violating the neutrality of Belgium, and it will be remembered that
earlier in the day the German Imperial Chancellor had stated that German
troops "perhaps are already on Belgian soil," and that Germany could
only have one thought--how she was to "hack her way through."
Simultaneously with the thought, came action. What was actually taking
place is described, by Lord Bryce's Committee of Inquiry, in the
following words[65]:--
"On August 4th the roads converging upon Liege from north-east,
east, and south were covered with German Death's Head Hussars and
Uhlans pressing forward to seize the passage over the Meuse. From
the very beginning of the operations the civilian population of the
villages lying upon the line of the German advance were made to
experience the extreme horrors of war. 'On the 4th of August,' says
one witness, 'at Herve' (a village not far from the frontier), 'I
saw at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, near the station, five
Uhlans, these were the first German troops I had seen. They were
followed by a German officer and some soldiers in a motor car. The
men in the car called out to a couple of young fellows who were
standing about 30 yards away. The young men, being afraid, ran off,
and then the Germans fired and killed one of them named D----.'
"The murder of this innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the
burning and pillage of Herve and of other villages in the
neighbourhood, to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both
sexes, and to the organised military execution of batches of
selected males. Thus at Herve some 50 men escaping from the burning
houses were seized, taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, a
hamlet west of Herve, 40 men were shot. In one household alone the
father and mother (names given) were shot, the daughter died after
being repeatedly outraged, and the son was wounded. Nor were
children exempt....
"The burning of the villages in this neighbourhood and the
wholesale slaughter of civilians, such as occurred at Herve,
Micheroux, and Soumagne, appear to be connected with the
exasperation caused by the resistance of Fort Fleron, whose guns
barred the main road from Aix la Chapelle to Liege. Enraged by the
losses which they had sustained, suspicious of the temper of the
civilian population, and probably thinking that by exceptional
severities at the outset they could cow the spirit of the Belgian
nation, the German officers and men speedily accustomed themselves
to the slaughter of civilians."
As a German soldier's diary, examined by Lord Bryce's Committee,
says:--"The inhabitants without exception were brought out and shot.
This shooting was heart-breaking as they all knelt down and prayed, but
that was no ground for mercy. A few shots rang out and they fell back
into the green grass and slept for ever."[66]
During the invasion of Belgium and France, German procedure was almost
the same in all cases. "They advance along a road, shooting inoffensive
passers-by--particularly bicyclists--as well as peasants working in the
fields. In the towns or villages where they stop, they begin by
requisitioning food and drink, which they consume till intoxicated.
Sometimes from the interior of deserted houses they let off their rifles
at random, and declare that it was the inhabitants who fired. Then the
scenes of fire, murder, and especially pillage, begin, accompanied by
acts of deliberate cruelty, without respect to sex or age. Even where
they pretend to know the actual person guilty of the acts they allege,
they do not content themselves with executing him summarily, but they
seize the opportunity to decimate the population, pillage the houses,
and then set them on fire. After a preliminary attack and massacre they
shut up the men in the church, and then order the women to return to
their houses and to leave their doors open all night."[67]
Innumerable German atrocities are on record and well authenticated. For
example, Professor Jacobs, at a medical meeting in Edinburgh, stated
that, as head of the Belgian Red Cross, he "had visited a chateau but
found the Red Cross had not been respected. It had been completely
destroyed, and the bodies of six girls, aged from ten to seventeen, were
lying on the lawn. A convent containing sixty sisters had been entered
by the German soldiers and every one had been violated. On the evidence
of the doctor of the institution twenty-five were pregnant. Professor
Jacobs had operated on the wife of a doctor living near Namur. Three
weeks after the operation, when convalescing and still in bed, their
house was entered by German soldiers; she was raped by seven of them and
died two days after."[68]
1. A few typical examples of the wholesale atrocities of German troops
are given in Appendix C, but to show that in many cases such atrocities
were not only countenanced, but ordered by officers in command, we quote
the following:--
August 22, 1914.
The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having protested
their peaceful intentions, made a treacherous surprise attack on
our troops.
It was with my consent that the General had the whole place burnt
down, and about 100 people shot.
I bring this fact to the knowledge of the town of Liege, so that
its inhabitants may know the fate with which they are threatened if
they take up a similar attitude.
The General Commanding-in-Chief,
VON BULOW.[69]
2. Here is an order of the day given on August 26 by General Stenger
commanding the 58th German Brigade:--
After to-day no more prisoners will be taken. All prisoners are to
be killed. Wounded, with or without arms, are to be killed. Even
prisoners already grouped in convoys are to be killed. Let not a
single living enemy remain behind us.
Oberlieutenant und Kompagnie-Chef STOY;
Oberst und Regiments Kommandeur NEUBAUER;
General-Major und Brigade-Kommandeur STENGER.[70]
With reference to the above Order, Professor Joseph Bedier says: "Some
thirty soldiers of Stenger's Brigade (112th and 142nd Regt. of the Baden
Infantry), were examined in our prisoners' camps. I have read their
evidence, which they gave upon oath and signed. All confirm the
statement that this order of the day was given them on August 26, in one
unit by Major Mosebach, in another by Lieut. Curtius, &c.; the majority
did not know whether the order was carried out, but three of them say
they saw it done in the forest of Thiaville, where ten or twelve wounded
French soldiers who had already been spared by a battalion were
despatched. Two others saw the order carried out on the Thiaville road,
where some wounded found in a ditch by a company were finished off."[71]
3. The following are extracts from a Proclamation posted by the Germans
at Namur on August 25, 1914:--
(3) Every street will be occupied by a German Guard, who will take
ten hostages from each street, whom they will keep under
surveillance. If there is any rising in the street the ten hostages
will be shot.
(4) Doors may not be locked, and at night after eight o'clock there
must be lights in three windows in every house.
(5) It is forbidden to be in the street after eight o'clock. The
inhabitants of Namur must understand that there is no greater and
more horrible crime than to compromise the existence of the town
and the life of its citizens by criminal acts against the German
Army.
The Commander of the Town,
VON BULOW.[72]
4. On October 5 the following Proclamation was posted in Brussels "and
probably in most of the Communes of the Kingdom."
During the evening of September 25, the railway line and the
telegraph wires were destroyed on the line Lovenjoul-Vertryck. In
consequence of this, these two localities have had to render an
account of this, and had to give hostages in the morning of
September 30.
In future, the localities nearest to the place where similar acts
take place will be punished without pity; _it matters little if
they are accomplices or not_. For this purpose _hostages have been
taken_ from all localities near the railway line thus menaced, and
at the first attempt to destroy the railway line, or the telephone
or telegraph wires, _they will be immediately shot_.
Further, all the troops charged with the duty of guarding the
railway have been ordered to shoot any person who, in a suspicious
manner, approaches the line, or the telegraph or telephone wires.
The Governor-General of Belgium,
(S.) BARON VON DER GOLTZ, Field-Marshal.[73]
For purposes of record it should be noted that Lord Bryce's Committee
mention by name three German Generals whose armies have disgraced
civilisation; they are those of General Alexander von Kluck, General von
Buelow and General von Hausen.[74]
Some of the main heads of the barbarities of Germany and of the way she
has violated the recognised rules of International Law, may be set out
as follows:--[75]
(_a_) The treatment of civilian inhabitants in Belgium and the North of
France has been made public by the Belgian and French Governments, and
by those who have had experience of it at first hand. Modern history
affords no precedent for the sufferings that have been inflicted on the
defenceless and non-combatant population in the territory that has been
in German military occupation. Even the food of the population was
confiscated, until, in Belgium, an International Commission, largely
influenced by American generosity and conducted under American auspices,
came to the relief of the population, and secured from the German
Government a promise to spare what food was still left in the country,
though the Germans still continue to make levies in money upon the
defenceless population for the support of the German Army.
(_b_) We have from time to time received most terrible accounts of the
barbarous treatment to which British officers and soldiers have been
exposed after they have been taken prisoner, while being conveyed to
German prison camps. Evidence has been received of the hardships to
which British prisoners of war are subjected in the prison camps,
contrasting most unfavourably with the treatment of German prisoners in
this country. The Germans make no attempt to save sailors from British
war vessels they sink, although we have saved a large number of German
sailors in spite of great danger to our men.[76]For example, on May 1,
1915, in the destroyer action in the North Sea, the Germans imprisoned
two British sailors below and when their vessel was sinking, saved
themselves, but left their prisoners to sink below because "time was
short."
As Lord Kitchener said, Germany "has stooped to acts which will surely
stain indelibly her military history and which would vie with the
barbarous savagery of the Dervishes of the Sudan."[77] On the same day,
in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister declared: "When we come to
the end of this war, which, please God, we may, we shall not forget--and
ought not to forget--this horrible record of calculated cruelty and
crime, and we shall hold it to be our duty to exact such reparation
against those who are proved to have been guilty agents or actors in the
matter, as it may be possible for us to exact. I do not think we should
be doing our duty to these brave and unfortunate men or to the honour of
our own country and the plain dictates of humanity if we were content
with anything less than that."[78]
(_c_) At the very outset of war a German mine-layer was discovered
laying a mine-field on the high seas. Further mine-fields have been laid
from time to time without warning, and are still being laid on the high
seas, and many neutral, as well as British vessels, have been sunk by
them.
(_d_) At various times during the war German submarines have stopped and
sunk British merchant vessels, thus making the sinking of merchant
vessels a general practice, though it was admitted previously, if at
all, only as an exception; the general rule, to which the British
Government have adhered, being that merchant vessels, if captured, must
be taken before a Prize Court. The Germans have also sunk British
merchant vessels by torpedo without notice, and without any provision
for the safety of the crew. They have done this in the case of neutral
as well as of British vessels, and a number of non-combatant and
innocent lives, unarmed and defenceless, have been destroyed in this
way. The Germans have sunk without warning emigrant vessels, have tried
to sink an hospital ship, and have themselves used an hospital ship for
patrol work and wireless. The torpedoeing of the "Lusitania" on May 7,
1915, involving the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians--British
and neutral--was acclaimed with great relish in Berlin.
(_e_) Unfortified, open, and defenceless towns, such as Scarborough,
Yarmouth and Whitby, have been deliberately and wantonly bombarded by
German ships of war, causing, in some cases, considerable loss of
civilian life, including women and children.
(_f_) German aircraft have dropped bombs on the East Coast of England,
in places where there were no military or strategic points to be
attacked.
(_g_) The Germans have used poisonous gases in killing Allied troops at
the Front, although Germany was a signatory to the following article in
the Hague Convention:--
"The Contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of
projectiles, the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating
or deleterious gases."[79]
And finally the German troops in South Africa have poisoned drinking
wells and infected them with disease.[80]
FOOTNOTES:
[64] _Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege._ Berlin, 1902, in the series
"Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften," published in 1905. A translation
of this monograph by Professor J. H. Morgan has recently been published.
[65] Cd. 7894, page 7, 8.
[66] Cd. 7894, page 9.
[67] See Appendix C. Official Reports issued by the Belgian Legation
(1914). The Commission chiefly responsible for these official Belgian
reports was composed of M. Cooreman, Minister of State (President);
Count Goblet d'Alviella, Minister of State and Vice-President of the
Senate; M. Ryckmans, Senator; M. Strauss, Alderman of the City of
Antwerp; M. van Cutsem, Hon. President of the Law Court of Antwerp; and,
as Secretaries, Chevalier Ernst de Bunswyck, Chef du Cabinet of the
Minister of Justice, and M. Orts, Councillor of Legation.
[68] Meeting of Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, December 9, 1914.
_Lancet_, December 19, 1914, page 1, 440.
[69] Reports on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws
and Customs of War in Belgium.
[70] _German Atrocities from German Evidence._ One of the series of
"Studies and Documents on the War." Publishing Committee: Mm. Ernest
Lavisse, of the Academie francaise, President; Charles Andler, professor
of German literature and language in the University of Paris; Joseph
Bedier, professor at the College de France; Henri Bergson, of the
Academie francaise; Emile Boutroux, of the Academie francaise; Ernest
Denis, professor of history in the University of Paris; Emile Durkheim,
professor in the University of Paris; Jacques Hadamard, of the Academie
des Sciences; Gustave Lanson, professor of French literature in the
University of Paris; Charles Seignobos, professor of history in the
University of Paris; Andre Weiss, of the Academie des Sciences morales
et politiques.
[71] _German Atrocities from German Evidence._ See footnote on page 32.
[72] Reports on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws
and Customs of War in Belgium.
[73] Reports on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws
and Customs of war in Belgium.
[74] Cd. 7894, page 10.
[75] Most of the points referred to in the following record are to be
found in Sir Edward Grey's reply to the U.S. Note--dated March 15.
[76] Cd. 7921, issued May 19, 1915, shows that although 1,282 men had
been rescued by the British from German warships, not a single rescue
had been effected by German men-of-war.
[77] House of Lords, April 27, 1915.
[78] House of Commons, April 27, 1915.
[79] See Appendix D.
[80] Report _re_ Swakopmund, issued by Secretary of State for Colonies.
_Times_, May 6, 1915.
GERMANY'S ATTEMPTED BRIBERY.
We thus see with what an easy conscience Germany tears up her treaties
and how she repudiates her most solemn pledges. In light of these facts
let us examine the rush of promises Germany was prepared to give in
order to ensure our neutrality in the War.
On July 29, 1914, Germany, having decided on the War in conjunction with
Austria against Russia and France, made what our Ambassador at Berlin
called "a strong bid for British neutrality," to which reference has
been made, on page 14. Provided that Britain remained neutral Germany
stated that every assurance would be given to Great Britain that the
German Government aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the expense of
France in Europe, should they prove victorious. Germany categorically
stated that she was unable to give a similar undertaking with reference
to the French colonies. She made a statement with regard to the
integrity of Holland, and said that it depended upon the action of
France what operations Germany might be forced to enter upon in Belgium,
but that when the War was over Belgian integrity would be respected if
she had not sided against Germany. In other words, Great Britain was to
stand by and
=See Belgium invaded and, if she resisted, annexed by Germany;=
=See all the French Colonies taken by Germany;=
=Acquiesce in France, our neighbour and friend, being crushed under
the iron heel of Germany, and, as Bismarck threatened, bled white
by a war indemnity when all was over.=
As Sir Edward Grey replied on July 30: "From the material point of view
such a proposal is unacceptable, for France, without further territory
in Europe being taken from her, could be so crushed as to lose her
position as a Great Power, and become subordinate to German policy.
Altogether, apart from that it would be a disgrace for us to make this
bargain with Germany at the expense of France, a disgrace from which the
good name of this country would never recover."[81]
That is the "infamous bargain" which Britain spurned and to which the
Prime Minister referred on August 6 in the House of Commons, in the
following words:--
="What would have been the position of Great Britain to-day ... if
we had assented to this infamous proposal? Yes, and what are we to
get in return for the betrayal of our friends and the dishonour of
our obligations? What are we to get in return? A promise--nothing
more; a promise as to what Germany would do in certain
eventualities; a promise, be it observed--I am sorry to have to say
it, but it must be put upon record--given by a Power which was at
that very moment announcing its intention to violate its own treaty
and inviting us to do the same. I can only say, if we had dallied
or temporised, we, as a Government, should have covered ourselves
with dishonour, and we should have betrayed the interests of this
country, of which we are trustees."=[82]
This suggestion of Germany is not the only infamous proposal she has
made to Great Britain. She has made them with a persistence worthy of a
better cause. In February, 1912, Lord Haldane went to Berlin on behalf
of the Cabinet in order to obtain the basis of a friendly understanding
between the two countries. What transpired is made clear in a speech
delivered by Mr. Asquith, at Cardiff, on October 2, 1914, when the Prime
Minister said:--
"We laid down in terms, carefully approved by the Cabinet, and
which I will textually quote, what our relations to Germany ought,
in our view, to be. We said, and we communicated this to the German
Government:--
'Britain declares that she will neither make, nor join in, any
unprovoked attack upon Germany. Aggression upon Germany is not
the subject, and forms no part of any Treaty, understanding,
or combination to which Britain is now a party, nor will she
become a party to anything that has such an object.'
"There is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about that. But that was
not enough for German statesmanship. They wanted us to go further.
They asked us to pledge ourselves absolutely to neutrality, in the
event of Germany being engaged in war, and this, mind you, at a
time when Germany was enormously increasing both her aggressive and
defensive forces, and especially upon the sea. They asked us--to
put it quite plainly--for a free hand, so far as we were concerned,
if and when they selected the opportunity to overpower and dominate
the European world. To such a demand one answer was possible, and
that was the answer we gave."[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[81] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 101.
[82] House of Commons, August 6, 1914.
[83] _South Wales Daily News_, October 3, 1914.
IF BRITAIN HAD REFUSED TO FIGHT.
If, in view of all this evidence, Britain had refused to fight, what
would have been her position? The Prime Minister, speaking at the
Guildhall on September 4, 1914, said:--
"But let me ask you, and through you the world outside, what would
have been our condition as a nation to-day if, through timidity, or
through a perverted calculation of self-interest or through a
paralysis of the sense of honour and duty, we had been base enough
to be false to our word and faithless to our friends?
"Our eyes would have been turned at this moment with those of the
whole civilised world to Belgium--a small State which has lived for
more than 70 years under a several and collective guarantee, to
which we, in common with Prussia and Austria, were parties--and we
should have seen, at the instance, and by the action of two of
these guaranteeing Powers, her neutrality violated, her
independence strangled, her territory made use of as affording the
easiest and most convenient road to a war of unprovoked aggression
against France.
"We, the British people, should have at this moment been standing
by with folded arms and with such countenance as we could command,
while this small and unprotected State (Belgium), in defence of her
vital liberties, made a heroic stand against overweening and
overwhelming force.
"We should have been watching as detached spectators the siege of
Liege, the steady and manful resistance of a small Army, the
occupation of Brussels with its splendid traditions and memories,
the gradual forcing back of the patriotic defenders of their native
land to the ramparts of Antwerp, countless outrages suffered by
them, and buccaneering levies exacted from the unoffending civil
population, and finally the greatest crime committed against
civilisation and culture since the Thirty Years' War--the sack of
Louvain, with its buildings, its pictures, its unique library, its
unrivalled associations, a shameless holocaust of irreparable
treasures lit up by blind barbarian vengeance....
"For my part I say that sooner than be a silent witness--which
means in effect a willing accomplice--of this tragic triumph of
force over law and of brutality over freedom, I would see this
country of ours blotted out of the pages of history."
Further, we need not imagine that the peace we should have gained would
have been a lasting one. If we had dishonoured our name in the manner
Mr. Asquith has described, we should have been left without a friend in
the world. Who can doubt that we should have been Germany's next victim
if she had succeeded in crushing Belgium and France and warding off the
blows of Russia? As Mr. Bonar Law said, on the same occasion:--
"We are fighting for our national existence, for everything which
nations have always held most dear."
The fate which has fallen upon Belgium would have been our fate in a few
years' time, but with this difference, that we should have had no
powerful friends to give back as far as humanly possible what we had
lost, as Russia, France and Britain are determined to do for Belgium.
APPENDIX A.
GERMANY'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONTENTS OF THE ULTIMATUM DELIVERED BY
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY TO SERBIA ON JULY 23, 1914.
Germany did her utmost to make the Great Powers believe that she had no
knowledge of the contents of the Ultimatum delivered by Austria-Hungary
to Serbia at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1914.