German Barbarism: A Neutral's IndictmentMaccas, Léon
History
German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment
Maccas, Léon
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
16. _General Heindrich_, commander of the German troops at
Lille, who, by exorbitant requisitions, reduced the population
of this town to starvation, and made away with the appeal for
help which the mayor of Lille, on his own advice, had addressed
to the President of the Swiss Republic.
17. _General Stenger_, commander of a brigade in France, who
issued the well-known order of the day giving instructions to
kill the wounded and to execute prisoners of war.
18. _Lieutenant-general Nisher._ He demanded of the little town
of Wavre the exorbitant war-contribution of 3,000,000 francs,
which General Bülow had imposed. “The town of Wavre will be
burnt and destroyed if payment is not made in good time,
without respect of persons—_the innocent will suffer with the
guilty_.”
19. _General Sixtus of Arnim_, commander of the 4th German army
corps, who mulcted the town of Brussels and the province of
Brabant in the monstrous contribution of 500,000,000 francs.
20. _General von Bissing_, commander of the 7th German army
corps, who, in a proclamation to his troops in Belgium, told
them that when “civilians take upon them to fire on us, the
_innocent must suffer with the guilty_”; that “the German
authorities have on several occasions in their instructions
to the troops said that _human life must not be spared in
repressing such acts_”; that “it is doubtless regrettable that
houses, flourishing villages, and even whole towns should be
destroyed, but this must not cause us to be carried away by
feelings of misplaced pity. _All that is not worth the life of
a single German soldier._”
21. _General de Doehm_, commander of the 9th German army corps.
When an American journalist of _The World_ and Mr. Gibson,
secretary of the United States Embassy at Brussels, told him
they had seen the bodies of mutilated women and children
at Louvain, this general replied that such incidents were
“_inevitable in street fighting_.” The American journalist
remarked that a woman’s body had the feet and hands cut off;
that of an old man showed twenty-two bayonet thrusts in the
face; that an old man’s body had been found hanging by his
hands to the beams of his house, and that he had been burnt
alive by lighting a fire underneath him. All that General de
Doehm could say was that he was not responsible.
22. _Baron Merbach_, who, with Prince Eitel and the Duke of
Brunswick, took part in looting a château near Liège.
23. The _Duke of Gronau_. After the château of Villers, Notre
Dame, in Belgium, had been occupied by his headquarters he
himself caused the following to be taken and sent to Germany:
146 sets of cutlery, 236 silver-gilt spoons, 3 gold watches, 9
savings-bank deposit books, 1500 bottles of wine, 62 hens, 32
ducks, evening clothes, works of art, and a quantity of baby
linen.
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