OUTRAGES ON NEUTRAL SUBJECTS

In these acts of unbridled violence due note should be made of the fact that German officials, officers and private soldiers made no distinction between individuals who held public offices and mere private citizens. Still more worthy of note is the fact, which we think is obvious, that they made no distinction between the subjects of enemy and those of neutral states. The sacred duty laid upon every State to protect the life, property and even the interests of neutrals was absolutely repudiated in Germany, and we think it is our duty to draw the reader’s attention with special emphasis to outrages of this kind committed by the Germans both in Germany and in the territories which they invaded.
Outrages committed by the Germans on Neutral Subjects Resident in Germany

M. Bernardino del Campo, ex-Minister of Finance of Brazil, ex-President of Sao-Paolo and leader of the Republican Party of that country, happened to be on the 3rd August at Bad-Nauheim with his wife, who was taking a course of treatment there, and his four children. The Germans showed no consideration either for his nationality, his rank or his age. M. Bernardino del Campo, although he had reached the[36] age of sixty-two years, was struck with the butt-end of the rifle by Bavarian soldiers, robbed of his jewels and left dying at the Swiss frontier.

The news of this incident caused great indignation in Brazil.

Baroness Karen-Groothe, daughter of the King of Denmark’s Master of the Hunt, and wife of a Turkish officer, happened to be at Mecklenberg when war was declared, and was arrested as a spy and treated so brutally that she had to keep to her bed at Copenhagen, to which she was brought back.

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.”

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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[38] 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.

Amongst the many inhabitants at Liège who were shot were five young people of Spanish nationality. They were massacred on the 20th August. Their names were known and were as follows: the brothers Oliver, Juan and Antonio, natives of Oller, Jaime Llabres of Majorca, Juan Nora and José Nielle.

The Consul-General of the Balearic Islands, who had received confirmation of this report, made an official request to the Spanish Government that they should protest against these outrages and exact reparation—that is to say, present a demand for an indemnity for the families of the murdered men, and in order to make the demand effective, seize all the German ships which had taken refuge in Spanish ports.

In France, at Jarny, twelve kilometres from Briey, the German soldiers, not satisfied with other acts of barbarism which they had committed, shot in addition thirteen Italian subjects. Here is the story of these murders, given by one of the comrades of the victims, the Italian Agostino Baccheta de Gattico of Novara, in the Gazetta del Popolo (see the Matin for 27th August, 1914).

At Jarny, Baccheta ran a small café which was a rendezvous for Italians, some of whom were his boarders. He returned to Italy, after a long and painful journey, accompanied by the sister of one of the men who had been shot.

“It was about eight o’clock in the morning, on the[39] 3rd August,” said he, “when several battalions of the 63rd German infantry regiment, with some cavalry and artillery, got as far as Jarny, without meeting with much resistance from the French, who were not in great numbers.

“The Germans lost one man killed and four wounded. They immediately accused the inhabitants of having fired on their party, and, having summoned the chief magistrate and the local doctor, ordered them to assemble the whole male population on the open space of the village.

“Women and children were knocked down. When they wanted to follow their men-folk they were brutally driven back with the butt-ends of rifles and several were bayoneted. A woman, named Giuseppa Trolli, tried to prevent her husband getting out of the bed where he was lying seriously ill, and called out to the Germans, ‘Savage brutes.’ She, and the child which she was holding in her arms, were wounded.

“When all the men had assembled, patrols began to search the houses. In the rooms of my café, which had been let to some Italians, they found pickaxes and other tools. This was the excuse for arresting and immediately afterwards shooting the workmen, whose names are as follows: Gerolamo Bernacchini of Gattico; Giovanni Testa of Bergama; Angelo Luisetti of Borgomanero; Stefano Piralli of Gattico; Giovani Zoni of Trevisa.

“In the inn kept by a man named Gaggioli Stefano of Serralunga, two rusty revolvers were found. The proprietor of the inn, a man named Vaglia Giuseppe of Castelamonte, and Cesaroni Vincenzo of Viterbe, were arrested and paid with their lives for what this search had yielded.

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“Finally, in the Carrera Café, a fowling-piece was found belonging to Pesenti Luigi, of Milan, who was forthwith shot.”

Bachetta adds that some days afterwards the following were arrested and shot: Giovanni Tron of Conegliano; Andrew Bisesti of Bologna; a lad of thirteen years old called Eurigo Maffi of Lugo; Amilcare Zoni of Trevisa, because, when asking for a passport of repatriation, they had questioned the German Commandant in a spirited manner.

Italian refugees informed the consular authorities of the tragedy of which their companions had been the victims. They then went to Gattico to bring to M. Niccolo Leonardi the material proofs of their story.

Spanish subjects resident in Reims suffered dreadfully during the German occupation and the famous bombardment, which we describe in detail further on.

During the occupation, M. Rolland, a Spanish subject, was ill-treated and fifty German soldiers looted everything in the restaurant of which he was proprietor, especially his cellar.

Several other houses and shops belonging to Spaniards, over which their national flag was flying, were systematically pillaged.

The bombardment of September 18-20 had fresh disasters in store for the Spanish residents of Reims. The Spanish Consulate was bombarded although the Spanish flag made it conspicuous and all the Spaniards of Reims had taken refuge there on the advice of a Frenchman, M. Humbert, who, in the absence of the vice-consul, Cama, had taken charge of Spanish interests. The house of Narcisso Torres, which also had the Spanish flag upon it, was struck by two shells.[41] Father Torres, aged seventy-six years and ill, died of excitement. M. Antonio’s house was set on fire; his daughter, aged eleven years, was seriously wounded.

In the outskirts of Reims, the premises of the well-known Spanish firm, Montener & Co., were bombarded four times, and suffered damage which might be estimated at 500,000 francs.

The Spanish committee of Paris, which had sent a deputation to the department of the Marne, to report upon the disasters of the war, protested as soon as they received the report of their deputies against the crimes committed in defiance of the Spanish flag and of humanity.

Finally, let us add that, at the time of the second bombardment of Dunkirk, which was carried out by German aeroplanes (22nd January, 1915), the United States consul, Mr. Benjamin Morel, was wounded by a bursting bomb. The consulates of the United States, Norway and Uruguay were, in addition, struck by explosive projectiles thrown by German airmen.