PROCLAMATION OF THE GERMAN MILITARY COMMANDANT OF LILLE.
"The attitude of England makes the provisioning of the population more and more difficult.
"To reduce the misery, the German authorities have recently asked for volunteers to go and work in the country. This offer has not had the success that was expected.
German proclamation at Lille, April, 1916.
"In consequence of this the inhabitants will be deported by order and removed into the country. Persons deported will be sent to the interior of the occupied territory in France, far behind the front, where they will be employed in agricultural labor, and not on any military work whatever. By this measure they will be given the opportunity of providing better for their subsistence.
"In case of necessity, provisions can be obtained through the German depots. Every person deported will be allowed to take with him 30 kilograms of baggage (household utensils, clothes, etc.), which it will be well to make ready at once.
"I therefore order that no one, until further orders, shall change his place of residence. No one may absent himself from his declared legal residence from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. (German time), unless he is in possession of a permit in due form.
"Inasmuch as this is an irrevocable measure, it is in the interest of the population itself to remain calm and obedient.
"Commandant.
"Lille, April, 1916."
NOTICE DISTRIBUTED TO HOUSES IN LILLE.
"All the inhabitants of the house, with the exception of children under fourteen and their mothers, and also of old people, must prepare themselves for transportation in an hour and a half's time.
Inhabitants of Lille given 90 minutes to get ready to depart.
"An officer will decide definitely what persons will be taken to the concentration camps. For this purpose all the inhabitants of the house must assemble in front of it; in case of bad weather they may remain in the passage. The door of the house must remain open. All protests will be useless. No inmate of the house, even those who are not to be transported, may leave the house before 8 a.m. (German time).
"Each person will be permitted to take 30 kilograms of baggage; if anyone's baggage exceeds that weight, it will all be rejected without further consideration. Packages must be separately made up for each person and must bear an address legibly written and firmly affixed. This address must contain the surname and the Christian name and the number of the identity card.
Must carry their own cooking utensils.
"It is absolutely necessary that each person should, in his own interest, provide himself with eating and drinking utensils, as well as with a woolen blanket, good shoes, and body linen. Everyone must carry his identity card on his person. Anyone attempting to evade transportation will be punished without mercy.
"Etappen-Kommandantur."
[Lille, April, 1916.]
PROTEST OF BISHOP CHAROST, OF LILLE, ADDRESSED TO GENERAL VON GRAEVENITZ.
"Monsieur le Général: It is my duty to bring to your notice the fact that a very agitated state of mind exists among the population.
"Numerous removals of women and girls, certain transfers of men and youth, and even of children, have been carried out in the districts of Tourcoing and Roubaix without judicial procedure or trial.
The Bishop protests against deportations.
"The unfortunate people have been sent to unknown places. Measures equally extreme and on a larger scale are contemplated at Lille. You will not be surprised, Monsieur le Général, that I intercede with you in the name of the religious mission confided to me. That mission lays on me the burden of defending with respect but with courage, the Law of Nations, which the law of war must never infringe, and that eternal morality whose rules nothing can suspend. It makes it my duty to protect the feeble and the unarmed, who are as my family to me and whose burdens and sorrows are mine.
Appeals to the humanity of the commander.
"You are a father; you know that there is not in the order of humanity a right more honorable or more holy than that of the family. For every Christian the inviolability of God, who created the family, attaches to it. The German officers who have been billeted for a long time in our homes know how deep in our hearts we of the North hold family affection and that it is the sweetest thing in life to us. Thus to dismember the family by tearing youths and girls from their homes is not war; it is for us tortures and the worst of tortures—unlimited moral torture.
"The violation of family rights is doubled by a violation of the sacred demands of morality. Morality is exposed to perils, the mere idea of which is revolting to every honest man, from the promiscuity which The methods of deportation a danger to morals. inevitably accompanies removals en masse, involving mixture of the sexes, or, at all events, of persons of very unequal moral standing. Young girls of irreproachable life, who have never committed any worse offense than that of trying to pick up some bread or a few potatoes to feed a numerous family, and who have besides paid the light penalty for such trespass, have been carried off. Their mothers, who have watched so closely over them and had no other joy than that of keeping their daughters beside them, in the absence of father and sons fighting or killed at the front—these mothers are now alone. They bring to me their despair and their anguish. I am speaking of what I have seen and heard. I know that you have no part in these harsh measures. You are by nature inclined toward justice; that is why I venture to turn to you; I beg you to be good enough to forward without delay to the German High Military Command this letter from a Bishop, whose deep grief they will easily imagine. We have suffered much for the last twenty months, but no stroke of fortune could be comparable to this; it would be as undeserved as it is cruel and would produce Hopes for restoration of the deported. in all France an indelible impression. I cannot believe that the blow will fall. I have faith in the human conscience and I preserve the hope that the young men and girls of respectable families will be restored to their homes in answer to the demand for their return and that sentiments of justice and honor will prevail over all lower considerations.
"Alexis Armand,
"Bishop."
ADDRESS OF PROMINENT CITIZENS OF ROUBAIX AND TOURCOING TO THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.
"To Monsieur Raymond Poincaré,
"President of the French Republic, Paris."Sir: We have the honor to express again our most sincere gratitude to you for your most kind reception, a few days ago, of the deputation which went with feelings of legitimate emotion to inform you of the deportation of lads and girls, which the German authorities have just carried out in the invaded districts.
"We have collected some details on the subject from the lips of an honorable and trustworthy person, who succeeded in leaving Tourcoing about ten days ago; we think it our duty to bring these details to your notice by reproducing textually the declarations which have been made to us:
"'These deportations began towards Easter. The Germans announced that the inhabitants of Roubaix, Tourcoing, Lille, etc., were going to be transported into French districts where their provisioning would be easier.
The procedure of the deportations.
"'At night, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, a whole district of the town was invested by the troops of occupation. To each house was distributed a printed notice, of which we give below an exact reproduction, preserving the style and spelling. [See second document, above.]
"'The inhabitants so warned were to hold themselves ready to depart an hour and a half after the distribution of the proclamation.
"'Each family, drawn up outside the house, was examined by an officer, who pointed out haphazard the persons who were to go. No words can express the barbarity of this proceeding nor describe the heartrending scenes which occurred; young men and girls took a hasty farewell of their parents—a farewell hurried by the German soldiers who were executing the infamous task—rejoined the group of those who were going, and found themselves in the middle of the street, surrounded by other soldiers with fixed bayonets.
Sometimes a kind-hearted officer could not carry out the brutal orders.
"'Tears of despair on the part of parents and children so ruthlessly separated did not soften the hearts of the brutal Germans. Sometimes, however, a more kind-hearted officer yielded to too great a despair, and did not choose all the persons whom he should—by the terms of his instructions—have separated.
"'These girls and lads were taken in street cars to factories, where they were numbered and labelled like cattle and grouped to form convoys. In these factories they remained twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six hours until a train was ready to remove them.
"'The deportation began with the villages of Roncq, Halluin, etc., then Tourcoing and Roubaix. In towns the Germans proceeded by districts.
Numbers deported.
"'In all about 30,000 persons are said to have been carried off up to the present. This monstrous operation has taken eight to ten days to accomplish. It is feared, unfortunately, that it may begin again soon. The departures took place in freight cars to the sound of the "Marseillaise."
"'The reason given by the German authorities is a humanitarian (?) one. They have put forward the following pretexts: provisioning is going to break down in the large towns in the north and their suburbs, whereas in the Ardennes the feeding is easy and cheap.
Young men and girls lodged in "disgraceful promiscuity."
"'It is known from the young men and girls, since sent back to their families for reasons of health, that in the Department of the Ardennes the victims are lodged in a terrible manner, in disgraceful promiscuity; they are compelled to work in the fields. It is unnecessary to say that the inhabitants of our towns are not trained to such work. The Germans pay them 1.50 m. But there are complaints of insufficient food.
"'They were very badly received in the Ardennes. The Germans had told the Ardennais that these were "volunteers" who were coming to work, and the Ardennais proceeded to receive them with many insults, which only ceased when the forcible deportation, of which they were the victims, became known.
"'Feeling ran especially high in our towns. Never has so iniquitous a measure been carried out. The Germans have shown all the barbarity of slave drivers.
"'The families so scattered are in despair and the morale of the whole population is gravely affected. Boys of 14, schoolboys in knickerbockers, young girls of 15 to 16 have been carried off, and the despairing protests of their parents failed to touch the hearts of the German officers or rather executioners.
"'One last detail: The persons so deported are allowed to write home once a month; that is to say, even less often than military prisoners.'
"Such are the declarations which we have collected and which, without commentary, confirm in an even more striking way the facts which we took the liberty of laying before you.
"We do not wish here to enter into the question of provisioning in the invaded districts; others, better qualified than ourselves, give you, as we know, frequent information. It is enough for us to describe in a few words the situation from this aspect:
"The provisioning is very difficult; food, apart from that supplied by the Spanish-American Committee, is very scarce and terribly dear. * * * People are hungry and the provisioning is inadequate by at least a half; our population is suffering constant privations and is growing noticeably weaker. The death rate, too, has increased considerably.
People rely on the neutral powers.
"Sometimes inhabitants of the invaded territories speak with a note of discouragement, crying apparently: 'We are forsaken by everyone.' We, on the other hand, are hopeful, Monsieur le Président, that the energetic intervention on the part of Neutrals, which the French Government is sure to evoke, will soon bring to an end these measures which rouse the wrath of all to whom humanity is not an empty word. * * *
"With all confidence in the sympathy of the Government we venture to address a new and pressing appeal to your generous kindness and far-reaching influence in the name of those who are suffering on behalf of the whole country."
(Signed on behalf of various specified organizations by Toulemonde, Charles Droulers, Léon Hatine-Dazin, and Louis Lorthiois.)
"Paris, 15th June, 1916, 3, rue Taitbout."
AMBASSADOR GERARD'S STATEMENT.
Barbarity of deportations.
"It seems that the Germans had endeavored to get volunteers from the great industrial towns of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing to work these fields; that after the posting of the notices calling for volunteers only fourteen had appeared. The Germans then gave orders to seize a certain number of inhabitants and send them out to farms in the outlying districts to engage in agricultural work. The Americans told me that this order was carried out with the greatest barbarity; that a man would come home at night and find that his wife or children had disappeared and no one could tell him where they had gone except that the neighbours would relate that German noncommissioned officers and a file of soldiers had carried them off. For instance, in a house of a well-to-do merchant who had perhaps two daughters of fifteen and seventeen and a man servant, the two daughters and the servant would be seized and sent off together to work for the Germans in some little farm house whose location was not disclosed to the parents. The Americans told me that this sort of thing was causing such indignation among the population of these towns that they feared a great uprising and a consequent slaughter and burning by the Germans.
Chancellor says that the military authorities ordered the deportations.
"That night at dinner I spoke to the Chancellor about this and told him that it seemed to me absolutely outrageous; and that, without consulting with my government, I was prepared to protest in the name of humanity against a continuance of this treatment of the civil population of occupied France. The Chancellor told me that he had not known of it, that it was the result of orders given by the military, that he would speak to the Emperor about it, and that he hoped to be able to stop further deportations. I believe that they were stopped, but twenty thousand or more who had been taken from their homes were not returned until months afterwards. I said in a speech that I made in May on my return to America that it required the joint efforts of the Pope, the King of Spain, and our President to cause the return of these people to their homes; and I then saw that some German press agency had come out with an article that I had made false statements about this matter because these people were not returned to their homes as a result of the representations of the Pope, the King of Spain, and our President, but were sent back because the Germans had no further use for them. It seems to me that this denial makes the case rather worse than before." James W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany, 1917, pp. 333-335.
POLAND.
The systematic exploitation of human misery by the German authorities in Poland followed the general plan with which the reader has become only too familiar. In order to prove the identity of procedure it will be enough to present the detailed report specially written for this pamphlet by Mr. Frederic C. Walcott. A fuller and in some ways more touching treatment is given in his article, "Devastated Poland," in the National Geographic Magazine for May, 1917.
POLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN SYSTEM.
September, 1917.
Poland—Russian Poland—is perishing. And the German high command, imbued with the Prussian system, is coolly reckoning on the necessities of a starving people to promote its imperial ends.
West Poland, which has been Prussian territory more than a hundred years, is a disappointment to Germany; its people obstinately remain Poles. This time they propose swifter measures. In two or three years, by grace of starvation and frightfulness, they calculate East Poland will be thoroughly made over into a German province.
Devastation of Poland.
In the great Hindenburg drive one year ago, the country was completely devastated by the retreating Russian army and the oncoming Germans. A million people were driven from their homes. Half of them perished by the roadside. For miles and miles, when I saw the country, the way was littered with mudsoaked garments and bones picked clean by the crows—though the larger bones had been gathered by the thrifty Germans to be ground into fertilizer. Wicker baskets—the little basket in which the baby swings from the rafters in every peasant home—were scattered along the way, hundreds and hundreds, until one could not count them, each one telling a death.
Warsaw, which had not been destroyed—once a proud city of a million people—was utterly stricken. Poor folks by thousands lined the streets, leaning against the buildings, shivering in snow and rain, too weak to lift a hand, dying of cold and hunger. Though the rich gave all they had, and the poor shared their last crust, they were starving there in the streets in droves.
In the stricken city, the German governor of Warsaw issued a proclamation. All able-bodied Poles were bidden to go to Germany to work. If any refused, let no other Pole give him to eat, not so much as a mouthful, under penalty of German military law.
The policy of starvation.
It was more than the mind could grasp. To the husband and father of broken families, the high command gave this decree: Leave your families to starve; if you stay, we shall see that you do starve—this to a high-strung, sensitive, highly organized people, this from the authorities of a nation professing civilization and religion to millions of fellow Christians captive and starving.
Country to be restocked with Germans.
General von Kries, the governor, was kind enough to explain. Candidly, they preferred not quite so much starvation; it might get on the nerves of the German soldiers. But, starvation being present, it must work for German purpose. Taking advantage of this wretchedness, the working men of Poland were to be removed; the country was to be restocked with Germans. It was country Germany needed—rich alluvial soil—better suited to German expansion than distant possessions. If the POLAND that was had to perish, so much the better for Germany.
Remove the men, let the young and weak die, graft German stock on the women. See how simple it is: with a crafty smile, General von Kries concluded, "By and by we must give back freedom to Poland. Very good; it will reappear as a German province."
Slowly, I came to realize that this monstrous, incredible thing was the PRUSSIAN SYSTEM, deliberately chosen by the circle around the all-highest, and kneaded into the German people till it became part of their mind.
German people are material for building the State—of no other account. Other people are for Germany's will to work upon. Humanity, liberty, equality, the rights of others—all foolish talk. Democracy, an idle dream. The true Prussian lives only for this, that the German State may be mighty and great.
German system of frightfulness everywhere.
All the woes in the long count against Germany are part of the Prussian system. The invasion of Belgium, the deportations, the starving of subject people, the Armenian massacres, atrocities, frightfulness, sinking the Lusitania, the submarine horrors, the enslavement of women—all piece into the monstrous view. The rights of nations, the rights of men, the lives and liberties of all people are subordinate to the German aim of dominion over all the world.
Frederick C. Walcott.