GERMAN ACTIONS CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED ON THE PLEA OF REPRISALS
The Plea of Reprisals

Violations of the law of nations and, still more, acts of cruelty committed in war, have almost always escaped punishment properly so called. The victim usually finds himself powerless to exact retribution for them. Only one course is permitted to him: that of reprisals, by which he counters acts of violence with other acts of violence. His aim, therefore, is not vengeance: the point is to compel the enemy to keep to what is permissible, through fear of penalties to which he will be exposed if he persists in wrongdoing. Reprisals may frequently involve great violence, but one rule is universally admitted—that they never justify acts of cruelty properly so called. Amongst the latter are the massacre of women and children, mutilation, cunningly devised torture, etc. Two other principles are likewise admitted as regards reprisals, to wit—

(1) that the severity of reprisals must not be out of proportion to the gravity of the offence.

(2) that in cases where the offence has been committed by individual non-combatants, reprisals must not be inflicted on their fellow-citizens,[8] as the aggrieved army has its legitimate remedy under what is called martial law. Now the Germans have violated this rule and these principles.
Reprisals and the Germans

On many occasions the Germans have had recourse to the plea of reprisals to justify acts of violence committed by them. We shall show that this plea is a misuse of terms. One of the excuses which they have most frequently put forward is that civilians have taken part in the war, in Belgium, in France, in Poland. But the question of the civilian population taking part in military operations is bound up with the question of francs-tireurs, which Germany wanted to solve to suit herself and which will occupy our attention later on. Let us here point out one thing—that the circumstances under which, even according to the German version of events, civilians have taken part in the war, are very often quite enough to condemn Germany. For example, Herr de Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor, thought he could persuade the whole world of the innocence of the German soldiers, whose admitted excesses, so far as Louvain was concerned, were due, he said, to the fact that the young girls of the town had gouged out the eyes of the German soldiers. Let us assume the Chancellor’s good faith in making such a statement. Assuredly he cannot have supposed that this happened in many instances or that it went so far as a general execution. It can only have been reported to him, and he can only have been induced to believe it as an exceptional act. It is not of the nature of such an act, alike from the cruelty which it assumes in women and from the[9] difficulty of carrying it out, to be repeated often, and this is the reason for destroying a town, burning Louvain and pillaging the whole country. “A plea of self-defence like this,” said M. Hanotaux, “by itself gives you a picture of the German soul.”
German Slanders which Attempt to Disguise Cruel Acts of the Imperial Troops as Reprisals

All the other excuses of the Germans are of the same kind. Their very weakness proves that they are slanders. For example, Germany has endeavoured to spread in foreign countries, and especially in Switzerland, a rumour to the effect that people on their way back from enemy countries who had stopped in France, and also Swiss subjects, had been ill-treated by the French authorities. The object of this grotesque report was obviously to forestall charges under the same heading which would fall on Germany, and to prepare the public opinion of the world to think that charges outstanding against them were cancelled by the necessity of resorting to reprisals for acts committed in France. The Swiss newspapers did not fail to denounce the German man?uvre. To show the extent to which the policy of lying was being carried, the Journal de Genève published a letter from the Swiss Consul at Besan?on, giving the highest praise to the manner in which Germans and Austrians had been treated in France.

Moreover, of what value can these slanders be when, on the other hand, documentary evidence proves that the French authorities have behaved to the Germans with an excess of indulgence. It is certain, at least, that nowhere in France has any hatred been shown to[10] the prisoners. Even prisoners of war have been most energetically protected by the heads of the army against the passions of crowds. On this head here is a note which a French general, Commandant at Angers, addressed to the newspapers of this town—

“For some days convoys of prisoners of war have been passing through the Angers railway station.

“Part of the civil population, and not always the best part, crowds on the bridge above the station and utter cries when they think they recognise an enemy uniform on the platform. These demonstrations are unbecoming; if the Germans behave like brutes to their prisoners, there is no reason why we should imitate them. A nation like France, which boasts with good right of being the most civilised of all, cannot, by acting like them, follow in the footsteps of the barbarians whom we are on the way to conquer at our will and pleasure, with arms in our hands. I beg, therefore, the staff of the local press to be good enough to invite civilians to maintain the calmness and dignity which are the qualities of strong races, conscious of their place in civilisation.

“Général d’Ormesson.”
Trivial Acts have sometimes been the Cause of Terrible Reprisals

One of the man?uvres practised by the Germans consists in their firing some gunshots themselves, at the moment when they were entering a village evacuated by enemy troops, and pretending that these shots came from civilians. Consequently they began to resort to what they called reprisals. All the more[11] did they resort to them when the smallest actual offence gave them any pretext.

In his book, German Evidence for German Crimes, M. Bédier tells how at Orchies “a woman was shot for not having obeyed the word of command to halt. The result, the whole district burnt!” The disobedience of this peasant woman was considered by the German, Major Mehring, the Commandant at Valenciennes, a “terrible atrocity.” In the belief that other equally terrible atrocities had been, according to report, committed at Orchies this Major decided on the destruction of the town. Moreover, he was extraordinarily proud of it, for he issued a proclamation saying that “unfortunately” he had been compelled to the most rigorous measures of martial law against the town of Orchies. “In this locality,” he adds, “the most terrible atrocities were committed. I have drawn the due inferences therefrom, and have destroyed the whole town. The old town of Orchies, a town of 5000 inhabitants, is no more … The dwelling-houses, town hall and church are annihilated.” As a matter of fact the Germans directed a furious bombardment against Orchies; incendiary bombs, benzine sprinklers, every means was employed. For a radius of six leagues the red lights of the conflagration could be seen rising.
In Poland

A circumstance quite as trivial as the disobedience of the Orchies peasant woman was the occasion for the monstrous acts of cruelty and extortion of which the Germans were guilty at Kalich, in Poland. In that place, because some one threw a stone at a patrol,[12] Lieutenant-colonel Prenster, in command of the garrison, caused all the residents in one house to be shot, and then, thinking that that was not enough, he had all the people who lived in Rue Vroclavska brought out of their houses and riddled with grapeshot. About a hundred were killed. Another inhabitant of Kalich, Sokolof, the treasurer, was shot “for having burnt, the evening before the Germans entered, the banknotes in the departmental bank.” Another, named Dernbourg, was hanged on the mere charge of having “carried a lantern in his hand.” This fact proved him to have been a spy! The truth is that the unfortunate man had used the lantern only for the purpose of carrying out certain necessary repairs to his mill. Four workmen engaged in the mill were also put to death, after some forms of trial. Four hundred houses were destroyed in this town, representing a loss of sixty million roubles. The leader of the Germans in this performance was an individual of German extraction, Michel by name, the former head of a brothel at Kalich, whom the German Commandant appointed mayor of the town.
The Germans Admit that their Pleas of Defence are a Sham

The Germans have been trained in a rigorous school, but they are lacking in flexibility of mind. Moreover, they were unable to avoid admissions which confute their falsehoods.

So it happened that when the Berliner Tageblatt recorded acts of cruelty which it alleged had been committed by the Allies, a refutation of its charges came from Germany itself. This paper told that in[13] France cigars and cigarettes filled with powder were given to German prisoners: Vorwaerts took up the task of replying to this piece of stupidity, showed that a great number of stories of the same kind had been admitted to be false, and that in particular the story of the cigarettes was a mere invention. The legend that German soldiers had had their eyes gouged out by francs-tireurs was also denounced as a mere imagination. On this point Vorwaerts wrote: “No proof has been made out on official authority that German soldiers have had their eyes gouged out by francs-tireurs. A certain well-known Berlin newspaper declared that there were at the Grosslichterfeld hospital ten slightly wounded soldiers, who had had their eyes gouged out by the enemy. When Herr Liebknecht asked the superintendent of the hospital if the report was correct, the latter replied, ‘Fortunately, these rumours are devoid of all foundation.’”

Vorwaerts recurred to this same question on the 6th December, 1914, when it published the results of an inquiry made of the management of the Hanover hospitals and the grand charity hospital at Berlin.

The management of the Hanover hospitals addressed the following reply to the Socialist journal. “As a result of inquiry made among the doctors of the different sections of hospital 3, we are able to inform you that we have not at present at the hospital a single wounded person whose eyes have been gouged out. We have never had one.”

Similarly, the management of the charity hospital at Berlin communicated the following note to Vorwaerts: “The charity hospital has admitted no wounded who have had their eyes gouged out.”

[14]

Finally, the great Catholic newspaper, the K?lnische Volkszeitung, having published in the month of November an article in which the same legend reappeared, Arch-presbyter Kaufmann had a conclusive document inserted in this paper.

A doctor, M. Saethre, who said he had visited the Cologne hospitals, had written, “There can be no doubt about the atrocities committed by francs-tireurs. I myself saw at Aix-la-Chapelle a Red Cross sister whose breast had been cut off by francs-tireurs, and a Major whose eyes had been gouged out whilst he lay on the field of battle.” He replied, under date 26th November, in a letter to the paper from which we make this extract: “You asked me to write to you what I thought about this report. I, therefore, applied to the competent military authorities to know if the statements made by Doctor Saethre were correct. The superintendent of the hospital writes me under date 25th November, ‘The atrocities of which you tell me have not been committed, at least as far as Aix-la-Chapelle is concerned. We have not seen the Red Cross sister referred to nor the Major either.’

“I do not know,” continued the Arch-presbyter, where the doctor of whom the K?lnische Volkszeitung speaks has got his information. “I think it necessary to state here again that in the hospitals of Aix-la-Chapelle there is not a single wounded man to be found whose eyes have been gouged out, and no Red Cross sister who has suffered the above-mentioned mutilation.”

In this way was the device foiled. The attempts made to disguise the German crimes as reprisals led to nothing.

[15]
Reprisals among the Allies

These took place on account of the treatment of German prisoners of war after their internment. Even on this question complete equality has not yet been reached, as the Allies did not desire to treat their prisoners in the least like Germany treats hers.

In their behaviour towards civilians the Allies have always confined themselves to the limits prescribed by martial law, without having recourse to the right of reprisals. In Alsace, German immigrants very nearly gave occasion for reprisals.

At Cernay, a French section which had deployed lost thirty-eight men, who had all been struck in the back; the shots had been fired in the town, before any German soldier could have reached there. At Lutran, the German teacher fired on a cavalry patrol and killed two horses. This attitude of the Germans of Alsace, as well as the numerous arrests of German spies caught red-handed in the course of operations in Upper Alsace, brought several persons before a court-martial. In these citations the procedure of war was scrupulously observed. This was particularly the case with the Mayor and the comptroller of the post office of Thann, as also with the wife of a German forester of Schlierbach, who was condemned to death by the court-martial for having led several soldiers into an ambuscade.

Only on one occasion did the French speak of reprisals and threaten to carry them out. This threat was delivered by aeroplanes, which threw down proclamations declaring “We have many hostages in our hands. For every Alsatian killed, we shall kill ten Germans; for every Alsatian wounded, we[16] shall kill a German.” The object was to protect Alsatian civilians, who had fallen into the hands of the Germans again, against the vengeance of the latter.
Conclusion

To sum up, while the Allies, in face of the cruelties committed by their enemies, waived or restricted their right of reprisals; the Germans, on the contrary, not only exercised it, but boldly exceeded it, using it as a random excuse to justify a policy of vengeance and terrorisation. Acts of little importance were repressed by them like outrages. The doings of a single individual brought about the ruin of a village. Still more, these doings were invented to justify gratuitous excesses practised for the mere purpose of terrorisation. These general remarks were necessary before embarking on the story of the excesses and crimes which Germany wished to dispute and the details of which we are about to read.