Moreover, even if they had had in this respect some complaint to make of civilians, if they had been authorised by the law of war to punish acts of violence committed against them under conditions that were forbidden, the right of repression which they invoke could never go so far as the penalty of death. Every addition thereto in point of punishment is excess, and an indication of barbarism. To extend to a whole population reprisals inflicted in consequence of a single act is something no less abominable, but that is just what the Germans have done.
Crimes committed by the Germans in the Exercise of Reprisals
At Liège, on the 21st August, a shot was fired from a house situated on the Quai des Pêcheurs. Immediately the Germans opened fire with a machine-gun and blew up on the spot twenty houses, whose inhabitants were killed. Shortly afterwards ten other houses on the Place de l’Université were set on fire, but as the flames seemed to be spreading too much, the firemen were ordered to put them out.
At Champguyon, on the 6th September, a man named Louvet was arrested for having fired under conditions forbidden by the laws of war. He was liable to the penalty of death. Accordingly, ten German soldiers fell on the wretched man, beat him unmercifully with sticks in the presence of his wife, dragged him away covered with blood, broke his wrist, shattered his skull, and dragged him to the end of the village, where at length they gave him the finishing stroke.
The same rule would apply to the cases of André Willen (twenty-three years of age), Gustave Lodts (forty) and Jean Marken (forty), all inhabitants of Aerschot, in Belgium, if they had been guilty. The Germans, instead of shooting them, bound them to a tree and beat them, before burning the first alive and burying the other two alive.
In the province of Namur a young man whom some Uhlans had arrested was bound to two horses, who dragged him along, then tied to a tree, and finally shot. Under the same conditions M. Cognon, of Visé, was thrown into the water with his abdomen torn open. Holding in his entrails with one hand, he clung with the other to a boat, until he grew weak and died.
The innumerable mutilations inflicted on Serbian peasants at Chabatz and elsewhere show on this side of the area of war the same barbarism in the carrying out of reprisals. Some who were hardly wounded were buried alive, for they had been shot in the lump, and every one who fell was thrown into the common ditch which had been dug out beforehand.
Massacres of Civilians for Paltry Reasons
No less criminal are the attacks made by the Germans on the lives of civilians, for paltry reasons, for slight insubordination to unimportant orders, or even for acts that were quite blameless. The following are some examples of these crimes.
In the government of Warsaw the Germans killed a Polish magnate, Count Thomas Potocki, for merely protesting against a requisition.