The Number of Atrocities
The full extent of this can never be known. More than one hundred thousand people are simply reported as "missing," other multitudes were burned or thrown into pits. Only in towns from which the German armies hurriedly retreated were inquests possible, and in those towns affidavits were prepared and photographs of the mutilated bodies taken. The fact that these atrocities all along the battle line began on practically the same day in August and ended on about the same day in September does not prove, but does suggest plan and prearrangement. After the German troops had passed through, it became possible for the village school-teacher, priest or banker, the aged women and the children who had escaped to creep out of pits, the caves in the fields, or the edge of the woods, where they had been hiding, and return to survey the scene of desolation behind them. In those towns where the soldiers encountered no opposition by the inhabitants, for the reason that there were no men left in the village, the Germans speedily wrought their devastation and departed. Then the French authorities hurried forward their authorized representatives, inquests were held, photographs taken of the mutilated bodies, and testimony taken and sent to the Department of Justice. What took place in those Belgian towns and cities that are still in German hands will never be known until the German officers and soldiers stand before the Great Judgment Throne and give their account unto God.
The German War Staff's Report Acknowledges Their Atrocities
The value of the atrocity as a military instrument for sending the simoom of terror across the land is set forth in scores of diaries taken from the dead bodies of German soldiers, and also from the occasional reports of German officers to the War Staff, that were printed in Berlin and found their way into this country by way of Denmark, Norway or Sweden.
In the "summarizing report by the General War Staff," published December 31, 1914, the German chief says in explanation of the Belgian campaign: "The need of the German army to push through Belgium was imperative. Our starting point was that the tactical object of the Twelfth Corps was to cross the Meuse with speed. To at once overcome the opposition of the inhabitants was a military necessity, and something to be striven for in every way." And what does "every way" mean? Let the German Staff themselves answer. "The flourishing town of Dinant with its suburbs was burnt, and made a heap of ruins, and a large number of Belgian lives lost." "About 220 inhabitants were then shot, and the village was burned. Just now, six o'clock in the afternoon, the crossing of the Meuse begins near Dinant; all the suburbs, chateaux and houses were burned down during this night. It was a beautiful sight to see the villages burning all around us in the distance." "The town appeared to be perfectly peaceful, nevertheless, for the sake of security, a number of the inhabitants were made prisoners by the grenadiers." "Later, we decided to assemble all the male hostages against the garden wall, where we shot them."
Hundreds of witnesses called in one town, after the Germans had passed on, show that the German officers and soldiers were engaged in one horrible orgy of pillage, drunkenness, lust and murder. They began by breaking open all wine cellars and soon the officers went reeling and staggering through the streets, firing their revolvers into the windows of houses and stores. They blasted the safes open with dynamite. They carried goods from the shelves to the freight trains, and as fast as the town was pillaged, burned the houses. During four days they looted and burned twelve hundred houses, stores, factories, schools and churches. They left lying on the ground seven hundred dead bodies, chiefly women and children. Two trains laden with the men and women who were strong enough to work were carried off to Germany. All the manufactories where the artisan class were wont to work were systematically destroyed. Marching away from towns that were blazing furnaces, the German soldiers drove in advance a long line of women and children, with a few aged men, and used them as screens behind which they could march into the next town that was to be looted.
The Looting of Louvain
In justifying the use of the atrocity as a military instrument more efficient in breaking down the morale of the Belgian army than cannon and liquid fire could possibly be, a German army officer's letter uses these words: "The ruthless use of severities upon the civilians has now succeeded in scattering the wretched Belgian army." But concerning what atrocity is this officer writing? He wrote these words at the end of the third day, after the Germans had pillaged Louvain, thus serving notice on all the Belgian and French cities, rich in historic monuments, libraries, galleries, cathedrals, and art treasures, that unless they immediately surrendered, their whole city would be ruined.
And ruined after what manner? Let Cardinal Mercier, the Primate of Belgium, tell the story. "At Louvain the third part of the city has been destroyed; one thousand and seventy-four dwellings have disappeared; in addition, in the suburbs Kesselloo, Herent and Herberle, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-eight houses have been burned. In this dear city of Louvain, ever in my thoughts, the magnificent church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendour. The ancient college of St. Ives, the art schools, the commercial and consular schools of the University; the old markets; our rich library, with its collections, its unique and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its gallery of great portraits of illustrious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating from the time of its foundation, which preserved for masters and students alike a noble tradition, and were an incitement to good work—all this accumulation of intellectual, historic, and artistic richness, the fruit of the labours of five centuries, all, all is in ashes."
Breaking Down the Conscience of Their Men