German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment

Even the proclamations issued by the German authorities show for what hateful purposes the hostages were taken away, and how precarious was their condition as soon as the slightest check was inflicted on the German troops, or the slightest attack was made upon them.

“The life of hostages,” wrote Commandant Dieckmann at Grivegnée, on the 6th September, “depends on whether the inhabitants of the communes previously mentioned keep quiet under all circumstances.” And he adds, “I shall mark in the lists submitted to me the names of those individuals who must stay as hostages from noon on one day to noon of the next.

“If a substitute has not been found within reasonable time, the hostage will remain for a further twenty-four in the fort. After this second period of twenty-four hours, the hostage will run the risk of death, if a substitute has not been found.”

Moreover, Marshal Von der Goltz, military governor of Belgium, caused to be posted up in Brussels on 5th October, 1914, a proclamation in which the following announcement was made: “In future, the localities nearest to the place where the destruction of railway lines and telegraph wires has taken place (whether they have been accessory or not) will be mercilessly punished. To this end hostages have been taken from all localities near to railroads threatened by such attacks, and at the first attempt to destroy lines of railroad, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot.”

As for the deportation of civilians and the imprisonment with which they were threatened, when they were not carried off to Germany, two German soldiers volunteered the following admissions: “On the 6th September,” writes one of them, “we dispatched three hundred Belgians to Germany, including twenty-one curés.” “We shut up,” writes the other (Karl Bertram de Westeregein, near Magdeburg), “450 men in the church at Aerschot. I myself happened to be near the church at the moment.”

Conclusion

All this evidence and all these admissions are sufficient to prove the criminal nature of the German treatment of civilians whose territory had been invaded. The pretexts which they allege have no validity. They are only made for the sake of appearances, and, on the other hand, the acts which they committed are such as admit no kind of excuse and can in no case be justified. Nevertheless the German Government attempted to do so. The Berlin Cabinet undertook to prove that the inhabitants of Liège were guilty and deserved to suffer the fearful butchery which followed the entry of the Germans. To prove this the latter relied upon the evidence of a certain Hermann Costen, who was represented as a Swiss member of the Red Cross. But the chief of the Swiss police promptly published the following information—

After the picture of German atrocities which has been put before us, it is not without its uses to form from this reply some idea of the duplicity which endeavoured to cloak them.

CHAPTER XIV
SYSTEMATIC ARSON. DESECRATION OF CHURCHES

The life of the inhabitants of invaded countries, the honour of their women, the liberty of their youths were not the only blessings, which the Germans attempted to take away from them in contempt of all humanity and all law. Even the property of these inhabitants suffered from invasion. They had to gaze on the ruin of their ravaged homes, which the invader left to be devoured by the flames, and when, deprived of all their possessions, these wretched victims of invasion wanted to take refuge in the temples of God, this last resource was denied them, for the barbarians had sometimes destroyed the church, and sometimes taken possession of it to use as a barracks for their soldiers.

Arson as a Policy

As the French Commission of Inquiry remarked, arson was a common German practice, sometimes used as a weapon of destruction, sometimes as a means of intimidation. “The German army,” adds this Commission, “in order to be prepared for it, has a regular equipment, including torches, grenades, fuses, petrol-sprinklers, rockets which carry inflammable matter, and even little bags containing pastilles of a very inflammable compressed powder. Its incendiary fury is chiefly manifested against churches and monuments interesting from the point of view of art or of history.”

Often the invader was not content with sprinkling the beds of dwelling-houses with petrol, he took care also to heap straw under agricultural machines to destroy them, as well as dwelling-houses, harvests, and the cattle remaining in the stalls. This was done at Château-sur-Morin by the 76th German regiment.

Often, also, arson was employed as a means to compel people to leave their houses, and to make it easier to pillage. As soon as they entered the villages the Germans, with this object in view, set fire to them. On other occasions they resorted to this method only when the loot was over: then the destruction of the houses of a village was only the crown of their work.

It would be impossible to record in detail acts of this kind committed by Germans on all the invaded territories. We must be content with noting those cases in which parts of large towns were destroyed and whole villages disappeared.

Louvain

The burning of Louvain must be regarded as an operation distinct from the bombardment. The bombardment was slight, but the burning fearful. The burning began on the 26th August at ten p.m. It was systematically carried out. In places where the fire did not catch on, the soldiers went from house to house throwing incendiary grenades.

The largest part of the town, especially those parts of the upper town which included St. Peter’s Church, the university and its library, the greater part of the scientific institutions of the university, and the town theatre were henceforth the prey of the flames.

Everybody knows that the academic library of Louvain was one of the scientific treasures of Europe.

In token of peace all the houses in Louvain were flying a white flag, strips of which might be seen floating over the ruins.

The fire was still going on the next day. Far from taking measures to stop it, the Germans did all they could to keep it going by throwing into the flames all the straw they could find. On the 27th August Louvain looked like an old city of ruins. Drunken soldiers were walking about in it, carrying wine and brandy. The officers, seated in armchairs round tables, drinking like their men, looked on at the ominous results of the disaster. In the streets, the bodies of dead horses were decomposing in the sun, and the stench of putrefaction from them mingled with that of the fire, corrupted the air of the whole town.

The conflagration came to an end on the 2nd September. On that day four more fires were lit by the German soldiers in the Rue Leopold and the Rue Marie-Thérèse. Eight hundred and ninety-four houses were reduced to ashes within the precincts of the town of Louvain, and about five hundred in the suburb Kessel-Loo. The suburb of Berent and the commune of Corbeek-Loo were almost entirely destroyed. The suburb of Heverlé was the only one which was respected, perhaps because the Duke of Arenberg, a German subject, has property there.

The destruction of Louvain caused universal indignation, as the destruction of the Cathedral of Reims was to do a little later. In neutral countries public opinion was roused.

In Sweden it was described as a “monstrous act of barbarism against humanity and against civilisation.” In Spain the press gave voice to unanimous protests which recalled the fact that the Flemish treasures of Louvain had been respected from the time of Philip II to Napoleon I. The Portuguese Academy of Sciences invited the Academies of Science in all countries to raise public subscriptions for the purchase of books for the University of Louvain, and to keep alive the protest of the intellectual world against an act of destruction so barbarous. In America public feeling was profoundly stirred. One newspaper made itself the mouthpiece of general opinion on this topic when it declared “Germany could not complain if her crimes recoiled on her own head” (New York Tribune, 21st September, 1914). In Italy, finally, the Giornale d’Italia, the Messagero, the Secolo, the Mattino, the Corriere della Sera, the Perseveranza, the Piccolo (de Trieste) and the Avanti signed a letter inviting the citizens to testify their indignation at the Belgian Legation at Rome.

The Burning of Nomény

Various crimes committed at Nomény have had their place in foregoing chapters. But the burning of the place surpassed them all. On the 13th August, 1914, at the cry “the Prussians, the Prussians,” the inhabitants of this small village (in the province of Meurthe-et-Moselle) took refuge in the cellars. The German cavalry and infantry, sword unsheathed and revolver in hand, rushed, shouting, into the village. Mlle. Jacquemot, an eye-witness of these incidents, has described them in the Nancy Est Républicain in these words: “Having taken refuge in a cellar with thirteen other persons, she was followed by the Germans, who could not find where they had hidden. The Prussians,” she said, “went up out of the cellar again, but it was to sprinkle us with petrol through the vent-hole. They set fire to it. We were choking. We should die by burning or asphyxiation. We must go out at any cost. In a choice of deaths it is better to die of a bullet or a bayonet thrust. One of us has a watch. He looks at it. It is five o’clock. We had been there for seven hours! A couple of young girls (for, with the women, there were only some children and old men) offered themselves. Three of us then started out, the two Mlles. Nicolas and I. We went out past the outhouse. Everything in Nomény was on fire. The whole street was in flames. We must not think of going along the side of the street. Henceforth we have only one hope, i.e. to gain the fields. We went into the first garden we came to.

“As we went through the blazing streets, we had seen dead upon dead. There were some whose heads were split open. An old woman who would have been a hundred years old in the month of November dropped with exhaustion on the way. Of course she died. At the Zambeau infirmary, some bread and a little sausage meat were given us. We slept on the ground, and this morning, Friday, about six o’clock, we had to go packing.”

Senlis

The burning of Senlis is one of the most frightful cases of destruction by fire of which the Germans have been guilty. They had hardly entered it on the 2nd September when they began to loot houses, and afterwards threw into them special bombs which caused fires to break out. As M. Émile Henriot has shown, in L’Illustration, 26th September, 1914: “It was not the bombardment that started the fire. A callous and calculated purpose directed this work of destruction. There are witnesses who affirm it, and in some houses spared by the fire, these incendiary bombs, which did not fulfil the mission, were found afterwards. Private houses, hotels domiciles of rich and poor, modern villas or exquisite mansions of former days—nothing was spared. The beautiful home of the law courts and the sub-prefecture, which dated from the time of Gabriel and Louis is no more.” The cathedral, fortunately, was saved.

“Horror!” exclaimed M. Marcel Hutin of the Echo de Paris; “the whole Rue de la République, the principal street of Senlis, has been burnt down. Not a house has been spared. The hotels, private dwelling-houses, the castle, the town hall, the Houssaye Barracks—all, all in ruins.

“On the first day of their arrival, after the bombardment (I was told by the inhabitants, glad in the midst of the mental and material affliction to see a face from Paris) the Germans began to set fire to the houses in the Rue de la République. On what pretext? A tobacconist was alleged to have fired on them, and the unfortunate mayor (M. Odent) to have forgotten to cause all arms left in the possession of the citizens to be sent to the town hall.

“And such scenes! Some soldiers deposited incendiary bombs in the houses. Others, a few minutes afterwards, fired on the houses, which, being full of gases, immediately blew up. Nothing of them remains but the walls.

“Scenes of bestial savagery lifted these brutes to the highest pitch of joy: whilst the houses hard by were ablaze and the fire had just reached the topmost story of the Hôtel du Nord, in the basement a dozen Death’s-Head Hussars, tipsy, were playing infernal music on the piano, and singing with wild eyes. Outside some cavalry were forcing their horses to leap through these furnaces! It was frightful. All the night I had a horrible vision of Senlis burnt down.”

Baccarat

“On the morning after their arrival at Baccarat” (on the 25th August, 1914), says M. Jean Rogier in the Petit Parisien, “without excuse, without any pretext that the population had fired on them—for the mere lust of wickedness and destruction they set fire to the town. To begin with, they made an attack on the town hall. Soldiers bearing some resin torches, others cans of oil and petrol, marched as if on parade, to the town hall, splashed the walls with oil, emptied the petrol into the offices and the basement, and then threw their blazing torches into them.

“This hellish baptism accomplished, they waited. Ah! not for long. The flames burst forth with a fearful roaring noise, blackening the walls and rising above the front like a fiery serpent, and soon all was ablaze.

“This beautiful sight roused the brave soldiers. Close to the mayor’s residence and along the whole length of each side of the Rue des Deux Ponts there were beautiful houses, the residences of middle-class citizens. They sprinkled these sixty houses with petrol and with oil and ran their torches against the damp walls, and some minutes afterwards the whole street was on fire. The flames leaped out of the cellars, ran along the walls, rose, grew larger and larger and climbed up to the roof. They joined each other from one side of the street to the other, and, uniting, leaped to the sky like pillars of fire. The whole air was red. Flakes of flame sped outside the town, and left behind a trail of smoke. Up there on the top of the church the weathercock which revolved on the spire of the ruined belfry gleamed like a jewel of iridescent stones, and all at once, in a din of thunder claps, all the houses collapsed and shed on the town a rain of sparks.

“For five days the rubbish smoked.” One hundred and two houses were burnt down.

A Few Figures

These narratives are eloquent and yet they are far from giving an idea of the destruction which the Germans left behind them. The figures tell us still more than the narratives.

In Belgium, in fifteen towns and villages taken at random among the localities which the Germans systematically ravaged by fire, we note that 2191 houses were burnt: in other words, on an average each Belgian locality damaged by the fire of German torches had 146 houses burnt down. Moreover, we have mentioned in our investigations, which were made at haphazard, the names of ten Belgian localities entirely destroyed by fire, including Tirlemont, Linsneau, Andennes, Schaffer, Spontin, etc. It may easily be imagined what would be the result of a systematic inquiry.

In France, the number of villages completely burnt down like Nomény, Sommeilles, etc., was very great.

Some idea of the damage done may be formed from the fact that in the Meurthe-et-Moselle province alone twenty-two places suffered from fire. Of these twenty-two, two were completely destroyed (Villers-aux-Vents and Sommeilles), and in the other twenty, 663 houses were burnt. This gives an average of twenty-three houses a district.

Burning of Historic Monuments and Castles

It was not merely at Reims during the bombardment, and at Louvain during the fire, that the Germans showed their contempt for monuments and the treasures of art and science contained in them. In the following chapter we shall take note of the loot carried on in the interiors of these buildings. Here we speak only of fire and general destruction. Several castles were burnt down: those of Varolles, Moque-Souris, Sparre (in Chierry), the château of Brumetz (Aisne province), the town hall of Lunéville, the house of M. Alberic Magnard, author of Bérénice (at Baron), who saw all the works of art accumulated there, in value exceeding a million francs, destroyed by fire. In Poland, the town hall of Szydlowice, an architectural masterpiece, was destroyed, notwithstanding the 5000 crowns which the inhabitants of the place paid to the German commandant to secure its preservation.

Sacrilegious Fires

None the more were churches spared. The invader, the enemy alike of his foe’s taste and of his religious faith, spent as it were a double ferocity on the work of destroying the temples of God.

“The church at Aerschot,” writes the Belgian Commission of Inquiry in one of its reports, “is a lamentable spectacle. Its three entrances and those of the sacristy have been more or less consumed. The entrance leading to the nave, and the side entrance on the right, both of massive oak, seem to have been hammered with a battering-ram after the flames had reached them.”

The same was the case at Révigny, the church which was classed among historic monuments, and in many other Belgian and French villages which, when they were totally or partially destroyed by fire, also lost the home of their religion.

Desecration of Churches

The Germans were not content with destruction. On several occasions they went out of their way to desecrate holy places; so much perversity, worse even than barbarism, is there in the regular habits of this nation and in the education which they receive.

The church of Aerschot was not merely burned, it was also polluted; and the following narrative, given by a woman who was an eye-witness, a correspondent of the Evening News (of 24th September, 1914), will help to give us some idea of what went on there—

“On the high altar,” wrote this journalist, “there were three empty champagne bottles, two rum, a broken bordeaux bottle and five beer bottles. In the confessionals other champagne, brandy and beer bottles, also empty.

“On the marble flags, heaps of straw everywhere, heaps of bottles, rubbish and filth. On the forms, on the chairs, bottles and still more bottles, champagne, beer, rum, bordeaux, burgundy and brandy. In all directions wherever we cast our eyes, to whatever part of the church we looked, there were nothing but bottles by the hundred, by the thousand, perhaps; everywhere bottles, bottles, bottles.

“But the sacristan in a trembling voice appealed to me. ‘Madame, do look!’ and he showed me a white marble bas-relief representing the Virgin. They had quite broken the head of the Virgin!

“A little further away there were splendid wood carvings, representing an episode in the life of Christ. They burnt the face and half the body of Christ! Why? For the mere pleasure of destruction, as they slashed with the sword or bayonet the tapestries and costly lace which covered the altar. On the walls hung priceless paintings, the work of Flemish old masters. These they cut along the frames.

“They brought a pig into a little chapel, to the right of the nave, and killed it there.

“On all sides the walls and flagstones bore the marks of prancing horses which had been stabled in the sanctuary.” A pyx was taken away by the Germans from the church of Hofstade. A Belgian priest found the gilt copper foot of it on the way into the village. All the precious stones which adorned it had been taken away, and the Germans also kept the upper part of silver gilt.

In France, likewise, churches were desecrated, and the Germans used that of Betz as a barracks. When they had gone, one could see in it straw mattresses lying on the flagstones, empty bottles in rows on the altar steps, the remains of food on the forms and chairs, a leg-of-mutton bone thrown into the font, etc.

On the 25th October a battalion of the 123rd infantry regiment of Wurtemburg Landwehr entered the village of Seugern, at the bottom of the Guebwiller valley and, on a signal from their leader, immediately set fire to it. The latter, a lieutenant, reserved for himself the church, which he entered at the head of ten men. In obedience to their officer’s orders the gang started operations by destroying the organ, then broke down the confessionals and the high altar, and, making a heap of images in the nave, drenched them all with petrol.

A single Catholic soldier refused to take part in this infamous work. He was, therefore, disarmed and shot the following morning. The arrival of the French Chasseurs Alpins fortunately prevented the church, which had been polluted, from being devoured by fire as well.

The little church of Vitrimont (a league away from Vitrimont) was also desecrated by the Germans. Its stained glass was shattered, its door smashed to pieces, and in the nave the sacrilegious invaders left nothing but a confused heap of timber, plaster, jagged benches, broken glass. Vestments of the priests, the images of the saints, the costly cloths, the beautiful embroidered work, the trimmings of the altar, and the tiny treasure of the sacristy were all found on the road in the mud.

In Russia

Instances of desecration of churches, Orthodox and Catholic, were still more numerous in Russia. The cause of this lies in the orders which were given to attack the Russian or Polish peasant through his religion, the most sacred of his possessions.

The worst of these outrages was that suffered by the famous church of Our Lady at Tchenstokhova. It is the great centre of national pilgrimage, to which more than a million people go each year. The Germans did not shrink from desecrating this renowned sanctuary and looting the famous convent of the Virgin. In particular the two churches at Radom (in the province of Kielce) suffered from the German invasion. The soldiers, who spent the night there, littered the ground with straw, broke the locks of the drawers and the chests, smashed the various images and left everything in frightful disorder.

At Mlava the churches and synagogues were converted into barracks. At Souvalki, after the Germans had gone, it was shown that they had made a stable of the church, for round about were lying the droppings of horses, and hooks and rings had been fastened to the walls. On the altar there were traces of a meal; beside the shattered remnants of the clock several empty bottles and dirty cloths had been left behind, and there were marks of filthy stains. The vestments of the priests had been used to cover horses; the sacrilegious plunderers had carried off the candelabra and the altar cloth.

At Calvaire (in the province of Kovno) the Germans threw the altar-piece, the cross, and various other images into the privies. At Grasewo, Krasno, Topoleza, Konsk and Kielce, similar acts were noted. At Mariampol (in the province of Kovno) the Germans sacked the college library, forced their way into the church and desecrated the altar by dining at it. The remains of this dinner and dirty stockings were found under the altar.

Finally, at Volkawisky two churches were desecrated. One was sacked and its silver cross stolen; the other, the regimental church, was converted into a barracks, and the priests’ vestments were used as dishcloths.

German Admissions

We must not omit the chapter of admissions. So far as the burning of Aerschot is concerned, we find one of these admissions in the Kölnische Zeitung, whose correspondent admits that “the sight was alarming.” He adds that “the town was ablaze on all sides” and that “the barrels of spirits of wine blew up with a deafening clatter.”

The Saxon officer of the 178th regiment, whose evidence we have already put on record, writes that “the fine village of Gué-d’Hossus (Ardennes) was abandoned to the flames, although so far as I could see it was innocent.”

A soldier of the 32nd reserve infantry regiment notes in his pocket-book that “the streets of Creil were burnt down” by way of reprisals and because the iron bridge was blown up.

A soldier of the reserve named Schaulter writes: “The crack of rifle shots was heard when we left Ovela, but, in it, fire, women, and our leavings.” So common was the practice of which he mentions one result, that he did not think it necessary to give any details. Arson, pillage, sacrilege, violation, such were the solemn rites of invasion.

The non-commissioned officer, Hermann Levith, of the 160th infantry regiment, 8th corps, says that “the enemy occupied the village of Bièvre,” and adds, “We took the village, then burnt nearly all the houses.” Another, Private Schiller, of the 133rd infantry regiment, 19th corps, writes: “It was at Haybes (Ardennes) that on the 24th August, we had our first battle. The second battalion entered the village, searched the houses, sacked them and burnt those from which any one had fired.” A Bavarian soldier, Reishaupt, of the 3rd infantry regiment, 1st Bavarian corps, writes: “Parux (Meurthe-et-Moselle) was the first village we burnt; after that the dance began—one village after another.”

Would it not have been believed that setting fire to a country was part of the methods of attack and of acts permitted to a conqueror? What formerly was an exceptional occurrence, which remained in the memory of men as an unheard-of crime, is in German eyes the usual way of war.

CHAPTER XV
SYSTEMATIC PILLAGE AND THEFT. ROBBING THE WOUNDED AND THE DEAD

The German Idea of War-booty

The cherished idea of the German soldier is that war permits and excuses everything. Consequently the property of the inhabitants of the territory he invades does not seem to him to be immune from his cupidity. If the lust of possession seizes him, he thinks it is a brilliantly won booty, which rewards him for his efforts.

Nevertheless, international law only recognises as booty what is taken from a state; in all other cases it is pillage, and Bluntschli, the well-known German jurist, stigmatises it as emphatically as any one.

Let us add that it is not merely the German private soldier who shows that he is capable of this violation of law. The officer and even the general share this view, and commit this crime. In the majority of these cases pillage was not an accident, but a system, and has taken place under such conditions that it could not have been carried out if the officers had not approved of it. In many cases it was they who set the example. Pillage was reduced by them to the movements of a military operation. The narratives which will follow will make that clear. For the present, we shall quote the letter of the wife of a German officer living in Berlin, which the Spanish Embassy at Berne received during the month of January, in which this woman admitted that she was in possession of a quantity of objets d’art, of which she supplied an inventory. These articles her husband had sent her after the sack of a château in France. She added that her husband had taken these articles to leave them in safety with her, that her conscience would not allow her to keep them without giving a list of them, and that she wished to see them restored to their owner after the conclusion of hostilities.

In conformity with this evidence, the French Commission of Inquiry declared that “in every place through which a company of the enemy passed they gave themselves up to a methodically organised pillage, in the presence of their leaders, and sometimes even with their active assistance.”

The Objects of Pillage

Pillage covered everything, everything at least that could be carried away. What could be consumed was used at once, letters were everywhere pillaged. “Strong-boxes,” said the Commission of Inquiry, “have been gutted, and considerable sums robbed or taken by violence from them. A large quantity of silver and jewels, and also of pictures, furniture, objets d’art, linen, bicycles, women’s clothes, sewing-machines, and even children’s toys, have been taken away and put on wagons, to be brought to the frontier.”

The Temps gave an inventory of articles found in two trunks carried off in a motor by German soldiers. This booty came from Belgium.

“First trunk: four table-cloths marked M. S., one sheet, one woman’s chemise marked M. B., two petticoats, one white-and-red bodice, one dress-bodice and velvet skirt marked ‘Maison Richard Ruelens, rue des Joyeuses-Entrées 36, Louvain’; two blouses, a skirt and jacket of velvet, four gowns, a muff, a woollen necktie, the back of a pedestal, two electroplated teapots, a silver coffee-pot, a porcelain article, a teacup, table-knives with silver handles, and a dessert-knife.

“Second trunk: a bronze figure of a Cossack with inscription in Russian characters, four cases containing table-knives, a silver tray, two nickel candlesticks, a small mirror, two revolvers, four swords, seven pairs of ladies’ boots, two pairs of high-heeled shoes, a notebook in which was written on the first page ‘21st July: paid 10 fr. 80’; a registration book of the State Railway Co.; two white petticoats, four of which were marked L. S.; two muffs, a stole, five dress-bodices, one of which was marked ‘Maison Richard Ruelens, rue des Joyeuses-Entrées 36, Louvain’; a black evening cloak, a woman’s nightgown marked M. B., two table-cloths, two ostrich feathers, an evening dress, a child’s embroidered dress, four pairs of stockings, a reticule with the price 1.35 marked on a label, an overcoat with silk lapels marked ‘Maison Février, Maubeuge.’”

The result of such acts was that the not-too-opulent inhabitants of Belgium and north-east France lost all they had. The looters carried off what was not devoured by the flames, and it must be added that the work of pillage, no less than of massacre, rape and arson, was carried out with even greater fury when the inhabitants thought they had stalled it off by their entreaties. The fact has been noticed, especially in Belgium, that houses which bore inscriptions like “Please spare,” or “Decent people; do not plunder them,” were sacked and pillaged first.

The most conspicuous acts of this kind took place in Belgium at Louvain, Aerschot and Dinant; in France at Lunéville, Clermont-en-Argonne, and Château-Thierry.

Pillage a General Practice

Other towns and villages saw acts like these repeated many times. Here are some examples taken at random.

In the Province of Aisne, the village of Brumetz was sacked; in that of Jaulgonne, the Prussian Guard emptied cellars and carried off linen: theft and destruction combined resulted in loss to the extent of 250,000 francs. At Charmel similar incidents occurred. At Péronne, the inhabitants had to endure levies imposed on them without ceasing. All inhabited houses were searched from cellar to attic and stripped bare. Shops that were found shut were forced open. Whole trains full of stolen furniture were brought away to Germany.

At Baccarat it was the same. Everything that the German soldier thought right to take was taken. They took wine and flour. At the glassworks the finest articles, cut-glass services, were packed up with a care which showed every characteristic but blind violence, and packed on wagons directed to Sarrebourg. Carts laden with furniture also took the same road.

At Barbery and at Charmont men forced their way into the rooms of private houses, having first turned out the residents. Furniture and family property—all were taken, and thrown out of the windows or carried off. The village of Bussières, near Château-Thierry, was completely destroyed, of set purpose. The Prussians pillaged there everything they could find. The remainder was destroyed, pulled about, broken up, carried off, smashed to atoms by a kind of savagery. Then it was set on fire, and the flames finished the work of devastation.

At Albert, Captain Zirgow from the 30th August authorised the soldiers under his command to visit, so he said, unoccupied houses. This was as much as to give them carte blanche for pillage and theft. Consequently the booty taken by the Germans in this district was of great value.

The town of Coulommiers was widely pillaged; silver, linen, boots were taken away, especially from deserted houses, and many bicycles were packed on motor-lorries.

At Rebais a jeweller’s shop was sacked.

At Nomény, before burning the town the Germans took out of the dwelling-houses all that they thought worth carrying away. They sent everything to Metz. At Beauzemont, the château was looted by officers of the German general staff, accompanied by their wives; at Drouville, at Hériménil, at Jolivet, there was systematic pillage. In the last locality a sum of 600 francs was stolen by a German.

At Choisy-au-Bac, in Valois, the German soldiers, in presence of their officers, gave themselves up to general pillage, the fruits of which were carried off in carriages stolen from the inhabitants. Two military doctors wearing the Red-Cross brassard with their own hands pillaged Mme. Binder’s house.

At Trumilly the looting was carried out in perfect order. A non-commissioned officer on the general staff of the 19th regiment of Hanoverian Dragoons robbed Mme. Huet of 10,000 francs’ worth of jewels. The German colonel, to whom this lady made complaint, approved of the non-commissioned officer’s action. Another German soldier of the 91st infantry regiment was guilty of several thefts to the value of 815 francs. And these cases were not the only ones clearly proved in this district.

Looting of Louvain

During the days which followed the burning of Louvain, the houses which remained standing and whose inhabitants had been driven out were handed over to be looted under the very eyes of the German officers.

This pillage lasted eight days. In bands of six or eight the soldiers forced in the doors or broke in the windows, rushed into the cellars, soaked themselves in wine, threw the furniture about, broke open safes, stole money, pictures, objets d’art, silver, linen, clothing, provisions.

A great part of this booty was loaded on military wagons and carried off to Germany by railroad.

Looting at Aerschot

M. Orts, Adviser to the Legation, Secretary of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry, stated that the town of Aerschot was partially destroyed by fire, but that so far as the rest was concerned, he could affirm that it had been completely sacked.

“I went into several houses,” he said, “and passed through the different storeys. Everywhere the furniture had been thrown about, gutted, polluted in a disgraceful manner. Paper-hangings fell in strips from the walls, the doors of the cellars were burst in, the locks of the chests, drawers, and all the cupboards had been picked and their contents taken. Linen, articles of the most different kinds, and an incredible number of empty bottles covered the ground.

“In the middle-class houses, pictures were slashed and works of art broken. On the door of one, a huge, fine-looking building belonging to Dr. X, the following inscription, half rubbed out, might still be read in chalk: ‘Please spare this house, as the people in it are really peaceable, decent folks. Signed, Bannach, Orderly.’ I went into this building, in which I was told some officers had been billeted, and which the kindness of one of them appeared to have saved from the general destruction. On the threshold a faint smell of spilt wine called attention to hundreds of empty or broken bottles, which were heaped up in the porch or the staircase and in the court leading into the garden. Unspeakable disorder reigned throughout the rooms; I walked on a layer of torn clothing and tufts of wool which had fallen out of the gutted mattresses. Everywhere furniture smashed open, and in all the rooms within reach of the bed more empty bottles. The dining-room was heaped with them, dozens of wine-glasses covered the large table and the smaller ones which pressed against the slashed armchairs and sofas, while in the corner a piano with dirty keys seemed to have been smashed with kicks of a jackboot. Everything showed that these places had been for many days and nights the scene of shameless debauchery and drinking-bouts. On the Place du Marché the interior of the house of M. X, a solicitor, presented a similar appearance, and, according to the statement made to me by a quartermaster of gendarmerie, who, with his men, tried to restore a little order into all the chaos, it was the same with the majority of houses belonging to prominent families in which the German officers had chosen to take up their quarters.

“All valuables which their owners had not had time to put in a place of safety—silver, family jewels, loose money—disappeared, and the inhabitants declare that arson frequently had no other purpose than to destroy the proofs of unusually serious thefts. Wagons, packed full with loads of booty, left Aerschot in the direction of the Meuse.”

Looting at Dinant

The Dutch journalist whom we have quoted writes in the Telegraaf with regard to this town—

“In the Banque Henri the Germans had a disappointment, for they could not find where the safe had been concealed, but they stopped the manager and his son at the very moment when they were trying to escape on bicycles. As they refused to reveal the secret, they were killed with revolver shots. At the Banque Populaire the Germans, indeed, found the safe, but the greatest part of the money which it contained had already been transferred to a place of safety. The brigandage carried on was frightful, and to find a parallel to it we should have to go back to the days of the blackest barbarism.”

Looting at Lunéville

“During the early days,” says the French Commission of Inquiry, “the Germans were content to pillage, without otherwise molesting the inhabitants. Particularly was this the case on the 24th August, when Madame Jeaumont’s house was stripped. The stolen articles were put in a great cart, in which were three women, one clad in black, the other two wearing military costumes, and having the appearance, we were told, of canteen-attendants.

“On the 25th August, M. Lenoir, aged sixty-seven years, was brought out into the fields with his wife, their hands tied behind their backs. After both had been cruelly ill-treated, a non-commissioned officer took possession of a sum of 1800 francs in gold which Lenoir had about him. Indeed, the most audacious theft, as we have already said, seems to have been part of the habits of the German army, who made a regular practice of it. The following is an interesting example—

“During the burning of a house belonging to Madame Leclerc, the safes of two tenants had resisted the flames. One, belonging to M. George, under-inspector of waterworks and forests, had fallen into the ruins; the other, owned by M. Goudchau, estate-agent, remained fastened to a wall on the second storey. Non-commissioned officer Weiss, who knew the town well, as he had often been well received there when he visited it before the war in his capacity as hop-merchant, came back with his men to the place, gave orders to blow up with dynamite the piece of wall which remained standing, and made sure that the two safes should be brought to the station, where they were placed in a wagon bound for Germany. This Weiss was in the special confidence and favour of the commandant. It was he who at the quarters of the commandant had the duty of administering the commune in some sort of fashion and of arranging for levies.”

Looting of Clermont-en-Argonne

Let us quote the Commission of Inquiry—

“On the 4th September, during the night the 121st and 122nd Wurtemberg regiments entered, breaking the doors of the houses as they passed, and giving themselves up to unrestrained pillage, which was to continue during the whole of the following day. Towards midday a soldier kindled the fire. When the fire had gone out, pillage recommenced in the houses spared by the flames. Articles of furniture taken from the house of M. Desforges, fabrics stolen from the shop of M. Nordman, linen-draper, were piled up in the motors. A surgeon-major took all the hospital dressing materials, and a commissioned officer, after writing at the entrance to the Lebondidier’s house a notice forbidding pillage, caused a large part of the furniture with which this mansion was furnished to be taken away in a cart, intending them, as he boasted without shame, for the adornment of his own villa.

“At the time when all these incidents took place the town of Clermont-en-Argonne was occupied by the 13th Wurtemberg corps under the orders of General von Durach, and by a troop of Uhlans, under command of the Prince of Wittenstein.”

Looting of Château-Thierry

Château-Thierry was looted in the presence of officers, who must even have taken part in it, if we are to judge by the example of two German doctors, surprised in town by the arrival of the French troops, and who were then included in an exchange of prisoners. Their cases were opened, and in them were found articles of clothing obtained by looting shops.

“During the whole week which the German occupation of Château-Thierry lasted,” wrote the Temps of the 25th October, 1914, “shops and rooms were methodically pillaged; jewellers and bazaar owners were plundered most of all. Patients under treatment in the Red Cross hospital whose wounds did not prevent them walking, went through the town all day, thieving here and there, and then returned in the evening with their booty to sleep in hospital.

“One day they offered Mlle. X some bonbons which they had just stolen, and they appeared much surprised when the young Frenchwoman refused their present.

“Lorries loaded with stolen articles were lined up on the road to Soissons as far as the eye could reach. A non-commissioned officer and four men were seen to drag along a little English cart, nicely fitted, quite loaded with booty.

“Needless to say, the cellars were completely emptied. Not a single pot of preserve at Château-Thierry; blankets, sheets, table-cloths, napkins—everything was carried off. The Château of Belle-Vue, which belongs to M. Jules Henriet, was not burnt, but everything in it was plundered. Chests, desks, all the furniture were forced open. As for silver, for the most part it disappeared from the houses that were sacked.”

Serbia and Russia

The same kind of thing took place in Poland and Serbia. At Chabatz the shops were broken open and the goods which they contained stolen.

In the Report of the Serbian Commission of Inquiry it is said that at Prngnavor and in the outskirts all the furniture of the inhabitants, such as beds, chests, chairs, tables, sewing-machines, and even stoves had been completely smashed and thrown outside the houses. The Commission also declared that all the domestic animals which had not been used for food or taken away were slaughtered.

Theft of Pictures and Various Objets d’Art

Objets d’art of every kind and pictures were several times stolen in this way both in Belgium and in France. The review Kunst und Künstler, in an article from the pen of Professor Shaeffer, who goes so far as to specify the pictures which ought to figure in German museums, proclaimed the right to take possession of such articles and bring them to Germany.

It is true that in museums the greater part of the exhibits had been put in a place of safety. Others were surprised and looted. This was the case with the Oberot Museum at Brussels. The following is the account of the incident given by Mme. Latour, wife of the Director of the Museum.

“All the keepers had gone to the battlefield, and my husband and I were alone. Seeing that they were going to beat in the door, my husband decided to open it for them. First of all he had taken the precaution to lock the door into the galleries.

“Without paying the slightest attention to him, the officers immediately went to that in which priceless enamels of the twelfth century and magnificent jewels had usually been exhibited. Not being able to get in, they condescended to ask for the key. My husband refused. They took hold of him and forcibly deprived him of the bunch which he had in his pocket.

“Once inside, when they noticed that certain articles which they doubtless coveted had disappeared, they waxed furious. This, however, did not prevent their taking whatever they liked from the glass cases, some pictures, and some porcelain specimens, which they then compelled me to pack up for them.

“Moreover, they did not attempt to conceal the fact that what they were stealing would later on adorn their own houses.

“‘That would suit very well in my drawing-room, and this in my wife’s bedroom,’ said one. ‘Martha asked me to bring her some real Brussels lace,’ replied the other, ‘but I shall bring her this exquisite miniature. She will be delighted…’

“Every day for more than a fortnight they came back like that, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by other officers or soldiers, and every time they brought away something from the museum. They took away not less than fifty pictures.

“My husband once managed to get into conversation with one of the secretaries of the Military Governor of Brussels, and complained bitterly of the scandalous thefts committed every day at the museum. But this German official refused to listen to the description which M. Latour gave him of the officers and their uniforms. At last he brought him to the door with these words, ‘Woe to the vanquished!’”

The Germans took the furniture of the Government offices, and also all the stage properties of the Park Royal Theatre, the stage of which was converted into a motor garage.

They took away the following articles from the château at Compiègne—

Sixteen large pieces, eight in coral and eight in lava, which belonged to Napoleon I’s chessboard; a chased and gilt bronze figure of Atalanta above a clock; a chased and gilt bronze socket, part of a candelabrum on Sèvres porcelain; a chased gold and steel case containing a poniard, knife and fork, part of a collection of arms; a poniard; a Turkish dagger; a chased silvered case, adorned with precious stones, containing a hunting dagger, knife and fork; two chased stilettoes; three poniards with hollow gilt blades, and three chased and gilt bronze candlesticks, all from the same collection.

Let us add that during the last two days of the occupation three train wagons, which contained, it was said, officers’ baggage, had been shunted into the principal courtyard of the palace. The truth is that these three wagons served merely to load and to carry away valuable articles taken by the soldiers and non-commissioned officers from the houses of Compiègne. The house of M. Orsetti, in front of the palace, was completely looted in this way.

Looting of Châteaux

All the fine old châteaux of the Champagne and Marne region, and all the rich estates and villas situate in that part of Lorraine which has been invaded, were also pillaged and sacked. The ironwork of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the Gothic wainscoting, the antique furniture, were taken away. Everything which was supposed to have any value—jewels, silver, objets d’art, books—was stolen.

At the Moulinot Priory, the property of M. de Chauffault, and at Raon-l’Etape, where the 99th infantry regiment (to which Renter and Forstner, heroes of the celebrated incidents of Saverne, belonged), the 50th line regiment and the Baden reservists carried out a general pillage, and took away furniture, pianos, libraries, amateur collections, clocks, pictures, and brought them to the railway station, where a train under full steam was ready to take them to Germany. It was Prussian and Baden officers who, in the majority of cases, accompanied by their wives, chose, took, stole or destroyed, defiled or smashed everything, according as the article which they were examining could be removed or not.

Near the town of Meaux and some hundreds of metres from the village of Congis is the château of Gné. At the beginning of the battle of the Marne the German general staff was installed there. Of this château there remained, after the vandals had passed by, only the ruins. The chests-of-drawers were broken, the beautiful tapestries defiled, the armchairs smashed to pieces, the costly pictures slashed, even the linen of the château stolen. When the allied troops forced the Germans back and reoccupied it, only wounded were found in it, who, before the arrival of the conquerors, had taken care to ransack the whole house and to finish the work of destruction which had been begun.

We repeat that these outrages were the work of officers no less than of soldiers. And it was a captain who led the Germans at Creil when they burst into the houses of rich owners, broke the doors and windows, and gave themselves up to pillage.

The same kinds of acts were also committed by the Germans in Alsace. The case of Cernay, where the Germans drove out the inhabitants in the month of January, is an example. All these people had to leave the town at three o’clock in the morning. A manufacturer of the country who returned to his villa at 7.15, found a detachment of German soldiers engaged in taking down the pictures from the walls and packing up articles which they could not carry. When he expressed his surprise at seeing them appropriating his property, the soldiers replied that they were acting under the orders of their superiors.

Robbing the Dead and Wounded

The universally admitted obligation not to plunder an enemy who has fallen on the field of battle has been, like so many others, repudiated by the Germans. The personal belongings, silver, jewels, etc., of the dead and wounded have been not merely coveted, but actually plundered by them. Examples of this infamous conduct were numerous, chiefly on the battlefields of France.

On the 8th August, on the spot where a small cavalry engagement had taken place, at Beuveille (in Champagne), a French lieutenant of dragoons, who was wounded and lying unconscious on the ground, was robbed (for his own account of the incident see the Matin of the 22nd August, 1914) of a sum of 250 francs in gold by the leader of a German platoon, M. de Schaffenberg, of the Trèves light infantry. His orderly, a dragoon, also wounded, lying a few paces away from the French lieutenant, was robbed of some money that he had by the same German officer. A French hussar who was attended by Dr. Weiss at the Nancy hospital told this doctor that he had broken his leg by falling from his horse, and that, as he was lying under his mount, he was attacked by Uhlans, who robbed him of his watch and chain.

Similar cases were so frequent that the French troops scarcely wondered when they captured, near Senlis, a horseman of the German imperial guard, accompanied by three German subjects who spoke French very well, and as they knew the district served him as guide and accomplices in the work of brigandage in which he engaged. The numerous articles which they found in the pockets of these wretches left no doubt on this point: they were, therefore, brought before a court-martial at the same time as several other German prisoners who had been guilty of similar thefts; in particular, a Death’s-head hussar, who had been found in possession of a roll of bills stolen in Belgium, a considerable sum of French gold, and many jewels.

Enormous Taxes levied by the Germans

The taxes levied by the Germans in several towns of Belgium and France were represented by the invaders as either fines or war contributions. If, however, we consider them a little more closely, we shall not be able to see anything in them but theft, admitted and official. It is a consequence and an extension of thefts committed on the field of battle. That such levies should be permitted, they must be represented as expenses arising out of invasion. It is within such limits only that international law recognises war levies. Such as it is, we have no doubt that this limit is stretched to some extent. Collective fines imposed for damage sustained by an invading army are manifestly a mockery. No less ridiculous is the claim to make up for the general expenses of war by levies of this kind.

The Germans had no hesitation in using these two pretexts as an excuse. Moreover, it is plain that in their view a war tax would come under the head of the system in reliance on which war makes everything permissible. In several places these levies were, practically speaking, represented as a ransom for invaded towns. It seemed that these towns had to pay for the favour done them of not being handed over to pillage. If they came and refused the money, because they did not know where to find it, at once the German commandant threatened them with fire, devastation and pillage. These levies, therefore, were reckoned in the category of methods of terrorisation. Their aim was to make the inhabitants desire peace by multiplying their sufferings.

As for openly admitted reasons, the following are taken from an article in the Kölnische Zeitung, which dealt with the levy imposed on Belgium and the city of Brussels and, on the other hand, from a proclamation of Lieutenant-general Nieber, with regard to a tax levied on the town of Wavre.

“The war tribute imposed on Belgium,” wrote the Kölnische Zeitung, “was a punishment for ill-treatment of the Germans in Belgium. We are now at Brussels, where not more than a fortnight ago some Germans, quietly going on with their work in a foreign country, were abandoned to the cruelty of the mob. What happened then will be a perpetual stain on the honour of the Belgian people.

“We have asked ourselves what might be demanded as reasonable compensation for the inhuman treatment inflicted on our compatriots, and it appears it is impossible, save by legal means, to punish those who have committed such acts.

“But another measure is possible and recognised by international law, and that is why we have imposed a very high war tax on the town of Brussels.

“This town must bear the whole weight of the legally recognised expenses of war, to wit: the quartering of the troops, and the supply of all the provisions needed by our army up to the point when all the resources of the town are exhausted, and its inhabitants have begun to realise individually and as a whole that the baiting of defenceless women is not at all the same thing as the occupation of their houses by the enemy. Whatever it be, the punishment inflicted on the Belgians for the offences of which they have been guilty will be inflicted with all the rigour permitted by the law.”

As regards the tax levied on the town of Wavre, Lieutenant-general Nieber writes on the 27th August, in a letter to the mayor—

“On the 22nd August, 1914, General von Bülow, in command of the second army, imposed on the town of Wavre a war-levy of 3,000,000 francs, payable on the 1st September, as punishment for a surprise attack on the German troops, conduct for which no name is too bad, and which was contrary to international law and the usages of war.

“The general in command of the second army has just instructed the general in charge of the depot of the second army to collect the aforesaid levy without delay, which the town must pay for its conduct.

“I command and instruct you to hand over to the bearer of the present note the first two instalments, being 2,000,000 francs in gold. I require you also to give the bearer a letter, duly sealed with the town seal, declaring that the balance of 1,000,000 francs will be paid without fail on the 1st September. I call the attention of the town to the fact that it will under no circumstances be able to count upon any extension of time, for the civil population has put itself outside the pale of international law by firing on the German soldiers. The town of Wavre will be fired and destroyed if payment be not made in good time, without respect of persons; the innocent will suffer with the guilty.”

German Pleas in Defence, and their Validity

It is hardly necessary to say that the principle of holding towns to ransom is not admitted by any one to-day. Bluntschli, the German jurist, writes on this head a phrase which sounds ironical: “War has become civilised…… No one has any longer the right to pillage, and still less the right to destroy, without military necessity; therefore there can no longer be any question of buying off this pretended right.” On the other hand, the policy of terrorisation is not admitted. It is, however, very remarkable that the Kölnische Zeitung apparently caves in to it by commenting on the gravity of the situation in which the Belgians were, owing to (1) the fact “that their houses had been occupied by the enemy,” and (2) the exhaustion of “the whole resources of the town.”

Article 50 of the Hague Regulations stipulates, in fact, that no collective punishment, pecuniary or otherwise, can be enacted against the civil population by reason of individual acts for which they could not collectively be held responsible.

German generals or publicists, therefore, have no authority to set up a system of collective indemnity, monetary or other, in punishment of individual acts, and still less to impose these indemnities under threat of pillaging and burning towns.

As for the claim to recover the costs and expenses of war by a tax levied on the inhabitants of the invaded territory, the Kölnische Zeitung is shamelessly lying when it says that such a claim is “recognised by international law.” Not a single authority in this sense can be quoted; on the contrary, there are express statements of the very opposite. The well-known Argentine writer, Calvo, declares that such a theory involves an abuse of force, and is “in flagrant contradiction to the principle which enacts that war is waged against a state, and not against individuals taken separately.” It was in conformity with this principle that the Germans themselves, in 1870, refused to admit that the amount of the monetary contributions previously levied in France (thirty-nine million francs) could be deducted from the five milliards imposed on France by the Treaty of Frankfurt, a confirmation as clear as it is unexpected of the principle which they are violating to-day.

The Chief Examples in Belgium of this Breach of International Law

The Germans imposed on the town of Liège a payment of ten million francs, and demanded fifty millions from the province. The provinces of Brabant and Brussels were assessed at 50 and 450 million francs respectively, “as a war contribution.” Moreover, it was declared in the note signed in the name of General Arnim by Captain Kriegsheim, of the general staff of the 4th army corps in presence of M. Max, Mayor of Brussels.

At Louvain, the German authorities, represented by the commandant, Manteuffel, demanded a payment of 100,000 francs “as a war indemnity”; after negotiation they reduced the amount to 3000 francs. At Tournai on the 25th August an officer entered, revolver in hand, into the hall where the mayor and the members of the municipal council were in conference, and, on the plea that “civilians had fired on German soldiers,” declared, in spite of the mayor’s protests, that if “two million francs were not sent him by 8 p.m. on the same day, the town would be bombarded.” The sum was paid, but this did not prevent the Germans from taking as hostages the mayor, his deputies, and the bishop, who were sent to Ath and Brussels, where their liberty was restored on presentation of the receipt for two million francs.

Antwerp fell on the 9th October. The town was ordered to pay a war contribution which amounted to the grotesque sum of half a milliard of marks (625 million francs).

From the town of Wavre the Germans demanded, under the conditions mentioned in the letter of Lieutenant-general Nieber, previously quoted, a sum of three millions, which raised the total of the levies imposed by the Germans in Belgium to 1,180,000,000 francs. By distributing this amount equally over the Belgian population we find that each inhabitant of this country, ravaged, burnt, pillaged, and, in short, stripped of all its resources, was mulcted in an average payment of 158 francs.

This colossal theft, though it was ordered, could not be carried out so easily. The Mayor of Brussels paid a first instalment of five millions of the fifty millions imposed on the town of Brussels, and covered another fifteen millions by municipal bonds. But when, in the closing days of September, the military governor of Belgium, Marshal von der Goltz, who had been appointed in the meantime, demanded payment of the outstanding balance of thirty millions, M. Max informed the German authorities that the public treasury had been transferred to Antwerp, and forbade the banks to pay the sum demanded. The mayor was not at all to blame for this, as the German authorities had decided, on the pretext that payment was late, that requisitions would not be paid for. The Germans regarded the refusal of M. Max as a failure to keep engagements made, and the arrest of the mayor took place in violation of every principle of international law.

The Kölnische Zeitung of the 30th September made it appear that the attitude of M. Max was explained by the latter’s confidence that the Germans would soon be defeated; moreover, this same paper postdated the German authorities’ decision not to pay for requisitions in order to palm it off as a reply to M. Max’s refusal. Thus, open prevarication was added to extortion and violence.

None the less, all these difficulties had the effect of inducing the German Government to modify their method of demanding payment. A monthly war tax of forty million francs was substituted for all the levies in the occupied area.