A host of similar facts might be cited, but it would mean useless repetition. Let us rather examine some examples of graphic cynicisms.
Photographs and Picture Postcards.
The Germans have published, in their newspapers, photographs representing the population of a village, consisting principally of women, being driven away as prisoners (Berl. Ill. Zeit., No. 36, 6th September, 1914); a military observation-post installed by them on the tower of Malines Cathedral during the siege of Antwerp (Berl. Ill. Zeit., No. 44, 1st November, 1914); doctors detained as prisoners in Germany, contrary to the Geneva Convention (Berl. Ill. Zeit., No. 15, 11th April, 1915); soldiers taken prisoners, whom they are forcing, despite Article 6 of the Hague Convention, to do work directed against their country (Die Wochenschau, No. 44, 1914).
We find the same effrontery in respect of the conflagrations started by their troops: Scharr and Dathe, of Trèves, have edited and placed on sale, in Belgium itself, a series of fifty picture postcards, representing localities which the German army has destroyed by fire. We may mention Dinant, Namur, Louvain, Aerschot, Termonde; and in Belgium, Luxemburg, Barranzy, Etalles, Èthe, Izel, Jamoigne, Musson, Eossignol, Tintigny. Let us add that these photographs commonly show German soldiers and officers striking triumphant attitudes amid the ruins. The most instructive card of this kind which we have seen is one representing General Beeger amid the ruins of Dinant. To understand the full significance of this card, one must remember that it was this officer who ordered 1,200 of the houses of Dinant to be burned and 700 of the inhabitants to be massacred. It is surprising that he did not have a few corpses of "francs-tireurs" arranged about him when the photograph was taken—preferably selected from the old men, women, and children at the breast.
After the torpedoing of the Lusitania they sold in Belgium a series of cards entitled Kriegs-Errinerungs-Karte, edited by Dr. Trenkler & Co., of Leipzig, which pictured the operations of submarines. Card No. 2, of Series XXXIII, represents—very inaccurately, by the way—a German submarine stopping the Lusitania. It is as well to recall the fact that in this disaster more than 1,500 non-combatants perished, among them Mme. Antoine Depage, the wife of the well-known Belgian surgeon.
Nothing ought to surprise us on the part of those who prove that every means is good provided it is efficacious. Here is what a newspaper, much respected in Germany, the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, has to say in its weekly illustrated supplement for the 16th May, 1915:—
"In the situation in which Germany now finds herself, attacked on three sides at once with all the means that cruelty and perfidy can invent, we must not ask ourselves whether a means of defence is permitted or prohibited; but whether it is effectual. All that facilitates the defence must be employed; this is especially true of the submarine war, and consequently of the destruction of the Lusitania."
Alfred Heymel on the Battle of Charleroi.
We have already spoken of the articles of Alfred Heymel and Walter Blöm. Here are some extracts from an article by the former:—
The Battle of Charleroi.
One regiment of cavalry was detrained near the enemy frontier. For a little while it halted on a manœuvring ground where the division to which we were to be attached as scouts was to assemble.
Already many of us were impatient at having to wait longer before marching to the front; we heard the growling thunder of the howitzers of the great fortress near the frontier, around which there had been violent fighting these last few days; we were told of cruelties that made our hair stand on end, committed, in its fury, by a people which had for years been excited against us deeds of cruelty committed against our compatriots, soldiers, civilians, women and children, because of our violation of a neutrality which it had itself violated a thousand times over in advance. On our side we were boiling inwardly to avenge these infamies.... We breathed more freely only when, in our march beyond the frontier, we saw the first houses burned in reprisal; a curé, who had revolted, was hanging from a tree in a neighbouring thicket, swinging at the will of the wind, when at last the noise of battle grew plainer....
(They arrive near Charleroi.)
The head of one regiment, led by my friend Lieutenant S——, trotted forward again, and seized as hostages what civilians it could catch; some 12 to 16 persons, old and young, fat and thin, had to march before or between the lancers; more, this portion of the regiment had received the order from its comrades not to ride too far ahead.
Something that alarmed me quite particularly, giving me a presentiment of misfortune, was the fact that the wives of these civilians burst into weeping: one red-headed woman, frantic, threw herself down in the road and gave vent to wild screams; others, behind us, their emaciated arms stretched in the air, threatened us, although they were several times assured that so long as nothing was done to us nothing would happen to their husbands, sons, friends, and lovers. All these significant scenes took place in the side streets....
(A volley is fired from a barricade—or a railway crossing the street; it is not clear which.)
I saw two or three cavalrymen fall back in front, and with them the hostages fell to the ground; my friend was standing, near his horse. A violent and rapid fire alternated with volleys; we could not escape on either side; naturally we immediately faced about and returned in the direction whence we had come; there was a furious pursuit along the uneven road, with the balls whistling at our backs. The horses fell, one after another....
Thus from the advance-guard we had become the rear-guard. We had to consider how we could regain the main body of the troop. In the first place hostages were taken, some curés among them; the cavalry and artillery were no longer marching alone and unprotected, but flanked by the infantry and pioneers; one soon learns when once one has been caught. With great difficulty we again penetrated the streets in the smoke and heat, in the midst of the flames we ourselves had lit; now we continually heard the popping of cartridges, bursting harmlessly, piled up in the houses, and betraying the friendly intention of the ex-inmates![32]...
We learned later, when we had found the uniforms, that two battalions of crack French infantry were distributed everywhere, in order to organize and discipline the fire of the Belgian civic guard and the francs-tireurs. The rumour (of marksmen on the neighbouring heights) spread.... I thought I perceived—this chilled my heart, and I still hope I was mistaken—that my cavalrymen, otherwise so brave, did not really feel inclined to go forward; their gait became slower and slower; they continually observed more minutiæ and took a longer time in seizing civilians; in short, I saw the necessity of intervening, at need, against my own troops, the most heart-breaking thing that can happen to you in war. In any case I prepared myself, with a heart full of pain, to face even the abyss of this prospect....
Kunst und Künstler, January 1915 (Amm. xiii, part 4).