We are not in the confidence of the German Staff, and we can only form hypotheses as to its mentality. But here are two facts, easy to verify and interpret, which show that the atrocities were committed with premeditation.
Firstly, the existence of various incendiary materials. When a town is condemned to be burned the execution of the command is confided to a special company of the engineers. (The carnet of an officer of an "incendiary company" was picked up in a commune of Hainaut.) Generally a first squad breaks the windows and shutters; a second pours naphtha into the houses by means of special pumps, "incendiary pumps"; then comes the third squad, which throws the "incendiary bombs." These last are of many different kinds. Those most commonly employed in Brabant and Hainaut include discs of gelatinous nitro-cellulose, which jump in all directions. Thanks to the inflammable vapours which fill the houses, the latter catch fire on all their floors simultaneously. It took only half an hour to set fire to the Boulevard Audent at Charleroi.
No one can suppose that so perfect an organization was improvised during the campaign. Moreover, where and how could the discs of fulminating cotton have been procured?
At Termonde the Germans probably employed cylinders of naphtha. At all events one can still see, in houses which did not catch fire, holes made in the ceilings and floors, into which holes long strips of linen are introduced to serve as wicks. The Germans sprinkled them with naphtha, and it was enough to put a match to such a wick in order to set fire to the joists of the floor overhead. At Termonde 1,200 houses were burned in a single day.
The Two Great Periods of Massacre.
We discover, then, that the great destructive operations were conducted according to a general plan. Let us place in chronological order the most important of the massacres and the conflagrations, that is, those which could not have been carried out except by order of the officers, omitting, therefore, the killings in detail and the burning of farms and isolated houses, attributable, no doubt, to soldiers acting on their own initiative, or to small bands greedy for pillage. What do we see? That apart from the atrocities which marked the outset of the campaign, the majority of the great killings and burnings, in France as well as in Belgium, were ordered during two periods: one from the 19th to the 27th August, and one from the 2nd to the 12th September, 1914. Now it is quite certain that in a country already occupied, and deprived of means of communication, the "francs-tireurs" could not possibly have agreed among themselves as to the moment of their attacks. The only people who could transmit an order were the Germans; and the legitimate conclusion which one forms from this lamentable list is that the pretended attacks of francs-tireurs were elaborated in Berlin, whence they were ordered by telegraph to break out on a given date.
Another interesting fact revealed by a chronological list is that the so-called attacks of "francs-tireurs" very often do not coincide with the entrance of the Germans into a given locality, but break out a few days later. One might at a pinch understand that poachers, or impulsive individuals, might fire a rifle at a patrol; but it is wholly improbable that they would make their attempt at a moment when they were already impressed by the formidable warlike equipment of our enemies. This is so contrary to common sense that the Germans try to get out of it by lying. Let us cite a case. They assert that on Tuesday the 25th August, 1914, there was in Louvain only a weak garrison of Landsturm, and that the civil population profited by this circumstance to attempt an attack, which could only be repressed by incendiarism and massacre. Now the people of Louvain had been warned that very morning that 10,000 men were to arrive during the day, and that many houses which had not yet billeted soldiers would do so the following night. And, indeed, that afternoon several fresh regiments were seen to enter, notably the 53rd, 72nd, and 7th Hussars.
When, by exception, the Germans assert that the "francs-tireurs" have attacked a column on the march, one almost always remarks the three following points: (1) the attack takes place while a village is being traversed; (2) it happens when a great part of the column has already passed, so that the "francs-tireurs" are caught between two fires; (3) the "francs-tireurs" are concealed in the houses. A moment's reflection suffices to show that these are precisely the most unfavourable circumstances which civilians could choose for their attack.
Protective Inscriptions.