OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY GERMAN AUTHORITIES AND PRIVATE PERSONS AGAINST ENEMY SUBJECTS

The most celebrated German writers on international law, Heffter, Klueber, Geffcken, have taught that the State which declares war can neither keep enemy subjects who happen to be on its territory nor their property, for as they came into this territory in reliance upon public law and have received permission to stay there, they can avail themselves of the tacit promise made by the State that every freedom and safety are guaranteed them for their return. If the State wishes them to go, it must allow them a reasonable time to go away with their property; if not, enemy subjects, who are subject to the regulations of the police and of public safety have the right, so long as they respect these laws, to appeal for protection to them. In any case deliberate ill-treatment of enemy subjects cannot be permitted.

This principle, by the confession of the Germans themselves, condemns the methods to which Germany has resorted by empowering her officials to behave cruelly to French and Russian subjects who happened to be in Germany on the 3rd August, and by tacitly approving the behaviour of the mob to them.

The fear of spying, of which it appears that all these people were suspected, perhaps because of the audacity which the Germans themselves showed in resorting to it in foreign countries, was invoked by the Germans as the excuse for all these outrages and the justification for all these annoyances.
 
German Misconduct towards People Incapable of Espionage

Nevertheless, ill-treatment could not be justified in this way. As a precaution against spying, foreigners may be compelled to leave a country en masse. A straightforward and honest supervision may be exercised over them at their departure, but no one has the right to allow them to be struck, nor to expose them to the clamours of a mob, nor to speak to them as if they were prisoners in the dock. Only definite suspicion falling upon individuals would justify such conduct, and by justifying it would give, in addition, the rights of arrest and cross-examination.

People who are merely being brought back to their own country in case of war have the right to be shown every consideration by the authorities.

In all the disgraceful situations which German officials and private citizens brought about in Germany in their dealings with enemy subjects of Germany, we can, therefore, see merely the expression of a cowardly hatred of everything that belongs to the powers hostile to Germany, powers which the Germans think they are hitting when they insult and ill-treat their peaceful and harmless citizens. The same feeling which animated German officials against the Dowager Empress of Russia, against the Grand Duke Constantin, against the ambassadors, ministers and consuls of Russia and France, could only assert itself with still greater fury, devoid of all consideration and all scruple, against plain French citizens or Russian subjects. In this letting loose of evil passions there were manifested features of grotesque arbitrariness. For example, such was these people’s whim, every woman who wore spectacles was subjected to a more[32] minute search than other travellers, on the ground, it was alleged, that there was more likelihood of her being a spy!
How the Germans treated Russian Travellers

Thirty-two Russians belonging to the highest aristocracy, who were passing the summer at Baden and other bathing resorts, were arrested at Hamburg and detained for several days. Thanks to the intervention of the Spanish consul, M. Veler, they were able eventually to continue their journey; but at Neumunster, M. Schebeko, on the authority of a telegram from Berlin, was suddenly arrested in the train, compelled to get out of the carriage guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets, in the midst of a crowd shouting “Shoot him!” He was then dragged off to prison, where he spent twenty-four hours in a dark cell, in the company of malefactors under the common law.

The Countess of Vorontsoff, daughter of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, went so far as to protest. Immediately the soldiers, in a rage, forced themselves into her carriage, pushed her with the butt-ends of their rifles on to the platform and began to search her. It was only with great difficulty that the travellers were able to resume their journey, which, from Baden to the Danish frontier, lasted seven days. At Reudsburg station they were again dragged from their carriage and carefully searched: at the Fleusburg station they were detained for four hours under a guard of armed soldiers. Other Russian travellers of note were at first brought to the frontier town of Eydtkuhnen, and then dispatched again to Mecklenburg, and the Island of Ruegen.
 

The travellers were fearfully crowded together. Some of them were put into cattle-trucks and had nothing to eat or drink. Even women were not spared blows with the fist and with the butt-ends of rifles, nor threats of death. Several had to make long marches on foot between rows of armed soldiers, and at stopping-places had no shelter but pig-sties. A large number of men aged from seventeen to fifty were stopped.

Husbands were taken away from their wives, children were harshly treated, and left alone at the stopping-places in spite of the cries of their mothers, who were forced to continue their journey.

In the sanatorium at Frankfurt, which was filled with a large number of foreigners, especially Russians, several of whom had just been operated on, shameful behaviour of the same kind took place. The sanatorium was cleared in twenty-four hours. A woman who had just been confined was sent to Berne, where she arrived in a dying condition. Her baby died on the way.

After stories like these, we can easily imagine what bad treatment travellers of less distinction had to endure. The vicissitudes through which they passed not merely astound, but revolt, the hearer. The Russians who were brought to Sasuitz, for the most part robbed of all that they had, agreed to make the following declaration—

“Those who wish to do so may take the boat to go back to Sweden. Those who do not wish to return to Sweden will remain here, as prisoners of war, until the end of the war. The women will sew linen for our soldiers, the men will be employed in making trenches. Whoever departs from the appointed place where he is to stop will be brought before a court-martial and will be shot. We do not guarantee regular food.”
 
How the Germans Behaved to French Residents and Travellers

The French were no more spared than the Russians. At Kembs, fronting Istein, the German authorities blew up with dynamite Monsignor Kannengieser’s dwelling-house. The noble prelate, who was almost blind, was shamefully ill-treated, because (such is the statement of the Liberté de Fribourg) he had in his possession plans of Istein.

As for French travellers going back to France, their journey was checked at any moment by the police, who stopped them for long hours, if not for whole days, at every station. Several found that they were treated like regular prisoners; on the slightest suspicion they were shut up in dark cells, and in order to intimidate them or to drag confessions out of them, they were threatened with death. Those who were not stopped by the police were unmercifully beaten by the crowd, who loaded them with insults.

At Hanover a child who was wearing the inscription France on the ribbon of its hat was dragged from its mother and ill-treated.

At Donaueschingen a certain number of women were compelled by the German military authorities to discontinue their journey, and were brought to a school, where they had to sleep on straw.

They got the benefit, however, of the sole and only act of charity which was performed during the whole of this time in Germany towards an enemy subject, for the Princess of Fürstenberg, whose castle is at Donaueschingen, hearing of their condition, had beds given them in a hospital of which she is patroness.