Transcriber’s Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end. * * * * * [Illustration: THE INVADED COUNTRY] * * * * * THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM _An Historical Record_ BY ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE LATE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY MCMXVII * * * * * COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE The subject of this book is the treatment of the civil population in the countries overrun by the German Armies during the first three months of the European War. The form of it is a connected narrative, based on the published documents[1] and reproducing them by direct quotation or (for the sake of brevity) by reference. With the documents now published on both sides it is at last possible to present a clear narrative of what actually happened. The co-ordination of this mass of evidence, which has gradually accumulated since the first days of invasion, is the principal purpose for which the book has been written. The evidence consists of first-hand statements--some delivered on oath before a court, others taken down from the witnesses without oath by competent legal examiners, others written and published on the witnesses’ own initiative as books or pamphlets. Most of them originally appeared in print in a controversial setting, as proofs or disproofs of disputed fact, or as justifications or condemnations of fact that was admitted. In the present work, however, this argumentative aspect of them has been avoided as far as possible. For it has either been treated exhaustively in official publications--the case of Louvain, for instance, in the German White Book and the Belgian Reply to it--or will not be capable of such treatment till after the conclusion of the War. The ultimate inquiry and verdict, if it is to have finality, must proceed either from a mixed commission of representatives of all the States concerned, or from a neutral commission like that appointed by the Carnegie Foundation to inquire into the atrocities committed during the Balkan War. But the German Government has repeatedly refused proposals, made both unofficially and officially, that it should allow such an investigation to be conducted in the territory at present under German military occupation,[2] and the final critical assessment will therefore necessarily be postponed till the German Armies have retired again within their own frontiers.