"Article L. No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they can not be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."
"Article LII. Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the deeds of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country."
German violations of Hague conventions.
The German authorities have violated these articles from the very beginning. As soon as they invaded Belgium, heavy fines were laid upon individual communities as reprisals for some act against the German Army or its regulations which was committed within their boundaries. In An Appeal to Truth Cardinal Mercier cites the following cases:
"Malines, a working-class town, without resources, has had a fine of 20,000 marks inflicted on it because the burgomaster did not inform the military authority of a journey which the Cardinal, deprived of the use of his motor car, had been obliged to make on foot. In fact, upon the flimsiest pretexts heavy fines are inflicted on communes. The commune of Puers was subjected to a fine of 3,000 marks because a telegraph wire was broken, although the inquiry showed that it had given way through wear."
In addition to such arbitrary, sporadic exactions, in December, 1914, the Germans demanded 40,000,000 francs ($8,000,000) a month to be paid by the Belgian Provinces jointly.
Concerning this enormous imposition Cardinal Mercier says, in the Appeal to Truth:
"The essential condition of the legality of a contribution of this kind, according to the Hague Convention, is that it should bear relation to the resources of the country, article 52.
Cardinal Mercier's comments.
"Now, in December, 1914, Belgium was devastated. Contributions of war imposed on the towns and innumerable requisitions in kind had exhausted her. The greater part of the factories were idle, and in those, which were still at work, raw materials were, contrary to all law, being freely commandeered.
"It was on this impoverished Belgium, living on foreign charity, that a contribution of nearly 500,000,000 francs was imposed."
The crushing fine is increased.
The German authorities were not satisfied with this impoverishing levy. In November, 1915, one month before the expiration of the twelve-month period fixed for the levy, they decreed that this contribution of 40,000,000 francs a month should be paid for an indefinite period. In November, 1916, they increased the levy to 50,000,000 francs a month, in May, 1917, to 60,000,000 francs a month. In addition, the German authorities have continued to levy fines upon towns and villages for acts committed in their neighborhood, although they had no proof that these acts had been committed by any inhabitant of the city or village thus fined. (Compare taking of hostages, noted above.)