Part 2

About 10 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. About midday the surviving men to the number of 800 were shut up as hostages in three little houses near the bridge, but they were not allowed to go out of them on any pretext, and so crammed together that they could not even sit down on the floor. Soon these crowded buildings reached a highly insanitary condition. The women later in the day were allowed to bring food to their husbands. Many of them, fearing outrage, had fled from the Place. These hostages were not finally released till the Tuesday following.

The statistics of the losses at Andenne give the following total:--Three hundred were massacred in Andenne and Seilles, and about 300 houses were burnt in the two localities. A great number of inhabitants have fled. Almost every house has been sacked; indeed, the pillage did not end for eight days. Other places have suffered more than Andenne, but no other Belgian Town was the theatre of so many scenes of ferocity and cruelty. The numerous inhabitants whom we have cross-examined are unanimous in asserting that the German troops were not fired upon. They told us that no German soldier was killed either at Andenne or in its neighbourhood. They are incapable of understanding the causes of the catastrophe which has ruined their town, and to explain it they give various hypotheses. Some think that Andenne was sacrificed merely to establish a reign of terror, and quote words uttered by officers which seemed to them to show that the destruction of the place was premeditated. Others think that the destruction of the bridge, the ruining of a neighbouring tunnel, and the resistance of the Belgian troops were the causes of the massacre. All protest that nothing happened in the place to excuse the conduct of the Germans.

(IV.) SACK OF DINANT.

The town of Dinant was sacked and destroyed by the German Army, and its population was decimated on the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th August.

On August 15th a lively engagement took place at Dinant between the French troops on the left bank of the Meuse and the German troops coming up from the East. The German troops were routed by the French, who passed over to the right bank of the river following them. The town had little to suffer on that day. Some houses were destroyed by German shells, aimed no doubt at French regiments on the left bank, and a citizen of Dinant belonging to the Red Cross was killed by a German ball as he was picking up a wounded man.

The days which followed were calm. The French occupied the neighborhood of the town. No engagement took place between the hostile armies, and nothing happened which could be interpreted as an act of hostility by the population. No German troops were anywhere near Dinant. On Friday, the 21st, about 9 o’clock in the evening, German troops coming down the road from Ciney entered the town by the Rue St. Jacques. On entering they began firing into the windows of the houses, and killed a workman who was returning to his own house, wounded another inhabitant, and forced him to cry “Long live the Kaiser.” They bayoneted a third person in the stomach. They entered the cafes, seized the liquor, got drunk, and retired after having set fire to several houses and broken the doors and windows of others. The population was terrorised and stupefied, and shut itself up in its dwellings.

Saturday, August 22nd, was a day of relative calm. All life, however, was at an end in the streets. Part of the inhabitants, guided by the instincts of self-preservation, fled into the neighbouring country side. The rest, more attached to their homes, and rendered confident by the conviction that nothing had happened which could be interpreted as an act of hostility on their part, remained hidden in their houses.

On Sunday morning next, the 23rd, at 6.30 in the morning, soldiers of the 108th Regiment of Infantry invaded the Church of the Premonastrensian Fathers, drove out the congregation, separated the women from the men, and shot 50 of the latter. Between 7 and 9 the same morning the soldiers gave themselves up to pillage and arson, going from house to house and driving the inhabitants into the street. Those who tried to escape were shot. About 9 in the morning the soldiery, driving before them by blows from the butt ends 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 then told to kneel, the others 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 pretense 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.

The day of August 23rd was made bloody by several more massacres. Soldiers discovered some inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Pierre in the cellars of a brewery there and shot them.

Since the previous evening a crowd of workmen belonging to the factory of M. Himmer had hidden themselves, along with their wives and children, in the cellars of the building. They had been joined there by many neighbours and several members of the family of their employer. About 6 o’clock in the evening these unhappy people made up their minds to come out of their refuge, and defiled all trembling from the cellars with the white flag in front. They were immediately seized and violently attacked by the soldiers. Every man was shot on the spot. Almost all the men of the Faubourg de Leffe were executed _en masse_. In another part of the town 12 civilians were killed in a cellar. In the Rue en Ile a paralytic was shot in his armchair. In the Rue Enfer the soldiers killed a young boy of 14.

In the Faubourg de Leffe the viaduct of the railway was the scene of a bloody massacre. An old woman and all her children were killed in their cellar. A man of 65 years, his wife, his son and his daughter were shot against a wall. Other inhabitants of Leffe were taken in a barge as far as the rock of Bayard and shot there, among them a woman of 83 and her husband.

A certain number of men and women had been locked up in the Court of the Prison. At six in the evening a German machine gun, placed on the hill above, opened fire on them, and an old woman and three other persons were brought down.

While a certain number of soldiers were perpetrating this massacre, others pillaged and sacked the houses of the town, and broke open all safes, sometimes blasting them with dynamite. Their work of destruction and theft accomplished, the soldiers set fire to the houses, and the town was soon no more than an immense furnace.

The women and children had been all shut up in a Convent, where they were kept prisoners for four days. These unhappy women remained in ignorance of the lot of their male relations. They were expecting themselves to be shot also. All around the town continued to blaze. The first day the monks of the Convent had given them a certain supply of food. For the remaining days they had nothing to eat but raw carrots and green fruit.

To sum up, the town of Dinant is destroyed. It counted 1,400 houses; only 200 remain. The manufactories where the artisan population worked have been systematically destroyed. Rather more than 700 of the inhabitants have been killed; others have been taken off to Germany, and are still retained there as prisoners. The majority are refugees scattered all through Belgium. A few who remained in the town are dying of hunger. It has been proved by our Enquiry that German soldiers, while exposed to the fire of the French entrenched on the opposite bank of the Meuse, in certain cases sheltered themselves behind a line of civilians, women and children.

(V.) MASSACRES AT HASTIERE AND SURICE

On August 23rd, the Germans entered the village of Hastiere-par-dela.(1) They arrested Dr. Halloy, a Surgeon of the Red Cross, and shot him. Crossing the street, they went to the house of Alphonse Aigret, a butcher, drove out him, his wife and his children, and shot him and his elder son. Next they went to the farm of Jules Rifon, took him out of his cellar, where he had hidden with his daughters, and shot him. They also killed the farmer Bodson and his two sons, with ten other inhabitants of the village. The place was then sacked, and the greater part of the houses burned. The number of persons killed or wounded was very large.

The ancient church of Hastiere suffered odious profanation. Horses were stabled in it. The priestly vestments were torn and befouled. The lamps, statues, and holy-water stoups were broken. The reliquary was smashed, and the relics scattered about. Among them were some relics of the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, which had escaped the fury of the Huguenots of 1590 and the Revolution of 1790. The tabernacle resisted an attempt at burglary, but two of the four altars were profaned; the sepulchres at the altars were broken open and the remains in them thrown out and trampled under foot.

The parish priest of Hastiere, Abbe Emile Schogel, had taken refuge in the crypt, with his brother-in-law, M. Ponthiere, a professor of the University of Louvain, the wife and two daughters of the professor, two servants, the schoolmaster of the village with his wife and family, and other inhabitants. The Germans fired at them through the windows of the crypt, and then forced them to come up to the road, where they were brought before several officers, of whom some were intoxicated. Some questions were put to the Abbe, but he was given no time to answer. The women were then dragged apart from the men, and the priest, M. Pointhiere, the schoolmaster, and the other men were shot; their bodies were left lying on the road. All this happened on August 24th, 1914, at about 5.30 in the afternoon.

On this same day the village of Surice was occupied by the German troops. At about 11 p. m. they set fire to some of the houses. Next morning, about 6 o’clock, the soldiers broke open doors and windows with the butts of their rifles, and forced all the inhabitants to come out. They were led off in the direction of the church. On the way several most inoffensive people were fired upon. For example, the old choirman, Charles Colot, aged 88, was shot as he came out of his door; the soldiers rolled his body in a blanket, and set fire to it.

A man named Elie Pierrot was seized by the Germans as he was coming out of his burning house, carrying his aged and impotent step-mother (she was over 80 years of age), and was shot at short range. The clerk, Leopold Burniaux, his son Armand, who had been recently ordained priest, and another of his sons were shot before the eyes of Madame Burniaux. She, with her last surviving son, a professor at the College of Malonne, were marched off with the surviving inhabitants on the road to Romedenne. In a garden below the road there was a dead woman lying, with two small children crying over her.

On arriving at Fosses the party were led to a piece of fallow ground--they numbered between 50 and 60 persons of both sexes. “It was about 7.15 a. m. when the men and the women were separated. An officer came up who said to us in French with a strong German accent, ‘You all deserve to be shot: a young girl of 15 has just fired on one of our Commanders. But the Court-martial has decided that only the men shall be executed: the women will be kept prisoners.’

“The scene that followed passes all description: there were eighteen men standing in a row: besides the parish priests of Anthee and Onhaye, and the Abbe Gaspiard, there was our own priest, Mons. Poskin, and his brother-in-law, Mons. Schmidt, then Doctor Jacques and his son Henri, aged just 16, then Gaston Burniaux, the clerk’s son, and Leonard Soumoy: next them two men named Balbeur and Billy, with the 17-year-old son of the latter: last two men from Onhaye and Dinant who had taken refuge in Surice, and two people more whom I did not know. Mons. Schmidt’s little boy of 14 was nearly put into the line--the soldiers hesitated, but finally shoved him away in a brutal fashion. At this moment I saw a young German soldier--this I vouch for--who was so horror-struck that great tears were dropping onto his tunic: he did not wipe his eyes for fear of being seen by his officer, but kept his head turned away.

“Some minutes passed: then under our eyes and amid the shrieks of women who were crying ‘Shoot me too; shoot me with my husband!’ and the wailing of the children, the men were lined up on the edge of the hollow way which runs from the high road to the bottom of the village. They waved last greetings to us, some with their hands, others with their hats or caps. The young Henri Jacques was leaning on the shoulder of one of the priests, as if to seek help and courage from him: he was sobbing, ‘I am too young; I can’t face death bravely.’ Unable to bear the sight any longer, I turned my back to the road and covered my eyes with my hands. The soldiers fired their volley, and the men fell in a heap. Someone said to me, ‘Look, they are all down!’ But they were not all shot dead; several were finished off by having their skulls beaten in with rifle-butts. Among these was the priest of Surice, whose head (as I was afterwards told) was dreadfully opened out.

“When the massacre was over the Germans plundered the corpses. They took from them watches, rings, purses, and pocket-books. Madame Schmidt told me that her husband had on him about 3,000 francs, which was stolen. Dr. Jacques had also a good sum on him, though his wife could not say exactly how much.

“After this some more German soldiers brought up a man named Victor Cavillot, and shot him before he reached the spot where the others were lying; they fired on him, and I saw him double up and fall into the hollow way.”(2)

The village of Surice was thoroughly sacked. The pillage began on Tuesday night, and continued all day on Wednesday. The safe of Madame Laurent-Mineur, a widow, was blown open with dynamite. Of the 131 houses of the village only eight escaped the conflagration.

This Report gives no more than an incomplete picture of the German ravages and crimes in the Province of Namur. We lack detailed knowledge of what went on in three of the six cantons which form the district of Namur. The total of 800 persons killed and 1,160 houses burned in that district may have to be largely increased. In the district of Dinant, that town itself and 21 villages have been destroyed. In the district of Philippeville 20 villages have been sacked, plundered, and more or less burned down. In the whole province, which has 364,000 inhabitants, nearly 2,000 unoffending people--men, women, and children--have been massacred.

* * * * *

The Commission makes it a rule to limit its publications to a mere statement of facts, thinking that no commentary could add anything to their tragic eloquence. It thinks, however, that the evidence given above leads to certain conclusions.

It has been said that when Belgium makes up the account of her losses, it may appear that war has levied more victims from the civil population than from the men who were called out to serve their country on the battlefield. This prophecy, which seemed contrary to reason, is now confirmed as regards the Province of Namur. In certain parts of it half the male adult population has disappeared: the horrors of the conflagrations at Louvain and Termonde, of the massacres at Aerschot and in Luxembourg and Brabant, are all surpassed by those of the slaughter at Dinant, at Andenne, at Tamines, and at Namur.

In this twentieth century the people of Namur have had to live through all the frightful details of a mediæval war, with its traditional episodes of massacres _en masse_, drunken orgies, sack of whole towns, and general conflagration. The “exploits” of the mercenary bands of the XVIIth Century have been surpassed by those of the national army of a State which claims the first place among civilized nations!

The German Government cannot deny the truth of these facts--they are attested by the ruins and the graves which cover our native soil. But already it has set to work to excuse its troops, affirming that they only repressed, in consonance with the Laws of War, the hostile acts of the Belgian civil population.

From the day of its First Session our Commission has been trying to discover what foundation there might be for this charge--a charge which seemed very unconvincing to anyone who knew the character of the Belgian people. After having examined hundreds of witnesses--foreigners and natives--and after having exhausted every possible means of investigation, we affirm once more that the Belgian people took no part in the hostilities. The supposed “France-Tireur” War, which is said to have been waged against the German Army, is a mere invention. It was invented in order to lessen in the eyes of the civilized world the impression caused by the barbarous treatment inflicted by the German Army on our people, and also to appease the scruples of the German nation, which will shudder with fear on the day when it learns what a tribute of innocent blood was levied by its troops on our children, our wives, and our defenseless fellow-citizens.

Moreover, the chiefs of the German Army have made a singular error when they try to influence the verdict of the civilized world by this particular argument. They seem unaware of the fact that the repression by general measures of individual faults--a system condemned by the International Conventions at which they scoff--has long been condemned by the conscience of the nations of to-day. Among those nations Germany appears for the future as a monstrous and disconcerting moral phenomenon.

(Signed) COOREMAN, _Minister of State, President_.

COMTE GOBLET DE AVIELLA, _Vice-President, Minister of State and Vice-President of the Belgian Senate_.

CHEVALIER ERNEST DE BUNSWYCK, _Chief Secretary to the Minister of Justice_.

ORTS, _Councillor of Legation to H.M. the King of the Belgians_.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Testimony of the Right Reverend Monsignor X---- annexed to the proceedings of the Session of Dec. 18, 1914.

(2) From the testimony of Mademoiselle Aline Diericz, of Tenham, annexed to the Report of the Session of Dec. 18, 1914.

THE GERMAN MILITARY CODE

In 1902 the Historic Section of the German General Staff published a collection of works for the instruction and guidance of the officers of the German Army. Among these works is a Manual upon “The Laws of War on Land.” (“Kriegsgebrauch im Landkriege.”) The following extracts from this manual show that the ideas of the German General Staff on the conduct of warfare are diametrically opposed to the views generally adopted by civilized countries. It is the systematic carrying-out of these ideas which has caused the devastation and desolation of Belgium.

It is by making a deep study of the history of wars that, “_one may protect oneself against exaggerated humanitarian ideas_.”

(Laws of War on Land, pp. 6 and 7)

The claims of professors of International Law (in regard to a certain point under discussion) “should be deliberately rejected in principle as being opposed to the rules of war.”

(Ibid page 46)

The claims of certain professors of International Law in this respect are absolutely contrary to the necessities of warfare, “and should be rejected by military men.”

(Ibid pages 44 and 45)

An energetically conducted war cannot be carried on solely against the combatant enemy and his defenses, but extends and should extend to _the destruction of his material and moral resources. Humanitarian considerations, such as respect for persons and property, can be taken into consideration only provided that the nature and object of the war adapt themselves to that course._

(Ibid page 3)

The above extracts indicate clearly the spirit of the German military class, namely,

To protect themselves against humanitarian ideas, as against a dangerous infection.

To cast aside international law if found incompatible with convenience.

To strike not only at the enemy’s armed forces, but to terrorise him by striking at his “material and moral resources,” _i. e._ his home and property, his wife and children.

These injunctions of the German Code of 1902 have been fully carried out in Belgium, and have converted the German army into “a horde of barbarians and a band of incendiaries.”

The “ethics” of the German Military Code have also been supported by German jurists inoculated with the germ of the same “Kultur.”

Meurer, in his book on the Hague Peace Conference, says that there is no violation of international law “when an act of war is necessary to support the troops or to defend them against a danger which cannot be avoided by any other means, or when the act is necessary in order to realize or assure the success of a military operation which is not in itself prohibited.”

(“Die Haager Friedenskonferenz,” II Band, page 14)

In other words “Necessity Knows No Law.” It is the same doctrine proclaimed by the Imperial German Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, and upheld by other German jurists such as Dr. Karl Strupp, who says:

“A body of troops may be obliged to let their prisoners starve, if the commander thinks this is the only means of carrying out an order which he has received, for example, an order to reach, at a certain time, a place indispensable for the proper conduct of the operations.

“The stipulations of the Laws of War may be disregarded whenever the violation of them seems to be the only means of carrying out a military operation or of assuring its success, or, indeed, of supporting the armed forces, even though it be only one soldier.”

(“Das Internationale Landkriegsrecht,” 1914, pages 7 and 8)

In short, according to the German idea, the recognized Laws of War, as understood by civilized nations, are to be practised by Germany only when found convenient. The alleged killing of one German soldier in Aerschot led to the destruction of the whole town and the massacre of many innocent citizens. It was contrary to Law, but it was in accordance with the spirit of the German Military Code of 1902.

The German Army invaded Belgium with the full intention, in case of resistance, of carrying on a war of terror by means of massacre, robbery and destruction--a war to “destroy the material and moral resources of the enemy.” Moreover, the German officers were provided with forms drawn up in the French language to facilitate them, especially in their work of robbery and arson.

They do not seem to have needed anything to facilitate them in their work of massacre.