Notice posted in Brussels on 5th October, 1914, and probably in most of the Communes of the Kingdom

During the evening of 25th September the railway line and the telegraph wires were destroyed on the line Lovenjoul-Vertryck. In consequence of this, these two localities have had to render an account of this, and had to give hostages in the morning of the 30th September.

In future, the localities nearest to the place where similar acts take place will be punished without pity; it matters little if they are accomplices or not. For this purpose hostages have been taken from all localities near the railway line, thus menaced, and at the first attempt to destroy the railway line, or the telephone or telegraph wires, they will be immediately shot.

Further, all the troops charged with the duty of guarding the railway have been ordered to shoot any person who, in a suspicious manner, approaches the line, or the telegraph or telephone wires.

The Governor-General of Belgium,

BARON VON DER GOLTZ,

Field-Marshal.

Notice posted in Brussels on 1st November, 1914

A legally constituted court-martial pronounced the following sentences on 28th October:

(1) The police constable de Ryckere was condemned, for having attacked, in the legal exercise of his duties, an authorized agent of the German authorities, for having voluntarily inflicted bodily hurt in two cases, with the aid of other persons, for having procured the escape of a prisoner in one case, and for having attacked a German soldier, to 5 years' imprisonment.

(2) Police constable Seghers was condemned, for having attacked, in the legal exercise of his duties, an authorized agent of the German authorities, for voluntarily inflicting bodily injury on this German agent, and for having procured the escape of a prisoner (all these offences constituting one charge), to 3 years' imprisonment.

The sentences were confirmed on 31st October by the Governor-General, Baron von der Goltz.

The town of Brussels, not including its suburbs, has been punished for the injury done by its police constable de Ryckere to a German soldier, by an additional fine of 5 million francs.

The Governor of Brussels,

BRUSSELS, 1st November, 1914.

BARON VON LUETWITZ,
General.

(From the English translation of the Sixth Report [November 10, 1914] of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry.)

ENLISTMENTS (1914)

THE following extract is taken from a statement by Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, in regard to Germany's observance of the obligations resulting from the Hague Convention concerning the laws and customs of war on land:

"A notice signed by Baron von der Goltz posted October 7, 1914, subjects families to collective punishment. It says: 'The Belgian Government has given orders to members of the militia [miliciens] of several classes to join the army. . . . All those who receive these orders are strictly prohibited from complying. In case of disobedience the family of the militiamen will also be held responsible.""

(Published in the Third Belgian Gray Book [Paris, May 1, 1916], P. 503.)

(f) Criminal warfare

THE EXPLOSION AT LAON (1870)

On the 9th of September the town of Laon surrendered to the 6th Cavalry Division. After the conclusion of the capitulation, the fourth company of the Fourth Rifle Battalion occupied the citadel; and, as the last men of the Mobile Guards were leaving, a terrible explosion ensued, by which great damage was caused to

the city. . . . General d'Hame, who was in command of the citadel, was placed under arrest by the Prussians, but ultimately declared innocent. The firing of the mine seems to have been the work of a private soldier, who, without any concert with others, and obeying a blind and perverted instinct of patriotism, resolved to revenge the fall of Laon by one terrible blow. He himself is said to have perished in the explosion; and it should be observed that the French lost many more than the Prussians.

(Extract from the account in Cassell's History of the War between France and Germany [London, 1870-71], pp. 172, 173.)

(g) Sniping

SHOOTING OF A SNIPER

LONDON, September 2. One of the most vivid accounts of an episode of war comes from the Lokalanzeiger of August 24. It is a letter from Paul Oskar Hoecker, a Berlin playwright now serving as a captain of the reserve. He describes a mission on which he was dispatched to search for arms in Belgian villages in which shots had been fired by civilians on German troops. His instructions were to summon the villagers to deliver up their arms, and that those in whose possession arms were found after they declared that they had none, were to be instantly shot.

Describing a visit to Jungbusch, he says that at one house were found an old man, a woman, and a girl of thirteen.

"Then a terrible thing happened. A sergeant and a private dragged a young fellow out of the house. They had found him hiding among the straw in the loft. He had in his hand a Belgian rifle, loaded with five cartridges. From the opening of the roof he may have aimed at many an honest German. The youth had to put his hands up. Stammering and deadly pale he stands there.

"Who is this youth?' I asked the old man. As if struck by lightning they all three fell on their knees wailing. The woman groaned, 'He is my son! For God's sake you are not going to kill him?' And the little girl sobbed as if her heart would break. The prisoner tried to escape, but was put up against the wall by the

men.

"I had to picture to myself by force the German patrols riding through the night with the bullets of treacherous francs-tireurs whistling round their helmets, and think of the tall figures and bright eyes of our good German fellows, in order to master my nerves in face of this sorrow and fulfill my orders.

"He has to be shot. Three men! Ready!'

"The three men commanded, who were fathers of families, did not turn a hair. This is a just business. We had got a ruffian who merited no compassion. The volley rang out. The trembling body collapsed to the ground and did not move again. Three tiny holes were visible in the blue blouse. The boy's eyes are closed. His face has not changed its expression. Death by our rifle is painless. "We ought to burn the old man's house over his head,' said one of my men. 'Quick march,' I ordered. The three peasants are still kneeling on the ground; the corpse lies up against the wall." (As printed in the New York Evening Post, September 11, 1914.)

(h) Guerilla warfare

THE ATTITUDE OF THE BELGIAN POPULATION

(1914)

THE Belgian Commission issued the following statement: "The Commission makes it a rule to limit its publications to a mere statement of facts, thinking that no commentary could add anything to their tragic eloquence. It thinks, however, that the evidence given above leads to certain conclusions.

"It has been said that when Belgium makes up the account of her losses, it may appear that war has levied more victims from the civil population than from the men who were called out to serve their country on the battlefield. This prophecy, which seemed contrary to reason, is now confirmed as regards the Province of Namur. In certain parts of it half the male adult population has disappeared: the horrors of the conflagrations at Louvain and Termonde, of the massacres at Aerschot and in Luxembourg and Brabant, are all surpassed by those of the slaughter at Dinant, at Andenne, at Tamines, and at Namur.

"In this twentieth century the people of Namur have had to live through all the frightful details of a medieval war, with its traditional episodes of massacres en masse, drunken orgies, sack of whole towns, and general conflagration. The 'exploits' of the mercenary bands of the seventeenth century have been surpassed by those of the national army of a State which claims the first place among civilized nations!

"The German Government cannot deny the truth of these facts they are attested by the ruins and the graves which cover our native soil. But already it has set to work to excuse its troops, affirming that they only repressed, in consonance with the Laws of War, the hostile acts of the Belgian civil population.

"From the day of its First Session our Commission has been trying to discover what foundation there might be for this charge - a charge which seemed very unconvincing to anyone who knew the character of the Belgian people. After having examined hundreds of witnesses - foreigners and natives and after having exhausted every possible means of investigation, we affirm once more that the Belgian people took no part in the hostilities. The supposed 'franc-tireur' war, which is said to have been waged against the German army, is a mere invention. It was invented in order to lessen in the eyes of the civilized world the impression caused by the barbarous treatment inflicted by the German army on our people, and also to appease the scruples of the German nation, which will shudder with fear on the day when it learns what a tribute of innocent blood was levied by its troops on our children, our wives, and our defenseless fellow-citizens.

"Moreover, the chiefs of the German army have made a singular error when they try to influence the verdict of the civilized world by this particular argument. They seem unaware of the fact that the repression by general measures of individual faults

a system condemned by the International Conventions at which they scoff - has long been condemned by the conscience of the nations of to-day. Among those nations Germany appears for the future as a monstrous and disconcerting moral phenomenon."

(Extract from translation of the Eleventh Report [January 16, 1915] of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry.)