The Great War and How It Arose Part 6

The history of German intrigues, both before and since the war, in British and French colonies, and in neutral countries throughout the world, which are now known and proved to the hilt, may be gauged from the examples given in the foregoing brief notes. The German newspaper _Der Tag_, which, during the first month of the war, declared: "Herr Gott, sind diese Tage schon" (O Lord, how beautiful are these days), subsequently summarised the German outlook when it naively declared:--[63]

"So many of our calculations have deceived us. We expected that British India would rise when the first shot was fired in Europe, but in reality thousands of Indians came to fight with the British against us. We antic.i.p.ated that the whole British Empire would be torn to pieces, but the Colonies appear to be closer than ever united with the Mother Country. We expected a triumphant rebellion in South Africa, yet it turned out nothing but a failure. We expected trouble in Ireland, but instead, she sent her best soldiers against us. We antic.i.p.ated that the party of 'peace at any price' would be dominant in England, but it melted away in the ardour to fight against Germany. We reckoned that England was degenerate and incapable of placing any weight in the scale, yet she seems to be our princ.i.p.al enemy.

"The same has been the case with France and Russia. We thought that France was depraved and divided and we find that they are formidable opponents. We believed that the Russian people were far too discontented to fight for their Government, and we made our plans on the supposition of a rapid collapse of Russia, but, instead, she mobilised her millions quickly and well, and her people are full of enthusiasm and their power is crushing. Those who led us into all those mistakes and miscalculations have laid upon themselves a heavy responsibility."

FOOTNOTES:

[52] _Times_, April 28, 1915.

[53] _Times_, January 6, 1915.

[54] _Times_, April 24, 1915. (Speech by the Bishop of Singapore.)

[55] _Daily News and Leader_, April 27, 1915.

[56] _Morning Post_, March 27, 1915.

[57] Letter from the Chinese Legation to the _Times_, March 13 and 20, 1915.

[58] _Daily News and Leader_, April 22, 1915.

[59] Cd. 7874.

[60] _Times_, April 30, 1915.

[61] _Times_, March 17, 1915.

[62] _Times_, February 19, 1915.

[63] _Times_, April 26, 1915.

HOW THE GERMANS MAKE WAR.

It has often been asked what would happen if savages were armed with the products of modern science and with the intelligence to use them.

Germany has answered the question. Every resource of science lies at the German command; the chemist, the physicist, the metallurgist, have all worked in this war to place the most effective tools of destruction in the Germans' hands, and to satisfy their ambitions they have shut the gates of mercy on mankind. The Official Handbook of Instructions issued to Officers of the German Army by the German General Staff urges the "exploitation of the crimes of third parties (a.s.sa.s.sination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy."

This Official Handbook says:--

"A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the combatants of the Enemy State and the positions they occupy, but it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material resources of the latter."[64]

The German Emperor, addressing the troops which he sent to take part in the International Expedition in China in 1900, said:--

"When you come into contact with the enemy strike him down.

_Quarter is not to be given. Prisoners are not to be made._ Whoever falls into your hands is into your hands delivered. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns, under their King Attila, made for themselves a name which still appears imposing in tradition, so may the name of German become known in China in such a way that never again will a Chinaman dare to look askance at a German. The blessing of the Lord be with you. Give proof of your courage and the Divine blessing will be attached to your colours."

At midnight on August 4, Great Britain declared war on Germany for violating the neutrality of Belgium, and it will be remembered that earlier in the day the German Imperial Chancellor had stated that German troops "perhaps are already on Belgian soil," and that Germany could only have one thought--how she was to "hack her way through."

Simultaneously with the thought, came action. What was actually taking place is described, by Lord Bryce's Committee of Inquiry, in the following words[65]:--

"On August 4th the roads converging upon Liege from north-east, east, and south were covered with German Death's Head Hussars and Uhlans pressing forward to seize the pa.s.sage over the Meuse. From the very beginning of the operations the civilian population of the villages lying upon the line of the German advance were made to experience the extreme horrors of war. 'On the 4th of August,' says one witness, 'at Herve' (a village not far from the frontier), 'I saw at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, near the station, five Uhlans, these were the first German troops I had seen. They were followed by a German officer and some soldiers in a motor car. The men in the car called out to a couple of young fellows who were standing about 30 yards away. The young men, being afraid, ran off, and then the Germans fired and killed one of them named D----.'

"The murder of this innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the burning and pillage of Herve and of other villages in the neighbourhood, to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both s.e.xes, and to the organised military execution of batches of selected males. Thus at Herve some 50 men escaping from the burning houses were seized, taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, a hamlet west of Herve, 40 men were shot. In one household alone the father and mother (names given) were shot, the daughter died after being repeatedly outraged, and the son was wounded. Nor were children exempt....

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

As a German soldier's diary, examined by Lord Bryce's Committee, says:--"The inhabitants without exception were brought out and shot.

This shooting was heart-breaking as they all knelt down and prayed, but that was no ground for mercy. A few shots rang out and they fell back into the green gra.s.s and slept for ever."[66]

During the invasion of Belgium and France, German procedure was almost the same in all cases. "They advance along a road, shooting inoffensive pa.s.sers-by--particularly bicyclists--as well as peasants working in the fields. In the towns or villages where they stop, they begin by requisitioning food and drink, which they consume till intoxicated.

Sometimes from the interior of deserted houses they let off their rifles at random, and declare that it was the inhabitants who fired. Then the scenes of fire, murder, and especially pillage, begin, accompanied by acts of deliberate cruelty, without respect to s.e.x or age. Even where they pretend to know the actual person guilty of the acts they allege, they do not content themselves with executing him summarily, but they seize the opportunity to decimate the population, pillage the houses, and then set them on fire. After a preliminary attack and ma.s.sacre they shut up the men in the church, and then order the women to return to their houses and to leave their doors open all night."[67]

Innumerable German atrocities are on record and well authenticated. For example, Professor Jacobs, at a medical meeting in Edinburgh, stated that, as head of the Belgian Red Cross, he "had visited a chateau but found the Red Cross had not been respected. It had been completely destroyed, and the bodies of six girls, aged from ten to seventeen, were lying on the lawn. A convent containing sixty sisters had been entered by the German soldiers and every one had been violated. On the evidence of the doctor of the inst.i.tution twenty-five were pregnant. Professor Jacobs had operated on the wife of a doctor living near Namur. Three weeks after the operation, when convalescing and still in bed, their house was entered by German soldiers; she was raped by seven of them and died two days after."[68]

1. A few typical examples of the wholesale atrocities of German troops are given in Appendix C, but to show that in many cases such atrocities were not only countenanced, but ordered by officers in command, we quote the following:--

August 22, 1914.

The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having protested their peaceful intentions, made a treacherous surprise attack on our troops.

It was with my consent that the General had the whole place burnt down, and about 100 people shot.

I bring this fact to the knowledge of the town of Liege, so that its inhabitants may know the fate with which they are threatened if they take up a similar att.i.tude.

The General Commanding-in-Chief, VON BULOW.[69]

2. Here is an order of the day given on August 26 by General Stenger commanding the 58th German Brigade:--

After to-day no more prisoners will be taken. All prisoners are to be killed. Wounded, with or without arms, are to be killed. Even prisoners already grouped in convoys are to be killed. Let not a single living enemy remain behind us.

Oberlieutenant und Kompagnie-Chef STOY; Oberst und Regiments Kommandeur NEUBAUER; General-Major und Brigade-Kommandeur STENGER.[70]

With reference to the above Order, Professor Joseph Bedier says: "Some thirty soldiers of Stenger's Brigade (112th and 142nd Regt. of the Baden Infantry), were examined in our prisoners' camps. I have read their evidence, which they gave upon oath and signed. All confirm the statement that this order of the day was given them on August 26, in one unit by Major Mosebach, in another by Lieut. Curtius, &c.; the majority did not know whether the order was carried out, but three of them say they saw it done in the forest of Thiaville, where ten or twelve wounded French soldiers who had already been spared by a battalion were despatched. Two others saw the order carried out on the Thiaville road, where some wounded found in a ditch by a company were finished off."[71]

3. The following are extracts from a Proclamation posted by the Germans at Namur on August 25, 1914:--

(3) Every street will be occupied by a German Guard, who will take ten hostages from each street, whom they will keep under surveillance. If there is any rising in the street the ten hostages will be shot.

(4) Doors may not be locked, and at night after eight o'clock there must be lights in three windows in every house.

(5) It is forbidden to be in the street after eight o'clock. The inhabitants of Namur must understand that there is no greater and more horrible crime than to compromise the existence of the town and the life of its citizens by criminal acts against the German Army.

The Commander of the Town, VON BULOW.[72]

4. On October 5 the following Proclamation was posted in Brussels "and probably in most of the Communes of the Kingdom."