CHAPTER IV
OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY GERMAN AUTHORITIES AND PRIVATE PERSONS AGAINST ENEMY SUBJECTS
The most celebrated German writers on international law, Heffter, Klueber, Geffcken, have taught that the State which declares war can neither keep enemy subjects who happen to be on its territory nor their property, for as they came into this territory in reliance upon public law and have received permission to stay there, they can avail themselves of the tacit promise made by the State that every freedom and safety are guaranteed them for their return. If the State wishes them to go, it must allow them a reasonable time to go away with their property; if not, enemy subjects, who are subject to the regulations of the police and of public safety have the right, so long as they respect these laws, to appeal for protection to them. In any case deliberate ill-treatment of enemy subjects cannot be permitted.
This principle, by the confession of the Germans themselves, condemns the methods to which Germany has resorted by empowering her officials to behave cruelly to French and Russian subjects who happened to be in Germany on the 3rd August, and by tacitly approving the behaviour of the mob to them.
The fear of spying, of which it appears that all these people were suspected, perhaps because of the audacity which the Germans themselves showed in resorting to it in foreign countries, was invoked by the Germans as the excuse for all these outrages and the justification for all these annoyances.
German Misconduct towards People Incapable of Espionage
Nevertheless, ill-treatment could not be justified in this way. As a precaution against spying, foreigners may be compelled to leave a country en masse. A straightforward and honest supervision may be exercised over them at their departure, but no one has the right to allow them to be struck, nor to expose them to the clamours of a mob, nor to speak to them as if they were prisoners in the dock. Only definite suspicion falling upon individuals would justify such conduct, and by justifying it would give, in addition, the rights of arrest and cross-examination.
People who are merely being brought back to their own country in case of war have the right to be shown every consideration by the authorities.
In all the disgraceful situations which German officials and private citizens brought about in Germany in their dealings with enemy subjects of Germany, we can, therefore, see merely the expression of a cowardly hatred of everything that belongs to the powers hostile to Germany, powers which the Germans think they are hitting when they insult and ill-treat their peaceful and harmless citizens. The same feeling which animated German officials against the Dowager Empress of Russia, against the Grand Duke Constantin, against the ambassadors, ministers and consuls of Russia and France, could only assert itself with still greater fury, devoid of all consideration and all scruple, against plain French citizens or Russian subjects. In this letting loose of evil passions there were manifested features of grotesque arbitrariness. For example, such was these people’s whim, every woman who wore spectacles was subjected to a more minute search than other travellers, on the ground, it was alleged, that there was more likelihood of her being a spy!