KILLING OF THE WOUNDED BY GERMANS
The Wounded, the Red Cross, and the Geneva Convention

What is the aim and object of battles between belligerent powers? To put out of action as large a number as possible of enemy soldiers, and thus, as much as may be, to break the enemy’s resistance. That, at least, is the conception of the aim of war entertained by all civilised nations, since only barbarians, from desire for revenge, from blindness and brutality, would seek to do injury for its own sake, and to seize the opportunity of a state of war to gratify their instincts for plunder. This conception, let us repeat, Germany, like all other nations, has countersigned in solemn covenants.

Nevertheless, the aims which this war is laying bare in them are contrary to these pledges.

In fact, we see Germany deliberately killing either those whom she could prevent from doing her any injury by keeping them as prisoners, or even those who were non-combatants. Some have thought that the Germans aimed, in a manner, at the annihilation of the race in nations hostile to Germany. It would be dreadful if this were the case. As for ourselves, we shall neither say that this has not been proved nor that it is impossible. What is certain is that the number of outrages committed by Germany can only be explained by a deliberate attempt at barbaric destruction.

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Beyond question they have attempted to damage the property of the enemy. Pillage in their eyes has not been one of the more or less inevitable concomitants of war: it has been one of its deliberate aims. Moreover, the policy of terrorisation is a part of their general plan of action. In their view fear is a good ally of invasion, and in order to reap all the advantage of it they have left untried no form of violence or even of cruelty.

Besides, we are not here concerned with policy shaped from above, by the Government or the higher command: in the rank and file we may take everything for granted. “Let us kill them all: there will be so many the fewer left.” Who knows how often this monstrous thought has entered the brain of people whose cruelty and violence is a part of their plans of war? How often has it not been a necessity to kill, as to sack, in order to overthrow, to reduce, to weaken an enemy nation not merely in war, but in general, and even as regards the future in which rehabilitation might be anticipated. But civilised nations look to treaties to prevent the rehabilitation of the enemy. By looting and robbing industrial establishments, the property of private individuals, the Germans showed that their peculiar method was to try to prevent it by war itself, to draw up a schedule of barbarism which by its very nature endangers life itself, which includes murder as well as pillage. Thus we understand how the Germans, both in theory and practice, have violated the most widely accepted conventions which, in the midst of the havoc of war, limit the right to kill either civilians or soldiers.

To begin with, the present chapter will be devoted to the complete denial of the principles of humanity laid down in the Geneva Convention. We reserve the right of discussion in subsequent chapters of the questions of[85] the treatment of prisoners, of the massacre of civilians, etc. The violation of that part of the Convention of Geneva which bears upon the wounded and the Red Cross is, in fact, a deliberate crime, without any extenuating circumstances; it is inexcusable and unpardonable.

What are the terms of the Convention of Geneva? That “soldiers and other persons officially attached to armies shall, when wounded or sick, be respected and taken care of by the belligerent in whose power they may be, without distinction of nationality.” The latter, therefore, must look for and collect the sick and wounded, and prevent every act by any third party which might do them injury. These sick and wounded will be prisoners of war, but “prisoners who must be taken care of.” As for people attached to the Red Cross, it was declared, and Germany and Austria-Hungary subscribed both to this and to the preceding stipulations, that “the personnel engaged exclusively in the collection, transport and treatment of the wounded and sick, as well as in the administration of medical units and establishments, and the chaplains attached to armies, shall be respected and protected under all circumstances; if they fall into the hands of the enemy they shall not be treated as prisoners of war.”
Principles of the Geneva Convention which Germans have violated

We have already stated in the preceding chapter how seldom the Germans have carried out these principles, for, contrariwise, they have deliberately aimed their artillery at establishments for the shelter of the wounded, the sick, and the hospital services. This fact is not the only one which shows the contempt displayed by the[86] Germans for the Geneva Convention. It seems that they have eagerly seized upon every opportunity which presented itself to violate this convention in every way. Not only have the wounded who fell into their hands not been properly treated by them, but in many instances these wounded have been put to death. Sometimes, before killing them, they treated themselves to the enjoyment of making them suffer. It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that in more than one case the killing of the wounded assumed the form of a command issued by the officers themselves. We have said that the Germans have also fired on ambulances. They have killed and ill-treated Red Cross nurses, male and female, and the doctors engaged on Red Cross work.
Killing of the Wounded ordered by Officers

The German wounded are many. It followed, therefore, that the German medical service was disinclined to encumber itself with relays of enemy wounded. Perhaps this is also the reason why orders were given to the soldiers to kill the wounded. General Stenger issued, on the 26th August, an order of the day giving instructions to make no more prisoners and to leave no living man behind. The authenticity of this order, the full text of which we give in the next chapter, was confirmed by the evidence of German prisoners.

The prisoners cross-examined, says the Temps, which reported the depositions, belong to the 112th and 142nd infantry regiments. They were put on oath and signed the report of their examination. A soldier of the 142nd deposed that, on the 26th August, about three o’clock, he was in the van of his battalion in the forest of Thiaville when the company order giving instructions to[87] kill the wounded was sent along the ranks and repeated from man to man.

This prisoner added that as soon as this order was passed round, ten or twelve French wounded who were lying here and there round about the battalion were dispatched with rifle shots.

Another prisoner in the same regiment deposed that, on the 26th August, he saw a cavalry officer, unknown to him, come and give the order in question as coming from headquarters. Immediately afterwards rifle shots were heard coming from the head of the detachment in front of him.

A soldier of the 112th declared that he heard, on the 26th August, Captain Curtins, in command of the 3rd Company, say that henceforth no more wounded were to be made prisoners. Shortly afterwards he heard rifle shots fired at the French wounded who happened to be lying along the roads.

Another soldier of the 112th gave evidence that on the same day, between four and five o’clock, some French wounded who happened to be on the sides of the road from Thiaville to Saint Benoit, were killed by order of the commander of the 1st battalion.

About twenty German soldiers who were cross-examined admitted that this order had been given, but without giving details about the manner in which it had been carried out. Some prisoners, who did not know even in the field about the company order of the day, declared that they were subsequently informed of it by their comrades.

Moreover, the German soldier Karl Johannes Kaltenochner (9th company of the regiment of Count Bülow of Tervuenwist), who deserted and took refuge in Holland, declared in the Telegraaf of Amsterdam (Temps[88] of 3rd January, 1915) that when Turcos were made prisoners the German officers did not take the trouble to send them to any place behind the lines, and gave orders to the soldiers to shoot them. He quoted Major Botwitz as having given orders to kill two Turco prisoners. It is not, then, to be wondered at that the soldier who made this disclosure accompanied it with the declaration “that the German soldiers have become like wild animals and think only of killing and pillaging.”

Finally, in the hospital at Nancy two German soldiers who were under treatment there made similar confessions. One of them, who had a wound in the stomach, confided to Dr. Rohmer that it had been caused by a revolver-shot from his officer, because he declined to kill a wounded Frenchman. The other, who was wounded in the back by a shot fired point-blank, declared to Dr. Weiss that, in obedience to the order of an officer, a soldier had fired on him to punish him for having carried several wounded Frenchmen into a village not far from the battlefield.
French and Belgian Officers killed by the Germans

The number of officers killed by Germans on the different battlefields to which the war has extended is certainly greater than one would think. The following are two attested instances—

On the 9th August, at Ormael in Belgium, the Belgian Commandant Knapen, who was already wounded, was killed.

On the 12th August, after the battle of Haelen in Belgium, the Germans killed, by a revolver-shot in the mouth, Commandant Van Daume, who had been seriously wounded.

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On the 22nd August, at Gommery (Belgian Luxemburg) M. Charles Deschars, former commercial attaché of France at Berlin, was killed under the following disgraceful circumstances. M. Deschars, an interpreter lieutenant at the headquarters of General Trentinian, had been wounded at the battle of Elbe, in Belgian Luxemburg, on the 22nd August. On that day he had to be left at an ambulance in the village of Gommery. In the evening came a German troop belonging to the 47th infantry regiment, in command of a non-commissioned officer. The latter pretended that a shot had been fired at his platoon. He asked for an interpreter, and M. Ch. Deschars came down, helped by attendants. He went up to the German non-commissioned officer, and the latter, after exchanging some words with him, drew a revolver and blew out his brains.

After this murder the German platoon gave itself up to all sorts of excesses. Dr. Vaissières, who happened to be in the ambulance, was killed. Dr. Sedillot, surgeon-major of the 1st class, was wounded. The majority of the wounded were killed.

A similar crime took place during an engagement between French dragoons and German light cavalry. A French lieutenant, who afterwards told the story in the Matin of the 22nd August, finding he was wounded, called for help. A German came up and, seeing that he had to deal with an officer, appealed to his commandant, M. de Schaffenberg, of the Trèves light cavalry. The latter went behind the French lieutenant, took his cavalry revolver, and at point blank shot him in the stomach. The French officer’s orderly was spared only because Commandant de Schaffenberg thought he was dead.

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Wounded Soldiers tortured before being put to Death
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