What Germany Thinks Part 13

During the night following the unsuccessful _coup de main_ against Liege, a Zeppelin attacked the town and dropped bombs. "On Thursday, August 6th, at 3.30 a.m. Z6 returned from an air-cruise over Belgium.

The airship took a conspicuous part in the attack on Liege, and was able to intervene in a markedly successful manner. Our first bomb was dropped from a height of 1,800 feet, but failed to explode. The ship then sank to 900 feet above the city, and a non-commissioned officer dropped twelve more bombs, all of which exploded, setting the city ablaze in several places."[96]

[Footnote 96: German official report in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, August 10th.]

An Austrian who was in the town afterwards described the attack in the _Grazer Tagespost_. According to this witness it was already daylight when the airship appeared, and the effect of the bombs was truly awful.

In view of the circ.u.mstance that it was already light, Germany cannot put forward the defence that the bombs were intended for the twelve forts which surround Liege at a distance of some miles.

This is the earliest official record of an attack upon civilians--and it came from the German side! The crew of Z6 were the recipients of a tremendous ovation on their return, while the news of this dastardly murder was received with jubilation throughout the German Empire. In Luneville fifteen civilians were killed by airship bombs two days earlier; shortly afterwards followed the attack by airship on civilians in Antwerp.

The author has before him about one hundred different newspaper reports, alleging the most awful barbarism on the part of the Belgians. Among the numerous statements that Germans were murdered, only two names are mentioned, and both these men are alive to-day; the one is Herr Weber, proprietor of an hotel in Antwerp.

"We have now received full details of the murder of the German, Weber.

He had fled from his pursuers and hidden himself in a cellar. As the raging mob could not find him they burnt sulphur in the house, which caused Weber to break into a violent fit of coughing. This betrayed his hiding-place; he was dragged out and murdered."[97]

[Footnote 97: _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_, August 12th, and simultaneously in many other journals. On the following day the _Vorwarts_ announced that Herr Weber had returned to Germany in the company of their own correspondent.]

"The German pork-butcher, Deckel, who had a large business in Brussels, was attacked in his house by a crowd of Belgian beasts because he had refused to hang a Belgian flag before his shop; with axes and hatchets the mob cut off his head and hewed his corpse in pieces."[98]

[Footnote 98: _Kolnische Volkszeitung_, August 10th.]

A few days later the _Berliner Tageblatt_ informed its readers that Herr Deckel was residing in Rotterdam, and had suffered no harm whatever.

Readers who are acquainted with the official record of brutal crimes committed year by year in Germany and the haughty contempt for civilian rights which the whole German army has consistently shown in the Fatherland, during the orderly times of peace, will require little imagination to conceive that this same army would show still less consideration for civilians in a country which they were wrongfully invading.

The German Press during the last thirty years, as well as many books published in the Fatherland, contains ample proof of German brutality at home, and above all, of the legal brutality of German non-commissioned and commissioned officers. How can Germany expect the world to believe, that these same men, were transformed into decent human beings by the mere act of stepping over the Belgian frontier?

Granted that vulgar elements of the Belgian population did transgress, there still remains incontrovertible evidence that almost unheard-of kindness was shown to the invading army, and that Germans had displayed brutal insolence to Belgians before a state of war had been declared.

Nearly every single letter from soldiers, published in German papers, records the fact that in the villages through which they pa.s.sed they were given water, wine and food, while payment was in many cases refused.

It is part of Germany's policy to blacken Belgium's character in order to justify her own ruthlessness--naturally Wolff's Agency was one of the princ.i.p.al tools to that end.

"Much as we condemn the excesses of the Belgians, still we must not wreak vengeance on the whole nation as a section of our Press demands.

Have not harmless and defenceless foreigners been terribly ill-treated in Germany without distinction of s.e.x? Have not shops and restaurants been demolished in hundreds, wherever a French word was to be met? And the rage of the German ma.s.ses has found an outlet not only against foreigners, but against good German patriots and even German officers."[99]

[Footnote 99: _Leipziger Volkszeitung_, August 12th. This journal as well as the _Frankische Tagespost_ names Wolff's Agency as their authority in more than one issue.]

The same journal on the preceding day deplored that "we ourselves are not free from guilt." It recounts how German reservists, when leaving Antwerp and Brussels, had sung their national songs in a loud, provocative manner, and taunted the bystanders with such remarks as: "In three days we shall be here again!"

According to the same authority German residents had insulted the populace by displaying their national flag; and German employers had been among the first to discharge employees of their own nationality, without salary in lieu of notice, thus increasing the difficulties of German residents in Belgium.

German official p.r.o.nouncements are much more reticent in their judgment on these allegations of Belgian cruelties. None the less the Berlin Government must be held responsible for them being scattered throughout the land. After Germany's official representative had returned from Brussels to Berlin he made a statement to the Press. Considering that von Below was in the Belgian capital at the time, his views are instructive.

He expressed his great astonishment that such things should have happened, and a.s.serted that up till the very last minute he had been treated with the greatest kindness and politeness. Neither he nor any of his Legation Staff had experienced the slightest unpleasantness.

Further, von Below expressed the conviction that only single instances of such excesses had occurred and these were a result of the quarrelsome Walloon character. No village _fete_ pa.s.ses off among them without such outbreaks, accompanied by bloodshed.[100]

[Footnote 100: This may be true, but von Below could have said the same with absolute truth of German village fairs, _Kirmesse_, etc.--Author.]

German papers of August 15th reported this official version, and four days later a proclamation was issued by State Secretary Dr. Delbruck, calling upon all persons who had been ill-treated in Belgium to report themselves, so that the "numerous" newspaper reports could be confirmed or refuted. The result of the inquiry has never been published.

From a number of witnesses who testified whole-heartedly to Belgian kindness, one will suffice. A lady reported her adventures in the _Vorwarts_ of September 6th, from which the following sentences have been gleaned. "Even if it is true that Germans were subjected to inconsideration and ill-treatment during their flight from Belgium, still there are hundreds of Germans who, like myself, met with generous sympathy and unstinted help.

"A Flemish servant refused her month's wages, saying that her employers would need it on the journey. Many Germans were offered homes in Belgian families till the war was over. My own landlord in Brussels placed an empty flat at my disposal for German refugees. At parting he and his wife were as deeply moved as we, and when I began to make excuses for being unable to pay the rent, she at once prevented me from speaking another word. My husband was provided with a hat which looked less 'German;' they filled our pockets with provisions for the journey, and after his wife had embraced me and my child we left the house in silence.

"German refugees whom I met afterwards, related hundreds of similar acts of kindness. When such severe accusations are raised against the entire Belgian people, justice demands this statement that Belgians in hundreds of cases, uninfluenced by the prevailing bitterness, showed themselves kindly, helpful and humane towards the Germans."

In the second month of the war two representatives of the Social Democratic Party received special permission from the General Staff to visit Belgium and the theatre of war in Northern France. Their report has been issued by the Vorwarts Publishing House.[101]

[Footnote 101: "Kriegsfahrten durch Belgien und Nordfrankreich"

("Journeys in War Time through Belgium, etc."), by Dr. Adolph Koester and G. Noske.]

"Concerning the events and conditions in Belgium many false reports have been spread abroad. That is especially the case in regard to the terrible persecutions of Germans immediately before the outbreak of war.

The civil authorities (German) are now permitting full investigation in those parts of Belgium occupied by our troops, and it is already obvious that many exaggerations were circulated by German newspapers. Without doubt beer-houses and business houses were wrecked, but the Tartar stories which were reported in Germany and Belgium, Herr von Sandt, Chief of the Civil Administration, puts down to hysterics, and the desire of some people to make themselves important."[102]

[Footnote 102: Ibid., pp. 14-15.]

No correct judgment on the apportionment of right and wrong between the Belgian civilians and the German army is possible without taking into consideration the status of militarism in each of these countries before the war. As far as Belgium is concerned, the army was looked upon as a necessary evil. The Social Democratic doctrines imported from Germany had obtained such a hold upon the people that the Belgian Government experienced ever-increasing difficulty in getting supplies voted in the House of Deputies, for defence purposes. Belgian Socialists unfortunately played into the hands of the German Government by doing their utmost to prevent money from being spent for the defence of their country. Consciously or unconsciously, German Socialists have rendered the Kaiser and his army inestimable service. Their propaganda against armaments has borne fruit in Belgium, England and France, but did not prevent a single German battleship from being built, nor a single regiment from being added to the German army.

In Germany militarism is a gospel. All cla.s.ses and all political parties have been unanimous for years past, that every man should be a soldier.

The military ethos has ruled supreme, and whenever civilianism has dared, merely to cherish thoughts contrary to the ideals of the ruling caste, no time was lost in seeking an opportunity to challenge a quarrel which invariably ended in humiliation for the civilian ethos.

Characteristically, therefore, the contemptuous phrase has become current both in the German army and navy--"das Civil"--when speaking of the non-military elements of the nation.

Imbued with these traditions and inspired by this contempt for everything civilian, the German armies invaded Belgium, and it may be safely a.s.sumed that in a country where the civilian ethos predominated, looks, words, and even deeds, expressed hostility. Such "provocation"

would certainly rouse the military ego to a revenge ten thousand-fold greater than that taken at Zabern. German militarism brooks neither contempt, criticism, nor opposition from German civilians, and much less so from the civilians of another nation.

When it is possible to obtain cool and clear accounts of the events in Belgium, the author has no doubt whatever, that proofs of civilian-baiting will be forthcoming in that unhappy country. The policy of frightfulness was not only intended to drive an enemy into abject submission and as a punishment for resistance to Germany's imperious will, but it was the military ethos in strife with the civilian spirit.

In order to hinder the march of the invaders the trees lining the roads were cut down and formed into barriers, but the civilian population was compelled at the bayonet's point to remove all obstacles and thus a.s.sist in the conquest of their native country.

"The magnificent tall fir-trees which are so characteristic of Belgian roads, had been felled across the highways. But all the civilian population which could be found, without regard to age, rank, or s.e.x, was forced by our advancing cavalry to clear it all away. One can imagine the joy of the Belgians in performing this task!"[103]

[Footnote 103: "Unser Vormarsch bis zur Marne" ("Our advance to the Marne"), by a Saxon officer, p. 22.]

This writer, too, chronicles many instances of kindness. "I was billeted in a peasant's house at the western exit of the village. Three beautiful children, trembling with fear, watched us come in, for besides me there were twenty-four men. We had received emphatic warnings from headquarters not to allow soldiers to be billeted alone. The woman gave us everything she could find and it was almost necessary to use force to get her to accept payment."[104]

[Footnote 104: Ibid., p. 25.]

"A load of shot struck the ground at the feet of my horse. Before I had calmed the animal a N.C.O. marching at my side had finished off the dirty Belgian scoundrel, who was now hanging dead from a roof window.

"Foaming with rage, my field-greys surrounded the house, in which only a few of the dogs were taken captive, the others were immediately slaughtered. A boy hardly fifteen years old was dragged out of a wet ditch with a gun in his hand. Before being brought to me, this youthful swine had been thrashed from head to foot. Besides the men, two women and a girl were taken.

"Meanwhile a terrible hand-to-hand fight was going on throughout the long, scattered village. Infantry and artillerists smashed the doors and windows; no mercy was shown to anyone, and the houses were set alight.

An attempt to storm the church-tower failed because the occupants fired from above. Bundles of straw were brought, paraffin poured on them, and the tower set on fire. Above the roar of the flames we could distinctly hear the shrieks of the murderers shut in there.

"I gave orders to a squad to shoot our prisoners, but a deadly bullet finished the career of the lying, scoundrelly priest as he was trying to escape. Our losses were remarkably small, only two men being killed and a number wounded."[105]

[Footnote 105: Ibid., p. 43-4.]

In all cases where German soldiers asked for water from the inhabitants, the latter had to take a drink first. "Before tasting the water both man and wife had to drink first, and as this scene was repeated on innumerable occasions, it was delightful to observe the comic desperation with which the people took their involuntary 'water cure.'"[106]