The American Government was not content with informal recommendations to the German Government, and on December 5, 1916, the American representative at Berlin laid this formal protest before the German chancellor:
FORMAL PROTEST OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.
A solemn protest by United States.
"The Government of the United States has learned with the greatest concern and regret of the policy of the German Government to deport from Belgium a portion of the civilian population with the result of forcing them to labor in Germany, and is constrained to protest in a friendly spirit but most solemnly against this action which is in contravention of all precedent and those humane principles of international practice which have long been accepted and followed by civilized nations in their treatment of noncombatants in conquered territory. Furthermore, the Government of the United States is convinced that the effect of this policy if pursued will in all probability be fatal to the Belgian relief work so humanely planned and so successfully carried out, a result which would be generally deplored and which, it is assumed, would seriously embarrass the German Government."
Other neutrals support American protest.
This protest was followed by those of the Pope, the King of Spain, the Government of Switzerland, and other neutrals. They were of no avail, except, perhaps, to lead the German authorities to draw a tighter veil over their detestable proceedings. But the evidence has in some measure come through, although the full facts will not be known until the liberation of heroic Belgium.
In the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of December 2, 1916, the following protests appeared, made, respectively, by Socialist Deputy Haase and Deputy Dittmann, members of the Reichstag:
PROTESTS AGAINST DEPORTATIONS HEARD IN REICHSTAG.
"Thousands of workmen in the occupied territory have been compelled to forced labor; we earnestly ask the government to restore to these workmen their liberty, especially in Belgium. In truth, we [the Germans] find no sympathy in neutral countries; even the Pope has made a protest against this procedure, and several neutral states have done the same. Common sense itself demands that we abandon this procedure which moreover is in opposition to the Hague Convention to which we have agreed."
"In opposition to the Secretary of State, I must recall that when formerly the Belgian workmen who had fled to Holland returned to Belgium, Governor General von Bissing promised that these Belgian workmen would under no circumstances be deported to Germany. This reassuring promise has not been kept."
Ambassador Gerard's interesting testimony appears in his recent book:
AMBASSADOR GERARD'S EVIDENCE.
American indignation at deportations.
"The President [during my visit to America in 1916] impressed upon me his great interest in the Belgians deported to Germany. The action of Germany in thus carrying a great part of the male population of Belgium into virtual slavery had roused great indignation in America. As the revered Cardinal Farley said to me a few days before my departure, 'You have to go back to the times of the Medes and the Persians to find a like example of a whole people carried into bondage.'
"Mr. Grew had made representations about this to the Chancellor and, on my return, I immediately took up the question.
Gerard not permitted to visit deported Belgians.
"I was informed that it was a military measure, that Ludendorf had feared that the British would break through and overrun Belgium and that the military did not propose to have a hostile population at their backs who might cut the rail lines of communication, telephones and telegraphs, and that for this reason the deportation had been decided on. I was, however, told I would be given permission to visit these Belgians. The passes, nevertheless, which alone made such visiting possible were not delivered until a few days before I left Germany.
Some of them call on him.
"Several of these Belgians who were put to work in Berlin managed to get away and come to see me. They gave me a harrowing account of how they had been seized in Belgium and made to work in Germany at making munitions to be used probably against their own friends.
"I said to the Chancellor, 'There are Belgians employed in making shells contrary to all rules of war and the Hague Conventions.' He said, 'I do not believe it.' I said, 'My automobile is at the door. I can take you, in four minutes, to where thirty Belgians are working on the manufacture of shells.' But he did not find time to go.
"Americans must understand that the Germans will stop at nothing to win this war, and that the only thing they respect is force." James W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany, 1917, pp. 351-52.
A similar point of view is expressed in an article entitled "Vae Victis" from the Hungarian newspaper Nepszawa of Budapest (quoted in K.G. Ossiannilsson, Militarism at Work in Belgium and Germany, 1917, pp. 53-54).