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De Stem van Haspengouw, August 6th:--"The Germans entered Visé where they met with a vigorous resistance not only on the part of a small detachment of soldiers who were there but also on the part of the civilians. The Germans completely destroyed the town."
The Nieuwe Gazet, August 7th:--"Some women and civilians have fired on the Germans who have shown themselves pitiless in sparing nothing."
Another correspondent of the same paper describes what he saw at Visé: "Young and old ran to take up arms, and if they were unable to stop the murderous advance of the German cavalry, the inhabitants at least resisted till the last moment. People fired from the houses upon the Germans, who, in conformity with the laws of war, in these cases, accorded no mercy. They penetrated into the houses from which the shots had been fired and shot a certain number of inhabitants found with arms in their hands."
Nieuwe Gazet, August 8th:--"After the German artillery had set some houses on fire, the infantry marched to the attack. This was not only directed against the soldiers, but also against the civilian population who took part in the combat. People shoot from the houses, small boys and women bombard the assailants with stones, and even some old men from behind the doors fire on the advancing soldiers."
The paper goes on to tell us that a German Officer assembled the inhabitants round him and was urging them to remain calm. "Scarcely had the officer closed his mouth, when a shot suddenly fired at him caused him to fall dead to the ground."
Gazette de Liège, August 5th--"The inhabitants of the country side display a fine enthusiasm; all the peasants are in ambush, armed with their sporting guns ready to fire on the invader."
In the face of such evidence, much of it furnished by correspondents who were eye-witnesses of what occurred, the main contention of the Belgian and Bryce Reports falls to the ground. The Belgian criticism of these statements as "taken from second-rate papers," "proving nothing," "unimportant," is obviously futile. That the German troops were confronted with a wide-spread and determined opposition on the part of armed civilians in flagrant violation of the Laws of War must be accepted as a fact established by evidence varied, cumulative and irresistible. On the other hand it is clear that no final verdict can be passed on the vexed question of the Belgian atrocities in general, until the unsworn evidence accumulated against the Kaiser's troops has been met to a much fuller extent. The White Book does not cover more than the incidents which occurred at Dinant, Aerschot, Andenne, Louvain, and the neighbourhood of Visé. While therefore it disproves, in conjunction with the Belgian evidence cited above, the propaganda plea that the story of civilian attacks was a myth, it does not of course deal with more than a portion of the ground covered by the British and Belgian Reports. Before any complete decision can be reached we should require official replies from the German Government to a variety of alleged outrages in dozens of villages like Gomery, Latour, Ethe, the horrible charge of the shooting of the Valckenaers family at Thildonck, and so on. There were certain cases, one of them known to the writer, in which mistakes and misunderstandings led to the execution of innocent civilians. Full allowance, too, must be made for the existence in all conscript armies of brutal and criminal types--not confined to the rank and file--and for the demoralising effects to which all the armies of the war were exposed whenever an abundant supply of wines and spirits was easily accessible by purchase or looting.
Nevertheless the fact that the main position taken up by the Allied Reports is obviously untenable, coupled with the significant refusal to allow the official German defence access to our shores, and the deliberate and disgraceful circulation of pseudo-atrocity stories during the war, would seem to suggest that as regards some at least of the alleged incidents lying outside the White Book suspense of judgment, pending further researches, may be the wisest attitude. Some day a useful and interesting monograph may be written on the whole question of atrocities in war. Careful investigation would, I am convinced, yield psychological results of permanent value, and establish the fact that the mental attitude which originates or accepts atrocity stories is frequently based on an amazing inter-mixture of credulity, mal-observation, megalomaniac impulses and deception, conscious or unconscious.
Meanwhile it is evident that the immense outlay of money and energy expended on the propaganda publications of the Entente fully accomplished their object and contributed most effectively towards winning what President Wilson has described as "a commercial and industrial war." Nevertheless the impartial historian of the future will, I think, present the story of the German invasion of Belgium in a somewhat different light from that in which this chapter of history has been portrayed in the official propaganda of the Allied Powers.
(1) That the Allied propagandists adopted methods of investigation which were often superficial and inadequate and accepted, together with certain evidence which was valid, much that was unsound and worthless.
(2) That the official defence put forward by the enemy was to a very large extent ignored or suppressed.
(3) That according to the recognised usages of war the German troops were fully justified in taking reprisals on the persons or property of those Belgian civilians who actually attacked them.
(4) That in some cases this right was exercised with unreasonable severity, and without adequate discrimination.
(5) That in certain instances, e.g., the shooting of the hostages at Les Rivages, the invaders acted in a manner condemned by the general consensus of civilised opinion.
The civilised world was invited to condemn the German reprisals of 1914 in Belgium. What verdict will it record with reference to British reprisals in Ireland six years later?
The analogies inevitably suggested between the two cases are not as clear as they might at first sight appear to be.
(1) The civilians who fired on the invaders in Belgium were irregular combatants wholly distinct from the recognised Belgian Army. They were in fact francs-tireurs and nothing else. The men who are fighting against the troops of the Crown in Ireland constitute the only hostile force we have to meet. They are certainly not francs-tireurs: the question is, are they rebels or, as they have consistently claimed to be, combatants in civil war? If the former, they are technically outlaws and cannot claim belligerent rights. But the Prime Minister has himself definitely stated that "civil war" is being waged in Ireland and this statement appears to be in strict accord with international law, which makes a clear distinction between "rebellion" and "civil war."[1] Rebellion is action undertaken by sporadic groups of individuals with little organisation and hopelessly inferior in numbers to the forces of the existing Government. The Irish Republican troops on the other hand are organised in Divisions, Brigades and Battalions, are controlled by responsible leaders, and greatly outnumber the military and armed police forces opposed to them. Their claim therefore to be combatants engaged in civil war and, as such, to be treated in accordance with the rights and usages of war, seems well grounded. Had this claim been admitted from the commencement, the hideous death-reprisals indulged in on both sides would probably never have occurred. Such acts as the ambushing of troops in lorries or on foot are of course perfectly legitimate methods of offence in ordinary warfare.
[Footnote 1: Vide Sir T. Barclay, "Laws of War" (Encyc. Brit.).
Even rebels, when fighting for a political object, are, according to high authorities like Bluntschli and Fiore, entitled to belligerent rights, and must not be treated as a "crowd of criminals" (eine Masse von Verbrechern).
Cf. Bluntschli (Das moderne Völkerrecht VIII. 512).--Wird sie dagegen nur strafrechtlich verfolgt, so wird dadurch der tatsächliche Kampf verwildert und es ist Gefahr dass die beiden streitenden Parteien in die Barbarei versinken und einander mit grausamen Represalien zu überbieten suchen. What a prophetic picture of Ireland in 1921!]
(2) As far as can be gathered from the White Book, the francs-tireurs who fired on Belgian troops were, even when caught flagrante delicto, usually accorded a drum-head court-martial or summary trial. But many instances have occurred in Ireland when unarmed men have been shot dead in or near their homes and sometimes in their beds, without even the semblance of a trial.
(3) Military reprisals in Belgium were, at any rate, regular in one respect: they were carried out under orders. According to the "Manual of Military Law," compiled for the use of our own Army, no reprisals are legitimate unless ordered by an officer. It is obvious that in very many cases Irish reprisals have been executed by the rank and file on their own responsibility, in total disregard of military discipline, but with complete immunity from punishment. Certain of these reprisals, e.g., the shooting down of men, women and children at Croke Park, far exceed in atrocity anything proved against the Germans in Belgium.
(4) Although houses were frequently destroyed by the Germans the pretext in every case was that from these houses civilians had fired upon the troops. No parallel, as far as I can see, exists for the amazing Order issued in Cork to the effect that houses with their furniture are to be burnt because the occupants "must have known of ambushes" in the neighbourhood and "ought to have informed the authorities." Nor again is any parallel found in the White Book to the reckless destruction in Cork of public and private buildings, including the Free Library, as a reprisal for an ambush outside the city, or for the burning of creameries, factories, farms and haystacks in a general campaign of vengeance. It seems clear that fresh precedents are here established which are certainly not covered by the rules of civilised warfare, and run counter to the ordinary laws of reason and humanity.
(5) The use of hostages has been adopted in Ireland, as in Belgium, for there is little discrimination in principle between shooting hostages and exposing them to death on military lorries from the fire of their compatriots.
Although the question of hostages is not covered by the Regulations of either Geneva or the Hague, the claim to inflict injury or death on innocent persons in order to bring pressure to bear on an enemy force is now generally condemned as a barbarous and obsolete usage of war, and as such is expressly discountenanced by our "Manual of Military Law" (page 306).
Immediately after the outbreak of the present war, the Belgian civil population began a wild contest against the German troops, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, and resulted in the most serious consequences for Belgium and its people.
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