SYSTEMATIC PILLAGE AND THEFT. ROBBING THE WOUNDED AND THE DEAD
The German Idea of War-booty

The cherished idea of the German soldier is that war permits and excuses everything. Consequently the property of the inhabitants of the territory he invades does not seem to him to be immune from his cupidity. If the lust of possession seizes him, he thinks it is a brilliantly won booty, which rewards him for his efforts.

Nevertheless, international law only recognises as booty what is taken from a state; in all other cases it is pillage, and Bluntschli, the well-known German jurist, stigmatises it as emphatically as any one.

Let us add that it is not merely the German private soldier who shows that he is capable of this violation of law. The officer and even the general share this view, and commit this crime. In the majority of these cases pillage was not an accident, but a system, and has taken place under such conditions that it could not have been carried out if the officers had not approved of it. In many cases it was they who set the example. Pillage was reduced by them to the movements of a military operation. The narratives which will follow will make that clear. For the present, we shall quote the letter of the wife of a German officer living in Berlin, which the Spanish Embassy at Berne[186] received during the month of January, in which this woman admitted that she was in possession of a quantity of objets d’art, of which she supplied an inventory. These articles her husband had sent her after the sack of a chateau in France. She added that her husband had taken these articles to leave them in safety with her, that her conscience would not allow her to keep them without giving a list of them, and that she wished to see them restored to their owner after the conclusion of hostilities.

In conformity with this evidence, the French Commission of Inquiry declared that “in every place through which a company of the enemy passed they gave themselves up to a methodically organised pillage, in the presence of their leaders, and sometimes even with their active assistance.”
The Objects of Pillage

Pillage covered everything, everything at least that could be carried away. What could be consumed was used at once, letters were everywhere pillaged. “Strong-boxes,” said the Commission of Inquiry, “have been gutted, and considerable sums robbed or taken by violence from them. A large quantity of silver and jewels, and also of pictures, furniture, objets d’art, linen, bicycles, women’s clothes, sewing-machines, and even children’s toys, have been taken away and put on wagons, to be brought to the frontier.”

The Temps gave an inventory of articles found in two trunks carried off in a motor by German soldiers. This booty came from Belgium.

“First trunk: four table-cloths marked M. S., one sheet, one woman’s chemise marked M. B., two petticoats, one white-and-red bodice, one dress-bodice[187] and velvet skirt marked ‘Maison Richard Ruelens, rue des Joyeuses-Entrées 36, Louvain’; two blouses, a skirt and jacket of velvet, four gowns, a muff, a woollen necktie, the back of a pedestal, two electroplated teapots, a silver coffee-pot, a porcelain article, a teacup, table-knives with silver handles, and a dessert-knife.

“Second trunk: a bronze figure of a Cossack with inscription in Russian characters, four cases containing table-knives, a silver tray, two nickel candlesticks, a small mirror, two revolvers, four swords, seven pairs of ladies’ boots, two pairs of high-heeled shoes, a notebook in which was written on the first page ‘21st July: paid 10 fr. 80’; a registration book of the State Railway Co.; two white petticoats, four of which were marked L. S.; two muffs, a stole, five dress-bodices, one of which was marked ‘Maison Richard Ruelens, rue des Joyeuses-Entrées 36, Louvain’; a black evening cloak, a woman’s nightgown marked M. B., two table-cloths, two ostrich feathers, an evening dress, a child’s embroidered dress, four pairs of stockings, a reticule with the price 1.35 marked on a label, an overcoat with silk lapels marked ‘Maison Février, Maubeuge.’”

The result of such acts was that the not-too-opulent inhabitants of Belgium and north-east France lost all they had. The looters carried off what was not devoured by the flames, and it must be added that the work of pillage, no less than of massacre, rape and arson, was carried out with even greater fury when the inhabitants thought they had stalled it off by their entreaties. The fact has been noticed, especially in Belgium, that houses which bore inscriptions like “Please spare,” or “Decent people; do not plunder them,” were sacked and pillaged first.

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The most conspicuous acts of this kind took place in Belgium at Louvain, Aerschot and Dinant; in France at Lunéville, Clermont-en-Argonne, and Chateau-Thierry.
Pillage a General Practice

Other towns and villages saw acts like these repeated many times. Here are some examples taken at random.

In the Province of Aisne, the village of Brumetz was sacked; in that of Jaulgonne, the Prussian Guard emptied cellars and carried off linen: theft and destruction combined resulted in loss to the extent of 250,000 francs. At Charmel similar incidents occurred. At Péronne, the inhabitants had to endure levies imposed on them without ceasing. All inhabited houses were searched from cellar to attic and stripped bare. Shops that were found shut were forced open. Whole trains full of stolen furniture were brought away to Germany.

At Baccarat it was the same. Everything that the German soldier thought right to take was taken. They took wine and flour. At the glassworks the finest articles, cut-glass services, were packed up with a care which showed every characteristic but blind violence, and packed on wagons directed to Sarrebourg. Carts laden with furniture also took the same road.

At Barbery and at Charmont men forced their way into the rooms of private houses, having first turned out the residents. Furniture and family property—all were taken, and thrown out of the windows or carried off. The village of Bussières, near Chateau-Thierry, was completely destroyed, of set purpose. The Prussians pillaged there everything they could find. The remainder was destroyed, pulled about, broken up,[189] carried off, smashed to atoms by a kind of savagery. Then it was set on fire, and the flames finished the work of devastation.

At Albert, Captain Zirgow from the 30th August authorised the soldiers under his command to visit, so he said, unoccupied houses. This was as much as to give them carte blanche for pillage and theft. Consequently the booty taken by the Germans in this district was of great value.

The town of Coulommiers was widely pillaged; silver, linen, boots were taken away, especially from deserted houses, and many bicycles were packed on motor-lorries.

At Rebais a jeweller’s shop was sacked.

At Nomény, before burning the town the Germans took out of the dwelling-houses all that they thought worth carrying away. They sent everything to Metz. At Beauzemont, the chateau was looted by officers of the German general staff, accompanied by their wives; at Drouville, at Hériménil, at Jolivet, there was systematic pillage. In the last locality a sum of 600 francs was stolen by a German.

At Choisy-au-Bac, in Valois, the German soldiers, in presence of their officers, gave themselves up to general pillage, the fruits of which were carried off in carriages stolen from the inhabitants. Two military doctors wearing the Red-Cross brassard with their own hands pillaged Mme. Binder’s house.

At Trumilly the looting was carried out in perfect order. A non-commissioned officer on the general staff of the 19th regiment of Hanoverian Dragoons robbed Mme. Huet of 10,000 francs’ worth of jewels. The German colonel, to whom this lady made complaint, approved of the non-commissioned officer’s action. Another German soldier of the 91st infantry[190] regiment was guilty of several thefts to the value of 815 francs. And these cases were not the only ones clearly proved in this district.
Looting of Louvain

During the days which followed the burning of Louvain, the houses which remained standing and whose inhabitants had been driven out were handed over to be looted under the very eyes of the German officers.

This pillage lasted eight days. In bands of six or eight the soldiers forced in the doors or broke in the windows, rushed into the cellars, soaked themselves in wine, threw the furniture about, broke open safes, stole money, pictures, objets d’art, silver, linen, clothing, provisions.

A great part of this booty was loaded on military wagons and carried off to Germany by railroad.
Looting at Aerschot

M. Orts, Adviser to the Legation, Secretary of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry, stated that the town of Aerschot was partially destroyed by fire, but that so far as the rest was concerned, he could affirm that it had been completely sacked.

“I went into several houses,” he said, “and passed through the different storeys. Everywhere the furniture had been thrown about, gutted, polluted in a disgraceful manner. Paper-hangings fell in strips from the walls, the doors of the cellars were burst in, the locks of the chests, drawers, and all the cupboards had been picked and their contents taken. Linen, articles of the most different kinds, and an incredible number of empty bottles covered the ground.

“In the middle-class houses, pictures were slashed[191] and works of art broken. On the door of one, a huge, fine-looking building belonging to Dr. X, the following inscription, half rubbed out, might still be read in chalk: ‘Please spare this house, as the people in it are really peaceable, decent folks. Signed, Bannach, Orderly.’ I went into this building, in which I was told some officers had been billeted, and which the kindness of one of them appeared to have saved from the general destruction. On the threshold a faint smell of spilt wine called attention to hundreds of empty or broken bottles, which were heaped up in the porch or the staircase and in the court leading into the garden. Unspeakable disorder reigned throughout the rooms; I walked on a layer of torn clothing and tufts of wool which had fallen out of the gutted mattresses. Everywhere furniture smashed open, and in all the rooms within reach of the bed more empty bottles. The dining-room was heaped with them, dozens of wine-glasses covered the large table and the smaller ones which pressed against the slashed armchairs and sofas, while in the corner a piano with dirty keys seemed to have been smashed with kicks of a jackboot. Everything showed that these places had been for many days and nights the scene of shameless debauchery and drinking-bouts. On the Place du Marché the interior of the house of M. X, a solicitor, presented a similar appearance, and, according to the statement made to me by a quartermaster of gendarmerie, who, with his men, tried to restore a little order into all the chaos, it was the same with the majority of houses belonging to prominent families in which the German officers had chosen to take up their quarters.

“All valuables which their owners had not had time to put in a place of safety—silver, family jewels,[192] loose money—disappeared, and the inhabitants declare that arson frequently had no other purpose than to destroy the proofs of unusually serious thefts. Wagons, packed full with loads of booty, left Aerschot in the direction of the Meuse.”
Looting at Dinant

The Dutch journalist whom we have quoted writes in the Telegraaf with regard to this town—

“In the Banque Henri the Germans had a disappointment, for they could not find where the safe had been concealed, but they stopped the manager and his son at the very moment when they were trying to escape on bicycles. As they refused to reveal the secret, they were killed with revolver shots. At the Banque Populaire the Germans, indeed, found the safe, but the greatest part of the money which it contained had already been transferred to a place of safety. The brigandage carried on was frightful, and to find a parallel to it we should have to go back to the days of the blackest barbarism.”
Looting at Lunéville

“During the early days,” says the French Commission of Inquiry, “the Germans were content to pillage, without otherwise molesting the inhabitants. Particularly was this the case on the 24th August, when Madame Jeaumont’s house was stripped. The stolen articles were put in a great cart, in which were three women, one clad in black, the other two wearing military costumes, and having the appearance, we were told, of canteen-attendants.

“On the 25th August, M. Lenoir, aged sixty-seven years, was brought out into the fields with his wife, their hands tied behind their backs. After both had[193] been cruelly ill-treated, a non-commissioned officer took possession of a sum of 1800 francs in gold which Lenoir had about him. Indeed, the most audacious theft, as we have already said, seems to have been part of the habits of the German army, who made a regular practice of it. The following is an interesting example—

“During the burning of a house belonging to Madame Leclerc, the safes of two tenants had resisted the flames. One, belonging to M. George, under-inspector of waterworks and forests, had fallen into the ruins; the other, owned by M. Goudchau, estate-agent, remained fastened to a wall on the second storey. Non-commissioned officer Weiss, who knew the town well, as he had often been well received there when he visited it before the war in his capacity as hop-merchant, came back with his men to the place, gave orders to blow up with dynamite the piece of wall which remained standing, and made sure that the two safes should be brought to the station, where they were placed in a wagon bound for Germany. This Weiss was in the special confidence and favour of the commandant. It was he who at the quarters of the commandant had the duty of administering the commune in some sort of fashion and of arranging for levies.”
Looting of Clermont-en-Argonne

Let us quote the Commission of Inquiry—

“On the 4th September, during the night the 121st and 122nd Wurtemberg regiments entered, breaking the doors of the houses as they passed, and giving themselves up to unrestrained pillage, which was to continue during the whole of the following day. Towards midday a soldier kindled the fire. When the fire had gone out, pillage recommenced in the houses spared by the flames. Articles of furniture[194] taken from the house of M. Desforges, fabrics stolen from the shop of M. Nordman, linen-draper, were piled up in the motors. A surgeon-major took all the hospital dressing materials, and a commissioned officer, after writing at the entrance to the Lebondidier’s house a notice forbidding pillage, caused a large part of the furniture with which this mansion was furnished to be taken away in a cart, intending them, as he boasted without shame, for the adornment of his own villa.

“At the time when all these incidents took place the town of Clermont-en-Argonne was occupied by the 13th Wurtemberg corps under the orders of General von Durach, and by a troop of Uhlans, under command of the Prince of Wittenstein.”
Looting of Chateau-Thierry

Chateau-Thierry was looted in the presence of officers, who must even have taken part in it, if we are to judge by the example of two German doctors, surprised in town by the arrival of the French troops, and who were then included in an exchange of prisoners. Their cases were opened, and in them were found articles of clothing obtained by looting shops.

“During the whole week which the German occupation of Chateau-Thierry lasted,” wrote the Temps of the 25th October, 1914, “shops and rooms were methodically pillaged; jewellers and bazaar owners were plundered most of all. Patients under treatment in the Red Cross hospital whose wounds did not prevent them walking, went through the town all day, thieving here and there, and then returned in the evening with their booty to sleep in hospital.

“One day they offered Mlle. X some bonbons which they had just stolen, and they appeared much surprised when the young Frenchwoman refused their present.

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“Lorries loaded with stolen articles were lined up on the road to Soissons as far as the eye could reach. A non-commissioned officer and four men were seen to drag along a little English cart, nicely fitted, quite loaded with booty.

“Needless to say, the cellars were completely emptied. Not a single pot of preserve at Chateau-Thierry; blankets, sheets, table-cloths, napkins—everything was carried off. The Chateau of Belle-Vue, which belongs to M. Jules Henriet, was not burnt, but everything in it was plundered. Chests, desks, all the furniture were forced open. As for silver, for the most part it disappeared from the houses that were sacked.”
Serbia and Russia

The same kind of thing took place in Poland and Serbia. At Chabatz the shops were broken open and the goods which they contained stolen.

In the Report of the Serbian Commission of Inquiry it is said that at Prngnavor and in the outskirts all the furniture of the inhabitants, such as beds, chests, chairs, tables, sewing-machines, and even stoves had been completely smashed and thrown outside the houses. The Commission also declared that all the domestic animals which had not been used for food or taken away were slaughtered.
Theft of Pictures and Various Objets d’Art

Objets d’art of every kind and pictures were several times stolen in this way both in Belgium and in France. The review Kunst und Künstler, in an article from the pen of Professor Shaeffer, who goes so far as to specify the pictures which ought to figure in German museums, proclaimed the right to take possession of such articles and bring them to Germany.

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It is true that in museums the greater part of the exhibits had been put in a place of safety. Others were surprised and looted. This was the case with the Oberot Museum at Brussels. The following is the account of the incident given by Mme. Latour, wife of the Director of the Museum.

“All the keepers had gone to the battlefield, and my husband and I were alone. Seeing that they were going to beat in the door, my husband decided to open it for them. First of all he had taken the precaution to lock the door into the galleries.

“Without paying the slightest attention to him, the officers immediately went to that in which priceless enamels of the twelfth century and magnificent jewels had usually been exhibited. Not being able to get in, they condescended to ask for the key. My husband refused. They took hold of him and forcibly deprived him of the bunch which he had in his pocket.

“Once inside, when they noticed that certain articles which they doubtless coveted had disappeared, they waxed furious. This, however, did not prevent their taking whatever they liked from the glass cases, some pictures, and some porcelain specimens, which they then compelled me to pack up for them.

“Moreover, they did not attempt to conceal the fact that what they were stealing would later on adorn their own houses.

“‘That would suit very well in my drawing-room, and this in my wife’s bedroom,’ said one. ‘Martha asked me to bring her some real Brussels lace,’ replied the other, ‘but I shall bring her this exquisite miniature. She will be delighted…’

“Every day for more than a fortnight they came back like that, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by other officers or soldiers, and every time[197] they brought away something from the museum. They took away not less than fifty pictures.

“My husband once managed to get into conversation with one of the secretaries of the Military Governor of Brussels, and complained bitterly of the scandalous thefts committed every day at the museum. But this German official refused to listen to the description which M. Latour gave him of the officers and their uniforms. At last he brought him to the door with these words, ‘Woe to the vanquished!’”

The Germans took the furniture of the Government offices, and also all the stage properties of the Park Royal Theatre, the stage of which was converted into a motor garage.

They took away the following articles from the chateau at Compiègne—

Sixteen large pieces, eight in coral and eight in lava, which belonged to Napoleon I’s chessboard; a chased and gilt bronze figure of Atalanta above a clock; a chased and gilt bronze socket, part of a candelabrum on Sèvres porcelain; a chased gold and steel case containing a poniard, knife and fork, part of a collection of arms; a poniard; a Turkish dagger; a chased silvered case, adorned with precious stones, containing a hunting dagger, knife and fork; two chased stilettoes; three poniards with hollow gilt blades, and three chased and gilt bronze candlesticks, all from the same collection.

Let us add that during the last two days of the occupation three train wagons, which contained, it was said, officers’ baggage, had been shunted into the principal courtyard of the palace. The truth is that these three wagons served merely to load and to carry away valuable articles taken by the soldiers and non-commissioned officers from the houses of[198] Compiègne. The house of M. Orsetti, in front of the palace, was completely looted in this way.
Looting of Chateaux

All the fine old chateaux of the Champagne and Marne region, and all the rich estates and villas situate in that part of Lorraine which has been invaded, were also pillaged and sacked. The ironwork of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the Gothic wainscoting, the antique furniture, were taken away. Everything which was supposed to have any value—jewels, silver, objets d’art, books—was stolen.

At the Moulinot Priory, the property of M. de Chauffault, and at Raon-l’Etape, where the 99th infantry regiment (to which Renter and Forstner, heroes of the celebrated incidents of Saverne, belonged), the 50th line regiment and the Baden reservists carried out a general pillage, and took away furniture, pianos, libraries, amateur collections, clocks, pictures, and brought them to the railway station, where a train under full steam was ready to take them to Germany. It was Prussian and Baden officers who, in the majority of cases, accompanied by their wives, chose, took, stole or destroyed, defiled or smashed everything, according as the article which they were examining could be removed or not.

Near the town of Meaux and some hundreds of metres from the village of Congis is the chateau of Gné. At the beginning of the battle of the Marne the German general staff was installed there. Of this chateau there remained, after the vandals had passed by, only the ruins. The chests-of-drawers were broken, the beautiful tapestries defiled, the armchairs smashed to pieces, the costly pictures slashed, even the linen of the chateau stolen. When the allied troops forced[199] the Germans back and reoccupied it, only wounded were found in it, who, before the arrival of the conquerors, had taken care to ransack the whole house and to finish the work of destruction which had been begun.

We repeat that these outrages were the work of officers no less than of soldiers. And it was a captain who led the Germans at Creil when they burst into the houses of rich owners, broke the doors and windows, and gave themselves up to pillage.

The same kinds of acts were also committed by the Germans in Alsace. The case of Cernay, where the Germans drove out the inhabitants in the month of January, is an example. All these people had to leave the town at three o’clock in the morning. A manufacturer of the country who returned to his villa at 7.15, found a detachment of German soldiers engaged in taking down the pictures from the walls and packing up articles which they could not carry. When he expressed his surprise at seeing them appropriating his property, the soldiers replied that they were acting under the orders of their superiors.
Robbing the Dead and Wounded

The universally admitted obligation not to plunder an enemy who has fallen on the field of battle has been, like so many others, repudiated by the Germans. The personal belongings, silver, jewels, etc., of the dead and wounded have been not merely coveted, but actually plundered by them. Examples of this infamous conduct were numerous, chiefly on the battlefields of France.

On the 8th August, on the spot where a small cavalry engagement had taken place, at Beuveille (in Champagne), a French lieutenant of dragoons, who was wounded and lying unconscious on the ground,[200] was robbed (for his own account of the incident see the Matin of the 22nd August, 1914) of a sum of 250 francs in gold by the leader of a German platoon, M. de Schaffenberg, of the Trèves light infantry. His orderly, a dragoon, also wounded, lying a few paces away from the French lieutenant, was robbed of some money that he had by the same German officer. A French hussar who was attended by Dr. Weiss at the Nancy hospital told this doctor that he had broken his leg by falling from his horse, and that, as he was lying under his mount, he was attacked by Uhlans, who robbed him of his watch and chain.

Similar cases were so frequent that the French troops scarcely wondered when they captured, near Senlis, a horseman of the German imperial guard, accompanied by three German subjects who spoke French very well, and as they knew the district served him as guide and accomplices in the work of brigandage in which he engaged. The numerous articles which they found in the pockets of these wretches left no doubt on this point: they were, therefore, brought before a court-martial at the same time as several other German prisoners who had been guilty of similar thefts; in particular, a Death’s-head hussar, who had been found in possession of a roll of bills stolen in Belgium, a considerable sum of French gold, and many jewels.
Enormous Taxes levied by the Germans

The taxes levied by the Germans in sev............