Of course they accused the Belgians of using their belfries as observation-posts. The accusation is false. We may cite Malines as an example (N.R.C., 25th November, evening edition), and Courcelles (Die Wochenschau, No. 46, 1914); but the most typical case is that of Antwerp. They reproduced in their illustrated journals (Die Wochenschau, No. 48, 1914; Kriegs-Kurier, No. 7) a photograph—or properly speaking, a drawing—published by an American newspaper (New York Tribune, 22nd October, 1914) representing a military observation-post on the tower of Notre-Dame.
Even if we grant the picture a documentary value which it does not possess, it proves nothing, for according to the American journalist (N.R.C., 15th November, evening edition), the military post existed on the tower at a period when Antwerp was not besieged, nor even in danger of being so; the city had then to defend itself only against dirigibles, which on two occasions paid it nocturnal visits, with the accompaniment of bombs. It will be understood that the Wochenschau does not inform us of this; it pretends that the soldiers were on the tower to observe the German troops and their heavy artillery during the siege.
German Observation-posts admitted by the Germans.
Let us now see whether our enemies have abstained from employing monuments for military operations. The Algemeen Handelsblad (Amsterdam) of the 3rd January states that machine-guns are placed on the belfry of Bruges and on other towers of the city. This fact is confirmed by M. Domela Nieuwenhuys Nyegaard, a pastor of Gand, a convinced Germanophile, who witnessed an attack by British aviators, upon whom the machine-guns installed on the tower of the Halles opened a violent but ineffectual fire (Uit mijn Oorlogsdagboek, p. 319, in De Tijdspiegel, 1st April, 1915).
Perhaps the Germans will contest this statement. Here is another. Those who require of their adversaries so scrupulous a respect for Article 27 of the Hague Convention placed an observation-post on the tower of St. Rombaut, during the siege of Antwerp, in order to control their fire upon the Waelhem fort. And this at least is indisputable, for in their cynicism or lack of conscience (let them choose whichever they please) they published a photograph of this infraction of the Hague Convention in the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung (No. 44, 1914, p. 752).
This is not the only case admitted by them. Zeit im Bild (No. 43, 1914) reproduces on its cover a photograph of a "military post on the tower of an Hôtel de Ville." In this we see German soldiers armed with rifles, watching an imaginary enemy. This photograph was taken at the Palais de Justice in Brussels, as is proved, without possibility of error, by the church of La Chapelle, whose very characteristic tower rises in the distance. The Germans were so delighted with this violation of the Hague Convention that they reproduced the photograph in the illustrated supplement of the Hamburger Fremdensblatt. And what is most curious in this affair is that they boasted of an offence which they knew they had not committed. For, firstly, the soldiers were not posted "on an Hôtel de Ville"; secondly, they were not even posted on the Palais de Justice, but to one side of it, as may easily be determined on the spot; thirdly, German soldiers have never been placed there to overlook an enemy!
Since mid-October of 1914 it is in Western Flanders that the fighting has taken place. Did the Germans eventually, before the universal reprobation which greeted their exploits at Louvain, Reims, and so forth, determine to respect the international agreement to which they are parties? By no means. They are far too contemptuous of conventions, as is proved by the photographs of monuments bombarded in the region of the Yser, which are published in the illustrated newspapers, notably in Panorama, a Dutch illustrated paper which surreptitiously enters Belgium.
Ypres: Panorama, 23b, 25a.
Dixmude: Panorama, 23a, 23b; Berl. Ill. Zeit., Nos. 2 and 3, 1915; Kriegs-Echo, Nos. 22, 24; Zeit. im Bild, No. 3, 1915.
Pervyse: Panorama, 21a, 21b, 23a.
Nieuport: Panorama, 22a.
Ramscapelle: Panorama, 23b.
Among the monuments destroyed artists especially deplore the marvellous Halles of Ypres, and the churches of Nieuport, Ypres, and Dixmude. This last contained a very remarkable Gothic rood-screen, of which Herr Stübben, one of the most eminent architects of modern Germany, stated that its loss would be irreparable. It escaped the shells, but not the German soldiery, who destroyed it with the butts of their rifles, after the capture of the town. Always Kultur!