Part 6

"I report the following impressions of my interview with M. Davignon and with several persons in a position to have exact information. The attitude of Germany is enigmatical and justifies every apprehension; it seems improbable that the Austro-Hungarian Government would have taken an initiative which would lead, according to a preconceived plan, to a declaration of war, without previous arrangement with the Emperor William.

"The German Government stand 'with grounded arms' ready to take peaceful or warlike action as circumstances may require, but there is so much anxiety everywhere that a sudden intervention against us would not surprise anybody here. My Russian and English colleagues share this feeling."[102]

Finally, on July 30, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the British Ambassador in Vienna, stated to Sir Edward Grey:--

="I have private information that the German Ambassador knew the text of the Austrian Ultimatum to Serbia before it was despatched, and telegraphed it to the German Emperor. I know from the German Ambassador himself that he endorses every line of it."=[103]

Confirmation of the whole evidence is found in the commercial world, for as Sir E. H. Holden, Chairman of the London City and Midland Bank, stated on January 29, 1915:--

"On the 18th of July last (1914) the Dresdner Bank caused a great commotion by selling its securities and by advising its clients to sell their securities. This was recognised as the first semi-official intimation of a probable European conflagration...."

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Cd. 7717, No. 19.

[85] Cd. 7717, No. 21.

[86] Cd. 7717, No. 30.

[87] Cd. 7717, No. 32.

[88] Cd. 7717, No. 28.

[89] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 9.

[90] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 6.

[91] Cd. 7860, page 401.

[92] Cd. 7717, No. 41.

[93] Cd. 7626, No. 19.

[94] Cd. 7717, No. 57.

[95] Cd. 7626, No. 20.

[96] Cd. 7626, No. 18.

[97] Cd. 7717, No. 35.

[98] Cd. 7717, No. 83.

[99] Cd. 7626, No. 46.

[100] Cd. 7717, No. 78.

[101] Cd. 7717, Appendix 5, No. 3.

[102] Cd. 7717, No. 87.

[103] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 95.

APPENDIX B.

HOW GERMANY MISLED AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

Germany's view is very clearly indicated in a despatch from the British Ambassador at Vienna, dated July 26, 1914:--

"According to confident belief of German Ambassador, Russia will keep quiet during chastisement of Serbia, which Austria-Hungary is resolved to inflict, having received assurances that no Serbian territory will be annexed by Austria-Hungary. In reply to my question whether Russian Government might not be compelled by public opinion to intervene on behalf of kindred nationality, he said that everything depended on the personality of the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, who could resist easily, if he chose, the pressure of a few newspapers. He pointed out that the days of Pan-Slav agitation in Russia were over, and that Moscow was perfectly quiet. The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs would not, his Excellency thought, be so imprudent as to take a step which would probably result in many frontier questions in which Russia is interested, such as Swedish, Polish, Ruthene, Roumanian and Persian questions, being brought into the melting-pot. France, too, was not at all in a condition for facing a war.... He doubted Russia, who had no right to assume a protectorate over Serbia, acting as if she made any such claim. _As for Germany, she knew very well what she was about in backing up Austria-Hungary in this matter._"[104]

Germany's view is further explained by the British representative at Berlin, on July 26, 1914:--

"Under-Secretary of State likewise told me that German Ambassador at St. Petersburg had reported that, in conversation with Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, latter had said that if Austria annexed bits of Serbian territory Russia would not remain indifferent. Under-Secretary of State drew conclusion that Russia would not act if Austria did _not_ annex territory."[105]

The result of this German influence is shown on the Austrian Ambassador in Berlin by the following despatch from Sir Edward Goschen, the British Ambassador at Berlin, dated July 28, 1914:--

"Austrian colleague said to me to-day that a general war was most unlikely, as Russia neither wanted nor was in a position to make war. I think that that opinion is shared by many people here."[106]

So successful were the Germans in impressing this false view upon the Austrians that the position is best described by the British Ambassador in Vienna in his despatch to Sir Edward Grey, dated July 27, 1914:--

"I have had conversations with all my colleagues representing the Great Powers. The impression left on my mind is that the Austro-Hungarian note was so drawn up as to make war (with Serbia) inevitable; that the Austro-Hungarian Government are fully resolved to have war with Serbia; that they consider their position as a Great Power to be at stake; and that until punishment has been administered to Serbia it is unlikely that they will listen to proposals of mediation. This country has gone wild with joy at the prospect of war with Serbia, and its postponement or prevention would undoubtedly be a great disappointment."[107]

Added to which we have further proof in a despatch from the British Ambassador at Rome, dated July 23, 1914:--

"Secretary-General, whom I saw this morning at the Italian Foreign Office, took the view that the gravity of the situation lay in the conviction of the Austro-Hungarian Government that it was absolutely necessary for their prestige, after the many disillusions which the turn of events in the Balkans has occasioned, to score a definite success."[108]

FOOTNOTES:

[104] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 32.

[105] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 33.

[106] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 71.

[107] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 41.

[108] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 38.

APPENDIX C.

SOME GERMAN ATROCITIES IN BELGIUM.

In December, 1914, a Committee was appointed by the British Government to inquire into the German outrages in Belgium and France. Under the Chairmanship of Lord Bryce, this Committee was composed of:--

THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M. (Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, 1870; Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1886; Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster (with seat in Cabinet), 1892; President of Board of Trade, 1894; one of the British Members of the International Tribunal at The Hague; Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1905-6; His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Washington, 1907-12).

THE RT. HON. SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, Bt., K.C., LL.D., D.C.L. (Judge of Admiralty Court of Cinque Ports since 1914; Editor of Law Reports since 1895; Chairman, Royal Commission on Public Records, 1910; Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1883-1903; Author of The Law of Torts, 1887; History of English Law, 1895.)

THE RT. HON. SIR EDWARD CLARKE, K.C. (Solicitor-General, 1886-92).

SIR ALFRED HOPKINSON, K.C. (Professor of Law, Owen's College, Manchester (Principal, 1898-1904); Adviser to the Bombay University, 1913-14).

MR. H. A. L. FISHER (Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University; Chichele Lecturer in Foreign History, 1911-12).

MR. HAROLD COX, M.A. (Editor, _Edinburgh Review_).

SIR KENELM E. DIGBY, K.C., G.C.B. (Permanent Under-Secretary of State at Home Office, 1895-1903).

This eminent and impartial Tribunal, after carefully weighing the evidence (Cd. 7894 and Cd. 7895) came to the following grave conclusions:--

"(i) That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organised massacres of the civil population, accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages.

"(ii) That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women, were murdered in large numbers, women violated, and children murdered.

"(iii) That looting, house burning, and the wanton destruction of property were ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German Army, that elaborate provision had been made for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war, and that the burnings and destruction were frequent where no military necessity could be alleged, being indeed part of a system of general terrorisation.

"(iv) That the rules and usages of war were frequently broken, particularly by the using of civilians, including women and children, as a shield for advancing forces exposed to fire, to a less degree by killing the wounded and prisoners, and in the frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag.

"Sensible as they are of the gravity of these conclusions, the Committee conceive that they would be doing less than their duty if they failed to record them as fully established by the evidence. Murder, lust, and pillage prevailed over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilised nations during the last three centuries."

The Report makes it plain that apart from the first outbreak of outrages intended to cow the Belgians into submission, fresh bursts of plunder and rapine took place on specific occasions when the Germans suffered defeat. Cowardly vengeance was thus wreaked on the innocent Belgian civilians for the defeat of German arms. For example, on August 25, 1914, the Belgian Army, sallying out from Antwerp, drove the enemy from Malines. The Germans promptly massacred and burnt at Louvain, "the signal for which was provided by shots exchanged between the German Army retreating after its repulse at Malines and some members of the German garrison of Louvain, who mistook their fellow-countrymen for Belgians."[109] Similarly when a successful sortie from Antwerp drove the Germans from Aerschot, they retaliated by a blood-vendetta upon the civil population.

The Germans have endeavoured to justify their brutal excesses by bringing counter-charges against Belgian civilians. For instance, the Chancellor of the German Empire, in a communication made to the press on September 2, 1914, and printed in the _Nord Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_, of September 21, said: "Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of the German wounded. Officials of Belgian cities have invited our officers to dinner, and shot and killed them across the table. Contrary to all international law, the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out, and after having at first shown friendliness carried on in the rear of our troops terrible warfare with concealed weapons. Belgian women cut the throats of soldiers whom they had quartered in their homes while they were sleeping."

Upon this Lord Bryce's Committee make the comment: "No evidence whatever seems to have been adduced to prove these tales."[110]

Of both individual and concerted acts of barbarity, the report teems--for example:--[111]

"It is clearly shown that many offences were committed against infants and quite young children. On one occasion children were even roped together and used as a military screen against the enemy, on another three soldiers went into action carrying small children to protect themselves from flank fire. A shocking case of the murder of a baby by a drunken soldier at Malines is thus recorded by one eye-witness and confirmed by another:--

"'One day when the Germans were not actually bombarding the town I left my house to go to my mother's house in High Street. My husband was with me. I saw eight German soldiers, and they were drunk. They were singing and making a lot of noise and dancing about. As the German soldiers came along the street I saw a small child, whether boy or girl I could not see, come out of a house. The child was about two years of age. The child came into the middle of the street so as to be in the way of the soldiers. The soldiers were walking in twos. The first line of two passed the child; one of the second line, the man on the left, stepped aside and drove his bayonet with both hands into the child's stomach, lifting the child into the air on his bayonet and carrying it away on his bayonet, he and his comrades still singing. The child screamed when the soldier struck it with his bayonet, but not afterwards.'"[112]

The following brief extracts of German atrocities are taken from Official Reports issued by the Belgian Legation:--[113]

"On the evening of the 22nd" (August, at Tamines) "a group of between 400 and 450 men was collected in front of the church, not far from the bank of the Sambre. A German detachment opened fire on them, but, as the shooting was a slow business, the officers ordered up a machine gun, which soon swept off all the unhappy peasants still left standing. Many of them were only wounded, and, hoping to save their lives, got with difficulty on their feet again. They were immediately shot down. Many wounded still lay among the corpses," and some of these were bayoneted....

"Next day, Sunday, the 23rd, about 6 o'clock in the morning, another party consisting of prisoners made in the village and the neighbourhood were brought into the square, ... in the square was a mass of bodies of civilians extending over at least 40 yards by 6 yards. They had evidently been drawn up and shot.... An officer asked for volunteers to bury the corpses. Those who volunteered were set to work and dug a trench 15 yards long, 10 broad and 2 deep. The corpses were carried to the trench on planks.... Actually fathers buried the bodies of their sons, and sons the bodies of their fathers.

"There were in the square both soldiers and officers. They were drinking champagne. The more the afternoon drew on the more they drank.... We buried from 350 to 400 bodies." ... A wounded man was buried alive, a German doctor having apparently ordered his interment....

"About 9 in the morning" (at Dinant, August 23) "the German soldiery, driving before them by blows from the butt-end of rifles, men, women, and children, pushed them all into the Parade Square, where they were kept prisoners till 6 o'clock in the evening. The guard took pleasure in repeating to them that they would soon be shot. About 6 o'clock a captain separated the men from the women and children. The women were placed in front of a rank of infantry soldiers, the men were ranged along a wall. The front rank of them were told to kneel, the others remaining standing behind them. A platoon of soldiers drew up in face of these unhappy men. It was in vain that the women cried out for mercy for their husbands, sons, and brothers. The officer ordered his men to fire. There had been no inquiry nor any pretence of a trial. About 20 of the inhabitants were only wounded, but fell among the dead. The soldiers, to make sure, fired a new volley into the heap of them. Several citizens escaped this double discharge. They shammed dead for more than two hours, remaining motionless among the corpses, and when night fell succeeded in saving themselves in the hills. Eighty-four corpses were left on the square and buried in a neighbouring garden."

"On Friday, August 21st, at 4 o'clock in the morning" (at Andenne, between Namur and Huy) "the" (German) "soldiers spread themselves through the town, driving all the population into the streets and forcing men, women, and children to march before them with their hands in the air. Those who did not obey with sufficient promptitude, or did not understand the order given them in German, were promptly knocked down. Those who tried to run away were shot. It was at this moment that Dr. Camus" (the Burgomaster), "against whom the Germans seemed to have some special spite, was wounded by a rifle shot, and then finished off by a blow from an axe. His body was dragged along by the feet for some distance....

"Subsequently the soldiers, on the order of their officers, picked out of the mass some 40 or 50 men who were led off and all shot, some along the bank of the Meuse, and others in front of the Police Station.

"The rest of the men were kept for a long time in the Place. Among them lay two persons, one of whom had received a ball in the chest, and the other a bayonet wound. They lay face to the ground with blood from their wounds trickling into the dust, occasionally calling for water. The officers forbade their neighbours to give them any help.... Both died in the course of the day.... In the morning the officers told the women to withdraw, giving them the order to gather together the dead bodies and to wash away the stains of blood which defiled the street and the houses."

FOOTNOTES:

[109] Cd. 7894, p. 14.

[110] Cd. 7894, p. 26.

[111] Professor J. H. Morgan, Representative of the Home Office, attached to the Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary Force, states in a letter to the _Times_, dated May 20, 1915:--

" ... There has lately come into my hands--unfortunately too late for use by the Committee--evidence which establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the outrages upon combatants in the field are committed by the orders of responsible officers, such as Brigade and Company Commanders, and that British and Belgian soldiers are the objects of peculiar malignancy.... _There is some evidence to show that the East Prussian and Bavarian regiments are the worst offenders. The French military authorities, who have been of great assistance to me in my inquiries, informed me that they have now a very considerable 'black list' of this character. When the time comes to dictate terms of peace and to exact reparation that list will be very useful...._ In the earlier stages of the war there was a widespread disinclination on the part of our officers and men to credit stories of 'atrocities.' Nothing has impressed me more than the complete change of conviction on this point, especially among our officers. As a Staff Officer of the highest eminence said to me lately, 'The Germans have no sense of honour in the field.' Any sense of the freemasonry of arms has practically disappeared among them, and deliberate killing of the wounded is of frequent occurrence."

[112] Cd. 7894. p. 32.

[113] The Commission chiefly responsible for these official Belgian reports was composed of M. Cooreman, Minister of State (President); Count Goblet d'Alviella, Minister of State and Vice-President of the Senate; M. Ryckmans, Senator; M. Strauss, Alderman of the City of Antwerp; M. Van Cutsem, Hon. President of the Law Court of Antwerp; and, as Secretaries, Chevalier Ernst de Bunswyck, Chef du Cabinet of the Minister of Justice, and M. Orts, Councillor of Legation.

APPENDIX D.

GERMANY'S EMPLOYMENT OF POISONOUS GAS.

The following is a copy of a Report dated May 3, 1915, by Field-Marshal Sir John French on the employment by the Germans of poisonous gases as weapons of warfare:--

"The gases employed have been ejected from pipes laid into the trenches, and also produced by the explosion of shells especially manufactured for the purpose. The German troops who attacked under cover of these gases were provided with specially designed respirators, which were issued in sealed pattern covers. This all points to long and methodical preparation on a large scale.

"A week before the Germans first used this method they announced in their official _communique_ that we were making use of asphyxiating gases. At the time there appeared to be no reason for this astounding falsehood, but now, of course, it is obvious that it was part of the scheme. It is a further proof of the deliberate nature of the introduction by the Germans of a new and illegal weapon, and shows that they recognised its illegality and were anxious to forestall neutral, and possibly domestic, criticism.

"Since the enemy first made use of this method of covering his advance with a cloud of poisoned air he has repeated it both in offence and defence whenever the wind has been favourable.

"The effect of this poison is not merely disabling, or even painlessly fatal, as suggested in the German Press. Those of its victims who do not succumb on the field, and who can be brought into hospital, suffer acutely, and in a large proportion of cases die a painful and lingering death. Those who survive are in little better case, as the injury to their lungs appears to be of a permanent character and reduces them to a condition which points to their being invalids for life. These effects must be well known to the German scientists who devised this new weapon and to the military authorities who have sanctioned its use.

"I am of opinion that the enemy has definitely decided to use these gases as a normal procedure, and that protests will be useless."

APPENDIX E.

EFFORTS OF GERMAN MINISTERS OF STATE TO LAY BLAME ON BRITAIN.

Since the war, both the German Imperial Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, and the German Foreign Secretary, Herr von Jagow, have endeavoured to explain away the former's phrase: "a scrap of paper," which shocked the diplomatic conscience of the world. Both have endeavoured to lay the blame for the conflict at Great Britain's door.[114] The German Imperial Chancellor now declares that:--

"Documents on the Anglo-Belgian Military Agreement which ... we have found in the archives of the Belgian Foreign Office ... showed that England in 1911 was determined to throw troops into Belgium without the consent of the Belgian Government."[115]

The true facts of the case are to be seen in the following extract from the statement issued by the Belgian Minister in London, on March 17, 1915:--

"A month after the declaration of war the German Chancery discovered at Brussels the reports of certain conversations which had taken place in 1906 and in 1912 between two British Military Attaches and two Chiefs of the Staff of the Belgian Army. In order to transform these reports into documents which would justify Germany's conduct it was necessary to garble them and to lie. Such was the only way in which the German action against Belgium could be made to appear decent.... Thus it came to pass that, with a shamelessness for which history shows few parallels, the German Chancery gave out that a 'Convention' had existed, by which Belgium had betrayed her most sacred pledges and violated her own neutrality for the benefit of England. To produce an impression on those ignorant of the facts, 'German honesty' suppressed, when the precis of the above-named conversations was published, the clause in which it was set forth that the exchange of opinion therein recorded _did reference only to the situation that would be created if Belgian neutrality had already been violated_. The Belgian Government gives to the allegations of the German Chancery the only answer that they deserve--they are a tissue of lies, all the more shameless because they are set forth by persons who claim to have studied the original documents.