Other Examples of Official Pillage
Examples of official pillage of every kind practised by Germany are to be had in abundance. Sometimes it was the military authorities who shamelessly seized the deposits in private banks. This was shown to have taken place at Liège, Dinant, and Louvain, where quite a large sum of money was taken from the Bank de la Dyle and 12,000 francs from the Banque Populaire. At Lille the savings bank was robbed. Sometimes pillage took the form of fining newspapers. In this way the Croix du Nord had to pay 150,000 francs for having described the German army in one of its articles as “a flood of Teutons.”
At Châlons-sur-Marne, the German commandant asked M. Servès, deputy mayor, “to have all the shops in the town opened, so that the soldiers might buy what they needed.” When M. Servès remarked that it would be well that sentries should be stationed before the shops, the German officer replied that it was for the police of the town to keep order. M. Servès replied that there were no longer any police. Then the commandant came in in a towering rage and shouted: “There should have been. It is not fair that people who remain in the town should alone have to bear the burden. Those who have fled must bear their part. Consequently our soldiers will be instructed to break open the doors of shops and take what they want.” And pillage, officially ordered, began. To mitigate the odium of it General Seydewitz warned the town that he was reviving the security of 500,000 francs, which had been demanded on the first day of occupation as a guarantee for the requisitions. But this half-million was taken again as an instalment of the monetary contribution levied on the town.