German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment — John Shaqi
German Barbarism: A Neutral's IndictmentMaccas, Léon
History
German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment
Maccas, Léon
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
Several Danish subjects resident in Schleswig were treated with the same
kind of brutality. Count de Schack was imprisoned; when, on his release,
he tried to escape across the Danish frontier, he was arrested again and
sent to a fortress in the interior of Germany. The editors of the Danish
papers in Schleswig, and a large number of distinguished people in the
annexed provinces, were also imprisoned.
Americans were no better treated than Danes. The _New York Sun_ (11th
August, 1914) discussed the treatment of Americans in Germany in an
article dealing with the arrest of Mr. Archer Huntington and his wife
on a baseless charge of espionage, and the brutality with which several
young Americans had been treated.
“It would seem that the German authorities” (said the _Sun_) “think that
in war there is no obstacle to their will and no atonement for their
acts. The American Government will speedily have to disabuse them of this
idea. Germany must be made to understand clearly that ample compensation
is due to her victims, and that those who have abused their authority
must be punished.”
IN AUSTRIA
The Austrian authorities were as discourteous as the German to
foreigners, subjects of neutral countries. At Carlsbad the famous singer,
Adelina Patti, and her husband, Baron Cederstrom, a Danish subject, were
kept prisoners for several days in their hotel, where the police searched
everything and rummaged through all their trunks and portmanteaus, while
the crowd, who threatened to carry the hotel by assault, raised a hideous
din by way of demonstration against the singer, who is a friend of Russia
and France.
According to the Italian newspaper _Messagero_, an Italian commercial
traveller, M. Ugo Lorenzini, and ten fellow-countrymen were ill-treated
by the Austrians on their return from Berlin to Italy on the outbreak of
hostilities. They were imprisoned at Innsbruck, then shut up in a motor
wagon, which took a day and a half to bring them to Trente. There they
were robbed of everything they had, especially of 2000 crowns, which
was all the money in their possession. For a whole week the Austrians
actually kept them digging trenches for fifteen hours a day: hardly any
food was given them and they were struck with sticks and swords. One
morning, after one of them had killed the guard, they managed to escape.
A Trentino peasant helped them to make good their flight to the Italian
frontier, where they arrived in a state of exhaustion.
CRIMES COMMITTED BY GERMANS AGAINST NEUTRAL SUBJECTS IN THE INVADED
COUNTRIES
The most serious of these crimes was that committed by the soldiers of
Lieutenant-colonel Blegen at Dinant against M. Himmer, Vice-Consul of
the Argentine. This vice-consul, who ought to have been respected not
merely as a non-combatant and a neutral, but because his consular rank
should have protected him, was killed, and the Argentine flag trampled
under foot, with the result that keen indignation was aroused in the
Argentine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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