The Great War and How It Arose

by Anonymous

SOME GERMAN ATROCITIES IN BELGIUM.

In December, 1914, a Committee was appointed by the British Government to inquire into the German outrages in Belgium and France. Under the Chairmanship of Lord Bryce, this Committee was composed of:—

The Rt. Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M. (Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, 1870; Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1886; Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster (with seat in Cabinet), 1892; President of Board of Trade, 1894; one of the British Members of the International Tribunal at The Hague; Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1905-6; His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Washington, 1907-12).

The Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bt., K.C., LL.D., D.C.L. (Judge of Admiralty Court of Cinque Ports since 1914; Editor of Law Reports since 1895; Chairman, Royal Commission on Public Records, 1910; Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1883-1903; Author of The Law of Torts, 1887; History of English Law, 1895.)

The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Clarke, K.C. (Solicitor-General, 1886-92).

Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C. (Professor of Law, Owen's College, Manchester (Principal, 1898-1904); Adviser to the Bombay University, 1913-14).

Mr. H. A. L. Fisher (Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University; Chichele Lecturer in Foreign History, 1911-12).

Mr. Harold Cox, M.A. (Editor, Edinburgh Review).

Sir Kenelm E. Digby, K.C., G.C.B. (Permanent Under-Secretary of State at Home Office, 1895-1903).

This eminent and impartial Tribunal, after carefully weighing the evidence (Cd. 7894 and Cd. 7895) came to the following grave conclusions:—

"(i) That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organised massacres of the civil population, accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages.

"(ii) That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women, were murdered in large numbers, women violated, and children murdered.

"(iii) That looting, house burning, and the wanton destruction of property were ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German Army, that elaborate provision had been made for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war, and that the burnings and destruction were frequent where no military necessity could be alleged, being indeed part of a system of general terrorisation.

"(iv) That the rules and usages of war were frequently broken, particularly by the using of civilians, including women and children, as a shield for advancing forces exposed to fire, to a less degree by killing the wounded and prisoners, and in the frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag.

"Sensible as they are of the gravity of these conclusions, the Committee conceive that they would be doing less than their duty if they failed to record them as fully established by the evidence. Murder, lust, and pillage prevailed over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilised nations during the last three centuries."

The Report makes it plain that apart from the first outbreak of outrages intended to cow the Belgians into submission, fresh bursts of plunder and rapine took place on specific occasions when the Germans suffered defeat. Cowardly vengeance was thus wreaked on the innocent Belgian civilians for the defeat of German arms. For example, on August 25, 1914, the Belgian Army, sallying out from Antwerp, drove the enemy from Malines. The Germans promptly massacred and burnt at Louvain, "the signal for which was provided by shots exchanged between the German Army retreating after its repulse at Malines and some members of the German garrison of Louvain, who mistook their fellow-countrymen for Belgians."[109] Similarly when a successful sortie from Antwerp drove the Germans from Aerschot, they retaliated by a blood-vendetta upon the civil population.

The Germans have endeavoured to justify their brutal excesses by bringing counter-charges against Belgian civilians. For instance, the Chancellor of the German Empire, in a communication made to the press on September 2, 1914, and printed in the Nord Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, of September 21, said: "Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of the German wounded. Officials of Belgian cities have invited our officers to dinner, and shot and killed them across the table. Contrary to all international law, the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out, and after having at first shown friendliness carried on in the rear of our troops terrible warfare with concealed weapons. Belgian women cut the throats of soldiers whom they had quartered in their homes while they were sleeping."

Upon this Lord Bryce's Committee make the comment: "No evidence whatever seems to have been adduced to prove these tales."[110]

Of both individual and concerted acts of barbarity, the report teems—for example:—[111]

"It is clearly shown that many offences were committed against infants and quite young children. On one occasion children were even roped together and used as a military screen against the enemy, on another three soldiers went into action carrying small children to protect themselves from flank fire. A shocking case of the murder of a baby by a drunken soldier at Malines is thus recorded by one eye-witness and confirmed by another:—

"'One day when the Germans were not actually bombarding the town I left my house to go to my mother's house in High Street. My husband was with me. I saw eight German soldiers, and they were drunk. They were singing and making a lot of noise and dancing about. As the German soldiers came along the street I saw a small child, whether boy or girl I could not see, come out of a house. The child was about two years of age. The child came into the middle of the street so as to be in the way of the soldiers. The soldiers were walking in twos. The first line of two passed the child; one of the second line, the man on the left, stepped aside and drove his bayonet with both hands into the child's stomach, lifting the child into the air on his bayonet and carrying it away on his bayonet, he and his comrades still singing. The child screamed when the soldier struck it with his bayonet, but not afterwards.'"[112]

The following brief extracts of German atrocities are taken from Official Reports issued by the Belgian Legation:—[113]

"On the evening of the 22nd" (August, at Tamines) "a group of between 400 and 450 men was collected in front of the church, not far from the bank of the Sambre. A German detachment opened fire on them, but, as the shooting was a slow business, the officers ordered up a machine gun, which soon swept off all the unhappy peasants still left standing. Many of them were only wounded, and, hoping to save their lives, got with difficulty on their feet again. They were immediately shot down. Many wounded still lay among the corpses," and some of these were bayoneted....

"Next day, Sunday, the 23rd, about 6 o'clock in the morning, another party consisting of prisoners made in the village and the neighbourhood were brought into the square, ... in the square was a mass of bodies of civilians extending over at least 40 yards by 6 yards. They had evidently been drawn up and shot.... An officer asked for volunteers to bury the corpses. Those who volunteered were set to work and dug a trench 15 yards long, 10 broad and 2 deep. The corpses were carried to the trench on planks.... Actually fathers buried the bodies of their sons, and sons the bodies of their fathers.

"There were in the square both soldiers and officers. They were drinking champagne. The more the afternoon drew on the more they drank.... We buried from 350 to 400 bodies." ... A wounded man was buried alive, a German doctor having apparently ordered his interment....

"About 9 in the morning" (at Dinant, August 23) "the German soldiery, driving before them by blows from the butt-end of rifles, men, women, and children, pushed them all into the Parade Square, where they were kept prisoners till 6 o'clock in the evening. The guard took pleasure in repeating to them that they would soon be shot. About 6 o'clock a captain separated the men from the women and children. The women were placed in front of a rank of infantry soldiers, the men were ranged along a wall. The front rank of them were told to kneel, the others remaining standing behind them. A platoon of soldiers drew up in face of these unhappy men. It was in vain that the women cried out for mercy for their husbands, sons, and brothers. The officer ordered his men to fire. There had been no inquiry nor any pretence of a trial. About 20 of the inhabitants were only wounded, but fell among the dead. The soldiers, to make sure, fired a new volley into the heap of them. Several citizens escaped this double discharge. They shammed dead for more than two hours, remaining motionless among the corpses, and when night fell succeeded in saving themselves in the hills. Eighty-four corpses were left on the square and buried in a neighbouring garden."

"On Friday, August 21st, at 4 o'clock in the morning" (at Andenne, between Namur and Huy) "the" (German) "soldiers spread themselves through the town, driving all the population into the streets and forcing men, women, and children to march before them with their hands in the air. Those who did not obey with sufficient promptitude, or did not understand the order given them in German, were promptly knocked down. Those who tried to run away were shot. It was at this moment that Dr. Camus" (the Burgomaster), "against whom the Germans seemed to have some special spite, was wounded by a rifle shot, and then finished off by a blow from an axe. His body was dragged along by the feet for some distance....

"Subsequently the soldiers, on the order of their officers, picked out of the mass some 40 or 50 men who were led off and all shot, some along the bank of the Meuse, and others in front of the Police Station.

"The rest of the men were kept for a long time in the Place. Among them lay two persons, one of whom had received a ball in the chest, and the other a bayonet wound. They lay face to the ground with blood from their wounds trickling into the dust, occasionally calling for water. The officers forbade their neighbours to give them any help.... Both died in the course of the day.... In the morning the officers told the women to withdraw, giving them the order to gather together the dead bodies and to wash away the stains of blood which defiled the street and the houses."