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.