Chapter II: Violations of the Hague Convention (4)

From the very first days of the occupation the Germans, in defiance of law and justice, seized upon the communal treasuries and the funds deposited in the branch establishments of the National Bank, the post offices, etc. They were obliged to recognize the justice of the protests made by the Belgian Government; but their love of pillage is incorrigible; on entering Gand, on Monday, the 12th October, their first care was to lay hands on the 1,800,000 (£72,000) contained in the communal treasury.

According to Article 55 the Germans had no right to remove the furniture of the Ministries of Brussels (p. 134), since this property was not of a kind to be useful in military operations.

ARTICLE 55.

_The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and
usufructuary of public buildings, landed property, forests, and
agricultural undertakings belonging to the hostile State, and
situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of
such properties and administer them in accordance with the rules of
usufruct._

The German respect for legality did not restrain them from violating this Article. From the very first days of the war they employed the churches which they consented to leave standing as stables; on reaching Liége they took possession of the Palais de Justice and made a barracks of it. Why did they expel Justice? Herren Koester and Noske tell us (p. 30), it was simply because the position is central and easy to defend (see a photograph facing p. 32). They did not take account of the fact that such employment of the building is doubly contrary to the Hague Convention, since they did not respect the nature of the monument, and exposed it to bombardment by Allied aviators on the look-out for the German garrison.

It was the same with the Palais de Justice of Brussels, which also serves as a German barracks. To adapt it to its novel use, the soldiers have destroyed a great part of the magnificent furnishings which adorned the halls; the immediate surroundings have been fortified, and the cupola serves by night as a station for signalling to dirigibles. In short, all preparations have been made with a view to the bombardment of Poelaert's masterpiece by the Allies.

It is obviously with the idea of preventing their adversaries from attacking them that they take up their quarters in our monuments; these are to serve them as artistic bucklers, just as our compatriots are employed as living bucklers.

The violations of Article 55 are past counting. We will confine ourselves to mentioning a few in Brussels; they will give us some idea of the diversity of the transformations which our property has suffered at German hands. The offices of the Ministries are transformed into bedrooms for officers. The Palais des Académies has become a military hospital; God knows in what condition we shall find its libraries. In the Parc Royal of Brussels, in the centre of the city, they have installed an automobile depôt, a riding-track, and a rifle range; on the 28th October a shot fired from this range wounded a lady through the windows of the Schlobach _magasin_ in the Rue Royale.

ARTICLE 56.

_The property of local authorities, as well as that of institutions
dedicated to public worship, charity, education, and to science
and art, even when State property, shall be treated as private
property._

_Any seizure or destruction of, or wilful damage to, institutions
of this character, historic monuments and works of science and art,
is forbidden, and should be made the subject of legal proceedings._

The first paragraph of this Article has been scrupulously observed; the property of the communes, etc., has indeed been treated as private property has been treated: the latter has everywhere been sacked and looted, and the Germans have done the same to collective property.

As to the intentional character of these acts of vandalism, it is indubitable. How otherwise explain the fact that in numerous villages the church has been the prey of the flames, in many cases even when the surrounding houses have remained intact? A few examples will suffice. The village of Haecht was occupied on the 19th and 20th August. On the 24th the Belgians in Antwerp made a sortie which was repulsed. The Germans, infuriated, shot 17 civilians and pillaged all the houses, particularly remembering the wine in the cellars. Then the inhabitants were expelled. A fresh sortie of the Belgians took place from the 9th to the 13th September; at noon on the last day our troops fell back; in the afternoon the Germans set fire to the church and 41 houses. The strong-box of the church was broken open after the fire. The destruction of the monument did not strike them as sufficient, and they dynamited the whole on the 16th (or 17th) September. In the neighbouring village of Werchter, after the battle of the 25th and 26th August, they shot 6 civilians and burned 267 houses out of the 513 which formed the village. After the second fight, on the 15th September, they burned the church. In both villages most of the houses round the churches were spared; it will therefore be difficult for the Germans to pretend, as at Louvain, that the burning of these churches was an accident (_Brandunglück_) due to burning fragments carried by the wind (p. 220). We have already (p. 73) noted another more significant case, that of the chapel of the Béguinage of Termonde, which was alone burned, in the centre of the Béguinage, not a dwelling of which was touched.

_Conclusions--The Famine in Belgium._

Germany had need, in the conflict with France, of all the men who passed through Belgium; also she could leave in Belgium only weak garrisons of the Landsturm. To safeguard them against possible attack on the part of the Belgian population, it was necessary to terrorize the latter to such a point that it no longer dared to stir. Such was the object of the carnage and incendiarism which marked the beginning of the campaign, as was frankly admitted by Herr Walter Blöm, adjutant to the Governor-General in Belgium (p. 84). No doubt the massacres of Louvain, Andenne, Tamines, and Dinant, committed to order between the 19th and the 26th August, appeared insufficient, for a new series was organized between the 4th and 13th September.

At the news of this butchery a resounding cry of horror and indignation went up from all the nations of the earth. That the Belgian Army, on the field of battle, should have paid large tribute to the war unloosed upon us by Germany--that was to be expected, but no one would have dared to suppose that Germany, after participating in the second Hague Conference, would display towards our civil population such an implacable cruelty, such exterminating fury, as history has never recorded since the Thirty Years' War. But facts are facts; one must needs submit to the evidence; the German Army has destroyed our treasures of art and science, has shot down in cold blood, often by machine-gun fire, hosts of men, women, even old people and children; it has ordered the burning of thousands of houses; it has turned whole districts into deserts.

Still, some semblance of motive was necessary; with a mathematical regularity the pretext of "francs-tireurs" was alleged. "_Man hat geschossen_"--that was enough; immediately the neighbourhood was given over to massacre, pillage, and fire. Never was any inquiry made, no matter how summary. Yet when it was desired to show a foreigner of note--for example, Dr. Sven Hedin--how they proceeded in the matter of punishing "francs-tireurs," a regular Council of War was constituted ... which brought in a verdict of _non-lieu_ (p. 78). We defy the Germans to cite a single case in which a tribunal of this kind has sat _before_ reprisals. In the few rare cases when witnesses, etc., have been questioned the examination has taken place _after_ the firing of houses and the shooting of inhabitants. This is why we declare without the slightest reservation that _not one single attack by civilians_ has been established by any kind of proof.

_The Flight of the Belgians._

The inhabitants of our towns and our countryside soon realized to what they were exposing themselves if they awaited the arrival of the Germans in their own homes. So, as the Germans advanced, a void appeared before them. After the taking of Antwerp, the majority of the peasants of the "Campine" of Antwerp fled in all haste toward Holland. If to them we add the people of Antwerp, who had been driven out by the bombardment, and above all the innumerable villages of Brabant, Limburg, and the provinces of Liége and Antwerp, whose homes had been pillaged and reduced to ashes, we shall not be astonished to find that in October there were more than a million Belgian refugees in Holland.[30] To our northern neighbours we owe our profoundest gratitude for the fraternal manner in which they welcomed our unfortunate compatriots.

_The Causes of the Famine._

The horror provoked by the butchery at Dinant, Aerschot, etc., relegated to the background the purely material crimes. But these--the pillage, methodically conducted, of our towns, villages, farms, and châteaux--the outrageous requisitions of provisions and of the raw material of industries--the formidable taxes which drain us of coin--the fines which rain upon the communal administrations and on private persons--and many other infractions of the Hague Convention--have exercised on our economical life an extremely depressing effect, but have produced no echo abroad: doubtless because only those can understand the whole extent of our misery who daily rub shoulders with the thousands of starving and unemployed people who drag themselves from one end of the town to the other in quest of work that is not to be found, or who mingle with the interminable files of women who go in search of rations of bread and soup for their families.

Let us briefly consider the principal causes of famine which prevails in Belgium.

1. Exaggerated requisitions, out of all proportion to the resources of the country. They are of two kinds:--

Firstly, those which have emptied the country of grain, cattle, forage, and other foodstuffs.

Then the requisitions of the raw materials intended for the factories, which have completely paralysed industry, especially in the Flanders. One example will suffice. All the workshops of Termonde were burned save one--the Escaut-Dendre establishment, which makes boots and shoes. But the Germans sent into Germany both the leather and the shoes which were in the warehouse. The factory is thus condemned to stand idle for lack of raw material, and also for lack of funds. Those industries of which the machinery has been removed are also, of course, doomed to paralysis. The German authorities threaten to despoil our factories of all the copper forming part of the machinery, which would reduce them one and all to impotence. It is an ironical fact that this measure was announced by a propagandist leaflet addressed to the Belgians.

2. Having made a clean sweep of the greater portion of all that was indispensable to us, the Germans have been careful to take our money from us. Under every imaginable pretext, and often without any pretext at all, they have imposed crushing taxes upon us. The regular payment of these taxes showing that the public coffers were not yet quite empty, the Germans hastened to impose fines upon us, which vary from 5 frs. to 5 millions. The private banks, too, are threatened every moment with the removal of a portion of their funds.

3. It is needless to insist on a third cause, which reduces our working-class families to idleness and poverty: the destruction of an enormous number of factories--some bombarded, but most of them burned of set purpose.

4. We have already seen that many factories which remained intact are condemned to inactivity by the lack of raw material, or because they have been deprived of their machinery. The others are equally paralysed.

The stoppage of traffic on the railway lines, the impediments of all kinds placed in the way of inland navigation, the absence of maritime navigation, are causes more than sufficient to prevent the importation of raw materials and the exportation of manufactured products. Of all these obstacles the most important is assuredly the suppression of goods traffic on the railways. "Why," say the Germans, "do not Belgian employés return to their work, since our military trains would in any case be run by our own men?" Hypocrites! The slowness and irregularity of the trains is highly inconvenient to the German army, and it would much like to see them resume their normal speed; but for this it requires the assistance of the Belgian staff. Is it not obvious that if our railway-men resumed their labours they would at the same time facilitate the transport of German troops and munitions?

Let us again cite the prohibition of "circulation" between 8 or 9 o'clock and 6 o'clock, which is an obstacle to night work, which is quite indispensable to the large industries; and the suppression of the special trains by which the workers travelled.

5. Commerce has suffered no less than industry. There is no telegraph, no telephone, no posting of closed letters; that is, no means of sending or receiving orders. No railway, no horses, no motor-cars to deliver goods or to supply customers. And, to cap all, the slightest journey necessitates all sorts of exaggerated expenses: there is the acquisition of a passport, the train journey at the rate of 10 cm. per kilometre, hotel expenses, etc. The expenditure might be a minor matter, but what of the waste of time? Before 1st July, 1915, any one going from Liége to Brussels for business purposes had first of all to waste one or two days in procuring his passport; the journey occupied at least half a day; and after interviewing his client he would find that there was no train back to Liége on the same day. In short, he would have to allow four days for a journey which in normal times took half a day.

* * * * *

Other causes of famine are:

The scarcity and high cost of provisions.

The financial difficulties in which the public powers are involved.

The paralysis of industry and commerce, resulting in unemployment--that is, in suppression of wages.

In short, a diminution of resources, accompanied by an increase of expenditure; so that the public coffers are almost powerless to come to the aid of private distress.

That is how we stand in Belgium.

It is not our intention to depict the poignant distress which has overwhelmed our country. We shall merely explain briefly how we try to cope with it; this will suffice to give some idea of it.

_Creation of Temporary Shelters._

Let us first of all consider the country districts. Even when a few houses only of a village have escaped incendiarism the inhabitants have returned thither and have resumed their customary labours. Must they not plough and sow, under penalty of preparing for themselves another year of wretchedness? Where houses exist no longer they live in a cellar, or an outhouse to which some kind of roof has been improvised; families passed the winter of 1914-15 in a potato-silo,[31] under the shelter of a few mats of straw. In the ruined villages the first anxiety of the public powers and the relief committees was therefore to provide provisional shelter.

In the towns and industrial districts the most urgent necessities are of another kind. What is lacking most particularly is employment. The administrations have therefore set themselves to provide the unemployed with paid occupations which do not demand apprenticeship--the clearing of ruins, the levelling of soil, the digging of reservoirs, etc. The communal coffers being empty, communal vouchers are issued. _L'Événement Illustré_, in its fourth issue, gives reproductions of some of these vouchers, of which, it states, there are more than 500. In the communes near Louvain, where the poverty is particularly poignant, it has been necessary to create vouchers for 2 centimes (at Wilsele) and 5 centimes (at Herent).

From the outset stringent measures were taken to make up for the insufficiency of provisions and to prevent speculators from obtaining possession of existing stocks. The most important of these regulations are the following:--

(_a_) Fixing of maximum prices.

(_b_) Prohibition of the exportation of provisions from the commune.

(_c_) It is forbidden to give animals provisions intended for human
beings.

(_d_) Collective exploitation. Many communes have set up in
business as bakers, butchers, restaurant-keepers, coal merchants,
dealers in colonial produce, etc. They prepare bread and soup
daily, and these are provided gratuitously to the poorest, or
sold at a low price to those who still have a few savings. In the
Brussels district there had been distributed by the 31st January,
1915, to adults, 30,060,608 rations, comprising soup and bread,
and to the children 932,838 rations, consisting chiefly of milk,
phosphatine, and powdered milk.

Certain communes also sell meat; others have installed communal stores for the sale of all kinds of provisions, especially preserved foods, dried vegetables, salt, potatoes, etc.; almost everywhere coal is sold retail; petroleum was sold as long as it could be obtained. Moreover, the collectivities are distributing enormous quantities of clothes; in the Brussels district alone by the end of January 660,865 frs. worth of clothing and footwear had been given to the necessitous. Abuses have as far as possible been guarded against, (1) by the "household card," the _Carte de ménage_, which indicates the number of persons composing each family; and (2) by the limitation of the quantity of each kind of goods which the household can obtain during the week.

The basis of alimentation is bread. Therefore particularly Draconian rules have been elaborated for the bakeries.

_The National Relief Committee._

Many problems presented themselves simultaneously, and with an extreme urgency. In all communes local committees have been set up, entrusted with the equitable distribution of provisions among all the inhabitants. We say "all the inhabitants," for the reader must not form any illusions as to our condition: there is not a single Belgian family which, if left to itself, could obtain its daily bread; the general rationing to which the whole population is subjected makes rich and poor equally dependent on the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation.

To organize the feeding of the public would have been a task above our strength if Belgium, in her present distress, had been abandoned to her own resources. But the misfortunes which have come upon us because we could not consent to comply with the orders of a tyrannical and perjured neighbour--the poverty which cripples us more completely day by day, as requisitions, pillage, taxes, and fines deprive us of our last resources--the massacres and the incendiarism which have turned into deserts the most fertile and most densely peopled provinces of Europe--the molestations and annoyances which have reduced to unemployment a working population whose activity is proverbial--in short, the unmerited misfortune which _Kultur_ has inflicted upon us--all this has awakened, in all the civilized nations, a current of sympathy and solidarity with poor Belgium.

By Germany our country was condemned to perish of starvation. The miracle which alone could save us has been effected by the charity of Spain, Scandinavia, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the Argentine Republic, Brazil, and, above all, the United States. Since the month of November 1914 vessels laden with provisions have been regularly leaving the American ports for Rotterdam, whence the food is despatched, principally by means of barges, into Belgium, and distributed, in the smallest villages even, by the care of the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation. This Committee is an extension throughout the whole country of a commission which was formed early in September 1914 to succour the Brussels district; it is under the patronage of their Excellencies the Marquis of Villalobar, the Spanish Minister, and Mr. Brand Whitlock, the United States Minister. In January and February 1915 the Committee was induced to concern itself also with the country round Maubeuge, and the Givet--Furnay--Sedan district.

The mission of the National Committee is equitably to distribute relief and provisions. But it does not itself collect these resources; as they derive more particularly from the United States it is an American Committee, the "Commission for Relief in Belgium," which undertakes to collect and administer funds. It is the American Committee which despatches to Rotterdam, from American ports, the steamers carrying food and clothing. In each province the American Commission has a delegate who supervises the distribution of provisions and relief; he assures himself that nothing is diverted to the use of the German army. The Commission for Relief in Belgium sits in London, its chairman being Mr. Herbert Hoover.

* * * * *

A serious difficulty cropped up immediately. Foreign beneficence was eager to aid the Belgians, but not, obviously, the butchers who occupy our country. It was therefore necessary at all costs to prevent the German army from seizing the provisions and subsidies despatched by America.

On the 16th October, 1914, the German authorities undertook to exempt from all requisitions the provisions imported by the National Committee. But this promise was promptly violated. The Germans, it is true, did not requisition the wheat, but they did requisition the bread made from that wheat. Moreover, they pretended that their engagement of the 16th October, 1914, general as it was, did not affect Flanders, a _territoire d'étape_ not subject to the Governor-General. This is the effect of their letter of the 21st November, 1914. Up to the present it has been impossible to get them to keep the engagements to which they subscribed on the 16th October; for although they have extended to cattle-foods the promise that nothing should be requisitioned by the troops placed under the orders of the Governor-General--the _territoire d'étape_ being thus excluded--they have, on the other hand, forced the communes of Flanders to open grain markets, in which they make purchases, thus continuing to impoverish the food-stores of the country.

While they exclude Flanders from the region exempted from requisitions, they take care not to breathe a word of this exemption in their own newspapers. The _K.Z._, on the 4th January, and _Der Volksfreund_ on the 5th declared that requisitions of foodstuffs were suspended throughout Belgium.

Despite the difficulties raised by the Germans, the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation has rendered our country inestimable services, which only those who have visited our towns and rural districts and have seen the work of the local Committees can form any conception.

We borrow from the report of the Executive Committee for the month of January 1915 (published in Brussels 15th February, 1915) a few figures (_see_ table, p. 176) as to the distribution of relief during the month of January.

But the National Committee extends its beneficent action over many departments which are not mentioned in this table.

Here, according to the same report, is the list of these departments:--

I. Department of Alimentation (Foodstuffs).
II. Agricultural Section of the National Committee.
III. Relief Department:
1. Subsidies to Provincial Committees.
2. Construction of Refuges (100,000 frs. for Luxemburg)
3. Organizations patronized:
A. Central Refugee Committee.
B. Assistance and support of families of officers and
under-officers deprived of their means of sustenance
by the war (first subvention 50,000 frs.).
C. Assistance and support of Belgian physicians and
druggists ruined by the war (first subsidy of
10,000 frs.).
D. Assistance and support of artists (first subsidy
10,000 frs.).
E. Assistance and support of infantile charities.
F. Assistance and support of destitute persons.
G. Assistance and support of the homeless (Accommodation
section).
H. Assistance and support of destitute churches (two
subsidies of 5,000 frs. each).
I. Assistance and protection of the unemployed.
J. Assistance and protection of lace-makers (subsidy
of 129,749 frs.).
K. Union of Belgian Towns and Communes.
L. Belgian Intelligence Agency for Prisoners of War
and Persons Interned (monthly subvention of
3,000 frs.).
4. Co-operative Society for Loans and Advances.
5. Advances to Provinces and Communes.
6. Clothing.

DISTRIBUTION OF FOODSTUFFS, CLOTHING, AND SUBSIDIES IN MONEY, IN THE PROVINCES

NATURE OF MERCHANDISE.

_Quantities in Tons._

----------+------+------+----+-----+-----+----+---+-----+----+-------+--------- Despatched|Wheat | Flour|Rice|Peas | Salt|Po- |Ba-|Maize|Sun-|Cloth- |Subsi- or | | | |and | |ta- |con| |dry | ing | dies to Remitted | | | |Beans| |toes| | | | (value|Provin to-- | | | | | | | | | | in | cial | | | | | | | | | |Francs)|Commit- | | | | | | | | | | | tees (in | | | | | | | | | | | France) ----------+------+------+----+-----+-----+----+---+-----+----+-------+--------- Province | | | | | | | | | | | of | | | | | | | | | | | Antwerp | 3,525| 1,247| --| 126| --| 2| --| 713| --|100,880| 300,000 Brussels | | | | | | | | | | | and | | | | | | | | | | | District | 3,371| 1,329| 13| 247| 6| --| --| 90| 82|379,058| 300,000 Brabant | 2,962| 1,486| --| 31| 116| 4| 24| 548| 57|101,916| -- Western | | | | | | | | | | | Flanders | 542| 519| 59| 48| 20| --| --| --| 23| 41,059| 170,000 Eastern | | | | | | | | | | | Flanders | 4,419| 1,982| 37| 46| 4| --| 3|1,120| 14| --| 300,000 Hainaut | 5,602| 3,739| 258| 350| --| 74| --| 181| 293| 81,493| 550,000 Liége | 3,356| 1,242| --| 5| --| --| --| 200| 80| 4,860| 280,000 Limburg | 1,539| 1,466| 11| --| --| 22| --| 200| 35| 41,477| 160,000 Luxemburg | 209| 853| 1| 58| --| --| --| --| --| 16,656| 160,000 Namur | 1,011| 346| --| 60| --| --| --| 150| 89| 95,307| 203,000 General | | | | | | | | | | | Stock, | | | | | | | | | | | Brussels | 446| 119| --| 8|2,268| 38| --| --| 239| --| -- Various | | | | | | | | | | | Charities| --| --| --| --| --| --| --| --| --| 9,687| -- ----------+------+------+----+-----+-----+----+---+-----+----+-------+--------- Totals |27,476|14,338| 359| 979|2,414| 140| 27|3,202| 912|822,379|2,423,000 ----------+------+------+----+-----+-----+----+---+-----+----+-------+---------

Since the month of January 1915 the National Committee has not ceased to extend its activities. But it is impossible to give more precise data. The German authorities no longer permit the Committee to publish its reports. In their dry, official manner they show us only too clearly what we are to think of the present "prosperity" of Belgium and the "normal state of the situation."

* * * * *

It will be seen that the activities of the National Committee are fruitful and extensive. But more and more money is required, as savings are exhausted and as the public coffers are emptied by the Germans.

In January 1915 the Sovereign Pontiff surrendered the Belgian contribution to Peter's Pence.

As 40 million frs. per month (£1,600,000) is being paid to the Germans, poverty is rapidly increasing. The number of Belgians deprived of all resources and obliged to live entirely on charity had risen by February to 1,500,000. It was estimated that by June it would be 2,500,000, or more than one-third of the total population. In February the nourishment of this famishing host already demanded 10 million frs. (£400,000) per month; soon it will demand 12 to 13 millions. In this conjuncture Mr. Hoover, the President of the American Commission, went begging to the British Government, which promised £100,000 per month provided Germany would cease to make requisitions in Flanders and levy the tax of 40 millions. Germany refused. How will it end?

_Belgium's Gratitude to America._

Belgium knows that she owes her relief to the United States. Without American charity our country would perish in the distress into which the German exactions have plunged her. No one in Belgium will ever forget this, and it is in the name of the whole nation that King Albert has publicly thanked America.

It was in sign of homage, and also of gratitude, that on the 22nd February, 1915, on the anniversary of American Independence, the Belgians wore in their buttonholes a medallion of the Stars and Stripes, while thousands of the citizens of Brussels left their cards at the hotel of His Excellency Mr. Brand H. Whitlock. Baron von Bissing spoke of this as childishness; at Liége German officers even snatched the American colours from women and young girls. Massacre and arson are more familiar to _Kultur_ than gratitude.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] And also justified by the laws of warfare as affecting invasion. Moreover: "The rules which affect a _levée en masse_ (a general rising of the people to repel invaders, without organization) should be generously interpreted. The first duty of a citizen is to defend his country, and provided he does so loyally he should not be treated as a marauder or criminal." The Germans could not at the outset know that there was no _levée en masse_.--(TRANS.)

[15] The Germans have tried to persuade Rome that these priests were not assassinated but killed in battle.

[16] To give an idea of these accusations, it was said that in the cellars of a Louvain convent the corpses of fifty German soldiers were discovered, murdered by the monks.

[17] If organized and disciplined, the civic guards and francs-tireurs would have formed part of the Belgian forces, provided they wore a recognizable sign and bore arms openly.--(TRANS.)

[18] We shall see later (p. 221) that at Louvain Dr. Hedin was shamefully deceived by the military authorities who were guiding him through the city. It is this which makes us fear that there may also have been deceit in the case of the villagers tried as "francs-tireurs."

[19] _Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege._ Professor J. H. Morgan has published a translation, with an introduction (John Murray). For a comparison between German, French, and English usages see _Frightfulness in Theory and Practice_, by Charles Andler, ed. Bernard Miall (T. Fisher Unwin).

[20] They are all, with a truly German lack of originality, with the genuine intellectual slavishness of the "blonde beast," simply repeating the words of Clausewitz, as all German military philosophers have done for the best part of a century.--(TRANS.)

[21] A perusal of Clausewitz, von Hartmann, and the _Kriegsbrauch_ would have dispelled all doubt. None of these theories is new: how often does a German develop a _new_ theory? This peculiarly bloodless, mechanically ferocious barbarism is nearly a century old. The French had seen it in action before.--(TRANS.)

[22] The Germans even accuse the Belgian Government of paying its "francs-tireurs" "by the piece"; that is, so much per German killed.

[23] If it had _openly_ encouraged the civil population it would merely have ordered the _levée en masse_, which it had a perfect right to do: as Germany did in 1813. But it is interesting to note that in 1813 the German francs-tireurs were required _not_ to wear distinctive uniforms or badges, and were allowed to use any weapons and any means of injuring the enemy. Germany invented the franc-tireur, and now expects Belgium to do what she would do in a like case. _The bogy so feared by the German soldier is, indeed, his own shadow._ Actually, of course, the Belgian Government called upon civilians to keep quiet and to surrender arms.--(TRANS.)

[24] Thus _Der Grosse Krieg_, pp. 51 and 52, published a Wolff telegram on the 3rd August, 1914, saying that many spies had already been shot in Germany, but that the public should none the less be careful to report suspects, particularly those who spoke a foreign language.

[25] _Étape_ (_etappen_, Germ.), stores, rations, or a halting-place.--(TRANS.)

[26] If we mention Reims it is because the Germans have on eight occasions posted placards in Belgium bearing declarations relating to this crime against civilization.

[27] We have not been able to verify the authenticity of the quotation from the _Times_.

[28] In Germany the phrase has a meaning _sui generis_.

[29] Names will be published later.

[30] See photographs in _Panorama_, 9B (26th August, 1914), 17A (16th October, 1914), 18A (16th October, 1914).

[31] A pit for storing potatoes in good condition.