[Illustration]
_BERNHARDISM_:
"_It's all right. If I hadn't done it someone else might_"
As regards private property, respect among German troops simply does not
exist. By the universal testimony of every British officer and soldier I
have interrogated the progress of the German troops is like a plague of
locusts over the land. What they can not carry off they destroy.
Furniture is thrown into the street, pictures are riddled with bullets
and pierced by sword cuts, municipal registers burnt, the contents of
shops scattered on the floor, drawers rifled, live stock slaughtered and
carcasses left to rot in the fields. Cases of petty larceny by German
soldiers appear to be innumerable; they take whatever seizes their
fancy, and leave the towns they evacuate laden like pedlars. Empty
ammunition wagons were drawn up in front of private houses and filled
with their contents for despatch to Germany.
I have had the reports of local commissions of police placed before me,
and they show that in smaller villages like those of Caestre and Merris,
with a population of about 1,500 souls or less, pillaging to the extent
of L4,000 and L6,000 was committed by the German troops.
PROFESSOR J. H. MORGAN _in "German
Atrocities," an Official Investigation._
[Illustration]
_FROM LIEGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE_
[Illustration]
_SPOILS FOR THE VICTORS_
They sang, shouted and waved their arms. Most of them carried bottles
full of liquor, which they put into their mouths frequently, smashed
them on the ground, or handed them to their comrades, when unable to
drink any more themselves. Each of a troop of cavalry had a bottle of
pickles, and enjoyed them immensely.
Other soldiers kept on running into the burning houses, carrying out
vases, pictures, plate, or small pieces of furniture. They smashed
everything on the cobbles and then returned to wreck more things that
would have been destroyed by the fire all the same. It was a revelry of
drunken vandalism. They seemed mad, and even risking being burned alive
at this work of destruction. Most of the officers were also tipsy; not
one of them was saluted by the soldiers.
"_The German Fury in Belgium_,"
By L. MOKVELD.
[Illustration]
_SEDUCTION_
"_Ain't I a lovable fellow?_"
There is very strong reason to suspect that young girls were carried off
to the trenches by licentious German soldiery, and there abused by
hordes of savage and licentious men. People in hiding in the cellars of
houses have heard the voices of women in the hands of German soldiers
crying all night long until death or stupor ended their agonies. One of
our officers, a subaltern in the sappers, heard a woman's shrieks in the
night coming from the German trenches near Richebourg l'Avoue; when we
advanced in the morning and drove the Germans out, a girl was found
lying naked on the ground "pegged out" in the form of a crucifix. I need
not go on with this chapter of horrors. To the end of time it will be
remembered, and from one generation to another, in the plains of
Flanders, in the Valleys of the Vosges, and on the rolling fields of the
Marne, the oral tradition of men will perpetuate this story of infamy
and wrong.
PROFESSOR J. H. MORGAN _in "German
Atrocities," an Official Investigation_.
[Illustration]
_THE HOSTAGES_
"_Father, what have we done?_"
The municipal Government of Liege remind their fellow citizens, and all
staying within the city, that international law most strictly forbids
civilians to commit hostilities against the German soldiers occupying
the country.
Every attack on German troops by others than the military in uniform not
only exposes those who may be guilty to be shot summarily, but will also
bring terrible consequences on the leading citizens of Liege now
detained in the citadel as hostages by the commander of the German
troops.
We beseech all residents of the municipality to guard the highest
interests of all the inhabitants and of those who are hostages of the
German Army, and not to commit any assault on the soldiers of this army.
We remind the citizens that by order of General commanding the German
troops, those who have arms in their possession must deliver them
immediately to the authorities at the Provincial Palace under the
penalty of being shot.
_The Acting Burgomaster_,
V. HENAULT.
_Liege, August 8th._
[Illustration]
_HUSBANDS AND FATHERS_
Thousands of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to
the prisons of Germany to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. At
Munsterlagen alone, 3,100 civil prisoners were numbered. History will
tell of the physical and moral torments of their long martyrdom.
Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but
I know there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under pain
of death, their fellow-citizens were compelled to dig their graves. In
the Louvain group of communes 176 persons, men and women, old men and
sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned.
CARDINAL MERCIER, _Archbishop
of Malines, Belgium._
[Illustration]
_IT'S FATTENING WORK_
In Hofstade a number of houses had been set on fire and many corpses
were seen, some in houses, some in back yards, and some in the streets.
Several examples are given below.
Two witnesses speak to having seen the body of a young man pierced by
bayonet thrusts with the wrists cut also.
On a side road the corpse of a civilian was seen on his doorstep with a
bayonet wound in his stomach, and by his side the dead body of a boy of
5 or 6 with his hands nearly severed.
The corpses of a woman and boy were seen at the blacksmith's. They had
been killed with the bayonet.
In a cafe a young man, also killed with the bayonet, was holding his
hands together as if in the attitude of supplication.
Two young women were lying in the back yard of the house. One had her
breasts cut off, the other had been stabbed.
A young man had been hacked with the bayonet until his entrails
protruded. He also had his hands joined in the attitude of prayer.
In the garden of a house in the main street bodies of two women were
observed, and in another house the body of a boy of 16 with two bayonet
wounds in the chest.
_British Government Committee's Report._
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_KULTUR HAS PASSED HERE_
It is nothing but fanaticism to expect very much from humanity when it
has forgotten how to wage war. For the present we know of no other means
whereby the rough energy of the camp, the deep impersonal hatred, the
cold-bloodedness of murder with a good conscience, the general ardour of
the system in the destruction of the enemy ... can be as forcibly and
certainly communicated to enervated nations as is done by every great
war. _Kultur can by no means dispense with passions, vices and
malignities._