"The Germans attacked Hougaerde on the 18th August; the Belgian troops were holding the Gette Bridge in the village. The Germans forced the parish priest of Autgaerden to walk in front of them as a shield. As they neared the barricade the Belgian soldiers fired and the priest was killed. After the retreat of the Belgians the Germans shot 4 men, burned 50 houses, and looted 100."
Hugh Gibson, in A Journal from our Legation in Belgium, page 155, gives another incident:
"Two old priests have staggered into the —— legation more dead than alive after having been compelled to walk ahead of the German troops for miles as a sort of protecting screen. One of them is ill, and it is said that he may die as a result of what he has gone through."
STATEMENTS OF CARDINAL MERCIER AND HIS FELLOW BISHOPS.
"At the time of the invasion Belgian civilians, in twenty places, were made to take part in operations of war against their own country. At Termonde, Lebbeke, Dinant, and elsewhere in many places, peaceable citizens, women, and children were forced to march in front of German regiments or to make a screen before them.
Cardinal Mercier's judgment on the system of hostages.
"The system of hostages was carried out with a fierce cruelty. The proclamation of August 4th, quoted above, declared, without circumlocution: 'Hostages will be freely taken.'
"An official proclamation, posted at Liége, in the early days of August, ran thus: 'Every aggression committed against the German troops by any persons other than soldiers in uniform not only exposes the guilty person to be immediately shot, but will also entail the severest reprisals against all the inhabitants, and especially against those natives of Liége who have been detained as hostages in the citadel of Liége by the commandant of the German troops.'
"These hostages are Monsignor Rutten, Bishop of Liége; M. Kleyer, burgomaster of Liége; the senators, representatives, and the permanent deputy and sheriff of Liége."
The above quotation is taken from An Appeal to Truth, addressed Nov. 24, 1915, by Cardinal Mercier and the other bishops of Belgium to the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Will Irwin on brutality of German drive through Belgium.
"Some ten or a dozen American correspondents, of whom I was one, witnessed the First German drive through Belgium. Most of us were so appalled and horrified by what we saw as to become anti-German for life." Will Irwin, in Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 6, 1917, p. 41.
III. FINES.
The contracting nations, including Germany, who signed the Conventions of the Second Peace Conference at The Hague, 1907, pledged themselves to the following:
Germany's promises in Hague conventions.