§ 8. THE STATUS AND TREATMENT OF NON-COMBATANTS: NON-INTERCOURSE, GUIDES, HUMAN SCREENS, LEVÉES EN MASSE

TREATMENT OF CIVILIANS IN BELGIUM (1914)

"DOUBTLESS the German soldiers often believed that the civilian population, naturally hostile, had in fact attacked them. This attitude of mind may have been fostered by the German authorities themselves before the troops passed the frontier, and thereafter stories of alleged atrocities committed by Belgians upon Germans, such as the myth referred to in one of the diaries relating to Liège, were circulated amongst the troops and roused their anger.

"The diary of Barthel when still in Germany on the 10th of August shows that he believed that the Oberburgomaster of Liège had murdered a surgeon-general. The fact is that no violence was inflicted on the inhabitants at Liège until the 19th, and no one who studies these pages can have any doubt that Liège would immediately have been given over to murder and destruction if any such incident had occurred.

"Letters written to their homes which have been found on the bodies of dead Germans, bear witness, in a way that now sounds pathetic, to the kindness with which they were received by the civil population. Their evident surprise at this reception was due to the stories which had been dinned into their ears of soldiers with their eyes gouged out, treacherous murders, and poisoned food, stories which may have been encouraged by the higher military authorities in order to impress the mind of the troops as well as for the sake of justifying the measures which they took to terrify the civil population. If there is any truth in such stories, no attempt has been made to establish it. For instance, the Chancellor of the German Empire, in a communication made to the press on September 2 and printed in the Nord Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, of September 21, said as follows:

"Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of the German wounded. Officials of Belgian cities have invited our officers to dinner and shot and killed them across the table. Contrary to all international law, the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out, and after having at first shown friendliness, carried on in the rear of our troops terrible warfare with concealed weapons. Belgian women cut the throats of soldiers whom they had quartered in their homes while they were sleeping.'

"No evidence whatever seems to have been adduced to prove these tales, and though there may be cases in which individual Belgians fired on the Germans, the statement that 'the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out' is utterly opposed to the fact.

"An invading army may be entitled to shoot at sight a civilian caught red-handed, or any one who, though not caught redhanded, is proved guilty on inquiry. But this was not the practice followed by the German troops. They do not seem to have made any inquiry. They seized the civilians of the village indiscriminately and killed them, or such as they selected from among them, without the least regard to guilt or innocence. The mere cry Civilisten haben geschossen [Civilians have fired upon us] was enough to hand over a whole village or district and even outlying places to ruthless slaughter."

(Extract from Bryce Committee Report, pp. 41–42.)

AN ENFORCED GUIDE (1914)

"THUS the General, wishing to be conducted to the Town Hall at Lebbeke, remarked in French to his guide, who was accompanied by a small boy: 'If you do not show me the right way I will shoot you and your boy.' There was no need to carry the threat into execution, but that the threat should have been made is significant."

(Extract from Bryce Committee Report, p. 52.)

"THE MOST ATROCIOUS THING OF ALL” (1915)

"THE most atrocious thing of all was the order of the highest Russian military authority, found on a high Russian officer, which directed that all male inhabitants over ten years of age should be driven before the attacking troops; this monstrous order, which has blackened the name of the Russian Commander-in-chief forever, was apparently issued with the intention that German soldiers in repulsing the Russians would be compelled to fire on their own people."

(Extract from English translation of Memorial of the German Government on Atrocities committed by Russian Troops upon German Inhabitants and German Prisoners of War, issued at Berlin, March 25, 1915.)

PRISONERS USED TO SCREEN A PONTOON

BRIDGE (1914)

"AFTER this came the general sack of the town. Many of the inhabitants who escaped the massacre were kept as prisoners and compelled to clear the houses of corpses and bury them in trenches. These prisoners were subsequently used as a shelter and protection for a pontoon bridge which the Germans had built across the river and were so used to prevent the Belgian forts from firing upon it."

(Extract from Bryce Committee Report, p. 16.)

"THE BELGIAN PEOPLE'S WAR" (1914)

"THE warfare of the Belgian civilian population was in complete violation of the universally recognized rules of international law, as expressed in the Hague Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which have also been accepted by Belgium. These rules distinguish between an organized and an unorganized people's war. In the organized people's war (Art. I) the militia and the volunteer corps, in order to be recognized as

belligerents, have to conform with the following four conditions: they must have responsible leaders at their head, they must wear a certain distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance, they must carry their arms openly and they must observe the laws and customs of war. The unorganized people's war (Art. 2) is free from the first two conditions, that is to say the responsible leaders and the military emblems, but is, on the other hand, bound to two other conditions: it may only be waged in the territory not yet occupied by the enemy and there must have been lack of time to organize the people's war.

"The two special conditions established for the organized people's war were doubtlessly not fulfilled by the Belgian francstireurs. For according to the consensus of reports from the German military commands, the civilians who were found fighting had no responsible leaders at their head, nor did they wear any kind of distinctive emblems. (Annexes 6, C 4, 5, 15; D.) The Belgian francs-tireurs may therefore not be regarded as organized militia or volunteer corps as understood by the laws of war, this notwithstanding the fact that apparently also Belgian military persons and members of the 'Garde civique' took part in their undertakings. For as these persons likewise did not wear any distinctive emblems but, in civilian clothes, mingled with the fighting citizens (Annexes 6; A 3; D 1, 30, 45, 46) the rights of belligerents can be accorded to them as little as to the civilians.

"It results that the entire Belgian people's war can only be viewed as an unorganized armed resistance of the civilian population. As such is only allowed in unoccupied territory it doubtless was in violation, for this reason alone, of the law of nations in all those places which were already in possession of the German troops, more particularly in Aerschot, Andenne, and Louvain. But also in places not yet occupied by the German troops, especially in Dinant and its environments, was the people's war not allowable, because the Belgian Government had not sufficient time for organizing the people's war in accordance with international law. The Belgian Government since years has counted. on being drawn into the warlike events in case of a Franco-German War; the preparations for its mobilization can be proven to have set in at least a week before the invasion of the German

army. The Government was, therefore, perfectly in a position to supply the civilian population, as far as their employment in possible fighting was intended, with military emblems and to appoint responsible leaders for them. The Belgian Government in a communication addressed to the German Government through the medium of a neutral power has asserted that it had taken corresponding measures. In stating this the Belgian Government only proves that it could have fulfilled the above-mentioned conditions; but such measures were, at any rate, not put into practice in the territories passed by the German troops.1

"Not only were, thus, the premises lacking which are provided by international law also for the unorganized people's war, but this war was also conducted in a manner which alone would have sufficed to place its participants outside the laws of war. For the Belgian francs-tireurs made it a rule not to carry their weapons openly, nor did they respect any of the laws and customs of war."

(Extract from the Memorial published by the German Foreign Office, May 10, 1915 [English edition, New York, July, 1915], pp. 6-7.)

"NON-RECOGNITION OF THE RUMANIAN LEGIONS AS BELLIGERENTS" (1915)

The Austro-Hungarian Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the representatives of the Neutral States accredited to the Austro-Hungarian Court. Translation from the French. Circular Verbal Note.

"VIENNA, January 23, 1915.

"By circular verbal note of September 30th, 1914, the AustroHungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a protest with the neutral powers against Russia's refusal to recognize the Polish Legions as belligerents.

"As shown by trustworthy information received by the Austro

1 The Belgian Government has since (May 1, 1916) published a Third Gray Book in answer to the charges contained in the German White Book published May 10, 1915.