“Everyone who does not at once obey the word of command “Hands up!” is guilty (sic) of the penalty of death.”
Extract from a Proclamation of Marshall, Baron von der Goltz posted up in Brussels on the 5th of October 1914:
“In future, all places near the spot where such acts have taken place (destruction of railway lines or telegraph wires)—no matter whether guilty or not—shall be punished without mercy. With this end in view, hostages have been brought from all places near railway lines exposed to such attacks, and at the first attempt to destroy railway lines, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot.”[12]
III
Plate 5.
This (Plate 5) is the first page of an unsigned note-book:
“Langeviller, 22 August. Village destroyed by the 11th Battalion of the Pioneers. Three women hanged on trees: the first dead I have seen.”[13]
Who are these three women? Criminals surely, guilty no doubt of having fired on the German troops, unless they had been telephoning to the enemy; and the 11th Pioneers had no doubt punished them justly. But they have expiated their crime now, and the 11th Pioneers have gone by, and of their crime, the newly advancing troops know nothing. Among these new troops will there be a commander, a Christian, to order the cords to be cut and to release these dead women. No, the regiment will march by under the gibbets, and the flags will brush by these corpses; they will pass along Colonel and officers, gentlemen and Kulturträger.