Theft of Finished Products.—Everywhere in the occupied territories, so far as means of transportation permit, motors, steam-hammers, machinery, rolling-mills, lathes, presses, drills, electrical engines, looms, and so forth, have been taken to pieces by mechanics and transported into Germany. The total value of this stolen material in Belgium and the North of France alone—the richest industrial districts in the world—is almost incalculable.
Theft of Personal Property.—The official French report previously quoted states: ‘In the shops, officers and soldiers made free with whatever pleased their fancy. Every day the people witnessed the theft of property which was indispensable to them. At Ham, General von Fleck carried off all the furniture of M. Bernot’s house, where he had been quartered.’ The property thus stolen is sent to Germany, as is proved by this advertisement in the Kölnische Zeitung: ‘Furniture moved from the theatre of military operations to all destinations.’ From this source, war-booty to the value of several billions has already been divided among an army of Germans.
Seizure of Works of Art.—The Germans have stolen countless works of art, ‘in order’—so runs a recent official note of their government—‘that they may be preserved as a record of art and civilization.’—‘It would be impossible,’ declares Le Temps, ‘to find a more cynical admission of the thefts committed by the German authorities in our museums and public buildings.’ If one remembers that this methodical pillage has gone merrily on among private individuals, drawing on the unlimited stores of works of art which have been accumulated throughout the centuries in Poland, and particularly in Belgium and France, it must certainly be apparent that the value of these stolen art treasures is immense.
War Imposts.—Our official report establishes that ‘Requisitions have everywhere been continuous. Towns that have had to meet the expenses of troops quartered within their jurisdiction have been overwhelmed by huge levies.’
Belgium is staggering under an annual war assessment of 480,000,000 francs. Bucharest, after its capture by the Germans, was forced to pay a levy amounting to about 1900 francs per capita of the population. At Craiova the levy was 950 francs per capita. An edict forbids the circulation of paper money unless it has been specially stamped by the Germans, who retain 30 per cent of its nominal value.
In April, 1917, the Frankfurter Zeitung announced that the leaders of the Austro-German forces of occupation in Roumania would shortly call for an obligatory internal loan of a hundred million francs. In Poland, the German government has just issued a billion marks in paper money for enforced circulation. These are only single examples.
Theft of Specie, Jewels, and Securities.—In September, 1916, the Germans seized three quarters of a billion francs from the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels, which was subsequently transferred to Germany. In January, 1917, on the steamer Prinz Hendrick, they stole a million francs from a Belgian who was traveling from England, and took ten million francs’ worth of diamonds from the mail-bags. In the village of Vraignes, on March 18, 1917, the Germans, before evicting the inhabitants, stole from them the 13,800 francs they had in their possession. At Noyon—we learn from the official report already quoted—the Germans broke open and pillaged the safes of banks and private citizens before retiring from the town. The securities, jewels, and silver plate of Noyon represented a value of about eighteen million francs. And, as I have said, these are only random incidents.
Taking into consideration, then, the present high prices of food-products, coal, metal, petroleum, war-material, machinery, and the rest, it can be seen at a glance that each one of the nine sources of booty just enumerated, on which the Germans have been steadily drawing, in some cases for as much as three years, has unquestionably yielded the value of several billions of francs,—certain of them, perhaps, tens of billions. Hence we may reasonably conclude that, without fixing a definite figure for the yield of these nine sources, the total plunder has mounted well up in the tens of billions.
Another basis for calculating the worth of the invaded territories to Germany lies in the fact that the national fortunes of these countries, according to ante-bellum statistics, amounted to about 155 billions of francs.