne, after a declaration of their peaceful intentions,
treacherously made a surprise attack, and that on this ground, _with his
consent, the general in command caused everything in the whole of the
district to be burnt, and that a hundred persons were shot_.” He adds
that the people of Liège “_ought to try to imagine the fate with which
they are threatened, if they adopt a similar attitude_.” The commandant
at Namur, who had taken many hostages, declared that “_the life of
these hostages is at stake unless the civilians remain quiet under all
circumstances_.” He demanded that “all civilians walking about in his
district” should show their respect to German officers by taking off
their hats, or by raising their hands to their head as in a military
salute. In case of doubt, he adds, every German soldier must be saluted.
_Whoever declines to do so must expect German soldiers to make themselves
respected by every means._
FRANCS-TIREURS
These proclamations are a denial, pure and simple, of the right of
civilians to resist an invader. This right, however, is recognised by the
Hague Convention.
In fact, these conventions declare that irregular corps raised to meet an
invader are permissible, and that the soldiers who compose them must be
treated according to the laws of war, provided that they take care—
(1) “to have at the head of them a person who is responsible
for his subordinates;
(2) “to have a distinguishing mark, which is fixed and
recognisable at a distance;
(3) “to carry arms openly;
(4) “and to conform in their operations to the laws and customs
of war.”
In conclusion the conventions go further, and add—
“The civilians of an unoccupied territory which on the approach
of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to combat the invading
troops without having had time to organise themselves in
conformity with the terms of Article I will be considered as
belligerent if they respect the laws and customs of war.”
To this rule of international law Germany had subscribed, both in 1899
and 1907, without any reservation.
Germany, therefore, is acting in violation of conventions which she
herself has signed, by treating as rebels the inhabitants of invaded
territories who attack her before she has actually occupied the area in
which these inhabitants live; she lies when she declares that this method
of making war is “contrary to the law of nations,” and she acts like a
barbarous tyrant when she announces that every civilian who takes part in
the war “will be brought before a court-martial and shot.”
It is superfluous to observe how much more insolent still are the notices
issued by the German military authorities, in which the latter ignore
not merely the civil population’s right of armed resistance, but also
the declaration of the German Government, which affirmed that only the
non-combatant who participated in the war would be brought before a
court-martial and shot.
The right (which, by the way, is in this case non-existent) of inflicting
reprisals on individuals, the right to which the German Government
has appealed, has been shamefully transformed by the German military
authorities into a right which consists of ill-treating the whole
population of a locality in case a civilian may have fired on a German
soldier, and of offering this as a justification for the ruin of the
locality and the execution of the hostages.
As for the threat uttered by the German commandant, which declared that
whoever did not show respect to German officers and did not give them
the military salute must expect that German soldiers “would _use every
means_ to make themselves respected,” we think it shows the lengths
to which German frenzy can go. In itself we may say that it tells us
more than all the acts of cruelty. These demands for servile obeisance,
uttered under threat of violence and death, have in all times and in all
history been the mark of the basest tyrants. Such is the reign of terror
which Germany proposed to inflict upon invaded territories by covering it
up in fictitious principles which were at variance with all recognised
conventions, and which were the expression of nothing but her own caprice.
THE ATTITUDE OF THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT
The declaration made by the Belgian Government the 5th August, 1914, and
referred to in the communication of the German Government, reproduced
above, included the assurance that Belgium would conform during the
war to the laws and usages of war laid down by the Hague Conferences.
Belgium, therefore, was perfectly within her rights in allowing armed
resistance by civilians, _in cases and under conditions recognised as
legitimate by the Hague Conventions_. And it was only from caution and
from premonition of the fate which civilians would undergo, if they
failed in any one of the conditions defined in the first article of the
Hague Convention, that the Belgian Government recommended civilians to
refrain from resistance. But a recommendation which was made only as a
precaution against flagrant injustice does not rid an action, foreseen
and in fact committed, of its unjust character. In spite of the advice
given by their Government, the Belgians consequently did not lose their
right “to take up arms spontaneously on the approach of the enemy to
oppose invading troops,” and, notwithstanding that opposition, of being
treated as belligerents by the Germans.
Did the Belgians exercise this right? In certain places it is reported
that some people did exercise it. If the fact is as stated, we can
see nothing in it but what is worthy of admiration. Such instances do
infinite honour to Belgian patriotism. However, it appears clear that
the order given was followed, and that the whole thing, if it took place
at all, reduces itself to the acts of individuals. The acts of violence
committed by the Germans have been no less far-reaching and extreme,
so true is it that, though invoking principles which were notoriously
erroneous and cruel, the application which they made of them was
nevertheless lying and arbitrary. Such is the first category of crimes
committed by the Germans against non-combatants.
Moreover, even if they had had in this respect some complaint to make of
civilians, if they had been authorised by the law of war to punish acts
of violence committed against them under conditions that were forbidden,
the right of repression which they invoke could never go so far as the
penalty of death. Every addition thereto in point of punishment is
excess, and an indication of barbarism. To extend to a whole population
reprisals inflicted in consequence of a single act is something no less
abominable, but that is just what the Germans have done.
CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE GERMANS IN THE EXERCISE OF REPRISALS
At Liège, on the 21st August, a shot was fired from a house situated
on the Quai des Pêcheurs. Immediately the Germans opened fire with a
machine-gun and blew up on the spot twenty houses, whose inhabitants were
killed. Shortly afterwards ten other houses on the Place de l’Université
were set on fire, but as the flames seemed to be spreading too much, the
firemen were ordered to put them out.
At Champguyon, on the 6th September, a man named Louvet was arrested for
having fired under conditions forbidden by the laws of war. He was liable
to the penalty of death. Accordingly, ten German soldiers fell on the
wretched man, beat him unmercifully with sticks in the presence of his
wife, dragged him away covered with blood, broke his wrist, shattered his
skull, and dragged him to the end of the village, where at length they
gave him the finishing stroke.
The same rule would apply to the cases of André Willen (twenty-three
years of age), Gustave Lodts (forty) and Jean Marken (forty), all
inhabitants of Aerschot, in Belgium, if they had been guilty. The
Germans, instead of shooting them, bound them to a tree and beat them,
before burning the first alive and burying the other two alive.
In the province of Namur a young man whom some Uhlans had arrested was
bound to two horses, who dragged him along, then tied to a tree, and
finally shot. Under the same conditions M. Cognon, of Visé, was thrown
into the water with his abdomen torn open. Holding in his entrails with
one hand, he clung with the other to a boat, until he grew weak and died.
The innumerable mutilations inflicted on Serbian peasants at Chabatz and
elsewhere show on this side of the area of war the same barbarism in
the carrying out of reprisals. Some who were hardly wounded were buried
alive, for they had been shot in the lump, and every one who fell was
thrown into the common ditch which had been dug out beforehand.
MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS FOR PALTRY REASONS
No less criminal are the attacks made by the Germans on the lives of
civilians, for paltry reasons, for slight insubordination to unimportant
orders, or even for acts that were quite blameless. The following are
some examples of these crimes.
In the government of Warsaw the Germans killed a Polish magnate, Count
Thomas Potocki, for merely protesting against a requisition.
At Dartainitza, near Semlin, on the frontier of Austria and Serbia,
the whole of the inhabitants were led by the Austrians to Petenwarden,
where a quarter of them were shot. The accusation alleged against
these peasants was that they had given expression to their joy when
the Serbians had entered Semlin. It was the same with the villages of
Bejania, Sourtchine, Beclika and Pancsova.
At Vingias, in the department of the Aisne, the owner of a farm was
thrown into the flames because he had harboured the French headquarters
staff on his farm.
At Mauperthuis four Germans who had previously come in the morning to
the house of a man named Roger presented themselves again the afternoon.
“There were three of you this morning; there are now but two! Get out!”
said one of them. Immediately Roger and an immigrant named Denet, to whom
he had been giving hospitality, were seized, carried off and shot.
A young druggist who lived in a village near Étain was shot for having
gone to Étain with the sub-prefect of Briey, who had carried letters
there for his fellow-citizens.
As for non-combatants who were found carrying arms, they were
consistently massacred.
MASSACRE OF CIVILIANS WITHOUT ANY PRETEXT
Other executions took place without any pretext. Sometimes the Germans
gathered together, without rhyme or reason, all the male inhabitants
of a village, and chose at haphazard a certain number, whom they shot
without any form of trial and simply with the object of terrorising the
population. Sometimes their fury was directed against peasants who were
already struck with terror, and then whoever showed any signs of wanting
to avoid meeting the enemy was shot for the mere reason that he had
tried to flee before the invader. Sometimes they took vengeance on the
inhabitants of a village where one of their number had been killed by
some enemy soldier in retreat.
Sometimes they forced their way into houses, bent on pillage, and as
they thought the presence of the inhabitants seemed inconvenient, they
made haste to assassinate them. Sometimes the fusillade was merely an
amusement or recreation for the Germans. This took place sometimes
during their marches from village to village. The peasant who had the
misfortune to find himself in their path at once had a taste of their
cruelty. Sometimes the execution of peaceable, quiet people served the
Germans as a consolation for checks which the enemy had inflicted upon
them. Sometimes, in their desire to offer some excuse for massacre, they
have been seen to make a show of evacuating a village which it was said
had been threatened, and then to fire some shots, which they then blamed
the inhabitants for doing. Reprisals thereupon followed. Sometimes they
attacked peaceable peasants because the latter opposed some offence which
they wanted to commit. The following are some accounts of acts of this
kind. They took place at Dinant, at Louvain, at Nomény, at Lunéville,
where, perhaps to a greater extent than elsewhere, the fury of the
invader was let loose upon inoffensive persons.
AT DINANT
A Dutchman, M. Staller, has told as follows in the _Telegraaf_ (quoted
above, see Chap. XI) the story of the massacre of the people of Dinant.
“On Friday, the 21st August, about a dozen Germans ventured as far as the
middle of the town in an armoured motor, a regular moving fortress. They
had machine-guns with them, and whilst the motor rolled along they fired
to right and left at the houses, aiming chiefly, I maintain, at the
upper storeys. It was already late, and, as the majority of the people
had retired, many of them were killed or wounded in their beds.
“What happened on that night? Were there some civilians who replied to
this cowardly and unexpected attack by revolver shots? I do not think so,
for some days before, by order of the burgomaster, they had all given up
their arms. Were the Germans drunk—as their comrades told me later—and
had they a quarrel amongst themselves? What is certain is that the next
morning three soldiers were found dead on the streets. I saw them. The
Germans laid hold of this fact as an excuse for bombarding the town.
“On Monday morning the Germans entered the town. Their first act was to
arrest 153 civilians, to lead them on the Petite Place and shoot them.
In these terrible days, at Dinant as well as in the surrounding villages
like Anseremme, Leffe and Neffe, more than 800 persons were killed,
amongst whom there were many women and children; and all this for three
German soldiers? No; but the Germans alleged that after the bombardment,
at the moment of their attack on the town, the inhabitants had fired from
their houses. What had happened? I know very well, and the Germans could
not fail to know it. The Grand Rue of Dinant, parallel with the Meuse,
is joined to the river by a number of lanes; the French, who were posted
on the other bank, killed through these lanes a large number of Germans,
and the enemy pretended that the citizens had fired on them. They started
then by shooting 153 people, after which 500 were arrested and brought
to Cassel. As for us, we were brought to the Abbaye des Prémontrés; for
three days women and children were shut up in little rooms without a
seat, and the unfortunate women spent three days on a stone pavement
almost without food. Four of them were confined under these terrible
circumstances. Some officers took an infernal pleasure in making us every
moment undergo the dread anticipation of death: they made us line up, and
the soldiers pretended they were going to charge their rifles; then the
officers laughed and said the execution would be resumed on the following
morning. I am certain that some of those who were thus detained went mad.
“But what a martyrdom was endured by the women and children who saw their
fathers, husbands or brothers shot! All this went on with frightful
rapidity; in the twinkling of an eye, in spite of heart-rending cries,
the women and children were separated from the men and ranged on the
other side of the Petite Place, then between the two groups were placed
the platoons which were to execute them; 153 wretched people fell
bleeding; six of these, of whom two had not been touched by the bullets
and four were only slightly wounded, shammed death, but the officer
ordered the two who could still stand upright to rise, as there would be
no more firing. When the six survivors obeyed, he gave the order, ‘Down
with them also!’ Then he had machine-guns fired at the heaps of bodies.
It is impossible to describe the grief and the cries of the women and
children, but the monster who had given the order for this butchery
remained unmoved. ‘Ladies,’ he said, with a strong German accent, ‘I have
done my duty.’ Then off he went with his men. The bodies must have lain
untouched on the square for three days; after this interval they were
buried on the very spot where they had been executed. I took part in the
work of interment.”
AT LOUVAIN
Several people who had been killed at Louvain by the Germans had been
buried by them on the square in front of the railway station. The
_Kölnische Zeitung_ had the assurance to deny the fact. But search
was made, and the bodies of these victims of German barbarism were
discovered. The following account of the exhumation was given by the
_Tijd_ of Amsterdam, above the signature of a journalist who took part
in the work in the presence of several Belgians, Colonel Lubbert, German
commandant of Louvain, and his aide-de-camp.
“Fortunately a fresh wind was blowing on that day, as the stench which
came out of the open tomb was unbreatheable. The objects found on the
bodies were immediately thrust into a sack, which was duly numbered.
Twenty bodies were disinterred after frightful labour; twenty bodies
jammed into a hole not more than four square metres in extent!
“We had to take infinite care not to collect legs or arms belonging to
other bodies, so much were the limbs jumbled together.
“Emotion overwhelmed us all, but the German Colonel Lubbert could
not refrain from saying to the burgomaster, ‘How such an event could
have taken place is incomprehensible when you think how educated and
cultivated our people are.’ And the aide-de-camp added, ‘I am glad
I was not at Louvain during these tragic moments!’ Words which have
their value, and which show that plain people in Germany now regret the
indescribable act ordered by their leaders, in contempt of the laws of
the most elementary humanity!
“Professor Maldague, who was among the wretched prisoners callously
picked out one after another for slaughter, and who had miraculously
escaped death, could not control the profound emotion which overwhelmed
him. On that fatal day the crowd of people were forbidden to look at the
atrocities committed by civilised Germany, but a woman who happened to be
near Professor Maldague ventured nevertheless, and saw that the victims
marked out for expiation were compelled to lie face downwards on the
paving-stones. Then they were killed by shots in the nape of the neck,
the back or the head.
“The majority of the victims consequently lay with skulls fractured, not
merely as a result of shots, but of blows from the butt-end of rifles.
Even that was not enough. All the bodies which were recovered—the medical
reports assure us on this point—had been pierced through with bayonet
thrusts. Some had their legs and arms broken. Two bodies only had no
wound. A post-mortem examination of them will be made to discover the
causes of death.
“Mme. Van Ertrijck then recognised at the edge of the pit her husband,
aged sixty years, the well-known cigar manufacturer, and her son, aged
twenty-seven years; then appeared the bodies of a Belgian soldier, who
could not be identified, and of a young lad not fifteen years old. The
following victims were afterwards identified: Charles Munkemer, husband
of Amélie Marant, born 1885; Edgard Bicquet, brewer at Boort-Meerbeek,
whose family, known throughout Louvain, lives in the Rue de la Station;
the retired Belgian Major Eickhorn, aged sixty years, inventor of
short-range cartridges; A. Van de Gaer, O. Candries, Mme. A. Bruyninckx,
_née_ Aug. Mariën; Mme. Perilleux, aged about sixty years. But on
turning over the ground we discovered a second tomb, which contained
seven other corpses concealed under thirty centimetres of earth.
“On the next day the melancholy task was resumed. In quite a small pit
two more bodies were brought to light: that of Henri Decorte, an artisan
of Kessel-Loo, and that of M. Van Bladel, curé of Hérent. There was not a
sound when the wretched priest’s tall form was disinterred. R. P. Claes
merely gasped, ‘The curé of Hérent!’ The poor man was seventy-one years
old” (see the _Temps_ of 5th February, 1915).
AT NOMÉNY
On the 20th August, 1914, the 8th Bavarian Regiment entered Nomény in
command of Colonel Hannapel. “According to a story told by one of their
soldiers,” said the French Commission of Inquiry, “their leaders had
told them that the French tortured the wounded by tearing out their eyes
and gashing their limbs. Thus they were in a fearful state of unusual
excitement. From all sides came the rattle of rifle shots. The wretched
inhabitants, whom the dread of fire drove from their cellars, were shot
down like game, some in their domiciles and others on the public road.
“Messrs. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam, Jeanpierre, Meunier,
Schneider, Raymond, Dupoucel, Hazatte, father and son, were murdered on
the street by rifle shots. M. Killian, seeing himself threatened with a
sabre stroke, put his hands on his neck to protect himself. Three of his
fingers were cut off and his throat cut open. An old man of eighty-six
years old, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his armchair, was struck by
a ball which cracked his skull, and a German thrust Mme. Bertrand in
front of the body, saying to her, ‘You saw that ⸺!’ M. Chardin, municipal
councillor and acting mayor, was ordered to supply a horse and carriage.
He had hardly promised to do all he could to comply, when he was killed
by a shot. M. Prevot, who saw the Bavarians rushing into the chemist’s
shop of which he was in charge, told them that he was the chemist, and
that he would give them all that they wanted, but three shots rang out
and he fell with a heavy groan. Two women who happened to be with him
escaped, but were pursued with blows from the butt-ends of rifles up to
the approaches to the railway station, where they saw in the garden and
on the road many corpses heaped together.
“Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon the Germans forced their
way into Mme. François’ butcher’s shop. Thereupon she came out of her
cellar with her son Stub and an employee named Contal. As soon as Stub
came to the threshold of the outside door he fell, seriously wounded by
a rifle shot. Then Contal, who escaped into the street, was immediately
murdered. Five minutes afterwards, as the death-rattle was still in
Stub’s throat, a soldier leant over him and dispatched him with a blow of
a hatchet in the back.
“The most tragic incident of these horrible scenes took place at the
house of M. Vassé, who had gathered together a number of people in his
cellar in the suburb called Nancy. About four o’clock a party of about
fifty soldiers forcibly entered the house, bursting open the door and the
windows, and immediately set fire to it. The refugees then endeavoured
to escape, but they were felled one after another at the exit. M. Mentré
was first murdered. His son Léon then fell with his little sister,
eight years old, in his arms. As he was not quite dead, the end of the
barrel of a gun was put to his head and his brains blown out. Then it
was the turn of the Kieffer family. The mother was wounded in the arm
and shoulder; the father, a little son of ten years old and a little
girl of three years old were shot. The scoundrels fired at them again as
they were lying on the ground. Kieffer, who was lying on the ground, got
a fresh bullet in the forehead; his son had the top of his skull blown
off by a rifle shot. Then M. Strieffert and Vassé, one of his sons, were
murdered, and M. Mentré was struck by three bullets, one in the left leg,
another in the arm on the same side, and a third on the forehead, which
was merely grazed. M. Guillaume, who was dragged out into the street, met
his death there. Finally, a young girl called Somonin, aged seventeen
years, came out of the cellar with her young sister Jeanne, aged three.
The latter had her elbow nearly carried off by a bullet. The eldest
threw herself on the ground and pretended to be dead, remaining for five
minutes in fearful agony. A soldier kicked her and called out, ‘_Kaput_’
(done for).
“An officer came up at the end of this slaughter. He ordered the women
who were still alive to get up, and called out to them, ‘Go to France.’”
AT LUNÉVILLE
The murders at Lunéville were committed, according to the French
Commission of Inquiry, under the following circumstances—
“On the 25th August, after firing two shots from the inside of the
Worms tannery, to make it appear that they had been attacked, the
Germans rushed into a workshop of this manufactory, in which an artisan
named Goeury was working in company with Messrs. Balastre, father and
son. Goeury was dragged out into the street, stripped, and brutally
ill-treated, whilst his two companions, discovered in the lavatory where
they had sought refuge, were shot.
“On the same day the soldiers came and called for M. Steiner, who was
concealed in his cellar. His wife, in dread of some disaster, tried
to keep him back. As she clasped him in her arms she was struck by a
bullet in the neck. Some moments afterwards Steiner, having obeyed the
command which had been given him, fell mortally wounded in his garden.
M. Kahn also was murdered in the garden of his house. His mother,
aged ninety-eight, whose body was burnt to a cinder in the fire, had
previously been killed in her bed with a bayonet thrust, according to the
story of an individual who was acting as interpreter to the enemy. M.
Binder, who was going out to get away from the flames, was also struck
down. The German by whom he was killed admitted that he had wantonly
killed him when the poor man was quietly standing before a door. M.
Vernier met with the same fate as Binder.
“About three o’clock the Germans, breaking the windows and firing shots,
forced an entrance into a house in which were Mme. Dujon, her daughter,
aged three, her two sons and a M. Gaumier. The little girl just missed
being killed; her face was singed by a shot. At this moment Mme. Dujon,
seeing her youngest son lying on the ground, begged him to get up and
flee with her. She then noticed that he was holding with full hands his
intestines, which were dropping out. The house was on fire and the poor
lad was burnt to a cinder, as was M. Gaumier, who had been unable to
escape.
“M. Wingstermann and his grandson, aged twelve, who had gone to dig
potatoes a little way off from Lunéville, at a place called ‘les Mossus,’
in the Chanteheux district, had the misfortune to meet the Germans. The
latter put them both against a wall and shot them.
“Finally, about five o’clock in the evening, some soldiers went into the
house of a woman named Sibille, in the same place, and without any excuse
seized her son, dragged him off 200 metres from the house, and massacred
both him and a M. Vallon, to whose body they had bound him. A witness who
saw the murderers just when they were dragging off their victim saw them
return without him, and declared that their bayonets were covered with
blood and pieces of flesh.
“On the same day a male nurse, named Monteils, who was tending a wounded
enemy officer at the Lunéville hospital, was struck by a bullet in the
forehead as he was watching through the window a German soldier firing
rifle shots.
“On the following day, the 26th, M. Hammann and his son, aged twenty-one
years, were arrested at their house and dragged outside by a gang who
had broken in the door and entered. The father was unmercifully beaten,
and as for the young man, when he tried to struggle a non-commissioned
officer cracked his skull with a revolver shot.
“At 1 p.m. M. Riklin, a druggist, who had been told that a man had
fallen about thirty metres from his shop, went to the spot and recognised
in the victim his own brother-in-law, M. Colin, aged sixty-eight years,
who had been struck in the stomach by a bullet. The Germans alleged
that this old man had fired on them, but M. Riklin formally denies this
statement.
“Colin, he told us, was an inoffensive man absolutely incapable of any
act of aggression, and quite ignorant of the use of firearms.
“The mind refuses to believe that all these massacres took place without
excuse,” continues the French Commission of Inquiry. “That, however, is
the case. The Germans, it is true, have always given the same excuse,
alleging that civilians were the first to fire on them. This allegation
is false, and those who have made it have been unable to make it appear
probable, even by firing rifle shots close to dwelling-houses, as they
were in the habit of doing so that they might be able to declare that
they had been attacked by unoffending civilians upon whose ruin or
massacre they had decided. On many occasions we obtained proof of this;
the following, for example, is one of many others. One evening, when a
report rang out while the Abbé Colin, curé of Croismare, happened to be
with an officer, the latter exclaimed, ‘That is sufficient reason, M. le
Curé, why you and the burgomaster should be shot and a farm burnt. Look!
there is one burning.’ ‘M. l’Officier,’ replied the priest, ‘you are too
intelligent not to recognise the crack of your rifle. For my part, I do
recognise it.’ The German did not insist.”
OUTRAGES AND ATTACKS ON HOSTAGES
Before ending this chapter and putting on record the admissions which
German officers and soldiers have involuntarily made on the subject with
which we are engaged, we may draw up two other categories of criminal
acts which they have committed: (1) the practice of taking hostages,
everywhere and on all kinds of pretexts, some of whom were ill-treated
and killed, and (2) the callous deportation of civilians to Germany.
To take hostages from among civilians whom the fortune of war condemns to
invasion is a thing so cruel in itself that all civilised nations try to
limit the practice. The Germans, on the contrary, are noted for the fact
that they extend it as much as they can. The name of hostages repeated
everywhere gave a melancholy significance to the Prussian barbarism
of 1870. “_This practice_,” writes Bluntschli, “_is all the more open
to criticism, as it endangers the lives of peaceful citizens without
any fault of theirs, and, moreover, without bringing any appreciable
increase of security_.” On the other hand, Geffcken writes: “_We cannot
approve of the practice by which in 1870 Germany forcibly seized the
chief people in enemy communes to secure the railroads against attacks by
francs-tireurs_.”
This opinion of German jurists, which is, moreover, shared by all
writers, has not prevented the Germans from resorting in 1914 to the same
practices as in 1870, and even adding thereto fresh cruelties.
In Belgium it was the clergy who principally served as hostages. The
majority of the Belgian priests who had been ill-treated came under this
category.
M. Hottier, mayor of Homécourt; M. Varin, curé (both of whom were taken
prisoner on the night of the 3rd-4th August, 1914); MM. Alexis and Jean
Samain (of the _Souvenir Français_) were taken away to Alsace and German
Lorraine.
MM. Hottier and Varin had both been denounced by a spy living at La
Petite-Fin, whose reports served as a pretext for the accusation made
against them by the German authorities.
Mayor and curé were first brought to Malancourt, the seat of headquarters.
“My companion,” the mayor of Homécourt afterwards told an editor of
_L’Est Républicain_, “was more unfortunate than I. He was not allowed
time to take his hat nor put on his stockings; he was clad only in
his cassock. He marched in a bad pair of slippers. His colleague at
Malancourt clothed the wretched ecclesiastic.
“They searched me, seized my purse, which contained a sum of twenty-seven
francs, my papers… But the acutest suffering which rent my heart was when
the hands of a Boche officer snatched my poor ribbon of 1870, my humble
decoration. It was as if I had been punished with a lowering of rank.”
MM. Hottier and Varin were transferred to Metz and brought before a
court-martial. The former was charged with having organised a campaign
of francs-tireurs; in regard to the latter, another complaint was
formulated—that he had urged some young people in the annexed territories
to enlist in the foreign legion.
The discussions ended in a double acquittal. But M. Hottier was treated
with no more consideration on that account. For five days he was shut
up in a cell, getting only food that was uneatable. Fortunately a
generous intervention took place. M. Winsbach, an ex-chemist, succeeded
in bringing about some mitigation of the rigour of certain orders. He
enjoyed a high reputation at Metz. He used his business connections, his
influence, his knowledge of the German and French languages sometimes
to recommend sick people to the care of the doctors, sometimes to act
as interpreter and express their desires or pass on their explanations.
These are services which will never be forgotten by the hostages, to whom
M. Winsbach rendered them with unwearied devotion.
The hostages were brought from Metz to Ehrenbreitstein, where there
were 232 French prisoners, all natives of Metz, Thionville, etc. There
were also the brothers Samain, the eldest of whom was (until the month
of December) supposed in France to be dead, executed by the Germans.
He had tried in vain to get news of himself brought through, but his
correspondence could not escape the fine net of supervision which
encompassed him.
The majority of these hostages carried away by the Germans were detained
by them. Only men of more than sixty years of age were set free in the
month of November. M. Hottier and some of his companions then set off on
the 20th November, went through the Grand Duchy of Baden, crossed the
Swiss frontier, and finally arrived at Nancy. The brothers Samain were
amongst those who were detained in Germany.
In France, almost everywhere he went, the invader took hostages amongst
the men of the villages or the representatives of authority. In Belgium
also several people were carried off on the same plea.
Everybody knows of the case of M. Max, mayor of Brussels, who was
imprisoned at Glatz; but Brussels did not pay punctually the war tax
which the Germans had levied on it.
Often the hostages whom the Germans appeared to have taken merely for
the time of their passing through disappeared. This was the case at
Gueraid, Seine-et-Marne, where, of six hostages whom the Germans took,
one only was able to escape and to return to the country; and at Révigny,
where one of the hostages, a man named Wladimir Thomas, was never set at
liberty again.
In other cases the hostages were shamefully ill-treated. M. Colin, a
Professor of Science at the Louis-le-Grand Lycée at Paris, who happened
to be rusticating at Cogney, was carried off barefoot and in his shirt,
loaded with insults as he went. Enraged at the treatment which other
people and especially children were made to undergo, M. Colin said to a
lieutenant, “Have you not a mother?” “My mother,” the German officer had
the insolence to reply, “did not give birth to ⸺ like you!”
The hostages taken at Lunéville were no less brutally treated. Neither
violence nor outrage was spared these peaceful citizens. They were put
with their backs to the parapet of a bridge, before the houses in the
town were set fire to, and the German troops who passed by behaved
brutally to them. As an officer accused them of having fired on the
Germans, a teacher among them pledged his word of honour that it was not
so. “You French ⸺,” said the officer, “do not speak of honour, for you
have none.” One of the hostages taken at Lunéville, named Rebb (sixty-two
years of age), was pummelled on the face with the butt-end of a rifle,
and bayoneted in the side. Nevertheless he continued to follow the
column, although he lost much blood. Then a Bavarian amused himself by
inflicting fresh blows upon him and throwing a bucket at his head.
The wretched old man died on the way, between Hénaménil and Bures.
MASSACRE OF HOSTAGES
At Blamont in Lorraine, ex-Mayor Barthélemy, aged forty-six years, was
taken as a hostage and shot. The same fate awaited the then mayor and the
chief people in the locality; when the French entered the town they found
notices on the walls announcing that these people would be shot on the
following morning.
This was also the case at Courtacon (Seine-et-Marne), where five men and
a child of thirteen years, taken as hostages, were exposed to the French
fire during an engagement. Another hostage, named Rousseau, a conscript
of the 1914 class, arrested in the same commune, was murdered under
tragic conditions.
Questioned about the military position of this young man, the mayor, who
happened to be amongst the hostages, replied that Rousseau had passed
the military court, that he had been passed as fit for service, but that
his class had not yet been called up. The Germans then made the prisoner
undress, in order to discover what was his physical condition, then
they put on his trousers again and shot him fifty metres away from his
compatriots.
HOSTAGES IN SERBIA
The hostages taken by the Austrians may be divided into two categories.
They were, in the first place, the best-known Serbians, mayors or
prominent inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose imprisonment
had no other object than to stop the invasion of that province by the
threat of shooting them. The second category was composed of peasants,
living in Serbian villages, who were shot in order to strike terror into
the inhabitants. Amongst the hostages of the first category several
were shot. There were amongst them priests, both Orthodox and Catholic,
the Mayor of Raguse, M. Tchingrin, the Vice-President of the Municipal
Council of this town, Dr. Puglissi, the poet, and the Serbo-Croatian
deputy, Tressitch.
As for the others, here is the story told by M. Reiss, whom we mentioned
above—
“A group of hostages of from eight to eighty-two years had been brought
to Lechnitza. There were 109 of them. Quite close to the railway station
of the place the soldiers dug a pit twenty metres long, three wide and
two deep. In front of this grave they placed the group of 109 persons
and bound them with ropes round their necks. Then a squadron of infantry
took up a position on the slopes of the railway and fired a volley at the
peasants. The whole group stumbled into the pit, and the soldiers threw
earth upon them without having first made sure that all those who had
been shot were dead. It is certain that a large number of victims had
not been mortally wounded and even that some of them had not been struck
at all. I think I am not mistaken in calculating that fifty per cent. of
these poor people were buried alive.
“During these proceedings, another group of forty hostages had been
brought up. The latter were compelled to be present at the massacre of
their fellow-citizens and they were forced to shout, whilst the others
were being killed, ‘Long live the Emperor Franz-Joseph.’
“I saw the pit opened into which these wretches fell, and I was able to
establish the fact that the number of those who died of suffocation was
very large. This huge human bundle was firmly fastened together: no rope
had been broken.”
DEPORTATION OF CIVILIANS
“The German military authorities had as profound contempt for liberty
as for human life. Almost everywhere, people of every age were dragged
from their homes and led away to captivity. Many died or were killed on
the way.” These are the words in which the French Commission of Inquiry
denounces that other crime committed by the Germans in the territories
which they had invaded. In several places the inhabitants found they
were deported _en masse_ to Germany to dig trenches or to replace German
agricultural labourers. In other places the inhabitants were imprisoned.
It is hardly necessary to say that such acts are a violation of the law
of nations in the very point where it is most universally recognised. We
read in the articles of the Hague Convention that operations of war may
be carried on “provided the inhabitants are not compelled to take part in
them, in any form whatever,” that “the occupant of a country shall not
raise reserves among them, nor compel them to fight, nor put them in the
trenches, nor employ them on the offensive,” etc., and finally, “that
the peaceful and inoffensive inhabitants of the territory and _passive_
enemies must not be taken into captivity.”
Although by carrying away hostages the Germans have done violence to that
rule of law which is accepted by their own authors, the deportation of
civilians is something more serious still, as it cannot be justified by
any military necessity or by any plea for security.
Nevertheless, this policy was practised on a large scale. The following
are some examples. At Lebbeke, in Flanders, forty-five farmers were
brought away and sent to Germany to make hay. At Boisschot, also in
Belgium, 200 men were seized and deported to Germany for the same
purpose. At Louvain, several thousand men, who escaped the fusillades and
the conflagration, were led away to Germany.
In France, in the department of the Nord, at Saint Pol-en-Ternois, 350
civilians were taken prisoner. This was also the case at Douai, Cambrai,
Caudry, Noyon, where the German authorities demanded that the young
people of fifteen to seventeen years, a list of whom had been supplied by
spies, should be returned. Those who failed to answer the summons were
sought for, and they and their parents were shot. The inhabitants did
as they were told, and the young people to the number of 4000 were made
prisoner and brought to the Russian frontier to dig trenches or else to
the German countryside to make hay.
At Marcheville, at Saint Mihiel, women and children met with the same
fate. At Avillers, too, all the men of sixteen to sixty years were
brought away to Germany, including the deputy mayor, M. Alcide Blaise.
As in the provinces of the Nord and Meuse, so also in the Ardennes, the
Germans made a regular practice of putting the inhabitants in prison.
In all the towns and villages of this region men who were liable to be
mobilised were treated as prisoners of war. This was the case at Rethel,
where Dr. Bourgeois and ten of his colleagues had the experience of
being shut up in a spinning-mill with 400 men taken from the villages of
the province. The prisoners were compelled to work for their enemies:
they had to wash the soldiers’ linen, gather potatoes in the fields, and
make earthworks. At Charleville, men whom the Germans had the assurance
to call civil prisoners were employed in making entrenchments, while the
women, as we have said above, were given sewing-work, which was to be
used for the equipment of the troops. Their wage was half a loaf of bread.
In the province of Oise, about a hundred inhabitants of Creil,
Nogent-sur-Oise and the adjoining districts were imprisoned, and had to
submit to the disgrace and vexation of working against their country,
cutting a field of maize, which might have been in the way of the German
fire, and digging trenches which were to be used as shelters for the
enemy. For the seven days they were kept without food being dealt out
to them. Fortunately the women of the country were able to get some
provisions through to them.
At Lamath (Meurthe-et-Moselle), three inhabitants, one of whom had
chest complaint, were deported. At Amiens, in particular, the scandal
of incidents of this kind was shocking. An order of the military
authority, which the mayor thoughtlessly countersigned, required all
citizens liable to be mobilised to go to the citadel and declare their
position as regards military service. Relying on the mayor’s signature,
about 1500 men, of whom nearly 800 were railway workers at the Amiens
passenger and goods stations, went to the citadel. There the Germans made
a selection. They sent back the men of the auxiliary services and kept
the others as prisoners, to the number of more than 1000, whom they
brought on foot to Personne. The wretched procession halted and slept
at La Motte-en-Santerre. Some prisoners, with the assistance of the few
residents in Santerre, managed to hide and make good their escape. The
others were entrained and taken away to Germany.
The second official report of the French Commission of Inquiry is full
of really shocking details of outrages suffered by the French, who were
taken from their homes and interned in Germany (_Journal Officiel_, 11th
March).
Ten thousand of these wretched people were reinstated in French territory
in the month of March. The order for internment had included a very large
number of old men, children and women, several of whom were pregnant. All
of these people had to submit to long and painful marches, ill-treatment
and wretched diet.
The Vareddes hostages especially went through a veritable Calvary.
Several of them, all old people, were murdered, as we have already
mentioned. Those of Sinceny, about 200 in number, were likewise
shockingly ill-treated.
At Gravelines, 2000 conscripts were deported, and all the natives of
Combres, after being exposed to the French fire, were transferred to the
camp at Zurickau.
Life in the camps was intolerable. Several of these “civil prisoners”
lay in tents: others were huddled together in prisons. At Landau, an
old woman aged eighty-seven was undressed and drenched with petrol. She
succumbed some time afterwards to the fearful burns which she sustained.
Blows, ill-treatment and painful forced labour were the order of the
day. We cannot, therefore, be surprised at the enormous number of cases
of death and illness among them. The only medicine prescribed by the
doctors was tincture of iodine. As one of the victims said, “We were like
burnt-out candles, for we no longer had the strength to stand upright.”
Those who went back to France had their health more or less permanently
affected, and the mental depression to which they were subject was really
an illness. The effects, therefore, of German activity continued after
they were released.
The Austrians followed the example of the Germans, even in carrying
out this kind of policy, especially in Syrmie (Semlin and the regions
adjoining).
At Chid, also, all the inhabitants, children excepted, were deported: at
Pazoon, M. Petrovitch, deputy to the Parliament of Pest, was arrested
with his son, pummelled with the butt-end of a rifle, and deported. At
Karlowitz and at Rouma, all the inhabitants of Serbian extraction were
arrested and deported.
THE GERMANS ADMIT ALL THESE CRIMES
As in the case of other kinds of outrage, so in that of the actions which
we have just enumerated we are in possession of some admissions which
have come from the Germans themselves.
A soldier named Philip, of Kamenz in Saxony, writes as follows: “At ten
p.m. the first battalion of the 178th regiment went down into a burnt
village to the north of Dinant, a sadly beautiful spectacle, which
made us shudder. At the entrance to the village there lay about fifty
citizens, who had been shot for having fired on our troops from an
ambuscade.
“In the course of the night many others also were shot, to such an
extent that we could count more than 200 of them. Women and children,
lamp in hand, _were compelled_ to look on at this fearful sight. We then
ate our rice in the middle of the dead bodies, for we had had nothing to
eat since morning.”
“At Leppes” (writes a Saxon officer, of the same regiment as Private
Philip, 12th army corps, 1st Saxon corps), “_two hundred inhabitants
were killed, among whom there must have been some unoffending people_.
In future, we must have a regular inquiry and establish the guilt of the
accused before shooting them.”
Even the _Kölnische Zeitung_ published the story of an eye-witness of
the destruction of Aerschot, who would not have escaped had he not
called out to the soldiers, “Do you want to kill a man who comes from
Cologne?” The Germans then set him at liberty again. “In the streets,”
he writes, “the fusillade lasted the whole night. _All those found in
possession of a weapon were mercilessly shot._ The sight was terrifying
… the wretches who were shot lay on the pavement, and all the time fresh
‘_culprits_’ were being brought before the platoons charged with the task
of execution. Women and children wept and asked for mercy. In spite of
all their indignation at the attack which had been made upon them, _no
German_ heart could be untouched by pity for the innocent victims.”
In the notebook of Private Hassemer of the 8th corps we find this fearful
confession—
“3rd September, 1914. At Sommepy (Marne), dreadful slaughter, the village
burnt to the ground, the French thrown into the burning houses; civilians
and all burnt together.”
“On the third of September, at Creil,” writes a German soldier of the
32nd reserve regiment of infantry, “the iron bridge was blown up. For
this reason we set the streets on fire and shot civilians.”
The Saxon officer, some of whose narratives we have already reproduced,
also admits that the inhabitants were not spared punishment by fire. “The
fine village of Gué-d’Hossus (Ardennes) has been consigned to the flames,
although it had committed no offence that I can see. I have been told
that a man on a bicycle fell from his machine and that, in his fall, his
gun went off of itself, and then some one fired in his direction. _After
that men were simply thrown into the flames. We must hope that atrocities
of this kind shall not be repeated._”
“At Bouvignes, north of Dinant,” writes this Saxon officer of the 178th
Regiment of the Line, “we entered, through a breach made in the rear,
the grounds of a well-to-do resident and occupied the house. Through a
labyrinth of rooms we reached the entrance of the house. _There lay the
body of the owner._ Outside, in the fields, _the sight of the inhabitants
who had been shot, and whose bodies were lying on the ground, baffles all
description. The point-blank fusillade almost decapitated them._ Each
house was searched in the tiniest corners and the residents dragged out
from all their hiding-places. _The men were shot._”
The writer of this notebook alleges no pretext which would excuse or
explain, in his eyes, all these murders. No more does the reservist
Schlanter (3rd battery of the 4th regiment of field artillery of
the Guard) mention any reason in justification of the murders which
he describes. He writes: “25th August. _In Belgium, three hundred
inhabitants of the town were shot._ Those who survived the volley were
requisitioned to act as grave-diggers (which proves that they were not
considered guilty). You should have seen the women at this moment!”
“All the French, though civilians, were shot,” writes another, “_if they
only looked suspicious or ill-disposed_. We shot them all: men and even
young boys.”
“I have seen three convoys of French peasants pass by,” writes a third;
“all will be shot.” An officer admits that the allegation that civilians
took part in the fighting is a mere excuse. “_We shall say_,” he writes,
“_that it was not the civilians who fired_, but it was the custom-house
officers and foresters.” The same admission is also made by a Saxon
officer of the 178th regiment, who writes: “Near Lisogne, the 23rd
August. The company lost its way. Our men say that they could not advance
any further, as francs-tireurs were firing upon them from the houses. _We
seized these alleged francs-tireurs, placed them in three ranks so that a
single shot would hit three men at once._”
Lieutenant Eberlein, who (in the _Münchener Neueste Nachrichten_) tells
the story of the barbarous manner in which the troops entered Saint
Dié, added on his part: “Everybody who showed himself in the streets
was shot.” On the other hand, the commandant of the garrison of Hay was
so enraged at the disgraceful conduct of the troops that he issued the
following order of the day, which constitutes a terrible accusation
against the Germans—
“25th August, 1914.
“Last night a terrible fusillade took place. It has not
been proved that the inhabitants of the town were still in
possession of arms. Neither has it been proved that civilians
took part in the firing. _On the contrary, according to all
appearances the soldiers were under the influence of alcohol,
and opened fire through incomprehensible fear of an enemy
attack._
“_The conduct of the soldiers_, with few exceptions, _appears
to have been disgraceful_.
“When officers, or non-commissioned officers set fire to houses
without permission or order of the commandant, or at least of
the senior officer, and encourage their troops to burn and
pillage, it is an act in the highest degree to be deplored.
“I expect that in every case strict instructions shall be given
as to the attitude to be observed towards the life and property
of civilians. I forbid any one to fire into a town without the
order of an officer.
“The regrettable conduct of the troops has had the result that
a non-commissioned officer and a soldier have been seriously
wounded by German fire.
“VON BASSEWITZ (Major),
“Commandant.”
Even the proclamations issued by the German authorities show for what
hateful purposes the hostages were taken away, and how precarious was
their condition as soon as the slightest check was inflicted on the
German troops, or the slightest attack was made upon them.
“The life of hostages,” wrote Commandant Dieckmann at Grivegnée, on the
6th September, “_depends on whether the inhabitants of the communes
previously mentioned keep quiet under all circumstances_.” And he adds,
“I shall mark in the lists submitted to me the names of those individuals
who must stay as hostages from noon on one day to noon of the next.
“If a substitute has not been found within reasonable time, the hostage
will remain for a further twenty-four in the fort. After this second
period of twenty-four hours, the hostage will run the risk of death, if a
substitute has not been found.”
Moreover, Marshal Von der Goltz, military governor of Belgium, caused
to be posted up in Brussels on 5th October, 1914, a proclamation in
which the following announcement was made: “In future, the localities
nearest to the place where the destruction of railway lines and telegraph
wires has taken place (_whether they have been accessory or not_) will
be mercilessly punished. To this end hostages have been taken from all
localities near to railroads threatened by such attacks, and _at the
first attempt to destroy lines of railroad, telegraph or telephone lines,
they will be immediately shot_.”
As for the deportation of civilians and the imprisonment with which they
were threatened, when they were not carried off to Germany, two German
soldiers volunteered the following admissions: “On the 6th September,”
writes one of them, “_we dispatched three hundred Belgians to Germany,
including twenty-one curés_.” “We shut up,” writes the other (Karl
Bertram de Westeregein, near Magdeburg), “450 men in the church at
Aerschot. I myself happened to be near the church at the moment.”
CONCLUSION
All this evidence and all these admissions are sufficient to prove the
criminal nature of the German treatment of civilians whose territory had
been invaded. The pretexts which they allege have no validity. They are
only made for the sake of appearances, and, on the other hand, the acts
which they committed are such as admit no kind of excuse and can in no
case be justified. Nevertheless the German Government attempted to do so.
The Berlin Cabinet undertook to prove that the inhabitants of Liège were
guilty and deserved to suffer the fearful butchery which followed the
entry of the Germans. To prove this the latter relied upon the evidence
of a certain Hermann Costen, who was represented as a Swiss member of
the Red Cross. But the chief of the Swiss police promptly published the
following information—
(1) M. Hermann Costen never belonged to the Swiss Red Cross.
(2) M. Hermann Costen is not Swiss, as he was refused
naturalisation.
(3) For two years M. Hermann Costen has been under the
surveillance of the Swiss police. I maintain that since the
declaration of war this person only left Switzerland from the
9th to the 14th August. _It is absolutely impossible that he
can have been at Liège at the period of the siege mentioned by
you._
(4) M. Hermann Costen left Switzerland finally in consequence
of a decree of expulsion on the 19th September.
(5) M. Hermann Costen’s moral and material credit is nil. He is
an individual for whom there is little to be said.
After the picture of German atrocities which has been put before us,
it is not without its uses to form from this reply some idea of the
duplicity which endeavoured to cloak them.