CHAPTER XIII

OUTRAGES ON CIVILIANS AND FRANCS-TIREURS

THE GERMAN THEORY OF FRANCS-TIREURS

The behaviour of the Germans to civilians gives us the opportunity of considering, before we proceed further, a theory which they promulgated at the outbreak of war, and which referred to the distinction that would be made as regards non-combatants who took up arms against invasion.

In the early days of the war the German Government, through the agency of a neutral power, communicated the following two documents to France and Belgium. In order to show that the principle is both technically wrong and inhuman, we propose to reproduce them in full. The first of these documents is as follows—

“TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT

“_The reports of German troops show that in contempt of the law of nations, a national war has been organised in France. In many cases the inhabitants of the country, under the protection of civilian garb, fired surreptitiously on German soldiers. Germany is opposed to this method of making war, which is a violation of the law of nations. The German troops have been instructed to stamp out this kind of resistance by the most rigorous measures. Every non-combatant inhabitant who carries arms, impedes communications, cuts telegraph wires, uses explosive appliances—in short, any one who takes any illegitimate part in the war, will at once be brought before our courts-martial and shot. If by this means the war becomes violent Germany declines all responsibility for it, and France alone will be responsible for the floods of blood that will be shed._”

The second document is in the following terms—

“TO THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT

“_His Majesty’s Government of Belgium have rejected Germany’s sincere offer to spare them the horrors of war. Belgium has willed war and has replied to our proposal by armed opposition._

“_Notwithstanding the note of the 8th August, by which the Belgian Government intimated that, in accordance with the laws of war, they would wage it only with soldiers, many civilians took part in the battles at Liège, under the protection of civilian garb. They not merely fired on the German troops, but they cruelly killed the wounded and the doctors who were doing their duty._

“_At Antwerp also civilians barbarously looted the property of Germans, and brutally massacred women and children. Germany asks the whole civilised world to take note of the blood of these unoffending people and of the Belgian method of waging war which shows the low grade of their civilisation. If henceforth the war becomes cruel the fault lies with Belgium. In order to protect the German troops against the unbridled passions of the people, it is decreed that henceforth every man who takes part in the conflict without being in uniform and wearing the recognised distinguishing marks, who impedes the communications of our troops, cuts telegraph wires, uses explosive appliances—in short, who takes any illegitimate part whatsoever in the war, will be treated as a franc-tireur, brought before a court-martial, and shot._”

THE GERMAN MILITARY AUTHORITIES AND NON-COMBATANTS

German generals and officers have quibbled about inhumanity in their proclamations. The Burgomaster of Hasselt could communicate to his fellow townsmen on the 17th August the decision of the German military authorities, by which, “_in case civilians fired on the soldiers of the German army, a third of the male population would be shot_.” The German Generalissimo Bülow announced, in a proclamation addressed to the communal authorities of Liège (22nd August), that “the inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after a declaration of their peaceful intentions, treacherously made a surprise attack, and that on this ground, _with his consent, the general in command caused everything in the whole of the district to be burnt, and that a hundred persons were shot_.” He adds that the people of Liège “_ought to try to imagine the fate with which they are threatened, if they adopt a similar attitude_.” The commandant at Namur, who had taken many hostages, declared that “_the life of these hostages is at stake unless the civilians remain quiet under all circumstances_.” He demanded that “all civilians walking about in his district” should show their respect to German officers by taking off their hats, or by raising their hands to their head as in a military salute. In case of doubt, he adds, every German soldier must be saluted. _Whoever declines to do so must expect German soldiers to make themselves respected by every means._

FRANCS-TIREURS

These proclamations are a denial, pure and simple, of the right of civilians to resist an invader. This right, however, is recognised by the Hague Convention.

In fact, these conventions declare that irregular corps raised to meet an invader are permissible, and that the soldiers who compose them must be treated according to the laws of war, provided that they take care—

(1) “to have at the head of them a person who is responsible for his subordinates;

(2) “to have a distinguishing mark, which is fixed and recognisable at a distance;

(3) “to carry arms openly;

(4) “and to conform in their operations to the laws and customs of war.”

In conclusion the conventions go further, and add—

“The civilians of an unoccupied territory which on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to combat the invading troops without having had time to organise themselves in conformity with the terms of Article I will be considered as belligerent if they respect the laws and customs of war.”

To this rule of international law Germany had subscribed, both in 1899 and 1907, without any reservation.

Germany, therefore, is acting in violation of conventions which she herself has signed, by treating as rebels the inhabitants of invaded territories who attack her before she has actually occupied the area in which these inhabitants live; she lies when she declares that this method of making war is “contrary to the law of nations,” and she acts like a barbarous tyrant when she announces that every civilian who takes part in the war “will be brought before a court-martial and shot.”

It is superfluous to observe how much more insolent still are the notices issued by the German military authorities, in which the latter ignore not merely the civil population’s right of armed resistance, but also the declaration of the German Government, which affirmed that only the non-combatant who participated in the war would be brought before a court-martial and shot.

The right (which, by the way, is in this case non-existent) of inflicting reprisals on individuals, the right to which the German Government has appealed, has been shamefully transformed by the German military authorities into a right which consists of ill-treating the whole population of a locality in case a civilian may have fired on a German soldier, and of offering this as a justification for the ruin of the locality and the execution of the hostages.

As for the threat uttered by the German commandant, which declared that whoever did not show respect to German officers and did not give them the military salute must expect that German soldiers “would _use every means_ to make themselves respected,” we think it shows the lengths to which German frenzy can go. In itself we may say that it tells us more than all the acts of cruelty. These demands for servile obeisance, uttered under threat of violence and death, have in all times and in all history been the mark of the basest tyrants. Such is the reign of terror which Germany proposed to inflict upon invaded territories by covering it up in fictitious principles which were at variance with all recognised conventions, and which were the expression of nothing but her own caprice.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT

The declaration made by the Belgian Government the 5th August, 1914, and referred to in the communication of the German Government, reproduced above, included the assurance that Belgium would conform during the war to the laws and usages of war laid down by the Hague Conferences. Belgium, therefore, was perfectly within her rights in allowing armed resistance by civilians, _in cases and under conditions recognised as legitimate by the Hague Conventions_. And it was only from caution and from premonition of the fate which civilians would undergo, if they failed in any one of the conditions defined in the first article of the Hague Convention, that the Belgian Government recommended civilians to refrain from resistance. But a recommendation which was made only as a precaution against flagrant injustice does not rid an action, foreseen and in fact committed, of its unjust character. In spite of the advice given by their Government, the Belgians consequently did not lose their right “to take up arms spontaneously on the approach of the enemy to oppose invading troops,” and, notwithstanding that opposition, of being treated as belligerents by the Germans.

Did the Belgians exercise this right? In certain places it is reported that some people did exercise it. If the fact is as stated, we can see nothing in it but what is worthy of admiration. Such instances do infinite honour to Belgian patriotism. However, it appears clear that the order given was followed, and that the whole thing, if it took place at all, reduces itself to the acts of individuals. The acts of violence committed by the Germans have been no less far-reaching and extreme, so true is it that, though invoking principles which were notoriously erroneous and cruel, the application which they made of them was nevertheless lying and arbitrary. Such is the first category of crimes committed by the Germans against non-combatants.

Moreover, even if they had had in this respect some complaint to make of civilians, if they had been authorised by the law of war to punish acts of violence committed against them under conditions that were forbidden, the right of repression which they invoke could never go so far as the penalty of death. Every addition thereto in point of punishment is excess, and an indication of barbarism. To extend to a whole population reprisals inflicted in consequence of a single act is something no less abominable, but that is just what the Germans have done.

CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE GERMANS IN THE EXERCISE OF REPRISALS

At Liège, on the 21st August, a shot was fired from a house situated on the Quai des Pêcheurs. Immediately the Germans opened fire with a machine-gun and blew up on the spot twenty houses, whose inhabitants were killed. Shortly afterwards ten other houses on the Place de l’Université were set on fire, but as the flames seemed to be spreading too much, the firemen were ordered to put them out.

At Champguyon, on the 6th September, a man named Louvet was arrested for having fired under conditions forbidden by the laws of war. He was liable to the penalty of death. Accordingly, ten German soldiers fell on the wretched man, beat him unmercifully with sticks in the presence of his wife, dragged him away covered with blood, broke his wrist, shattered his skull, and dragged him to the end of the village, where at length they gave him the finishing stroke.

The same rule would apply to the cases of André Willen (twenty-three years of age), Gustave Lodts (forty) and Jean Marken (forty), all inhabitants of Aerschot, in Belgium, if they had been guilty. The Germans, instead of shooting them, bound them to a tree and beat them, before burning the first alive and burying the other two alive.

In the province of Namur a young man whom some Uhlans had arrested was bound to two horses, who dragged him along, then tied to a tree, and finally shot. Under the same conditions M. Cognon, of Visé, was thrown into the water with his abdomen torn open. Holding in his entrails with one hand, he clung with the other to a boat, until he grew weak and died.

The innumerable mutilations inflicted on Serbian peasants at Chabatz and elsewhere show on this side of the area of war the same barbarism in the carrying out of reprisals. Some who were hardly wounded were buried alive, for they had been shot in the lump, and every one who fell was thrown into the common ditch which had been dug out beforehand.

MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS FOR PALTRY REASONS

No less criminal are the attacks made by the Germans on the lives of civilians, for paltry reasons, for slight insubordination to unimportant orders, or even for acts that were quite blameless. The following are some examples of these crimes.

In the government of Warsaw the Germans killed a Polish magnate, Count Thomas Potocki, for merely protesting against a requisition.

At Dartainitza, near Semlin, on the frontier of Austria and Serbia, the whole of the inhabitants were led by the Austrians to Petenwarden, where a quarter of them were shot. The accusation alleged against these peasants was that they had given expression to their joy when the Serbians had entered Semlin. It was the same with the villages of Bejania, Sourtchine, Beclika and Pancsova.

At Vingias, in the department of the Aisne, the owner of a farm was thrown into the flames because he had harboured the French headquarters staff on his farm.

At Mauperthuis four Germans who had previously come in the morning to the house of a man named Roger presented themselves again the afternoon. “There were three of you this morning; there are now but two! Get out!” said one of them. Immediately Roger and an immigrant named Denet, to whom he had been giving hospitality, were seized, carried off and shot.

A young druggist who lived in a village near Étain was shot for having gone to Étain with the sub-prefect of Briey, who had carried letters there for his fellow-citizens.

As for non-combatants who were found carrying arms, they were consistently massacred.

MASSACRE OF CIVILIANS WITHOUT ANY PRETEXT

Other executions took place without any pretext. Sometimes the Germans gathered together, without rhyme or reason, all the male inhabitants of a village, and chose at haphazard a certain number, whom they shot without any form of trial and simply with the object of terrorising the population. Sometimes their fury was directed against peasants who were already struck with terror, and then whoever showed any signs of wanting to avoid meeting the enemy was shot for the mere reason that he had tried to flee before the invader. Sometimes they took vengeance on the inhabitants of a village where one of their number had been killed by some enemy soldier in retreat.

Sometimes they forced their way into houses, bent on pillage, and as they thought the presence of the inhabitants seemed inconvenient, they made haste to assassinate them. Sometimes the fusillade was merely an amusement or recreation for the Germans. This took place sometimes during their marches from village to village. The peasant who had the misfortune to find himself in their path at once had a taste of their cruelty. Sometimes the execution of peaceable, quiet people served the Germans as a consolation for checks which the enemy had inflicted upon them. Sometimes, in their desire to offer some excuse for massacre, they have been seen to make a show of evacuating a village which it was said had been threatened, and then to fire some shots, which they then blamed the inhabitants for doing. Reprisals thereupon followed. Sometimes they attacked peaceable peasants because the latter opposed some offence which they wanted to commit. The following are some accounts of acts of this kind. They took place at Dinant, at Louvain, at Nomény, at Lunéville, where, perhaps to a greater extent than elsewhere, the fury of the invader was let loose upon inoffensive persons.

AT DINANT

A Dutchman, M. Staller, has told as follows in the _Telegraaf_ (quoted above, see Chap. XI) the story of the massacre of the people of Dinant.

“On Friday, the 21st August, about a dozen Germans ventured as far as the middle of the town in an armoured motor, a regular moving fortress. They had machine-guns with them, and whilst the motor rolled along they fired to right and left at the houses, aiming chiefly, I maintain, at the upper storeys. It was already late, and, as the majority of the people had retired, many of them were killed or wounded in their beds.

“What happened on that night? Were there some civilians who replied to this cowardly and unexpected attack by revolver shots? I do not think so, for some days before, by order of the burgomaster, they had all given up their arms. Were the Germans drunk—as their comrades told me later—and had they a quarrel amongst themselves? What is certain is that the next morning three soldiers were found dead on the streets. I saw them. The Germans laid hold of this fact as an excuse for bombarding the town.

“On Monday morning the Germans entered the town. Their first act was to arrest 153 civilians, to lead them on the Petite Place and shoot them. In these terrible days, at Dinant as well as in the surrounding villages like Anseremme, Leffe and Neffe, more than 800 persons were killed, amongst whom there were many women and children; and all this for three German soldiers? No; but the Germans alleged that after the bombardment, at the moment of their attack on the town, the inhabitants had fired from their houses. What had happened? I know very well, and the Germans could not fail to know it. The Grand Rue of Dinant, parallel with the Meuse, is joined to the river by a number of lanes; the French, who were posted on the other bank, killed through these lanes a large number of Germans, and the enemy pretended that the citizens had fired on them. They started then by shooting 153 people, after which 500 were arrested and brought to Cassel. As for us, we were brought to the Abbaye des Prémontrés; for three days women and children were shut up in little rooms without a seat, and the unfortunate women spent three days on a stone pavement almost without food. Four of them were confined under these terrible circumstances. Some officers took an infernal pleasure in making us every moment undergo the dread anticipation of death: they made us line up, and the soldiers pretended they were going to charge their rifles; then the officers laughed and said the execution would be resumed on the following morning. I am certain that some of those who were thus detained went mad.

“But what a martyrdom was endured by the women and children who saw their fathers, husbands or brothers shot! All this went on with frightful rapidity; in the twinkling of an eye, in spite of heart-rending cries, the women and children were separated from the men and ranged on the other side of the Petite Place, then between the two groups were placed the platoons which were to execute them; 153 wretched people fell bleeding; six of these, of whom two had not been touched by the bullets and four were only slightly wounded, shammed death, but the officer ordered the two who could still stand upright to rise, as there would be no more firing. When the six survivors obeyed, he gave the order, ‘Down with them also!’ Then he had machine-guns fired at the heaps of bodies. It is impossible to describe the grief and the cries of the women and children, but the monster who had given the order for this butchery remained unmoved. ‘Ladies,’ he said, with a strong German accent, ‘I have done my duty.’ Then off he went with his men. The bodies must have lain untouched on the square for three days; after this interval they were buried on the very spot where they had been executed. I took part in the work of interment.”

AT LOUVAIN

Several people who had been killed at Louvain by the Germans had been buried by them on the square in front of the railway station. The _Kölnische Zeitung_ had the assurance to deny the fact. But search was made, and the bodies of these victims of German barbarism were discovered. The following account of the exhumation was given by the _Tijd_ of Amsterdam, above the signature of a journalist who took part in the work in the presence of several Belgians, Colonel Lubbert, German commandant of Louvain, and his aide-de-camp.

“Fortunately a fresh wind was blowing on that day, as the stench which came out of the open tomb was unbreatheable. The objects found on the bodies were immediately thrust into a sack, which was duly numbered. Twenty bodies were disinterred after frightful labour; twenty bodies jammed into a hole not more than four square metres in extent!

“We had to take infinite care not to collect legs or arms belonging to other bodies, so much were the limbs jumbled together.

“Emotion overwhelmed us all, but the German Colonel Lubbert could not refrain from saying to the burgomaster, ‘How such an event could have taken place is incomprehensible when you think how educated and cultivated our people are.’ And the aide-de-camp added, ‘I am glad I was not at Louvain during these tragic moments!’ Words which have their value, and which show that plain people in Germany now regret the indescribable act ordered by their leaders, in contempt of the laws of the most elementary humanity!

“Professor Maldague, who was among the wretched prisoners callously picked out one after another for slaughter, and who had miraculously escaped death, could not control the profound emotion which overwhelmed him. On that fatal day the crowd of people were forbidden to look at the atrocities committed by civilised Germany, but a woman who happened to be near Professor Maldague ventured nevertheless, and saw that the victims marked out for expiation were compelled to lie face downwards on the paving-stones. Then they were killed by shots in the nape of the neck, the back or the head.

“The majority of the victims consequently lay with skulls fractured, not merely as a result of shots, but of blows from the butt-end of rifles. Even that was not enough. All the bodies which were recovered—the medical reports assure us on this point—had been pierced through with bayonet thrusts. Some had their legs and arms broken. Two bodies only had no wound. A post-mortem examination of them will be made to discover the causes of death.

“Mme. Van Ertrijck then recognised at the edge of the pit her husband, aged sixty years, the well-known cigar manufacturer, and her son, aged twenty-seven years; then appeared the bodies of a Belgian soldier, who could not be identified, and of a young lad not fifteen years old. The following victims were afterwards identified: Charles Munkemer, husband of Amélie Marant, born 1885; Edgard Bicquet, brewer at Boort-Meerbeek, whose family, known throughout Louvain, lives in the Rue de la Station; the retired Belgian Major Eickhorn, aged sixty years, inventor of short-range cartridges; A. Van de Gaer, O. Candries, Mme. A. Bruyninckx, _née_ Aug. Mariën; Mme. Perilleux, aged about sixty years. But on turning over the ground we discovered a second tomb, which contained seven other corpses concealed under thirty centimetres of earth.

“On the next day the melancholy task was resumed. In quite a small pit two more bodies were brought to light: that of Henri Decorte, an artisan of Kessel-Loo, and that of M. Van Bladel, curé of Hérent. There was not a sound when the wretched priest’s tall form was disinterred. R. P. Claes merely gasped, ‘The curé of Hérent!’ The poor man was seventy-one years old” (see the _Temps_ of 5th February, 1915).

AT NOMÉNY

On the 20th August, 1914, the 8th Bavarian Regiment entered Nomény in command of Colonel Hannapel. “According to a story told by one of their soldiers,” said the French Commission of Inquiry, “their leaders had told them that the French tortured the wounded by tearing out their eyes and gashing their limbs. Thus they were in a fearful state of unusual excitement. From all sides came the rattle of rifle shots. The wretched inhabitants, whom the dread of fire drove from their cellars, were shot down like game, some in their domiciles and others on the public road.

“Messrs. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam, Jeanpierre, Meunier, Schneider, Raymond, Dupoucel, Hazatte, father and son, were murdered on the street by rifle shots. M. Killian, seeing himself threatened with a sabre stroke, put his hands on his neck to protect himself. Three of his fingers were cut off and his throat cut open. An old man of eighty-six years old, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his armchair, was struck by a ball which cracked his skull, and a German thrust Mme. Bertrand in front of the body, saying to her, ‘You saw that ⸺!’ M. Chardin, municipal councillor and acting mayor, was ordered to supply a horse and carriage. He had hardly promised to do all he could to comply, when he was killed by a shot. M. Prevot, who saw the Bavarians rushing into the chemist’s shop of which he was in charge, told them that he was the chemist, and that he would give them all that they wanted, but three shots rang out and he fell with a heavy groan. Two women who happened to be with him escaped, but were pursued with blows from the butt-ends of rifles up to the approaches to the railway station, where they saw in the garden and on the road many corpses heaped together.

“Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon the Germans forced their way into Mme. François’ butcher’s shop. Thereupon she came out of her cellar with her son Stub and an employee named Contal. As soon as Stub came to the threshold of the outside door he fell, seriously wounded by a rifle shot. Then Contal, who escaped into the street, was immediately murdered. Five minutes afterwards, as the death-rattle was still in Stub’s throat, a soldier leant over him and dispatched him with a blow of a hatchet in the back.

“The most tragic incident of these horrible scenes took place at the house of M. Vassé, who had gathered together a number of people in his cellar in the suburb called Nancy. About four o’clock a party of about fifty soldiers forcibly entered the house, bursting open the door and the windows, and immediately set fire to it. The refugees then endeavoured to escape, but they were felled one after another at the exit. M. Mentré was first murdered. His son Léon then fell with his little sister, eight years old, in his arms. As he was not quite dead, the end of the barrel of a gun was put to his head and his brains blown out. Then it was the turn of the Kieffer family. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder; the father, a little son of ten years old and a little girl of three years old were shot. The scoundrels fired at them again as they were lying on the ground. Kieffer, who was lying on the ground, got a fresh bullet in the forehead; his son had the top of his skull blown off by a rifle shot. Then M. Strieffert and Vassé, one of his sons, were murdered, and M. Mentré was struck by three bullets, one in the left leg, another in the arm on the same side, and a third on the forehead, which was merely grazed. M. Guillaume, who was dragged out into the street, met his death there. Finally, a young girl called Somonin, aged seventeen years, came out of the cellar with her young sister Jeanne, aged three. The latter had her elbow nearly carried off by a bullet. The eldest threw herself on the ground and pretended to be dead, remaining for five minutes in fearful agony. A soldier kicked her and called out, ‘_Kaput_’ (done for).

“An officer came up at the end of this slaughter. He ordered the women who were still alive to get up, and called out to them, ‘Go to France.’”

AT LUNÉVILLE

The murders at Lunéville were committed, according to the French Commission of Inquiry, under the following circumstances—

“On the 25th August, after firing two shots from the inside of the Worms tannery, to make it appear that they had been attacked, the Germans rushed into a workshop of this manufactory, in which an artisan named Goeury was working in company with Messrs. Balastre, father and son. Goeury was dragged out into the street, stripped, and brutally ill-treated, whilst his two companions, discovered in the lavatory where they had sought refuge, were shot.

“On the same day the soldiers came and called for M. Steiner, who was concealed in his cellar. His wife, in dread of some disaster, tried to keep him back. As she clasped him in her arms she was struck by a bullet in the neck. Some moments afterwards Steiner, having obeyed the command which had been given him, fell mortally wounded in his garden. M. Kahn also was murdered in the garden of his house. His mother, aged ninety-eight, whose body was burnt to a cinder in the fire, had previously been killed in her bed with a bayonet thrust, according to the story of an individual who was acting as interpreter to the enemy. M. Binder, who was going out to get away from the flames, was also struck down. The German by whom he was killed admitted that he had wantonly killed him when the poor man was quietly standing before a door. M. Vernier met with the same fate as Binder.

“About three o’clock the Germans, breaking the windows and firing shots, forced an entrance into a house in which were Mme. Dujon, her daughter, aged three, her two sons and a M. Gaumier. The little girl just missed being killed; her face was singed by a shot. At this moment Mme. Dujon, seeing her youngest son lying on the ground, begged him to get up and flee with her. She then noticed that he was holding with full hands his intestines, which were dropping out. The house was on fire and the poor lad was burnt to a cinder, as was M. Gaumier, who had been unable to escape.

“M. Wingstermann and his grandson, aged twelve, who had gone to dig potatoes a little way off from Lunéville, at a place called ‘les Mossus,’ in the Chanteheux district, had the misfortune to meet the Germans. The latter put them both against a wall and shot them.

“Finally, about five o’clock in the evening, some soldiers went into the house of a woman named Sibille, in the same place, and without any excuse seized her son, dragged him off 200 metres from the house, and massacred both him and a M. Vallon, to whose body they had bound him. A witness who saw the murderers just when they were dragging off their victim saw them return without him, and declared that their bayonets were covered with blood and pieces of flesh.

“On the same day a male nurse, named Monteils, who was tending a wounded enemy officer at the Lunéville hospital, was struck by a bullet in the forehead as he was watching through the window a German soldier firing rifle shots.

“On the following day, the 26th, M. Hammann and his son, aged twenty-one years, were arrested at their house and dragged outside by a gang who had broken in the door and entered. The father was unmercifully beaten, and as for the young man, when he tried to struggle a non-commissioned officer cracked his skull with a revolver shot.

“At 1 p.m. M. Riklin, a druggist, who had been told that a man had fallen about thirty metres from his shop, went to the spot and recognised in the victim his own brother-in-law, M. Colin, aged sixty-eight years, who had been struck in the stomach by a bullet. The Germans alleged that this old man had fired on them, but M. Riklin formally denies this statement.

“Colin, he told us, was an inoffensive man absolutely incapable of any act of aggression, and quite ignorant of the use of firearms.

“The mind refuses to believe that all these massacres took place without excuse,” continues the French Commission of Inquiry. “That, however, is the case. The Germans, it is true, have always given the same excuse, alleging that civilians were the first to fire on them. This allegation is false, and those who have made it have been unable to make it appear probable, even by firing rifle shots close to dwelling-houses, as they were in the habit of doing so that they might be able to declare that they had been attacked by unoffending civilians upon whose ruin or massacre they had decided. On many occasions we obtained proof of this; the following, for example, is one of many others. One evening, when a report rang out while the Abbé Colin, curé of Croismare, happened to be with an officer, the latter exclaimed, ‘That is sufficient reason, M. le Curé, why you and the burgomaster should be shot and a farm burnt. Look! there is one burning.’ ‘M. l’Officier,’ replied the priest, ‘you are too intelligent not to recognise the crack of your rifle. For my part, I do recognise it.’ The German did not insist.”

OUTRAGES AND ATTACKS ON HOSTAGES

Before ending this chapter and putting on record the admissions which German officers and soldiers have involuntarily made on the subject with which we are engaged, we may draw up two other categories of criminal acts which they have committed: (1) the practice of taking hostages, everywhere and on all kinds of pretexts, some of whom were ill-treated and killed, and (2) the callous deportation of civilians to Germany.

To take hostages from among civilians whom the fortune of war condemns to invasion is a thing so cruel in itself that all civilised nations try to limit the practice. The Germans, on the contrary, are noted for the fact that they extend it as much as they can. The name of hostages repeated everywhere gave a melancholy significance to the Prussian barbarism of 1870. “_This practice_,” writes Bluntschli, “_is all the more open to criticism, as it endangers the lives of peaceful citizens without any fault of theirs, and, moreover, without bringing any appreciable increase of security_.” On the other hand, Geffcken writes: “_We cannot approve of the practice by which in 1870 Germany forcibly seized the chief people in enemy communes to secure the railroads against attacks by francs-tireurs_.”

This opinion of German jurists, which is, moreover, shared by all writers, has not prevented the Germans from resorting in 1914 to the same practices as in 1870, and even adding thereto fresh cruelties.

In Belgium it was the clergy who principally served as hostages. The majority of the Belgian priests who had been ill-treated came under this category.

M. Hottier, mayor of Homécourt; M. Varin, curé (both of whom were taken prisoner on the night of the 3rd-4th August, 1914); MM. Alexis and Jean Samain (of the _Souvenir Français_) were taken away to Alsace and German Lorraine.

MM. Hottier and Varin had both been denounced by a spy living at La Petite-Fin, whose reports served as a pretext for the accusation made against them by the German authorities.

Mayor and curé were first brought to Malancourt, the seat of headquarters.

“My companion,” the mayor of Homécourt afterwards told an editor of _L’Est Républicain_, “was more unfortunate than I. He was not allowed time to take his hat nor put on his stockings; he was clad only in his cassock. He marched in a bad pair of slippers. His colleague at Malancourt clothed the wretched ecclesiastic.

“They searched me, seized my purse, which contained a sum of twenty-seven francs, my papers… But the acutest suffering which rent my heart was when the hands of a Boche officer snatched my poor ribbon of 1870, my humble decoration. It was as if I had been punished with a lowering of rank.”

MM. Hottier and Varin were transferred to Metz and brought before a court-martial. The former was charged with having organised a campaign of francs-tireurs; in regard to the latter, another complaint was formulated—that he had urged some young people in the annexed territories to enlist in the foreign legion.

The discussions ended in a double acquittal. But M. Hottier was treated with no more consideration on that account. For five days he was shut up in a cell, getting only food that was uneatable. Fortunately a generous intervention took place. M. Winsbach, an ex-chemist, succeeded in bringing about some mitigation of the rigour of certain orders. He enjoyed a high reputation at Metz. He used his business connections, his influence, his knowledge of the German and French languages sometimes to recommend sick people to the care of the doctors, sometimes to act as interpreter and express their desires or pass on their explanations. These are services which will never be forgotten by the hostages, to whom M. Winsbach rendered them with unwearied devotion.

The hostages were brought from Metz to Ehrenbreitstein, where there were 232 French prisoners, all natives of Metz, Thionville, etc. There were also the brothers Samain, the eldest of whom was (until the month of December) supposed in France to be dead, executed by the Germans. He had tried in vain to get news of himself brought through, but his correspondence could not escape the fine net of supervision which encompassed him.

The majority of these hostages carried away by the Germans were detained by them. Only men of more than sixty years of age were set free in the month of November. M. Hottier and some of his companions then set off on the 20th November, went through the Grand Duchy of Baden, crossed the Swiss frontier, and finally arrived at Nancy. The brothers Samain were amongst those who were detained in Germany.

In France, almost everywhere he went, the invader took hostages amongst the men of the villages or the representatives of authority. In Belgium also several people were carried off on the same plea.

Everybody knows of the case of M. Max, mayor of Brussels, who was imprisoned at Glatz; but Brussels did not pay punctually the war tax which the Germans had levied on it.

Often the hostages whom the Germans appeared to have taken merely for the time of their passing through disappeared. This was the case at Gueraid, Seine-et-Marne, where, of six hostages whom the Germans took, one only was able to escape and to return to the country; and at Révigny, where one of the hostages, a man named Wladimir Thomas, was never set at liberty again.

In other cases the hostages were shamefully ill-treated. M. Colin, a Professor of Science at the Louis-le-Grand Lycée at Paris, who happened to be rusticating at Cogney, was carried off barefoot and in his shirt, loaded with insults as he went. Enraged at the treatment which other people and especially children were made to undergo, M. Colin said to a lieutenant, “Have you not a mother?” “My mother,” the German officer had the insolence to reply, “did not give birth to ⸺ like you!”

The hostages taken at Lunéville were no less brutally treated. Neither violence nor outrage was spared these peaceful citizens. They were put with their backs to the parapet of a bridge, before the houses in the town were set fire to, and the German troops who passed by behaved brutally to them. As an officer accused them of having fired on the Germans, a teacher among them pledged his word of honour that it was not so. “You French ⸺,” said the officer, “do not speak of honour, for you have none.” One of the hostages taken at Lunéville, named Rebb (sixty-two years of age), was pummelled on the face with the butt-end of a rifle, and bayoneted in the side. Nevertheless he continued to follow the column, although he lost much blood. Then a Bavarian amused himself by inflicting fresh blows upon him and throwing a bucket at his head.

The wretched old man died on the way, between Hénaménil and Bures.

MASSACRE OF HOSTAGES

At Blamont in Lorraine, ex-Mayor Barthélemy, aged forty-six years, was taken as a hostage and shot. The same fate awaited the then mayor and the chief people in the locality; when the French entered the town they found notices on the walls announcing that these people would be shot on the following morning.

This was also the case at Courtacon (Seine-et-Marne), where five men and a child of thirteen years, taken as hostages, were exposed to the French fire during an engagement. Another hostage, named Rousseau, a conscript of the 1914 class, arrested in the same commune, was murdered under tragic conditions.

Questioned about the military position of this young man, the mayor, who happened to be amongst the hostages, replied that Rousseau had passed the military court, that he had been passed as fit for service, but that his class had not yet been called up. The Germans then made the prisoner undress, in order to discover what was his physical condition, then they put on his trousers again and shot him fifty metres away from his compatriots.

HOSTAGES IN SERBIA

The hostages taken by the Austrians may be divided into two categories. They were, in the first place, the best-known Serbians, mayors or prominent inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose imprisonment had no other object than to stop the invasion of that province by the threat of shooting them. The second category was composed of peasants, living in Serbian villages, who were shot in order to strike terror into the inhabitants. Amongst the hostages of the first category several were shot. There were amongst them priests, both Orthodox and Catholic, the Mayor of Raguse, M. Tchingrin, the Vice-President of the Municipal Council of this town, Dr. Puglissi, the poet, and the Serbo-Croatian deputy, Tressitch.

As for the others, here is the story told by M. Reiss, whom we mentioned above—

“A group of hostages of from eight to eighty-two years had been brought to Lechnitza. There were 109 of them. Quite close to the railway station of the place the soldiers dug a pit twenty metres long, three wide and two deep. In front of this grave they placed the group of 109 persons and bound them with ropes round their necks. Then a squadron of infantry took up a position on the slopes of the railway and fired a volley at the peasants. The whole group stumbled into the pit, and the soldiers threw earth upon them without having first made sure that all those who had been shot were dead. It is certain that a large number of victims had not been mortally wounded and even that some of them had not been struck at all. I think I am not mistaken in calculating that fifty per cent. of these poor people were buried alive.

“During these proceedings, another group of forty hostages had been brought up. The latter were compelled to be present at the massacre of their fellow-citizens and they were forced to shout, whilst the others were being killed, ‘Long live the Emperor Franz-Joseph.’

“I saw the pit opened into which these wretches fell, and I was able to establish the fact that the number of those who died of suffocation was very large. This huge human bundle was firmly fastened together: no rope had been broken.”

DEPORTATION OF CIVILIANS

“The German military authorities had as profound contempt for liberty as for human life. Almost everywhere, people of every age were dragged from their homes and led away to captivity. Many died or were killed on the way.” These are the words in which the French Commission of Inquiry denounces that other crime committed by the Germans in the territories which they had invaded. In several places the inhabitants found they were deported _en masse_ to Germany to dig trenches or to replace German agricultural labourers. In other places the inhabitants were imprisoned. It is hardly necessary to say that such acts are a violation of the law of nations in the very point where it is most universally recognised. We read in the articles of the Hague Convention that operations of war may be carried on “provided the inhabitants are not compelled to take part in them, in any form whatever,” that “the occupant of a country shall not raise reserves among them, nor compel them to fight, nor put them in the trenches, nor employ them on the offensive,” etc., and finally, “that the peaceful and inoffensive inhabitants of the territory and _passive_ enemies must not be taken into captivity.”

Although by carrying away hostages the Germans have done violence to that rule of law which is accepted by their own authors, the deportation of civilians is something more serious still, as it cannot be justified by any military necessity or by any plea for security.

Nevertheless, this policy was practised on a large scale. The following are some examples. At Lebbeke, in Flanders, forty-five farmers were brought away and sent to Germany to make hay. At Boisschot, also in Belgium, 200 men were seized and deported to Germany for the same purpose. At Louvain, several thousand men, who escaped the fusillades and the conflagration, were led away to Germany.

In France, in the department of the Nord, at Saint Pol-en-Ternois, 350 civilians were taken prisoner. This was also the case at Douai, Cambrai, Caudry, Noyon, where the German authorities demanded that the young people of fifteen to seventeen years, a list of whom had been supplied by spies, should be returned. Those who failed to answer the summons were sought for, and they and their parents were shot. The inhabitants did as they were told, and the young people to the number of 4000 were made prisoner and brought to the Russian frontier to dig trenches or else to the German countryside to make hay.

At Marcheville, at Saint Mihiel, women and children met with the same fate. At Avillers, too, all the men of sixteen to sixty years were brought away to Germany, including the deputy mayor, M. Alcide Blaise.

As in the provinces of the Nord and Meuse, so also in the Ardennes, the Germans made a regular practice of putting the inhabitants in prison. In all the towns and villages of this region men who were liable to be mobilised were treated as prisoners of war. This was the case at Rethel, where Dr. Bourgeois and ten of his colleagues had the experience of being shut up in a spinning-mill with 400 men taken from the villages of the province. The prisoners were compelled to work for their enemies: they had to wash the soldiers’ linen, gather potatoes in the fields, and make earthworks. At Charleville, men whom the Germans had the assurance to call civil prisoners were employed in making entrenchments, while the women, as we have said above, were given sewing-work, which was to be used for the equipment of the troops. Their wage was half a loaf of bread.

In the province of Oise, about a hundred inhabitants of Creil, Nogent-sur-Oise and the adjoining districts were imprisoned, and had to submit to the disgrace and vexation of working against their country, cutting a field of maize, which might have been in the way of the German fire, and digging trenches which were to be used as shelters for the enemy. For the seven days they were kept without food being dealt out to them. Fortunately the women of the country were able to get some provisions through to them.

At Lamath (Meurthe-et-Moselle), three inhabitants, one of whom had chest complaint, were deported. At Amiens, in particular, the scandal of incidents of this kind was shocking. An order of the military authority, which the mayor thoughtlessly countersigned, required all citizens liable to be mobilised to go to the citadel and declare their position as regards military service. Relying on the mayor’s signature, about 1500 men, of whom nearly 800 were railway workers at the Amiens passenger and goods stations, went to the citadel. There the Germans made a selection. They sent back the men of the auxiliary services and kept the others as prisoners, to the number of more than 1000, whom they brought on foot to Personne. The wretched procession halted and slept at La Motte-en-Santerre. Some prisoners, with the assistance of the few residents in Santerre, managed to hide and make good their escape. The others were entrained and taken away to Germany.

The second official report of the French Commission of Inquiry is full of really shocking details of outrages suffered by the French, who were taken from their homes and interned in Germany (_Journal Officiel_, 11th March).

Ten thousand of these wretched people were reinstated in French territory in the month of March. The order for internment had included a very large number of old men, children and women, several of whom were pregnant. All of these people had to submit to long and painful marches, ill-treatment and wretched diet.

The Vareddes hostages especially went through a veritable Calvary. Several of them, all old people, were murdered, as we have already mentioned. Those of Sinceny, about 200 in number, were likewise shockingly ill-treated.

At Gravelines, 2000 conscripts were deported, and all the natives of Combres, after being exposed to the French fire, were transferred to the camp at Zurickau.

Life in the camps was intolerable. Several of these “civil prisoners” lay in tents: others were huddled together in prisons. At Landau, an old woman aged eighty-seven was undressed and drenched with petrol. She succumbed some time afterwards to the fearful burns which she sustained. Blows, ill-treatment and painful forced labour were the order of the day. We cannot, therefore, be surprised at the enormous number of cases of death and illness among them. The only medicine prescribed by the doctors was tincture of iodine. As one of the victims said, “We were like burnt-out candles, for we no longer had the strength to stand upright.” Those who went back to France had their health more or less permanently affected, and the mental depression to which they were subject was really an illness. The effects, therefore, of German activity continued after they were released.

The Austrians followed the example of the Germans, even in carrying out this kind of policy, especially in Syrmie (Semlin and the regions adjoining).

At Chid, also, all the inhabitants, children excepted, were deported: at Pazoon, M. Petrovitch, deputy to the Parliament of Pest, was arrested with his son, pummelled with the butt-end of a rifle, and deported. At Karlowitz and at Rouma, all the inhabitants of Serbian extraction were arrested and deported.

THE GERMANS ADMIT ALL THESE CRIMES

As in the case of other kinds of outrage, so in that of the actions which we have just enumerated we are in possession of some admissions which have come from the Germans themselves.

A soldier named Philip, of Kamenz in Saxony, writes as follows: “At ten p.m. the first battalion of the 178th regiment went down into a burnt village to the north of Dinant, a sadly beautiful spectacle, which made us shudder. At the entrance to the village there lay about fifty citizens, who had been shot for having fired on our troops from an ambuscade.

“In the course of the night many others also were shot, to such an extent that we could count more than 200 of them. Women and children, lamp in hand, _were compelled_ to look on at this fearful sight. We then ate our rice in the middle of the dead bodies, for we had had nothing to eat since morning.”

“At Leppes” (writes a Saxon officer, of the same regiment as Private Philip, 12th army corps, 1st Saxon corps), “_two hundred inhabitants were killed, among whom there must have been some unoffending people_. In future, we must have a regular inquiry and establish the guilt of the accused before shooting them.”

Even the _Kölnische Zeitung_ published the story of an eye-witness of the destruction of Aerschot, who would not have escaped had he not called out to the soldiers, “Do you want to kill a man who comes from Cologne?” The Germans then set him at liberty again. “In the streets,” he writes, “the fusillade lasted the whole night. _All those found in possession of a weapon were mercilessly shot._ The sight was terrifying … the wretches who were shot lay on the pavement, and all the time fresh ‘_culprits_’ were being brought before the platoons charged with the task of execution. Women and children wept and asked for mercy. In spite of all their indignation at the attack which had been made upon them, _no German_ heart could be untouched by pity for the innocent victims.”

In the notebook of Private Hassemer of the 8th corps we find this fearful confession—

“3rd September, 1914. At Sommepy (Marne), dreadful slaughter, the village burnt to the ground, the French thrown into the burning houses; civilians and all burnt together.”

“On the third of September, at Creil,” writes a German soldier of the 32nd reserve regiment of infantry, “the iron bridge was blown up. For this reason we set the streets on fire and shot civilians.”

The Saxon officer, some of whose narratives we have already reproduced, also admits that the inhabitants were not spared punishment by fire. “The fine village of Gué-d’Hossus (Ardennes) has been consigned to the flames, although it had committed no offence that I can see. I have been told that a man on a bicycle fell from his machine and that, in his fall, his gun went off of itself, and then some one fired in his direction. _After that men were simply thrown into the flames. We must hope that atrocities of this kind shall not be repeated._”

“At Bouvignes, north of Dinant,” writes this Saxon officer of the 178th Regiment of the Line, “we entered, through a breach made in the rear, the grounds of a well-to-do resident and occupied the house. Through a labyrinth of rooms we reached the entrance of the house. _There lay the body of the owner._ Outside, in the fields, _the sight of the inhabitants who had been shot, and whose bodies were lying on the ground, baffles all description. The point-blank fusillade almost decapitated them._ Each house was searched in the tiniest corners and the residents dragged out from all their hiding-places. _The men were shot._”

The writer of this notebook alleges no pretext which would excuse or explain, in his eyes, all these murders. No more does the reservist Schlanter (3rd battery of the 4th regiment of field artillery of the Guard) mention any reason in justification of the murders which he describes. He writes: “25th August. _In Belgium, three hundred inhabitants of the town were shot._ Those who survived the volley were requisitioned to act as grave-diggers (which proves that they were not considered guilty). You should have seen the women at this moment!”

“All the French, though civilians, were shot,” writes another, “_if they only looked suspicious or ill-disposed_. We shot them all: men and even young boys.”

“I have seen three convoys of French peasants pass by,” writes a third; “all will be shot.” An officer admits that the allegation that civilians took part in the fighting is a mere excuse. “_We shall say_,” he writes, “_that it was not the civilians who fired_, but it was the custom-house officers and foresters.” The same admission is also made by a Saxon officer of the 178th regiment, who writes: “Near Lisogne, the 23rd August. The company lost its way. Our men say that they could not advance any further, as francs-tireurs were firing upon them from the houses. _We seized these alleged francs-tireurs, placed them in three ranks so that a single shot would hit three men at once._”

Lieutenant Eberlein, who (in the _Münchener Neueste Nachrichten_) tells the story of the barbarous manner in which the troops entered Saint Dié, added on his part: “Everybody who showed himself in the streets was shot.” On the other hand, the commandant of the garrison of Hay was so enraged at the disgraceful conduct of the troops that he issued the following order of the day, which constitutes a terrible accusation against the Germans—

“25th August, 1914.

“Last night a terrible fusillade took place. It has not been proved that the inhabitants of the town were still in possession of arms. Neither has it been proved that civilians took part in the firing. _On the contrary, according to all appearances the soldiers were under the influence of alcohol, and opened fire through incomprehensible fear of an enemy attack._

“_The conduct of the soldiers_, with few exceptions, _appears to have been disgraceful_.

“When officers, or non-commissioned officers set fire to houses without permission or order of the commandant, or at least of the senior officer, and encourage their troops to burn and pillage, it is an act in the highest degree to be deplored.

“I expect that in every case strict instructions shall be given as to the attitude to be observed towards the life and property of civilians. I forbid any one to fire into a town without the order of an officer.

“The regrettable conduct of the troops has had the result that a non-commissioned officer and a soldier have been seriously wounded by German fire.

“VON BASSEWITZ (Major), “Commandant.”

Even the proclamations issued by the German authorities show for what hateful purposes the hostages were taken away, and how precarious was their condition as soon as the slightest check was inflicted on the German troops, or the slightest attack was made upon them.

“The life of hostages,” wrote Commandant Dieckmann at Grivegnée, on the 6th September, “_depends on whether the inhabitants of the communes previously mentioned keep quiet under all circumstances_.” And he adds, “I shall mark in the lists submitted to me the names of those individuals who must stay as hostages from noon on one day to noon of the next.

“If a substitute has not been found within reasonable time, the hostage will remain for a further twenty-four in the fort. After this second period of twenty-four hours, the hostage will run the risk of death, if a substitute has not been found.”

Moreover, Marshal Von der Goltz, military governor of Belgium, caused to be posted up in Brussels on 5th October, 1914, a proclamation in which the following announcement was made: “In future, the localities nearest to the place where the destruction of railway lines and telegraph wires has taken place (_whether they have been accessory or not_) will be mercilessly punished. To this end hostages have been taken from all localities near to railroads threatened by such attacks, and _at the first attempt to destroy lines of railroad, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot_.”

As for the deportation of civilians and the imprisonment with which they were threatened, when they were not carried off to Germany, two German soldiers volunteered the following admissions: “On the 6th September,” writes one of them, “_we dispatched three hundred Belgians to Germany, including twenty-one curés_.” “We shut up,” writes the other (Karl Bertram de Westeregein, near Magdeburg), “450 men in the church at Aerschot. I myself happened to be near the church at the moment.”

CONCLUSION

All this evidence and all these admissions are sufficient to prove the criminal nature of the German treatment of civilians whose territory had been invaded. The pretexts which they allege have no validity. They are only made for the sake of appearances, and, on the other hand, the acts which they committed are such as admit no kind of excuse and can in no case be justified. Nevertheless the German Government attempted to do so. The Berlin Cabinet undertook to prove that the inhabitants of Liège were guilty and deserved to suffer the fearful butchery which followed the entry of the Germans. To prove this the latter relied upon the evidence of a certain Hermann Costen, who was represented as a Swiss member of the Red Cross. But the chief of the Swiss police promptly published the following information—

(1) M. Hermann Costen never belonged to the Swiss Red Cross.

(2) M. Hermann Costen is not Swiss, as he was refused naturalisation.

(3) For two years M. Hermann Costen has been under the surveillance of the Swiss police. I maintain that since the declaration of war this person only left Switzerland from the 9th to the 14th August. _It is absolutely impossible that he can have been at Liège at the period of the siege mentioned by you._

(4) M. Hermann Costen left Switzerland finally in consequence of a decree of expulsion on the 19th September.

(5) M. Hermann Costen’s moral and material credit is nil. He is an individual for whom there is little to be said.

After the picture of German atrocities which has been put before us, it is not without its uses to form from this reply some idea of the duplicity which endeavoured to cloak them.