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Ebook has 506 lines and 38179 words, and 11 pages

PAGE

PREFACE v

TABLE OF ix

LIST OF MAPS ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi

ON THE VIS? ROAD 23

ON THE BARCHON ROAD 27

ON THE FL?RON ROAD 31

ON THE VERVIERS ROAD 37

ON THE MALM?DY ROAD 38

BETWEEN THE VESDRE AND THE OURTHE 42

ACROSS THE MEUSE 44

THE CITY OF LI?GE 46

THROUGH LIMBURG TO AERSCHOT 52

AERSCHOT 57

THE AERSCHOT DISTRICT 74

THE RETREAT FROM MALINES 77

LOUVAIN 89

MAPS

FOOTNOTE:

PAGE

ABBREVIATIONS

ALPHABET, LETTERS OF THE:--

N.B.--Statistics, where no reference is given, are taken from the first and second Annexes to the Reports of the Belgian Commission. They are based on official investigations.

THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM

When Germany declared war upon Russia, Belgium, and France in the first days of August, 1914, German armies immediately invaded Russian, Belgian, and French territory, and as soon as the frontiers were crossed, these armies began to wage war, not merely against the troops and fortifications of the invaded states, but against the lives and property of the civil population.

Outrages of this kind were committed during the whole advance and retreat of the Germans through Belgium and France, and only abated when open manoeuvring gave place to trench warfare along all the line from Switzerland to the sea. Similar outrages accompanied the simultaneous advance into the western salient of Russian Poland, and the autumn incursion of the Austro-Hungarians into Serbia, which was turned back at Valievo. There was a remarkable uniformity in the crimes committed in these widely separated theatres of war, and an equally remarkable limit to the dates within which they fell. They all occurred during the first three months of the war, while, since that period, though outrages have continued, they have not been of the same character or on the same scale. This has not been due to the immobility of the fronts, for although it is certainly true that the Germans have been unable to overrun fresh territories on the west, they have carried out greater invasions than ever in Russia and the Balkans, which have not been marked by outrages of the same specific kind. This seems to show that the systematic warfare against the civil population in the campaigns of 1914 was the result of policy, deliberately tried and afterwards deliberately given up. The hypothesis would account for the peculiar features in the German Army's conduct, but before we can understand these features we must survey the sum of what the Germans did. The catalogue of crimes against civilians extends through every phase and theatre of the military operations in the first three months of the war, and an outline of these is a necessary introduction to it.

In August, 1914, the Central Empires threw their main strength against Belgium and France, and penetrated far further on this front than on the east and south-east. The line on which they advanced extended from the northern end of the Vosges to the Dutch frontier on the Meuse, and here again their strength was unevenly distributed. The chief striking force was concentrated in the extreme north, and advanced in an immense arc across the Meuse, the Scheldt, the Somme, and the Oise to the outskirts of Paris. As this right wing pressed forward, one army after another took up the movement toward the left or south-eastern flank, but each made less progress than its right-hand neighbour. While the first three armies from the right all crossed the Marne before they were compelled to retreat, the fourth never reached it, and the army of Lorraine was stopped a few miles within French territory, before ever it crossed the Meuse. We shall set down very briefly the broad movements of these armies and the dates on which they took place.

Thus, three months after the German armies crossed the frontier, the German invasion of Belgium and France gave place to a permanent German occupation of French and Belgian territories behind a practically stationary front, and with this change of character in the fighting a change came over the outrages upon the civil population which remained in Germany's power. The crimes of the invasion and the crimes of the occupation are of a different order from one another, and must be dealt with apart.

The Germans invaded Belgium on Aug. 4th, 1914. Their immediate objective was the fortress of Li?ge and the passage of the Meuse, but first they had to cross a zone of Belgian territory from twenty to twenty-five miles wide. They came over the frontier along four principal roads, which led through this territory to the fortress and the river, and this is what they did in the towns and villages they passed.

The Germans who marched through Warsage reached Vis? on the afternoon of Aug. 4th. The Belgians had blown up the bridges at Vis? and Argenteau, and were waiting for the Germans on the opposite bank. As they entered Vis?, the Germans came for the first time under fire, and they wreaked their vengeance on the town. "The first house they came to as they entered Vis? they burned" , and they began to fire at random in the streets. At least eight civilians were shot in this way before night, and when night fell the population was driven out of the houses and compelled to bivouac in the square. More houses were burnt on the 6th; on the 10th they burned the church; on the 11th they seized the Dean, the Burgomaster, and the Mother Superior of the Convent as hostages; on the 15th a regiment of East Prussians arrived and was billeted in the town, and that night Vis? was destroyed. "I saw commissioned officers directing and supervising the burning," says an inhabitant . "It was done systematically with the use of benzine, spread on the floors and then lighted. In my own and another house I saw officers come in before the burning with revolvers in their hands, and have china, valuable antique furniture, and other such things removed. This being done, the houses were, by their orders, set on fire...."

The East Prussians were drunk, there was firing in the streets, and, once more, people were killed. Next morning the population was rounded up in the station square and sorted out--men this side, women that. The women might go to Holland, the men, in two gangs of about 300 each, were deported to Germany as franc-tireurs. "During the night of Aug. 15-16," as another German diarist describes the scene, "Pioneer Grimbow gave the alarm in the town of Vis?. Everyone was shot or taken prisoner, and the houses were burnt. The prisoners were made to march and keep up with the troops." About 30 people in all were killed at Vis?, and 575 out of 876 houses destroyed. On the final day of destruction the Germans had been in peaceable occupation of the place for ten days, and the Belgian troops had retired about forty miles out of range.

On the 10th Aug. the cur? writes in his diary:

"There are now 38 houses burnt, and 23 damaged.

"Thursday the 13th: a few houses pillaged, two young men taken away.

"Friday, the 14th: a few houses pillaged.

"Friday night: the village of Barchon is burnt and the cur? taken prisoner...."

The cur?'s last notes for a sermon have survived: "My brothers, perhaps we shall again see happy days...." But on the 16th, before the sermon was delivered, the cur? was shot. He was shot against the church wall, with M. Ruwet, the Burgomaster, and two brothers, one of them a revolver manufacturer who had handed over his stock to the German authorities and had been working for the Red Cross. After the execution the church was burnt down. The nuns of Bl?gny were shot at by Germans in a motor-car when they came out that day to bury the bodies. From the 5th to the 16th Aug., about 30 people were killed in the commune of Bl?gny-Trembleur, and 45 houses burnt in all.

"15th Aug.--11.50 a.m. Crossed the Belgian frontier and kept steadily along the high road until we got into Belgium. We were hardly into it before we met a horrible sight. Houses were burnt down, the inhabitants driven out and some of them shot. Of the hundreds of houses not a single one had been spared--every one was plundered and burnt down. Hardly were we through this big village when the next was already set on fire, and so it went on....

"16th Aug. The big village of Barchon set on fire. The same day, about 11.50 a.m., we came to the town of Wandre. Here the houses were spared but all searched. At last we had got out of the town when once more everything was sent to ruins. In one house a whole arsenal had been discovered. The inhabitants were one and all dragged out and shot, but this shooting was absolutely heart-rending, for they all knelt and prayed. But this got them no mercy. A few shots rang out, and they fell backwards into the green grass and went to their eternal sleep.

"And still the brigands would not leave off shooting us from behind--that, and never from in front--but now we could stand it no longer, and raging and roaring we went on and on, and everything that got in our way was smashed or burnt or shot. At last we had to go into bivouac. Half tired out and done up we laid ourselves down, and we didn't wait long before quenching some of our thirst. But we only drank wine; the water has been half poisoned and half left alone by the beasts. Well, we have much too much here to eat and drink. When a pig shows itself anywhere or a hen or a duck or pigeons, they are all shot down and slaughtered, so that at any rate we have something to eat. It is a real adventure...."

This was the temper of the Germans who destroyed Wandre. They burned 33 houses altogether and shot 32 people--16 of them in one batch.

"The position was dangerous," writes a German in his diary on August 5th, from a picket in front of Fort Fl?ron. "As suspicious civilians were hovering round, houses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 were cleared, the owners arrested .... I shoot a civilian with my rifle, at 400 metres, slap through the head...."

But Verviers and the Verviers road remained comparatively unscathed. Far worse was done by the Germans who descended on the Vesdre from Malm?dy, south-eastward, over the hills.

"Aug. 16th, Li?ge," writes a German soldier in his diary. "The villages we passed through had been destroyed.

"Aug. 19th. Quartered in University. Gone on the loose and boozed through the streets of Li?ge. Lie on straw; enough booze; too little to eat, or we must steal.

"Aug. 20th. In the night the inhabitants of Li?ge became mutinous. Forty persons were shot and 15 houses demolished. Ten soldiers were shot. The sights here make you cry."

There are proofs of German premeditation--warnings from German soldiers to civilians on whom they were billeted, and an ammunition waggon which drew up at 8.0 a.m. in the Rue des Pitteurs, and twelve hours later disgorged the benzine with which the houses in that street were drenched before being burnt.

"The city was perfectly quiet," declares a Belgian witness, "until about 8.0 p.m. At about 9.15 p.m. I was in bed reading when I heard the sound of rifle-fire.... The noise of the firing came nearer and nearer." The first shot was fired from a window of "Emulation Building," looking out on the Place de l'Universit?, in the heart of the town. The Place was immediately crowded with armed German soldiers, firing in the air, breaking into houses, and dragging out any civilians they could find. First nine men were shot in a batch, then 7 more. "About 10.0 p.m. they were shooting everywhere. About 10.30 p.m. several machine guns were firing and artillery as well." "About 11.0 p.m. I saw between 45 and 50 houses burning. There were two seats of the fire--the first at the Place de l'Universit? , the second across the Meuse on the Quai des Pecheurs, where there were about 35 houses burning. I heard a whole series of orders given in German, and also bugle calls, followed by the cries of the victims, and I saw women with children running about in the street, pursued by soldiers...." .

The arson was elaborate. In the Rue des Pitteurs the waggon loaded with benzine moved from door to door. "About 20 men were going up to each of the houses. One of them had a sort of syringe, with which he squirted into the house, and another would throw a bucket of water in. A handful of stuff was first put into the bucket, and when this was thrown into the house there was an immediate explosion" . At the Place de l'Universit?, when the Belgian fire-brigade arrived, they were forbidden to extinguish the fire, and made to stand, hands up, against a wall . Later they were assigned another task. "About midnight," states a witness , "a whole heap of civilian corpses were brought to the H?tel de Ville on a fire-brigade cart. There were 17 of them. Bits were blown out of their heads...."

As the houses caught fire the inmates tried to escape. The few who reached the street were shot down . Most were driven back into the flames. "At about 30 of the houses," a witness states , "I actually saw faces at the windows before the Germans entered, and then saw the same faces at the cellar windows after the Germans had driven the people into the cellars." In this way a number of men and women were burnt alive. In some cases the Germans would not wait for the fire to do their work for them, but bayonetted the people themselves. In one house, near the Episcopal Palace, two boys were bayonetted before their mother's eyes, and then the man--their father and her husband. Another man in the house was wounded almost to death, and the Germans were with difficulty prevented from "finishing him off," next morning, on the way to the hospital. An orphan girl, who lodged in the same house, was violated.

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