We must not overlook an article by Captain Walter Blöm, adjutant to General von Bissing. Herr Blöm, who is greatly admired in Germany, and whose novels may be seen at this moment on the shelves of the travellers' libraries installed in our railway stations, does not hesitate to declare that the conflagrations at Battice and Dinant were not intended to punish the population, but to terrorize them (p. [84]). The article already mentioned, which incidentally describes the shooting of a French hostage, is highly typical. One sees that the death of this man—shot because the French army does not consent to cease its bombardment—does not in the least affect the writer, who finds the conduct of his countrymen quite natural.
Referring to the systematic pillage effected by the German army, we have already mentioned (p. [132]) the fact that "war booty" was despatched openly. In this respect, effrontery and impudence have surely nowhere been carried to greater lengths than in the valley of the Meuse. All the villas were as a matter of course emptied by the officers; when they were situated close to the banks of the river the furniture, etc., was transported on a little steamer, one of those tourist boats which in summer run between Namur and Dinant. The boat would stop before each villa, and—without the least attempt to conceal the nature of the proceedings—the pianos, beautiful pieces of furniture, clocks, pictures, etc., were piled on the deck. To cite one case among hundreds, it was thus that the villa of Mme. Wodon, at Davos, was emptied.
Cynicism and impudence often lend one another mutual support. Let us recall, for example, the question of asphyxiating gases. Article 23 of the Hague Convention forbids the employment of poisons. Even in the siege of Liége our enemies were making use of shells which discharged poisonous gases at the moment of explosion; it was one of them that all but poisoned General Leman. It might, however, be supposed that these toxic vapours were the inevitable result of the detonation of the explosives with which the shells were loaded. But in April 1915 the Germans suddenly began to accuse their adversaries of the use of asphyxiating shells (see the German official communiqués of the 9th, 12th, 14th, and 21st April). At the same time they made it known that their chemists, far abler than those of France or England, were about to combine substances whose detonation would liberate products far more toxic than those of the enemy's shells. And on the 22nd April they preceded their attack on the trenches to the north of Ypres by a cloud of smoke of a yellowish-green colour, which asphyxiated the French and Canadians (see N.R.C., 29th April, 1914, morning). Now the falsity of their bragging allegations is obvious. They will not persuade any one to believe that between the 8th of April and the 22nd May they had had time to invent the combination of substances capable of giving off toxic vapours, to manufacture them in sufficient quantities, and finally to forward the cylinders to the field of battle.
Let us add, moreover, that we knew before the end of March—that is, before the accusations made against the French—that the Germans were making experiments on a large scale in the aviation camp at Kiewit, near Hasselt. They were asphyxiating dogs. It may be supposed that they presently realized that they had gone a little too far in their cynicism, for in its issue of the 3rd May, 1915, Die Wochenschau, commenting on the affair of the 22nd April, stated that the attack had been "ably seconded by technical means."
Still, the palm for cynicism goes to the high authorities. What are we to think of Baron von der Goltz, whose proclamations state that the innocent and guilty will be punished without distinction? (p. [144]). Here we begin to see into the mentality of the Germans; swollen with pride, they consider that all things are permitted to them as against a people so uncivilized as the Belgians.
Well, incredible as it may seem, the Germans have surpassed themselves in this department. The same action, accordingly as it is performed by them or against them, is denounced as a crime or highly approved. We have already seen this in connection with the bombardment of towns by aeroplanes and dirigibles. What shall we say of the action of the German cavalryman, who, surprised by superior forces, surrendered; but, as he was giving up his arms thought better of it, broke the head of one of his adversaries, and fled. If a Belgian or a Frenchman had been guilty of such treachery the Germans could not have found sufficient terms of abuse to heap upon his head; but as he was a German his action became ein kühnes Reiterstückchen (a "Bold exploit of a Cavalryman"). More—this incident is reported in the first number of the pamphlets of propaganda distributed by order of the German authorities—the Journal de la Guerre. Not only do they find no cause for blame in a soldier who has committed so vile an action; they are proud of him, and take pains to celebrate his glory in neutral countries.
Here are two other examples, bearing on matters of much greater importance. On the 4th August, 1914, the very day on which they were violating the neutrality of Belgium, and were commencing to punish us, at Visé, for having dared to resist them, they expressed their satisfaction in the fact that Switzerland was scrupulously remaining neutral. M. Waxweiler (p. 52) calls our attention to this contradiction in their attitude toward the two neutral countries—Belgium and Switzerland. Moreover, they had the impudence to placard their satisfaction in the neutrality of Switzerland about the streets of Brussels.
News published by the German General Government.
Berne, 7th February.—The representative of the Bund has been received in Berlin by Herr von Jagow, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who spoke of Switzerland in the most friendly manner. Herr von Jagow says: The strictly neutral attitude of Switzerland has produced the most favourable impression in Germany. We take a very keen interest in a neutral, independent, and powerful Switzerland.
The General Government in Belgium.
While in Belgium they burn houses and torture civilians, on the pretext that the latter have fired on them, they congratulate the Hungarian peasants who took up arms to defend their country against the Russian invader. The contrast here is so obvious that it even struck one German—Herr Maximilian Harden. In an article in Jingoism, a Disease of the Mind, he reproaches his compatriots with having two weights and two measures (published in Vorwärts, August 1914).
They push their effrontery to the point of photographing their own francs-tireurs, so that no doubt may be left in our minds. The Berl. Ill. Zeit. of the 16th March, 1915 (p. 261), gives a photograph "from the theatre of the war in the Carpathians"—"Ruthenian Peasant employed in the Austro-Hungarian Army to guard roads and telegraph-lines." The peasant, without uniform, carries a rifle.