In the “Atlantic Monthly” for October, 1917, Prof. Kellogg, of the American Belgian Relief Commission, while severely arraigning Germany’s treatment of Belgium, expressly states that he came across no instance of Belgian children with their hands cut off or women with breasts mutilated.
Ernest P. Bicknell, Director of Civilian Relief, American Red Cross, in an article in “The Survey” in 1917, writes as follows:
The world is familiar with stories of the atrocities charged against the German army in Belgium. In our travels in Belgium many of these stories came to our ears. In time we came to feel that a fair consideration of these reports required a careful discrimination between the conduct of individual German soldiers, and those operations carried on under the direction of army officers in accordance with a deliberately adopted military policy.
Approaching this subject in accordance with this idea, we should classify the stories of mutilations, violations of women, killing of women and children, etc., as belonging in the category chargeable against individuals of reckless and criminal character, who when opportunity offers, will gratify their lawless passions. The stories of individual atrocities in Belgium, which have shocked the world, we found difficult to verify. While it is probable that such atrocities were occasionally committed, I personally came in contact with no instance of that character during my travels about Belgium; nor did I discuss this subject with any person who had himself come in contact with such an instance.
In my opinion the verdict of history upon the conduct of the German army in Belgium will give little heed to these horrifying stories of individual crime.
Testimony along the same line is furnished by Father Duffy, chaplain of the 165th Infantry; the War Refugee Committee in London, George Bernard Shaw, General Pershing, General March and many others of equal standing, and furnishes an array of evidence that is strangely opposed to that of Mrs. Harjes, the wife of the partner of J. P. Morgan, that she personally saw Belgian children with their hands cut off, and of Cardinal Mercier, who stirred the heart of humanity when he declared that “forty-nine Belgian priests were tortured and put to death by the Germans during the occupation.” It is a matter of record, however, that General Bissig, Governor General of Belgium during the occupation, forbade the Belgians to keep song birds that had been bereft of their eyes to make them sing better. The order concludes: “The wilful blinding of birds is an act of cruelty which I cannot under any circumstances tolerate.”
Five reputable American correspondents on September 6, 1914, after tracing the German army in its invasion of 100 miles, sent a message to the American people that “we are unable to report a single instance (of atrocities) unprovoked.... Everywhere we have seen Germans paying for purchases and respecting property rights as well as according civilians every consideration.... To the truth of these statements we pledge our professional and personal word.” The statement was signed by James O’Donnell Bennett and John T. McCutcheon, of the Chicago “Tribune;” Roger Lewis, of the Associated Press; Irvin S. Cobb, of the “Saturday Evening Post,” and Harry Hansen, of the Chicago “Daily News.”
It has been said that Lord Bryce signed the official atrocity report and that his honored name raises it above suspicion. Lord Bryce is an old man and it is inferred that he signed the report in good faith without, however, having looked into the truth or falsity of the statements himself, accepting the word of others who were using him for their nefarious purpose, the intention being to incite American public opinion to action in behalf of the Allies. For Lord Bryce is flatly contradicted by the following cable message from London, taken from the daily papers of September 15, 1914:
(Lord Bryce subsequently modified his position by a denial of the truth of the report as presented.—Ed.)
London, Sept. 14, 3:23 P. M.—Premier Asquith told the House of Commons today that official information had reached the Ministry of War concerning the repeated stories that German soldiers had abused the Red Cross flag, killed and maimed the wounded, and killed women and children, as had been alleged so often in stories of the battlefields.