GERMAN BARBARISM

GERMAN BARBARISM
A NEUTRAL’S INDICTMENT

BY
LÉON MACCAS
DOCTOR OF LAW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS

WITH PREFACE BY
M. PAUL GIRARD
OF THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXVI

Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

PREFACE

This new volume on Germany’s conception and practice of war is the work of a neutral, a fact which would alone suffice to secure it our sympathies. Moreover, it is a book which is systematically arranged, based on documentary evidence, serious and obviously sincere, qualities too weighty not to compel the respect not only of the French public, but of all those, to whatever nationality they may belong, who may care to read it or merely to glance through it with an unprejudiced eye.

The author is a Greek, who loves France and who knows her. He knows her because he has lived there; he is not blind to her weak points, but having been early captured by her, he knows the profound mistake into which a stranger falls who is content to judge her by appearances: he has fathomed the depths of her character and discovered the inexhaustible resources of will and energy concealed beneath an apparent, yet much exaggerated, levity. It is for this reason that in the dread crisis through which she is passing, and from which, as he well knows, she will emerge victorious, he has been willing to fight on our side, at least with the pen. Let us thank him, and may our gratitude extend beyond him to his noble country, to that Greece whose feelings have long been known to us, who has not changed them, notwithstanding the ebb and flow of her domestic policy or of transitory influences, and who will not change them, we are convinced: otherwise she would not be Greece.

So much for the author of these pages which we are about to read. When I add that M. Léon Maccas belongs to the best society in Athens: that while still very young he won the degree of doctor of law in his own country by a remarkable thesis; that he came to us with the intention of pursuing further, thanks to the assistance which we can give him, his studies in international law and diplomatic history, I shall have concluded a very inadequate introduction of author to reader.

As for the contents of this volume, what is the good of dwelling upon them? It is an established fact, at the present moment, that the Germans have introduced into war a new law, a new morality. This law and this morality are obviously contrary to the ideas which humanity has hitherto formed of these great subjects and to the impulses which urged and still urge humanity to endeavour to mitigate the permissible sufferings and horrors which war between civilised nations entails. The Germans have taken quite a different line. They appear to have made it their business to practise everywhere, in different forms, the abuse of force. It is a method, and one, too, which has something spacious about it. But a method is something which confesses or proclaims itself. We do not blush for a method, we blush for an unpremeditated, precipitate act, not for conduct coldly calculated with the purpose of attaining a supreme end, the righteousness of which justifies everything in the thought of those who aim at it. What is the meaning, then, of all these shufflings, these denials, disputings or flimsy vindications of facts? Why these shameless apologies among neutrals? Why these pamphlets, these articles scattered broadcast over two hemispheres, these idyllic pictures of movements of German troops to whom the peasants, peasants of France, express (in a language which betrays clumsy falsehood) their good wishes for a safe return to their native land. Why all this effort, if not from the necessity to justify themselves, a necessity which in these souls who profess to be emancipated from the vain prejudices of the world is even stronger and more deeply rooted than the desire to compel everything by force? Is not this necessity the clearest and most invaluable of admissions?

But that is not the whole story. By a contradiction which would have something grotesque about it if the tale of bloodshed and destruction made such an expression permissible, those who every day shamelessly violate the law of nations are the first to protest with impassioned vehemence against what in their opponents they assert to be a violation of the law of nations, as if the right to trample right under foot was a privilege of Germany. I am well aware that on that point also we are critical, but even though there were some motive for being critical, a thing which is by no means proven, we must admit that a nation which has signed certain declarations designed to mitigate as far as possible the severities of war, and which, as soon as it becomes belligerent, no longer holds itself bound by these same declarations, is not justified in trying to pose as punctilious in the matter.

The only result of all this is hatred, stubborn invincible hatred, which neither peace nor victory will destroy. Some Germans, it is said, are beginning to be anxious about it; others are getting used to it, provided that with hate they reap the harvest of fear; but it is a mistaken calculation, because love, or, if you like, a minimum of sympathy, is necessary for the daily round of that common life which we call international relations. Force, admitting that those who have it at their disposal can always count upon it, is powerless to bind nations together, and by force I understand not merely material force, but a spiritual force, such as is, for example, science, of which Germany is so justly proud. If hatred persists, fostered as a religious duty, kindled in the sacred fire of memory, there is no security possible for him who is the object of it: it is the flaw which silently threatens with sudden destruction the steel upon which so much reliance is placed.

Woe to the nation which makes itself hated!

Paul Girard.

INTRODUCTION

The reader will find in the pages which we herewith offer him a detailed picture of the cruelties committed by Germany in the war which involves half the nations of Europe.

In this war, which she let loose upon the world, Germany is not attacking merely armies and fortresses. She takes her victims even from the civil population, and systematically harries even the property of private individuals. She revives under our eyes the times of Attila: to every soldier whom she dispatches against her enemies she recalls the saying of the Scourge of God that “wherever he rode there the grass must cease to grow.” She devotes herself to pillage and destruction; aye, and to pollution and desecration. From her captains, her leaders, her diplomats down to her plain citizens and private soldiers she has disclosed her barbarous spirit, her base instincts; under the blazing light of the devouring flames which she has kindled she lays broad the infamous groundwork and shameful foundations of what she dares to call her civilisation, and which, on the plea of its superiority, she claims to impose upon the whole universe.

Great towns have perished in the flames by her hands, with all the treasures of science, art and industry which they contained; innumerable districts, less populous but no less prosperous, have likewise been plundered, looted and abandoned to the ravages of fire and sword; whole regions have been laid waste without a shadow of military necessity; thousands of peaceful residents, and harmless citizens of these areas, priests and women, children and old folk, have been shot, killed, executed, martyred; women and young girls have been violated and subjected to the most frightful tortures; prisoners have been ill-treated or even shot; the wounded have been dispatched on the field of battle; young people below the military age have been carried off to Germany and treated as prisoners at common law. In the field, the German armies have been guilty of shameful acts of treachery: weapons forbidden because they cause horrible wounds have been used without scruple and without shame. Towns have had monstrous levies imposed upon them, which they had to pay on penalty of seeing their inhabitants massacred. And these things were repeated everywhere: in Belgium, in France, in Poland, in Galicia, in Serbia. Fire, sword, bloodshed, dishonour, slaughter, murder, torture have been flaunted before the eyes of astonished Europe.

That is the story we are going to tell. And with the evidence in the case ready to hand, we shall draw a picture of German barbarism. We shall appeal to the civilised world and ask it to reflect upon the monstrous exhibition of the instincts, the character and the principles of the German nation, which claimed to be gifted with fine feelings and to be punctilious about morals. The facts which will be narrated to the reader will pass judgment upon this claim. In face of the flattering or mendacious pleas, circulated for the last fifty years by Germany herself or by her dupes, this book, the author is fully persuaded, will but anticipate the verdict of history.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE GERMAN THEORY OF WAR

The Custom of War

Eternal peace is a chimera. Whatever pains we may take to avoid war, there always comes a moment when tradition and interest, passion and affection clash and bring to pass the shock which we desired to avoid, a shock which, in the conditions within which civilisation evolves, appears not merely inevitable, but salutary. So we see that philosophers and historians have generally spoken of war as a necessary evil.

But just because of the services which war is called upon to render at certain times, it is important not to keep it apart from all the wholesome, righteous and moral ideas disseminated by civilisation, some of which are an age-long gain to society. The evils which war brings with it must be reduced as much as possible. A state of war, disastrous in itself, must be made subject to laws, approved by righteousness and morality, laws which experience has shown to be practicable and salutary.

These laws are in effect the international conscience of civilised nations. They are the laws of humanity. In every case where military necessity is not absolutely involved, the nations demand that these laws should be set in motion. To reduce the enemy to impotence; to make it impossible for him to resist, is the aim of belligerents: but to attain that end there is no need to disown humanity. A war humanely conducted may be speedily brought to an end. Often, even, it attains its end more quickly by declining to exasperate the enemy and by conciliating opinion. On the other hand, by resorting to terrorism and attacking the enemy’s dearest, most cherished and most sacred possessions—the lives of non-combatants, private property, works of science and art, the good name of families, religion—you renew his power of resistance, increase his moral strength, and infuse into him the spirit of hatred and vengeance.

German Military Writers’ Theory of War

German military writers have paid no attention to that. In the picture which they have drawn of force, they have left no room for justice and moderation, which alone make it worthy of respect and bring about lasting results. The triumph, such as it is, of violence, bounds their whole horizon. Clausewitz, an author who has the ear of Germany, writes, “War knows only one means: force. There is no other: it is destruction, wounds, death, and this resort to brutal force is absolutely imperative. As for that right of nations, about which its advocates talk so much, it imposes on the purpose and right of war merely insignificant and, so to speak, negligible, restrictions. In war every idea of humanity is a blunder, a dangerous absurdity. The violence and brutality of combat admit no kind of limitation.”

“Let France reflect upon the words of one who has been called ‘an immortal teacher,’” says a celebrated commentator of the same Clausewitz, Baron Bronsard de Schellendorf, a former Prussian Minister of War, in another work (France under Arms). And this author adds, “If civilised nations do not scalp the vanquished, do not cut their prisoners’ throats, do not destroy towns and villages, do not set fire to farms, do not lay waste everything in their path, it is not from motives of humanity. No, it is because it is better policy to ransom the vanquished and to make use of productive territories.”

The author does not ask himself if, always from this point of view, no other limitations to the brutalities of war are imposed upon thoughtful people, limitations which are in conformity with well-understood interest, and which at the same time would win the approbation of righteousness and humanity. Wholly obsessed by the coarse intoxication of his principle of absolute violence, he adds—

“The style of old Clausewitz is a feeble affair. He was a poet who put rosewater into his inkpot. But it is only with blood that you can write about the things of war. Besides, the next war will be a terrible business. Between Germany and France it can only be a question of a duel to the death. To be or not to be: that is the question, and one, too, which will only be solved by the destruction of one of the combatants.”

Such is the tone of German military authors. Their responsibility is of the highest importance in the story we have to tell. It is they, it is their principles disseminated through Germany, which have set up like a dogma in that country the cult of force in and for itself, divorced from all the moral elements with which the thought of civilised people surrounds it. And, having been taught by such masters, the German nation can in matters of war only thirst for murder and violence.

The German State of Mind on the Eve of War

These principles had their full effect as soon as the Germans thought that war was inevitable.

Do not let us here discuss the excitement which people naturally feel under such circumstances, nor the emotions of wild enthusiasm and patriotic hatred into which the rush of events leads them. If these emotions lead to excesses, we can neither wonder nor complain at it. Excess is in the nature of things and is part and parcel of a system in which material forces work for a just end—namely, the safety of the country. The general upheaval which accompanied a declaration of war cannot fail to rouse the masses and to lead to extravagant and blustering demonstrations. Nevertheless, even in that respect, there are limits which a nation will never exceed, unless it is being exploited in the interests of the gospel of frightfulness, unless the love of destruction for its own sake is the aim of its leaders and its preceptors, and is the basis of the nation’s conception of war.

That is the case with the Germans. The instincts of blind violence which men carry naturally within them and which education alone restrains, had been so carefully fostered by the Clausewitz and Schellendorf schools in the mind of the German people that, once the restraint of peace has been removed, we could postulate in them the symptoms of the most dangerous impulses: symptoms which, in the eyes of every impartial judge, appeared like the dismal omens of an appalling thirst for blood.

The correspondent of the Hovedstaden (La Capitale), a Danish journal, tells that he heard some women at Berlin uttering impassioned speeches, shouting that an attempt was being made to annihilate Germany, and urging the men to the task of destruction by fire and sword in the foreign countries to which they were going. This same correspondent records the fact that “men and women speakers followed one another in the Café Piccadilly belching out curses against Great Britain and her allies.” Such were the feelings of the public in Germany, different, one might say, from what one would naturally expect to find in such a case, for, is it human for a woman to urge on her husband, her father or her son to a work of cruel destruction? How effective must have been the doctrines disseminated by German authors like those we have quoted, if they have been able, as they have been, to destroy absolutely the finer feelings even of women, and if the thirst for violence has led women to make public attempts to incite their men-folk?

The State of Mind of German Intellectuals

But let us leave the military writers, and speak of men whose peaceful profession ought to have the effect of inspiring in them feelings of moderation. The classes whom we call the intellectuals have been the most savage of all.

“We are barbarians!” wrote the famous German journalist, Maximilian Harden, in his paper Die Zukunft, at the beginning of the war. “England is in alliance with yellow apes and rejoices to hear it said that Germans have been murdered by drunken Cossacks. The English, the Belgians, the French, the northern and southern Sklavs and the Japanese cannot praise one another enough, declaring that they are the guardians and purveyors of the most refined civilisation, and calling us barbarians.

“We should be quite wrong to contradict them. For ancient Rome when it was sick unto death, the Germans who dug its grave were barbarians. Your civilisation, friends, wafts to you no fine perfumes! Accustom yourselves to the idea that on German soil live barbarians and warriors who for the moment have no time to talk soft nothings. They shall defeat your armies, overpower your general staffs, and cut your tentacles in the oceans. When Tangiers and Toulon, Antwerp and Calais are subject to barbaric power, then sometime we shall have a kindly chat with you.”

It is in this state of mind, the mark of unbridled violence, that the German people embarked on the war of 1914. A monstrous outburst followed, the desire and the firm expectation of victory, of which German patriotism had perhaps the right to be glad. But at the same time the most brutal and savage instincts of mankind were let loose.

The will to ravage, destroy, pollute everything belonging to the enemy filled the German armies, and the results of teachings printed in books could be seen written in letters of blood and fire on the page of history. The theory of blind violence openly professed in Germany for half a century, a theory which has been drilled into the very soul of the nation, and has become a principle of conduct for the individual, has borne its fruit. We shall tell the story of them.

CHAPTER II
GERMAN ACTIONS CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED ON THE PLEA OF REPRISALS

The Plea of Reprisals

Violations of the law of nations and, still more, acts of cruelty committed in war, have almost always escaped punishment properly so called. The victim usually finds himself powerless to exact retribution for them. Only one course is permitted to him: that of reprisals, by which he counters acts of violence with other acts of violence. His aim, therefore, is not vengeance: the point is to compel the enemy to keep to what is permissible, through fear of penalties to which he will be exposed if he persists in wrongdoing. Reprisals may frequently involve great violence, but one rule is universally admitted—that they never justify acts of cruelty properly so called. Amongst the latter are the massacre of women and children, mutilation, cunningly devised torture, etc. Two other principles are likewise admitted as regards reprisals, to wit—

(1) that the severity of reprisals must not be out of proportion to the gravity of the offence.

(2) that in cases where the offence has been committed by individual non-combatants, reprisals must not be inflicted on their fellow-citizens, as the aggrieved army has its legitimate remedy under what is called martial law. Now the Germans have violated this rule and these principles.

Reprisals and the Germans

On many occasions the Germans have had recourse to the plea of reprisals to justify acts of violence committed by them. We shall show that this plea is a misuse of terms. One of the excuses which they have most frequently put forward is that civilians have taken part in the war, in Belgium, in France, in Poland. But the question of the civilian population taking part in military operations is bound up with the question of francs-tireurs, which Germany wanted to solve to suit herself and which will occupy our attention later on. Let us here point out one thing—that the circumstances under which, even according to the German version of events, civilians have taken part in the war, are very often quite enough to condemn Germany. For example, Herr de Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor, thought he could persuade the whole world of the innocence of the German soldiers, whose admitted excesses, so far as Louvain was concerned, were due, he said, to the fact that the young girls of the town had gouged out the eyes of the German soldiers. Let us assume the Chancellor’s good faith in making such a statement. Assuredly he cannot have supposed that this happened in many instances or that it went so far as a general execution. It can only have been reported to him, and he can only have been induced to believe it as an exceptional act. It is not of the nature of such an act, alike from the cruelty which it assumes in women and from the difficulty of carrying it out, to be repeated often, and this is the reason for destroying a town, burning Louvain and pillaging the whole country. “A plea of self-defence like this,” said M. Hanotaux, “by itself gives you a picture of the German soul.”

German Slanders which Attempt to Disguise Cruel Acts of the Imperial Troops as Reprisals

All the other excuses of the Germans are of the same kind. Their very weakness proves that they are slanders. For example, Germany has endeavoured to spread in foreign countries, and especially in Switzerland, a rumour to the effect that people on their way back from enemy countries who had stopped in France, and also Swiss subjects, had been ill-treated by the French authorities. The object of this grotesque report was obviously to forestall charges under the same heading which would fall on Germany, and to prepare the public opinion of the world to think that charges outstanding against them were cancelled by the necessity of resorting to reprisals for acts committed in France. The Swiss newspapers did not fail to denounce the German manœuvre. To show the extent to which the policy of lying was being carried, the Journal de Genève published a letter from the Swiss Consul at Besançon, giving the highest praise to the manner in which Germans and Austrians had been treated in France.

Moreover, of what value can these slanders be when, on the other hand, documentary evidence proves that the French authorities have behaved to the Germans with an excess of indulgence. It is certain, at least, that nowhere in France has any hatred been shown to the prisoners. Even prisoners of war have been most energetically protected by the heads of the army against the passions of crowds. On this head here is a note which a French general, Commandant at Angers, addressed to the newspapers of this town—

“For some days convoys of prisoners of war have been passing through the Angers railway station.

“Part of the civil population, and not always the best part, crowds on the bridge above the station and utter cries when they think they recognise an enemy uniform on the platform. These demonstrations are unbecoming; if the Germans behave like brutes to their prisoners, there is no reason why we should imitate them. A nation like France, which boasts with good right of being the most civilised of all, cannot, by acting like them, follow in the footsteps of the barbarians whom we are on the way to conquer at our will and pleasure, with arms in our hands. I beg, therefore, the staff of the local press to be good enough to invite civilians to maintain the calmness and dignity which are the qualities of strong races, conscious of their place in civilisation.

“Général d’Ormesson.”

Trivial Acts have sometimes been the Cause of Terrible Reprisals

One of the manœuvres practised by the Germans consists in their firing some gunshots themselves, at the moment when they were entering a village evacuated by enemy troops, and pretending that these shots came from civilians. Consequently they began to resort to what they called reprisals. All the more did they resort to them when the smallest actual offence gave them any pretext.

In his book, German Evidence for German Crimes, M. Bédier tells how at Orchies “a woman was shot for not having obeyed the word of command to halt. The result, the whole district burnt!” The disobedience of this peasant woman was considered by the German, Major Mehring, the Commandant at Valenciennes, a “terrible atrocity.” In the belief that other equally terrible atrocities had been, according to report, committed at Orchies this Major decided on the destruction of the town. Moreover, he was extraordinarily proud of it, for he issued a proclamation saying that “unfortunately” he had been compelled to the most rigorous measures of martial law against the town of Orchies. “In this locality,” he adds, “the most terrible atrocities were committed. I have drawn the due inferences therefrom, and have destroyed the whole town. The old town of Orchies, a town of 5000 inhabitants, is no more … The dwelling-houses, town hall and church are annihilated.” As a matter of fact the Germans directed a furious bombardment against Orchies; incendiary bombs, benzine sprinklers, every means was employed. For a radius of six leagues the red lights of the conflagration could be seen rising.

In Poland

A circumstance quite as trivial as the disobedience of the Orchies peasant woman was the occasion for the monstrous acts of cruelty and extortion of which the Germans were guilty at Kalich, in Poland. In that place, because some one threw a stone at a patrol, Lieutenant-colonel Prenster, in command of the garrison, caused all the residents in one house to be shot, and then, thinking that that was not enough, he had all the people who lived in Rue Vroclavska brought out of their houses and riddled with grapeshot. About a hundred were killed. Another inhabitant of Kalich, Sokolof, the treasurer, was shot “for having burnt, the evening before the Germans entered, the banknotes in the departmental bank.” Another, named Dernbourg, was hanged on the mere charge of having “carried a lantern in his hand.” This fact proved him to have been a spy! The truth is that the unfortunate man had used the lantern only for the purpose of carrying out certain necessary repairs to his mill. Four workmen engaged in the mill were also put to death, after some forms of trial. Four hundred houses were destroyed in this town, representing a loss of sixty million roubles. The leader of the Germans in this performance was an individual of German extraction, Michel by name, the former head of a brothel at Kalich, whom the German Commandant appointed mayor of the town.

The Germans Admit that their Pleas of Defence are a Sham

The Germans have been trained in a rigorous school, but they are lacking in flexibility of mind. Moreover, they were unable to avoid admissions which confute their falsehoods.

So it happened that when the Berliner Tageblatt recorded acts of cruelty which it alleged had been committed by the Allies, a refutation of its charges came from Germany itself. This paper told that in France cigars and cigarettes filled with powder were given to German prisoners: Vorwaerts took up the task of replying to this piece of stupidity, showed that a great number of stories of the same kind had been admitted to be false, and that in particular the story of the cigarettes was a mere invention. The legend that German soldiers had had their eyes gouged out by francs-tireurs was also denounced as a mere imagination. On this point Vorwaerts wrote: “No proof has been made out on official authority that German soldiers have had their eyes gouged out by francs-tireurs. A certain well-known Berlin newspaper declared that there were at the Grosslichterfeld hospital ten slightly wounded soldiers, who had had their eyes gouged out by the enemy. When Herr Liebknecht asked the superintendent of the hospital if the report was correct, the latter replied, ‘Fortunately, these rumours are devoid of all foundation.’”

Vorwaerts recurred to this same question on the 6th December, 1914, when it published the results of an inquiry made of the management of the Hanover hospitals and the grand charity hospital at Berlin.

The management of the Hanover hospitals addressed the following reply to the Socialist journal. “As a result of inquiry made among the doctors of the different sections of hospital 3, we are able to inform you that we have not at present at the hospital a single wounded person whose eyes have been gouged out. We have never had one.”

Similarly, the management of the charity hospital at Berlin communicated the following note to Vorwaerts: “The charity hospital has admitted no wounded who have had their eyes gouged out.”

Finally, the great Catholic newspaper, the Kölnische Volkszeitung, having published in the month of November an article in which the same legend reappeared, Arch-presbyter Kaufmann had a conclusive document inserted in this paper.

A doctor, M. Saethre, who said he had visited the Cologne hospitals, had written, “There can be no doubt about the atrocities committed by francs-tireurs. I myself saw at Aix-la-Chapelle a Red Cross sister whose breast had been cut off by francs-tireurs, and a Major whose eyes had been gouged out whilst he lay on the field of battle.” He replied, under date 26th November, in a letter to the paper from which we make this extract: “You asked me to write to you what I thought about this report. I, therefore, applied to the competent military authorities to know if the statements made by Doctor Saethre were correct. The superintendent of the hospital writes me under date 25th November, ‘The atrocities of which you tell me have not been committed, at least as far as Aix-la-Chapelle is concerned. We have not seen the Red Cross sister referred to nor the Major either.’

“I do not know,” continued the Arch-presbyter, where the doctor of whom the Kölnische Volkszeitung speaks has got his information. “I think it necessary to state here again that in the hospitals of Aix-la-Chapelle there is not a single wounded man to be found whose eyes have been gouged out, and no Red Cross sister who has suffered the above-mentioned mutilation.”

In this way was the device foiled. The attempts made to disguise the German crimes as reprisals led to nothing.

Reprisals among the Allies

These took place on account of the treatment of German prisoners of war after their internment. Even on this question complete equality has not yet been reached, as the Allies did not desire to treat their prisoners in the least like Germany treats hers.

In their behaviour towards civilians the Allies have always confined themselves to the limits prescribed by martial law, without having recourse to the right of reprisals. In Alsace, German immigrants very nearly gave occasion for reprisals.

At Cernay, a French section which had deployed lost thirty-eight men, who had all been struck in the back; the shots had been fired in the town, before any German soldier could have reached there. At Lutran, the German teacher fired on a cavalry patrol and killed two horses. This attitude of the Germans of Alsace, as well as the numerous arrests of German spies caught red-handed in the course of operations in Upper Alsace, brought several persons before a court-martial. In these citations the procedure of war was scrupulously observed. This was particularly the case with the Mayor and the comptroller of the post office of Thann, as also with the wife of a German forester of Schlierbach, who was condemned to death by the court-martial for having led several soldiers into an ambuscade.

Only on one occasion did the French speak of reprisals and threaten to carry them out. This threat was delivered by aeroplanes, which threw down proclamations declaring “We have many hostages in our hands. For every Alsatian killed, we shall kill ten Germans; for every Alsatian wounded, we shall kill a German.” The object was to protect Alsatian civilians, who had fallen into the hands of the Germans again, against the vengeance of the latter.

Conclusion

To sum up, while the Allies, in face of the cruelties committed by their enemies, waived or restricted their right of reprisals; the Germans, on the contrary, not only exercised it, but boldly exceeded it, using it as a random excuse to justify a policy of vengeance and terrorisation. Acts of little importance were repressed by them like outrages. The doings of a single individual brought about the ruin of a village. Still more, these doings were invented to justify gratuitous excesses practised for the mere purpose of terrorisation. These general remarks were necessary before embarking on the story of the excesses and crimes which Germany wished to dispute and the details of which we are about to read.

CHAPTER III
THE GERMAN TREATMENT OF OFFICIALS

German Violence

German violence, once it had been let loose by the declaration of war, forthwith became lost to restraint of every kind. It was not merely in pitched battles and amongst soldiers that it was displayed, but behind the lines, and in matters commonly supposed to be subject to diplomatic regulations. The official representatives of foreign countries had to suffer the consequences. By their conduct towards these distinguished people, German ministers and officials by their deliberate action proved to the civilised world that Germany is the land of cruelty no less than of insolence and rudeness. The ambassadors, consuls, etc., of the powers on which Germany had just declared war were exposed to infamous treatment, perhaps, in its way, worse than the acts of cruelty committed by the heads of the army and by the soldiers. Even people of royal blood, members of the Imperial family of Russia, were the victims of these outbursts of violence.

In making this statement we must not exonerate any section of the German people. The members of the Government, no less than officials, are responsible, for none of the latter were censured, and this responsibility must be traced back to the Emperor. On the other hand, the German people, without distinction of class, deliberately associated themselves with these outbursts.

How the German Authorities behaved to the Dowager Empress of Russia

The Dowager Empress of Russia, Marie Feodorovna, mother of the Emperor of Russia and sister of Queen Alexandra of England, was travelling through Germany on the day after the declaration of war. She had just left England and was going back to Russia.

On the order of the German authorities—

(1) Her Majesty was stopped at Berlin, where she was forbidden to continue her journey to Petrograd to meet her family.

(2) She was given the choice of going to Copenhagen or of returning to London.

The Dowager Empress had to obey. She went to Copenhagen and thence continued her journey.

How the German Authorities behaved to the Grand Duke Constantin of Russia and his Family

The Grand Duke Constantin Constantinovitch, grandson of Nicholas I, known as a patron of arts and letters, who was at the baths of Wildungen, in Germany, with his family, when war broke out, was stopped two days after the Empress. At first the Germans thought of detaining him and making him prisoner, as they had done with Admiral Skridlof, formerly Admiral-in-Chief of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and several Russian generals who likewise happened to be in German territory. But they merely shut him up with his family in a carriage of a frontier train. In this carriage they made a point of putting some soldiers who were travelling pipe in mouth, and forbade any one to open the windows. At different stages in the journey the authorities were guilty of repeated acts of rudeness to the Prince, and even went so far as to jeer at his suite. When the Grand Duchess expressed a wish to send a telegram to the Empress of Germany, who had been her friend from childhood, she found that she was arrogantly refused.

From the station at Gumbinnen up to the Russian frontier, that is to say for a distance of three leagues, the Grand Duke and his family had to complete the journey on foot.

How the Germans behaved to the Ambassador of France at Berlin

The German authorities behaved in similar fashion to M. Jules Cambon, the Ambassador of France at Berlin. When, armed with his passports, he asked to leave by way of Holland, the minister refused his request and sent him word by M. de Lancken, a former adviser to the German Embassy at Paris, that he would have to return to France through Austria.

“We should not recommend you,” he said, “to go through Denmark. The sea may not be safe…” M. Cambon then asked for himself and his staff a safe-conduct which would guarantee his journey through Austria, where his official position would be no protection to him. This safe-conduct was promised him. On the following morning this order was countermanded, and M. Cambon was informed that he would be brought back again to the Danish frontier. Whether the sea would be safe or not was no longer taken into consideration. His departure took place the same day. It took no less than twenty-four hours to cross the 400 kilometres which separate Berlin from Denmark. When the train got near the frontier all the blinds were lowered, and soldiers armed with revolvers beset the doors of each compartment. The passengers were warned that these soldiers would fire if they left the carriage, if they put their hands in their pockets, or if they attempted to touch their luggage.

When they were close to the frontier, a military official, Commandant de Rheinhaben, came, shamefacedly enough, and asked M. Cambon for the cost of the train by which he had travelled from Berlin. The ambassador offered a cheque on the Bleichroeder Bank, which was declined. The total expense, which amounted to 3600 marks, was demanded in gold. The Embassy staff was able to scrape together this sum. The passengers then continued their journey, with the addition to their party of a curious-looking person who, the Commandant said, was a Scandinavian merchant. M. Cambon and his companions met this curious merchant again at Copenhagen and in Norway at the time of their embarkation for England.

Moreover, as they were going through the Kiel Canal, the Germans went so far as to claim the right to search the ambassador’s luggage. And though, through the interposition of an official, he was spared this humiliation, soldiers forced themselves into the carriages and stood on guard facing the passengers, with their hands on the trigger of their revolvers; even women and children did not escape this kind of treatment and were threatened with death if they made the slightest movement.

How the German Authorities behaved to other Members of the Diplomatic Corps

The French Minister at Munich and his family were notified on the 3rd August, at 6 p.m., that they must take train the following morning for Constance, under the supervision of an officer and a Bavarian official. The Minister asked for an extension of time, which was refused in accordance with instructions which he was told had been received from Berlin. On the other hand, the owners of the premises used as offices and residences by the legation demanded, under threat of distress, immediate payment for the current quarter.

M. de Nélidof, the Russian Envoy at the Vatican, who was returning to Russia through Germany with his wife, was kept prisoner for two days in the Munich railway station, where he and Mme. de Nélidof had to submit to the worst possible treatment at the hands of soldiers.

The Russian Minister at Dresden was ordered to leave at nine hours’ notice. With great difficulty he had the time extended to twenty-four hours. He and his staff were put into a carriage with blinds drawn, and he was kept under observation by two police officials all the way to Munich.

Brutal Behaviour, which was Permitted by the German Police, of the Mob, to the Diplomatic Representatives of Foreign Countries

We cannot be surprised that the mob shows little self-control in circumstances so critical as a declaration of war. But what cannot be permitted is that mob violence should be let loose, and not be forbidden by the authorities, upon the representatives of foreign powers, whose mission under such circumstances automatically comes to an end. In Germany, on certain occasions, the authorities were actually accomplices of the mob. This was the case as regards the treatment of the French and Russian diplomatic body as they were leaving Berlin.

When the French diplomatic body was passing through Neumunster, near Kiel, violent demonstrations were made by a party of ladies of the German Red Cross. These ladies crowded round the carriage in which were the staff of the French Embassy, shouting and shaking their fists. As a glass of water was being brought to a little girl of three years old, who was travelling with the Embassy, these ladies took hold of it and threw it to the ground. In some cases the behaviour of the crowd was so shameful that Commandant de Rheinhaben, who had been instructed to travel with the Embassy, said that in all his life he had never had so painful a duty to perform.

The demonstrations against the Russian diplomatic body began on the 27th July, according to a subsequent statement of M. de Sverbeef, Russian Ambassador to Berlin, to one of the editors of Novoïé Vrémia, 29th August, 1914. A howling mob, he said, filled all the streets round the Embassy, shouting insults to the Russians. This lasted till two o’clock in the morning. These demonstrations began again the following day, but, curious to relate, were at first aimed at Russia and not at France. At the beginning of the war it was supposed at Berlin that France would not participate in the struggle.

“I left Berlin,” continued the ambassador, “with the staff of the Embassy on Sunday, 2nd August, at noon. A mob had gathered in front of the Embassy in the morning. To avoid unpleasantness, the gate had been shut. It was only opened at the moment when we were getting into a motor. I went in front in the motor of the United States Ambassador. The crowd did not attack me and I heard hardly any hostile cries. On the other hand, the mob indulged in murderous attacks on the other motors.

“Although at Berlin the fact of these murderous attacks on the members of the Russian Embassy is denied, they are nevertheless authentic. The mob wounded not only the men, but also the ladies. It was not merely the proletariat who gave themselves up to these acts of violence, but people who appeared to be quite of high position participated.”

Moreover, several official representatives of Russia were arrested in the street, but were set at liberty again when their papers had been examined.

Crapovitzki, the Chamberlain, formerly Secretary-in-Chief of the Russian Embassy at Berlin, was struck on the head by blows so violent that his blood saturated two handkerchiefs, and he had to put himself under medical care at Copenhagen.

Princess Belosselska, an American citizen, was struck on the back, on the shoulder, and on the head, by a well-clad man with a white beard, and some people spat in her face.

Several other people were ill-treated, especially Countess Litke, wife of the Russian Minister at Stuttgart; Mme. Todleben, wife of the Russian Minister at Carlsruhe; Mmes. Plantine and Raevska; MM. Diacre and Chapelle of the Embassy at Berlin, and M. Lopaiko. The children were stowed away on the floor of the motors to protect them from blows.

How the German Authorities behaved to Members of the Consular Service

Members of the Russian, French and English consular service in Germany were to have still less favour shown to them than ambassadors and ministers. The Consul-General of Russia at Leipzig was unexpectedly summoned to the police station. He was there allowed thirty-five minutes to go to the station and take the train. His vice-consul, who was of a lower rank, was allowed only ten minutes, and his pockets were searched to boot.

The Consul-General of France at Frankfurt got orders to go on the 4th August, and he immediately obeyed. The German authorities conducted him to the Belgian frontier, then on the way they changed their minds and conducted him to Constance. When he reached the station at Offensburg he was arrested by an officer. With the consular staff he remained shut up for five hours in the waiting-room, closely watched. Then he was conducted, with about one hundred French people, men, women and children, who had left Frankfurt at the same time as their consul-general, to Donaueschingen. There they were all led under escort in a pelting rain to the other end of the town into an open station, where their only opportunity of rest was upon some bundles of straw. On the next morning it was announced that the French, with their wives and children, would be detained by the local authorities. A protest by the consul-general was ineffective. The consul and his staff were unable to resume their journey to Constance until 5 o’clock.

On the 5th August the German authorities ordered the consuls of France, Russia and England to leave Danzig within an hour.

The three consuls and their families were brought to Bentheim, on the Dutch frontier, amid insults and ill-treatment and without being allowed to take any food. On the 8th August, at Bentheim, the three consuls were separated from their wives and families, and shut up in a prison cell, with the sons of the English consul and M. Vassel, of the French Consulate at Prague.

They were treated like criminals: they had bread and water for food, straw mattresses and a stone floor for bed; they were compelled to clean their cells, to take a regular walk of half an hour within the prison precincts, in the company of men who had been convicted at common law.

The French consul, M. Michel, being ill, asked for a doctor, but was unable to get one. The superintendent of the prison thought he had done all that was required by giving him some castor oil. This regimen lasted several days. Finally, on the 13th August, the English consul was released and met again his wife and his children, who, unknown to him, had been shut up in another cell. The other consuls were not set at liberty until some days afterwards.

M. de France de Tersant, Vice-Consul of France at Frankfurt on the Main, took thirty-three hours to traverse the 300 kilometres between Frankfurt and the frontier. He underwent the same annoyances: tedious confinement in railway stations, perpetual change of route; he was compelled to travel with blinds drawn and windows shut in a stifling heat, in the company of an armed official.

The wife of this consul, Mme. de France de Tersant, who left Germany on the 31st July—that is, before the declaration of war, was arrested at Metz and her luggage confiscated. In vain she made application to the military authorities. They refused to receive it and threatened to keep her in custody. However, she obtained permission to continue her journey by horse carriage to Novéant. As she was leaving the soldiers hooted her. At Novéant the driver refused to bring her any further. Then she had to go on foot as far as Pagny-on-the-Moselle, which is the first French village. A peasant at Novéant lent her a wheelbarrow, in which she could put her young child. The peasant consented to push the wheelbarrow.

M. Damier, Russian consul at Frankfurt, was brought by force from his house to a statue of Germania which he was compelled to salute. A howling mob kicked him and struck him with their fists. M. Alberic Néton, Consul-General of France at Düsseldorf, was ordered on the 2nd August by the Chief of Police to leave the town at once. Two officials were stationed before his door with orders not to leave it. On the next day, on his way to the consulate, he could not give them the slip. All the day they kept near him whether he went on foot or rode.

After interminable negotiations with regard to his departure, the Consul-General of France finally left Düsseldorf on the 5th August, bringing with him only a small portmanteau. The destination of the train was the Dutch frontier (Roermont). But at the first station, which is Neuss, an officer in a uniform trimmed with lace came and opened the compartment in which were the consul-general and many other passengers, and informed them that the Dutch line was cut and that they would have to go to Cologne and then to Switzerland.

He had to go to Cologne in a train full of soldiers and in a third-class carriage. During the whole journey the soldiers never ceased to make insulting remarks about France.

At Cologne, the consul-general’s journey was interrupted by the military authorities. He underwent a regular search and had to undress to allow these people to search every bit of his clothing. As he complained of having to submit to such treatment, the German officer said to him, “You will see many other people in the same case as yourself.”

And, in fact, when the search was completed he was brought, carefully escorted, to an hotel of the lowest class, an annexe of the Prefecture of Police, where police officers searched his luggage. M. Néton was kept there three days under police supervision. He was forbidden to communicate with any one outside or to read the newspapers.

“During the third night of our detention,” says the consul-general in his official report of the 10th August, “on Friday, 7th August, a little before midnight, there was a violent knocking at the door of my room. ‘Everybody get up,’ cried a voice; ‘you will be off to Holland in ten minutes.’ Everybody dressed in great haste. We were compelled to get into two military motors, which brought us with all speed to the station. There we were brought to a train which was standing ready, and pushed into a carriage where we were locked in and all the blinds lowered. The signal for departure was given, but none of us knew where we were going.

“At six o’clock in the morning the train stopped. We had just passed Clèves and we were a short distance from the Dutch frontier. To get us over the remaining thirty kilometres the mayor of the place, who had been notified of our arrival, offered to have us driven across in a light trap.

“When we got down from the carriage he demanded of us 14 marks, i.e. about 18 francs.

“We were at Vyler, the last Prussian station from which the boundary, marking the frontier, could be seen; we thought we were at the end of our troubles, but we had reckoned without the station officer. ‘Your papers,’ said he. Each of us showed what the official who searched us at Cologne had left us. ‘Not in order,’ he declared. ‘I shall have to report the matter. In the meantime you must be searched,’ and for a second time, men and women, we were obliged to undress completely and to undergo a more minute search than one could possibly imagine. They even looked between our toes. The brims of our hats were turned back. The insoles of our shoes were lifted up. My watch was opened and the glass of it broken.

“Once more I protested. Police officers, revolver in belt and rifle in hand, surrounded me and commanded me to keep silent. The official came towards me. My last papers and documents were seized and even my private letters were taken…

“The official took leave of me, saying, ‘I shall return all this to you at Düsseldorf when you come back.’

“After a few more minutes waiting we were allowed to cross the frontier. We were free. On my arrival in Holland I noticed that the soldiers who had searched me had taken 90 marks in gold which happened to be in my pocket.”

M. René d’Hennezel, French Vice-Consul at Mannheim, left his post under similar circumstances. At Immendigen a non-commissioned officer and four men burst into his carriage. He examined M. d’Hennezel’s passports and those of M. Lancial, diplomatic attaché, had their luggage carefully searched, and passed on to them the word to follow him to the captain. On the platform the crowd shouted angrily and the non-commissioned officer sneered at them.

The captain questioned them fiercely and declared that their passports were not in order. He prevented them leaving and had them brought back to the station-master’s office, where a fresh examination of their luggage was made in his presence. Finally, he consented to let them travel by Constance, saying, “Above all things, mind what you are about, and take very good care that I hear no complaint of you, or you will immediately be shot. You must get into the luggage van.”

M. Armez, French Consul at Stuttgart, during the last days of his stay received all his correspondence “unsealed as a military safeguard.”

On the 3rd August he was ordered to leave his post within three hours, and to bring only hand luggage. He was stopped at the first station as a spy, and threatened with death by the other passengers, in the presence of a menacing crowd. It was only after many anxieties of every kind and not without having received several blows and even having been wounded, that he succeeded in reaching Constance in Swiss territory.

CHAPTER IV
OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY GERMAN AUTHORITIES AND PRIVATE PERSONS AGAINST ENEMY SUBJECTS

The most celebrated German writers on international law, Heffter, Klueber, Geffcken, have taught that the State which declares war can neither keep enemy subjects who happen to be on its territory nor their property, for as they came into this territory in reliance upon public law and have received permission to stay there, they can avail themselves of the tacit promise made by the State that every freedom and safety are guaranteed them for their return. If the State wishes them to go, it must allow them a reasonable time to go away with their property; if not, enemy subjects, who are subject to the regulations of the police and of public safety have the right, so long as they respect these laws, to appeal for protection to them. In any case deliberate ill-treatment of enemy subjects cannot be permitted.

This principle, by the confession of the Germans themselves, condemns the methods to which Germany has resorted by empowering her officials to behave cruelly to French and Russian subjects who happened to be in Germany on the 3rd August, and by tacitly approving the behaviour of the mob to them.

The fear of spying, of which it appears that all these people were suspected, perhaps because of the audacity which the Germans themselves showed in resorting to it in foreign countries, was invoked by the Germans as the excuse for all these outrages and the justification for all these annoyances.

German Misconduct towards People Incapable of Espionage

Nevertheless, ill-treatment could not be justified in this way. As a precaution against spying, foreigners may be compelled to leave a country en masse. A straightforward and honest supervision may be exercised over them at their departure, but no one has the right to allow them to be struck, nor to expose them to the clamours of a mob, nor to speak to them as if they were prisoners in the dock. Only definite suspicion falling upon individuals would justify such conduct, and by justifying it would give, in addition, the rights of arrest and cross-examination.

People who are merely being brought back to their own country in case of war have the right to be shown every consideration by the authorities.

In all the disgraceful situations which German officials and private citizens brought about in Germany in their dealings with enemy subjects of Germany, we can, therefore, see merely the expression of a cowardly hatred of everything that belongs to the powers hostile to Germany, powers which the Germans think they are hitting when they insult and ill-treat their peaceful and harmless citizens. The same feeling which animated German officials against the Dowager Empress of Russia, against the Grand Duke Constantin, against the ambassadors, ministers and consuls of Russia and France, could only assert itself with still greater fury, devoid of all consideration and all scruple, against plain French citizens or Russian subjects. In this letting loose of evil passions there were manifested features of grotesque arbitrariness. For example, such was these people’s whim, every woman who wore spectacles was subjected to a more minute search than other travellers, on the ground, it was alleged, that there was more likelihood of her being a spy!

How the Germans treated Russian Travellers

Thirty-two Russians belonging to the highest aristocracy, who were passing the summer at Baden and other bathing resorts, were arrested at Hamburg and detained for several days. Thanks to the intervention of the Spanish consul, M. Veler, they were able eventually to continue their journey; but at Neumunster, M. Schebeko, on the authority of a telegram from Berlin, was suddenly arrested in the train, compelled to get out of the carriage guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, in the midst of a crowd shouting “Shoot him!” He was then dragged off to prison, where he spent twenty-four hours in a dark cell, in the company of malefactors under the common law.

The Countess of Vorontsoff, daughter of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, went so far as to protest. Immediately the soldiers, in a rage, forced themselves into her carriage, pushed her with the butt-ends of their rifles on to the platform and began to search her. It was only with great difficulty that the travellers were able to resume their journey, which, from Baden to the Danish frontier, lasted seven days. At Reudsburg station they were again dragged from their carriage and carefully searched: at the Fleusburg station they were detained for four hours under a guard of armed soldiers. Other Russian travellers of note were at first brought to the frontier town of Eydtkuhnen, and then dispatched again to Mecklenburg, and the Island of Ruegen.

The travellers were fearfully crowded together. Some of them were put into cattle-trucks and had nothing to eat or drink. Even women were not spared blows with the fist and with the butt-ends of rifles, nor threats of death. Several had to make long marches on foot between rows of armed soldiers, and at stopping-places had no shelter but pig-sties. A large number of men aged from seventeen to fifty were stopped.

Husbands were taken away from their wives, children were harshly treated, and left alone at the stopping-places in spite of the cries of their mothers, who were forced to continue their journey.

In the sanatorium at Frankfurt, which was filled with a large number of foreigners, especially Russians, several of whom had just been operated on, shameful behaviour of the same kind took place. The sanatorium was cleared in twenty-four hours. A woman who had just been confined was sent to Berne, where she arrived in a dying condition. Her baby died on the way.

After stories like these, we can easily imagine what bad treatment travellers of less distinction had to endure. The vicissitudes through which they passed not merely astound, but revolt, the hearer. The Russians who were brought to Sasuitz, for the most part robbed of all that they had, agreed to make the following declaration—

“Those who wish to do so may take the boat to go back to Sweden. Those who do not wish to return to Sweden will remain here, as prisoners of war, until the end of the war. The women will sew linen for our soldiers, the men will be employed in making trenches. Whoever departs from the appointed place where he is to stop will be brought before a court-martial and will be shot. We do not guarantee regular food.”

How the Germans Behaved to French Residents and Travellers

The French were no more spared than the Russians. At Kembs, fronting Istein, the German authorities blew up with dynamite Monsignor Kannengieser’s dwelling-house. The noble prelate, who was almost blind, was shamefully ill-treated, because (such is the statement of the Liberté de Fribourg) he had in his possession plans of Istein.

As for French travellers going back to France, their journey was checked at any moment by the police, who stopped them for long hours, if not for whole days, at every station. Several found that they were treated like regular prisoners; on the slightest suspicion they were shut up in dark cells, and in order to intimidate them or to drag confessions out of them, they were threatened with death. Those who were not stopped by the police were unmercifully beaten by the crowd, who loaded them with insults.

At Hanover a child who was wearing the inscription France on the ribbon of its hat was dragged from its mother and ill-treated.

At Donaueschingen a certain number of women were compelled by the German military authorities to discontinue their journey, and were brought to a school, where they had to sleep on straw.

They got the benefit, however, of the sole and only act of charity which was performed during the whole of this time in Germany towards an enemy subject, for the Princess of Fürstenberg, whose castle is at Donaueschingen, hearing of their condition, had beds given them in a hospital of which she is patroness.

CHAPTER V
OUTRAGES ON NEUTRAL SUBJECTS

In these acts of unbridled violence due note should be made of the fact that German officials, officers and private soldiers made no distinction between individuals who held public offices and mere private citizens. Still more worthy of note is the fact, which we think is obvious, that they made no distinction between the subjects of enemy and those of neutral states. The sacred duty laid upon every State to protect the life, property and even the interests of neutrals was absolutely repudiated in Germany, and we think it is our duty to draw the reader’s attention with special emphasis to outrages of this kind committed by the Germans both in Germany and in the territories which they invaded.

Outrages committed by the Germans on Neutral Subjects Resident in Germany

M. Bernardino del Campo, ex-Minister of Finance of Brazil, ex-President of Sao-Paolo and leader of the Republican Party of that country, happened to be on the 3rd August at Bad-Nauheim with his wife, who was taking a course of treatment there, and his four children. The Germans showed no consideration either for his nationality, his rank or his age. M. Bernardino del Campo, although he had reached the age of sixty-two years, was struck with the butt-end of the rifle by Bavarian soldiers, robbed of his jewels and left dying at the Swiss frontier.

The news of this incident caused great indignation in Brazil.

Baroness Karen-Groothe, daughter of the King of Denmark’s Master of the Hunt, and wife of a Turkish officer, happened to be at Mecklenberg when war was declared, and was arrested as a spy and treated so brutally that she had to keep to her bed at Copenhagen, to which she was brought back.

Several Danish subjects resident in Schleswig were treated with the same kind of brutality. Count de Schack was imprisoned; when, on his release, he tried to escape across the Danish frontier, he was arrested again and sent to a fortress in the interior of Germany. The editors of the Danish papers in Schleswig, and a large number of distinguished people in the annexed provinces, were also imprisoned.

Americans were no better treated than Danes. The New York Sun (11th August, 1914) discussed the treatment of Americans in Germany in an article dealing with the arrest of Mr. Archer Huntington and his wife on a baseless charge of espionage, and the brutality with which several young Americans had been treated.

“It would seem that the German authorities” (said the Sun) “think that in war there is no obstacle to their will and no atonement for their acts. The American Government will speedily have to disabuse them of this idea. Germany must be made to understand clearly that ample compensation is due to her victims, and that those who have abused their authority must be punished.”

In Austria

The Austrian authorities were as discourteous as the German to foreigners, subjects of neutral countries. At Carlsbad the famous singer, Adelina Patti, and her husband, Baron Cederstrom, a Danish subject, were kept prisoners for several days in their hotel, where the police searched everything and rummaged through all their trunks and portmanteaus, while the crowd, who threatened to carry the hotel by assault, raised a hideous din by way of demonstration against the singer, who is a friend of Russia and France.

According to the Italian newspaper Messagero, an Italian commercial traveller, M. Ugo Lorenzini, and ten fellow-countrymen were ill-treated by the Austrians on their return from Berlin to Italy on the outbreak of hostilities. They were imprisoned at Innsbruck, then shut up in a motor wagon, which took a day and a half to bring them to Trente. There they were robbed of everything they had, especially of 2000 crowns, which was all the money in their possession. For a whole week the Austrians actually kept them digging trenches for fifteen hours a day: hardly any food was given them and they were struck with sticks and swords. One morning, after one of them had killed the guard, they managed to escape. A Trentino peasant helped them to make good their flight to the Italian frontier, where they arrived in a state of exhaustion.

Crimes committed by Germans against Neutral Subjects in the invaded Countries

The most serious of these crimes was that committed by the soldiers of Lieutenant-colonel Blegen at Dinant against M. Himmer, Vice-Consul of the Argentine. This vice-consul, who ought to have been respected not merely as a non-combatant and a neutral, but because his consular rank should have protected him, was killed, and the Argentine flag trampled under foot, with the result that keen indignation was aroused in the Argentine.

Amongst the many inhabitants at Liège who were shot were five young people of Spanish nationality. They were massacred on the 20th August. Their names were known and were as follows: the brothers Oliver, Juan and Antonio, natives of Oller, Jaime Llabres of Majorca, Juan Nora and José Nielle.

The Consul-General of the Balearic Islands, who had received confirmation of this report, made an official request to the Spanish Government that they should protest against these outrages and exact reparation—that is to say, present a demand for an indemnity for the families of the murdered men, and in order to make the demand effective, seize all the German ships which had taken refuge in Spanish ports.

In France, at Jarny, twelve kilometres from Briey, the German soldiers, not satisfied with other acts of barbarism which they had committed, shot in addition thirteen Italian subjects. Here is the story of these murders, given by one of the comrades of the victims, the Italian Agostino Baccheta de Gattico of Novara, in the Gazetta del Popolo (see the Matin for 27th August, 1914).

At Jarny, Baccheta ran a small café which was a rendezvous for Italians, some of whom were his boarders. He returned to Italy, after a long and painful journey, accompanied by the sister of one of the men who had been shot.

“It was about eight o’clock in the morning, on the 3rd August,” said he, “when several battalions of the 63rd German infantry regiment, with some cavalry and artillery, got as far as Jarny, without meeting with much resistance from the French, who were not in great numbers.

“The Germans lost one man killed and four wounded. They immediately accused the inhabitants of having fired on their party, and, having summoned the chief magistrate and the local doctor, ordered them to assemble the whole male population on the open space of the village.

“Women and children were knocked down. When they wanted to follow their men-folk they were brutally driven back with the butt-ends of rifles and several were bayoneted. A woman, named Giuseppa Trolli, tried to prevent her husband getting out of the bed where he was lying seriously ill, and called out to the Germans, ‘Savage brutes.’ She, and the child which she was holding in her arms, were wounded.

“When all the men had assembled, patrols began to search the houses. In the rooms of my café, which had been let to some Italians, they found pickaxes and other tools. This was the excuse for arresting and immediately afterwards shooting the workmen, whose names are as follows: Gerolamo Bernacchini of Gattico; Giovanni Testa of Bergama; Angelo Luisetti of Borgomanero; Stefano Piralli of Gattico; Giovani Zoni of Trevisa.

“In the inn kept by a man named Gaggioli Stefano of Serralunga, two rusty revolvers were found. The proprietor of the inn, a man named Vaglia Giuseppe of Castelamonte, and Cesaroni Vincenzo of Viterbe, were arrested and paid with their lives for what this search had yielded.

“Finally, in the Carrera Café, a fowling-piece was found belonging to Pesenti Luigi, of Milan, who was forthwith shot.”

Bachetta adds that some days afterwards the following were arrested and shot: Giovanni Tron of Conegliano; Andrew Bisesti of Bologna; a lad of thirteen years old called Eurigo Maffi of Lugo; Amilcare Zoni of Trevisa, because, when asking for a passport of repatriation, they had questioned the German Commandant in a spirited manner.

Italian refugees informed the consular authorities of the tragedy of which their companions had been the victims. They then went to Gattico to bring to M. Niccolo Leonardi the material proofs of their story.

Spanish subjects resident in Reims suffered dreadfully during the German occupation and the famous bombardment, which we describe in detail further on.

During the occupation, M. Rolland, a Spanish subject, was ill-treated and fifty German soldiers looted everything in the restaurant of which he was proprietor, especially his cellar.

Several other houses and shops belonging to Spaniards, over which their national flag was flying, were systematically pillaged.

The bombardment of September 18-20 had fresh disasters in store for the Spanish residents of Reims. The Spanish Consulate was bombarded although the Spanish flag made it conspicuous and all the Spaniards of Reims had taken refuge there on the advice of a Frenchman, M. Humbert, who, in the absence of the vice-consul, Cama, had taken charge of Spanish interests. The house of Narcisso Torres, which also had the Spanish flag upon it, was struck by two shells. Father Torres, aged seventy-six years and ill, died of excitement. M. Antonio’s house was set on fire; his daughter, aged eleven years, was seriously wounded.

In the outskirts of Reims, the premises of the well-known Spanish firm, Montener & Co., were bombarded four times, and suffered damage which might be estimated at 500,000 francs.

The Spanish committee of Paris, which had sent a deputation to the department of the Marne, to report upon the disasters of the war, protested as soon as they received the report of their deputies against the crimes committed in defiance of the Spanish flag and of humanity.

Finally, let us add that, at the time of the second bombardment of Dunkirk, which was carried out by German aeroplanes (22nd January, 1915), the United States consul, Mr. Benjamin Morel, was wounded by a bursting bomb. The consulates of the United States, Norway and Uruguay were, in addition, struck by explosive projectiles thrown by German airmen.

CHAPTER VI
GERMAN USE OF PROHIBITED IMPLEMENTS OF WAR

Among savage races, or even nearer home, before certain agreements had been made between nations, poisoned or barbed arrows, small shot, pounded glass, and soft-nosed bullets were used to aggravate the condition of wounded enemies to the worst possible extent. To-day all these contrivances are prohibited, with the consent of Germany, who signed the conventions which embodied this prohibition. German jurists like Bluntschli approved this concurrence of opinion, and the German General Hartmann declared that for a long time these kinds of projectiles have gone into the lumber-rooms of arsenals.

This fact, however, did not prevent Germany from resorting in this war to the use of weapons of the same kind, or even the still more formidable dum-dum bullets. Moreover, dum-dum bullets are expressly specified among the list of prohibitions laid down by the Hague Conference, 29th July, 1899, prohibitions signed by Germany and her ally Austria. These declare that “the contracting parties forbid the use of bullets which expand or easily get flattened in the human body, such as bullets with a hard outer case which does not completely cover the core or is notched at the end.”

The Use of Dum-dum Bullets in Belgium

The report of the military governor of Ghent, Lieutenant-general L. Clooten, and the results of experiments made by M. V. Rousseaux, armoury expert at Antwerp, prove indisputably that these bullets were in use among the Germans. The following is the report—

“Headquarters at Ghent, 26th September, 1914.

“Sir,

“I have the honour to send herewith some cartridges with bullets of the kind called ‘dum-dum,’ seized on the Hanoverian Lieutenant von Halden, who was taken prisoner at Ninove, by my troops, on the 29th inst.

“This officer’s pistol, which he threw away shortly before his capture, could not be found again.

“Lieutenant-general L. Clooten,
“Military Governor.”

The following is the result of the experiment made by M. V. Rousseaux—

“The box with green label which you send me (20 cartridges for Mauser self-loading pistols of calibre 7·63) must have contained full cartridges. It contains three rows of expanding dum-dum bullets, taken from the special boxes with yellow labels. These bullets were made to expand by the process of manufacture, and it is impossible to make them so by hand.

“V. Rousseaux,
“Armoury Expert.

“Antwerp, 28th September, 1914.”

The Use of Dum-dum Bullets on French Soil

The first instance of the use of dum-dum bullets on French soil goes back to the early days of the war. It was denounced by the French Government in the protest which they addressed (21st August, 1914) to the signatory powers of the Hague Convention.

This protest points out that “on the 10th August, 1914, after an engagement between French and German troops, a surgeon-major sent to the general in command of the Infantry Brigade” a case found on the road to Munster “close to the German Custom-House,” which contained five cartridges primed with cylindro-conical bullets cut at the end, the nickel cover of which was incomplete and left bare the upper portion of the lead slug.

This was not the only instance. On the 14th September, Dr. Chas. Lavielle, superintendent of the auxiliary hospital of Baignots-à-Dax, sent to the sub-prefect of the department of Landes a report on the operations which had been performed on patients, and declared that four of them had been struck by expanding bullets. Photographs were appended to the report.

Doctor Napieralski, physician-in-chief of the 7th auxiliary hospital of the third French army corps à Pont Audemer, noted the case of a foot soldier wounded in the shoulder with a huge scar as big as an open hand. It was not an ordinary wound.

The wounded man’s name was Adrien Bousquet, the foreman of some electricity works at Verdalles. He related (said the report) that on the 2nd November, in a battle to the East of Ypres, he found himself cut off with his section from the rest of his company.

For three days his comrades and he fired from a trench, but at last, on the 5th November, they were outnumbered. The majority surrendered. Bousquet, however, not wishing to be made prisoner, tried to escape towards the main body of his troop. He was fired at from different sides. All at once he felt in his shoulder so violent a concussion that it actually turned him round. Still, it was only a bullet which had struck him.

Dr. Napieralski noted that there could be no question of a wound caused by a bursting shell, for the wound showed no trace of powder nor any blackish stain of metallic oxide.

As the wounded man was carrying his knapsack on his back, Dr. Napieralski adds that the explosive force of the bullet was increased by the pressure of the knapsack. The result was that the sinews were torn over a wide surface and the bone formation of the shoulder-blade was shattered.

The depositions of the other wounded men who took part in the battle in which Bousquet was wounded confirm all his statements. On that day, at this point on the front, no artillery battle took place, and the Germans made use of many explosive bullets; no mistake is possible on this point, for it is easy to recognise them because as soon as they touch the ground, or any obstacle whatever, they burst with a dry, crackling noise. All the wounded who were questioned quote typical examples of deaths and wounds caused by these bullets; they also mention numerous witnesses, soldiers, their own comrades, whose evidence it is easy to collect and who will confirm their statements (Temps, 29th December).

Use of the Same Kind of Bullets in the Colonies

German troops have used dum-dum bullets on all fronts and at every point where military operations were in progress. The fact that they have done so was proved particularly in the Togoland battles and confirmed by the English Governor of the Gold Coast in his report to the Colonial Minister in London (September 1914).

Counter-accusations by the Germans

The discovery of these facts could not fail to arouse universal indignation which Germany tried to forestall by accusing her enemies of similar acts. The Kaiser used the Wolff Bureau to make this accusation against France and England, and lodged a complaint against both with the President of the United States. France immediately issued a denial in a telegram under date 11th September, 1914. Another denial drawn up on September 8 had come from England.

The Lokal-Anzeiger and the Tag of Berlin (September 10) published facsimiles of cartridges, and of pouches of cartridges alleged to be dum-dum, found by German troops at Longwy. Now, the very inscription on these pouches—“Practice Cartridges”—showed the futility of the accusation, for it proves that here we have to do merely with ammunition for use at the rifle-ranges of military training clubs. As these ranges sometimes had to be prepared in a hurry, it was a case of necessity to send them cartridges crushed at the end, so that the speed of the bullet should be reduced and that it should not go right through targets which were not thick enough.

These cartridges were not even used at the regimental rifle-range, and the fact that they neutralise the projectile capacity of the French rifle was a still stronger reason why nobody ever thought of using them in war.

Moreover, the Germans left at Compiègne, and on several battlefields of France, pouches, carefully put in a conspicuous position, of French cartridges which they had made into dum-dum bullets by scooping out the protruding end. The object of this artifice was to give currency to the belief that these prohibited missiles were used by the French troops.

The following is the reply made by the President of the United States to the Emperor of Germany. “In reply to your protest, the United States can do nothing. I do not think your Majesty expects me to say more.”

Doctors attached to the German Medical Service have admitted that the German Accusation was False

People who allowed themselves to be deceived by an accusation which had its origin in Germany soon received proof, and from Germany too, that the accusation was false.

Professor Straub, of Freiburg in Bresgau, published in a Munich medical journal the results of his inquiry into the nature of the French bullet. He admitted that, from the medical point of view, this bullet was composed of an admirable alloy, which could not poison, and he came to the conclusion that it was humane. Dr. Haberlin, a Swiss doctor attached to the hospitals at Arlon and at Louisburg, where he had chiefly German wounded under his care, declared on his honour that he had never heard tell of wounds inflicted on Germans by dum-dum bullets.

Dum-dum Bullets used Against the Russians

That the Germans used dum-dum bullets against the Russians was proved in a hospital at Vilna, where a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian infantry, wounded in the leg, chanced to be under treatment. The wound, which at its entrance was smaller than a penny, was as large as a hand where the bullet left the body.

The photograph of one of the dum-dum bullets used in this way was given by the Novoïé Vrémia on 17th September, 1914.

Moreover, the German missiles used against the Russian troops often gave off poisonous gases which caused the death of the wounded, and which were expressly forbidden by the Hague Conventions (1899) under the category of “projectiles, the sole purpose of which is to spread asphyxiating or noxious gases.”

The Same Practices followed in Austria

The use of explosive bullets by the German troops was regularly followed by their allies, the Austrians, both on the Russian front and the Serbian.

The superintendent of the Red Cross at Petrograd was informed at the beginning of the war by his deputy at the first outpost detachment that, after Austrian field works had been taken, a large quantity of explosive bullets in special pouches and in belts for use in machine-guns had been found, and also many spent cartridges which had been adapted for this kind of bullet. These bullets bore the date 1914, and were used on every occasion that the Russians took the offensive.

On the other hand, “The use of explosive bullets by the Austrians,” declared an official note of the Russian Government, “has been often proved by medical reports and photographs of wounds.” Cartridges and bullets which have been captured leave no doubt on that point. The Russian troops which had succeeded in taking the village of Lajenki, near Nemirof, found there 10,000 explosive bullets, the place of origin of which is obvious from the fact that they had the stamp of an Austrian arsenal upon them.

On the 21st October, near Przemsyl, the Russian troops took some machine-guns, the belts of which were full of cartridges with explosive bullets.

Moreover, all the Serbian generals without exception declared that the Austrians employed explosive bullets on the whole Serbian front. The first ten rounds from the machine-guns were always, they said, made with this kind of bullet, and the Austrian soldiers were provided with explosive cartridges in the proportion of 20 per cent.

Again, Dr. Reiss, professor at the University of Lausanne, who was sent to Serbia as a special commissioner of the Gazette de Lausanne, and who returned from his expedition on the 10th December, told of numerous Austrian bullets which had been found on Balkan battlefields and which all the marksmen to whom they were shown declared to be explosive.

CHAPTER VII
GERMAN TREACHERY ON THE BATTLEFIELD

Abuse of the Privilege allowed to Bearers of a Flag of Truce and to Prisoners

The following are some examples of this dastardly conduct. At Liège, the Germans resorted to it against the Commandant of the Bucelles fort, upon whom they treacherously made a murderous attack. They appeared with a flag of truce and demanded the surrender of the fort. “I refuse,” he replied. “Commandant,” was the answer, “come and see the condition of your defence works. You will agree that they can hold out no longer.”

The Commandant went off with the Germans, intending to show them the satisfactory condition of the works. Scarcely had he crossed the threshold when they fired their revolvers at him. The brave officer received two bullets in the thigh and only by chance got away from this murderous attack.

A similar case happened during the siege of Liège. On the night of 5-6th August about a hundred German soldiers came to a point 750 metres from the Belgian trenches, and, throwing down their arms, held up their hands and waved white flags. The Belgian Commandant gave the order to cease firing, and went towards the spot with some men. He had hardly gone more than about thirty yards when he fell, mortally wounded.

Near Hofstade, in Belgium, on the 26th August, the Germans advanced to the attack in the same way, preceded by a white flag.

In a battle which took place sixty kilometres from Lemberg, the Austrians resorted to the same means. The regiment of the Russian Colonel Frolow having attacked them with the bayonet, they hoisted the white flag. The colonel immediately gave the order to halt. He himself went alone to the enemy’s position and gave the order to cease firing. In vain, for as he was going back to his men he was mortally wounded.

Other Forms of German Treachery

One form of treachery repeated very often by the Germans was to sound the bugle calls of enemy troops and thus mislead them. In the thick of the battles round about Mulhausen, in the beginning of August, the French were not a little surprised to hear the call to cease firing. Fortunately, one of the superior officers saw through the enemy’s treachery and immediately ordered the signal to be given for attack, which sent the Germans flying helter-skelter. As such acts in German eyes are permissible stratagems, they constantly resorted to them. Another consisted in marching civilians of the invaded countries in front of the German troops. One of the officers who did this, Lieutenant A. Eberlein, has with extraordinary composure related in one of the most reputable German newspapers (Münchener Neueste Nachrichten, 7th October, 1914) how he resorted to this device.

“We stopped three people,” writes this officer, “as we were going into Saint Dié; and then a fine idea occurred to me. We gave them chairs, and ordered them to carry these into the middle of the street and sit down. Entreaties followed on the one side, and some blows with the butt-end of the rifle on the other. By degrees one gets frightfully harsh. At last they sat down outside in the street. I do not know what prayers they said, but their hands were all the time clasped as if they had cramp. I was sorry for them, but the plan served its purpose and at once the firing aimed from the houses at our flanks immediately slackened, and we could now occupy the house opposite and in that way had command of the principal street. Everybody who showed himself in the street after this was shot. Moreover, the artillery had been hard at work all this time, and when, at seven o’clock in the evening, the brigade came up to our rescue, I was able to report, ‘Saint Dié is cleared of enemies.’

“As I learnt later, the reserve regiment … which entered Saint Dié further north, had experiences exactly like ours. The four people whom they also had compelled to sit in the street were killed by French bullets. I myself saw them lying in the middle of the street near the hospital.”

According to information which will complete the story and which appeared two months later in the Saint Dié Gazette Vosgienne, the names of the four people stopped by the reserve regiment “which entered Saint Dié further north” were Camille Chôtel, carpenter, aged thirty-four years; Léon George, twenty-seven; Henri Louzy and Georges Visser. They were compelled, not merely to sit down, but to march in front of the German detachment.

The same thing happened elsewhere on other occasions.

In Belgium, near Liège, on the 6th August, when two captive Belgian soldiers who had been forced to march before the German troops met their death at the hands of their fellow-countrymen. At Dietz, on the 26th August, several women and children, who had been barbarously compelled to play the same part, were struck by the fire of the German troops.

At Marchiennes several hundred persons were driven in front of a German column. At Erpe, on the 12th September, a German column of two hundred to three hundred men, which had been fired upon by a Belgian machine-gun, took twenty to twenty-five young men, among whom was a lad of only thirteen years, and placed them in the middle of the road, with the result that these young people were in the line of fire. Two were wounded and the firing was stopped. In the fight at Alost, on the 26th September, the Germans drove before them several people, whose names are given by the Belgian Commission of Inquiry in one of their reports. At Lierre-Sainte-Marie four priests officiating in a church were taken by the Prussians, because they had not been quick enough in bringing the service to a close and had thereby delayed the quartering of the troops in the church. On the following day they were obliged to march in front of the soldiers and all four were killed.

In France the same crime was repeated twenty times. We shall not record all the cases. In the battle at Billy, on the 10th August, according to an official report of the French Commandant, the Germans compelled several women and children to march in front of them, as a screen for themselves and to prevent the French firing on them as they were coming out of the village and filing on to the battlefield.

In the Belfort area the Germans stripped a great number of prisoners, drove them in front of their line, and exposed them almost naked to the French bullets.

At Denain, on the 25th August, the German cavalry, at two o’clock in the morning, compelled women and children to march in front of the column; at Méry (in the Department of the Oise), during a battle with the French on the 1st September, the Germans seized the manager of a sugar-refinery, his family, and the whole staff of the works, and made them march side by side with them, as a screen against a fusillade on their flank. As a result, a workwoman, Mlle. Jeansenne, was killed by a French bullet. The foreman of the works was wounded.

CHAPTER VIII
BOMBARDMENT OF UNDEFENDED TOWNS. CRIMES COMMITTED DURING BOMBARDMENT. DEFINITION OF BOMBARDMENT