Part 4

"A new application of 'hostage right' was practiced by the German Staff in the war of 1870, when it compelled leading citizens from French towns and villages to accompany trains and locomotives in order to protect the railway communications which were threatened by the people. Since the lives of peaceable inhabitants were, without any fault on their part, thereby exposed to grave danger, every writer outside Germany has stigmatised this measure as contrary to the law of nations and as unjustified towards the inhabitants of the country."

Although their deeds in the Franco-Prussian war had been universally condemned, as they themselves admitted, the leaders did not intend to abandon such a useful measure of frightfulness. In _L'Interprète Militaire_ the forms were provided for such acts in the next war. Both in Belgium and in France the Germans have constantly used hostages. The evidence is contained in the proclamations of the governing authorities and also in the diaries of the German soldiers. A few examples from these will illustrate the system which was employed.

A specimen of the arbitrariness and cruelty is furnished by the proclamation of Maj. Dieckmann, from which the following sections are presented:

FROM A PROCLAMATION BY MAJ. DIECKMANN, SEPTEMBER, 1914.

"4. After 9 a.m. on the 7th September, I will permit the houses in Beyne-Heusay, Grivegnée, and Bois-de-Breux to be inhabited by the persons who lived in them formerly, as long as these persons are not forbidden to frequent these localities by official prohibition.

[Sidenote: Maj. Dieckmann seizes hostages.]

"5. In order to be sure that the above-mentioned permit will not be abused, the Burgomasters of Beyne-Heusay and of Grivegnée must immediately prepare lists of prominent persons who will be held as hostages for 24 hours each at Fort Fléron. September 6th, 1914, for the first time [the period of detention shall be] from 6 p.m. until September 7th at midday.

"The life of these hostages depends on the population of the above-mentioned Communes remaining quiet under all circumstances.

"During the night it is severely forbidden to show any luminous signals. Bicycles are permitted only between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. (German time).

"6. From the list which is submitted to me I shall designate prominent persons who shall be hostages from noon of one day until the following midday. If the substitute is not there in due time, the hostage must remain another 24 hours at the fort. After these 24 hours the hostage will incur the penalty of death, if the substitute fails to appear.

"7. Priests, burgomasters, and the other members of the Council are to be taken first as hostages.

"8. I insist that all civilians who move about in my district * * * show their respect to the German officers by taking off their hats, or lifting their hands to their heads in military salute. In case of doubt, every German soldier must be saluted. Anyone who does not do this must expect the German military to make themselves respected by every means."

* * * * *

A PROCLAMATION BY VON BÜLOW. IN NAMUR, AUGUST, 1914.

"1. The Belgian and French soldiers must be delivered as prisoners of war before 4 o'clock in front of the prison. Citizens who do not obey will be condemned to hard labor for life in Germany.

"The rigorous inspection of houses will commence at 4 o'clock. Every soldier found will be immediately shot.

"2. Arms, powder, and dynamite must be given up at 4 o'clock. Penalty, being shot.

"Citizens who know of a store of the above must inform the burgomaster, under penalty of hard labor for life.

[Sidenote: Von Bülow takes hostages in every street.]

"3. Every street will be occupied by a German guard, who will take ten hostages from each street, whom they will keep under surveillance. If there is any rising in the street, the ten hostages will be shot.

"4. Doors may not be locked, and at night after 8 o'clock there must be lights at three windows in every house.

"5. It is forbidden to be in the street after 8 o'clock. The inhabitants of Namur must understand that there is no greater and more horrible crime than to compromise the existence of the town and the life of its citizens by risings against the German Army.

"The Commander of the Town, "VON BÜLOW.

"NAMUR, _25th August, 1914_. (Printed by Chantraine)."

* * * * *

PROCLAMATION POSTED AT BRUSSELS AND ELSEWHERE, OCTOBER 5, 1914.

"September 25th, in the evening, the railroad track and telegraph were destroyed on the line Lovenjoul-Vertryck. * * *

[Sidenote: Hostages are made responsible for railroads.]

"Henceforth the villages situated nearest the spot where such events take place--it is of no consequence whether they are guilty or not--will be punished without mercy. For this purpose hostages have been taken from all places in the vicinity of railways in danger of similar attacks; and at the first attempt to destroy any railway, telegraph, or telephone line they will be immediately shot.

"Furthermore, all troops entrusted with the protection of railways have received orders to shoot anyone approaching railways or telegraph or telephone lines in a suspicious manner.

"The Governor General of Belgium,

"BARON VON DER GOLTZ, "_Field-Marshal_."

* * * * *

PROCLAMATION TO THE POPULATION OF RHEIMS.

"In order to insure sufficiently the safety of our troops and the tranquility of the population of Rheims, the persons mentioned have been seized as hostages by the Commander of the German Army. These hostages will be shot if there is the least disorder. On the other hand, if the town remains perfectly calm and quiet these hostages and inhabitants will be placed under the protection of the German Army.

"THE GENERAL COMMANDING.

"RHEIMS, _12th September, 1914_."

[Sidenote: Over 80 hostages in Rheims.]

Beneath this proclamation there were posted the names of 81 hostages and a statement that others had also been seized as hostages. The lives of all these men depended in reality upon the interpretation which the German military authorities might give to the elastic phrase, "the least disorder," in the proclamation.

Hugh Gibson, in _A Journal from our Legation in Belgium_, page 184, explains what was likely to happen:

"Another thing is, that on entering a town, they hold the burgomaster, the procureur du roi, and other authorities as hostages to insure good behavior by the population. Of course, the hoodlum class would like nothing better than to see their natural enemies, the defenders of law and order, ignominiously shot, and they do not restrain themselves a bit on account of the hostages."

STATEMENT FROM DIARY OF BOMBARDIER WETZEL.

"Aug. 8th. First fight and set fire to several villages.

"Aug. 9th. Returned to old quarters; there we searched all the houses and shot the mayor and shot one man down from the chimney pot, and then we again set fire to the village.

"On the 18th August Letalle (?) captured 10 men with three priests because they have shot down from the church tower. They were brought to the village of Ste. Marie.

[Sidenote: Hostages at Willekamm.]

"Oct. 5th. We were in quarters in the evening at Willekamm. Lieut. Radfels was quartered in the mayor's house and there had two prisoners (tied together) on a short whip, and in case anything happened they were to be killed.

"Oct. 11th. We had no fight, but we caught about 20 men and shot them." (From the diary of Bombardier Wetzel, Second Mounted Battery, First Kurhessian Field Artillery, Regiment No. 11.)

The Germans also found it convenient on many occasions to secure civilians, both men and women, who could be forced to march or stand in front of the troops, so that the countrymen of the civilians would be compelled first to kill their own people if they resisted the Germans. This usage is illustrated in the following:

LETTER OF LIEUT. EBERLEIN.

"OCTOBER 7, 1914.

[Sidenote: Civilians used as screens.]

"But we arrested three other civilians, and then I had a brilliant idea. We gave them chairs, and we then ordered them to go and sit out in the middle of the street. On their part, pitiful entreaties; on ours, a few blows from the butt end of the rifle. Little by little one becomes terribly callous at this business. At last they were all seated outside in the street. I do not know what anguished prayers they may have said but I noticed that their hands were convulsively clasped the whole time. I pitied these fellows, but the method was immediately effective.

"The flank fire from the houses quickly diminished, so that we were able to occupy the opposite house and thus to dominate the principal street. Every living being who showed himself in the street was shot. The artillery on its side had done good work all this time, and when, toward 7 o'clock in the evening, the brigade advanced to the assault to relieve us I was in a position to report that Saint Dié had been cleared of the enemy.

"Later on I learned that the regiment of reserve which entered Saint Dié further to the north had tried the same experiment. The four civilians whom they had compelled in the same way to sit out in the street were killed by French bullets. I myself saw them lying in the middle of the street near the hospital."

"A. EBERLEIN, "_First-Lieutenant_."

Letter published on the 7th October, 1914, in the "Vorabendblatt" of the _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_.

Minister Whitlock, in his report of September 12, 1917, to the Secretary of State, gives an instance of this German practice of seeking protection.

[Sidenote: "No respect to the cassock."]

"The Germans attacked Hougaerde on the 18th August; the Belgian troops were holding the Gette Bridge in the village. The Germans forced the parish priest of Autgaerden to walk in front of them as a shield. As they neared the barricade the Belgian soldiers fired and the priest was killed. After the retreat of the Belgians the Germans shot 4 men, burned 50 houses, and looted 100."

Hugh Gibson, in _A Journal from our Legation in Belgium_, page 155, gives another incident:

"Two old priests have staggered into the ---- legation more dead than alive after having been compelled to walk ahead of the German troops for miles as a sort of protecting screen. One of them is ill, and it is said that he may die as a result of what he has gone through."

STATEMENTS OF CARDINAL MERCIER AND HIS FELLOW BISHOPS.

"At the time of the invasion Belgian civilians, in twenty places, were made to take part in operations of war against their own country. At Termonde, Lebbeke, Dinant, and elsewhere in many places, peaceable citizens, women, and children were forced to march in front of German regiments or to make a screen before them.

[Sidenote: Cardinal Mercier's judgment on the system of hostages.]

"The system of hostages was carried out with a fierce cruelty. The proclamation of August 4th, quoted above, declared, without circumlocution: 'Hostages will be freely taken.'

"An official proclamation, posted at Liége, in the early days of August, ran thus: 'Every aggression committed against the German troops by any persons other than soldiers in uniform not only exposes the guilty person to be immediately shot, but will also entail the severest reprisals against all the inhabitants, and especially against those natives of Liége who have been detained as hostages in the citadel of Liége by the commandant of the German troops.'

"These hostages are Monsignor Rutten, Bishop of Liége; M. Kleyer, burgomaster of Liége; the senators, representatives, and the permanent deputy and sheriff of Liége."

The above quotation is taken from _An Appeal to Truth_, addressed Nov. 24, 1915, by Cardinal Mercier and the other bishops of Belgium to the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

[Sidenote: Will Irwin on brutality of German drive through Belgium.]

"Some ten or a dozen American correspondents, of whom I was one, witnessed the First German drive through Belgium. Most of us were so appalled and horrified by what we saw as to become anti-German for life." Will Irwin, in _Saturday Evening Post_, Oct. 6, 1917, p. 41.

III. FINES.

The contracting nations, including Germany, who signed the Conventions of the Second Peace Conference at The Hague, 1907, pledged themselves to the following:

[Sidenote: Germany's promises in Hague conventions.]

"Article L. No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they can not be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."

"Article LII. Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the deeds of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country."

[Sidenote: German violations of Hague conventions.]

The German authorities have violated these articles from the very beginning. As soon as they invaded Belgium, heavy fines were laid upon individual communities as reprisals for some act against the German Army or its regulations which was committed within their boundaries. In _An Appeal to Truth_ Cardinal Mercier cites the following cases:

"Malines, a working-class town, without resources, has had a fine of 20,000 marks inflicted on it because the burgomaster did not inform the military authority of a journey which the Cardinal, deprived of the use of his motor car, had been obliged to make on foot. In fact, upon the flimsiest pretexts heavy fines are inflicted on communes. The commune of Puers was subjected to a fine of 3,000 marks because a telegraph wire was broken, although the inquiry showed that it had given way through wear."

In addition to such arbitrary, sporadic exactions, in December, 1914, the Germans demanded 40,000,000 francs ($8,000,000) a month to be paid by the Belgian Provinces jointly.

Concerning this enormous imposition Cardinal Mercier says, in the _Appeal to Truth_:

"The essential condition of the legality of a contribution of this kind, according to the Hague Convention, is that it should bear _relation to the resources of the country_, article 52.

[Sidenote: Cardinal Mercier's comments.]

"Now, in December, 1914, Belgium was devastated. Contributions of war imposed on the towns and innumerable requisitions in kind had exhausted her. The greater part of the factories were idle, and in those, which were still at work, raw materials were, contrary to all law, being freely commandeered.

"It was on this impoverished Belgium, living on foreign charity, that a contribution of nearly 500,000,000 francs was imposed."

[Sidenote: The crushing fine is increased.]

The German authorities were not satisfied with this impoverishing levy. In November, 1915, one month before the expiration of the twelve-month period fixed for the levy, they decreed that this contribution of 40,000,000 francs a month should be paid for an indefinite period. In November, 1916, they increased the levy to 50,000,000 francs a month, in May, 1917, to 60,000,000 francs a month. In addition, the German authorities have continued to levy fines upon towns and villages for acts committed in their neighborhood, although they had no proof that these acts had been committed by any inhabitant of the city or village thus fined. (Compare taking of hostages, noted above.)

The German military rulers have also made the families responsible for acts committed by or charged against members as is shown in the following examples, which are quoted from the _Appeal to Truth_, cited above.

[Sidenote: Family made responsible.]

"The Belgian Government has sent orders to rejoin the army to the militiamen of several classes. * * * All those who receive these orders are strictly forbidden to act upon them. * * * _In case of disobedience the family of the militiaman will be held equally responsible._"

"A warning of the Governor General, dated January 26th, 1915, renders the _members of the family_ responsible if a Belgian fit for military service, between the ages of 16 and 40, goes to Holland."

The Commander in Chief of the German army in Belgium posted a proclamation declaring:

[Sidenote: Villages made responsible.]

"The villages where acts of hostility shall be committed by the inhabitants against our troops _will be burned_.

"For all destruction of roads, railways, bridges, etc., _the villages in the neighborhood_ of the destruction _will be held responsible_.

"The punishments announced above will be carried out severely and without mercy. _The whole community will be held responsible._ Hostages will be taken in large numbers. The heaviest war taxes will be levied."

At the end of the _Appeal to Truth_ Cardinal Mercier says:

"But we can not say all here, nor quote all.

[Sidenote: Cardinal Mercier has proofs.]

"If, however, our readers wish for the proof of the accusations * * * we shall be glad to furnish them. There is not in our letter, nor in the four annexes [to the _Appeal to Truth_], one allegation of which we have not the proofs in our records."

A striking illustration of the German methods is contained in the archives of the State Department, because the Prince of Monaco appealed to President Wilson against the injustice of a fine imposed upon a small and impoverished village. The following documents from the State Department archives tell the story. They need no comments.

"PARIS, _Oct. 27, 1914_.

"SECRETARY OF STATE, "_Washington_.

"Prince of Monaco called this morning and asked that the following case be submitted to the President:

[Sidenote: The case of Sissonne.]

"Prince states that General von Bülow for weeks has been inhabiting Prince's ancestral château near Rheims, historical monument, containing works of art and family heirlooms; that von Bülow has imposed fine of five hundred thousand francs on village of Sissonne some miles distant from château, because broken glass found on road near village. Sissonne being unable alone to pay has raised with a number of other neighboring villages one hundred twenty-five thousand francs but von Bülow has sent two messengers from Sissonne to Prince that unless latter pays fine for Sissonne the château and adjoining village, as well as Sissonne, will be destroyed on November first. Prince has answered refusing to pay sum now but willing to give his word to German Emperor that amount would be paid after removal of danger of fresh war incidents. Prince now fearful lest returning messengers, as well as male employees on his estate, be shot because of refusal to pay.

"I have arranged meeting this afternoon between Spanish Ambassador and Prince, to whom I have suggested that matter be presented to German Government through Spanish Ambassador at Berlin inasmuch as Prince's threatened property is in France.

"HERRICK."

"ARMY HEADQUARTERS, "_Warmériville, Sept. 19th, 1914_.

"TO the MAYOR OF THE COMMUNE OF SISSONNE, "_Sissonne_.

[Sidenote: Von Bülow's levy on Sissonne.]

"It has been conclusively proven that the road between Sissonne and the railway station of Montaigu was, on September 18th, strewn with broken glass along a distance of one kilometre and at intervals of 50 metres, for the purpose, no doubt, of impeding automobile traffic.

"I hold the commune of Sissonne responsible for this act of hostility on the part of its inhabitants and I punish the said commune by levying upon it a contribution of 500,000 francs (five hundred thousand francs).

"This sum must be entirely paid into the Treasury of the Etape by October 15th.

"The Inspection of the Etape now at Montcornet has been directed to enforce execution of this order.

"The General Commander in Chief of the Army.

"VON BÜLOW."

LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE GERMAN EMPEROR.

"MONACO, _Oct. 22nd, 1914_.

"SIRE:

"I forward to Your Majesty several documents relating to a very grave and urgent matter.

[Sidenote: Prince of Monaco writes Emperor William.]

"The General von Bülow has caused to be occupied since one month and a half my residence of Marchais, situated at five kilometres from the village of Sissonne. The general has levied upon the fifteen hundred inhabitants of this poor ruined village a war contribution of five hundred thousand francs, of which they are unable to pay more than one-quarter. Moreover, he has sent to me two emissaries bearing a document in which he threatens to destroy my property and the village of Marchais, over and above that of Sissonne, in the event of my not disbursing myself the sum in question before the end of the month of October.

"That is how a Prussian general treats a reigning Prince who for 45 years has been a friend to Germany, and who in all the countries of the world is surrounded with respect and gratitude for his work.

"In reply to the summons of the General von Bülow I have given my word of honor to complete the above contribution in order to avert a horrible action accomplished in cold blood, but adding that as a sovereign Prince I submit this matter to the judgment of the Emperor by declaring that the said sum shall be paid when the Château de Marchais will be free from the danger of intentional destruction.

"I am, with great respect, Your Majesty's devoted servant and cousin,

"ALBERT, _Prince of Monaco_."

LETTER ADDRESSED TO GEN. VON BÜLOW.

"MONACO, _Oct. 22nd, 1914_.

"GENERAL:

"To avert from the Commune of Sissonne and that of Marchais the rigorous treatment with which you have threatened them, I give my word of honor to remit to His Majesty the Emperor William, should the war come to an end without intentional damage being caused to my residence or to these two communes, the necessary sum to complete the amount of five hundred thousand francs imposed by you upon Sissonne.

"As a Sovereign Prince, I wish to deal in this matter with the Sovereign who, during fifteen years, called me his friend and has decorated me with the Order of the Knight of the Black Eagle.

[Sidenote: Prince comments on German treatment of monuments.]

"My conscience and my dignity place me above fear, as also my personal will shall elevate me above regret; but should you destroy the Château de Marchais which is one of the centers of universal science and charity, should you reserve to this archeological and historical gem the treatment you have given to the Cathedral of Rheims--when no reprehensible action has been committed there--the whole world will judge between you and myself.

"I tender to Your Excellency the expression of my high regard.

"ALBERT, _Sovereign Prince of Monaco_."

IV. DEPORTATIONS AND FORCED LABOR.

[Sidenote: Advance in humanity--until August, 1914.]

Until the present war the whole civilized world has boasted of its advance in humanity. This advance had been marked in many fields, and in none had greater progress been made than in the protection to be given to the private citizen in an invaded country. As far back as 1863, in the _Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field_ the United States declared:

[Sidenote: United States treatment of civilians, 1863.]

"22. Nevertheless, as civilization has advanced during the last centuries, so has likewise steadily advanced, especially in war on land, the distinction between the private individual belonging to a hostile country and the hostile country itself, with its men in arms. The principle has been more and more acknowledged that the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and honor as much as the exigencies of war will admit.