BELGIANS UNDER THE GERMAN EAGLE

BY
JEAN MASSART
Vice-Director of the Class of Sciences in the Royal Academy
of Belgium

TRANSLATED BY
BERNARD MIALL

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE

[1]

These pages were written in Belgium between the 4th August, 1914, and the 15th August, 1915.

I employed in this work only those books and periodicals which entered the country, whether secretly or openly, and which every one, therefore, can procure.

But to drive conviction into the reader's mind I have observed a rule of selection in using these documents: I have used those exclusively which are of German origin, or which are censored by the Germans.

They are—

[2]

In short, since I crossed the frontier I have not inserted a single idea into this book: it therefore precisely reflects the state of mind of a Belgian who has lived a year under the German domination.

I have forced myself to remain as far as possible objective, in order to give my work the scientific rigour which characterizes the Reports of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry. I have simply transferred, to a domain which is new to me, the methods of my customary occupations.

Here is a list of my principal sources, with the abbreviations which denote them in the text:—

The English edition is not a complete translation of the French text. To save space, many facts, and above all, many quotations, have been suppressed.

Antibes, Villa Thuret,
October, 1915.

[3]

[8]

[9]

Bismarck was given to quoting, with approval, a saying which has often been attributed to him, but which was, in reality, first made in his presence by a hero of the American Civil War—General Sheridan. It was, that the people of a country occupied by a conquering army should be left nothing—save eyes to weep with!

And we Belgians, truly, are weeping: weeping for our native country, invaded, in contempt of the most solemn conventions, by one of the signatories of those treaties; weeping for our villages, which are levelled to the ground, and our cities, which are burned; our monuments, which are broken by shell-fire, and our treasures of art and science, which are for ever destroyed. We mourn to think of those hundreds of thousands of our countrymen who have wandered without shelter along the highways of Europe; of Belgium, lately so proud of her prosperity, but now taxed and crushed and exhausted by war requisitions and contributions, and reduced to holding out her hand for public charity.

Who could help but weep when, in Flanders, our soldiers are defending the very last corner of our territory; when, in our villages, men, old folks, women, and children have been, and are yet, shot down without pity in reprisal for imaginary crimes; when thousands of civilians are imprisoned in Germany as[10] hostages; when the burgomaster of the capital, for daring to defend the rights of his constituents, is confined in a Silesian prison;[1] when our rural clergy is decimated, to such a point that divine service has necessarily been suspended in entire cantons; when a scholar like Van Gehuchten dies in exile, after seeing his manuscripts and his drawings, the fruit of ten years' labours, disappear in the flames of Louvain?

Our sobs are mingled with tears of gratitude for the compassionate intervention of Holland, America, Spain, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and Italy ... not forgetting our Allies. It is this generosity that has prevented us from dying of hunger and want; a million of our refugees have found in Holland a fraternal succour which has never for a moment been relaxed; the United States, thanks to the influence and the incomparable activity of their Minister in Brussels, Mr. Brand Whitlock, supply us with our daily bread.

Belgium will never forget the exactions of those who have reduced to famine one of the richest and most fertile countries in the world, nor the unequalled charity of the nations which have enabled us to live to this day, and have saved us from death by starvation.

[11]

We are weeping! But we do not surrender ourselves to despair, for we have kept intact our faith in the future, and the firm resolve to leave no stone unturned that we may for ever be spared such another trial. Above all, we refuse to bow our heads beneath the yoke. In vain have the Germans afflicted us with increasingly unjust and unjustifiable and vexatious demands; they will never daunt us. Let them proscribe the Belgian flag as a seditious emblem; we have no need to unfurl it to remain faithful to it; they are welcome to forbid the Te Deum on the day of the King's patron saint; since the King and the Queen are valiantly sharing, on the Yser, in the efforts and the sufferings of our brothers and our sons, royalty has no firmer supporters among us than the leaders of Socialism. No, we assuredly are not ready to abandon ourselves to despair. And nothing can sustain us more than the international sympathies by which we feel ourselves surrounded in this our unmerited misfortune.

The time has not yet come to judge the events which have delivered Europe to fire and blood. Yet we hold that it is the duty of all those who believe themselves in a position usefully to intervene to make themselves heard. For Germany possesses so perfect an organization for the diffusion of her propaganda in foreign countries, that the public opinion of neutral States, hearing but one side of the question, would finally come to believe our enemies.

It would be useless and ineffectual to accumulate, as did the ninety-three German "intellectuals," among others, a number of denials and affirmations, without supporting them by a single definite fact. We do not wish to put forward anything which we cannot immediately support by easily verified proofs. This rule which we have compelled[12] ourselves to observe, has forced us narrowly to limit our field of investigation. We shall speak only of actions and intellectual manifestations which are immediately connected with the present war; and as the field would be too vast even when so circumscribed, we shall say nothing of military operations properly so-called, nor of all that has happened beyond the Belgian frontiers. We do not propose to write a history. We leave to those more competent the task of extricating the truth as to present events; we shall content ourselves with taking indisputable documents, which are nearly always cuttings from German books, or German newspapers, or German posters, and with analysing their mental significance; and, further, with showing how the Belgians react against the actions recorded.

In the following pages we shall first of all examine the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany, then the infractions of the Hague Convention of 18th October, 1907. We shall be careful to invoke only precise and unquestionable facts; but for that matter the number of German infractions of the law of nations in Belgium is so enormous that we have been able provisionally to exclude all those which are not established in the most positive manner. At the same time we shall endeavour to derive from these facts a few indications as to our enemies' manner of thinking. This last will be studied in further detail in a third chapter: German Mentality Self-depicted.

A few words as to the documents utilized.

As the Germans occupied our country they took pains to isolate us from the rest of the world. They[13] immediately suppressed all our journals, as these naturally refused to submit to their censorship. At the same time the Germans forced certain journals to reappear; notably L'Ami de l'Ordre, at Namur, and Le Bien Public, at Gand. The first of these journals took care frankly to inform its readers that the military authorities were forcing it to continue publication.

As for foreign newspapers, their introduction was forbidden under heavy penalties.

[14]

The German Censorship.

After the 20th August the eastern half of Belgium was thus deprived of all intellectual communication with the outside world. For a fortnight we were left[15] absolutely without news. Then, from the 5th September, the German Government permitted the publication of journals which were carefully expurgated, and falsified by a rigorous censorship:[4] Le Quotidien, Le Bruxellois, L'Écho de Bruxelles, Les Dernières Nouvelles; and later Le Belge, La Belgique, La Patrie, etc., in Brussels, L'Avenir in Antwerp, and many more. Although submitted to the censorship, the appearance of these newspapers was only provisional and uncertain. Le Bien Public reminds its readers of the fact in its issue for the 13th December, 1914. All these journals were on occasion suspended; for example, Le Quotidien, from the 9th to the 11th December, 1914, without any reason being given; L'Ami de l'Ordre, from the 2nd to the 7th September, 1914, for having printed an acrostic regarded as insulting; and Le Bien Public, during the whole of May, 1915.

The illustrated journals were as much subject to the censorship as the ordinary newspapers. Numbers 1 to 3 of 1914 Illustré, published before the arrival of the Germans, could no longer be exposed for sale: No. 1 containing portraits of King Albert, Nicholas II, M. Poincaré, and King George V; No. 2 the portrait of General Leman, and No. 3 that of M. Max. From November onwards the issues were severely edited, so that they contained, for example, scarcely any more photographs of towns burned by the German army. The other illustrated papers—Actualité Illustré, Le Temps Présent, etc., also had none but anodyne photographs, such as portraits of the new masters, military and civil.

[16]

In some degree to replace the newspapers, the printers conceived the idea of publishing little booklets relating to the war, but giving no direct news of the military operations. These publications were naturally subjected to the censorship, and many of those which were published before the decree of the 13th October, 1914, were prohibited; it was thus with the very interesting brochure, M. Adolphe Max, bourgmestre de Bruxelles, son administration du 20th août au 26th septembre, 1914, and the Nos. 1 to 10 of the booklets issued by Mr. Brian Hill. Illustrated postcards also were censored; the series in course of publication, representing the ruins of Louvain, Dinant, Charleroi, Liége, etc., had to be interrupted. Music even had to receive the official approbation (see the placard of 27th March, 1915, p. 274).

In short, it will be seen that our public life already very closely approached the German ideal: Alles ist verboten. To think that Belgium, so justly proud of her constitutional liberties, is now crushed, breathless, under the heavy Prussian jack-boot!

Authorized German Newspapers.

As a compensation for those which the German Administration felt obliged to suppress, it allowed us, about the 10th September, to receive some German newspapers—the Kölnische Zeitung, Kölnische Volkszeitung, Düsseldorfer Tageblatt, Düsseldorfer General-Anzieger, and also a few illustrated papers, notably the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, Die Wochenschau, Du Kriegs-Echo. At a later date other newspapers were tolerated: Vossissche Zeitung, Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, L'Ami du Peuple (a special edition, for Belgium, in French and[17] German, of Der Volksfreund, of Aix-la-Chapelle), and also some new illustrated papers, for example, Kriegsbilder, Zeit im Bild, and above all the Illustrierte Kriegs-Kurier, published in German, Flemish, French, and English,[5] whose sixteen pages, all covered with illustrations, cost only 15 centimes: evidently an instrument of propaganda, subsidized by the Central Administration. We shall have occasion later on to insist on its veracity, if one may call it that. For a long time none of these journals reached us regularly.

We had also access to two journals published by the Government itself: (1) the Deutsche Soldatenpost (Herausgegeben von der Zivil-Vorwaltung des General-Gouverneurs in Belgiën), originally reserved for soldiers, but which was also sold to civilians—in a very intermittent fashion, it is true—from September 1914 to the beginning of December 1914; (2) Le Réveil (Écho de la Presse, Journal officiel du Bureau allemand à Düsseldorf pour la publication de nouvelles authentiques à l'étranger), the latter being published simultaneously in French and German. Forty-nine numbers were published. It felt such an insurmountable disgust for untruth that having announced in the introductory article of its first number that Belgium was entirely in the hands of the Germans, it spoke, in a neighbouring column, of battles in Western Flanders between the Germans and the Allies. Let us say at once that from the point of view of sincerity and liberty of opinion all the newspapers of the Trans-Rhenian world are of equal worth: official or otherwise, they only publish that which is allowed, or rather, inspired, by the Government.

[18]

Authorized Dutch Newspapers.

One newspaper not subject to the Imperial censorship, one only, has found grace with the authorities—the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant. Its tendencies, clearly favourable to Germany, enable it to penetrate into Belgium; but not equally all over the country. At Gand one may subscribe to it; but its sale in single numbers is prohibited. In Antwerp it was proscribed for several months from the 7th December.

At Louvain and Brussels it may be sold in the street, and also supplied to subscribers. But it must not be supposed that the paper is anywhere regularly distributed; the edition of the morning of the 10th November, 1914, was forwarded on the 27th November to a few subscribers who were particularly persistent in their demands; it is true that this number contains the article on the letters of prisoners of war made by the Belgians (pp. 104-5), and that these letters annihilate not a few accusations made by the Germans, while they throw a singular light on their lies and acts of pillage. As for the issues for the 6th, 7th, and 8th December, 1914, they were never distributed; an official announcement, which appeared in L'Ami de l'Ordre of the 9th and 10th December states that these numbers contain "inadmissible communications as to the dislocation of troops." The issues of the 24th, 25th, and 26th December were also withheld. Since January 1915 some ten numbers have been prohibited each month.

From the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant we have copied only the articles by contributors and correspondents of the journal itself; it has seemed to us[19] that to reproduce articles extracted from Belgian newspapers was a proceeding which, while quite usual among the Germans, is not entirely honest.

Another Dutch journal, the Algemeen Handelsblad of Amsterdam, arrived in Brussels at the beginning of November; but its licence was withdrawn at the end of a week.

From February 1915 its sale was again authorized in Belgium. At the same time the introduction of a few other Dutch journals was permitted, their pro-German character being indubitable: such were Het Vaterland, De Maasbode, De Nieuwe Courant.

Newspapers introduced surreptitiously.

Let us say at once that despite all prohibitions and all the sentences pronounced, prohibited newspapers continue to trickle into the occupied portion of the country. These newspapers were at first those which were normally appearing in the towns not yet subject to German authority. Thus La Métropole and Le Matin of Antwerp, Le Bien Public and La Flandre Libérale of Gand were very soon carried as contraband and secretly sold in Brussels. Again, in the regions not yet invaded, some of the newspapers of the towns already occupied were printed: thus L'Indépendance Belge of Brussels appeared at Ostend until the arrival of the Germans in that town.

The agents who sold these newspapers had also foreign papers, especially French and English. Later, when all Belgium, save a corner of Flanders, was subjected to the Germans, a number of Belgian papers were printed abroad: La Métropole and L'Indépendance Belge in London and Le XX^e Siècle at Havre.

[20]

We also used to receive from time to time occasional newspapers published by Belgian refugees abroad. Of these we may cite: L'Écho Belge, of Amsterdam, La Belgique, of Rotterdam, Les Nouvelles, and Le Courrier de la Meuse, of Maastricht.

It will be understood that prohibited journals are rare. On certain days, when the hunt for the vendors is particularly fruitful, people will offer fifty francs, or even two hundred, for a copy of the Times. As it is chiefly across the Dutch frontier that the smuggling of the English "dailies" is carried on, the authorities have enacted measures which grow more and more Draconian relating to the traffic across this frontier. By the end of 1914 it had become practically impossible to enter Belgium from Holland by the ordinary route (see the Düsseldorfer General-Anzeiger of the 20th December, 1915). The smugglers of journals are therefore obliged to insinuate themselves in secret, and their trade is not without danger; only in the suburbs of Putte (province of Antwerp) the German sentinels killed two of them in December 1914.

Since the spring of 1915 the frontier has been guarded with barbed wire and wires traversed by high-tension electric currents; the crossing has naturally become more difficult. But "difficult" is not "impossible."

Secret Propagation of News.

So that a greater number of readers may profit by the newspapers smuggled into the country, the important passages, especially those relating to military operations, are copied by means of the typewriter. These extracts are searched after as much as the[21] originals, but none the less there are those who continue to prepare and to distribute them in secret. In Brussels alone there are fifteen of these secret sheets, each of which has its public of subscribers; many of them are gratuitous. From time to time our oppressors scent out one of these typewriting establishments, but some other devoted person immediately continues the business.

In certain well-known establishments one could, for a time, obtain the use of a newspaper for ten minutes for one or two francs; but the secret was finally betrayed, thanks to one or other of the innumerable spies supported by the Government.

Secret Newspapers.

Finally, not a few persons, possessing a typewriting machine or other means of reproducing writing, copy and sell clandestinely, for the profit of some charitable undertaking, articles from foreign newspapers or reviews, which bear upon the current political situation. Many documents have reached us in this form.

Lastly, courageous Belgians have undertaken to print, in the midst of the occupied territory, and in spite of all the German prohibitions, newspapers which reach a circulation of many thousands. The two most important are La Libre Belgique and La Vérité. In vain have our persecutors promised the most enticing rewards to those who should denounce the authors of these sheets; they continue imperturbably to appear. Which proves, be it said in passing, that the Germans lie most horribly when they state that numbers of Belgians send them anonymous information.

[22]

German Placards.

Our intellectual pasture also includes placards. In the first place, the Notices, Orders, and Proclamations of all kinds. Then the News published by the German Government, placards usually written in three languages, in the principal towns. In Brussels, where they are known as Lustige Blätter, they are particularly numerous. At Louvain, Vilverde, and Mons they are in manuscript, and usually written in German only.

Two important sources of documentation are completely closed: photography and correspondence by post. The taking and reproduction of photographs is strictly prohibited, above all in the towns ruined by the Germans.

Regulations as to Correspondence.

The sending of letters by carrier is prohibited. Until about the middle of December correspondence was carried from town to town by the carriers who undertake the goods traffic since the suspension of[23] the railways; one could still, therefore, easily enough obtain news. But, as a souvenir of his joyous entry, the Herr Baron von Bissing, who succeeded the Herr Baron von der Goltz as Governor-General in Belgium, suppressed this little supplementary vocation of the carriers. Thus Senator Speyer was condemned to pay a fine of 1,000 marks and to undergo 10 days' imprisonment for the conveyance of letters. We have no longer the resource of sending letters by carrier pigeons, as these are closely scrutinized by the Germans. Finally, two remaining methods of transmitting letters were taken from us: the use of a bow and arrow (N.R.C., 1st January, 1915), and enclosure in a loaf baked in Holland and sold in Belgium. So it is needless to say that we have neither telegraph nor telephone.

There is nothing to be done but to go in search of information oneself, after finding out the hours (highly variable) during which one is allowed to "circulate" in the localities through which one has to pass.

Since then it has become very difficult to obtain precise information as to an event which has occurred in another locality, for obviously one cannot trust a missive of this kind to the German post, which accepts only open letters, and passes them through a cabinet noir; moreover, it does not guarantee communication with all points.

[24]

It must also be explained what administrative formalities one had to fulfil in order to obtain a lodging. Thus, from January 1915 no one could obtain a lodging in Gand, whether in an hotel, or a boarding-house, or apartments, without first obtaining the authorization of the Kommandantur.

Railway Journeys.

Once furnished with a proper passport, one has only to set out. By suitably arranging one's route, one can often take advantage of the local tramways. All other means of communication are extremely precarious. The automobile is forbidden. Horses have been requisitioned by the military authorities.

[25]

The time-table of the railways is often made up in such a way that the Belgian cannot make use of the trains. Thus the only train leaving Brussels for Mons in November 1914 reached Mons at 9 p.m. But after 9 p.m. it is forbidden to walk through the streets of Mons. The only train leaving Mons for Brussels leaves at 12.14 a.m., but one may not "circulate" in the streets of Mons earlier than 4 a.m.

We see to what extremities the Belgian population is reduced. Well, well!—despite all these difficulties, we have procured documents of great importance. We cannot, unfortunately, publish them all at this juncture; for they would result in the identification of those who conveyed them to us, and expose them to reprisals; and we have learned, to our cost, all that this term signifies according to the ideas of our present rulers.

This work, then, will necessarily be incomplete. We publish it only because we think it useful to demonstrate that in spite of all the annoyances which they receive at the hands of the Germans, the Belgians do not allow themselves to be intimidated. Moreover, whatever may be the provisional lacunæ (mostly intentional) of our documentation, we cannot in any case be reproached with falsification. This, whatever our enemies may think, is a point of capital importance.

[26]

[27]

We were too confiding.

With the exception of the military and a few statesmen, the Belgians were convinced that nations, just as individuals, were bound by their engagements, and that as long as we remained faithful to our international obligations, the signatories of the Treaty of London (19th April, 1839), which set forth the conditions of the neutrality, or rather of the neutralization, of Belgium (Belg. All., p. 3), would equally observe their obligations towards us.

However, in 1911, during the "Agadir crisis," our calm was a little shaken by a series of articles in Le Soir. According to this journal, all the German military writers held the invasion of Belgium to be inevitable in the event of a war between France and Germany.

The Belgians' Distrust of Germany lulled.

But our faith in international conventions—just a trifle ingenuous, it may be—very soon regained its comforting influence. Had not Wilhelm II, "the[28] Emperor of Peace," assured the Belgian mission, which was sent to greet him at Aix-la-Chapelle, that Belgium had nothing to fear on the part of Germany (see L'Étoile Belge, 19th October, 1911). In September 1912 the Emperor made a fresh reassuring statement. Being present at the Swiss manœuvres, he congratulated M. Forster, President of the Swiss Confederation, and told him how glad he was to find that the Swiss Army would effectually defend the integrity of her frontier against a French attack. "What a pity," he added, "that the Belgian Army is not as well prepared, and is incapable of resisting French aggression." This evidently meant that Belgium ran no risk from the side of Prussia.

It was not only the Emperor who assured us of his profound respect for international statutes. The German Ministers made similar declarations in the Reichstag (Belg. All., p. 7).

In Belgium itself the Germans profited by every occasion to celebrate their friendship for us and their respect for treaties. In 1905, at the time of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Belgian independence, Herr Graf von Wallwitz stated at an official reception: "And as for us Germans, the maintenance of the treaty of warranty concluded at the birth of modern Belgium is a sort of political axiom which, to our thinking, no one could violate without committing the gravest of faults" (see p. 185 of the Annales parlementaires belges, Senate, 1906).

In 1913, at the time of the joyous entry of the King and Queen into Liége, General von Emmich, the same who was entrusted with the bombardment of the city in August 1914, came to salute our sovereigns in the name of the Emperor. He spoke[29] incessantly of the German sympathies for the Belgians and their country.

In August 1913 Herr Erzberger gave his word of honour, as Catholic deputy to the Reichstag, that there had never been any question of invading Belgium, and that Belgium might always count on the party of the Centre to cause international engagements to be respected. This is the very party that is now heaping up manifest falsehoods in order to justify the aggression of Germany.

German Duplicity on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of August, 1914.

Let us consider the days immediately preceding the war. The German newspapers were announcing that the troops occupying, at normal times, the camps near the Belgian frontiers had been directed upon Alsace and Lorraine; and these articles, reproduced in Belgium, had succeeded in finally lulling our suspicions.

In the currents of thought which were then clashing in Belgium, it was confidence that carried the day. Many of us who were present on the 1st of August at a session of the Royal Academy of Belgium, were speaking, before the session was opened, of the serious events which were approaching, the war already declared between Austria and Serbia, and the conflict which appeared imminent between Germany, France, Russia, and England. Yet no one imagined that Belgium could be drawn into the conflagration. That very morning, it was related, France had officially renewed, through her Minister in Brussels, the assurance that she would faithfully abstain from violating the neutrality of Belgium (1st Grey Book, No. 15); and there was[30] no reason to doubt his words. A few days earlier the German Minister in Brussels had affirmed that his country had too much respect for international conventions to permit herself to transgress them; and we believed him too! Oh, simplicity! We still believed him, on the following day, when he repeated the same declaration (1st Grey Book, No. 19; Belg. All., p. 7). And on the evening of that Sunday, the 2nd of August, he presented to our Government the ultimatum of Germany (1st Grey Book, No. 20).

The Ultimatum.

The telegram of the 2nd of August, by which Herr von Jagow sent the ultimatum to the German Minister in Brussels, declared: "Please forward this Note to the Belgian Government, in a strictly official communication, at eight o'clock this evening, and demand therefrom a definite reply in the course of twelve hours, that is, at eight o'clock to-morrow morning" (Lüttich, p. 4). Never, since Belgium's birth, had a problem so breathless been placed before her Government. And Germany left her twelve hours to solve it: twelve hours of the night! She was not willing that our Government should have time to reflect at leisure; she hoped that in a crisis of distraction Belgium, taken at a disadvantage and forgetful of her dignity, would accept the inacceptable.

However, the German Minister in Brussels continued to offer us explanations which were as perfidious as they were confused and obscure, and to assure us up to the last of the friendly intentions[31] of his Government. The Germany fashioned by Bismarck has assuredly nothing about it to remind us of the Germany of Goethe and Fichte. We might have guessed as much, for that matter, when we saw the Germans glorifying the man who boasted of having falsified the famous Ems telegram in order to make the war of 1870 inevitable, and who succeeded in making his countrymen accept, as a guiding principle, that "might comes before right."

The Speech of the Chancellor in the Reichstag.

However, we may suppose that some slight scruples lingered in the recesses of the German conscience, since on the very day when the Chancellor of the Empire told the British Ambassador in Berlin that an international convention is merely "a scrap of paper,"[6] and that neutrality is only a word, he recognized, in his speech to the Reichstag, that the invasion of Belgium constituted an injustice; but he immediately excused this violation of the law of nations by strategic necessities.

"Strategic necessities!" said the German Chancellor. These necessities are expounded in the ultimatum, and may be summed up thus: "Germany knows that France is preparing to attack her through Belgium."

[32]

The first question which occurs to us is: Was France really preparing to cross our territory, and had she massed troops near our frontier? There is assuredly no one outside Germany who would admit this. Indeed, if important bodies of troops had been massed in the north of France they could effectually have opposed the advance of the Germans through Belgium. Now in all the battles which the French fought in our country their numbers were much too small to resist the Germans. Let us also remark that these attempts on the part of the French were made on the 15th August at Dinant, the 19th August at Perwez, and the 23rd August at Semois. How then can any one believe that the French were massed close to our frontier as early as 3rd August? Moreover, the map published in the N.R.C. of the 16th December, 1914, confirms the untruthfulness of the German allegations.

This "strategic reason" was again invoked by the Chancellor of the Empire on the 4th August. But owing to the irrefutable manner in which the tardiness of the French movements disproved this assertion the latter is no longer uttered, save in an evasive manner. The German no longer says: "France was ready to cross into Belgium," but "France would not have failed to enter Belgium, and we simply outstripped her." It is thus that Count Bernstoff, the German ambassador to Washington, expressed himself in the interview published by L'Indépendant in September 1914, while the same assertion is found in the manifesto of the ninety-three German "Intellectuals" and the letter addressed by Herr Max Bewer to M. Maeterlinck (in the D.G.A. of October 1914 and the Soldatenpost of the 14th October, 1914).

[33]

Let us now ask if Germany had such suspicions of France as amounted to a semi-certitude? In other words, was she sincere in declaring that she knew that France was on the point of invading Belgium? We do not hesitate to assert that she was lying: for if she had really believed that France was ready to violate our neutrality it would have been enormously to her advantage to wait until the violation was committed. For Belgium has always asserted that in case of war between France and Germany she would resist by arms the first invader and immediately join herself to the other Power. Now Germany, however profound her political perversity may be, had no reason to suspect the sincerity of Belgium; she knew then—and this time she did know—that by allowing the French to enter our country she would assure herself of the assistance of our army against her enemy. And scanty as was her esteem for the Belgian soldiers—perhaps she has since had occasion to change her mind!—it was none the less obviously to her interest to avoid having them as her adversaries.

For the rest, we may boldly assert that the very terms of the German ultimatum prove, without possible doubt, that she did not believe in the danger of a French irruption into Belgium. For if she had entertained this conviction she would have said to Belgium: "I warn you that if you do not take the necessary measures to resist the entrance of the French I shall be fully authorized to invade your territory in my turn, in order to defend myself." In acting thus she would have had the right on her side ... and the German diplomatists of the day are certainly capable of distinguishing justice from injustice in cases where the distinction is so easy.

[34]

We say, therefore, that the imminence of a French attack upon Belgium was only a pretext and a bugbear; a pretext to justify the violation of Belgium in the eyes of other nations; a bugbear to catch votes of credit in the Reichstag without previous discussion. "We were not able to wait for this session before commencing hostilities and invading Luxemburg, perhaps even Belgium," declared the Chancellor. Observe how clumsy is this "perhaps"; the German troops entered Belgium on the night of the 3rd of August (1st Grey Book, No. 35), and on the afternoon of the 4th, at the session of the Reichstag, the Chancellor had no knowledge of it! We thought the official telegraph service worked better than that in Germany!

What, then, were the real reasons for invading our country? They were strategic reasons, it is true, but not those which the Chancellor indicated in his speech! They had been known for a long time; the German staff had always regarded a sudden attack upon France as an unavoidable necessity, and for that it was necessary at all costs to cross Belgium. Moreover, on the very day when the Chancellor was still invoking the French preparations in the Reichstag, the Secretary of State, von Jagow, openly avowed the true motive for violating Belgium. The pamphlet of propaganda, Die Wahrheit über den Krieg, after invoking, without insisting on, the danger of a French attack, described at length the German plan of campaign; a sudden attack upon France, delivered by passing through Belgium; then, immediately after victory, a change of front, and the crushing of the Russian Army.[35] The same idea is expounded in an infinity of articles and pamphlets.

There can, therefore, be no remaining doubt as to the determining motives of Germany: she wished to pass through Belgium in order to fall upon France before the latter was ready. Germany had been preparing for war for several days, for she knew that she had made the war inevitable, while France, deceived by her adversary's peaceful professions of faith, and, moreover, anxious to preserve the peace, which she still believed to be possible, had hardly commenced her mobilization. Let us recall the comparison drawn by Mr. Lloyd George in his speech at the City Temple on the 11th November, 1914. "Imagine," he said, "that your right-hand neighbour came and made you the following proposal: 'See, my friend, I've got to cut the throat of your left-hand neighbour. Only as his door is barred I can't catch him unawares, and so I shall lose my advantage over him. So you will do me a little service; nothing that isn't entirely reasonable, as you will see. You will just let me come through your garden; if I trample down your borders a little I'll have them raked and put in good order again; and if by ill-luck I damage or kill one of your children I promise you a nice little indemnity.'"

And it is because we would not help Germany in this task that she has spattered us with insults. The Germans cannot understand how we could have rejected her "well-intentioned" proposal, as the Emperor calls it in his declaration of war. Evidently they have ideas of honour which differ from ours. We can regard this proposal only as an insult to the Belgian people.

[36]

There is one circumstance which aggravates the evil deed which has soiled the German name. It is the insistence with which the Press and the politicians of Germany seek to cast the blame on Belgium herself. For if we are to believe them it was Belgium who began.

Necessity of influencing Neutrals.

When the German rulers discovered, to their utter stupefaction, real or feigned, that America and the other neutral States did not benevolently accept the strategical excuse for the violation of Belgian neutrality, their attitude underwent a sudden modification. Since the whole world, in a spontaneous impulse of indignation, branded the conduct of Germany, the traitor and perjurer, in assailing a nation which she was actually under an obligation to protect, the German Government adopted the classic procedure of evildoers, which consists in reversing the rôles, and posing as an innocent victim, driven into a corner by an adversary who does not abide by legitimate methods of defence. What was to be done in such a case? The German Government must seem to believe, and then claim to have proved, that Belgium had already violated her own neutrality before the German invasion; for then Germany could no longer be blamed for her attitude.

Absurdity of the first Accusations.

Immediately the German newspapers invented stories of French troops disentraining in Belgium from the 30th July, 1914, and of French officers teaching us how to handle Krupp guns!—of French[37] airmen flying over Belgium, of French and Belgian soldiers attacking the Landwehr at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 2nd August, 1914. These pitiful accusations were demolished by M. Waxweiler in La Belge Neutre et Loyale. We will content ourselves with remarking that all these infractions of neutrality are anterior to the 4th of August. If they had really been committed the innumerable spies scattered about Belgium would have warned the German Minister in Brussels, who would have telegraphed to the Chancellor, and the latter would have taken good care to make them the basis of a serious complaint against Belgium in his speech to the Reichstag. What weight would not these revelations have lent to his arguments? If he did not do thus it was because he was not informed, and if he was not informed it was because the facts were non-existent. They were invented—very clumsily, moreover—after the event.

If now we cast a glance at the tales which the Germans have imagined to extenuate their crime against justice, we shall say, with a certain professor of Utrecht (K.Z., 4th November, first morning edition), that one might with difficulty have pardoned the German rulers for violating Belgian neutrality if it had been proved that imperious strategic necessities compelled them to it, but that they should have stuck to their original declarations, "for," he adds, "we have been painfully impressed by all the offences which have been alleged after the event to demonstrate that Germany had the right to act as she did."

To insult and calumniate an innocent person in order to excuse oneself is an attitude little worthy of a self-respecting nation.

[38]

A Change of Tactics. The Revelations of the N.A.Z.

Week by week the German journals add an item to the indictment of Belgium. One would say that their method of reasoning must be as follows: "Since we cannot bring forward a single convincing proof, let us accumulate as many as possible of any degree of value; we shall end by crushing Belgium with the weight of evidence." In order that we might judge of the efficacy of this procedure, Germany ought, of course, to tell us how many bad arguments are to her thinking worth one good one.

Yet it was extremely important that Germany should be able to bring forward proof of the crime of Belgium; for directly the neutrals, and in particular America, began to doubt our political honesty they would withdraw their sympathies and leave our executioners full liberty of action. At the same time Germany would be able to pretend that she knew of Belgium's intrigues, and that by invading our territory in spite of treaties she was not, properly speaking, committing a treacherous act.

There are reasons for supposing that Germany herself was conscious of the insufficiency of these accusations. Hence the change of tactics which we observe after the month of October 1914.

The Government itself entered into the lists. In its official organ, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, it commented upon the documents discovered in the Ministries of Brussels.

To judge of the relevance of this collection of documents we must keep in mind the two following points: (1) That England played the part of protector of Belgian neutrality; (2) the probability of a German[39] invasion in case of war between France and Germany. Let us rapidly examine these.

1. England as the Guarantor of Belgian Neutrality.—Every one knows that for centuries England has been interested, more than any other nation, in ensuring that Belgium should not be annexed either to France or to Prussia.

As far back as 1677, says Sorel (L'Europe et la Révolution française, vol. i. p. 338), a French agent in London wrote to Louvois: "It has been voted unanimously by the Lower Chamber that the English will sell their very shirts (this is the phrase they use) to make war on France for the preservation of the Low Countries." During the French Revolution, and later, under the Empire, the struggle between England and France was largely provoked by the desire to turn France out of Belgium.

The Treaty of London (1839) makes no distinction between the five guarantors of our neutrality: Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia; but it is none the less unanimously admitted that England has the most immediate interest in the preservation of our independence, as it matters greatly to England that Antwerp—that loaded pistol aimed at the heart of England, as Napoleon used to say—should become neither French nor German.

Therefore, as soon as Belgium was threatened by an armed invasion, the traditional policy of England was at once invoked.

It was in virtue of this policy that Great Britain, in 1870, demanded of France and Germany whether they engaged themselves to maintain the neutrality of Belgium. The two belligerents gave and kept their promise. France, driven up against the[40] Belgium frontier at Sedan, did not even then consider that she had the right to break her word; she preferred to allow herself to be crushed. If ever there were "strategic reasons" which would excuse the breaking of a promise, it was then!

All this being so, no one was surprised when in August 1914 the newspapers announced that England had put the usual question to France and Germany. This time again France made the reply inspired by her sense of honour; Germany refused to commit herself.

The historical facts which we have recalled suffice to show that the protective rôle of England was not invented for the needs of the moment, as Germany would have the world believe. The Chancellor cannot be ignorant of these facts; they are known to all. Why then does he persist in asserting that England would not have intervened had France been the country to violate our neutrality?

2. The danger of a German Invasion.—For several years German generals have been agreed in admitting the necessity of marching the German army across Belgium in case of war with France.[7] In military circles this was a secret de polichinelle, as the N.R.C. remarked on the 22nd December, 1914 (evening edition).

Moreover, the Germans themselves held that the Belgians could not have been ignorant of the threat of a German invasion; this idea is expounded, notably, in a booklet of official aspect, entitled La part de la culpabilité de l'Angleterre dans la guerre mondiale.

[41]

Belgium therefore had serious reasons for expecting a German attack. There was evidently only one thing for her to do: to demand assistance of the country which had constituted itself the protector of her neutrality, and on which she had always been accustomed to rely with unshakable confidence.

Falsification of the Greindl Report.

On the 14th October, 1914, the German Government posted on the walls of Brussels a placard entitled: England and Belgium (Documents found at the headquarters of the Belgian Staff). A reproduction of this placard was distributed gratuitously, thousands of copies being issued the same day. This document contains, first, a rapid summary of a report on the relations which existed in 1906 between the Belgian Chief of Staff and the British military attaché. Then the placard reproduces, "word for word," a portion of a report made by M. Greindl, dated the 23rd December, 1911. In this report M. Greindl warns the Belgian Government of the possibility of a French attack.

Whosoever will attentively read the exhibited portion of this report will at once remark that its phrases lack connection and logical sequence. Thus, there is certainly a hiatus between the opening phrases and those that begin with: "When it became evident that we should not allow ourselves to be alarmed by the pretended danger of closing the Scheldt, the plan was not abandoned, but[42] modified, in the sense that the English army of assistance would not be disembarked on the Belgian coast, but in the nearer French ports." Now what is meant by this "pretended danger"? Pretended by whom? And then "we should not allow ourselves to be alarmed." Who is "we?" Remark that a few lines farther on the report speaks of the eventuality of a battle between the Belgian army and the British army; Belgium, which was just now the ally of the British, is now their adversary, although nothing indicates how she passed from the first attitude to the second. In the same sentence the closing of the Scheldt is spoken of with an English landing on the Belgian coast; yet we cannot imagine M. Greindl placing Antwerp on the Belgian coast. Can we doubt after this that phrases have been suppressed in this portion of the document? Evidently not; for it is radically impossible to realize the bearing and the meaning of the report by reading the portion published. What, then, is the conclusion forced upon us? It is that the German Government has "cooked" the text; omitting to copy certain passages which would not tally with the deductions which it wished to draw from it, and that it has perhaps even twisted the meaning of certain phrases.

The publication of the complete report was demanded by the Belgian Government (see K.Z., 24th October, first morning edition). But Germany refused; the report was too long, it replied, by the medium of the N.A.Z. (25th November, 1914). All that could be obtained was the publication in facsimile, in the same issue of the N.A.Z., of the heading and the two first lines. Since the German Government did not publish the rest, we have the[43] right to conclude that this was because it had subjected the document to falsifications such as were introduced in that we are now about to consider. In any case, the report as it was published means nothing. One feels that it was intentionally made confusing. By whom?

The falsifications inserted in these documents by the German diplomatists have already been lucidly exposed (for example, by E. Brunets, Calomnies Allemandes); so there would be no need to return to the subject, had not the German Government thought fit to attempt to use these documents in order to demoralize the Belgians.

At the end of December 1914, and in January 1915, Germany distributed hundreds of thousands of copies of a pamphlet containing several documents, among which were translations (into Flemish and French) and facsimiles of the Ducarne and Jungbluth reports. The famous words of the "reference" are replaced in their natural position in the middle of the fourth paragraph,[8] but—and this was a wholly unexpected discovery—they were also found in the commentary. According to the copy in the text, one reads: "The document bears on the margin: 'The entrance of the English into Belgium would take place only after the violation of our neutrality by Germany.'"

[44]

Disconcerting fecundity of Kultur! The Germans have reason to be proud of their chemical industry. Thanks to a special fertilizer prepared in the offices of Wilhelmstrasse, the famous phrase, which occurs only once in the original document, is promptly multiplied and is able to appear twice over.

The Attitude of the Belgians toward the German Falsifications.

Note that to give more weight to their explanations the Germans were careful to have them printed in Flemish and in French, on the paper and with the type habitually employed by the Moniteur belge. It is then, in the last resort, the Belgian public which has paid the cost of printing this falsification of a public document. Well, well! they have mistaken our psychology, for despite these "revelations" our conviction is unshaken. Not a Belgian has criticized the actions of his Government in respect of the defensive agreement with England. It would be like blaming a man whose house was destroyed by fire for having insured it with a reliable insurance company.

Confronted by the failure of their endeavours to discourage the Belgians and to embroil them with their legitimate Government, Germany returned to the charge. A placard dated 10th March, 1915, posted in Brussels, stated that the Belgian statesmen replied to the publication of the Ducarne and Jungbluth reports only after the lapse of three months. The placard evidently alludes to the Belgian Note of the 13th January, 1915 (see the 2nd Grey Book, No. 101). Now the first sentence of this Note states that the Belgians had already replied on the 4th December, 1914. Germany could not have been unaware of this reply; let us add[45] that we ourselves knew of it on the 10th December, thanks to the issue for the 7th of L'Indépendance Belge (appearing in London), which was smuggled into Brussels.

The third document contained in the pamphlet of the German Government related to the military geographical manuals.[9] It shows that a final collaboration (after the violation of her engagements by Germany) was carefully devised by the British and Belgian staffs. Truly it ill becomes the Germans, so proud of the introduction of their scientific method into the art of war, which leaves nothing unthought of, to reproach others for acting in the same way, and for making meticulous preparations at an opportune time! In two places the article insists on the fact that the preparations of these manuals was effected in "time of peace." But come! should the Belgians and the British have waited until the Germans were in Belgium before thinking of measures of defence?

Finally, the pamphlet contains Fresh and Serious Proofs demonstrating the complicity of Belgium and England. Documents were found on the escritoire of the British Legation in Brussels relating to the Belgian mobilization, the defence of Antwerp, and the French mobilization. The accusation is this: these documents were found in the British Legation, a proof that the Belgian Government had no military secrets from the British Government, and that they had a close military understanding.

[46]

Once again: was Belgium, aware of the Germanic peril, to deliver herself bound hand and foot to the invader, who, not content with forgetting his international obligations, was about to run precisely counter to them? It would evidently have been more agreeable to Germany to have found in Belgium a lamb all ready to allow itself to be sacrificed on the altar of Kultur. Unhappily for Kultur, Belgium behaved like an enraged ram, determined to sell its life dearly.

Whatever aspect of the question of Belgian neutrality we may consider, we always come back to this fact: Germany violated this neutrality on the 4th August, although Belgium had given her no plausible excuse for doing so. Since then the Germans have undertaken a campaign for the purpose of justifying their "injustice," as their Chancellor termed it. But none of the accusations invented after the event can in the slightest degree extenuate this injustice; their only effect has been to render still more execrable the treachery of the perjured protector.

Neutral Opinion.

It is pleasant, in this connection, to cite here the opinion of four writers belonging to countries which have not taken part in the war.

A Dutch writer published in De Amsterdammer an interesting article which was translated into French, but of which the sale in Belgium was immediately prohibited by the Germans.

In a lecture which has achieved a very great celebrity, Herr Karl Spitteler, a well-known literary man of German-speaking Switzerland, also took the[47] part of Belgium. We know of this lecture only by the slashing which it received in the K.Z. on the 30th December, in the first morning edition.

Here is a passage which particularly infuriated the German paper:—

"I consider that to take the documents from the pockets of the gasping victim (Belgium) is, as to the spirit which inspired the act, a gross fault of taste. It would have been quite enough to throttle the victim; to blacken him afterwards is too much. As for Switzerland, if it associated itself with these calumnies against Belgium, it would commit not merely an infamy, but a mistake; for on the day when another Power grudges us our national existence, the same accusations might be employed against us: do not let us forget that malice is now counted among the munitions of war."

Another Swiss writer, M. Philippe Godet, expresses his opinions with no less energy in the Journal de Genève (8th September, 1914).

The Falsification of M. de l'Escaille's Letter.

In the preceding pages we have dealt only with matters relating to Belgium. Do not let our attitude be misunderstood. We have not the presumption to suppose that Belgium has ever occupied the foreground in the negotiations described; on the contrary, we are perfectly well aware of the diplomatic insignificance of our country in the discordant "Concert of Europe" which has ended in the present war. Our sole object is to show that Belgium has not played the unavowable rôle which the Germans attributed to her. As to the origin of this war, and the responsibility which the German rulers seek to foist upon Great Britain, in order that[48] their own country, and, above all, their ally, Austria, may evade it, this is a discussion into which we do not wish to enter, for it lies outside the programme which we have set ourselves. We ought, however, to speak a word as to the placards which the German authorities had posted up in Belgium during the month of September 1914. The first is dated the 16th September; it gives the résumé of a letter written by M. B. de l'Escaille to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Ten days later a new placard appeared: this time the complete text of the letter was given, and it was explained how it came to fall into the hands of the Germans.

Let us leave this last point: it concerns the criminal law, not diplomacy. Let us examine only the summary which was published and the conclusions which the Germans drew from it.

Was the summary honest? To discover this let us take the essential sentence, printed in heavier type: "They possess even the definite assurance that England will come to the assistance of France"; and let us compare this with the corresponding passage of the text: "To-day they are strongly convinced in St. Petersburg, they even have the assurance, that England will support France." The term "assistance" (secouer) in the summary can apply only to military assistance, while the text speaks only of "support" (soutien), which means diplomatic action. So the second conclusion also is false—"that England did not intervene in the war on account of Belgium, but because she had promised France to give her assistance."

Let us now look at the first conclusion. It is "that Germany was actuated by pacific intentions,[49] and sought by all means to avoid war." In reality the text, like the summary, states only that Germany sought to avoid a general conflict, which means that she wished to localize the war between Austria and Serbia; in other words, Germany wished Europe to give Austria a free hand to crush Serbia. Nowhere does the text say that Germany did anything to avoid "the war": the only war which was declared on the 30th July, that of Austria against Serbia. In short, this conclusion is falsified.

There remains the phrase which introduces the two conclusions: "By this report of the diplomatic representative of Belgium at the Court of St. Petersburg it is proved".... Was M. de l'Escaille really the diplomatic representative of Belgium in St. Petersburg? Open an administrative almanack, and you will see that the representative was M. le Comte Conrad de Buisseret-Steenbecque de Blarenghien. As for M. de l'Escaille, he was Secretary of Legation.

The conclusions concluding here, there is no room for further falsifications.

It is not our intention to make an exhaustive examination of the diplomatic documents relating to the war; the more so as this examination has been conducted in masterly fashion by MM. Dürckheim and Denis, by M. Waxweiler, and by the author of J'Accuse. It is enough for us to prove that Germany has intentionally falsified documents, since this simple proof disposes of all her attempts to befoul Belgium; for he who has a good argument at his disposal is not so foolish as to spoil it and deprive it of all real value by means of falsifications.

[50]

The three Successive Proposals of Wilhelm II to Belgium.

Under its dry, cold, diplomatic phrasing the reply to the ultimatum (1st Grey Book, No. 22) scarcely conceals the indignation which thrilled the heart of Belgium when Wilhelm II offered her the chance of associating herself with his crime against loyalty. But the German Government did not understand this indignation, neither was it conscious of its own infamy. Otherwise how could it have repeated the same offer a few days later—an offer at once contemptible and full of contempt, as was so well said by M. Jules Destrée before the meeting of the Federation of Advocates, on the 3rd August, 1914. Two remarks on the subject of this fresh proposal (1st Grey Book, No. 60). In the first place the United States Minister in Belgium, who was entrusted with the German interests, refused to transmit it; as for the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, he accepted the mission "without enthusiasm." In the second place, when the Emperor affirmed, on the 9th August, that the fortress of Liége had been taken by assault, he must have known that the fortress was still resisting; for although the city of Liége was occupied by the Germans from the 7th, the forts were intact. Let us remember that the first fort which fell was that of Barchon, on the 8th August, 1914; that of Évegnée fell on the 11th, that of Fléron on the 14th, that of Loncin, commanded by General Leman, fell only at 5 p.m. on the 15th: and several forts were at that time still holding out.

[51]

German diplomacy naturally received a fresh indignant refusal (1st Grey Book, No. 23).

Even then official Germany, dazzled by the brilliance of its Kultur, had not yet grasped the full baseness of its crime, since on the 10th September it posted up in Brussels its new proposal and Belgium's reply.

Could candour in perfidy go any farther? Yes! for the German Government, during the siege of Antwerp, made proposals of peace for the third time. This offer was secret. The terms have not been published; even the Germanic Press sought to deny that it had been made; but the avowal appeared in a Viennese newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, and was reproduced by order of the German authorities in La Belgique (Brussels, 13th January, 1915).

Hostilities preceding the Declaration of War.

So the Emperor Wilhelm II did not succeed in making us his accomplices. Needless to say, we did not tremble before the two bogies which are given so large a place in his harangues: his store of dry powder and his newly-whetted sabre.

And so the sovereign of the formidable German Empire declared war upon tiny Belgium. "He would find himself, to his keenest regret, obliged to execute, if need be by force of arms, the measures of security set forth as indispensable," as the declaration of war expressed it (1st Grey Book, No. 27). This declaration reached Brussels at 7 a.m. on the 4th of August. But, apparently unknown to the Emperor, the German troops, before the telegram had reached Belgium, had crossed the frontier during the night of the 3rd.

[52]

We have just seen that the declaration of war reached Brussels on the 4th August, at seven o'clock in the morning. This, at least, is what we learn from the official documents published by Belgium. What does official Germany say upon this point? Nothing. Nowhere is any mention made of the declaration of war, and it is this intentional vagueness which allows the Germans to declare, without blushing, that the German troops entered Belgium on the night of the 3rd August. They let it be supposed that the state of war existed from the moment when Belgium, on the 3rd, refused the German ultimatum. Thus the Chronik des Deutschen Krieges (p. 33) gives the text of the ultimatum; then, in two lines, a summary of the reply. The first document which follows relating to Belgium is the proclamation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Meuse (6th Report, I).

This is very vague as to the political relations between the two countries: are they at war, or are they not? No one could say. Of the declaration of war, which should have found a place here, not a word; there is no further question of Belgium before the telegrams of the 7th August (p. 84).

When we say that the declaration of war is not mentioned in any German publication, we are going too far. Die Wahrheit über den Krieg ("die Wahrheit!") speaks of the declaration of war; but only to say that Belgium declared war (p. 40): Belgiën antwortete darauf mit der Kriegserklärung.[10]

[53]

The same publication appends some documents; No. 41 (p. 160) is a reproduction of the ultimatum. One would naturally expect that No. 42 would be either Belgium's reply or the declaration of war. By no means; these two documents are not given. Any one who reads the text and hopes thereby to learn "die Wahrheit" concerning the war will be no better informed by the documents. Let us in passing remark that the German Government, in the White Book published for the session of the Reichstag of the 4th August, had also, by its own admission, made a selection among the documents which it submitted to the members of Parliament. This procedure is no doubt a logical consequence of Kultur.

The Pacific Character of Belgium.

Nearly all the nations of Europe cherish national animosities, racial hatreds handed down from century to century, the heritage of conflicts never pacified, which a mere nothing suffices to renew; or the survival of oppressions and spoliations suffered of old by men's forbears, whose abhorred memory is transmitted like a sacred trust from generation to generation. And in all these countries, moreover, there is a chauvinist, a jingo party, which urges a "war of revenge against the hereditary enemy." In Belgium, as Mr. Asquith stated in his speech in Dublin, there was nothing of the kind. We had no spite against any one, and our people, laborious and peaceful, only asked to be allowed to live in friendship with its neighbours. Never had there been in Belgium any manifestation against a foreign country; never had a political party inscribed in its programme any sort of hostility towards another people. Who, then, will be persuaded that "the Belgian Government had for a long time been carefully preparing for this war,"[11] as the Emperor Wilhelm II asserted in his telegram to the President of the United States (in which he also stated that his heart was bleeding!)? No, there is no possible doubt on this point: Belgium brought into the conflict no racial enmity,[12] and if she has found herself thrown into the furnace, despite her constant love of peace, it is solely because her haughty neighbour confronted her with this dilemma: either peace with dishonour, or honour with war. The choice was not in doubt.

[54]

German Espionage in Belgium.

It is idle to insist on the accusation of premeditation, for it is unhappily too certain that Belgium was is no way ready for war. But it is also incontestable that Germany had "for a long time carefully prepared for" the invasion of Belgium. We cannot as yet reveal in detail the facts as to German espionage, with its often odious methods, for in most cases these revelations would expose those who have informed us to reprisals. We must for the present be intentionally vague, reserving preciser details for a later date.

When the occupation comes to an end we shall report in detail the case of a German engineer, who, in returning to us with the rank of officer, presided over the systematic destruction by fire of the workshop which he had managed; and the case of another engineer, who commanded the gang ordered to set fire to the quarter adjoining the factory in which he had been employed. Thanks to his knowledge of the locality, he was able in a few seconds to [55]set fire to the richest streets of the neighbourhood. We shall be able to mark on a map the foundations of reinforced concrete for the great German guns, constructed long in advance, in the localities most favourable to bombardment; we shall also point to the store of timber intended to serve for the construction of a bridge over the Scheldt, which was found in a factory established by Germans on the banks of the river. As for the store of Mauser rifles discovered at Liége, our newspapers spoke of that at the time.

Here is a fact which can be related without danger. A German officer dropped from his pocket—we shall state later on in what locality—a detailed plan of the town of Soignies, in which his troops had lodged a few days earlier. This plan gives, besides the details of streets, and even houses, information concerning the occupants of certain buildings: pharmacies, breweries, tanneries, the Communal treasury, the bank, and other establishments where the army might need to make requisitions. The large buildings are coloured blue. It was there that the troops were lodged. This plan, drawn in Chinese ink and coloured, dates from fifteen years back according to the indications which it contains. But it has quite recently been revised and completed, for the latest alterations in the town have been added in pencil; improvement of the Senne, creation of a public square, etc.

The case related by the N.R.C. of 19th August (evening) is particularly instructive. When the Germans occupied Liége and Seraing the Cockerill workshops naturally refused to work for them, since the Germans wished them to make munitions for them. The German Colonel Keppel then assumed[56] the direction of the works, promising the workers an increased salary of 50 per cent. And this officer did not blush to sign his proclamation: "Attaché of the German Government at the Liége Exposition." He had consequently profited by his privileged situation in Belgium in order to make himself familiar with the organization of the Cockerill works. But it must be supposed that matters were too difficult for him, for Herren Koester and Noske (Kriegsfahrten, p. 21) assert that he had to abandon the position.

The Mentality of the German Soldiers at the beginning of the Campaign.

Until the very last moment our enemies deluded themselves as to the loyalty of the Belgians: they still hoped that the latter would only resist as a matter of form. This idea is openly expressed in the Chancellor's speech of the 2nd December; it is also implicitly contained in the proclamation of General von Emmich (see 6th Report, I). The officers and soldiers who crossed the frontier at the beginning of the war were quite bewildered by the unforeseen resistance of the Belgian Army; this is what the German prisoners interned at Bruges tell their relatives; they even go so far as to deplore having to fight a neutral country.

Letters from German Prisoners of War.

We hear from Belgium:—

The correspondence of the German prisoners of war (to the number of about two thousand) who, at the beginning of the war, were interned in the barracks of the Bruges Lancers, has passed almost entirely through our hands.

All say they are well treated. Some even hope[57] that the Belgian prisoners in Germany will be as well treated as they. One wounded soldier in a Bruges hospital relates that the Belgians treat the German wounded like brothers; another speaks only of his "Belgian comrades"! The good food served to them seems to make a great impression. Most of them say, "We have enough to eat"; or even, "We have food in abundance." Only one complains of "beer without flavour and bad wine"; but another says with much simplicity: "The people here are very kind to us, for we have enough to eat and drink." The word for is amusing....

The letters of the officers are quite different. No more joy because their lives are safe. The war absorbs them entirely. They are warriors at heart and the struggle interests them passionately. They know nothing of what is happening, or rather they are not told what is happening, and they want to know ... to know, and it is painful to hear in each letter the same question: what news? The forced inactivity becomes a torture. Boredom presses on them: they are discouraged and greatly disillusioned; they had hoped to pass very rapidly across Belgium (it must be remembered that at this time the war was only beginning, that Brussels was not yet occupied, and that the letters date from this period).

The attack upon Belgium does not seem to please a great many of them. "We have attacked a neutral country," says a medical officer, "and we shall now have to suffer the eventual consequences."

"When we got out of the train," says another, "we received the order to fight against Belgium, a thing which is to me and to all highly antipathetic. But what is commanded has to be executed."

[58]

"The attack on Belgium was from the first a shameful thing."

"We violated Belgium before any declaration of war had been made"!

All the letters show how little the resistance of Liége was expected. Many say: "Of all our company, of our battalion, of our regiment, there are left only so many or so many men." One relates how in a few minutes his colonel, his major, the captains, and nearly all the lieutenants were mown down by the balls. "We are all mightily deluded," admits another; "we were too confident; we thought the Belgians were disheartened"! "The Belgians fight like lions," says another.

German Lies respecting the Occupation of Liége.

It is the truth, although the news is partly from a German source, that the Germans entered Belgium on the night of the 3rd of August; they crossed the frontier near Gemmenich at two o'clock in the morning, and the following night (of the 4th of August) they were already attempting an attack upon Liége. But the official telegrams from Berlin have never mentioned this date. To make it believed that the capture of Liége was extremely rapid and that the German army had met with no serious resistance, the staff pruned the siege of Liége at both ends; it made the operation commence on the 5th August instead of the 4th, and declared that it was already completed by the 7th August.

We could not give a more precise idea of the manner in which the Government and its "reptile Press" deceives public opinion than by reproducing two telegrams relating to the fall of Liége. On the 7th of August, having reported the entrance of the[59] troops into Belgium on the previous day, the telegrams announced the capture of the fortress of Liége.[13] Note this: the capture of the fortress (Festung). Now the Germans had merely occupied the town of Liége, a town absolutely open, without ramparts or defences of any kind. They themselves were forced to own, on the 10th, that the forts had not been captured; but they added that the guns were no longer firing, which was false (p. 50).

However, it was necessary to prevent the bad effect which would be produced on the population by foreign communiqués announcing that the German army was continuing to besiege Liége after taking it. After the complete success announced on the 7th the task was, in fact, rather difficult. How was it to be effected?

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(a) Discredit might be thrown on news coming from abroad, for example, by "demonstrating" its untruthfulness. Der Lügenfeldzug gives on p. 19 the announcement of the taking of Liége, and on the following page the Havas telegram stating that Liége is not taken. What will the superficial reader conclude if he does not take the trouble to dissect the telegrams? That the Allies are shameless liars, going to the length of denying the obvious. But examine the dates: Liége was taken, according to the Germans, on the 7th August, at 8 a.m., while the Allies declare that Liége is not taken—on the 6th! And to think that the book which perpetrates this trickery is entitled Der Lügenfeldzug unserer Feinde ("Our Enemies' Campaign of Lies")! and that it undertakes the mission of calling attention to the lies and calumnies of the enemy in order to correct them!

(b) To establish confusion between the city and the fortress. As early as the 7th August the false newsmongers were rejoicing over the taking of the fortress, intentionally confusing the city and the fortified place, so that the reader of these communiqués no longer knows what to think, and naturally accepts the official news of his own country.

The sudden Attack upon France is checked.

To understand how completely it was in Germany's interest to create the belief that Liége was taken in two days by a small body of troops, we must remember that the object of the Germans was[61] to traverse Belgium as rapidly as possible, in order to crush the French and capture Paris. The author of J'accuse reports the remark of old Marshal von Haeseler, who proposed to celebrate in Paris the anniversary of Sedan—on the 2nd September, 1914. We ourselves copied a charcoal inscription written on the front of a house burned down at Battice, making an appointment in Paris for the 2nd September with a certain regiment of artillery.

Now this sudden march was completely spoiled and the German plan of campaign undone by the unexpected resistance of the Belgians, first at Liége, then at Hesbays. This loss of a few days was fatal to Germany, and Germany bears us malice on that account.

The Disinterested Behaviour of Belgium.

One last point as to the violation of our neutrality.

The Germans now pretend to pity the poor Belgians, who allowed themselves to be fooled by England as much as by their King and Government, and who, by their credulity, brought the war upon themselves. But what am I saying?—the German Government assures the world that we ourselves desired the war. Official Germany has become incapable of conceiving that a people should remain faithful to its international obligations, and if need be sacrifice itself for them.

"Why," our adversaries ask us, "did you not accept the proposals of Germany? You would have profited by them." And indeed our eastern neighbours offered us £200,000 as the price of our complicity (F. Bettix, Der Krieg).

It would be very interesting to know on what data Germany calculates the value of a nation's[62] honour; in any case, we may assure her that no one in the world would be so simple as to offer so great a sum for hers.

For the rest, as far as we Belgians are concerned our interest has never entered into our calculations. It was not in order to profit by it that we resisted Germany; it was because we judged that such was our obligation as an honest nation. And yet, as the Minister, M. Carton de Wiart, remarked, at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, on the 20th December, 1914, we had, even then, the vision of our country ravaged by the Prussian hordes; but even to-day, after suffering such terrible atrocities, there is not a Belgian "who would change his poverty for the profits of a bandit."

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Under the pretext that France was making ready to attack her, Germany hastened to invade Belgium and Luxemburg. But France was not preparing to invade the Rhine provinces of Prussia, and this pretended threat of aggression was merely a trick, intended to frighten Parliament, and to obtain a vote approving the actions of the Ministry and giving it carte blanche. The manœuvre completely succeeded; the Government received a unanimous vote, in spite of the Chancellor's admission: "We are committing an injustice, and we are violating the law of nations; but when one is driven into a corner as we are, all means are good."

We discovered immediately, alas! what these words meant. Hardly had the German soldiers crossed the frontier, when they began to burn and massacre.

Murders committed by the Germans from the outset.

On the very day of the invasion—the 4th August—a motor-car carrying four German officers arrived at Herve, and then pulled up. One of the officers demanded information of a youth of sixteen, one Dechêne; the latter did not understand, or perhaps[64] refused to reply (which was his right, and even his duty towards his country); we do not know, but in any case the officer shot him with his revolver.

On the 4th of August, too, the Germans shot peaceful citizens at Visé, when the 2nd battalion of the 12th regiment of the line, under Major Collyns, had the audacity to resist them. Of course they pretended that the civilians took part in the fighting. A few days later they burned the church and the greater part of the town.

One sees plainly from these, and too many other examples, what was the object of our enemies: (a) They wished to terrorize the population, in order to make them more amenable to requisitions and demands of all kinds; (b) they wished to make their own troops believe that in fighting the Belgians—which they at first did with great unwillingness—they were merely defending themselves against treacherous attacks; (c) they wished to multiply opportunities of pillage; (d) finally, perhaps, they reckoned that by displaying to the Belgian Government the horrors to which its first refusal had exposed the country, they would induce it to reconsider its position and could obtain from it a free passage.

Were there any "Francs-tireurs"?

It would be impossible at this moment to state that the Belgians never, at any point of the frontier, fired upon the invaders. Let us remark, moreover, that if they did they would have been, from the purely human point of view, perfectly excusable.[14] [65]What! here is Germany, who, pretending to be in a state of legitimate defence, falls unawares upon an inoffensive third party! And this third party had no right to oppose force to violence! In all logic, was it not Belgium that was in a state of legitimate defence; was it not for Belgium that all means were good? And notice, please, that it was not against an imagined and imaginary menace that we were defending ourselves: the Germans had most undeniably invaded Belgium. Would it have been astonishing if the Belgians, exasperated by this unspeakable aggression, had seized their rifles? In sane justice, one could not regard such action as a grievance; on the contrary. Does this mean that we believe in the story of civilians attacking the German army? Most certainly not; because we know from reliable sources that in every case where it has been possible to hold an inquiry, this inquiry has shown that the "francs-tireurs" were merely the pretext; the real motive for all the devastation and massacre was the desire to terrorize the population. It is, therefore, in a fashion entirely theoretical, and with the most express reserves, that we admit, in default of opportunity to investigate, in each case, the affirmations of our enemies, that in some cases, certainly extremely rare, isolated civilians, or small groups of civilians, may have been taken with arms in their hands. But our enemies will please admit also that the attitude of these civilians would have been amply excused by the more than brutal fashion in which the Germans behaved from the very first moments of the war. Let us add that when one erects terror into a system, as the Germans do, one should understand the defensive reflexes of the victims.

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What were the rights of our enemies in these exceptional cases? They could, as they themselves proclaim, have shot the individual offenders, and, for once in a way, have burned their houses. But nothing in the world could justify the executions en masse and the wholesale burnings to which the Germans surrendered themselves.

The Obsession of the "Franc-tireur" in the German Army.

One point at first remained obscure to us in the German "reprisals": how did the German officers induce their men to commit this horrible carnage? Very simply: their minds were worked upon beforehand; they were crammed with legends of francs-tireurs dating from the war of 1870-71, and were made to believe that the Belgian population was revoltingly brutal. So as soon as they set foot on our territory they expected to be attacked by civilians, and, very naturally, prepared to sell their lives dearly.

Nothing is more typical in this respect than the collection of soldiers' letters published for the edification of the German nation in Der Deutsche Krieg in Feldpostbriefen.—I. Lüttich, Namur, Antwerpen. In more than half is there mention of "francs-tireurs"; but scarcely ever does the writer speak of having himself seen them. Read, for example, the first letter (that is No. 2 in the volume, for Letter No. 1 is not a soldier's letter). The writer, an officer, asserts that during the attack on the forts[67] of Liége, on the night of the 6th of August, the night was so dark that it was impossible to distinguish friends from enemies, and that the Germans were firing on one another. Nevertheless, as they were fired on, and as they saw three men running, they immediately shot them as "francs-tireurs." During this same night their baggage-column having been surprised (he does not say by whom), a village was burned and the inhabitants were shot.

The whole mentality of the German soldier in respect of civilians is reflected in this letter; it is so dark that the Germans fire on one another, but that does not prevent them from recognizing that those attacking them are "francs-tireurs," even though their men are "falling en masse," which excludes all idea of francs-tireurs.

Francs-tireurs! From the very first days of the war it is a fixed idea, an obsession, engendered by previous reading and conversation, and carefully nourished by the leaders.

The Obsession of the "Franc-tireur" in the Literature of the War.

Francs-tireurs! This idea invades the whole of their contemporary literature. All the books on the campaign in Belgium and France swarm with tales of this kind. Let us add that the authors do not assert that they themselves have seen the attacks of the "francs-tireurs." But they have been told of them, and they hasten to repeat the story without the slightest means of verification.

Thus, in Kriegsfahrten, by Herren Koester and Noske, there is mention of "francs-tireurs" on pages 10, 12, 13, 20, and 22; and they return to the subject in the last chapter (p. 113).

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Herr Fedor von Zobeltitz, in Kriegsfahrten eines Johanniters, also constantly heard mention of attacks by Belgian civilians: at Tirlemont (p. 39), at Louvain (pp. 39, 53, 54, 91), at Malines (p. 49), at Eppeghem (p. 86), and in Antwerp (p. 154).

The volume entitled Die Eroberung Belgiëns is full of stories of the same sort. Thus, of thirty-eight illustrations, which are neither maps nor portraits, ten are devoted to the attacks of Belgian civilians.

It is interesting to compare the tales of people who have not been present in the battles fought in Belgium, and who speak only from hearsay, with the narrative of Herr Otto von Gottberg, Als Adjutant durch Frankreich und Belgiën. He took part in September in the battles which accompanied the siege of Antwerp. Nowhere did he see francs-tireurs. Yet he by no means loves the Belgian civilians, and he certainly would have been tremendously pleased to shoot down a few. Read, for example, what he says of the provocative attitude of the people of Brussels, and above all of the women of Brussels (p. 55), and of passing through the streets of Lebbeke (near Termonde), where his soldiers proposed to fall upon the inhabitants who scowled at them (p. 65). However, he says, he did not burn a single house (p. 67). We may remark that Herr Gottberg's companions showed themselves less amiable, or at least equitable, than he, for the "reprisals" against Lebbeke were particularly atrocious (see 9th Report). It is, however, highly improbable that the inhabitants would have deprived themselves of the pleasure of firing on the little patrol led by Herr Gottberg, afterwards to take up arms against troops which were much more numerous. However it may be, the legend of the "francs-tireurs" of Lebbeke was[69] willingly accepted by Herren Koester and Noske (Kriegsfahrten).

The Obsession of the "Franc-tireur" in Literature and Art.

The obsession of the "franc-tireur" is also found outside the limits of military literature properly so-called. Herr Bredt has just published a book on Le caractère du peuple belge révélé par l'art belge. The illegal attacks of the Belgian population upon the regular German troops, he says, were not in the least surprising to those who were acquainted with the productions of Belgian art.

It would be difficult to surpass, in this respect, an article which appeared in the January number of Kunst und Künstler. It gives the reproduction of an engraving by Callot: a camp in which musketeers are putting to death condemned men bound to stakes. "Execution of francs-tireurs," says the legend in German. That there should be a question of "francs-tireurs" in the time of Callot, who died in 1635, may in itself seem somewhat strange. But the engraver has taken care to inscribe, under his work, some lines describing the scene which it represents, which may be translated as follows:—

It is enough to read this legend to realize that they are traitors who are being punished; but the German mind of to-day is so steeped in the idea of "francs-tireurs" that the artists no longer understand[70] what their predecessors wrote, and, like the soldiers, they see francs-tireurs everywhere.

Responsibility of the Leaders.

But it is above all the great massacres of Andenne, Tamines, Dinant, Termonde, Aerschot, Louvain, and Luxemburg, which are for ever inexcusable, and will remain, an eternal disgrace, as a stain upon the German flag. Their appetite whetted by the atrocities committed during the first days of the invasion, the soldiers themselves invented or simulated attacks of "francs-tireurs," in order to have the pleasure of afterwards repressing them, killing, pillaging, and burning entire cities. Let us say, to be just, that not the soldiers but their leaders will bear, before the bar of history, the responsibility of this revival of the monstrosities of barbarism. Is it not obvious that in an army as highly disciplined as the German, an army in which the officers drive their men into battle under the threat of their revolvers, and in which the soldiers obey such injunctions, such deliberately prepared tragedies as that of Louvain are possible only with the complicity of the officers, or rather by their orders? How else can we conceive that soldiers would post themselves in a garden and thence fire their rifles into the streets? (N.R.C., 10th September, 1914, evening edition). And it is not the subaltern officers that we have to call to account for these butcheries, but the generals, such as Baron von Bissing, since become Governor-General of Belgium, who counsels the soldiery to show themselves pitiless, and not to allow themselves to be swayed by any humanitarian consideration, for compassion would be an act of treason (compare p. 336). The soldiers are advised[71] that it is permissible for them "to make the innocent suffer with the guilty" (p. 84); that they may hang, without further ceremony, those who have committed the crime of being found present, for whatever reason, in a house where munitions or arms have been found (p. 335); and also those who have attempted to escape while they were being held as hostages (p. 151). The previous Governor-General of Belgium announced that soldiers need not be sure whether suspects are accessories or not, but that "if any hostility is displayed towards them they may raze a city to the ground." Such is the fate that General von Bülow promised the city of Brussels. The same general thought it incumbent upon him officially to inform the people of Brussels, Liége, and Namur that it was with his consent that the town of Andenne was burned, and about one hundred persons shot (6th Report, IV).

By these proclamations and others equally sanguinary the military authorities wished to influence both the Germans and the Belgians. The former were absolved beforehand of the horrors they committed, and were assured of impunity for all the "reprisals" they might be pleased to undertake. Moreover, they were kept in perpetual horror of "francs-tireurs." Are they assailed unexpectedly by soldiers of the enemy's army? They fall back without assuring themselves of what has really happened, and return with the main body of the army to expend their rage against the "francs-tireurs." This is what took place at Tamines where more than four hundred citizens were shot down by rifle or machine-gun fire, and also in a dozen villages of Bas-Luxembourg, which were razed to the ground, and in which a thousand inhabitants were shot.

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Animosity toward the Clergy.

The military chiefs bear an especial grudge against the clergy. In the manifestoes against "francs-tireurs" the priests are specially mentioned, which amounts to recommending them quite specially to the savagery of the troops. The latter are convinced that the priests incite their flocks from the pulpit, and that they place machine-guns in the belfries. So, in the sack of a village, the worst treatment is always reserved for the priests and the churches.

The pastoral letter of His Excellency Cardinal Mercier gives a list of forty-three priests shot or executed.[15]

There is no ignominy the troops have not inflicted on the priests. A few examples among hundreds will suffice.

They forced members of the Louvain clergy to lie naked in the dung of a pig-sty.

The curé of Pont-Brûlé was beaten, by order of the German soldiery, by his own parishioners.

The January number of Kunst und Künstler gives a drawing representing a curé hanging from a tree.

At Cortemarck it was the priests who were punished because an inhabitant was in communication with the enemy (read, "the Belgians").

On the 30th August, 1914, the Germans arrested the dean and vicar of a village in Brabant, under the pretext that they had made luminous signals from the church tower. Now the priests had been prisoners since 2.0 o'clock of the afternoon; how then could they have ascended the tower at 5.30 p.m.? Despite their protestations they were taken to Louvain, whence a so-called Council of War sent them to Germany. Arriving in a prisoners' camp, they were accommodated in the latrines, which consisted of a trench and a plank perforated with holes. Each time a German soldier had to satisfy his need, he took the opportunity of insulting the priests in the most filthy manner. A German major sent for them and informed them that they were about to be shot. The vicar asked that he might confess. "No," he was told, "hell is good enough for you." They were led away to die ... but were sent to a seminary, where they remained prisoners until January 1915.

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Animosity toward Churches.

Against the churches their rage was unloosed with even greater fury. In the part of Brabant that lies north of Vilvorde there is hardly a belfry left erect: Beyghem, Capelle-au-Bois, Haecht, Humbeek, Pont-Brûlé, Sempst, Eppeghem, Houtem, Weerde, Hofstade, Elewijt, Werchter, Boortmeerbeek, etc., are all burned.

At Termonde all the churches have been either burned or profaned. But in the midst of this city, where twelve hundred houses were burned out of fourteen hundred, the Béguinage remained intact, an oasis of calm isolated amid the calcined ruins. On the grassy plain that surrounds the bright little houses of the béguines stood the chapel. This did not find favour with the Germans, and its blackened walls attest that Kultur has passed that way. Were the béguines perhaps "francs-tireurs"?

We have already stated that the peculiar irritation of the Germans against the clergy and their sanctuaries was due to the fact that they regarded the[74] curés as the leaders of the "francs-tireurs." The falsity of this allegation was recognized by Dr. Julius Bachem, the editor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung, one of the most prominent Catholic newspapers in Germany. Dr. Bachem published, in the issue for April 1915 of the Süddeutsche Monatshefte, which was principally devoted to Belgium, an article on the religious problem in Belgium. He based his proofs on the authority of Baron von Bissing, Commandant of the 7th Army Corps, at present Governor-General in Belgium, and also on the special inquiry undertaken by the Union of the Catholic Priests of the Rhine, Pax. This inquiry, mostly conducted with the aid of the present military authorities in Belgium, proved that the clergy was absolutely innocent, and that all the accusations brought against it were purely imaginary.[16]

The Emperor did not wait for the confirmation of the crimes attributed to the priests before making violent accusations against them in his telegram to the President of the United States. He has not retracted these.

Intentional Insufficiency of Preliminary Inquiries.

Never was there the least justification for reprisals. Read the Reports of the Commission of Inquiry, and the narratives of ocular witnesses, and you will find that the most horrible things are continually done without any pains being taken to verify the facts. Soldiers greedy for pillage say, without justification, Die Civilisten haben geschossen; and that is enough. The order is given to kill the men and reduce the neighbourhood to ashes. Or shots have really been fired on the Germans; the civilians are suddenly accused, and without listening to the unhappy prisoners, who offer to prove that the shots were fired by Belgian or Allied soldiers, the Germans proceed to execution.

[75]

A very typical case is that of Charleroi. We knew that French troops were still occupying the town when the Germans entered. But these last immediately accused the civilians, since, they said, shots were fired from the interior of the houses, as though their adversaries had not the right, quite as much as they, to take cover in the buildings. Moreover, when they later were confronted with the proof that the French were there, they merely remarked that the latter's mission was to organize and to discipline the civic guards and "francs-tireurs"[17] (see Heymel's article, p. 196). Could one imagine a finer example of preconceived opinion?

M. Waxwieler insists emphatically on the unspeakable frivolity with which the Germans carry out "reprisals." He cites notably the case of Linsmeau (p. 256) and that of Francorchamps (p. 270). As this is an essential point, I may perhaps be permitted to relate a few more cases.

On entering Wépion on the 23rd August the Germans pretended that the citizens had fired on them, and they shot, then and there, six of them, among whom were the two younger Bouchats. Now those who had fired were Belgian soldiers armed with machine-guns, who were covering the retreat of the Belgian troops. A moment's reflection would have enabled the Germans to realize their error, since civilians obviously had no machine-guns at their disposal. While they were being led to their death, one of the Bouchats begged a glass of water of their mother. But the Germans refused to allow it to be given him: "It's not worth the trouble now," they said.

[76]

In August 1914 a French patrol and a German patrol came into collision at Sibret (Belgian Luxembourg) and exchanged shots; they then retired, leaving a wounded German on the ground. Two inhabitants of Sibret carried the wounded man toward an ambulance; the clerk to the Justice de Paix of Bouillon, M. Rozier, accompanied them. He was carrying the rifle slung over his shoulder and the soldier's knapsack in his hand. A German patrol came up and questioned M. Rozier, telling him, no doubt, to raise his hands or throw down his rifle. As neither M. Rozier nor any of his companions understood German, and were unable to comply with the order, the Germans fired on M. Rozier, killing him.

Every time it has been possible to obtain any kind of inquiry from the Germans it has resulted in their confusion; at Huy the bullets found in the bodies of Germans were German bullets; the General was forced to stop the burning of the village; he even admitted that a mistake had been made.

An example of another kind, also taken from the N.R.C., is equally characteristic. During the night a German soldier fired a rifle-shot, no one knew why, in a village of Western Flanders. Great alarm immediately. "The village is going to be burned!" But before they had time to get to work an important[77] piece of evidence, the empty cartridge-case, proved that it was really a German soldier who fired. However, if by chance this blessed cartridge-case had not come to hand the village would have burned. Too often, alas! the German army does not trouble to postpone the reprisals awhile ... and the houses are in ashes before the falsity of the accusations has been proved. It is to be remarked, indeed, that it is never the Germans who prove the truth of their allegations, but the Belgians who have to prove the Germans in error. It is justice reversed.

It is easy to understand that a non-lieu does not please the German authorities. In fact, their object is not to render justice but to terrorize the population; and if it were necessary to examine the bona-fides of their accusations they would not be able to exercise "reprisals," which would not suit them at all!

If the accusations had really been justified by the attacks of "francs-tireurs" the Germans would have taken care to establish their existence irrefutably. For we must not forget that according to Article 3 of the Hague Convention they ought to indemnify us for all the burnings and massacres commanded by them.

A "Show" Inquiry.

They know, however, how contrary these summary executions are to the spirit of justice, and they sometimes attempt to lay a false trail. Read, for example, the chapter devoted by Dr. Sven Hedin to the "francs-tireurs." The great Swedish geographer, of whose wonderful Asiatic journeys every one has heard, made a tour along the Western front. He therefore visited the occupied portion of France[78] and Belgium, and wrote an enthusiastic book on the German Army, Ein Volk in Waffen. In the course of this work, he describes the manner in which an inquiry is held into the circumstances of an attack by "francs-tireurs." Everything is done as regularly as possible, and the affair ends in an acquittal. Was the tribunal authentic, or was it merely a parody?[18] It matters little; the essential thing for us is that it was desired to prove to Dr. Hedin that the Germans are not barbarians, and that they observe the forms of justice even while on campaign.

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Mentality of an Officer charged with the Repression of "Francs-tireurs."

Let us now compare with the account of Dr. Hedin that of a German officer entrusted with the repression of "francs-tireurs." Captain Paul Oskar Höcker gives a few curious details in his interesting book, An der Spitze meiner Kompagnie. He had to clear of "francs-tireurs" a portion of the territory comprised between the German frontier and the Meuse. His mission consisted in this: to present himself at houses, to ask if there were arms, and in case of a reply in the negative, to search the house; if arms were discovered the householder was shot on the spot; in case of resistance the house was burned (p. 83). The first farm he visits is Jungbush, near Moresnet; the inhabitants assure him they have no arms. They are told that if they are hiding one rifle they will be punished with death; they repeat that they have none. And now the soldiers bring up a boy of fifteen who was hiding under the straw with a Belgian rifle and five cartridges. He is shot without further inquiry (p. 26). It is permissible to ask whether it would not have been juster and more humane to have looked into the matter a little more closely. The remainder of the book instructs us as to the psychology of Captain Höcker. At the house of the vicar of Thimister, where he passed the first night in Belgium, his bedroom door did not lock, and this was enough to make him shake with fear (p. 29). On the following morning he had a pigeon shot, which he suspected of being a carrier of despatches to "francs-tireurs"; "and in truth," he says, "the pigeon bore a stamp on the left wing" (p. 30). This proof is perhaps somewhat slender in a country where all pigeons which take part in matches have a mark of this kind. He confiscates all the small-arms and parts of arms in the establishments of the innumerable armourers of the district, and smashes everything in their workshops. On one such occasion he burns a house whose owner does not consent with good grace to the destruction of his plant (p. 30). On the same day he finds that all the houses from which shots were fired have been burned; in his satisfaction he does not even ask himself whether those who fired were soldiers or civilians (p. 31). Neither has he a word of reprobation for the fury which the Germans display against Belgium: Belgium, forced to take the side of the Allies when her territory was violated by Germany. He reaches Visé at the moment of its burning; he accepts immediately the legend according to which the bridge has been destroyed by "francs-tireurs"[80] (p. 34). According to him, the Belgians of good society do not become soldiers; he is convinced that substitution is still in force with us, and that for 1,600 francs (£64) one can escape from one's military obligations (p. 39). To him, therefore, all civilians appear cowards, and he is not surprised to see them become "sneaking francs-tireurs." When he passes through the streets of Louvain he listens to the story that Germans have that very day been fired upon (p. 47). Further on he admits without hesitation that the German soldiers taken prisoners before Liége must have expected to be shot by the Belgians (p. 71).

We do not question the sincerity of Captain Höcker. But why was so credulous and so suggestible a person selected to search out and punish "francs-tireurs"? Assuredly because it was desired that "reprisals" should be carried out without previous discussion, and by some one whose conscience should, nevertheless, be at rest.

Drunkenness in the German Army.

We have just seen that massacres very frequently took place without any pretext having been brought forward to excuse them. In nearly all cases alcoholism was the cause of these, for the German soldiers, and above all the officers, are scandalously addicted to drink.

The first thing requisitioned by the officers is always wine, by hundreds of bottles at a time.

Turn over a collection of German illustrated papers: every time a meeting of officers is photographed there are bottles and glasses on the table. At the ambulance installed in the Palais de Justice of Brussels the military surgeons have not been[81] ashamed to steal the wine of the wounded men, wine offered by the citizens of Brussels. The general and his staff who installed themselves on the 21st August, 1914, in the Palais Royal of Laeken levied such vast contributions on the cellars of the Palais that on the following morning an officer was found, in the costume of Adam, dead-drunk in front of a bath which he had not had the strength to enter. When they left the Palais they took with them many hampers of wine, and a few days later they had a search made for further hampers of the vintages which were their preference. The cellars were soon empty.

They were drunken soldiers who provoked the burning of Huy, the assassinations at Canne (N.R.C., 23rd August, 1914, morning edition), and in part at least the massacres of Louvain. When they occupied Gand the police had to collect them, dead-drunk, on the very first morning; they had already begun to fire revolver-shots.

It was after a tavern brawl between drunken soldiers that the burning of a portion of Tongres was decreed (N.R.C., 22nd August, 1914, morning edition). In Brussels, on the 28th September, 1914, some drunken soldiers in a German cabaret situated in the Rue de la Grande Ile, were firing rifle-shots to amuse themselves; bullets lodged in the house-fronts opposite. The officer whom some one went to fetch that he might witness this misbehaviour believed that an attack was being delivered by "francs-tireurs," and, trembling like a leaf, refused to go thither. The N.R.C., 28th January, 1915 (morning edition) states that a young girl of Eelen was arrested as a "franc-tireur" because rifle-shots had been fired by drunken soldiers.

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Let us add that drunkenness might have had harmless consequences if the authorities had not exerted themselves to make the troops believe that every unexpected shot is necessarily fired by a "franc-tireur," and that so black a crime can only be paid for by a general massacre accompanied by the burning of the village concerned.

There is only one fashion of explaining the horrors committed by the Germans: it is to admit that they are modelled beforehand according to a carefully devised system of intimidation: the systematic inhumanity of their treatment of the enemy population being intended to facilitate other military operations.

Cruelties necessary according to German Theories.

Compare, for example, the laws of war according to the German Great General Staff[19] with the stipulations of the Hague Convention. As the last is based on humanitarian considerations and seeks to lighten the scourge of war for non-combatants, so the Germans systematically refuse to make war less cruel; on the contrary, they start with the principle that the more terrible the war the more swiftly and surely will its object be attained. Read the chapter, "The Object of War," and you will be edified. Even jurists like Baer, blinded by warlike passions, dare to maintain that all must yield to military necessities, including—what blasphemy!—the law of nations. The characteristic theory that war should be "absolute" and barbarous is the idea underlying the manifesto of von Bissing which has already been cited (p. 70). In fewer words Hindenburg says the same thing[20] (p. 206). So that Belgium might realize the fate that awaited her the German authorities made haste to advertise their opinion. It is true that they have since then posted up reassuring phrases as to the humanitarian sentiments of the German Army for the moment. Had our butchers renounced their attempts at terrorization?

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Terrorization: "Reprisals" as a "Preventive."

According to this hypothesis, that the great "reprisals" undertaken at the outset of the war would serve as examples, the Germans wished to instil terror into the very marrow of our bones, so that they might then be able to rule us with a small garrison of Landsturm. Reflect, for example, that Brussels, an agglomeration of 700,000 souls, has never had a garrison of more than 5,000 men, and has often had only 1,000.

Such a calculation is so abominable, so fundamentally inhuman, that we shrank from the harshness of this supposition, and accepted it with all manner of reservations.[21] Well, our hesitation was futile. In an article whose frankness is calculated to make one's hair stand on end, Captain Walter Blöm, adjutant to the Governor-General, published in the officially-inspired Kölnische Zeitung of the 10th February, 1915, the confirmation of that which we hardly dared to imagine. Here are his exact words:—

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"The principle according to which the whole community must be punished for the fault of a single individual is justified by the theory of terrorization. The innocent must suffer with the guilty; if the latter are unknown the innocent must even be punished in their place; and note that the punishment is applied not because a misdeed has been committed, but in order that no more shall be committed. To burn a neighbourhood, shoot hostages, decimate a population which has taken up arms against the army—all this is far less a reprisal than the sounding of a note of warning for the territory not yet occupied. Do not doubt it: it was as a note of warning that Battice, Herve, Louvain, and Dinant were burned. The burnings and bloodshed of the opening of the war showed the great cities of Belgium how perilous it was for them to attack the small garrisons which we were able to leave there. No one will believe that Brussels, where we are to-day as though in our own home, would have allowed us to do as we liked if the inhabitants had not trembled before our vengeance, and if they did not continue to tremble. War is not a social diversion."

Any commentary would weaken the force of these declarations.

Incendiary Material.

We are not in the confidence of the German Staff, and we can only form hypotheses as to its mentality.[85] But here are two facts, easy to verify and interpret, which show that the atrocities were committed with premeditation.

Firstly, the existence of various incendiary materials. When a town is condemned to be burned the execution of the command is confided to a special company of the engineers. (The carnet of an officer of an "incendiary company" was picked up in a commune of Hainaut.) Generally a first squad breaks the windows and shutters; a second pours naphtha into the houses by means of special pumps, "incendiary pumps"; then comes the third squad, which throws the "incendiary bombs." These last are of many different kinds. Those most commonly employed in Brabant and Hainaut include discs of gelatinous nitro-cellulose, which jump in all directions. Thanks to the inflammable vapours which fill the houses, the latter catch fire on all their floors simultaneously. It took only half an hour to set fire to the Boulevard Audent at Charleroi.

No one can suppose that so perfect an organization was improvised during the campaign. Moreover, where and how could the discs of fulminating cotton have been procured?

At Termonde the Germans probably employed cylinders of naphtha. At all events one can still see, in houses which did not catch fire, holes made in the ceilings and floors, into which holes long strips of linen are introduced to serve as wicks. The Germans sprinkled them with naphtha, and it was enough to put a match to such a wick in order to set fire to the joists of the floor overhead. At Termonde 1,200 houses were burned in a single day.

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The Two Great Periods of Massacre.

We discover, then, that the great destructive operations were conducted according to a general plan. Let us place in chronological order the most important of the massacres and the conflagrations, that is, those which could not have been carried out except by order of the officers, omitting, therefore, the killings in detail and the burning of farms and isolated houses, attributable, no doubt, to soldiers acting on their own initiative, or to small bands greedy for pillage. What do we see? That apart from the atrocities which marked the outset of the campaign, the majority of the great killings and burnings, in France as well as in Belgium, were ordered during two periods: one from the 19th to the 27th August, and one from the 2nd to the 12th September, 1914. Now it is quite certain that in a country already occupied, and deprived of means of communication, the "francs-tireurs" could not possibly have agreed among themselves as to the moment of their attacks. The only people who could transmit an order were the Germans; and the legitimate conclusion which one forms from this lamentable list is that the pretended attacks of francs-tireurs were elaborated in Berlin, whence they were ordered by telegraph to break out on a given date.

Another interesting fact revealed by a chronological list is that the so-called attacks of "francs-tireurs" very often do not coincide with the entrance of the Germans into a given locality, but break out a few days later. One might at a pinch understand that poachers, or impulsive individuals, might fire a rifle at a patrol; but it is wholly improbable that they[87] would make their attempt at a moment when they were already impressed by the formidable warlike equipment of our enemies. This is so contrary to common sense that the Germans try to get out of it by lying. Let us cite a case. They assert that on Tuesday the 25th August, 1914, there was in Louvain only a weak garrison of Landsturm, and that the civil population profited by this circumstance to attempt an attack, which could only be repressed by incendiarism and massacre. Now the people of Louvain had been warned that very morning that 10,000 men were to arrive during the day, and that many houses which had not yet billeted soldiers would do so the following night. And, indeed, that afternoon several fresh regiments were seen to enter, notably the 53rd, 72nd, and 7th Hussars.

When, by exception, the Germans assert that the "francs-tireurs" have attacked a column on the march, one almost always remarks the three following points: (1) the attack takes place while a village is being traversed; (2) it happens when a great part of the column has already passed, so that the "francs-tireurs" are caught between two fires; (3) the "francs-tireurs" are concealed in the houses. A moment's reflection suffices to show that these are precisely the most unfavourable circumstances which civilians could choose for their attack.

Protective Inscriptions.

All this shows that we have not to deal with acts of indiscipline, which are, God knows, the inevitable accompaniment of any war, yet which are almost excusable. We have here a maturely considered system, prepared at the Great General Headquarters, and then frigidly applied. In other words, the[88] "reprisals against francs-tireurs" form part of the plan of campaign of the German army. If additional proof were needed that they are disciplined cruelties, as the Minister of State, M. Emile Vandervelde, remarks, it would be found in the inscriptions and placards placed upon property which is to be respected.

Besides the inscription which says simply that the house must not be burned save with the authorization of the Kommandantur (at Louvain, after the great fires of the 25th and 27th August, nearly all the houses which were spared received one of these placards), there are others giving the reasons for the protection accorded to the building. Here are some of these reasons: the inhabitants are respectable (gute) people; they have German sympathies; they have already given the troops all they possessed; they are protected by the Legation; an officer knows them personally. The fact that with very few exceptions these houses escaped disaster well demonstrates the strength of German discipline. It is by no means astonishing, therefore, that in the localities which are still intact the inhabitants should have taken precautions; thus, there have been houses in Brussels which were provided with a protective inscription. Other buildings have been marked on a plan (N.R.C., 14th September, 1914, evening edition). This reminds one of the tenth plague of Egypt and the sign which the Jews had to place upon the lintel of their dwelling, that the Lord might recognize it. When the Lord passed, He spared the marked houses (Exodus xii. 7, 22). In the German plague which has settled upon our poor country, the Destroying Angel has the aspect of an officer with a single eye-glass.

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Accusations against the Belgian Government.

What makes the German accusations against the "francs-tireurs" particularly serious is, firstly, the terrifying, infernal nature of the punishments which follow these accusations; and secondly, the fact that they involve our constituted authorities.[22] "The Belgian Government has openly[23] encouraged the civil population to take part in this war," says one whose word has weight in Germany, for he is none other than the Emperor in person. And he did not content himself with telegraphing this to America; he spread this impudent assertion over the walls of our cities (p. 208). Had he at least the excuse of believing what he said? Most certainly not; for years he had been informed by his spies of the details of our military organization; he knew, then, perfectly, what Belgium was or was not doing.

At the time the first accusations of this kind were made the Belgian authorities had informed Germany that, conformably with the laws of war, they were fighting only with their regular troops (2nd Grey Book, Nos. 68, 69, 71). And they posted everywhere proclamations recommending the people to keep calm, forbidding civilians to take part in the fighting, and counselling the citizens to deliver their arms to the communal administrations (2nd Grey Book, No. 71). At the same time the principal daily papers repeated, day by day, on the first page and in large type, the text of these placards.

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These appeals were heard, and our compatriots, if they owned rifles, immediately took their arms to the maisons communales. Would you believe it, this measure of precaution was exploited against us! For later, when the Germans occupied our hôtels de ville, and discovered the presence of rifles, each ticketed with its owner's name, they pretended to have brought to light a proof of premeditation (N.R.C., 4th September, 1914, evening edition): "Look!—say the officers—with what care the Belgian authorities have prepared for the guerilla war! Each citizen has his rifle ready to hand at the hôtel de ville!" The soldiers must indeed have been ridden by the "fixed idea" of the "franc-tireur," or they must have realized the poltroonery of such suggestions!

But the Germans made assertions much more extravagant than this. In Belgium repairs to buildings are effected with the assistance of scaffoldings suspended against the outer walls; and at the time of building the house openings are left immediately under the cornice, in which the cross-beams supporting the scaffolding are fixed when required. These openings are closed outwardly by some sort of decorative motive. Now, a German captain gives a detailed description of these arrangements, and arrives at the conclusion that these are loopholes for francs-tireurs!

What a mentality for an officer! So fantastic an explanation evidently will not bear a moment's reflection;[91] but that matters nothing; it is none the less reprinted by the work Die Wahrheit über den Krieg, to be served to the Germans remaining in the country. The authors of the statement know that their compatriots have lost the critical sense and that they are ready to accept, their eyes closed, and their minds also, anything that is told them.

This example shows that while inciting the soldiers in order to bring them to the required pitch of irritation, the rulers of Germany are equally concerned to create a violent current of hatred in their own country. It was necessary, in fact, since there was nothing with which the Belgian nation could be reproached, and since nevertheless they were making war upon it, to invent a few serious motives of animosity.

In a preceding chapter we examined the wretched diplomatic accusations which the Germans have forged in an attempt to compromise our political circles. We shall presently deal with the abominable accusations of cruelty brought against the Belgians. Here we will content ourselves with citing yet one more fact relating to the "francs-tireurs."

When the civil population of a locality was accused—or convicted, as the butchers said—of having borne arms against the German troops, the procedure was generally as follows: The houses were fired, and the inhabitants driven towards a public square, or into the church. They were divided into two groups: one of men, the others of women, children, and old folk. Then a certain number of men were shot; often, too, a few of the women, children, and old people. After the execution, which took place in the presence of the whole village, the women, children, and old people were set free to wander amid the[92] smoking ruins. The officers used to make it their duty to be present at these operations, as much to encourage and, at need, to assist the executioners, as to enjoy the spectacle. At Tamines they sat at table in the open, drinking champagne, while the victims were being buried. The Germans themselves realized what disgust such behaviour excited; they tried to deny the facts, but these were proved.

Treatment of Civil Prisoners.

What was done with the men not killed? They were sent into Germany in order to show the "francs-tireurs" to the people. One can easily imagine what the journey was like: in cattle-trucks, where they remained packed together for several days, without even having room to sit down; tortured by hunger and thirst to the point of losing their reason—which meant being shot there and then. The stoppages in the railway stations, when the population came to insult them, making gestures of cutting their throats ... one can picture it all. Then the life in camp, where they are even less well treated than the soldiers, for at least these latter are regarded as prisoners of war, and, in that quality, as being protected, up to a certain point, by the Hague Convention; while the "francs-tireurs" are criminals in common law, who are given, for food, scarcely anything but soup made of beet, fish-heads, and slaughter-house offal.

It is extremely difficult to obtain information as to their sojourn in Germany from those who have returned. Before leaving, it seems, they were forced to make a promise to reveal nothing, under penalty of being sent back to Germany. We know, however, that certain of these prisoners, coming from an agricultural[93] district, were forced to go down the coal-pits of Essen (N.R.C., 10th October, 1914, evening edition), while others were made to gather in the harvest in Westphalia. When they refused to go to work they were beaten with sticks; a young man on the outskirts of Brussels still bears the marks of such treatment.

This is a revival of the deeds of antiquity. The ancients also reduced the able-bodied inhabitants to slavery, employing them in agriculture or the mines. It only remains for the Germans to sell us at auction, as Julius Cæsar did in the case of the 53,000 Belgians captured at Atuatuca (De Bello Gallico, ii. 33).

They sent not only "francs-tireurs" into Germany. They made prisoners also in localities where nothing had happened. Thus they took all the inhabitants of the non-active civic guard of Tervueren. The list bore 135 names; as many of the men had left the commune, the Germans completed the number by taking the first civilians who came to hand; for they had to have 135 prisoners from Tervueren to exhibit in Germany.

On several occasions it happened, during the period of the great massacres, from the 20th to the 27th August, that bands of prisoners taken into Germany were not accepted and were sent back to Belgium. Such was the case with numerous prisoners from Louvain, who were taken back to Brussels, then taken to near Malines, and there left in the open country; the same was done with several hundreds of men, women, children, and old folk from Rotselaer, Wesemael, and Gelrode. Here, in a few words, is their Odyssey. To begin with, they were expelled from their houses, that these might be burned, on the 25th and 26th August. Then they were driven[94] by the troops as far as Louvain, and there crammed by force into cattle-trucks, which in two days conveyed them to Germany. There they were witnesses of a violent dispute of which they were the object, and finally, after they had been given a little food in the railway station, they were put back into their trucks. They reached Brussels on the 31st August, where they were restored to liberty; that is, they were told: "Get out of here, and be off with you." And there were these unhappy folk, turned out of the railway station, dejected, bewildered, their glances vacant, almost dead with drowsiness and fatigue, the men supporting the old people, the women carrying the children. The people of Brussels who saw this lamentable procession go by will never as long as they live forget the impression of misery which they received. Assistance was organized immediately, and our poor compatriots were given shelter in the various public establishments of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. They remained there several weeks before daring to return "home."

How many civil prisoners were there in the various camps of Germany: Celle, Gutersloh, Magdeburg, Münster, Salzwedel, Cassel, Senne, Soltau, etc.? The lists which have been published in Le Bruxellois are very incomplete. On the other hand, persons who were believed to be prisoners in Germany have in reality been shot. Thus, in the little garden facing the railway station of Louvain a trench was opened on the 14th and 15th January, 1915, in which were found a Belgian soldier of the 6th line regiment and twenty-six civilians of Louvain, who were believed for the most part to be in Germany; among them were two women and the curé of Herent.

Many of the people of Tintigny, Rossignol, and[95] other localities, who had been taken away as civil prisoners, were shot by the roadside. Those of Musson escaped only because the order had come from Germany not to kill any more prisoners: by July 1915 they were not as yet repatriated.

The Return of Civil Prisoners.

In November and December there returned to their "homes" (we mean to their native towns, not to their houses, which were burned) about 450 inhabitants of Dinant, more than 400 of Aerschot, and several hundred people of Louvain, of the 1,200 which had been taken away.

Many of them bore, painted in white oil paint on the back of their waistcoats the words: Kriegsgefangene-Münsterlager. Until March 1915 those living at Dinant had to present themselves regularly before the military authorities.

On the occasion of their return the communal administration of Dinant was compelled publicly to thank the Germans.

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At the end of January 1915 about 2,500 inhabitants of Brabant were sent back in a body. They had left the camps on Sunday, the 24th January, and they reached Louvain on Friday the 29th, and Brussels and Vilvorde on Saturday the 30th. During this five days' journey they had not been allowed to leave the trucks into which they were crammed; for all nourishment they received some black bread and water, and on occasion a turnip or a beet. The Louvain prisoners had the greatest trouble in the world to walk as far as the ruins of their houses. Those from beyond Assche were set down at the Gare du Nord in Brussels; they had to be carried as far as the tram for Berchem; their swollen feet refused all service. These unhappy people were still wearing the light clothes which they were wearing in August, when they were dragged from their villages, and since then they had never had a fire. Those from Tervueren were taken from the trucks at Schaerbeek; they were driven home in carts.

German Admission of the Innocence of the Civil Prisoners.

What crime had these unhappy folk committed to be treated in so terrible a fashion? None. The Germans themselves admit it; none (2nd Grey Book, No. 87). The German authorities communicated the following note to the Belgian newspapers—we copy it from the Écho de la presse internationale of the 30th January, 1915:—

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The Commander-in-Chief of the German Army is the Emperor. It was he, then, who recognized the innocence of the civil prisoners.

No charge, therefore, could be brought against them; these prisoners were recognized as being completely innocent; the authorities admitted that it was without any motive that they were kept five months in Germany, without care, without fire, almost without food, herded together like beasts, in perpetual fear of being shot, knowing nothing of their families—for they were unable for many weeks either to write or receive news. Some of them succumbed under their privations; others were shot; many have become insane; all were so aged and enfeebled by ill-treatment, methodically applied, that their neighbours hesitated to recognize them. Will they ever recover from such an experience?

No doubt the German authorities knew long ago that the deportation of these civilians was a judicial error; or rather that they were sent into Germany to give the people there the occasion to torment and insult the "francs-tireurs captured alive." And yet they were not repatriated until the moment when the fear of famine forced Germany to organize the seizure of foodstuffs and to ration her population. It was not at all because of a spirit of justice that the civil prisoners from Belgium were sent home (and also part of those from France); it was only a measure of economy; the authorities merely wished to prevent their eating German bread, which had become too precious; they preferred to place them in the care of the American charities.

And when they were at last sent home, how were they treated? Did the Germans at least show the consideration which the slave-dealers used to show[98] for their black cargo? No; for the slave-dealers had a pecuniary interest in preserving the market value of their flock, while for German militarism the Belgian civilians do not count: Es ist Krieg.

The Pretended Cruelty of Belgian Civilians toward the German Army.

In order to organize the massacres by means of which it expected to terrorize our country, the Great General Staff had to have at its disposal troops on which it could count without reserve, which would not shrink before the bloodiest task, and to which no repressive measures would seem excessive. The Staff had to be certain it would be obeyed without hesitation when it ordered, as at Dinant, the death of seven hundred men, women, and children. To obtain soldiers who would undertake such barbarous operations, and operations so contrary to the military spirit, the obsession of the "franc-tireur" would perhaps be insufficient; for there are soldiers even among such troops who are brave and who do not tremble at bogy-stories; there might be honest men among them to whom theft would be repugnant by whatever name one adorned it, and who would not be tempted by the bait of pillage; all were not so imbued with Kultur as that officer who proposed not to kill the "francs-tireurs" outright, but to wound them mortally, afterwards to leave them to die slowly, in agony, untended (p. 342).

But these soldiers, even the more gentle, would regard it as a sacred duty to avenge crimes committed against innocent persons. Let them be led to believe that the Belgians have tortured peaceable[99] tradesmen, or have mutilated wounded soldiers incapable of defending themselves, or that they employ dum-dum bullets, producing frightful wounds from which recovery is almost impossible ... and immediately these soldiers will have only one thought: to make the first Belgian encountered expiate the crime of which his fellow-countrymen have been guilty. Before their thirst for vengeance all distinctions disappear: children, old people, men and women, all equally deserve to be punished. From that moment it will be needless to order reprisals, for the army will be only too ready to show itself pitiless, and to call for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, in order to make all the Belgians indifferently pay for the offences committed upon inoffensive Germans.

Some Accusations.

It is precisely this psychology which the rulers of Germany have exploited. Immediately after the opening of the campaign their newspapers began to publish articles describing the horrors committed by the Belgians; articles which make one's flesh creep. Belgian women pour petrol over the wounded and set fire to it; they throw out of the windows the wounded confided to their care in the hospitals; they pour boiling oil over the troops, and thereby put two thousand out of action; they handle the rifle and revolver as well as the men; they cut the throats of soldiers and stone them; they cut off their ears and gouge out their eyes; they offer them cigarettes containing powder, whose explosion blinds them. Even the little girls ten years of age indulge in these horrors. The men are no better; to begin with, they are all "francs-tireurs," even when they[100] assume the appearance of respectable schoolmasters; besides which they crawl under motor-cars to kill the chauffeurs; they kill peaceable drinkers with a stab in the belly; they foully shoot an officer who is reading them a proclamation; they saw off the legs of soldiers; they finish off the wounded on the field of battle; they cut off their fingers to steal their rings; they fill letters with narcotics in order to poison those who open them; they set traps for soldiers in order to torture them at leisure; even the humanitarian symbol of the Red Cross does not stay their homicidal hands; they fire on doctors, on ambulance men, on motor-cars removing the wounded.

That the soldiers leaving for Belgium were made to believe that their adversaries were horrible barbarians, and that the troops were inspired with an ardent desire to avenge the innocent victims of the Belgians, is amply proved by all the tales dating from the beginning of the war. See, for instance, in the story of La journée de Charleroi (p. 195) the impatience with which the author awaits the moment of entering Belgium to take part in the reprisals, and his delight when he at last sees houses burned to ashes and a curé hung from a tree.

Let us note in passing that the Austrians also, desirous of declaring war upon us, resorted to the invention of "Belgian atrocities." In its reply to the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war, our Government protested against this defamation (1st Grey Book, Nos. 77, 78).

All these stories appeared, in the first place, in the newspapers. We must not be surprised if in time of[101] war, when men's minds are over-excited, the journalists willingly publish articles containing statements of the kind we have cited, without troubling to verify their authenticity. But it is unpardonable that they should have been reprinted in cold blood, when their falsity had become so obvious that it must have struck even the most prejudiced. We know of two pamphlets devoted entirely to atrocities committed by the Belgians: Die Belgischen Greueltaten and Belgische Kriegsgreuel. The work already cited, Die Wahrheit über den Krieg, also deals at length with these atrocities. Finally, there is no lack of information concerning them in the pamphlets Lüttich and Die Eroberung Belgiëns.

One remark occurs to us immediately. The narratives are based on details given by witnesses "worthy of credence." Now all verification is impossible, for we are never given a hint as to the date; moreover, the locality is very rarely mentioned; in Die Wahrheit there are only three place-names: Gemmenich, Tavigny, and Demenis.

Demenis does not exist, and we have in vain sought to discover what locality is meant. And what did really happen in the other two communes mentioned? At Tavigny the Germans never had occasion to commit any reprisals; not a man was killed, not a house burned; the troops merely proceeded systematically to loot the place. Nor did anything more happen in any neighbouring commune which the narrator might have confused with Tavigny. Nor was there any confusion of names with Tintigny; in the latter village the Germans behaved in the most atrocious fashion, but the mode of operation was quite different. As for Gemmenich, we have no information as to what passed there,[102] But we can assert that not a single house was burned there. Now it is very certain that if the Belgians had committed the atrocities of which the Germans tell, the latter would have set fire to the village; it is therefore highly probable that nothing happened there. In short, of the only three place-names given all three are incorrect.

We cannot be expected to refute all these allegations. Many are utterly ridiculous: for example, the story of the narcotics at the Liége Post Office; that of the fingers cut off the dead and wounded and then carefully preserved in a bag (one may well ask why); that of the boiling oil is no better: try to imagine the incredible store of oil that must have been possessed by the women who killed and wounded therewith 2,000 Germans; moreover, either the German army does not march down the middle of the street, or else the women had special apparatus to throw jets of boiling liquid to a distance without danger to themselves.

Let us confine ourselves to examining the legend of the gouged-out eyes. It is that which crops up most frequently under the pens of the German publicists, so well calculated is it to arouse horror and indignation in the readers. Well! its falsity appears from an inquiry made by the Germans themselves. Not only have their newspapers—notably the Kölnische Volkszeitung and Vorwärts—on several occasions done justice upon this lie, but an official commission, instituted by the German Government, has also admitted that there is not a single case in which a wounded German soldier has been intentionally blinded (see Belgian Grey Books, Nos. 107, 108).

The Germans themselves admit that the accusation[103] is unfounded. Has their Press for that reason ceased to make use of it? We little know the Germans if we imagine that it has. The entire Press continues imperturbably to spread these abominable calumnies. The Kölnische Zeitung of the 15th February (four o'clock edition), referring to an article by Étienne Girau, pastor of the Walloon community of Amsterdam, once more declares that the Belgians have ill-treated the German wounded. It is enough to make one ask whether the Belgians have not morally blinded all the "intellectuals" of Germany.

Another example. In February 1915—that is, when no honest German could any longer believe in the legend of the gouged-out eyes—Vorwärts protested against a little work by a Pastor Conrad, of which 150,000 examples were printed and sold at 8 pfennigs per copy to school-children, in which the Belgians were still accused of having blinded their prisoners (N.R.C., 12th February, morning edition).

The Berlin Government also acts as though it was ignorant of the conclusions of its own commissions of inquiry. Wishing to refuse General Leman, a prisoner in Germany, the privilege of receiving a visit from his daughter, it based its refusal on the atrocities of which German soldiers have been the victims in Belgium, and on the inhuman fashion in which the Belgians have treated the wounded and prisoners in their hands. The second accusation is as ill-founded as the first. The German soldiers taken prisoner by the Belgians were interned in Bruges; they made no complaints, far from it (pp. 56-8); as for the wounded in our hospitals, here are precise facts.

Let us quote, first of all, from the correspondence published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant,[104] giving a few details from letters written by the German wounded under treatment in Antwerp.

But we have something better than these documents of a private nature. The German authorities exhibited, at Spa, a statement that the German wounded there were perfectly well cared for. At the moment when the Germans dispensed with the collaboration of the clinical staff of the Red Cross in Brussels, they did homage to its devotion and competence.

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It is useful to observe that these declarations have been made spontaneously, since it is obvious that we were powerless to exert any pressure on the Germans. They have, therefore, nothing in common with those which the Germans have forced the Belgian wounded or prisoners to sign.

The Pretended Massacres of German Civilians.

There remain the famous massacres of Germans in Brussels, Antwerp, Liége, etc. According to witnesses "worthy of credence," inoffensive Germans, even women and children, were killed and martyred in various Belgian cities. At Liége alone more than 150 persons, of whom three-fourths were women and children, were said to have lost their lives.

As to Liége, we have inquired of inhabitants of the city, several of whom are closely connected with[107] the administration of justice; no one had any knowledge of any such occurrences. They have therefore been invented, lock, stock, and barrel, by the "witnesses worthy of credence," and we defy the Germans to mention the name of a single one of these 150 "victims."

At Antwerp we can oppose, to the testimony of those who were "present" on the occasion of murders and serious assaults upon German women, the official report, which admits that shops were broken into by the populace, but which at the same time attests that no German was wounded. Let us add that the German Weber was not assassinated, but is quietly living in Antwerp.

Let us proceed to the doings in Brussels; and let us quote, from Greueltaten, the most serious occurrences there mentioned. We have a story, based on hearsay, which tells, of course, of gouged-out eyes, as well as three reports of ocular witnesses. The first is that of a witness "worthy of credence" who saw a child thrown from a window and a woman dragged by the hair until she was insensible; he also witnessed the murder of a German druggist, one Frankenberg, who was betrayed by his own wife, a Belgian. The second witness is the correspondent of the Wolff Agency. He saw only what the people of Brussels themselves witnessed: that is, that the populace pillaged the German shops and cafés on the 4th and 5th August. But he had not been able to discover any acts of violence against the person; those he mentions, in a couple of words, without insisting on them, had been related to him; but he does not even add that the witnesses were "worthy of credence."

Finally we have a priest, who complains that he[108] was arrested as a spy and beaten by the gendarmes. Perhaps he was a spy; in any case, not a few German spies disguised as priests have been discovered in Belgium.

If we confine ourselves to the really serious occurrences, to the cases in which Germans have been killed by the populace, we find that as against some 155 anonymous cases, which cannot be verified, there are only two in which names are mentioned. These names are Weber and Frankenberg. Now these two cases are apocryphal. Herr Weber has quietly reopened his hotel in Antwerp; Herr Frankenberg continues to breathe the air at Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels. Compare with these two cases the three names of places mentioned in Die Wahrheit (p. 101).

Preventive and Repressive Measures taken by the Belgian Authorities.

The truth is that in the various cities of Belgium there was, quite at the beginning of hostilities, an intense popular effervescence, by which evildoers profited to pillage the German shops. These disturbances were so unexpected and assumed, with such rapidity, such large proportions, that the police were at first powerless to restrain them.

Moreover, it must be remembered that the police had just been reduced, a large proportion of the police agents and gendarmes having left for the front.

But measures were promptly taken, and by the 7th August there was no longer anywhere the least disorder of this kind. As for the "spy mania," it raged in Belgium as in all countries affected by the[109] war.[24] But the newspapers, and the official measures taken, got the better of this fresh cause of disturbance.

The newspapers of the neutral countries, for example the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, also reported material damage, but they do not relate more serious occurrences in any part of Belgium.

We can consequently assert, in the most categorical fashion, basing our statement on the official data furnished by the courts, that no serious offence against the person has been proved either in Brussels or elsewhere. Does this mean that we excuse the fishers in troubled waters who sacked the German shops? Obviously not; but it must be owned that there are bad elements in all agglomerations, and that the populace of Berlin behaved no better than that of Brussels: witness the remarks of the British Ambassador in Berlin, and the excuses put forward by the German authorities when his windows were broken as the result of an article in the Berliner Tageblatt. Here we immediately perceive a contrast of mentalities: the German newspapers incite their readers against foreigners, while ours, on the contrary, do their utmost to calm popular manifestations.

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A detail which we regard as symptomatic, and particularly revolting, in the German publications, is the fact that in these cases, as in the matter of the "francs-tireurs," our enemies seek to involve the legal administration of our country. Now, not only did our authorities immediately intervene to repress the disturbances and to provide a military guard for the Deutsche Bank and the Deutscher Verein in Brussels, but they did more than their strict duty in protecting German families, and enabling them to return to their own country. Nothing is more characteristic in this respect than that which happened in Brussels on the nights of the 8th, 9th and 10th of August, at the time of the Germans' departure from the city. The latter assembled at night in a building belonging to the city; in the trams which took them thither every one hastened to render them every imaginable service; at the place of assembly the Civic Guards prepared hot drinks for them; then, during the short journey to the Gare du Nord, the same Civic Guards helped them to carry their children and their luggage. Mr. Brand Whitlock, United States Minister in Brussels, who was looking after the interests of Germany, was present in that quality at the departure of the German families, and he expressed his gratitude to the Belgians in a letter made public at the time.

In Germany the United States Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, had also occasion to intervene; but there it was to protect the British Ambassador from the fury of the populace.

These examples will suffice, we think, to show that the Belgians were as thoughtful in their behaviour towards their non-combatant adversaries as the Germans were violent and brutal. And what was the result of our courtesy? Our enemies picked a groundless quarrel with us in order to inflame the minds of their soldiers against us.

Nothing would be easier than to show that our enemies have not respected a single one of the articles of the Hague Convention. But it is not our intention to draw up this inventory. We prefer to confine ourselves to a few facts which no one can dream of contesting, so patent are they and so well known to every one in Belgium. And we shall refer only to those which will enable us to compare the two mentalities: that of the German, crafty and tyrannical, and that of the Belgian population, refusing to bow the head to military despotism. We exclude from our list those data which have already been recorded in other publications: Belgian Grey Books, Reports of the Commission of Inquiry, La Belgique et L'Allemagne, etc. Lastly, we shall deal only with what has happened in Belgium itself,[112] so that we shall speak neither of prisoners of war nor of the wounded.

These eliminations lead us to omit the whole of Section I: The Belligerents. The three first articles apply to "francs-tireurs," Articles 4 to 21 relate to prisoners, the wounded, etc.

The violations of this Article are numerous. The Germans themselves cannot deny that the employment of toxic gases, such as those which were used in the attack upon Ypres on the 22nd April, falls[113] under the condemnation of paragraph (a). We shall recur to this matter further on. Let us remark for the moment that we are not speaking of gas released by the bursting of shells, but of clouds of gas intentionally produced.

As to paragraph (e), the 7th Report speaks in a precise manner of the employment of dum-dum bullets. After the German occupation we shall be able to mention other irrefutable cases, of which it would now be too dangerous to speak.

The prescriptions of paragraph (f) have often been violated. At the fort of Boncelles, on the 7th August, and at Landelies, near Charleroi, on the 22nd, our enemies abused the white flag. At Ougrée and at Grez-Doiceau they wore Belgian uniforms to deceive their enemies. This action was repeated during the siege of Antwerp; but this time the Belgians were warned of the German mimicry, so that the "asses clad in lions' skins" were nearly all left on the battle-field.

We shall deal later on, when speaking of pillage, with the infractions of paragraph (g).

Military Employment of Belgians by the Germans.

The last paragraph of Article 23 forbids belligerents to compel their adversaries to take part in operations of war directed against their own country. Let us see how the Germans respect this principle where civilians are concerned. At Liége (N.R.C., 23rd August, evening), at Vilvorde (N.R.C., 27th August, morning), at Anderlecht (N.R.C., 28th August, evening), at Dilbeek (N.R.C., 31st August, evening), at Eppeghem (see photograph in 1914 Illustré, No. 5), at Soignies, and at Neder-Over-Heembeek, the inhabitants were compelled to dig trenches for the[114] Germans. A Dutchman (an extreme Germanophile, however), saw peasants from the outskirts of Spa compelled to perform the same task.

At Bagimont, on the 24th August, 1914, the inhabitants were forced to prepare the ground for the landing of German aeroplanes. The same villagers were forced to build huts for their enemies.

We have the names (at the disposal of a commission of inquiry) of twenty-nine inhabitants of a village of Brabant, who were forced, with horses and carts, to follow the German troops for several weeks, transporting munitions and baggage. The Germans had the right to requisition horses and vehicles, but not to compel our countrymen to accompany their teams.

Let us remark, while dealing with these violations of Article 23 of the Hague Convention, that Germany signed this Convention. But on her part this was merely a comedy, for it is a rule with her rulers that they cease to follow its prescriptions as soon as they are in opposition to the Usages of War, according to the Great General Staff. Now among the duties which the occupier may impose on the inhabitants—according to Germany—is the supply of transport and the digging of trenches. In other words,[115] Germany, though she readily approved of the Hague Conference, makes war according to her own principles, which are far less humane; but she none the less demands that her adversaries should observe the rules of the Convention.

Measures of Coercion taken by the Germans.

On several occasions our enemies have sought to force the Belgian population to manufacture explosives and munitions for them. But the Belgians have always refused, even when their resistance inevitably condemned them to starvation. The workers of the explosives factory of Caulille, in the north of Limburg, resumed their tasks only under the most terrible threats (K.Z., 21st December, morning edition).

The case of Caulille, announced to its readers by a German newspaper, shows the cynicism with which our enemies violate the Hague Convention, which is in part their own work.

The same effrontery appears in the placard of the 19th November, 1914; this threatens severe penalties against Belgians who dissuade their compatriots from working for Germany. One could understand that the Germans might punish those who used force or threats to prevent any one from working for them; but to punish those who "attempt" to act by simple persuasion!

This was a mere timid beginning. On the 19th June, 1915, our enemies posted about Gand a placard stating that severe measures were about to be applied to factories which, "relying on the Hague Convention, had refused to work for the German Army."

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The Communal Administration of Gand has supplied us with the following notice:—

Here, then, they declare that they are on the point of intentionally violating the Hague Convention.

Certain articles which appeared in Het Volk, a Christian-Democratic journal of Gand, on the 15th, 17th, 19th, and 22nd June, 1915, tell us what these measures are.

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The workers of the Bekaert factory at Sweveghem having refused to make barbed wire for the Germans, the latter began by arresting three notables, of whom two were promptly released. Then, to force the men to resume work, they decided that the commune should be placed under a ban; it was forbidden to ride a bicycle or to use a wheeled vehicle, and the introduction of foodstuffs was prohibited. The men still persisted in refusing to make the barbed wire on which their sons and brothers were to be caught in the battles of the Yser. Sixty-one men were sent to prison. The rest hastened to leave the village. What did the Germans do then? They seized the wives of the fugitives, shut them up in two great waggons, and took them to Courtrai; at the same time they posted up the names of those who had fled, and enjoined them to return. Before the threat of seeing their wives remain in prison until their children perished in their empty homes, the workers, with death in their hearts, had to resume their fratricidal task. Truly Kultur is a fine thing!

In Brabant they went a different way to work. They had requested M. Cousin to make barbed wire for them in his factory at Ruysbroeck (in the south of Brussels). He refused. They offered to buy his factory. He refused. They requisitioned his works. He was forced to submit. They installed themselves in the factory and tried to begin making barbed wire. But the machinery was worked by electricity, and the electricity was provided by a central station situated in Oisquercq. Naturally the Oisquercq works refused to supply current. The Germans arrested M. Lucien Beckers, the managing director of the company, and kept him several weeks in prison.

Living Shields.

It remains to examine a final violation of Article 23; a violation so revolting that neither those present[118] at the Hague Conference nor the Germans themselves in their Kriegsbrauch had been willing to consider it. We are referring to the use of "living shields" (7th Report).

A German Admission.

Belgians placed before the Troops at Charleroi.

Our enemies are aware of the abomination of which they are guilty in placing, in front of their troops, Belgians intended to serve as a shield. They are eager to deny such acts. Unfortunately for them one of their own officers has described a case of the kind (p. 196). His first care on reaching the suburbs of Charleroi was to capture civilians in order to force them to walk in front of and among the cavalry. He waxes indignant over the lamentations uttered by the wives of these unfortunates. "If nothing happens to us," he told them, "nothing will happen to the civilians either." Could one more cynically express the idea that the Germans made use of these hostages in order to prevent their adversaries from firing on their troops? At the first volley fired by the French, who were posted behind a barricade, some of the hostages were killed. The Germans promptly replaced them by others, notably by priests.

At Nimy and Mons, the same method was employed. The burgomaster of Mons, M. Lescart, was himself placed before the German troops.

At Tirlemont, on the 18th August, 1914, during their march on Louvain, they seized upon certain "notables," including the burgomaster, M. Donny, and pushed them before them in order to obtain[119] shelter from the Belgian bullets. They did not release them until the following day, at Cumptich.

Belgians placed before the Troops at Lebbeke, Tirlemont, Mons.

More significant still was their conduct at Lebbeke, near Termonde, on the 4th September, 1914. Scarcely had they entered the village, in the early morning, when they seized as many civilians as possible—about 300—and forced them to march before them. On passing through St. Gilles-lez-Termonde they requisitioned more men to serve as "living shields." When the Belgians attacked the German troops ten civilians were killed; many were wounded (9th and 10th Reports).

The same evening the survivors were sent into Germany as "francs-tireurs."

Belgian Women placed before the Troops at Anseremme.

At Anseremme it was behind women that the Germans took refuge. They had committed the blunder of sending all the men to Germany, as civil prisoners, on the 23rd and 24th August, so that only the women were left. They placed these in a line along the river-wall on the bank of the Meuse, and prudently hidden behind their skirts they rested their rifles on the women's shoulders in order to fire at the French on the opposite bank.

The French ceased fire as soon as they saw that they were firing on women. At night the Germans herded the unhappy women, with their children, in a field; but on the following morning they brought[120] them out again to serve as a protective screen along the river.

Such is German heroism! As we at present understand the real sense of the words Den Heldentod Gestorben (died a hero's death), which the Germans inscribe on the tombs of their soldiers, they mean that these soldiers were unable to avoid the bullets, although they heroically hid themselves behind Belgian women.

As far as we know one must go back to Cambyses, in the sixth century B.C., to find another example of the "living shield." At the time of his expedition into Egypt this prince, who was, the historians tell us, famed for his cruelty, conceived the idea of placing cats, which animals were worshipped by the Egyptians, in front of his troops. Thanks to his stratagem he prevented the Egyptians from attacking his soldiers. Neither Attila, nor Ghenghis Khan, nor Tamerlane made use of this method; it was left for the Germans of the twentieth century once more to put it into practice, with the increased ferocity suggested by Kultur.

Belgians forcibly detained at Ostend and Middelkerke.

There are other circumstances also under which the Germans have made a rampart of the Belgians. From the middle of October 1914 they occupied that portion of the Belgian coast comprised between Lombartzyde and the Zeeland frontier. From time to time the British ships and aeroplanes bombarded the coast; they would undoubtedly have continued to do so if the Germans had not taken pains forcibly to retain numbers of Belgians in these localities. According to the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of[121] the 1st November they forbade the people of Middelkerke and Ostend to leave those towns. Obviously the British were as far as possible sparing Ostend and Middelkerke, and directing their fire by preference on the road joining these two places, and on that running from Middelkerke to Westende. The Germans were perfectly aware of this, and had precisely for this reason forbidden any Belgian to leave Ostend or Middelkerke. An officer at the Kommandantur, from whom our informant tried to obtain some favour for a couple of Belgians, replied as follows: "If we allowed the population to leave these places the English would hasten to bombard the two towns, and we should be the sufferers" (N.R.C., 1st November, 1914).

However, at the end of December they expelled all the men from Middelkerke, with the exception of four. But the means of transport placed at the disposal of the expelled inhabitants were insufficient to enable them to take their families with them, so that they had to leave many of their wives and children behind. Every time the British drop shells on the coast the Germans hasten to post up the news in Brussels, adding that the bombardment has resulted in fatalities among the Belgians.

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They therefore fully appreciate the advantage to be derived from retaining on the coast a population which serves as a living buckler.

Belgians imprisoned in the Lofts of the Ministries.

At Brussels they behaved in a similar fashion in order to prevent the Allied aviators from bombarding the premises which they occupy in the Ministries. Inhabitants of Brussels are sent to the Kommandantur on the most impossible pretexts. They first remain for several days shut up in the lofts of the Ministries. Then, after trial—and, obviously, sentence—they are again confined in the lofts until there is room for them in the ordinary prisons. Every one in Brussels knows this, and of course the Allied aviators are aware of it.

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Bombardment of Open Towns.

Many violations of this Article have been discovered by the Commission of Inquiry (7th Report). Here again clearly appears the contradiction between the fashion in which the Germans make war and that which they require of their enemies. When their dirigibles drop bombs on open, undefended districts—as they did on the night of the 26th September, at Deynze, when they wounded an old man in the hospital of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paule—their newspapers related this prowess exultingly (Düsseldorfer Tageblatt, 29th September; Düsseldorfer Zeitung, 29th September, 1914). They may do such things, but no one else. When the Allied aviators bombarded Freibourg in Brisgau on the 10th December, 1914, the Germans denounced them amid universal indignation. One can only agree with the writer in the Times who said: "If we want to know what conduct we should observe in this war it is useless to consult the laws; we must simply ask the Germans if our conduct is agreeable to them or not."

General von Beseler followed the prescription of this Article during the siege of Antwerp; he announced on the 8th October that the bombardment of the city would commence at midnight (K.Z., 9th October, first morning edition). Everywhere[124] else the Germans have thrown their shells without previous warning. This was notably so in the attack upon Antwerp by a dirigible on the night of 24th August; the bombs found twenty victims. It is true that Herr Bernstorff has declared that previous advice is not necessary. In this he is in agreement with the laws of warfare according to the Germans.

Not content with setting fire to our monuments, as they did at Louvain, Dinant, Termonde, and a host of villages, the Germans never hesitate to bombard those they cannot otherwise reach.

The most characteristic example is that of the Cathedral of Reims.[26] On Tuesday, the 22nd September, we learned of the bombardment from a placard. The telegram, dated Monday, the 21st, asserted that the monument would as far as possible be spared. That was enough; we knew then that it was destroyed. And sure enough, the French newspapers smuggled through to us on the following day—Wednesday—stated that the cathedral had been burning since Saturday, the 19th.

Little by little the information received grew more precise. The French certified that they had not placed any military post of observation on the towers; neither were there batteries near the cathedral. Moreover, they declared that the cathedral should have been doubly respected, since an ambulance had found asylum there—which, be it said in passing, is denounced as an infamy by the German newspapers (K.Z., 4th January, morning edition; Niederrheinische Volkszeitung, 4th January).

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The Wolff Agency reported the bombardment of Reims Cathedral as quite a natural thing, a commonplace operation. But before the indignation of the entire civilized world (N.R.C., 22nd September, 1914, evening edition) the Germans were forced to display a hypocritical regret and to justify their aggression.

Then official telegrams were posted up the same day; two reflected German opinion, the third professed to express the opinion of a Frenchman who had favoured the Times with his confidences (placard dated 23rd September, 1914).[27] The conclusion, naturally, was that the Germans had nothing to reproach themselves with: their conscience was clear as on the first day; they bombarded the Cathedral of Reims because they were forced to do so, despite their admiration for this marvel of Gothic architecture ... but the presence of a military observation-post on the towers had left them no alternative.

Three weeks later, a fresh bombardment (placard dated 15th October). Then, after two weeks' quiet, they once more began to throw shells on what still remained standing (placard of 30th October). On the following day they announced that they had protested to the Roman Curia. A few days later they applied themselves to the destruction of the Cathedral of Soissons, but once again because the French forced them to do so.

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What respect for the Hague Convention! How touching the solicitude displayed toward monuments of art and religion! Only in the very last extremity do the Germans resolve to smash them to bits; still protesting, of course, against the violence done to their æsthetic feelings! Still more touching is their sincerity. On the 10th November they announce that the Vicar-General of Reims has admitted that the towers have been used for military operations, and that the Chancellor has communicated this avowal to the Vatican (Le Réveil, 11th November, 1914); on the 17th they are forced to note the Vicar-General's denial, but they maintain their accusations.

To estimate at their true value the German declarations concerning Reims Cathedral, it is enough to compare one of the three placards of the 23rd September with the "official communiqué" which they forced upon L'Ami de l'Ordre. Here are these two documents:

On the 23rd September they pretended that there was an observation-post on the tower. On the 27th they declared that they had never made any such statement. German sincerity!

On the 7th July they placarded Brussels with a document in which they made a display of their artistic feeling. We asked ourselves what fresh crime they were about to commit. Next day our curiosity was satisfied; the newspapers informed us that the German army had set fire to the cathedral at Arras.

Bombardment of the Cathedral at Malines.

Let us now consider how they behaved in Belgium. The commander of the army besieging Antwerp three times bombarded Malines without any strategical excuse, for the town was absolutely empty of Belgian troops. He had informed the Belgian authorities that his troops would not fire upon monuments so long as these latter were not serving any military purpose (N.R.C. 13th September, 1914, evening edition). Better still, he published, in the German newspapers, a statement that he could not bombard[128] Malines for fear of touching the Cathedral of Saint-Rombaut, but that the Belgians had not the same scruples. What truth was there in the last assertion? None, of course; if the Belgians dropped shells on the outskirts of the town it was while the German troops were there, a fact which our enemies themselves recognized. For the rest, it is easy to discover whether the damage done to the cathedral was the work of Germans or Belgians. The Belgians were to the north and west of the town; the Germans to the south and east. Now all the damage done to the cathedral is without exception on the south and east faces. The reader may draw his own conclusion. Here we have a reappearance of the usual German system, which consists in blaming others for their own misdeeds. At Dinant, too, they pretended that the collegiate church was destroyed not by them but by the French.

The Pretended Observation-post on Notre-Dame of Antwerp.

Of course they accused the Belgians of using their belfries as observation-posts. The accusation is false. We may cite Malines as an example (N.R.C., 25th November, evening edition), and Courcelles (Die Wochenschau, No. 46, 1914); but the most typical case is that of Antwerp. They reproduced in their illustrated journals (Die Wochenschau, No. 48, 1914; Kriegs-Kurier, No. 7) a photograph—or properly speaking, a drawing—published by an American newspaper (New York Tribune, 22nd October, 1914) representing a military observation-post on the tower of Notre-Dame.

Even if we grant the picture a documentary value[129] which it does not possess, it proves nothing, for according to the American journalist (N.R.C., 15th November, evening edition), the military post existed on the tower at a period when Antwerp was not besieged, nor even in danger of being so; the city had then to defend itself only against dirigibles, which on two occasions paid it nocturnal visits, with the accompaniment of bombs. It will be understood that the Wochenschau does not inform us of this; it pretends that the soldiers were on the tower to observe the German troops and their heavy artillery during the siege.

German Observation-posts admitted by the Germans.

Let us now see whether our enemies have abstained from employing monuments for military operations. The Algemeen Handelsblad (Amsterdam) of the 3rd January states that machine-guns are placed on the belfry of Bruges and on other towers of the city. This fact is confirmed by M. Domela Nieuwenhuys Nyegaard, a pastor of Gand, a convinced Germanophile, who witnessed an attack by British aviators, upon whom the machine-guns installed on the tower of the Halles opened a violent but ineffectual fire (Uit mijn Oorlogsdagboek, p. 319, in De Tijdspiegel, 1st April, 1915).

Perhaps the Germans will contest this statement. Here is another. Those who require of their adversaries so scrupulous a respect for Article 27 of the Hague Convention placed an observation-post on the tower of St. Rombaut, during the siege of Antwerp, in order to control their fire upon the Waelhem fort. And this at least is indisputable, for in their cynicism or lack of conscience (let them choose whichever they please) they published a[130] photograph of this infraction of the Hague Convention in the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung (No. 44, 1914, p. 752).

This is not the only case admitted by them. Zeit im Bild (No. 43, 1914) reproduces on its cover a photograph of a "military post on the tower of an Hôtel de Ville." In this we see German soldiers armed with rifles, watching an imaginary enemy. This photograph was taken at the Palais de Justice in Brussels, as is proved, without possibility of error, by the church of La Chapelle, whose very characteristic tower rises in the distance. The Germans were so delighted with this violation of the Hague Convention that they reproduced the photograph in the illustrated supplement of the Hamburger Fremdensblatt. And what is most curious in this affair is that they boasted of an offence which they knew they had not committed. For, firstly, the soldiers were not posted "on an Hôtel de Ville"; secondly, they were not even posted on the Palais de Justice, but to one side of it, as may easily be determined on the spot; thirdly, German soldiers have never been placed there to overlook an enemy!

Since mid-October of 1914 it is in Western Flanders that the fighting has taken place. Did the Germans eventually, before the universal reprobation which greeted their exploits at Louvain, Reims, and so forth, determine to respect the international agreement to which they are parties? By no means. They are far too contemptuous of conventions, as is proved by the photographs of monuments bombarded in the region of the Yser, which are published in the illustrated newspapers, notably in Panorama, a Dutch illustrated paper which surreptitiously enters Belgium.

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Among the monuments destroyed artists especially deplore the marvellous Halles of Ypres, and the churches of Nieuport, Ypres, and Dixmude. This last contained a very remarkable Gothic rood-screen, of which Herr Stübben, one of the most eminent architects of modern Germany, stated that its loss would be irreparable. It escaped the shells, but not the German soldiery, who destroyed it with the butts of their rifles, after the capture of the town. Always Kultur!

Pillage.

"Family honour and rights!" The cases of rape prove the respect of the German army for these prescriptions!

"Individual life!" By the end of September 1914 the Germans had killed more civilians than soldiers. This simple statement says more than could a long exposition.

"Private property!" Theft and pillage are phenomena so commonplace that the inhabitants no longer insist upon them; if they mention the subject[132] it is to say: "The Germans behaved well here; they only took all we had." We shall therefore confine ourselves to citing a few cases particularly typical of the German mentality.

It is indisputable that the conflagrations started under the pretext of chastising "francs-tireurs" were in reality designed to conceal the pillage committed by the German army. This was certainly the case at Aerschot (4th Report) and at Louvain. The officers who gave orders to start these fires were therefore accomplices of the pillaging soldiery. For that matter, how could they have disavowed the thefts of their men, seeing that they themselves largely took part in the scramble? Whole trains left Brussels, Louvain, Malines, and Verviers for Germany, loaded with "war booty for officers." During their journey to Belgium, Herren Koester and Noske, on the 23rd September, at Hubesthal, saw numerous trains passing which were laden with war booty (Kriegsfahrten, p. 8); there were at that time no serious battles either in France or in Belgium, so that there was no capture of war booty in the Western sense of the term.[28] The trains observed by the Socialist authors could only have been carrying the fruits of pillage; they came probably from Malines, which the Germans at this time were scrupulously emptying, as well as the numerous châteaux of the neighbourhood.

Not a district has been visited by the Germans that has not been totally despoiled. Of course, the silver was taken first. One officer, after plundering the entire store of silver of a villa at Francorchamps, confided to a neighbour that he was going to have it melted down in Germany, with the exception of one spoon, which he would keep as a "souvenir." Is it not typical and delightful, this German cult of the "souvenir" as a veneer of sentimentality on a basis of rapacity? According to the definition given by the Kaiser, this officer displayed his civilization but not his Kultur.

[133]

Another "requisition" of plate. In the railway station of Mons, towards the middle of February 1915, a merchant unloading a truck-load of merchandise had his attention attracted by a coffin which was being removed from a neighbouring van; suddenly he heard a metallic clink: the bottom of the coffin had given way, and an avalanche of spoons, forks, napkin-rings, and other articles of silver tumbled out!

Nothing is sacred to the Huns. They smash the tabernacles, treasuries, and poor-boxes of the churches as readily as the coffers of the People's Banks (Maisons du Peuple). At Auvelois they seized upon 43,000 frs. in the Maison du Peuple, this being the entire capital of the Socialist Young Guard, the Freethinkers, the newspaper En Avant, the Miners' Union (syndicat), and other mutual aid societies.

At Beyghem, near Grimberghen, before setting fire to the church, they broke open the safe in the sacristy. Being unable to perforate it, they demolished the wall dividing the church from the sacristy, in which it was imbedded, so that they were able to attack it from behind.

In most of the churches which were burned in the north of Brabant (p. 73) the strong-box and the tabernacle were broken open. It was the same in the province of Namur.

As soon as the approach of the Germans was signalled, many people hastened to pack up their[134] furniture and valuables, in order more readily to transport them in case of evacuation. This foresight almost always failed in its object, owing to the impossibility of finding a horse and cart at the moment of departure. These packing-cases and hampers, all ready corded, presented an insurmountable temptation; the officers were never able to resist it, and the goods were sent straight to the railway station.

We are informed that at the beginning of the German occupation officers were frequently mistaken as to the actual value of the articles which they removed; so that they sent their families worthless rubbish "made in Germany." To avoid these unpleasant misconceptions, they made their inspections in the company of experts who directed their choice.

Need we add that the wine-cellars were always methodically exploited? The bottles which could not be drunk on the spot were packed for later consumption, or to be sent to Germany. In a château near Charleroi the officers had the doors—which were beautiful examples of joinery—taken off their hinges, and used to make packing-cases for the bottles.

We must not forget that drunkenness has played an important part in the atrocities committed by the German army.

The Germans were not content with making a clean sweep of the private houses and châteaux; they also stripped the Governmental offices which they occupied in Brussels of their furniture. In the Ministry of Public Works a portion of the maps of bridges, buildings, etc., was burned, and a portion sent to Germany.

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Thefts of Stamps.

As to those who despoiled the Ministries, we will give them the credit of supposing that they acted by order and in the interest of their Government; but we cannot thus excuse the conduct of one officer who, having possessed himself, goodness knows how, of a number of Belgian stamps, attempted, in a stationer's shop, to pay for 80 frs.' worth of goods by means of these stamps. Meeting with a refusal from the shopkeeper, he had to content himself with paying for only a portion of his purchases in this manner. In a neighbouring watchmaker's he did better, for he was able to get rid of 100 frs. in stamps; at a discount, of course.[29] He informed the watchmaker that he possessed 4,000 frs.' worth of Belgian stamps. The latter was not so indiscreet as to ask how he obtained them.

Better still: the Germans do not conceal the fact that they are thieves. The Matin (Paris, 9th June, 1915) reproduced the photograph of an announcement published by a Swiss newspaper.

"It informs us that a thief of the German army, desiring to realize the 'war booty' which he collected in Antwerp, offers for sale unused stamps of values between 10 centimes and 10 frs. In his 'stock' of booty are 19 different stamps of a total value of 29 frs. 70 (oh, that 70 centimes of pillage!) which he offers for 3 frs. 50.—All Germany—philosophical, political, military, and commercial—is contained in this little advertisement."

[136]

At Tamines, having burned about 250 houses, on the 21st and 22nd August, 1914, and having forced the living to bury the 416 unhappy people shot on the evening of the 22nd, they sent all the survivors to Velaines-sur-Sambre. There they were given their liberty, and told that they might go to Namur or to Düsseldorf, but not to Tamines. Why not to Tamines? They understood a few days later, when they were bold enough to return despite the prohibition. The Germans had completely emptied all the shops and all the private houses in the place. It is evident that this operation can be effected in a more methodical and comfortable manner when there are no children running between your legs, or women begging you to leave them some souvenir for which they have a particular affection.

At Louvain they acted in the same manner; they proceeded to wholesale pillage only after the 27th, when they had sent all the inhabitants away.

Sometimes the love of pillage got the better of discipline. At Jumet, on the road from Brussels to Charleroi, on the 22nd August, 1914, the troops were ordered to burn all the houses, because the French of the 110th Infantry had dared to attack them with machine-guns. But some soldiers who had entered a tobacconist's amused themselves by stealing cigars and cigarettes, and were so absorbed that they forgot to set fire to the shop, so that it has remained intact in the midst of a long row of burned-out buildings.

What disgusts us most in all this pillage is not that the German troops should have marked our unhappy country for pillage; it is the indisputable complicity of the leaders of the army. Nothing more clearly proves the benevolent intervention of the military and civil authorities in the operations of brigandage than the regular transport of "war booty" into Germany. The officers make no secret[137] of sending to their homes such things as pianos, pictures, jewels, furniture, glass, etc. They do it openly, with the obvious complicity of the railway officials. The latter are entrusted with the organization of the rapid transportation to the Fatherland of mountains of cases, containing the results of the methodical exploration of our houses and châteaux and shops and warehouses. It is a vast organization of brigandage, hierarchically regulated, in which every one steals without hiding the fact from his fellows. Who knows whether the coffin full of silver-plate which burst in the Mons railway station did not belong to some officer who had swindled his accomplices? We in Belgium have witnessed the regular working of a system of "co-operative brigandage under the august protection of the authorities."

Let us note, finally, that theft and pillage are expressly forbidden by the German Usages of War. Articles 57, 58, 60, 61, and 62 prohibit all destruction of private property. But we must suppose that their Usages of War are applicable only in times of peace, since from the very first days of the war the German army began to pillage the regions which it occupied. This spoliation has been pursued with the systematic spirit which characterizes Kultur.

Illegal Taxation.

Two placards exhibited in Brussels on the evening of the 12th December (Saturday) attracted general attention.

They first convoked the Provincial Councils for the 19th December, and imposed upon them, not simply a general "order of the day," but an imperative mandate to vote a war-tax. The second gave details of this tax: 480,000,000 frs. was to be paid in monthly instalments of 40,000,000 (£19,200,000 in twelve payments of £1,600,000) (see Belg. Allem., p. 120).

Baron von Bissing thus advertised, seven days in advance, the decisions to be taken by the Provincial Councils. Doubtless he was made to understand that the proceeding was a little extreme, and contrary both to the law and to common sense; for on the following morning the second placard was covered with a blank sheet of paper. Better still, the "Official Bulletin of Laws and Decrees for the occupied Belgian Territory" gave in its issue of the 19th the text of the two decrees; but this number was suppressed, and in its place another placard, numbered 19, was distributed, which included only the first decree.

On the 19th December our nine Provincial[139] Councils assembled. They could not do otherwise than vote the crushing tax of 480 millions; but several of them protested eloquently against the illegality of this proceeding.

As a matter of penal legislation, the Germans have systematically ignored Article 48, as is proved by the eloquent protest of the President of the Bar of Brussels.

Yet another typical instance of the manner in which Germany disregards our laws. At Aerschot the Germans provisionally invested a German, Herr Ronnewinkel, who had inhabited the district for several years, with the functions of Burgomaster.[141] On the 6th November, 1914, they proclaimed him permanently burgomaster.

Here was a German appointed burgomaster by the will of the district commander, although by the terms of the law only a Belgian appointed by the Government could be burgomaster. Moreover, they did the same at Andenne. The communal autonomy of which Belgium was so proud was thus trampled underfoot.

We see, then, that in despite of Articles 43 and 48 of the Hague Convention and Article 67 of their own Usages of War the Germans have shown no respect whatever for the legislation in force. We cite here only the most flagrant of these illegalities, those which any person of common sense can understand and judge.

This article was not accepted by Germany; she remains faithful to her Usages of War: Article 53, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs, and applies their principles with extreme severity.

Nothing better illustrates the severity with which the Germans act than the little manual of conversation which terminates the Tornisterwörterbuch, published by the Mentor publishing house in Schöneberg, Berlin. It is a small dictionary, costing 60 pfennigs, and intended, as the title indicates, to be carried in the soldier's knapsack. The French dictionary and the English are conceived according to the same method; after information concerning the country in question they give a summary of the rules of grammar; then comes the dictionary properly[142] so-called, with phonetic pronunciation; finally, a few common phrases, which to us are the most interesting part of the book, since their choice naturally reflects the requirements of those expected to employ them. Here are a few passages from paragraph 4: Service of Outposts and Patrols. In each passage we copy all the phrases without exception, so as to avoid misrepresenting the spirit of the work; and this spirit, as will be seen, is ferocious. The volume is not dated; but the 42nd edition, from which we quote, describes (p. 44) the French campaigning uniform of 1912. These phrases were therefore printed at least five years after the second Hague Conference (18th October, 1907). They show clearly that the acts of cruelty committed by the patrols against those who refused to betray their country were not improvised by the cavalry taking part in these reconnaissances, but were systematically premeditated.

P. 175—

P. 176—

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P. 177—

A little manual of conversation costing 20 pfennigs—Deutsch-Französischer-Soldaten-Sprachführer, by Captain S. Th. Hoasmann, is conceived on the same lines. Here are a few examples. The soldier, making a reconnaissance, declares: "Speak the truth or you will be killed!" In the chapter on "Posts and Telegraphs" we find the phrase: "It is forbidden (on pain of death) to send telegrams." And the sentinel should be able to say: "If you lie you will be shot," etc.

This article proclaims the principle that in no case must the innocent suffer with the guilty, nor in their place. We have already seen that our enemies oppose this idea; they maintain that the innocent should suffer with the guilty, and even that if one cannot lay hands on the guilty one may punish the innocent in their place (p. 84). It was by the application of this German principle of collective punishment that Louvain, Dinant, Termonde, and other towns were burned.

The placard of 1st October, 1914, clearly displays[144] the German mentality; it states that villages will be punished without mercy, whether guilty or not.

Fully to appreciate the horrible nature of this placard we must recall the fact that during the siege of Antwerp (which terminated only on the 9th) Belgium patrols were penetrating into the midst of the German troops, venturing thirty-five miles and more from Antwerp, their mission being to harass the enemy's communications and to destroy the railways and the telegraph and telephone line. It was one of these bodies of Belgian cyclists which cut the railway and telegraph line between Louvain and Tirlemont on 25th September, 1914. Von der Goltz was evidently aware that this destruction was a perfectly legitimate military operation, so that his placard was intended simply to embarrass our military authorities by showing them that in defiance of all justice Germany intended to hold the Belgian civilians[145] responsible for the activity of our army. In short, instead of saying "no matter whether these localities are guilty of complicity or not," von der Goltz would have given a greater proof of sincerity had he said, "although I know that these localities are in no way guilty of complicity."

Here are two other placards, printed in Germany, which show plainly that it is according to a system that our oppressors hold the entire community responsible for the act committed by a single person; or rather, as we shall see, for the acts of the Belgian army.

Very frequently the penalties with which the community is threatened are not specified in these placards. One may suppose that it would consist of a fine; this is indeed the punishment most frequently[146] applied, doubtless because it is the most productive. Here are some examples, for cutting the telegraph wires, various localities in Flanders were forced to pay fines in December 1914.

The military chest does not lack for money; for in a garrison command a fine may be inflicted more readily than elsewhere. Here is an example. An officer was choosing some music in a shop; and found, amidst a heap of pieces of music, a copy of the Marseillaise. Now it has never been stated that one must not possess the Marseillaise. Result: the shopkeeper was condemned to pay a fine of 500 marks or to twenty days' imprisonment. "I prefer the imprisonment," said the unfortunate man. "But, my good fellow, you can avoid going to prison! Pay the fine!" "I know, but I have not got 500 marks. I could only scrape together 150 frs. at most." "All right, give them to me!"

Fines for Telegraphic Interruptions.

The military chest is also replenished by the fines paid because the telegraph and telephone do not work properly. Now it has often happened during the last six weeks that communication has been obstructed in Flanders. The smallest communes have been forced to pay fines.

Here is a brief list of such fines:

[147]

Fines for "Attacks by Francs-tireurs."

We may observe, in passing, that in September 1914 the accusation—the accusation, we say, not the offence—of having allowed a telegraph wire to deteriorate was punished, in Brussels, by a stoppage of the telephone service; but in December the Germans preferred to fill their treasury. The same observation is true of Mons and Bilsen; the accusation of "francs-tireurs," which in September 1914 would have ended in a massacre of the inhabitants and the burning of the town, was in October the motive for a tax of 100,000 frs. At that time it no longer seemed essential to terrorize; the Germans no longer required blood, but money.

And indeed it is money that is demanded everywhere—5,000 frs. from the commune of Grenbergen, near Termonde, because an inhabitant allowed his pigeons to fly. 5,000,000 frs. was required of Brussels because a police agent maltreated a German spy (p. 157). It was with a money fine that Mons was threatened should an Englishman be discovered on its soil (placard posted at Mons, 6th November, 1914), and the city of Mons and the province of Hainaut if any inhabitant retained for his own use any benzine or a motor-bicycle (placard posted at Mons, 6th October, 1914). At Seraing, in February 1915, it was again money that was demanded, because a bomb had burst within the[148] limits of the commune. The more surely to obtain the sum, a few hostages were imprisoned, with the promise that they would be sent to a fortress in Germany if the communal treasury did not pay their ransom; but the hostages themselves advised the commune to refuse. The Germans, fearing to be left in the lurch, reduced their demands by half; finally, having obtained nothing, they released the hostages. Singular justice, to regulate its penalties not by the gravity of the offence, but according to the temper of the victims! We are waiting for the German newspapers to publish a schedule of penalties as affected by the docility of the victims and the season.

Here is an amusing instance of a penalty which was inflicted upon Antwerp. When the Germans posted up a statement that they had captured 52,000 Russians and 400 guns in Eastern Prussia, a playful citizen replaced the first letter of Russians in the Flemish text by an M and concealed the two first letters of canonen. The new version announced that the Germans had captured 52,000 sparrows and 400 nuns. The Germans were annoyed and imposed a fine of 25,000 frs. on the city. At Tirlemont, where the same pleasantry was perpetrated, the Germans contented themselves with making vague threats.

The adventure of Eppeghem also deserves to be told in a few words.

In November 1914 a German soldier walking in the country fired at a hare or a pigeon. An officer turned up and questioned the soldier. As all sport is reserved for officers, the soldier, to avoid punishment, threw the blame on to the peasants. The matter was referred to Brussels, and on the following[149] day officers arrived with forty Uhlans. A fine of 10,000 frs. was inflicted on the commune.

Some women living in a house which had by chance remained standing, near the field in which the soldier had fired, asserted that no inhabitant had fired a shot, but that they had seen the soldier fire. No one listened to them. "We must have 10,000 frs., and at once." But in this village, ruined from end to end, where scarcely a house was habitable, from which all the men had been deported into Germany, there was no means of collecting such a sum of money. "Since that is so, hostages will be taken," said the officers. The Uhlans organized a hunt, and seized the curé and three laymen, the only ones they could find; and even of these one was an inhabitant of Vilverde, who had obligingly been acting as a citizen policeman at Eppeghem. They were taken to Brussels, but on passing through Vilverde the inhabitant of that place was released, owing to the protests of his fellow-citizens. After ten days' imprisonment Baron von der Goltz, finding that there was nothing to be extracted from the communal treasury of Eppeghem, and that the curé and his two parishioners were being kept and fed at a loss, set them at liberty.

Hostages

The taking of hostages is also in flagrant opposition to the provisions of Article 50, but in conformity with the German Usages of War. The hostage guarantees with his own life that his fellow-citizens, with whom he has no influence, shall faithfully execute the orders of the German authorities.

The first care of enemy troops arriving in any locality is always to demand the provision of[150] hostages; these are usually the curé, the burgomaster, the notary, the schoolmaster, and a few other notables. We may recall Liége, where the bishop, Mgr. Rutten, was taken hostage; Spa, Louvain, Charleroi, Gand, and Mons. In Brussels they demanded the delivery of 100 hostages, but afterwards withdrew the demand.

As to the fate which awaits the hostages if the German army is attacked, it is plainly stipulated in the proclamations: they will be shot, "without previous judicial formalities." Thus, it would have been enough for a Belgian patrol to renew its usual activities near Forest, and two hostages would have immediately been shot "without previous judicial formalities."

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If hostages try to escape they will be hanged and their village burned.

We do not know if hostages were shot or hanged in Belgium. But in the north of France, according to a military correspondent of the K.Z., at least one hostage was killed; this assassination was the more criminal in that it punished not a hostile act of the inhabitants, but a perfectly normal and regular operation of war: a bombardment.

A very curious case of the punishment of innocent people in the case of "guilty" ones is the following: On the 7th October, 1914, the Germans posted statements that the militia-men of the occupied regions could not rejoin the Belgian army, and that in case of disobedience the young men would expose themselves to the risk of being sent into Germany as prisoners of war. So far, nothing illegal. But the placard then declared that in case of the departure of any militia-man his family would be held responsible. Now, how are the parents guilty, if their son intends at all costs to fulfil his obligations to his native country? On the 30th December, 1914, there was an aggravation of this measure: the burgomasters also were to be punished. On the 28th January, 1915, a new notice appeared: all Belgians between the ages of sixteen and forty years were to be regarded as capable of military service. So when a man of forty goes to join the Belgian army the members of his family will be punished! Truly the notice might have stated whether children would be punished for not preventing their father's departure!

Have there been cases of repression? The N.R.C. states that at Hasselt the Germans actually arrested the fathers and mothers of the young men who escaped.

[153]

The Tijd learns from Ruremonde:

A last example of punishment inflicted upon the innocent, when the "guilty" person had already suffered punishment. A Belgian, having made signals to the enemy (that is, to the Belgian army), was killed while being arrested. Immediately the curé and the vicar were sent to Germany as being responsible for the members of their parish.

[154]

This iniquity was not enough for the German authorities: they advertised it all through Flanders (we copied it at Thielt and Termonde), and forced Le Bien Public to give it publicity. Through lack of conscience or insolence?

Contributions and Requisitions.

The last paragraph of Article 23, already cited, in reality presupposes that passage in Article 52 which forbids the occupant to force the inhabitants to do work which would assist operations directed against their country (p. 112).

Among the forms of contribution included in Article 49 we must give first place to that which[155] fixes the value of the mark. The Düsseldorfer Zeitung of the 4th September announces that the military commander of the occupied portion of Belgium and France fixed the value of 100 marks at 130 frs. And indeed placards posted at Charleroi, Saint-Trond, Namur, and Liége required the Belgians to accept German marks at this exaggerated tariff, which has caused certain of our merchants to lose considerable sums.

The fraudulent intention in this measure was only too evident. A month later Baron von der Goltz made it known that until further notice the mark was to be valued at the lowest at 1 fr. 25 (placard of the 3rd October, 1914). In reality the mark was worth only 1 fr. 08 to 1 fr. 15, so that the Belgians naturally endeavoured to refuse German notes; whereupon fresh placards were exhibited, compelling their acceptance (placards of the 4th and 15th November, 1914). We must mention an unhappy phrase in a placard posted at Mons; it states that the mark must be accepted at the actual value of the coin, and further on fixes this value at 1 fr. 25, which is obviously incorrect.

[156]

Contributions demanded from the Cities.

Let us now consider the pecuniary contributions demanded from the cities. The most important were: Liége, 20 million frs.; Namur, 32 millions; Antwerp, 40 millions; Brussels, 45 millions. The discussions excited by this last contribution are extremely instructive; they have been reported by the N.R.C. We learn how the Germans violated, successively, all the different agreements which they concluded with the city; finally they imposed a fine of 5 millions, which enabled them, in spite of everything, to complete the sum of 50 millions which they had promised themselves they would extort from the capital.

Exactions of a Non-commissioned Officer.

Fines without rhyme and reason, and exorbitant war contributions have become so normal and so customary that the Germans have finally learned to exploit the situation. The N.R.C. for the 21st May, 1915, reported that the Council of War in Coblenz had condemned to eighteen months' imprisonment the non-commissioned officer Garternich, who had demanded from several occupied Belgian communes a war contribution of 3 frs. per head, and had thus acquired, for his own personal profit, a sum of 27,393 frs. Does not this simple fact reveal the habitual squeezing to which our poor country is subjected? Eighteen months' imprisonment for having emptied the communal treasuries already officially despoiled by the authorities—that truly is not much; especially when we compare this sentence with those pronounced upon the communes when a telegraph wire breaks down: the threat of burning a whole neighbourhood or a formidable fine.

Requisitions of Raw Materials and Machinery.

Requisitions may only be demanded, says Article 52, for the needs of the army of occupation. Now our enemies have removed from Belgium enormous quantities of raw material, and machinery which evidently cannot be of use to the army of occupation (see Belg. Allem., pp. 113, 116, 117). What can the[159] army do with raw cotton, wools, spun cotton, nickel, jute, etc.? It can be of use only to the industries of Germany, paralysed by the suppression of the mercantile marine. Among these requisitions are included machine-tools for the manufacture of shells (notably those removed from the national arsenal at Herstal and the royal cannon foundry at Liége), and metals, such as copper, which are indispensable to the manufacture of munitions; so that the articles which have been taken from us, contrary to Article 52 of the Hague Convention, subscribed to by Germany, are thus directly employed in fighting against us.

The Germans cannot pretend that these requisitions of machinery were made by over-zealous officers ignorant of the laws, for Baron von Bissing himself, in his quality of Governor-General, signed the proclamation of the 17th February ordering the despatch of our machine-tools to Germany. Moreover, in Berlin even people are perfectly aware of these requisitions, and of their destination (N.R.C., 22nd February, 1915, morning edition).

We must insist on the fact that all these raw materials of industry, all this machinery, etc., is not bought, but requisitioned. There is here no case of a commercial transaction, nor even an expropriation; for we have no redress against the decision arrived at in Berlin as to the prices which will be paid after the war. It is a theft, to express the matter in a word.

Requisitions in kind and in services ... shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, says Article 52; which evidently means that requisitions must not exhaust the country to the point of jeopardizing the lives of the inhabitants. If this[160] stipulation had been respected we should not have to deplore the famine which is ravaging our country, and to which we shall return later on.

We shall confine ourselves—in order to give some idea of the excessive and inhuman manner in which requisitions have been made—to referring the reader to certain articles written by eye-witnesses, particularly those who have seen what has happened near the frontier, and at Gand. It will at once be recognized that the requisitions made exceed that which the inhabitants can reasonably provide (see N.R.C., 10th January, 1915, morning; 23rd January, 1915, morning; 16th January, 1915, evening; 30th January, 1915, evening; 12th January, 1915, morning; 22nd December, 1914, evening).

The Germans have always taken good care to demand wine. They demanded enormous quantities in the little villages of the Campine of Limburg (N.R.C., 15th January, 1915). Elsewhere they took for their own use all the cellars of the wine-merchants and the inhabitants, without allowing the latter to make use of them (see Belg. Allem., p. 118).

A last point as to requisitions. They shall as far as possible be paid for in ready money; if not, a receipt shall be given.

Very often no receipt has been given to the owners of property taken. Elsewhere the receipts are fantastical and valueless.

It is the truth that those who do receive vouchers are requested to satisfy themselves of their accuracy, but this prescription is obviously a dead letter. Imagine, on the one hand, a peasant, Fleming or Walloon, terrorized into a condition of helplessness, and incapable of reading a voucher scrawled in[161] German; and on the other, soldiers whose customary arguments are shooting and burning.

From the very first days of the occupation the Germans, in defiance of law and justice, seized upon the communal treasuries and the funds deposited in the branch establishments of the National Bank, the post offices, etc. They were obliged to recognize the justice of the protests made by the Belgian Government; but their love of pillage is incorrigible; on entering Gand, on Monday, the 12th October, their first care was to lay hands on the 1,800,000 (£72,000) contained in the communal treasury.

According to Article 55 the Germans had no right to remove the furniture of the Ministries of Brussels (p. 134), since this property was not of a kind to be useful in military operations.

The German respect for legality did not restrain them from violating this Article. From the very first days of the war they employed the churches which they consented to leave standing as stables; on reaching Liége they took possession of the[162] Palais de Justice and made a barracks of it. Why did they expel Justice? Herren Koester and Noske tell us (p. 30), it was simply because the position is central and easy to defend (see a photograph facing p. 32). They did not take account of the fact that such employment of the building is doubly contrary to the Hague Convention, since they did not respect the nature of the monument, and exposed it to bombardment by Allied aviators on the look-out for the German garrison.

It was the same with the Palais de Justice of Brussels, which also serves as a German barracks. To adapt it to its novel use, the soldiers have destroyed a great part of the magnificent furnishings which adorned the halls; the immediate surroundings have been fortified, and the cupola serves by night as a station for signalling to dirigibles. In short, all preparations have been made with a view to the bombardment of Poelaert's masterpiece by the Allies.

It is obviously with the idea of preventing their adversaries from attacking them that they take up their quarters in our monuments; these are to serve them as artistic bucklers, just as our compatriots are employed as living bucklers.

The violations of Article 55 are past counting. We will confine ourselves to mentioning a few in Brussels; they will give us some idea of the diversity of the transformations which our property has suffered at German hands. The offices of the Ministries are transformed into bedrooms for officers. The Palais des Académies has become a military hospital; God knows in what condition we shall find its libraries. In the Parc Royal of Brussels, in the centre of the city, they have installed an automobile depôt, a[163] riding-track, and a rifle range; on the 28th October a shot fired from this range wounded a lady through the windows of the Schlobach magasin in the Rue Royale.

The first paragraph of this Article has been scrupulously observed; the property of the communes, etc., has indeed been treated as private property has been treated: the latter has everywhere been sacked and looted, and the Germans have done the same to collective property.

As to the intentional character of these acts of vandalism, it is indubitable. How otherwise explain the fact that in numerous villages the church has been the prey of the flames, in many cases even when the surrounding houses have remained intact? A few examples will suffice. The village of Haecht was occupied on the 19th and 20th August. On the 24th the Belgians in Antwerp made a sortie which was repulsed. The Germans, infuriated, shot 17 civilians and pillaged all the houses, particularly remembering the wine in the cellars. Then the inhabitants were expelled. A fresh sortie of the Belgians took place from the 9th to the 13th September; at noon on the last day our troops fell back; in the afternoon the Germans set fire to the church and 41 houses. The strong-box of the church was broken open after the fire. The destruction of the monument did not strike them as sufficient, and they dynamited the whole on the 16th (or 17th)[164] September. In the neighbouring village of Werchter, after the battle of the 25th and 26th August, they shot 6 civilians and burned 267 houses out of the 513 which formed the village. After the second fight, on the 15th September, they burned the church. In both villages most of the houses round the churches were spared; it will therefore be difficult for the Germans to pretend, as at Louvain, that the burning of these churches was an accident (Brandunglück) due to burning fragments carried by the wind (p. 220). We have already (p. 73) noted another more significant case, that of the chapel of the Béguinage of Termonde, which was alone burned, in the centre of the Béguinage, not a dwelling of which was touched.

Conclusions—The Famine in Belgium.

Germany had need, in the conflict with France, of all the men who passed through Belgium; also she could leave in Belgium only weak garrisons of the Landsturm. To safeguard them against possible attack on the part of the Belgian population, it was necessary to terrorize the latter to such a point that it no longer dared to stir. Such was the object of the carnage and incendiarism which marked the beginning of the campaign, as was frankly admitted by Herr Walter Blöm, adjutant to the Governor-General in Belgium (p. 84). No doubt the massacres of Louvain, Andenne, Tamines, and Dinant, committed to order between the 19th and the 26th August, appeared insufficient, for a new series was organized between the 4th and 13th September.

At the news of this butchery a resounding cry of horror and indignation went up from all the nations[165] of the earth. That the Belgian Army, on the field of battle, should have paid large tribute to the war unloosed upon us by Germany—that was to be expected, but no one would have dared to suppose that Germany, after participating in the second Hague Conference, would display towards our civil population such an implacable cruelty, such exterminating fury, as history has never recorded since the Thirty Years' War. But facts are facts; one must needs submit to the evidence; the German Army has destroyed our treasures of art and science, has shot down in cold blood, often by machine-gun fire, hosts of men, women, even old people and children; it has ordered the burning of thousands of houses; it has turned whole districts into deserts.

Still, some semblance of motive was necessary; with a mathematical regularity the pretext of "francs-tireurs" was alleged. "Man hat geschossen"—that was enough; immediately the neighbourhood was given over to massacre, pillage, and fire. Never was any inquiry made, no matter how summary. Yet when it was desired to show a foreigner of note—for example, Dr. Sven Hedin—how they proceeded in the matter of punishing "francs-tireurs," a regular Council of War was constituted ... which brought in a verdict of non-lieu (p. 78). We defy the Germans to cite a single case in which a tribunal of this kind has sat before reprisals. In the few rare cases when witnesses, etc., have been questioned the examination has taken place after the firing of houses and the shooting of inhabitants. This is why we declare without the slightest reservation that not one single attack by civilians has been established by any kind of proof.

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The Flight of the Belgians.

The inhabitants of our towns and our countryside soon realized to what they were exposing themselves if they awaited the arrival of the Germans in their own homes. So, as the Germans advanced, a void appeared before them. After the taking of Antwerp, the majority of the peasants of the "Campine" of Antwerp fled in all haste toward Holland. If to them we add the people of Antwerp, who had been driven out by the bombardment, and above all the innumerable villages of Brabant, Limburg, and the provinces of Liége and Antwerp, whose homes had been pillaged and reduced to ashes, we shall not be astonished to find that in October there were more than a million Belgian refugees in Holland.[30] To our northern neighbours we owe our profoundest gratitude for the fraternal manner in which they welcomed our unfortunate compatriots.

The Causes of the Famine.

The horror provoked by the butchery at Dinant, Aerschot, etc., relegated to the background the purely material crimes. But these—the pillage, methodically conducted, of our towns, villages, farms, and châteaux—the outrageous requisitions of provisions and of the raw material of industries—the formidable taxes which drain us of coin—the fines which rain upon the communal administrations and on private persons—and many other infractions of the Hague Convention—have exercised on our economical life an extremely depressing effect, but have produced no echo abroad: doubtless because only those can understand the whole extent of our misery who daily rub shoulders with the thousands of starving and unemployed people who drag themselves from one end of the town to the other in quest of work that is not to be found, or who mingle with the interminable files of women who go in search of rations of bread and soup for their families.

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Let us briefly consider the principal causes of famine which prevails in Belgium.

1. Exaggerated requisitions, out of all proportion to the resources of the country. They are of two kinds:—

Firstly, those which have emptied the country of grain, cattle, forage, and other foodstuffs.

Then the requisitions of the raw materials intended for the factories, which have completely paralysed industry, especially in the Flanders. One example will suffice. All the workshops of Termonde were burned save one—the Escaut-Dendre establishment, which makes boots and shoes. But the Germans sent into Germany both the leather and the shoes which were in the warehouse. The factory is thus condemned to stand idle for lack of raw material, and also for lack of funds. Those industries of which the machinery has been removed are also, of course, doomed to paralysis. The German authorities threaten to despoil our factories of all the copper forming part of the machinery, which would reduce them one and all to impotence. It is an ironical fact that this measure was announced by a propagandist leaflet addressed to the Belgians.

2. Having made a clean sweep of the greater portion of all that was indispensable to us, the Germans have been careful to take our money from us. Under every imaginable pretext, and often without any pretext at all, they have imposed[168] crushing taxes upon us. The regular payment of these taxes showing that the public coffers were not yet quite empty, the Germans hastened to impose fines upon us, which vary from 5 frs. to 5 millions. The private banks, too, are threatened every moment with the removal of a portion of their funds.

3. It is needless to insist on a third cause, which reduces our working-class families to idleness and poverty: the destruction of an enormous number of factories—some bombarded, but most of them burned of set purpose.

4. We have already seen that many factories which remained intact are condemned to inactivity by the lack of raw material, or because they have been deprived of their machinery. The others are equally paralysed.

The stoppage of traffic on the railway lines, the impediments of all kinds placed in the way of inland navigation, the absence of maritime navigation, are causes more than sufficient to prevent the importation of raw materials and the exportation of manufactured products. Of all these obstacles the most important is assuredly the suppression of goods traffic on the railways. "Why," say the Germans, "do not Belgian employés return to their work, since our military trains would in any case be run by our own men?" Hypocrites! The slowness and irregularity of the trains is highly inconvenient to the German army, and it would much like to see them resume their normal speed; but for this it requires the assistance of the Belgian staff. Is it not obvious that if our railway-men resumed their labours they would at the same time facilitate the transport of German troops and munitions?

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Let us again cite the prohibition of "circulation" between 8 or 9 o'clock and 6 o'clock, which is an obstacle to night work, which is quite indispensable to the large industries; and the suppression of the special trains by which the workers travelled.

5. Commerce has suffered no less than industry. There is no telegraph, no telephone, no posting of closed letters; that is, no means of sending or receiving orders. No railway, no horses, no motor-cars to deliver goods or to supply customers. And, to cap all, the slightest journey necessitates all sorts of exaggerated expenses: there is the acquisition of a passport, the train journey at the rate of 10 cm. per kilometre, hotel expenses, etc. The expenditure might be a minor matter, but what of the waste of time? Before 1st July, 1915, any one going from Liége to Brussels for business purposes had first of all to waste one or two days in procuring his passport; the journey occupied at least half a day; and after interviewing his client he would find that there was no train back to Liége on the same day. In short, he would have to allow four days for a journey which in normal times took half a day.

Other causes of famine are:

The scarcity and high cost of provisions.

The financial difficulties in which the public powers are involved.

The paralysis of industry and commerce, resulting in unemployment—that is, in suppression of wages.

In short, a diminution of resources, accompanied by an increase of expenditure; so that the public coffers are almost powerless to come to the aid of private distress.

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That is how we stand in Belgium.

It is not our intention to depict the poignant distress which has overwhelmed our country. We shall merely explain briefly how we try to cope with it; this will suffice to give some idea of it.

Creation of Temporary Shelters.

Let us first of all consider the country districts. Even when a few houses only of a village have escaped incendiarism the inhabitants have returned thither and have resumed their customary labours. Must they not plough and sow, under penalty of preparing for themselves another year of wretchedness? Where houses exist no longer they live in a cellar, or an outhouse to which some kind of roof has been improvised; families passed the winter of 1914-15 in a potato-silo,[31] under the shelter of a few mats of straw. In the ruined villages the first anxiety of the public powers and the relief committees was therefore to provide provisional shelter.

In the towns and industrial districts the most urgent necessities are of another kind. What is lacking most particularly is employment. The administrations have therefore set themselves to provide the unemployed with paid occupations which do not demand apprenticeship—the clearing of ruins, the levelling of soil, the digging of reservoirs, etc. The communal coffers being empty, communal vouchers are issued. L'Événement Illustré, in its fourth issue, gives reproductions of some of these vouchers, of which, it states, there are more than 500. In the communes near Louvain, where the poverty is particularly poignant, it has been necessary to create vouchers for 2 centimes (at Wilsele) and 5 centimes (at Herent).

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From the outset stringent measures were taken to make up for the insufficiency of provisions and to prevent speculators from obtaining possession of existing stocks. The most important of these regulations are the following:—

Certain communes also sell meat; others have installed communal stores for the sale of all kinds of provisions, especially preserved foods, dried vegetables, salt, potatoes, etc.; almost everywhere coal is sold retail; petroleum was sold as long as it could be obtained. Moreover, the collectivities are distributing enormous quantities of clothes; in the Brussels district alone by the end of January 660,865 frs. worth of clothing and footwear had been given to the necessitous. Abuses have as[172] far as possible been guarded against, (1) by the "household card," the Carte de ménage, which indicates the number of persons composing each family; and (2) by the limitation of the quantity of each kind of goods which the household can obtain during the week.

The basis of alimentation is bread. Therefore particularly Draconian rules have been elaborated for the bakeries.

The National Relief Committee.

Many problems presented themselves simultaneously, and with an extreme urgency. In all communes local committees have been set up, entrusted with the equitable distribution of provisions among all the inhabitants. We say "all the inhabitants," for the reader must not form any illusions as to our condition: there is not a single Belgian family which, if left to itself, could obtain its daily bread; the general rationing to which the whole population is subjected makes rich and poor equally dependent on the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation.

To organize the feeding of the public would have been a task above our strength if Belgium, in her present distress, had been abandoned to her own resources. But the misfortunes which have come upon us because we could not consent to comply with the orders of a tyrannical and perjured neighbour—the poverty which cripples us more completely day by day, as requisitions, pillage, taxes, and fines deprive us of our last resources—the massacres and the incendiarism which have turned into deserts the most fertile and most densely peopled provinces of Europe—the molestations and annoyances which[173] have reduced to unemployment a working population whose activity is proverbial—in short, the unmerited misfortune which Kultur has inflicted upon us—all this has awakened, in all the civilized nations, a current of sympathy and solidarity with poor Belgium.

By Germany our country was condemned to perish of starvation. The miracle which alone could save us has been effected by the charity of Spain, Scandinavia, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the Argentine Republic, Brazil, and, above all, the United States. Since the month of November 1914 vessels laden with provisions have been regularly leaving the American ports for Rotterdam, whence the food is despatched, principally by means of barges, into Belgium, and distributed, in the smallest villages even, by the care of the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation. This Committee is an extension throughout the whole country of a commission which was formed early in September 1914 to succour the Brussels district; it is under the patronage of their Excellencies the Marquis of Villalobar, the Spanish Minister, and Mr. Brand Whitlock, the United States Minister. In January and February 1915 the Committee was induced to concern itself also with the country round Maubeuge, and the Givet—Furnay—Sedan district.

The mission of the National Committee is equitably to distribute relief and provisions. But it does not itself collect these resources; as they derive more particularly from the United States it is an American Committee, the "Commission for Relief in Belgium," which undertakes to collect and administer funds. It is the American Committee[174] which despatches to Rotterdam, from American ports, the steamers carrying food and clothing. In each province the American Commission has a delegate who supervises the distribution of provisions and relief; he assures himself that nothing is diverted to the use of the German army. The Commission for Relief in Belgium sits in London, its chairman being Mr. Herbert Hoover.

A serious difficulty cropped up immediately. Foreign beneficence was eager to aid the Belgians, but not, obviously, the butchers who occupy our country. It was therefore necessary at all costs to prevent the German army from seizing the provisions and subsidies despatched by America.

On the 16th October, 1914, the German authorities undertook to exempt from all requisitions the provisions imported by the National Committee. But this promise was promptly violated. The Germans, it is true, did not requisition the wheat, but they did requisition the bread made from that wheat. Moreover, they pretended that their engagement of the 16th October, 1914, general as it was, did not affect Flanders, a territoire d'étape not subject to the Governor-General. This is the effect of their letter of the 21st November, 1914. Up to the present it has been impossible to get them to keep the engagements to which they subscribed on the 16th October; for although they have extended to cattle-foods the promise that nothing should be requisitioned by the troops placed under the orders of the Governor-General—the territoire d'étape being thus excluded—they have, on the other hand, forced the communes of Flanders to open grain markets, in which[175] they make purchases, thus continuing to impoverish the food-stores of the country.

While they exclude Flanders from the region exempted from requisitions, they take care not to breathe a word of this exemption in their own newspapers. The K.Z., on the 4th January, and Der Volksfreund on the 5th declared that requisitions of foodstuffs were suspended throughout Belgium.

Despite the difficulties raised by the Germans, the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation has rendered our country inestimable services, which only those who have visited our towns and rural districts and have seen the work of the local Committees can form any conception.

We borrow from the report of the Executive Committee for the month of January 1915 (published in Brussels 15th February, 1915) a few figures (see table, p. 176) as to the distribution of relief during the month of January.

But the National Committee extends its beneficent action over many departments which are not mentioned in this table.

Here, according to the same report, is the list of these departments:—

[176]

[177]

Since the month of January 1915 the National Committee has not ceased to extend its activities. But it is impossible to give more precise data. The German authorities no longer permit the Committee to publish its reports. In their dry, official manner they show us only too clearly what we are to think of the present "prosperity" of Belgium and the "normal state of the situation."

It will be seen that the activities of the National Committee are fruitful and extensive. But more and more money is required, as savings are exhausted and as the public coffers are emptied by the Germans.

In January 1915 the Sovereign Pontiff surrendered the Belgian contribution to Peter's Pence.

As 40 million frs. per month (£1,600,000) is being paid to the Germans, poverty is rapidly increasing. The number of Belgians deprived of all resources and obliged to live entirely on charity had[178] risen by February to 1,500,000. It was estimated that by June it would be 2,500,000, or more than one-third of the total population. In February the nourishment of this famishing host already demanded 10 million frs. (£400,000) per month; soon it will demand 12 to 13 millions. In this conjuncture Mr. Hoover, the President of the American Commission, went begging to the British Government, which promised £100,000 per month provided Germany would cease to make requisitions in Flanders and levy the tax of 40 millions. Germany refused. How will it end?

Belgium's Gratitude to America.

Belgium knows that she owes her relief to the United States. Without American charity our country would perish in the distress into which the German exactions have plunged her. No one in Belgium will ever forget this, and it is in the name of the whole nation that King Albert has publicly thanked America.

It was in sign of homage, and also of gratitude, that on the 22nd February, 1915, on the anniversary of American Independence, the Belgians wore in their buttonholes a medallion of the Stars and Stripes, while thousands of the citizens of Brussels left their cards at the hotel of His Excellency Mr. Brand H. Whitlock. Baron von Bissing spoke of this as childishness; at Liége German officers even snatched the American colours from women and young girls. Massacre and arson are more familiar to Kultur than gratitude.

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In those chapters in which we have dealt with the violations of international treaties, and of the Hague Convention, we have often been led to comment on the mode of thought displayed by those who committed these crimes. But hitherto we have touched upon the subject of German mentality only in an incidental fashion; it will doubtless be interesting to consider it more closely.

We shall utilize, by preference, documents of German origin. In cases where these are lacking, for example, in the case of the cruelties committed, we shall have recourse to observations which we ourselves have collected, and whose authenticity is indisputable.

In place of passing in review all the peculiarities of the modern German mind, which would occupy too much space, we shall confine ourselves to those from which Belgium has suffered most cruelly; but we shall not speak—it would be superfluous—of the obscene spirit of rape, and rapacity, and drunkenness. The three psychological elements which we shall consider are pride, duplicity, and spitefulness.

Some Manifestations of Pride and the Spirit of Boasting.

"The German nation is the Chosen People, and God is with us." That is the prevailing idea of the[180] speeches and proclamations of the Kaiser. In his Speech from the Throne on the 4th August, 1914, he declared: "It is not the spirit of conquest which urges us forward; but we are animated by the inflexible determination to retain the position in which God has set us, for ourselves and for all the generations to come."

In her pride Germany is unanimous. No German is permitted to doubt the indisputable superiority of his nation over all other nations. As soon as he learns to lisp his first words, his brain is steeped in the conviction that no people is comparable to his own, even remotely.

This longing to exalt his own country is accompanied by a corresponding desire to abase all others. Hardly is a discovery of any kind made in a neighbouring country than a German appropriates it in order to give it a new trade-mark. One example will suffice.

All the world knows that Louis Pasteur was the founder of the science of bacteriology, a science whose consequences, in the spheres of hygiene and medicine, are incalculable. Germany ignores Pasteur and has heard only of Koch. A Belgian, who attended the Berlin celebrations in honour of Koch, returned disgusted with the fact that the name of Pasteur was systematically suppressed throughout the ceremonies. In an obituary notice devoted to Koch a Belgian bacteriologist, M. Jules Bordet, remarked with great justice, in speaking of the German biographies of the scientist who had just died:—

"They made Koch the absolute creator of modern medicine: all other glory pales before his; he is the founder of bacteriology. Their obituary articles, emanating, for the most part, from disciples of the master, and which are, one feels, steeped in pious[181] gratitude, and also, perhaps, to a certain extent, in a somewhat exclusive patriotism, attribute to him the honour of having shown the organic origin of contagious diseases." "It would be," said Herr Pfeiffer, the distinguished Breslau bacteriologist, "a real act of justice were posterity to divide the history of medicine into two periods, one before Koch and the other after him."

Reading such notices it would almost seem as though Pasteur had never lived!

We think M. Bordet shows himself far too indulgent toward the German biographers when he says, in conclusion: "And one could not take it amiss of these disciples if, in their filial solicitude, they left on the tomb of their Master a few leaves from the laurels of Pasteur."

Here is another example of boasting, interesting principally by reason of the charlatanesque manner in which it was published. Every one has heard of the Cooper-Hewitt mercury-vapour lamp, with its strange blue-violet light, so rich in ultra-violet rays. The most summary treatises on physics explain that quartz will allow the ultra-violet rays to pass, and that the Cooper-Hewitt quartz lamp is in constant employment in the laboratories. But if you read the communication which the Germans imposed upon L'Ami de l'Ordre on the 27th December, 1914, you will see that the Germans invented the whole affair.

If you want to be initiated into the perfections of the German, Herr Momme Nissen, in Der Krieg und die Deutsche Kunst, will enumerate them for you. "The qualities of the German," he says, "integrity and courage, profundity of mind and fidelity, insight and the sense of inwardness, modesty and piety, are also the ornaments of our art."

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The Germans compare themselves with their Allies.

Here is a last point to be considered. The Germans do not merely consider themselves to be superior to their adversaries; they are equally modest on behalf of their allies. To their minds, and in their writings, the present war is "the German war." The most complete chronological compilation which has appeared hitherto is entitled Chronik des Deutschen Krieges. The official publications deliberately ignore the Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Croats, Turks, etc. The first of the pamphlets of propaganda distributed by the Germans (Journal de la Guerre) begins thus: "The name this war will one day bear in history is already determined; it can only be the German War, for it is a war destined to establish the position of the German nation in the world." By what name shall we call the German's sense of superiority over all other nations: is it pride, presumption, or impudence?

Herr Paul Rohrbach, who is generally more moderate in his expressions, has written a pamphlet entitled Warum es der Deutsche Krieg ist ("Why this is the German War").

It would be useless to insist on the general aspects of the question. Let us consider only a few of the immediate consequences of this frame of mind: militarism, disdain for others, cynicism, and absence of the critical spirit.

Might comes before Right.

Bismarck has given us a precise formula of the cult of brute force, "Might comes before right!"[183] Nietzsche has gone further, "Might creates right." "You say that a good cause sanctifies even war? I tell you that a good war sanctifies any cause!" (Thus Spake Zarathustra).

Herr Maximilian Harden, the well-known polemical writer, expressed the same idea in a lecture delivered at Duisbourg and reproduced in K.Z. (8th December, 1914). It is expressed with equal lucidity in an article published in Zeit im Bild (19th November, 1914), and signed Vitus Bug; the author, after inquiring into the reasons which make Germany hated, adds: "Let us be victorious, and people will immediately discover that we were in the right!"