FOOTNOTES:
[52] Times, April 28, 1915.
[53] Times, January 6, 1915.
[54] Times, April 24, 1915. (Speech by the Bishop of Singapore.)
[55] Daily News and Leader, April 27, 1915.
[56] Morning Post, March 27, 1915.
[57] Letter from the Chinese Legation to the Times, March 13 and 20, 1915.
[58] Daily News and Leader, April 22, 1915.
[59] Cd. 7874.
[60] Times, April 30, 1915.
[61] Times, March 17, 1915.
[62] Times, February 19, 1915.
[63] Times, April 26, 1915.
HOW THE GERMANS MAKE WAR.
It has often been asked what would happen if savages were armed with the products of modern science and with the intelligence to use them. Germany has answered the question. Every resource of science lies at the German command; the chemist, the physicist, the metallurgist, have all worked in this war to place the most effective tools of destruction in the Germans' hands, and to satisfy their ambitions they have shut the gates of mercy on mankind. The Official Handbook of Instructions issued to Officers of the German Army by the German General Staff urges the "exploitation of the crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy." This Official Handbook says:—
"A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the combatants of the Enemy State and the positions they occupy, but it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material resources of the latter."[64]
The German Emperor, addressing the troops which he sent to take part in the International Expedition in China in 1900, said:—
"When you come into contact with the enemy strike him down. Quarter is not to be given. Prisoners are not to be made. Whoever falls into your hands is into your hands delivered. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns, under their King Attila, made for themselves a name which still appears imposing in tradition, so may the name of German become known in China in such a way that never again will a Chinaman dare to look askance at a German. The blessing of the Lord be with you. Give proof of your courage and the Divine blessing will be attached to your colours."
At midnight on August 4, Great Britain declared war on Germany for violating the neutrality of Belgium, and it will be remembered that earlier in the day the German Imperial Chancellor had stated that German troops "perhaps are already on Belgian soil," and that Germany could only have one thought—how she was to "hack her way through." Simultaneously with the thought, came action. What was actually taking place is described, by Lord Bryce's Committee of Inquiry, in the following words[65]:—
"On August 4th the roads converging upon Liège from north-east, east, and south were covered with German Death's Head Hussars and Uhlans pressing forward to seize the passage over the Meuse. From the very beginning of the operations the civilian population of the villages lying upon the line of the German advance were made to experience the extreme horrors of war. 'On the 4th of August,' says one witness, 'at Herve' (a village not far from the frontier), 'I saw at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, near the station, five Uhlans, these were the first German troops I had seen. They were followed by a German officer and some soldiers in a motor car. The men in the car called out to a couple of young fellows who were standing about 30 yards away. The young men, being afraid, ran off, and then the Germans fired and killed one of them named D——.'
"The murder of this innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the burning and pillage of Herve and of other villages in the neighbourhood, to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both sexes, and to the organised military execution of batches of selected males. Thus at Herve some 50 men escaping from the burning houses were seized, taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, a hamlet west of Herve, 40 men were shot. In one household alone the father and mother (names given) were shot, the daughter died after being repeatedly outraged, and the son was wounded. Nor were children exempt....
"The burning of the villages in this neighbourhood and the wholesale slaughter of civilians, such as occurred at Herve, Micheroux, and Soumagne, appear to be connected with the exasperation caused by the resistance of Fort Fléron, whose guns barred the main road from Aix la Chapelle to Liège. Enraged by the losses which they had sustained, suspicious of the temper of the civilian population, and probably thinking that by exceptional severities at the outset they could cow the spirit of the Belgian nation, the German officers and men speedily accustomed themselves to the slaughter of civilians."
As a German soldier's diary, examined by Lord Bryce's Committee, says:—"The inhabitants without exception were brought out and shot. This shooting was heart-breaking as they all knelt down and prayed, but that was no ground for mercy. A few shots rang out and they fell back into the green grass and slept for ever."[66]
During the invasion of Belgium and France, German procedure was almost the same in all cases. "They advance along a road, shooting inoffensive passers-by—particularly bicyclists—as well as peasants working in the fields. In the towns or villages where they stop, they begin by requisitioning food and drink, which they consume till intoxicated. Sometimes from the interior of deserted houses they let off their rifles at random, and declare that it was the inhabitants who fired. Then the scenes of fire, murder, and especially pillage, begin, accompanied by acts of deliberate cruelty, without respect to sex or age. Even where they pretend to know the actual person guilty of the acts they allege, they do not content themselves with executing him summarily, but they seize the opportunity to decimate the population, pillage the houses, and then set them on fire. After a preliminary attack and massacre they shut up the men in the church, and then order the women to return to their houses and to leave their doors open all night."[67]
Innumerable German atrocities are on record and well authenticated. For example, Professor Jacobs, at a medical meeting in Edinburgh, stated that, as head of the Belgian Red Cross, he "had visited a chateau but found the Red Cross had not been respected. It had been completely destroyed, and the bodies of six girls, aged from ten to seventeen, were lying on the lawn. A convent containing sixty sisters had been entered by the German soldiers and every one had been violated. On the evidence of the doctor of the institution twenty-five were pregnant. Professor Jacobs had operated on the wife of a doctor living near Namur. Three weeks after the operation, when convalescing and still in bed, their house was entered by German soldiers; she was raped by seven of them and died two days after."[68]
1. A few typical examples of the wholesale atrocities of German troops are given in Appendix C, but to show that in many cases such atrocities were not only countenanced, but ordered by officers in command, we quote the following:—
August 22, 1914.
The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having protested their peaceful intentions, made a treacherous surprise attack on our troops.
It was with my consent that the General had the whole place burnt down, and about 100 people shot.
I bring this fact to the knowledge of the town of Liége, so that its inhabitants may know the fate with which they are threatened if they take up a similar attitude.
The General Commanding-in-Chief, Von Bulow.[69]
2. Here is an order of the day given on August 26 by General Stenger commanding the 58th German Brigade:—
After to-day no more prisoners will be taken. All prisoners are to be killed. Wounded, with or without arms, are to be killed. Even prisoners already grouped in convoys are to be killed. Let not a single living enemy remain behind us.
Oberlieutenant und Kompagnie-Chef Stoy;
Oberst und Regiments Kommandeur Neubauer;
General-Major und Brigade-Kommandeur Stenger.[70]
With reference to the above Order, Professor Joseph Bédier says: "Some thirty soldiers of Stenger's Brigade (112th and 142nd Regt. of the Baden Infantry), were examined in our prisoners' camps. I have read their evidence, which they gave upon oath and signed. All confirm the statement that this order of the day was given them on August 26, in one unit by Major Mosebach, in another by Lieut. Curtius, &c.; the majority did not know whether the order was carried out, but three of them say they saw it done in the forest of Thiaville, where ten or twelve wounded French soldiers who had already been spared by a battalion were despatched. Two others saw the order carried out on the Thiaville road, where some wounded found in a ditch by a company were finished off."[71]
3. The following are extracts from a Proclamation posted by the Germans at Namur on August 25, 1914:—
(3) Every street will be occupied by a German Guard, who will take ten hostages from each street, whom they will keep under surveillance. If there is any rising in the street the ten hostages will be shot.
(4) Doors may not be locked, and at night after eight o'clock there must be lights in three windows in every house.
(5) It is forbidden to be in the street after eight o'clock. The inhabitants of Namur must understand that there is no greater and more horrible crime than to compromise the existence of the town and the life of its citizens by criminal acts against the German Army.
The Commander of the Town,
Von Bulow.[72]
4. On October 5 the following Proclamation was posted in Brussels "and probably in most of the Communes of the Kingdom."
During the evening of September 25, the railway line and the telegraph wires were destroyed on the line Lovenjoul-Vertryck. In consequence of this, these two localities have had to render an account of this, and had to give hostages in the morning of September 30.
In future, the localities nearest to the place where similar acts take place will be punished without pity; it matters little if they are accomplices or not. For this purpose hostages have been taken from all localities near the railway line thus menaced, and at the first attempt to destroy the railway line, or the telephone or telegraph wires, they will be immediately shot.
Further, all the troops charged with the duty of guarding the railway have been ordered to shoot any person who, in a suspicious manner, approaches the line, or the telegraph or telephone wires.
The Governor-General of Belgium,
(S.) Baron von der Goltz, Field-Marshal.[73]
For purposes of record it should be noted that Lord Bryce's Committee mention by name three German Generals whose armies have disgraced civilisation; they are those of General Alexander von Kluck, General von Bülow and General von Hausen.[74]
Some of the main heads of the barbarities of Germany and of the way she has violated the recognised rules of International Law, may be set out as follows:—[75]
(a) The treatment of civilian inhabitants in Belgium and the North of France has been made public by the Belgian and French Governments, and by those who have had experience of it at first hand. Modern history affords no precedent for the sufferings that have been inflicted on the defenceless and non-combatant population in the territory that has been in German military occupation. Even the food of the population was confiscated, until, in Belgium, an International Commission, largely influenced by American generosity and conducted under American auspices, came to the relief of the population, and secured from the German Government a promise to spare what food was still left in the country, though the Germans still continue to make levies in money upon the defenceless population for the support of the German Army.
(b) We have from time to time received most terrible accounts of the barbarous treatment to which British officers and soldiers have been exposed after they have been taken prisoner, while being conveyed to German prison camps. Evidence has been received of the hardships to which British prisoners of war are subjected in the prison camps, contrasting most unfavourably with the treatment of German prisoners in this country. The Germans make no attempt to save sailors from British war vessels they sink, although we have saved a large number of German sailors in spite of great danger to our men.[76]For example, on May 1, 1915, in the destroyer action in the North Sea, the Germans imprisoned two British sailors below and when their vessel was sinking, saved themselves, but left their prisoners to sink below because "time was short."
As Lord Kitchener said, Germany "has stooped to acts which will surely stain indelibly her military history and which would vie with the barbarous savagery of the Dervishes of the Sudan."[77] On the same day, in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister declared: "When we come to the end of this war, which, please God, we may, we shall not forget—and ought not to forget—this horrible record of calculated cruelty and crime, and we shall hold it to be our duty to exact such reparation against those who are proved to have been guilty agents or actors in the matter, as it may be possible for us to exact. I do not think we should be doing our duty to these brave and unfortunate men or to the honour of our own country and the plain dictates of humanity if we were content with anything less than that."[78]
(c) At the very outset of war a German mine-layer was discovered laying a mine-field on the high seas. Further mine-fields have been laid from time to time without warning, and are still being laid on the high seas, and many neutral, as well as British vessels, have been sunk by them.
(d) At various times during the war German submarines have stopped and sunk British merchant vessels, thus making the sinking of merchant vessels a general practice, though it was admitted previously, if at all, only as an exception; the general rule, to which the British Government have adhered, being that merchant vessels, if captured, must be taken before a Prize Court. The Germans have also sunk British merchant vessels by torpedo without notice, and without any provision for the safety of the crew. They have done this in the case of neutral as well as of British vessels, and a number of non-combatant and innocent lives, unarmed and defenceless, have been destroyed in this way. The Germans have sunk without warning emigrant vessels, have tried to sink an hospital ship, and have themselves used an hospital ship for patrol work and wireless. The torpedoeing of the "Lusitania" on May 7, 1915, involving the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians—British and neutral—was acclaimed with great relish in Berlin.
(e) Unfortified, open, and defenceless towns, such as Scarborough, Yarmouth and Whitby, have been deliberately and wantonly bombarded by German ships of war, causing, in some cases, considerable loss of civilian life, including women and children.
(f) German aircraft have dropped bombs on the East Coast of England, in places where there were no military or strategic points to be attacked.
(g) The Germans have used poisonous gases in killing Allied troops at the Front, although Germany was a signatory to the following article in the Hague Convention:—
"The Contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of projectiles, the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases."[79]
And finally the German troops in South Africa have poisoned drinking wells and infected them with disease.[80]