Part 1

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THE TRUTH ABOUT GERMAN ATROCITIES

Founded on the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages

1915 Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, 12, Downing Street, London, S.W.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1 Appointment of Committee 2 Terms of Reference 2 Composition of Committee 2 1. CIVILIANS murdered and ill-treated 5 2. WOMEN murdered and outraged 15 3. Murder and ill-treatment of CHILDREN 16 4. Brutal treatment of the AGED, the CRIPPLED and the INFIRM 17 5. The use of CIVILIANS as SCREENS 18 6. KILLING WOUNDED SOLDIERS and PRISONERS 19 7. LOOTING, BURNING and DESTRUCTION of PROPERTY 19 FINDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE 23

(1365) W. 5601/507 250M 7/15 H. C. & L., Ltd.

THE TRUTH ABOUT GERMAN ATROCITIES.

INTRODUCTION.

_Prussia joined in a Guarantee of Belgian Neutrality._

The neutrality of Belgium was guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1839 to which France, Prussia and Great Britain were parties.

_Recent German Assurances._

In 1913 the German Secretary of State, at a meeting of a Budget Committee of the Reichstag, declared that "Belgian neutrality is provided for by international conventions, and Germany is determined to respect those conventions."

On July 31st, 1914, when the danger of war between Germany and France seemed imminent, Herr von Below, the German Minister in Brussels, being interrogated by the Belgian Foreign Department, replied that he knew of the assurances given by the German Chancellor in 1911 (that Germany had no intention of violating Belgian neutrality) and that he "was certain that the sentiments expressed at that time had not changed."

_Passage through Belgium Demanded by Germany._

Nevertheless, on August 2nd, the same Minister presented a note to the Belgian Government demanding a passage through Belgium for the German Army on pain of an instant declaration of war.

_Passage Refused by Belgian King and Government._

Startled as they were by the suddenness with which this terrific war cloud had risen on the eastern horizon, the leaders of the nation rallied round the King of Belgium in his resolution to refuse the demand and to prepare for resistance.

_Invasion._

On the evening of August 3rd, the German troops crossed the frontier.

_Early Outbreak of Atrocities._

No sooner had the Germans violated Belgian territory, than statements of atrocities committed by German soldiers against civilians--men, women and children--found their way into the newspapers of this country. The public could hardly believe the record of cruelty that rapidly accumulated, but the persistence with which reports from one district tallied in general outline with reports from other localities left little doubt in the public mind as to the truth of the alleged atrocities. But it became necessary to make absolutely certain of the facts.

_Home Office Collected Evidence._

The Home Office, in the autumn of 1914, wisely decided to collect evidence of the truth, and, during the concluding months of 1914, a great number of statements taken in writing were collected from Belgian witnesses (mostly civilians), and from British officers and soldiers. The statements were taken by the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions and a number of barristers who assisted the Home Office.

_Government Appointed a Committee to Investigate--Terms of Reference._

On December 15th, 1914, the Government took the important step of appointing a Committee:--

"To consider and advise on the evidence collected on behalf of His Majesty's Government, as to outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops during the present war, cases of alleged maltreatment of civilians in the invaded territories, and breaches of the laws and established usages of war; and to prepare a report for His Majesty's Government showing the conclusion at which they arrive on the evidence now available."=

_Careful Selection of Members of Committee._

In order that the findings of the Committee should command the confidence of the public, the Government was careful to appoint upon it men whose judicial outlook, training and experience for their responsible task could not be questioned.

The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., the distinguished British Ambassador at Washington from 1907 to 1912, was appointed Chairman, and the other members of the Committee were:--

The Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., who was Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University, 1883-1903, and is Judge of the Admiralty Court of Cinque Ports. He is one of the leading authorities on the laws of this country;

The Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., was Member of Parliament for Plymouth (20 years) and London City (1906); was Solicitor-General from 1886 to 1902;

Sir Kenelm Digby, G.C.B., K.C., who was a County Court Judge from 1892 to 1894, and Permanent Under-Secretary of the Home Office from 1895 to 1903;

Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., represented Manchester and North Wiltshire in the House of Commons; was Principal of Owens College, Manchester, from 1898 to 1904; and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University, Manchester, from 1900 to 1913;

Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield;

Mr. Harold Cox, the well-known Journalist and Editor of the "Edinburgh Review," who represented Preston in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910.

_How the Committee Worked._

The Committee laboured for three months, examining the evidence, and more than 1,200 statements made by witnesses were considered. These depositions were in all cases taken down in this country by gentlemen of legal knowledge and experience, and the greatest care was exercised in the task.

_Doubt Removed as Work Proceeded._

The Committee approached their responsible task in a spirit of doubt, but, to use their own words, "the further we went and the more evidence we examined, so much the more was our scepticism reduced.... When we found that things which had at first seemed improbable were testified to by many witnesses coming from different places, having had no communication with one another, and knowing nothing of one another's statements, the points in which they all agreed became more and more evidently true. And when this concurrence of testimony, this convergence upon what were substantially the same broad facts, showed itself in hundreds of depositions, =the truth of those broad facts stood out beyond question=."

_Fairness of Witnesses' Evidence._

The Committee expected "to find much of the evidence coloured by passion, or prompted by an excited fancy. But they were impressed by the general moderation and matter-of-fact level-headedness of the witnesses."

_No desire to "Make a Case."_

Nor could the Committee, in examining the depositions, "detect the trace of any desire to 'make a case' against the German Army." "In one respect, the most weighty part of the evidence," according to the Committee, consisted of the diaries kept by the German soldiers themselves.

_A Terrible Record._

The Report of the Committee, with the Appendix, covers 240 foolscap pages. These 240 pages of cold, judicial print make a terrible indictment against a so-called Civilised Power--and one, moreover, whose home is not in "Darkest Africa," but in the very heart of enlightened Europe.

In this pamphlet space will only permit of the insertion of the Findings of the Committee, and of some examples taken from the Report. _Those who seek fuller information should obtain one or other edition of the official Report and Appendix, particulars of which are given on the cover of this pamphlet._

It should be borne in mind that this terrible record embraces a part only of the area in the occupation of German troops, and is based mainly on the statements of Belgian refugees _in this country_. If it had been possible to extend the enquiry, and to get evidence from the Belgians and the French now inhabiting the districts occupied by Germany, there is no doubt that the volume of evidence would have been much greater.

* * * * *

Note.--_For the purpose of this short pamphlet, the methodical arrangement in geographical areas followed in the Report has been abandoned, and a simpler grouping adopted. The whole of the language, however, in the following pages (apart from the headings) is the official language of the Report. In no instance has it been altered, except where an explanation is required, in which case the explanation is put in brackets. The references in the margin are to the pages in the report from which the statements have been taken. When taken from the Appendix, the letter "A" is prefixed._

1. CIVILIANS MURDERED AND ILL-TREATED.

_The Care of the Belgian Civil Authorities to Collect Firearms from Civilians and to Warn them against taking part in the Hostilities._

[Sidenote: 7]

The Belgian King and Government were aware of the danger which would confront the civilian population of the country if it were tempted to take part in the work of national defence. Orders were accordingly issued by the civil governors of provinces, and by the burgomasters of towns, that the civilian inhabitants were to take no part in hostilities, and to offer no provocation to the invaders. That no excuse might be furnished for severities, the populations of many important towns were instructed to surrender all firearms into the hands of the local officials.

_The Kindness extended to the Invading Germans by the Civil Population of Belgium._

[Sidenote: 26]

Letters written to their homes, which have been found on the bodies of dead Germans, bear witness, in a way that now sounds pathetic, to the kindness with which they were received by the civil population. Their evident surprise at this reception was due to the stories which had been dinned into their ears of soldiers with their eyes gouged out, treacherous murders and poisoned food.

_Outbreak of Atrocities from the Moment the German Army crossed the Frontier._

[Sidenote: 25]

Murder, rape, arson and pillage began from the moment when the German Army crossed the frontier. For the first fortnight of the war, the towns and villages near Liège were the chief sufferers.... There is a certain significance in the fact that the outrages round Liège coincide with the unexpected resistance of the Belgian Army in that district, and that the slaughter which reigned from August 19th to the end of the month is contemporaneous with the period when the German Army's need for a quick passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed imperative.

Article 46 of the Second International Peace Conference (Convention concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land), held at the Hague in 1907, reads as follows:--

_Family honour and rights, individual life, and private property, as well as religious convictions and worship, must be respected._

_Private property may not be confiscated._

_Instances from Herve and Melen._

[Sidenote: 7]

"On the 4th of August," says one witness, "at Herve" (a village not far from the frontier), "I saw at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, near the station, five Uhlans [German cavalry]; these were the first German troops I had seen. They were followed by a German officer and some soldiers in a motor car. The men in the car called out to a couple of young fellows who were standing about 30 yards away. The young men, being afraid, ran off, and then the Germans fired and killed one of them named D----." The murder of this innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the burning and pillage of Herve and of other villages in the neighbourhood, to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both sexes, and to the organised military execution of batches of selected males. Thus at Herve some 50 men escaping from the burning houses were seized, taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, a hamlet west of Herve, 40 men were shot. In one household alone the father and mother (names given) were shot, the daughter died after being outraged, and the son was wounded.

_The Slaughter of Civilians speedily became a Custom._

The burning of the villages in this neighbourhood, and the wholesale slaughter of civilians, such as occurred at Herve, Micheroux and Soumagne appear to be connected with the exasperation caused by the resistance of Fort Fléron, whose guns barred the main road from Aix-la-Chapelle to Liège. Enraged by the losses which they had sustained, suspicious of the temper of the civilian population, and probably thinking that by exceptional severities at the outset they could cow the spirit of the Belgian nation, the German officers and men speedily accustomed themselves to the slaughter of civilians.

_No Official German Denial of Atrocities._

[Sidenote: 25]

Citizens of neutral states who visited Belgium in December and January report that the German authorities do not deny that non-combatants were systematically killed in large numbers during the first weeks of the invasion, and this, so far as we know, has never been officially denied.

_Flight of Belgian Refugees without Parallel._

[Sidenote: 25]

If it were denied, the flight and continued voluntary exile of thousands of Belgian refugees would go far to contradict a denial, for there is no historical parallel in modern times for the flight of a large part of a nation before an invader.

_German Government seek to justify Severities, but no Proof given of Alleged Firing by Civilians._

[Sidenote: 25]

The German Government have, however, sought to justify their severities on the grounds of military necessity, and have excused them as retaliation for cases in which civilians fired on German troops. There may have been cases in which such firing occurred, but no proof has ever been given, or, to our knowledge, attempted to be given, of such cases, nor of the allegations of shocking outrages perpetrated by Belgian men and women on German soldiers.

_On the contrary, Civilians were Warned after the Invasion._

[Sidenote: 26]

The inherent improbability of the German contention is shown by the fact that after the first few days of the invasion every possible precaution had been taken by the Belgian authorities, by way of placards and handbills, to warn the civilian population not to intervene in hostilities.

_Civilians Shot Indiscriminately and without any Inquiry._

[Sidenote: 26]

An invading army may be entitled to shoot at sight a civilian caught red-handed, or anyone who though not caught red-handed is proved guilty on inquiry. But this was not the practice followed by the German troops. They do not seem to have made any inquiry. They seized the civilians of the village indiscriminately and killed them, or such as they selected from among them, without the least regard to guilt or innocence. The mere cry "Civilisten haben geschossen" ("Civilians have been shooting") was enough to hand over a whole village or district, and even outlying places, to ruthless slaughter.

_Killing of Civilians on Scale without any Parallel in Modern Warfare between Civilised Powers._

[Sidenote: 25]

In the present war--and this is the gravest charge against the German Army--the evidence shows that the killing of non-combatants was carried out to an extent for which no previous war between nations claiming to be civilised furnishes any precedent.

_Mass of Evidence convinced Committee of its Truth._

[Sidenote: 27]

That these acts should have been perpetrated on the peaceful population of an unoffending country which was not at war with its invaders, but merely defending its own neutrality, guaranteed by the invading Power, may excite amazement and even incredulity. It was with amazement and almost with incredulity that the Committee first read the depositions relating to such acts. But when the evidence regarding Liège was followed by that regarding Aerschot, Louvain, Andenne, Dinant and the other towns and villages, the cumulative effect of such a mass of concurrent testimony became irresistible, and the Committee were driven to the conclusion that the things described had really happened.

_Killing of Civilians deliberately planned by the Higher Military Authorities and carried out methodically._

[Sidenote: 27]

The excesses recently committed in Belgium were, moreover, too widespread and too uniform in their character to be mere sporadic outbursts of passion or rapacity.

[Sidenote: 25]

That this killing was done as part of a deliberate plan is clear from the facts set forth regarding Louvain, Aerschot, Dinant and other towns. The killing was done under orders in each place. It began at a certain fixed date, and stopped (with some few exceptions) at another fixed date.

_German Army Disciplined to Obey._

[Sidenote: 27]

The discipline of the German Army is proverbially stringent, and its obedience implicit.

[Sidenote: 23]

It was to the discipline rather than the want of discipline in the Army that these outrages, which we are obliged to describe as systematic, were due, and the special official notices posted on certain houses that they were not to be destroyed show the fate which had been decreed for the others which were not so marked.

_A few German Officers showed Feelings of Humanity._

[Sidenote: 27]

The Committee gladly record the instances where the evidence shows that humanity had not wholly disappeared from some members of the German Army, and that they realised that the responsible heads of that organisation were employing them, not in war, but in butchery. "I am merely executing orders, and I should be shot if I did not execute them," said an officer to a witness at Louvain. At Brussels another officer said: "I have not done one hundredth part of what we have been ordered to do by the High German military authorities."

[Sidenote: 30]

A humane German officer, witnessing the ruin of Aerschot, exclaimed in disgust: "I am a father myself, and I cannot bear this. It is not war, but butchery."

_Drink Responsible for many of the Worst Outrages._

[Sidenote: 25]

[Sidenote: 30]

Many of the worst outrages appear to have been perpetrated by men under the influence of drink. Unfortunately, little seems to have been done to repress this source of danger.... Officers as well as men succumbed to the temptation of drink.

_The German Army is Responsible for Crimes which it did not Check._

[Sidenote: 27]

When an army is directed or permitted to kill non-combatants on a large scale, the ferocity of the worse natures springs into fuller life, and both lust and the thirst of blood become more widespread and more formidable. Had less licence been allowed to the soldiers, and had they not been set to work to slaughter civilians, there would have been fewer of those painful cases in which a depraved and morbid cruelty appears.

_The Taking and Murder of Hostages._

[Sidenote: 27]

Two classes of murders in particular require special mention, because one of them is almost new, and the other altogether unprecedented. The former is the seizure of peaceful citizens as so-called hostages to be kept as a pledge for the conduct of the civil population, or as a means to secure some military advantage, or to compel the payment of a contribution, the hostages being shot if the condition imposed by the arbitrary will of the invader is not fulfilled. Such hostage taking ... is opposed both to the rules of war and to every principle of justice and humanity.

_Murder in the Villages._

[Sidenote: 27]

The latter kind of murder is the killing of the innocent inhabitants of a village because shots have been fired, or are alleged to have been fired, on the troops by someone in the village. For this practice no previous example and no justification has been or can be pleaded.... In Belgium large bodies of men, sometimes including the burgomaster and the priest, were seized, marched by officers to a spot chosen for the purpose, and there shot in cold blood, without any attempt at trial or even enquiry, under the pretence of inflicting punishment upon the village, though these unhappy victims were not even charged with having themselves committed any wrongful act.

[Sidenote: 16]

The Committee is specially impressed by the character of the outrages committed in the smaller villages.

_Aerschot and District_ (August 25th).--Immediately after the battle of Malines ... a long series of murders were committed either just before or during the retreat of the army. Many of the inhabitants who were unarmed, including women and young children, were killed--some of them under revolting circumstances.

Evidence given goes to show that the death of these villagers was due, not to accident, but to deliberate purpose.

_A Death-stricken Area._

[Sidenote: 14]

The quadrangle of territory bounded by the towns of Aerschot, Malines, Vilvorde, and Louvain, is a rich agricultural tract, studded with small villages and comprising two considerable cities, Louvain and Malines. This district on August 19th passed into the hands of the Germans, and, owing perhaps to its proximity to Antwerp, then the seat of the Belgian Government and headquarters of the Belgian Army, it became from that date a scene of chronic outrage, with respect to which the Committee has received a great mass of evidence.

_Systematic Massacres._

[Sidenote: 14]

The arrival of the Germans in the district on August 19th was marked by systematic massacres and other outrages at Aerschot itself, Gelrode and some other villages.

_Sudden Outburst of Cruelty follows Belgian Victory._

[Sidenote: 14]

On August 25th the Belgians, sallying out of the defences of Antwerp, attacked the German positions at Malines, drove the enemy from the town and re-occupied many of the villages in the neighbourhood. And just as numerous outrages against the civilian population had been the immediate consequence of the temporary repulse of the German vanguard from Fort Fléron, so a large body of depositions testify to the fact that a sudden outburst of cruelty was the response of the German Army to the Belgian victory at Malines.

_A Reign of Terror._

[Sidenote: 14]

The battle of Malines ... was the occasion of numerous murders committed by the German Army in retreating through the villages of Sempst, Hofstade, Eppeghem, Elewyt and elsewhere. In the second place it led ... to the massacres, plunderings and burnings 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. Lastly, the encounter at Malines seems to have stung the Germans into establishing a reign of terror in so much of the district comprised in the quadrangle as remained in their power.

_Louvain Peacefully Occupied by Germans for Six Days._

[Sidenote: 19]

_Louvain and District._--The events spoken to as having occurred in and around Louvain between August 19th and 25th deserve close attention.