The Germans have always taken good care to demand wine. They demanded enormous quantities in the little villages of the Campine of Limburg (N.R.C., 15th January, 1915). Elsewhere they took for their own use all the cellars of the wine-merchants and the inhabitants, without allowing the latter to make use of them (see Belg. Allem., p. 118).
A last point as to requisitions. They shall as far as possible be paid for in ready money; if not, a receipt shall be given.
Very often no receipt has been given to the owners of property taken. Elsewhere the receipts are fantastical and valueless.
It is the truth that those who do receive vouchers are requested to satisfy themselves of their accuracy, but this prescription is obviously a dead letter. Imagine, on the one hand, a peasant, Fleming or Walloon, terrorized into a condition of helplessness, and incapable of reading a voucher scrawled in German; and on the other, soldiers whose customary arguments are shooting and burning.
Article 53.
An army of occupation shall only take possession of cash, funds, and realizable securities which are strictly the property of the State, depôts of arms, means of transport, stores and supplies, and, generally, all movable property belonging to the State which may be used for military operations....
From the very first days of the occupation the Germans, in defiance of law and justice, seized upon the communal treasuries and the funds deposited in the branch establishments of the National Bank, the post offices, etc. They were obliged to recognize the justice of the protests made by the Belgian Government; but their love of pillage is incorrigible; on entering Gand, on Monday, the 12th October, their first care was to lay hands on the 1,800,000 (£72,000) contained in the communal treasury.
According to Article 55 the Germans had no right to remove the furniture of the Ministries of Brussels (p. 134), since this property was not of a kind to be useful in military operations.
Article 55.
The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, landed property, forests, and agricultural undertakings belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of such properties and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.
The German respect for legality did not restrain them from violating this Article. From the very first days of the war they employed the churches which they consented to leave standing as stables; on reaching Liége they took possession of the Palais de Justice and made a barracks of it. Why did they expel Justice? Herren Koester and Noske tell us (p. 30), it was simply because the position is central and easy to defend (see a photograph facing p. 32). They did not take account of the fact that such employment of the building is doubly contrary to the Hague Convention, since they did not respect the nature of the monument, and exposed it to bombardment by Allied aviators on the look-out for the German garrison.
It was the same with the Palais de Justice of Brussels, which also serves as a German barracks. To adapt it to its novel use, the soldiers have destroyed a great part of the magnificent furnishings which adorned the halls; the immediate surroundings have been fortified, and the cupola serves by night as a station for signalling to dirigibles. In short, all preparations have been made with a view to the bombardment of Poelaert's masterpiece by the Allies.