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.