“The life of hostages,” wrote Commandant Dieckmann at Grivegnée, on the 6th September, “_depends on whether the inhabitants of the communes previously mentioned keep quiet under all circumstances_.” And he adds, “I shall mark in the lists submitted to me the names of those individuals who must stay as hostages from noon on one day to noon of the next. “If a substitute has not been found within reasonable time, the hostage will remain for a further twenty-four in the fort. After this second period of twenty-four hours, the hostage will run the risk of death, if a substitute has not been found.” Moreover, Marshal Von der Goltz, military governor of Belgium, caused to be posted up in Brussels on 5th October, 1914, a proclamation in which the following announcement was made: “In future, the localities nearest to the place where the destruction of railway lines and telegraph wires has taken place (_whether they have been accessory or not_) will be mercilessly punished. To this end hostages have been taken from all localities near to railroads threatened by such attacks, and _at the first attempt to destroy lines of railroad, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot_.” As for the deportation of civilians and the imprisonment with which they were threatened, when they were not carried off to Germany, two German soldiers volunteered the following admissions: “On the 6th September,” writes one of them, “_we dispatched three hundred Belgians to Germany, including twenty-one curés_.” “We shut up,” writes the other (Karl Bertram de Westeregein, near Magdeburg), “450 men in the church at Aerschot. I myself happened to be near the church at the moment.” CONCLUSION All this evidence and all these admissions are sufficient to prove the criminal nature of the German treatment of civilians whose territory had been invaded. The pretexts which they allege have no validity. They are only made for the sake of appearances, and, on the other hand, the acts which they committed are such as admit no kind of excuse and can in no case be justified. Nevertheless the German Government attempted to do so. The Berlin Cabinet undertook to prove that the inhabitants of Liège were guilty and deserved to suffer the fearful butchery which followed the entry of the Germans. To prove this the latter relied upon the evidence of a certain Hermann Costen, who was represented as a Swiss member of the Red Cross. But the chief of the Swiss police promptly published the following information— (1) M. Hermann Costen never belonged to the Swiss Red Cross. (2) M. Hermann Costen is not Swiss, as he was refused naturalisation. (3) For two years M. Hermann Costen has been under the surveillance of the Swiss police. I maintain that since the declaration of war this person only left Switzerland from the 9th to the 14th August. _It is absolutely impossible that he can have been at Liège at the period of the siege mentioned by you._