Chapter IV: Part 4

"We are naturally encouraged by Grew's telegrams concerning his conversations with the Chancellor. It is probable that the orders [for softening the rigors of the deportations] have not yet been put into effect, as the recruiting of Belgian workmen continues without distinction as between the employed and unemployed. I have received creditable information that choice is made with great rapidity, which allows no time for examination. Mayor in the Province of Namur had given a list of unemployed as one hundred. Practically none of the persons in this list were taken by the Germans, but from the same district hundreds of employed were taken. Apparently the choice is based entirely on the skill and physical fitness of the workmen. There is a great demand for blacksmiths and iron workers. The identification cards from the Commission for Relief in Belgium issued to men working for the _Comité National_ were respected in Antwerp; nine men holding them were taken at Mons; over thirty at Namur, and a few each day in various parts of the country. Over forty thousand are engaged in various departments of relief work, however, and this is but a small percentage. It is reliably reported that very bad conditions exist in the Province of Valenciennes, and that many men have been taken there. They have been without food for sixty-three hours and have no blankets. Apparently they have been deprived of food in order to oblige them to work for the Germans.

"WHITLOCK,
"_American Minister_."

The American minister and the representatives of other powers were able to secure some lessening of the severity of the deportations. Minister Whitlock says:

REPORT OF MINISTER WHITLOCK (continued).

[Sidenote: Neutral representatives are allowed to request reconsideration of special cases.]

[Sidenote: They run into high figures.]

"_We have, of course, done all that was in our power to ameliorate the conditions without in any way seeming officially to intervene. I have already reported to the Department the conversations I have had with the officials. Recently I induced the Political Department to request that we bring to their attention any case of flagrant injustice, and on the basis of this admission we have been sending from time to time to the German authorities the names of certain deported Belgians who were working at the time of their seizure and therefore did not come within the purview of the rule laid down by the German Government that the unemployed should be deported. Other neutral Legations in Brussels have done the same, and the work has assumed proportions that are so large that I fear they may defeat its ends. The Legations of Spain and Holland have organized similar bureaus, and so many requests for repatriation are received that I have been compelled to rent rooms in a vacant house, across the street from the Legation in the rue Belliard, to carry on the work. The necessary staff and supplies for the work have been furnished by the Comité National, which has organized a central bureau that investigates all reports received by the Legations in order to determine whether or not the persons mentioned have received financial assistance since the war, and, as well, to avoid duplication in representations. Inasmuch as it is difficult to make exceptions, I fear, as I said before, that the very mass of these requests will prevent their being examined with any care. So far as we are able to determine, about 100,000 have been deported, and of those less than 2,000 have returned._

"_The Spanish Legation which, because of the fact that Spain is charged with the protection of Belgian interests in Germany, claims precedence in this matter, * * * makes a demand for the return of each and every one who applies, and sends in about two hundred names each day. The Dutch Legation * * * forwards each request that is presented, and, owing to the fact that after the fall of Antwerp, assurances were given by the German Authorities through the Dutch Government to Belgian refugees in Holland that they would not be deported should they return to Belgium, they are receiving a great many. I am told that they submit over fifteen hundred each day._ * * *

"_We have a great many requests, and although we try not to discriminate we attempt to pick out the most deserving cases, though now that I have written that phrase I feel a certain shame in it because all the cases are deserving._

[Sidenote: Germans rarely allow food packages to reach deported Belgians.]

"_I have had requests from the burgomasters of ten communes from La Louvière, asking that permission be obtained to send to the deported men in Germany packages of food similar to those that are being sent to prisoners of war. Thus far the German authorities have refused to permit this except in special instances, and returning Belgians claim that even when such packages are received they are used by the camp authorities only as another means of coercing them to sign the agreements to work._

"_It is said that, in spite of the liberal salary promised those who would sign voluntarily, no money has as yet been received in Belgium from workmen in Germany._" (Concluded on p. 78.)

The American Government was not content with informal recommendations to the German Government, and on December 5, 1916, the American representative at Berlin laid this formal protest before the German chancellor:

FORMAL PROTEST OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

[Sidenote: A solemn protest by United States.]

"The Government of the United States has learned with the greatest concern and regret of the policy of the German Government to deport from Belgium a portion of the civilian population with the result of forcing them to labor in Germany, and is constrained to protest in a friendly spirit but most solemnly against this action which is in contravention of all precedent and those humane principles of international practice which have long been accepted and followed by civilized nations in their treatment of noncombatants in conquered territory. Furthermore, the Government of the United States is convinced that the effect of this policy if pursued will in all probability be fatal to the Belgian relief work so humanely planned and so successfully carried out, a result which would be generally deplored and which, it is assumed, would seriously embarrass the German Government."

[Sidenote: Other neutrals support American protest.]

This protest was followed by those of the Pope, the King of Spain, the Government of Switzerland, and other neutrals. They were of no avail, except, perhaps, to lead the German authorities to draw a tighter veil over their detestable proceedings. But the evidence has in some measure come through, although the full facts will not be known until the liberation of heroic Belgium.

In the _Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_ of December 2, 1916, the following protests appeared, made, respectively, by Socialist Deputy Haase and Deputy Dittmann, members of the Reichstag:

PROTESTS AGAINST DEPORTATIONS HEARD IN REICHSTAG.

"Thousands of workmen in the occupied territory have been compelled to forced labor; we earnestly ask the government to restore to these workmen their liberty, especially in Belgium. In truth, we [the Germans] find no sympathy in neutral countries; even the Pope has made a protest against this procedure, and several neutral states have done the same. Common sense itself demands that we abandon this procedure which moreover is in opposition to the Hague Convention to which we have agreed."

"In opposition to the Secretary of State, I must recall that when formerly the Belgian workmen who had fled to Holland returned to Belgium, Governor General von Bissing promised that these Belgian workmen would under no circumstances be deported to Germany. This reassuring promise has not been kept."

Ambassador Gerard's interesting testimony appears in his recent book:

AMBASSADOR GERARD'S EVIDENCE.

[Sidenote: American indignation at deportations.]

"The President [during my visit to America in 1916] impressed upon me his great interest in the Belgians deported to Germany. The action of Germany in thus carrying a great part of the male population of Belgium into virtual slavery had roused great indignation in America. As the revered Cardinal Farley said to me a few days before my departure, 'You have to go back to the times of the Medes and the Persians to find a like example of a whole people carried into bondage.'

"Mr. Grew had made representations about this to the Chancellor and, on my return, I immediately took up the question.

[Sidenote: Gerard not permitted to visit deported Belgians.]

"I was informed that it was a military measure, that Ludendorf had feared that the British would break through and overrun Belgium and that the military did not propose to have a hostile population at their backs who might cut the rail lines of communication, telephones and telegraphs, and that for this reason the deportation had been decided on. I was, however, told I would be given permission to visit these Belgians. The passes, nevertheless, which alone made such visiting possible were not delivered until a few days before I left Germany.

[Sidenote: Some of them call on him.]

"Several of these Belgians who were put to work in Berlin managed to get away and come to see me. They gave me a harrowing account of how they had been seized in Belgium and made to work in Germany at making munitions to be used probably against their own friends.

"I said to the Chancellor, 'There are Belgians employed in making shells contrary to all rules of war and the Hague Conventions.' He said, 'I do not believe it.' I said, 'My automobile is at the door. I can take you, in four minutes, to where thirty Belgians are working on the manufacture of shells.' But he did not find time to go.

"Americans must understand that the Germans will stop at nothing to win this war, and that the only thing they respect is force." James W. Gerard, _My Four Years in Germany_, 1917, pp. 351-52.

A similar point of view is expressed in an article entitled "Vae Victis" from the Hungarian newspaper _Nepszawa_ of Budapest (quoted in K.G. Ossiannilsson, _Militarism at Work in Belgium and Germany_, 1917, pp. 53-54).

HUNGARIAN OPINION ON DEPORTATIONS.

"Mechanical skill, and especially qualified mechanical skill, is for the moment a more important factor than usual, and as it must be obtained where it can be obtained, Belgium has had to suffer in accordance with the old saying which always holds good: _Vae victis_ (woe to the vanquished). In Poland, mechanical skill and the arms which exist there are mobilized under 'the glorious and fortunate banners of Poland'; in Belgium under 'the banner of necessity.'"

[Sidenote: The Germans are using the Belgians for war work.]

"* * * The question remains: for what kind of work will the Germans use the Belgians? * * * Every kind of work in Germany is war work, whether it is called agricultural or industrial work. As the deported Belgians have not given their consent, their use is contrary to international law, and the policy of the Germans in Belgium and Poland is equally to be deplored. Instead of aiming at bringing us nearer peace, it serves to embitter our opponents and to rouse more hatred towards us amongst the neutrals. Many times and more and more we have had occasion to observe that the neutrals show more sympathy for Belgium than for any other belligerent."

[Sidenote: Belgians still being deported, September, 1917.]

The news dispatches indicate that the deportation and forced labor of Belgians still continue. In a dispatch from Havre (New York _Evening Post_, September 13, 1917) it is stated: "The removal of the civilian population of Belgium continues, according to advices received here. The town of Roulers, immediately behind the battle line in Flanders, has been evacuated completely. Ostend is being emptied gradually, and two thousand persons already have been sent from Courtrai." In another dispatch from Havre (_Washington Post_, September 24, 1917) it is stated that "the German military authorities at Bruges, Belgium, are conscripting forcibly all the boys and men of that city between the ages of 14 and 60 to work in munition factories and shipyards. The rich and poor, shopkeepers and workmen, all are being taken, only the school-teachers, doctors, and priests escaping."

REPORT OF MINISTER WHITLOCK (concluded).

[Sidenote: German capacity for blundering.]

"_One interesting result of the deportations remains to be noted, a result that once more places in relief the German capacity for blundering, almost as great as the German capacity for cruelty. Until the deportations were begun there was no intense hatred on the part of the lower classes, i.e., the workingmen and the peasants. The old Germans of the Landsturm had been quartered in Flemish homes; they and the inmates spoke nearly the same language; they got alone fairly well; they helped the women with the work, the poor and the humble having none of those hatreds of patriotism that are among the privileges of the upper classes. It is conceivable that the Flemish population might have existed under German rule; it was Teutonic in its origin and anti-French always. But now the Germans have changed all that._

[Sidenote: Germans will be hated for generations.]

"_They have dealt a mortal blow to any prospect they may ever have had of being tolerated by the population of Flanders; in tearing away from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and a father or a son and brother they have lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out; they have brought home to every heart in the land, in a way that will impress its horror indelibly on the memory of three generations, a realization of what German methods mean, not, as with the early atrocities, in the heat of passion and the first lust of war, but by one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race, a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution, and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed._

"WHITLOCK."

Mr. Hoover's mature conclusions on the German practices in Belgium, which he has written for this pamphlet, reinforce the detailed evidence already presented.

MR. HOOVER'S CONCLUSIONS.

SEPTEMBER, 1917.

I have been often called upon for a statement of my observation of German rule in Belgium and Northern France.

I have neither the desire nor the adequate pen to picture the scenes which have heated my blood through the two and a half years that I have spent in work for the relief of these 10,000,000 people.

[Sidenote: Belgian atrocities are the result of the "system."]

The sight of the destroyed homes and cities, the widowed and fatherless, the destitute, the physical misery of a people but partially nourished at best, the deportation of men by tens of thousands to slavery in German mines and factories, the execution of men and women for paltry effusions of their loyalty to their country, the sacking of every resource through financial robbery, the battening of armies on the slender produce of the country, the denudation of the country of cattle, horses and textiles; all these things we had to witness, dumb to help other than by protest and sympathy, during this long and terrible time--and still these are not the events of battle heat, but the effects of a grinding heel of a race demanding the mastership of the world.

All these things are well known to the world--but what can never be known is the dumb agony of the people, the expressionless faces of millions whose souls have passed the whole gamut of emotions. And why? Because these, a free and democratic people, dared plunge their bodies before the march of autocracy.

I myself believe that if we do not fight and fight now, all these things are possible to us--but even should the broad Atlantic prove our present defender, there is still Belgium. Is it worth while for us to live in a world where this free and unoffending people is to be trampled into the earth and to raise no sword in protest?

HERBERT HOOVER.

FRANCE.

[Sidenote: German practices were the same in all occupied regions.]

In France the German system of forced labor and deportations, with its attendant callousness, brutalities, and horrors, was the same as in Belgium. Inasmuch as the German system in action has been adequately illustrated in the foregoing pages on Belgium, it will suffice in this part simply to show the real identity of German practice in the two occupied regions. This can be done from the official documents and from a summary by Ambassador Gerard. The harrowing details may be gathered from the scores of depositions which accompany the note addressed by the French Government to the Governments of the neutral powers July 25, 1916. These are on file in the State Department, and have also been translated, along with the official documents, in _The Deportation of Women and Girls from Lille_, New York, Doran.

PROCLAMATION OF THE GERMAN MILITARY COMMANDANT OF LILLE.

"The attitude of England makes the provisioning of the population more and more difficult.

"To reduce the misery, the German authorities have recently asked for volunteers to go and work in the country. This offer has not had the success that was expected.

[Sidenote: German proclamation at Lille, April, 1916.]

"In consequence of this the inhabitants will be deported by order and removed into the country. Persons deported will be sent to the interior of the occupied territory in France, far behind the front, where they will be employed in agricultural labor, and not on any military work whatever. By this measure they will be given the opportunity of providing better for their subsistence.

"In case of necessity, provisions can be obtained through the German depots. Every person deported will be allowed to take with him 30 kilograms of baggage (household utensils, clothes, etc.), which it will be well to make ready at once.

"I therefore order that no one, until further orders, shall change his place of residence. No one may absent himself from his declared legal residence from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. (German time), unless he is in possession of a permit in due form.

"Inasmuch as this is an irrevocable measure, it is in the interest of the population itself to remain calm and obedient.

"COMMANDANT.

"LILLE, _April, 1916_."

NOTICE DISTRIBUTED TO HOUSES IN LILLE.

"All the inhabitants of the house, with the exception of children under fourteen and their mothers, and also of old people, must prepare themselves for transportation in an hour and a half's time.

[Sidenote: Inhabitants of Lille given 90 minutes to get ready to depart.]

"An officer will decide definitely what persons will be taken to the concentration camps. For this purpose all the inhabitants of the house must assemble in front of it; in case of bad weather they may remain in the passage. The door of the house must remain open. All protests will be useless. No inmate of the house, even those who are not to be transported, may leave the house before 8 a.m. (German time).

"Each person will be permitted to take 30 kilograms of baggage; if anyone's baggage exceeds that weight, it will all be rejected without further consideration. Packages must be separately made up for each person and must bear an address legibly written and firmly affixed. This address must contain the surname and the Christian name and the number of the identity card.

[Sidenote: Must carry their own cooking utensils.]

"It is absolutely necessary that each person should, in his own interest, provide himself with eating and drinking utensils, as well as with a woolen blanket, good shoes, and body linen. Everyone must carry his identity card on his person. Anyone attempting to evade transportation will be punished without mercy.

"ETAPPEN-KOMMANDANTUR."

[LILLE, _April, 1916_.]

PROTEST OF BISHOP CHAROST, OF LILLE, ADDRESSED TO GENERAL VON GRAEVENITZ.

"MONSIEUR LE GÉNÉRAL: It is my duty to bring to your notice the fact that a very agitated state of mind exists among the population.

"Numerous removals of women and girls, certain transfers of men and youth, and even of children, have been carried out in the districts of Tourcoing and Roubaix without judicial procedure or trial.

[Sidenote: The Bishop protests against deportations.]

"The unfortunate people have been sent to unknown places. Measures equally extreme and on a larger scale are contemplated at Lille. You will not be surprised, Monsieur le Général, that I intercede with you in the name of the religious mission confided to me. That mission lays on me the burden of defending with respect but with courage, the Law of Nations, which the law of war must never infringe, and that eternal morality whose rules nothing can suspend. It makes it my duty to protect the feeble and the unarmed, who are as my family to me and whose burdens and sorrows are mine.

[Sidenote: Appeals to the humanity of the commander.]

"You are a father; you know that there is not in the order of humanity a right more honorable or more holy than that of the family. For every Christian the inviolability of God, who created the family, attaches to it. The German officers who have been billeted for a long time in our homes know how deep in our hearts we of the North hold family affection and that it is the sweetest thing in life to us. Thus to dismember the family by tearing youths and girls from their homes is not war; it is for us tortures and the worst of tortures--unlimited moral torture.

[Sidenote: The methods of deportation a danger to morals.]

[Sidenote: Hopes for restoration of the deported.]

"The violation of family rights is doubled by a violation of the sacred demands of morality. Morality is exposed to perils, the mere idea of which is revolting to every honest man, from the promiscuity which inevitably accompanies removals _en masse_, involving mixture of the sexes, or, at all events, of persons of very unequal moral standing. Young girls of irreproachable life, who have never committed any worse offense than that of trying to pick up some bread or a few potatoes to feed a numerous family, and who have besides paid the light penalty for such trespass, have been carried off. Their mothers, who have watched so closely over them and had no other joy than that of keeping their daughters beside them, in the absence of father and sons fighting or killed at the front--these mothers are now alone. They bring to me their despair and their anguish. I am speaking of what I have seen and heard. I know that you have no part in these harsh measures. You are by nature inclined toward justice; that is why I venture to turn to you; I beg you to be good enough to forward without delay to the German High Military Command this letter from a Bishop, whose deep grief they will easily imagine. We have suffered much for the last twenty months, but no stroke of fortune could be comparable to this; it would be as undeserved as it is cruel and would produce in all France an indelible impression. I cannot believe that the blow will fall. I have faith in the human conscience and I preserve the hope that the young men and girls of respectable families will be restored to their homes in answer to the demand for their return and that sentiments of justice and honor will prevail over all lower considerations.

"ALEXIS ARMAND,
"_Bishop_."

ADDRESS OF PROMINENT CITIZENS OF ROUBAIX AND TOURCOING TO THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.

"To Monsieur RAYMOND POINCARÉ,
"_President of the French Republic, Paris_.

"SIR: We have the honor to express again our most sincere gratitude to you for your most kind reception, a few days ago, of the deputation which went with feelings of legitimate emotion to inform you of the deportation of lads and girls, which the German authorities have just carried out in the invaded districts.

"We have collected some details on the subject from the lips of an honorable and trustworthy person, who succeeded in leaving Tourcoing about ten days ago; we think it our duty to bring these details to your notice by reproducing textually the declarations which have been made to us:

"'These deportations began towards Easter. The Germans announced that the inhabitants of Roubaix, Tourcoing, Lille, etc., were going to be transported into French districts where their provisioning would be easier.

[Sidenote: The procedure of the deportations.]

"'At night, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, a whole district of the town was invested by the troops of occupation. To each house was distributed a printed notice, of which we give below an exact reproduction, preserving the style and spelling. [See second document, above.]

"'The inhabitants so warned were to hold themselves ready to depart an hour and a half after the distribution of the proclamation.

"'Each family, drawn up outside the house, was examined by an officer, who pointed out haphazard the persons who were to go. No words can express the barbarity of this proceeding nor describe the heartrending scenes which occurred; young men and girls took a hasty farewell of their parents--a farewell hurried by the German soldiers who were executing the infamous task--rejoined the group of those who were going, and found themselves in the middle of the street, surrounded by other soldiers with fixed bayonets.

[Sidenote: Sometimes a kind-hearted officer could not carry out the brutal orders.]

"'Tears of despair on the part of parents and children so ruthlessly separated did not soften the hearts of the brutal Germans. Sometimes, however, a more kind-hearted officer yielded to too great a despair, and did not choose all the persons whom he should--by the terms of his instructions--have separated.

"'These girls and lads were taken in street cars to factories, where they were numbered and labelled like cattle and grouped to form convoys. In these factories they remained twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six hours until a train was ready to remove them.

"'The deportation began with the villages of Roncq, Halluin, etc., then Tourcoing and Roubaix. In towns the Germans proceeded by districts.

[Sidenote: Numbers deported.]

"'In all about 30,000 persons are said to have been carried off up to the present. This monstrous operation has taken eight to ten days to accomplish. It is feared, unfortunately, that it may begin again soon. The departures took place in freight cars to the sound of the "Marseillaise."

"'The reason given by the German authorities is a humanitarian (?) one. They have put forward the following pretexts: provisioning is going to break down in the large towns in the north and their suburbs, whereas in the Ardennes the feeding is easy and cheap.

[Sidenote: Young men and girls lodged in "disgraceful promiscuity."]

"'It is known from the young men and girls, since sent back to their families for reasons of health, that in the Department of the Ardennes the victims are lodged in a terrible manner, in disgraceful promiscuity; they are compelled to work in the fields. It is unnecessary to say that the inhabitants of our towns are not trained to such work. The Germans pay them 1.50 m. But there are complaints of insufficient food.

"'They were very badly received in the Ardennes. The Germans had told the Ardennais that these were "volunteers" who were coming to work, and the Ardennais proceeded to receive them with many insults, which only ceased when the forcible deportation, of which they were the victims, became known.

"'Feeling ran especially high in our towns. Never has so iniquitous a measure been carried out. The Germans have shown all the barbarity of slave drivers.

"'The families so scattered are in despair and the morale of the whole population is gravely affected. Boys of 14, schoolboys in knickerbockers, young girls of 15 to 16 have been carried off, and the despairing protests of their parents failed to touch the hearts of the German officers or rather executioners.

"'One last detail: The persons so deported are allowed to write home once a month; that is to say, even less often than military prisoners.'

"Such are the declarations which we have collected and which, without commentary, confirm in an even more striking way the facts which we took the liberty of laying before you.

"We do not wish here to enter into the question of provisioning in the invaded districts; others, better qualified than ourselves, give you, as we know, frequent information. It is enough for us to describe in a few words the situation from this aspect:

"The provisioning is very difficult; food, apart from that supplied by the Spanish-American Committee, is very scarce and terribly dear. * * * People are hungry and the provisioning is inadequate by at least a half; our population is suffering constant privations and is growing noticeably weaker. The death rate, too, has increased considerably.

[Sidenote: People rely on the neutral powers.]

"Sometimes inhabitants of the invaded territories speak with a note of discouragement, crying apparently: 'We are forsaken by everyone.' We, on the other hand, are hopeful, Monsieur le Président, that the energetic intervention on the part of Neutrals, which the French Government is sure to evoke, will soon bring to an end these measures which rouse the wrath of all to whom humanity is not an empty word. * * *

"With all confidence in the sympathy of the Government we venture to address a new and pressing appeal to your generous kindness and far-reaching influence in the name of those who are suffering on behalf of the whole country."

(Signed on behalf of various specified organizations by Toulemonde, Charles Droulers, Léon Hatine-Dazin, and Louis Lorthiois.)

"PARIS, _15th June, 1916, 3, rue Taitbout_."

AMBASSADOR GERARD'S STATEMENT.

[Sidenote: Barbarity of deportations.]

"It seems that the Germans had endeavored to get volunteers from the great industrial towns of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing to work these fields; that after the posting of the notices calling for volunteers only fourteen had appeared. The Germans then gave orders to seize a certain number of inhabitants and send them out to farms in the outlying districts to engage in agricultural work. The Americans told me that this order was carried out with the greatest barbarity; that a man would come home at night and find that his wife or children had disappeared and no one could tell him where they had gone except that the neighbours would relate that German noncommissioned officers and a file of soldiers had carried them off. For instance, in a house of a well-to-do merchant who had perhaps two daughters of fifteen and seventeen and a man servant, the two daughters and the servant would be seized and sent off together to work for the Germans in some little farm house whose location was not disclosed to the parents. The Americans told me that this sort of thing was causing such indignation among the population of these towns that they feared a great uprising and a consequent slaughter and burning by the Germans.

[Sidenote: Chancellor says that the military authorities ordered the deportations.]

"That night at dinner I spoke to the Chancellor about this and told him that it seemed to me absolutely outrageous; and that, without consulting with my government, I was prepared to protest in the name of humanity against a continuance of this treatment of the civil population of occupied France. The Chancellor told me that he had not known of it, that it was the result of orders given by the military, that he would speak to the Emperor about it, and that he hoped to be able to stop further deportations. I believe that they were stopped, but twenty thousand or more who had been taken from their homes were not returned until months afterwards. I said in a speech that I made in May on my return to America that it required the joint efforts of the Pope, the King of Spain, and our President to cause the return of these people to their homes; and I then saw that some German press agency had come out with an article that I had made false statements about this matter because these people were not returned to their homes as a result of the representations of the Pope, the King of Spain, and our President, but were sent back because the Germans had no further use for them. It seems to me that this denial makes the case rather worse than before." James W. Gerard, _My Four Years in Germany_, 1917, pp. 333-335.

POLAND.

The systematic exploitation of human misery by the German authorities in Poland followed the general plan with which the reader has become only too familiar. In order to prove the identity of procedure it will be enough to present the detailed report specially written for this pamphlet by Mr. Frederic C. Walcott. A fuller and in some ways more touching treatment is given in his article, "Devastated Poland," in the _National Geographic Magazine_ for May, 1917.

POLAND AND THE PRUSSIAN SYSTEM.

SEPTEMBER, 1917.

Poland--Russian Poland--is perishing. And the German high command, imbued with the Prussian system, is coolly reckoning on the necessities of a starving people to promote its imperial ends.

West Poland, which has been Prussian territory more than a hundred years, is a disappointment to Germany; its people obstinately remain Poles. This time they propose swifter measures. In two or three years, by grace of starvation and frightfulness, they calculate East Poland will be thoroughly made over into a German province.

[Sidenote: Devastation of Poland.]

In the great Hindenburg drive one year ago, the country was completely devastated by the retreating Russian army and the oncoming Germans. A million people were driven from their homes. Half of them perished by the roadside. For miles and miles, when I saw the country, the way was littered with mudsoaked garments and bones picked clean by the crows--though the larger bones had been gathered by the thrifty Germans to be ground into fertilizer. Wicker baskets--the little basket in which the baby swings from the rafters in every peasant home--were scattered along the way, hundreds and hundreds, until one could not count them, each one telling a death.

Warsaw, which had not been destroyed--once a proud city of a million people--was utterly stricken. Poor folks by thousands lined the streets, leaning against the buildings, shivering in snow and rain, too weak to lift a hand, dying of cold and hunger. Though the rich gave all they had, and the poor shared their last crust, they were starving there in the streets in droves.

In the stricken city, the German governor of Warsaw issued a proclamation. All able-bodied Poles were bidden to go to Germany to work. If any refused, let no other Pole give him to eat, not so much as a mouthful, under penalty of German military law.

[Sidenote: The policy of starvation.]

It was more than the mind could grasp. To the husband and father of broken families, the high command gave this decree: Leave your families to starve; if you stay, we shall see that you do starve--this to a high-strung, sensitive, highly organized people, this from the authorities of a nation professing civilization and religion to millions of fellow Christians captive and starving.

[Sidenote: Country to be restocked with Germans.]

General von Kries, the governor, was kind enough to explain.

Candidly, they preferred not quite so much starvation; it might get on the nerves of the German soldiers. But, starvation being present, it must work for German purpose. Taking advantage of this wretchedness, the working men of Poland were to be removed; the country was to be restocked with Germans. It was country Germany needed--rich alluvial soil--better suited to German expansion than distant possessions. If the POLAND that was had to perish, so much the better for Germany.

Remove the men, let the young and weak die, graft German stock on the women. See how simple it is: with a crafty smile, General von Kries concluded, "By and by we must give back freedom to Poland. Very good; it will reappear as a German province."

Slowly, I came to realize that this monstrous, incredible thing was the PRUSSIAN SYSTEM, deliberately chosen by the circle around the all-highest, and kneaded into the German people till it became part of their mind.

German people are material for building the State--of no other account. Other people are for Germany's will to work upon. Humanity, liberty, equality, the rights of others--all foolish talk. Democracy, an idle dream. The true Prussian lives only for this, that the German State may be mighty and great.

[Sidenote: German system of frightfulness everywhere.]

All the woes in the long count against Germany are part of the Prussian system. The invasion of Belgium, the deportations, the starving of subject people, the Armenian massacres, atrocities, frightfulness, sinking the Lusitania, the submarine horrors, the enslavement of women--all piece into the monstrous view. The rights of nations, the rights of men, the lives and liberties of all people are subordinate to the German aim of dominion over all the world.

FREDERICK C. WALCOTT.

CONCLUSION.

STATEMENT OF MR. VERNON KELLOGG, SEPTEMBER, 1917.

(Prepared for this pamphlet.)

[Sidenote: The graves of the massacred.]

It was my privilege--and necessity--in connection with the work of the Commission for Relief in Belgium to spend several months at the Great Headquarters of the German armies in the west, and later to spend more months at Brussels as the Commission's director for Belgium and occupied France. It was an enforced opportunity to see something of German practice in the treatment of a conquered people, part of whom (the French and the inhabitants of the Belgian provinces of East and West Flanders) were under the direct control of the German General Staff and the several German armies of the west, and part, the inhabitants of the seven other Belgian provinces, under the quasi-civil government of Governor General von Bissing. I did not enter the occupied territories until June, 1915, and so, of course, saw none of the actual invasion and overrunning of the land. I saw only the graves of the massacred and the ruins of their towns. But I saw through the long, hard months much too much for my peace of mind of how the Germans treated the unfortunates under their control after the occupation.

It would be an unnecessary repetition to describe again the scenes in Louvain, Dinant, Visé, Andenne, Tamines, Aerschot, and the rest of the familiar long list of the ruined Belgian towns. But too little has been said of the many, many ruined villages all over the extent of the occupied French territory from Lille in the north to Longwy in the south, and from the eastern boundary of France to the fatal trench lines of the extreme western front.

As chief representative for the Commission, it was my duty to cover this whole territory repeatedly in long motor journeys in company with the German officer assigned for my protection--and for the protection of the German army against any too much seeing. As I had opportunity also to cover most of Belgium in repeated trips from Brussels into the various provinces, I necessarily had opportunity to compare the destruction wrought in the two regions.

[Sidenote: Towns untouched by war but ruined.]

I could understand why certain towns and villages along the Meuse and along the lines of the French and English retreat were badly shot to pieces. There had been fighting in these towns and the artillery of first one side and then the other had worked their havoc among the houses of the inhabitants. But there were many towns in which there had been no fighting and yet all too many of these towns also were in ruins. It was not ruin by shells, but ruin by fire and explosions. There were the famous "punished" towns. Either a citizen or perhaps two or three citizens had fired from a window on the invaders--or were alleged to have. Thereupon a block, or two or three blocks, or half the town was methodically and effectively burned or blown to pieces. There are many of these "punished" towns in occupied France. And between these towns and along the roadways are innumerable isolated single farm houses that are also in ruins. It is not claimed that there was any sniping from these farmhouses. They were just destroyed along the way--and by the way, one may say. When the roll of destroyed villages and destroyed farmhouses in occupied France is made known, the world will be shocked again by this evidence of German thoroughness.

[Sidenote: Heartlessness of German rule.]

The rigor of the control over the inhabitants of the occupied French territory is almost inconceivable. The lines delimiting the regions occupied by the various distinct German armies are lines of impassable steel for the inhabitants. If a member of the family in one town was visiting friends or relatives in another town a few kilometers away at the time of the outbreak of the war that family has remained separated through all the long months that have since elapsed. No messages can pass except by dangerous subterranean ways from town to town.

[Sidenote: False receipts for requisitioned property.]

The requisitioning of everything from food to furniture, from farm animals to the blankets and mattresses from the beds, has been carried to such an extent that the people live on nothing, amid nothing. These requisitions in the earlier days had a more or less official seeming in that quartermaster's _bons_ were given for the things taken. Even then the German sense of humor too often made the _bon_ a crude jest. The _bons_ were written in the German language in German script, illegible and beyond the understanding of the simple natives. A _bon_ might be given for a chicken when it was a pair of horses that was taken. But later, when these jests palled on the German soldiers, the requisitioning was simplified by the omission of _bon_-giving. Where the villagers and peasants had tried to save something that could be buried or concealed, the searching out of these pitiful hiding places became a great game with the German soldiers. One ingenious Frenchman had secreted a few choice bottles of wine in a famous tomb on heights above the Meuse. But these bottles found their way to special tables at the Great Headquarters.

In the spring of 1916 the army authorities devised the plan of deporting a number of men and women from Lille and the industrial towns near it to the agricultural regions further south. These French were to work in the fields and help produce food for the German army. As a matter of fact this plan had at bottom something to recommend it. The congestion in the industrialized northern region made the food problem there very difficult. Our Commission had more trials in connection with the provisioning of the great city of Lille and the lesser but crowded towns of Valenciennes, Roubaix, and Tourcoing than with all the rest of the occupied territory. Also these people had no work to do, as the great factories were still. To come south and work in the open air in the fields and be allowed a fair ration would have been a real advantage to these people. It would also have helped in the whole food supply situation.

[Sidenote: Horrors of deportations.]

But the horrible methods of that deportation were such that we, although trying to hold steadfast to a rigorous neutrality, could not but protest. Mr. Gerard, our Ambassador to Berlin, happened at the very time of this protest to make a visit to the Great Headquarters in the west and the matter was brought to the attention of certain high officers at Headquarters on the very day of Mr. Gerard's visit and in his hearing. So that he added his own protest to that of Mr. Poland, our director at the time, and further deportations were stopped. But a terrible mischief had already been done. Husbands and fathers had been taken from their families without a word of good-bye; sons and daughters on whom perhaps aged parents relied for support were taken without pity or apparent thought of the terrible consequences. The great deportations of Belgium have shocked the world. But these lesser deportations--that is, lesser in extent, but not less brutal in their carrying out--are hardly known.

[Sidenote: No American can fail to oppose Prussianism.]

I went into Belgium and occupied France a neutral and I maintained while there a steadfastly neutral behavior. But I came out no neutral. I can not conceive that any American enjoying an experience similar to mine could have come out a neutral. He would come out, as I came, with the ineradicable conviction that a people or a government which can do what the Germans did and are doing in Belgium and France to-day must not be allowed, if there is power on earth to prevent it, to do this a moment longer than can be helped. And they must not be allowed ever to do it again.

[Sidenote: Civilization must crush Prussian system.]

I went in also a hater of war, and I came out a more ardent hater of war. But, also, I came out with the ineradicable conviction, again, that the only way in which Germany under its present rule and in its present state of mind can be kept from doing what it had done is by force of arms. It can not be prevented by appeal, concession, or treaties. Hence, ardently as I hope that all war may cease, I hope that this war may not cease until Germany realizes that the civilized world simply will not allow such horrors as those for which Germany is responsible in Belgium and France to be any longer possible.

VERNON KELLOGG.

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