This is how the armies of Germany interpret these articles.
Private Handschuhmacher (of the 11 battalion of Jägers, reserve) writes in his diary:
“8th August 1914. Gouvy, (Belgium). There as the Belgians had fired on German soldiers we at once pillaged the Goods Station. Some cases, eggs, shirts and all eatables were seized. The safe was gutted and the money divided among the men. All securities were torn up.”[18]
This took place on the fourth day of the war and enables us to understand why in a technical article on the Military Treasury (der Zahlmeister im Felde) the Berliner Tageblatt of the 26th Nov. 1914 (1 Supplement) notices as a mere incident an economic phenomenon which is however curious: “As it is a fact that far more money orders are sent from the theatre of operations to the interior of the country than vice versa ...” «Da nun aber erfahrungsgemäss viel mehr Geld vom Kriegsschauplatz nach der Heimat gesandt wird ...».
But as, according to the common practice of the German armies, pillage is but the prelude to incendiarism, non-commissioned-officer Hermann Levith (of the 160th Regt. VIIIth Army Corps) writes:
“The enemy had occupied the village of Bièvre and the skirts of the wood. The 3rd Company advanced in first line. We carried the village and pillaged and burnt nearly all the houses.”[19]
And Pte Schiller (133 Inf. XIXth Corps) writes:
“It was at Haybes (Ardennes) on the 24th of August that we had our first battle. The 2nd Battalion entered the village, searched the houses sacked them and burnt all those from which shots had been fired.”[20]
Private Seb. Reishaupt (3 Bavarian Inf. 1st Bavarian Corps) writes:
“Parux (Meurthe-et-Moselle) is the first village we burnt; then the dance began: villages one after the other; by field and meadow on bicycle to the ditches by the roadside, there we ate cherries.”[21]