Title: German Atrocities from German Evidence
Author: Joseph Bédier
Translator: Bernhard Harrison
Release date: October 10, 2014 [eBook #47088]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Peter Becker, Brian Coe and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS ON THE WAR
German Atrocities
from German evidence
by
Joseph BÉDIER
Professor at the “Collège de France”
Translated
by
BERNHARD HARRISON
LIBRAIRIE ARMAND COLIN
103, Boulevard Saint-Michel, PARIS, 5e.
1915
Pudor inde et miseratio.
Tacitus.
I intend to prove that the German armies cannot wholly escape from the reproach of sometimes violating the law of nations, and I mean to prove my case according to French custom from absolutely trust worthy sources.
I shall make use only of documents most rigorously examined, and I have taken care to criticize their text as minutely as if in times of peace I were questioning the authority of some old chronicle or the genuineness of some old chart. And I shall do so perhaps from professional habit, perhaps impelled by an inward longing to get at the truth, in any case for the good of the case I am pleading: for these pages are intended for every one; for the casual reader, for the indifferent, and indeed for the enemy of my country. I wish that the casual reader who may by chance open this pamphlet in an idle moment should be struck by the genuineness of the documents, if he has eyes to see, just as their sordid character will touch his heart, if he has a heart that feels.
My aim has been that these documents whose authenticity [Pg 6] is obvious should carry an equally obvious authority. It is easy to make accusations difficult to prove them! No belligerent has ever been at a loss to bring against his enemy a heap of evidence, true or false. But though the evidence may be collected in accordance the most solemn forms of justice by the highest magistrates, it will unfortunately long remain useless, so long as the adversary has not had an opportunity of disputing it, everyone is entitled to consider statements as lies, or at least as open to refutation. That is why, I shall abstain here, from quoting French or Belgian testimony true though I know it to be. I have preferred that the evidence which I shall call shall be of such a nature that no living man, not even in Germany shall attempt to refute it. German atrocities shall be proved by German documents.
I shall take the evidence chiefly from those war diaries, which Article 75 of the Rules for Field service of the German Army advises soldiers to keep on the march, which we have confiscated from prisoners[1], as being military papers. It goes without saying that their number increases daily. I should like some day the complete collection to be deposited in the collection of German manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale for everyone’s instruction. In the meantime, the Marquis of Dampierre, a former student of the École des Chartes, archivist and paleographer, is preparing and will shortly bring out a book in which the greater part of these roadside journals will be minutely described, copied, and brought into the full light of day. For my part I have examined but forty. They will suffice for my task. I shall make some extracts from them, taking care that each quotation bears sufficient proof of its genuineness.
In what order shall I arrange them? For many reasons, but chiefly because some of these documents only ten lines long contain proof of crimes of many kinds, I shall not attempt to adopt any rigid order of classification. I shall dip[Pg 7] haphazard into the heap; certain associations of ideas or pictures, and a certain similarity in the texts will alone enable me to group them.
Plate 1.
I open haphazard the Diary of a soldier of the Prussian Guard, Gefreiter Paul Spielmann (I Kompagnie, Ersatz-Bataillon, I Garde-Infanterie-Brigade). Here is his account of a night alarm in a village near Blamont on the 1st September. At the bugle call, the Guard wakes, and the massacre begins (Plates 1 and 2.)
«The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. Blood was plastered on all the houses, and as for the faces of the dead, they were hideous. They were all buried at once, to the number of sixty. Among them many old men and women, and one woman about to be delivered. It was a ghastly sight. There were three children who had huddled close to one another and had died together. The altar and the ceiling of the church had fallen in. They had been telephoning to the enemy. And this morning, 2 September, all the survivors were driven out and I saw four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle in which was a child of 5 to 6 months old. All this was horrible to see. A blow for[Pg 8] a blow. Thunder for thunder. Everything was pillaged. And I also saw a mother with her two little ones: and one had a large wound in the head, and had lost an eye.»[2]
Plate 2.
«They had been telephoning to the Enemy» says this soldier, the punishment was deserved. Let us remember the terms of Art. 50 of the Hague Convention of 1907 signed in the name of the German Emperor by a gentleman, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein. «No collective punishment, pecuniary or other, can be[Pg 9] inflicted upon a community for individual acts for which they cannot be held responsible as a body.» What tribunal, during this night of horrors took the trouble to make sure of the guilt of the community at large?
In an unsigned note-book of a soldier belonging to the 32nd Infantry (IV Reserve Corps) we come across the following statement.
«3rd September. Creil. The iron bridge has been blown up. Consequently we burnt the streets and shot the civilians.»[3]
The regular French troops alone—the Engineers—had blown up the iron bridge at Creil; the civilians had nothing to do with it. To excuse these massacres, when they condescend to make any excuse these note-books usually say: “civilians” and “sharpshooters” had fired on our men. But the Convention of 1907, that “scrap of paper”, signed by Germany, stipulates that by its first Article the laws, rights, and duties of war apply, not only to the army, but also to the militia and volunteer corps, adding certain conditions, the chief one of which is the bearing of arms openly and in Art. 2. “The population of unoccupied territory, who, at the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms against the invading forces without having had time to organize according to the conditions of Art. 1, shall be considered as belligerent, if the population bears arms openly and respects the laws and customs of war.” Read in the light of this text the savage stories which follow will take their true proportions:
a) Diary of Pte Hassemer VIII Corps.
«3. 9. 1914. Sommepy (Marne). Horrible massacre. The village burnt to the ground, the French thrown into houses in flames, civilians and all burnt together.»[4]
b) Diary of Lt Kietzmann (2nd Company, 1st Battalion of the 49th Regt of Infantry), dated 18th August (Plate 3).
Plate 3.
c) Diary of a Saxon officer (unsigned) (178th Regt XII Army Corps, I Saxon Corps).
“26th August. The pretty village of Gué-d’Hossus in the Ardennes has been burnt, although innocent of any crime, it seemed to me. I was told a cyclist had fallen off his machine, and that in doing so his gun had gone off: so they fired in his direction. Thereupon, the male inhabitants were simply consigned to the flames. It is to be hoped that such atrocities will not be repeated.”[7]
The Saxon officer however had already seen such “atrocities” the previous day, 25th August, at Villers en Fagne (Belgian Ardennes). “Where some Grenadiers of the Guard had been found dead or wounded”, he had seen the priest and other villagers shot; and three days earlier the 23rd August, in the village of Bouvignes to the north of Dinant, he had seen things which he describes as follows:
“We got into the property of a well-to-do inhabitant, by a breach effected in the rear, and we occupied the house. Through a maze of rooms we reached the threshold. There was the body of the owner on the floor. Inside our men destroyed everything, like Vandals. Every corner was searched. Outside in the country, the sight of the villagers who had been shot defies all description. The volley had almost decapitated some of them.
“Every house had been searched to the smallest corner, and the inhabitants dragged from their hiding-places. The men were shot; the women and children shut up in a convent, from which some shots were fired. Consequently, the convent is[Pg 12] to be burnt. It can be ransomed however on the surrender of the guilty and on payment of 15.000 francs.”[8]
Sometimes, as we shall see, the diaries supplement one another.
d) Diary of Private Philipp. (Kamenz, Saxony. 1st Company. 1st Battalion of the 178th Regt.) The same day 23rd August, a soldier of the same regiment saw a similar scene to that described above, probably the same, but the point of view is a different one (Plate 4).
“In the evening, at 10 o’clock the first battalion of the 178th Regt went down to the village that had been burnt to the north of Dinant. A sad and beautiful sight, and one that made you shudder. At the entrance of the village there lay about 50 dead bodies strewn on the road. They had been shot for having fired on our troops from ambush. In the course of the night, many others were shot in the same way, so that we could count more than two hundred. The women and children, lamp in hand, were obliged to watch the horrible scene. We then ate our rice, in the midst of the corpses, for we had not tasted food since morning.”[9]
Plate 4.
A fine military subject indeed, and worthy to compete at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. One passage in the text however is obscure, and might embarrass the [Pg 14] competitors. “The women and children lamp in hand were obliged to watch the horrible scene.”
What scene? The shooting, or the counting of the corpses? Painters, who wish to elucidate this point need only consult the colonel of the 178th Regt. What a gallant soldier!
He did, that night, but carry out the spirit of his superiors and comrades in arms. He who wishes to be convinced need but read in the Sixth Report of the Belgian Enquiry Commission on the violation of the laws of nations (Le Havre, 10 Nov. 1914) the base proclamations which the Germans placarded in Belgium. Three short excerpts will suffice.
Extract from a Proclamation of General von Bülow posted up at Liège on the 22nd of August 1914:
“The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having protested their peaceful intentions, treacherously surprised our troops. It is with my full consent that the general in command had the whole place burnt, and about a hundred people were shot.”[10]
Extract from a Proclamation of Major Commander Dieckmann[11] posted up at Grivegnée on the 8th of September 1914:
“Everyone who does not at once obey the word of command “Hands up!” is guilty (sic) of the penalty of death.”
Extract from a Proclamation of Marshall, Baron von[Pg 15] der Goltz posted up in Brussels on the 5th of October 1914:
“In future, all places near the spot where such acts have taken place (destruction of railway lines or telegraph wires)—no matter whether guilty or not—shall be punished without mercy. With this end in view, hostages have been brought from all places near railway lines exposed to such attacks, and at the first attempt to destroy railway lines, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot.”[12]
Plate 5.
This (Plate 5) is the first page of an unsigned note-book:
“Langeviller, 22 August. Village destroyed by the 11th Battalion of the Pioneers. Three women hanged on trees: the first dead I have seen.”[13]
Who are these three women? Criminals surely, guilty no doubt of having fired on the German troops, unless they had been telephoning to the enemy; and the 11th Pioneers had no doubt punished them justly. But they have expiated their crime now, and the 11th Pioneers have gone by, and of their crime, the newly advancing troops know nothing. Among these new troops will there be a commander, a Christian, to order the cords to be cut and to release these dead women. No, the regiment will march by under the gibbets, and the flags will brush by these corpses; they will pass along Colonel and officers, gentlemen and Kulturträger.
Plate 6.
And they know full well what they are doing: these dead women must remain these, as an example; as an example, not for the other women in the village—these had already no doubt understood—, but as an example for the regiment, and for other regiments who were to come afterwards. These must be made[Pg 17] warlike, they must be taught their duty, that is to shoot women when the opportunity occurs. The lesson bore fruit indeed. Here is sufficient proof: the young soldier who had that day seen and told us of “dead for the first time” makes the following note on the 10th and last page of his diary (Plate 6).
Plate 7.
“In this way we destroyed 8 houses with their inmates. In one of them two men with their wives and a girl of eighteen were bayonetted. The little one almost unnerved me so innocent was her expression. But it was impossible to check the crowd, so excited were they, for in such moments you are no longer men, but wild beasts.”[14]
And to prove that this murder of women and children[Pg 18] is all in the days work of the German soldier, here is further evidence.
a) The author of an unsigned note-book (Plate 7) relates that at Orchies (Nord) a woman was shot for not having stopped at the word of command Halt! Thereupon, he adds, the whole place was burnt.[15]
b) The officer already mentioned of the 178th Saxon Regt reports that in the outskirts of Lisognes (Belgian Ardennes) “a scout from Marburg having placed three women one behind the other brought them all down with one shot”.
Plate 8.
c) Let us now quote a few lines from the diary of a reservist a certain Schlauter (3rd Battery of the 4th Regt, Field Artillery of the Guard, Plate 8):
25th August (in Belgium): Three hundred of the inhabitants were shot and the survivors were requisitioned as grave-diggers.[Pg 19] You should have seen the women at this moment! But you can’t do otherwise. During our march on Wilot, things went better: the inhabitants who wished to leave could do so and go where they liked.[16] But anyone who fired was shot. When we left Owele, shots were fired: but there, women and everything were fired on[17]....
Often when German troops wish to carry a position, they place civilians, men, women and children before them, and take shelter behind this shield of living flesh. As the stratagem consists essentially in speculating upon the noblemindedness of the adversary, of saying to him: “You will not fire upon these unhappy people, I know, and I hold you at my mercy, disarmed, because I know you are less cowardly than I”, as it implies a homage to the enemy, and humiliation of oneself, it is almost inconceivable that soldiers can resort to it, and that is why it represents a new invention in the long list of human cruelties, and the most fearful Penitentiels (Summæ peccatorum) of the middle ages have not recorded it. And it is also why, in presence of accounts, French, English or Belgian accusing the Germans of such practices I for a long time doubted, I admit if not the truth of the evidence, at least its importance: such acts must, it seemed to me, prove only the unavowed crimes of officers, individual acts which do not dishonour a nation, for a nation on learning them would repudiate them. But now can we doubt that the German nation accepts such ruffianly exploits as worthy of her, that she recognizes and acquiesces in them, when the following narrative, signed by a Bavarian officer, Lt. A. Eberlein is[Pg 20] laid before us in one of the best known newspapers in Germany, in the issue of 7th Oct. 1914 (no 513 Vorabendblatt p. 2 of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten)? Lt Eberlein describes the occupation of St Dié at the end of August. After entering the town at the head of a column, he was obliged to barricade himself inside a house until reinforcements came up (Plate 9):
Plate 9.
We had arrested three civilians, and suddenly a good idea struck me. We placed them on chairs and made them understand that they must go and sit on them in the middle of the street. On one side entreaties, on the other blows from the butt-end of a gun. One gets terribly hardened after a while. At last they were seated outside in the street. I do not know how many prayers of anguish they said; but they kept their hands tightly clasped all the time. I pitied them; but the devise worked immediately. The shooting at us from the house at the side stopped at once; we were able to occupy the house in front, and became masters of the principal street. Every one after that who showed himself in the street was shot. The artil[Pg 21]lery, too did good work during this, and when towards seven in the evening, the brigade advanced to free us, I was able to report that “St Dié is free of the enemy”.
As I learnt later on, the ... regiment of reserve which had entered St Dié more from the north had had similar experiences to ours. The four civilians that had been made to sit in the street had been killed by French bullets. I saw them myself, stretched out in the middle of the street, near the Hospital.
Article 28 of the Hague Convention of 1907, signed by Germany, runs thus “It is forbidden to pillage a town or locality even when taken by assault.” Article 47 runs: “(In occupied territory), pillage is forbidden”.
This is how the armies of Germany interpret these articles.
Private Handschuhmacher (of the 11 battalion of Jägers, reserve) writes in his diary:
“8th August 1914. Gouvy, (Belgium). There as the Belgians had fired on German soldiers we at once pillaged the Goods Station. Some cases, eggs, shirts and all eatables were seized. The safe was gutted and the money divided among the men. All securities were torn up.”[18]
This took place on the fourth day of the war and enables us to understand why in a technical article on the Military Treasury (der Zahlmeister im Felde) the Berliner Tageblatt of the 26th Nov. 1914 (1 Supplement) notices as a mere incident an economic phenomenon which is however curious: “As it is a fact that far more money orders are sent from the theatre of operations to the interior of the country than vice versa ...” «Da nun aber erfahrungsgemäss[Pg 22] viel mehr Geld vom Kriegsschauplatz nach der Heimat gesandt wird ...».
But as, according to the common practice of the German armies, pillage is but the prelude to incendiarism, non-commissioned-officer Hermann Levith (of the 160th Regt. VIIIth Army Corps) writes:
“The enemy had occupied the village of Bièvre and the skirts of the wood. The 3rd Company advanced in first line. We carried the village and pillaged and burnt nearly all the houses.”[19]
And Pte Schiller (133 Inf. XIXth Corps) writes:
“It was at Haybes (Ardennes) on the 24th of August that we had our first battle. The 2nd Battalion entered the village, searched the houses sacked them and burnt all those from which shots had been fired.”[20]
Private Seb. Reishaupt (3 Bavarian Inf. 1st Bavarian Corps) writes:
“Parux (Meurthe-et-Moselle) is the first village we burnt; then the dance began: villages one after the other; by field and meadow on bicycle to the ditches by the roadside, there we ate cherries.”[21]
They vie with one another in stealing, they steal everything and anything, and they keep a record of their loot: “Schnaps, Wein, Marmelade, Zigarren” so writes this plain soldier; and the smart officer of the 178th Saxon, who at first was indignant at the “Vandalismus” of his men, confesses in his turn, that the 1st of September at Rethel, he stole “in a house near the Hôtel Moderne, a splendid[Pg 23] mackintosh and a camera for Felix”. Without distinction of grade, nor of arms, nor of Corps, they steal, and even in the ambulances the doctors steal. Here is an example from the diary of Private Johannes Thode (4. Reserve-Ersatz Regiment):
“Brussels 5. 10. 14. A motor arrives at the hospital with booty, a piano, two sewing machines, a lot of albums and all sorts of other things.”[22]
Two sewing machines, as «booty» (Kriegsbeute). Stolen from whom? No doubt from two humble Belgian women. And for whom?
I must admit that out of the forty diaries I have examined, there are six or seven that tell of no exactions, either from hypocritical reticence or because certain regiments wage war less vilely. And I even know of three diaries, whose authors, as they narrate sordid details, are astonished, moved to indignation, saddened. I shall withhold their names, because they deserve our consideration, and to spare them the risk of being one day blamed or punished. The first, Pte X ..., who belongs to the 65th Inf. of the Landwehr, says of some of his fellow comrades (Plate 10):
“They do not behave like soldiers, but like common thieves, highwaymen and robbers, and are a disgrace to our regiment and our army.”[23]
The second, Lt Y ..., of the 77th Inf. Reserve, says:
“No discipline ... The Pioneers are not worth much; as for the artillerymen they are a gang of robbers.”[24]
Plate 10.
And the third, Private Z ..., 12th Inf. Reserve (1 Corps Reserves) writes (Plate 11):
“Unfortunately, I am obliged to mention something which ought never to have happened; but there are even in our army ruffians who are no longer men, swine to whom nothing is sacred. One of them entered a sacristy that was locked, in which was the blessed sacrament. Out of respect a protestant avoided sleeping there; he polluted the place with his excrements. How can there be such beings! Last night, a man of the Landwehr, a man of thirty-five, and a married man, tried to rape the daughter of a man in whose house he had been quartered, she was a child; and as the father tried to interpose he kept the point of his bayonet on the man’s breast.”[25]
Plate 11.
With the exception of these soldiers, who are worthy of the name, the thirty other writers are the same, and the same soul, if the word be allowed, seems to animate them all, uncontrolled and low. They are all alike, yet with some shades of difference. There are some who make distinctions, like subtle lawyers, sometimes blaming, sometimes disapproving: “Dort war ein Exempel am Platze”. And there are some who sneer: “Krieg ist Krieg”; or in French, by preference to add to their scorn “Ja, ja, c’est la guerre”; and there are some who having done their ugly work, open their Hymn Book, and sing psalms: for instance the Saxon officer Rieslang, who relates how one day he left a feast to go to “Gottesdienst”, but was obliged to leave hurriedly, having eaten and drunk too much; or again Private Moritz Grosse of the 177th Inf. who after describing the sack of St Vieth (22nd August) and that of Dinant (23rd August) writes this sentence (Plate 12):
Throwing of bombs in the houses. In the evening, military chorale: Nun danket alle Gott (Now, thank ye all God).[26]
They are all alike. Now, if we consider that I could substitute for the preceding examples others similar and no less cynical, taken for instance from the diary of the reservist Lautenschlager, of the 1st Battalion of the 66th Inf. Regt, or from the diary of Pte Eduard Hohl of the VIII Corps, or from the diary of non-commissioned officer Rheinhold Koehn, of the 2nd Battalion of Pomeranian Pioneers, or from the diary of the non-commissioned officer Otto Brandt of the 2nd section of the ambulance corps (reserves) or from the diary of the Reservist Martin Muller, of the 100th Saxon Reserves, or from the diary of Lt Karl Zimmer, of the 55th Inf. or from the diary of Pte Erich Pressler of the 100th Grenadiers, 1st Saxon Corps, etc.; and if we notice, that among the extracts already given, there are very few isolated cases of brutality (as can be and are found, alas in the most noble minded of armies) and that I[Pg 27] have scarcely noted here any crime that was not done by order, any crime that does not implicate and dishonour not only the individual soldier, but the whole regiment, the officer, the very nation; and if we consider that these thirty diaries, whether they be Bavarian or Saxon, Baden or Rhenish, Pomeranian or from Brandenburg, taken haphazard must represent hundreds and thousands of similar ones, all of a fearful monotony, we shall be obliged to allow, I think, that, M. René Viviani in no way overstated the case when from the French tribune he spoke of “this system of collective murder and pillage which Germany calls war”.
Plate 12.
H. M. the German Emperor, in ratifying the Hague Convention of 1907 agreed (Article 23) “that it is forbidden ... (c)[Pg 28] to kill or wound an enemy, who having laid down his arms and having no means of self-defence, gives himself up as a prisoner; (d) to declare that no quarter will be given”.
Has the German Army respected these conventions? In the French and Belgian reports, evidence is plentiful resembling the following which comes from a Frenchman captain in the 288th Infantry: “On the evening of the 22nd I learnt that in the wood a hundred and fifty metres from the cross-roads formed by the intersection of the great trench at Calonne and the road from Vaux-lès-Palameix to St Rémy there were some dead bodies of French soldiers who had been shot by the Germans.
I went there, and saw some thirty soldiers in a small space, for the most part lying down, some however on their knees and all having the same kind of wound, a gun-shot in the ear. Only one, very severely wounded was able to speak. He told me the Germans had, before leaving, ordered them to lie down, then had killed them by a shot through the head; that he had been spared on telling them he was the father of three small children. Their brainpans had been blown some distance away, the guns broken at the stock were scattered here and there, and the blood had so bespattered the bushes that as I came out of the wood the front of my cape was all smeared with blood; it was a real charnel-house.”
I have quoted this man’s testimony, not to rely on it as evidence but merely to make clear the nature of my indictment; as for justifying it I shall take care not to depart from the rule I have laid down to resort to German sources of information only.
Here is an order of the day given on the 26th August by General Stenger commanding the 58th German Brigade to his troops:
Von heute ab werden keine Gefangene mehr gemacht. Sämtliche Gefangene werden niedergemacht. Verwundete ob mit Waffen oder Wehrlos niedergemacht. Gefangene auch in grösseren 6 geschlossenen Formationen werden niedergemacht. Es bleibe kein Feind lebend hinter uns.
Oberleutnant und Kompagnie-Chef Stoy; Oberst und Regiments-Kommandeur Neubauer; General-Major und Brigade-Kommandeur Stenger.
Translation. 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.
Some thirty soldiers of Stenger’s Brigade (112 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 the 26th August, in one unit by Major Mosebach, in another by Lt Curtius, etc.; 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.
No doubt, I cannot produce the autograph of General Stenger, and it is not for me to communicate the names of the German prisoners who gave this evidence. But I have no difficulty in producing here German autographs in proof of crimes precisely similar.
For example (Plate 13), here is an extract from Pte Albert Delfosse’s diary (III Inf. Reserve, XIV Reserve Corps):
“In the forest of St Rémy, 4th or 5th September, saw a fine cow and calf destroyed and once more corpses of Frenchmen, frightfully mutilated.”[27]
Plate 13.
Are we to understand from this that these dead bodies had been mutilated in fair fight torn to pieces for example by [Pg 31] shells? It may be; but this would be a kindly interpretation which the documents (Plates 14 and 15) disprove:
Here is a fac simile on a reduced scale from a newspaper picked up in the German trenches, the Jauersches Tageblatt of the 18th October 1914. Jauer is a town in Silesia, about 50 kilometres west of Breslau; two battalions of the 154th regiment of the Saxon Infantry are stationed there. One Sunday (Sonntag, den 18 Oktober) no doubt at the hour when the inhabitants with their women and children were going to church, this local newspaper was distributed in the peaceful little town and in the hamlets and villages of the district, bearing these headlines.
EIN TAG DER EHRE FÜR UNSER REGIMENT.
24 SEPTEMBER 1914.
(A day of honour for our Regiment.
24th September 1914.)
It is the title of an article of two hundred lines, sent from the front by a soldier of the regiment. Non-commissioned-officer Klemt. 1. Komp. Infanterie Regt 154.
Klemt tells how on the 24th of September his regiment which had left Hannonville in the morning and supported on the march by Austrian batteries was suddenly received by a double fire from artillery and infantry. The losses were enormous. And yet the enemy was invisible. At last, however, it was seen that the firing came from above, from trees where French soldiers were posted. From now on I shall no longer summarise, but quote. (Plate 16).
We brought them down like squirrels, and gave them a warm reception, with blows of the butt and the bayonet: they no longer need doctors; we are no longer fighting loyal enemies, but treacherous brigands.[28]
Plate 14.
“By leaps and bounds we got across the clearing. They were here, there, and everywhere hidden in the thicket. Now it is down with the enemy! And we will give them no quarter. Every one shoots standing, a few, a very few fire kneeling. No[Pg 33] one tries to take shelter. We reach a little depression in the ground: here the red trousers dead or wounded lie on a heap ground. We knock ‘down’ or bayonet the wounded, for we know that those scoundrels fire at our backs when we have gone[Pg 34] by. There was a Frenchman there stretched out, full length, face down, pretending to be dead. A kick from a strong fusilier soon taught him that we were there. Turning round, he asked for quarter, but we answered: “Is that the way your tools work, you,—” and he was nailed to the ground. Close to me I heard odd cracking sounds. They were blows from a gun on the bald head of a Frenchman which a private of the 154th was dealing out vigorously; he was wisely using a French gun so as not to break his own. Tenderhearted souls are so kind to the French wounded that they finish them with a bullet, but others give them as many thrusts and blows as they can.
Plate 15.
“Our adversaries had fought bravely, we had to contend with picked men; they let us get within thirty, even ten metres of them—too near. Sacks and arms thrown away in quantities showed that they had try to run, but at the sight of the “grey phantoms” fear paralyzed them, and on the narrow path they had to take, German bullets brought them the word of command, Halt. At the entry into the screen of branches, there they lay groaning and crying for quarter. But whether wounded slightly or severely, the brave fusiliers spare their country the cost of caring for many enemies.”
The narrative goes on, full of literary ornaments. The writer reports that H. R. H. Prince Oscar of Prussia who had been told of these brave deeds (perhaps too of others) of the 154th regiment, and of the regiment of grenadiers who were brigaded with the 154th declared that they were both worthy of the name of Königsbrigade, and ends up with this sentence “When evening came, after a prayer of thanksgiving we fell asleep in the expectation of the morrow”. Then the author having added as a postscript a few more touches in verse takes his composition to his lieutenant, who affixes his seal thereupon.
Certified to be exact
De Niem, Leutnant und Kompagnie-Führer.
Then he addresses his article to the town of Jauer, where he is sure that an editor will accept it, compositors will print it, and an entire population will delight in it.
Plate 16.
Now, I ask my reader, no matter of what nationality: can he imagine such an article being printed in his own language, in the town in which he lives, and read by his wife and children? In what country, except Germany is such a thing conceivable? Not in France, at least.
Here is still one further convincing proof of how usual it is for the German army to mutilate the wounded. It is taken (Plates 17 and 18) from the diary of Pte Paul Glöde, of the 9th Battalion of the Pioneers (IX Corps):
“12th August 1914. In Belgium.—It is easy to imagine the state of fury of our soldiers, when you see the villages that have been destroyed. There is not one house left undamaged. All eatables are requisitioned by the soldiers no longer commanded. We have seen heaps of dead men and women who had been executed after trial. But the righteous anger of our soldiers goes hand in hand with sheer vandalism. In some villages which had already been deserted they “set up the red cock” on all the houses (burnt them). The inhabitants sadden me. If they use disloyal weapons, after all they are but defending their country. The atrocities that these civilians have been and are guilty of are avenged in a savage manner. Mutilation of the wounded is the order of the day.”[29]
This was written on the 12th of August, only eight days after innocent Belgium had been invaded, and the wounded who were tortured were only defending, against Germany that land, their native land which Germany had sworn to respect and if necessary to defend. But in many a country, [Pg 38] the Pharisees who having read these lines will calmly go to their churches or Chapels, their bank-parlours or their chancelleries murmuring: “In what way do these things concern me? Ja, Ja, it is war”.
Plate 17.
Plate 18.
Yes, it is war, but a war such as was never waged by the soldiers of Marceau, nor ever will be waged by the soldiers of Joffre, such as never has been nor ever will be waged by France, “mother of the arts, of arms and of law”. Yes, it is war, but such as even Attila would not have waged, had he agreed to certain engagements, for, to agree to them would have been to awake to the conception which alone distinguishes the civilized man from the barbarian—the nation from the horde—the respect of the given word.—Yes, it is war, but a war whose insolent principles could be constructed only by pedantic megalomaniacs, the Julius von Hartmanns, the Bernhardis, the Treitschkes; principles that presume to authorize the people elect to blot out from the laws and customs of war all the humanity that centuries of Christianity and chivalry have with difficulty introduced; principles of systematic ferocity, the odious side of which is already obvious enough; but still more the senseless and ridiculous side. Is it not indeed ridiculous that they should be already obliged to deny it at least in words,—they the burners of Louvain, Malines and Reims, they the assassins of women, children, and wounded men! and that they should have imposed upon their slavish ninety-three Kulturträger the denials which we know so well: “It is not true, say they, that we wage war contrary to the laws of nations, and[Pg 39] our soldiers do not commit acts of indiscipline or cruelty[30]”, and again: “We will carry on this war to the bitter end as a civilised people, for this we will answer in our name and on our honour”. Why this pitiful and humble denial? Perhaps because their theory of war presupposes as a postulate their invincibility, and as at the first shudder of their defeat on the Marne it collapsed, they now repudiate it at the first threat of retaliations.
I shall draw no conclusion: the allied armies who are marching on towards victory will do that.
General Stenger’s order of the day, mentioned on page 29 was communicated orally by various officers in various units of the brigade. Consequently the form in which we have received it may possibly be incomplete or altered. In face of any doubt, the French government has ordered an enquiry to be made in the prisoners’ Camps. Not one of the prisoners to whom our magistrates presented the order of the day in the above mentioned form found a word to alter. They one and all declared that this was the order of the day which had been orally given in the ranks, repeated from man to man; many added the names of the officers who had communicated the order to them; some related in what a vile way it had been carried out[Pg 40] under their eyes. All the evidence of these German soldiers was collected in a legal manner, under the sanction of an oath, and it is after reading their depositions that I wrote the order of the day.
The text of all this evidence was transmitted to all
the French embassies and legations in foreign countries on
the 24th of Oct. 1914. Every neutral wishing to clear his
conscience is at liberty to obtain it from the representatives
of the French Republic who will certainly respond
willingly.
Imp. de Vaugirard, H.-L. Motti, dir., 12-13, Impasse Ronsin, Paris.
[1] Seizures foreseen and authorised by art. 4 of the Hague Convention of 1907.
[2] «[Die Einwohner sind geflüchtet im Dorf. Da sa es] gräulich aus. Das Blut glebt an alle Baute, und was sa man für Gesichter, grässlich sa alles aus. Es wurde sofort sämtliche Tote, die Zahl 60, sofort beerdigt. Fiele alte Frauen, Väter, und eine Frau, welche in Entbindung stand, grauenhaft alles anzusehen. 3 Kinder hatten sich zusammengefast und sind gestorbe. Altar und Decken sind eingestürzt. Hatte auch Telefon-Verbindung mit dem Feind. Und heut morgen, den 2. 9., da wurden sämtliche Einwohner hinausgetrieben, so sah ich auch 4 Knaben, die eine Wiege trugen auf 2 Stäben mit einem kleinen Kinde 5-6 Monat alt. Schrecklich alles mitanzusehen. Schuss auf Schuss! Donner auf Donner! Alles wird geplündert ... (on the verso:) Mutter mit ihren beiden Kinder, der eine hatte eine grosse Wunde am Kopf und ein Auge verloren.»
[3] «3. 9. 1914. Creil. Die Brücke (eiserne) gesprengt. Dafür Strassen in Brand gesteckt, Civilisten erschossen.»
[4] «3. 9. 1914. Ein schreckliches Blutbad, Dorf abgebrannt, die Franzosen in die brennenden Häuser geworfen, Zivilpersonen alles mitverbrandt.»
[5] «Kurz vor Diest liegt das Dorf Schaffen. Hier hatten sich gegen 50 Civilisten auf dem Kirchturm versteckt und schossen von hier aus auf unsere Truppen mit einem Maschinengewehr. Sämtliche Civilisten wurden erschossen.»
[6] It may be incidentally mentioned, and merely for greater precision, that the 1st Report of the Belgian Commission enumerates some of the “civilians” killed at Schaffen on the 18th of August. Amongst others “the wife of François Luyckz, aged 45 with her daughter aged twelve who were found in a ditch and shot” and “the daughter of one Jean Oogen, aged nine who was shot” and one André Willem, the sacristan who was tied to a tree and burnt alive”.
[7] «26. 8. 1914. Das wunderschöne Dorf Gué-d’Hossus soll ganz unschuldig in Flammen gegangen sein. Ein Radfahrer soll gestürzt sein und dabei sein Gewehr losgegangen, gleich ist auf ihn geschossen worden. Man hat männliche Einwohner einfach in die Flammen geworfen. Solche Scheusslichkeiten kommen hoffentlich nicht wieder vor.»
[8] «Wir besetzen nach Durchbrechen einer Mauer das Haus eines anscheinend wohlsituirten Einwohners vorn an der Maas. Nachdem ich durch ein Labyrinth ... (two words illegible) bis in das vorderste gedrungen war, traf ich in (?) an der Schwelle auf die Leiche des Besitzers. In den Räumen hatten unsre Leute bereits wie die Vandalen gehaust. Alles war durchstöbert worden. Der Anblick den die überall umherliegender Leichen der Erschossenen Einwohner geben spottet jeder Beschreibung. Die Nachschüsse haben meist den Schädel halb weggerissen. Jedes Haus im ganzen Tale ist durchstöbert w[orden] u[nd] dabei einige d[er] Einwohner aus den unmöglichsten Schlupfwinkeln hervorgezogen. Männer erschossen. Frauen und Kinder ins Kloster. Aus diesem wurde heraus geschossen: beinahe wäre deshalb das Kloster in Brand gesteckt w[orden]. Nur durch Auslieferung der Schuldigen und Zahl[un]g von 15.000 francs konnte es sich lösen.»
[9] «Gleich am Eingange lagen ca. 50 erschossene Bürger, die meuchlings auf unsre Truppen gefeuert hatten. Im Laufe der Nacht wurden noch viele erschossen, sodass wir über 200 zählen konnten. Frauen und Kinder, die Lampe in der Hand, mussten dem entsetzlichen Schauspiele zusehen. Wir assen dann immitten der Leichen unsern Reis, seit Morgen hatten wir nichts gegessen.»
[10] «Les habitants de la ville d’Andenne, après avoir protesté de leurs intentions pacifiques, out fait une surprise traître sur nos troupes. C’est avec mon consentement que le Général en chef a fait brûler toute la localité et que cent personnes environ ont été fusillées.»
The Belgian Report questions whether the inhabitants of Andenne committed any hostile acts against German troops, and adds: «In reality, more than 200 persons were shot. Everything almost is ravaged. The houses have been burnt over a distance of nine miles.»
[11] «Celui qui n’obtempère pas de suite au commandement «Levez les bras!» se rend coupable (sic) de la peine de mort.»
[12] «A l’avenir, les localités les plus rapprochées de l’endroit où de pareils faits (destructions de voies ferrées et de lignes télégraphiques) se sont passées,—peu importe qu’elles soient complices ou non—seront punies sans miséricorde. A cette fin, des otages ont été emmenés de toutes les localités voisines des voies ferrées menacées par de pareilles attaques, et, à la première tentative de détruire les voies de chemin de fer, les lignes télégraphiques ou du téléphone, ils seront immédiatement fusillés.»
[13] «Langewiller, 22. Dorf durch die 11. Pioniere zerstört. 3 Frauen an den Bäumen erhängt: hier die ersten Tote gesehen.»
[14] «So haben wir 8 Häuser mit den Einwohnern vernichtet. Aus einem Hause wurden allein 2 Männer mit ihren Frauen und ein 18 jähriges Mädchen erstochen. Das Mädel konnte mir leid tun, den[n] sie machte solch unschuldigen Blick, aber man konnte gegen die aufgeregte Menge nicht[s] ausrichten, denn dann sind es keine Menschen, sonder[n] Tiere.»
[15] «Sämtliche Civilpersonen werden verhaftet. Eine Frau wurde verschossen, weil sie auf «Halt» Rufen nicht hielt, sondern ausreissen wollte. Hierauf Verbrennen der ganzen Ortschaft.»
[16] «Aus der Stadt wurden 300 erschossen. Die die Salve überlebten mussten Totengräber sein. Das war ein Anblick der Weiber, aber es geht nicht anders. Auf dem Verfolgungsmarsch nach Wilot ging es besser. Die Einwohner, die verziehen wollten, konnten sich nach Wunsch ergeben, wo sie wollten. Aber der schoss, der wurde erschossen. Als wir aus Owele marschierten, knatterten die Gewehre: aber da gab es Feuer, Weiber, und Alles.»
[17] The meaning of this sentence may perhaps be: «but there, fire, women and everything.»
[18] «Hier hatten Belgier auf deutsche Soldaten geschossen, und gingen wir sofort daran den Güterbahnhof zu plündern. Einige Kisten: Eier, Hemden, und alles was zum essen war wurde aus den Kisten herausgeschlagen ... Der eiserne Geldschrank wurde eingeschlagen und das Gold unter die Leute geteilt, Werthpapiere wurden zerrissen.»
[19] «23. 8. 1914. Der Feind hat das Dorf Bièvre besetzt und den Waldrand dahinter. Die 3. Kompagnie ging in 1. Linie vor. Wir stürmten das Dorf, plünderten und brannten fast sämtliche Häuser nieder.»
[20] «24. 8. 1914. Haybes. Hier kamen wir in das erste Gefecht (Dorfgefecht). Das 2. Bataillon hinein in das Dorf, die Häuser untersucht, geplündert, und wo herausgeschossen wurde, abgebrannt.»
[21] «10. 8. 1914. Parie (sic) das erste Dorf verbrannt, dann gings los: 1 Dorf nach dem andern in Flammen; über Feld und Acker mit Rad his wir an Strassengraben kamen, wo wir dann Kirschen assen.»
[22] «5. 10. 1914. Ein Auto kommt ins Lazarett und bringt Kriegsbeute: 1 Klavier, 2 Nähmaschinen, viele Alben, und allerlei sonstige Sachen.»
[23] «Hier hatte gestern die 6. Kompagnie gehaust, nicht als Soldaten sondern als gemeine Diebe. Einbrecher und Räuber, die eine Unehre für unser Regiment und unser Heer sind. Schon vorher hatten unsre Truppen Champs halb zerstört.»
[24] «Schlimm sind die Pioniere; die Artillerie, eine Räuberbande.»
[25] «Leider muss ich ein Vorkommnis mitteilen, das nicht hätte stattfinden sollen und dürfen. Aber es gibt auch in unserm Heere entmensch[t]e Kerle, Schweinhunde, denen nichts heilig ist. Ein solcher hat in die mit dem Schlüssel verschlossene Sakristei, in der das Allerheiligste stand und in welcher ein Protestant aus Ehrfurcht vor demselben sich nicht schlafen legte, einen grossen Kaktus gesetzt. Wie kann es solche Menschen geben? In der vorigen Nacht hat ein mehr als 35jähriger Landwehrmann, verheiratet, die noch junge Tochter seines Quartierwirtes vergewaltigen wollen; dem Vater, der dazu kam setzte er das Bayonett auf die Brust.»
[26] «Einschlagen von Granaten in die Häuser. Abends Feldgesang: Nun danket alle Gott.»
[27] «Im Wald, eine sehr schöne Kuh nebst Kalb angeschossen gefunden: und wieder franz. Leichen schrecklich verstümmelt.»
[28] Is there any need to remark that it is no more “treacherous” than it is lawful to shoot from the bows of a tree than from a window or from the bottom of a trench? On the contrary, the rest of the narrative will moreover prove it, it is as courageous as it is dangerous.
[29] «[Von der Wut der Soldaten kann man sich ein Bild machen, wenn man die zerstörten] Dörfer sieht. Kein Hans ist mehr ganz. Alles essbare wird von einzelnen Soldaten requiriert. Mehrere Haufen Menschen sah man, die standrechtlich erschossen wurden. Kleine Schweinchen liefen umher und suchten ihre Mutter. Hunde lagen an der Kette und hatten nichts zu fressen und zu saufen und über ihnen brannten die Häuser.
«Neben der gerechten Wut der Soldaten schreitet aber auch purer Vandalismus. In ganz leeren Dörfer setzen sie den roten Hahn ganz willkürlich auf die Häuser. Mir tun [die] Leute leit. [Wenn] sie auch unfaire Waffen gebrauchen, so verteidigen sie doch nur ihr Vaterland. Die Grausamkeiten die verübt wurden und noch werden von seiten der Bürger werden wüst gerächt.
«Verstümmelungen der Verwundeten sind an Tagesordnung.»
[30] The pamphlet entitled «Appel aux nations civilisées» which the German government spread abroad, says: «Il n’est pas vrai que nous fassions la guerre au mépris du droit des gens. Nos soldats ne commettent ni actes d’indiscipline ni cruautés.» This is the text of our translation. The German text published under the title «An die Kulturwelt» says: «Es ist nicht wahr dass unsre Kriegsführung die Gesetze des Völkerrechts missachtet. Sie kennt keine zuchtlose Grausamkeit». There is, as will be seen, a nuance between these two versions, both equally official. The German version seems to admit as legitimate «die zuchtmässige Grausamkeit» “cruelty exercised on service”.