ARTICLE 56 of the Hague Convention provides that "the property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity, and education, to the arts and sciences, even when state property, shall be treated as private property. All seizure of, destruction, or willful damage done to institutions of this character, historical monuments, works of art and science, is forbidden, and should be made the subject of legal proceedings."

Four names, which will be eternally remembered, are here sufficient to answer: there is Rheims and its Cathedral, Louvain and its library, Arras and its Town Hall, Ypres and its bell tower.

In the course of this war, Germany has disavowed her signature any number of times and has broken her pledges just as often as she has made them. Germany is a proven perjurer not only in the eyes of the nations at war with her, but also in the regard of the forty-four countries signatory of the Hague Convention. However, we have never heard that a single one of these nations lodged a protest against her actions. The Hague Convention has been torn into shreds, and not one of its signers has entered the slightest protest.

Is the next society of nations to be modeled on the same principles? Is the next society of nations going to draw up articles of the same kind as the Hague society? Is the future society of nations to accept among its members the same Empire of Germany which in 1914 declared bankruptcy? Will the future act of the society of nations be a simple scrap of paper, like the last act of 1907?

But let us cease asking these questions. There is no gain in asking certain questions to gain certain replies. There is no gain in examining certain problems to make the difficulties of the solution more apparent.

There is no doubt that the society of nations will exist some day. For the honor of humanity we must hope that it will exist. But it is not one day's work, nor the speaking of a single discourse nor the writing of one article that will build it. In M. Clemenceau's words, right can not be firmly established as long as the world is based on might. To bring about the rule of Right, Might must be destroyed and driven out as the very first move in the campaign for ultimate liberty.

German Might will not be destroyed by international compacts to which Germany will be party. Recall the treaty guaranteeing Belgium's integrity, which was one that Germany signed. Recall the Hague Conventions, signed by this same Germany. The men are fools who will not recall these things, who will not profit by them as examples. German might will only be destroyed by international agreements to which Germany is not a party, and which shall place German might beyond the regions in which it can play a dangerous part.

Now we are not building this upon sand, but upon a foundation of solid rock.

Germany needs two things to continue her national existence. She must import from other countries certain products necessary to her existence. For example, there is wool, of which she was obliged to import 1,888,481 metric quintals in order to manufacture her sixteen thousand grades of woolen fabrics. There is copper, of which Germany imported 250,000 tons in 1913 (200,000 tons came from America), in order to sell the merchandise she finds has a good market in foreign countries. Considering all Germany's exports for the period from 1903-1913, we find that their total has passed from 6,400 millions to 12,600 millions, an increase of nearly one hundred per cent.

There lies the best, the true, indeed the only means whereby the Allies can compel Germany to disarm. We do not demand that the economic war shall continue after the actual warfare is at an end, but we can demand that the Allies shall not lay aside their economic arms when the Germans shall have laid aside their fighting arms. In other words, we can demand that the Allies do not give Germany wool, copper and money if they know that this wool, money and copper are to feed the war machine. This war machine cost the German Empire nearly four hundred millions of dollars according to the budget of 1914. Suppose the Allies said to Germany, "As long as you have a military and naval budget of four hundred millions of dollars, we regret that we shall be unable to sell you wool and copper. We regret that we shall be unable to buy anything from you. But, if you reduce this budget by half, we are willing to give you one million metric quintals of wool and 125,000 tons of copper. Likewise, we are disposed to make purchases in your market totalling one billion dollars. If your military and naval budgets fall to nothing, we are willing to go much farther and buy and sell everything with you in unlimited quantities." Suppose the Allies make these proposals to Germany. Suppose they are put into effect. Will they not be a better guarantee of universal peace than all the Conventions and all the courts of arbitration in the world?

Then let no one disturb the peace of the world for his selfish purposes. Left to themselves, the little Balkan States and Slav States will not start great, long wars, just as the lone robber posted at the edge of a woods will not endanger a province's communications for very long. The formidable thing is the great country that is arranged and planned along the lines of war, where everything is organized with a view to war; just as the formidable thing for a city is the small band of malefactors who are able to terrify half the citizens by the use of highly perfected arms.

There will be no lasting peace until the most terrible war machine the world has ever known shall have been destroyed, reduced to an impotent state of non-existence. Ideals will not destroy this machine, but practical means and getting down to the facts of the case will do so. Pasteur did not overcome hydrophobia by writing treatises and dissertations. He met poison with poison, he injected the healing serum into the veins of the maddened dog. Now Germany is the mad dog, and Germany must be inoculated. After that there will be time to pass hygienic measures for the regiment of the entire world. Today Germany must be killed or cured. Germany is the cancer that must be cut out, lest it eat up the world.

It has been a matter of life and death for Liberty and Civilization. Both of them have been sick unto death. Clutched foully by the throat, they have heard their own death rattle; they themselves thought they might not survive. Now they stand on their feet, so weak, so pale, and so feeble that their life might still be despaired of. If we do not obtain definite guarantees against the monster who has barely failed to strangle them and to force the entire world back into the darkness of slavery, we shall have failed in our task, and the blood shed in the fight for Liberty will have been shed in vain.

* * * * *



APPENDICES

The following irrefutable documents, selected from among thousands of others which history will record, prove better than any other means how the Germans understand war and peace. They deserve a place in this volume because they demonstrate why and against what France is fighting.



APPENDIX I

HOW GERMANS FORCED WAR ON FRANCE

Answering to the Pope, in September, 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II declared "that he had always regarded it as his principal and most sacred duty to preserve the blessing of Peace for the German people and the world." More recently, driving through the battlefield of Cambrai, the Kaiser, according to the war correspondent of the Berlin Lokalanzeiger, exclaimed: "God knows what I have not done to prevent such a war!"

A document made public by M. Stephen Pichon, French Foreign Minister, shows exactly how, in the last days of July, 1914, the Kaiser tried "to preserve the blessings of Peace for the German people and the world" and what he did "to prevent such a war."

Speaking at the Sorbonne, in Paris, on March 1, 1918, M. Pichon said:

I will establish by documents that the day the Germans deliberately rendered inevitable the most frightful of wars they tried to dishonor us by the most cowardly complicity in the ambush into which they drew Europe. I will establish it in the revelation of a document which the German Chancellor, after having drawn it up, preserved carefully, and you will see why, in the most profound mystery of the most secret archives.

We have known only recently of its authenticity, and it defies any sort of attempt to disprove it. It bears the signature of Bethmann Hollweg (German Imperial Chancellor at the outbreak of the war) and the date July 31, 1914. On that day Von Schoen (German Ambassador to France) was charged by a telegram from his Chancellor to notify us of a state of danger of war with Russia and to ask us to remain neutral, giving us eighteen hours in which to reply.

What was unknown until today was that the telegram of the German Chancellor containing these instructions ended with these words:

If the French Government declares it will remain neutral your Excellency will be good enough to declare that we must, as a guarantee of its neutrality, require the handing over of the fortresses of Toul and Verdun; that we will occupy them and will restore them after the end of the war with Russia. A reply to this last question must reach here before Saturday afternoon at 4 o'clock.

That is how Germany wanted peace at the moment when she declared war! That is how sincere she was in pretending that we obliged her to take up arms for her defense! That is the price she intended to make us pay for our baseness if we had the infamy to repudiate our signature as Prussia repudiated hers by tearing up the treaty that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium!

It was explained that the above document has not previously been published, because the code could not be deciphered: the French Foreign Office succeeded only a few days before in decodifying the document.

Moreover, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, on March 18, 1918, acknowledged the accuracy of M. Pichon's quotation and contented himself to declare that "his instructions to Von Schoen were justified."



APPENDIX II

HOW GERMANS TREAT AN AMBASSADOR

This document is quoted from the French "Yellow Book," page 152:

From Copenhagen French Yellow Book No. 155

M. Bapst, French Minister at Copenhagen, to M. Doumergue, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

COPENHAGEN, AUGUST 6, 1914.

The French Ambassador at Berlin, M. Jules Cambon, asks me to communicate to your Excellency the following telegram:

I have been sent to Denmark by the German Government. I have just arrived at Copenhagen. I am accompanied by all the staff of the Embassy and the Russian Charge d'Affaires at Darmstadt with his family. The treatment which we have received is of such a nature that I have thought it desirable to make a complete report on it to your Excellency by telegram.

On the morning of Monday, the 3rd of August, after I had, in accordance with your instructions, addressed to Herr von Jagow a protest against the acts of aggression committed on French territory by German troops, the Secretary of State came to see me. Herr von Jagow came to complain of acts of aggression which he alleged had been committed in Germany, especially at Nuremberg and Coblenz by French aviators, who according to his statement "had come from Belgium." I answered that I had not the slightest information as to the facts to which he attached so much importance and the improbability of which seemed to me obvious; on my part I asked him if he had read the note which I had addressed to him with regard to the invasion of our territory by detachments of the German army. As the Secretary of State said that he had not yet read this note I explained its contents to him. I called his attention to the act committed by the officer commanding one of the detachments who had advanced to the French village of Joncherey, ten kilometers within our frontier, and had blown out the brains of a French soldier whom he had met there. After having given my opinion of this act I added:

"You will admit that under no circumstances could there be any comparison between this and the flight of an aeroplane over foreign territory carried out by private persons animated by that spirit of individual courage by which aviators are distinguished.

"An act of aggression committed on the territory of a neighbor by detachments of regular troops commanded by officers assumes an importance of quite a different nature."

Herr von Jagow explained to me that he had no knowledge of the facts of which I was speaking to him, and he added that it was difficult for events of this kind not to take place when two armies filled with the feelings which animated our troops found themselves face to face on either side of the frontier.

At this moment the crowds which thronged the Pariser Platz in front of the Embassy and whom we could see through the window of my study, which was half open, uttered shouts against France. I asked the Secretary of State when all this would come to an end.

"The Government has not yet come to a decision," Herr von Jagow answered. "It is probable that Herr von Schoen will receive orders today to ask for his passports and then you will receive yours." The Secretary of State assured me that I need not have any anxiety with regard to my departure, and that all the proprieties would be observed with regard to me as well as my staff. We were not to see one another any more and we took leave of one another after an interview which had been courteous and could not make me anticipate what was in store for me.

Before leaving Herr von Jagow I expressed to him my wish to make a personal call on the Chancellor, as that would be the last opportunity that I should have of seeing him.

Herr von Jagow said that he did not advise me to carry out this intention as the interview would serve no purpose and could not fail to be painful.

At 6 o'clock in the evening Herr von Langwerth brought me my passports. In the name of his Government he refused to agree to the wish which I expressed to him that I should be permitted to travel by Holland or Belgium. He suggested to me that I should go either by way of Copenhagen, although he could not assure me a free passage by sea, or through Switzerland via Constance.

I accepted this last route; Herr von Langwerth having asked me to leave as soon as I possibly could it was agreed, in consideration of the necessity I was under of making arrangements with the Spanish Ambassador, who was undertaking the charge of our interests, that I should leave on the next day, the 4th August, at 10 o'clock at night.

At 7 o'clock, an hour after Herr von Langwerth had left, Herr von Lancken, formerly Councilor of the Embassy at Paris, came from the Minister for Foreign Affairs to tell me to request the staff of my Embassy to cease taking meals in the restaurants. This order was so strict that on the next day, Tuesday, I had to have recourse to the authority of the Wilhelmstrasse to get the Hotel Bristol to send our meals to the Embassy.

At 11 o'clock on the same evening, Monday, Herr von Langwerth came back to tell me that his Government would not allow our return by way of Switzerland under the pretext that it would take three days and three nights to take me to Constance. He announced that I should be sent by way of Vienna. I only agreed to this alteration under reserve, and during the night I wrote the following letter to Herr von Langwerth:

"BERLIN, AUGUST 3rd, 1914.

"M. LE BARON;

"I have been thinking over the route for my return to my country about which you came to speak to me this evening. You propose that I shall travel by Vienna. I run the risk of finding myself detained in that town, if not by the action of the Austrian Government, at least owing to the mobilization which creates great difficulties similar to those existing in Germany as to the movements of trains.

"Under these circumstances I must ask the German Government for a promise made on their honor that the Austrian Government will send me to Switzerland, and that the Swiss Government will not close its frontier either to me or to the persons by whom I am accompanied, as I am told that that frontier has been firmly closed to foreigners.

"I cannot then accept the proposal that you have made to me unless I have the security which I ask for, and unless I am assured that I shall not be detained for some months outside my country.

"JULES CAMBON."

In answer to this letter on the next morning, Tuesday the 4th August, Herr von Langwerth gave me in writing an assurance that the Austrian and Swiss authorities had received communications to this effect.

At the same time M. Miladowski, attached to the Consulate at Berlin, as well as other Frenchmen, was arrested in his own house while in bed. M. Miladowski, for whom a diplomatic passport had been requested, was released after four hours.

I was prepared to leave for Vienna when, at a quarter to five, Herr von Langwerth came back to inform me that I would have to leave with the persons accompanying me at 10 o'clock in the evening, but that I should be taken to Denmark. On this new requirement I asked if I should be confined in a fortress supposing I did not comply. Herr von Langwerth simply answered that he would return to receive my answer in half an hour. I did not wish to give the German Government the pretext for saying that I had refused to depart from Germany. I therefore told Herr von Langwerth when he came back that I would submit to the order which had been given to me but "that I protested."

I at once wrote to Herr von Jagow a letter of which the following is a copy:

BERLIN, AUGUST 4, 1914.

"SIR:

"More than once your Excellency has said to me that the Imperial Government, in accordance with the usages of international courtesy, would facilitate my return to my own country, and would give me every means of getting back to it quickly.

"Yesterday, however, Baron von Langwerth, after refusing me access to Belgium and Holland, informed me that I should travel to Switzerland via Constance. During the night I was informed that I should be sent to Austria, a country which is taking part in the present war on the side of Germany. As I had no knowledge of the intentions of Austria towards me, since on Austrian soil I am nothing but an ordinary private individual, I wrote to Baron von Langwerth that I requested the Imperial Government to give me a promise that the Imperial and Royal Austrian authorities would give me all possible facilities for continuing my journey and that Switzerland would not be closed to me. Herr von Langwerth has been good enough to answer me in writing that I could be assured of an easy journey and that the Austrian authorities would do all that was necessary.

"It is nearly five o'clock, and Baron von Langwerth has just announced to me that I shall be sent to Denmark. In view of the present situation, there is no security that I shall find a ship to take me to England and it is this consideration which made me reject this proposal with the approval of Herr von Langwerth.

"In truth no liberty is left me and I am treated almost as a prisoner. I am obliged to submit, having no means of obtaining that the rules of international courtesy should be observed towards me, but I hasten to protest to your Excellency against the manner in which I am being treated.

"JULES CAMBON."

Whilst my letter was being delivered I was told that the journey would not be made direct but by way of Schleswig. At 10 o'clock in the evening, I left the Embassy with my staff in the middle of a great assembly of foot and mounted police.

At the station the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was only represented by an officer of inferior rank.

The journey took place with extreme slowness. We took more than twenty-four hours to reach the frontier. It seemed that at every station they had to wait for orders to proceed. I was accompanied by Major von Rheinbaben of the Alessandra Regiment of the Guard and by a police officer. In the neighborhood of the Kiel Canal the soldiers entered our carriages. The windows were shut and the curtains of the carriages drawn down; each of us had to remain isolated in his compartment and was forbidden to get up or to touch his luggage. A soldier stood in the corridor of the carriage before the door of each of our compartments which were kept open, revolver in hand and finger on the trigger. The Russian Charge d'Affaires, the women and children and everyone were subjected to the same treatment.

At the last German station about 11 o'clock at night, Major von Rheinbaben came to take leave of me. I handed to him the following letter to Herr von Jagow.

"WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 5, 1914.

"SIR:

"Yesterday before leaving Berlin, I protested in writing to your Excellency against the repeated change of route which was imposed upon me by the Imperial Government on my journey from Germany.

"Today as the train in which I was passed over the Kiel Canal an attempt was made to search all our luggage as if we might have hidden some instrument of destruction. Thanks to the interference of Major von Rheinbaben, we were spared this insult. But they went further.

"They obliged us to remain each in his own compartment, the windows and blinds having been closed. During this time, in the corridors of the carriages at the door of each compartment and facing each one of us, stood a soldier, revolver in hand, finger on the trigger, for nearly half an hour.

"I consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the Ambassador of the Republic and the staff of his Embassy, violence which nothing could even have made me anticipate.

"Yesterday I had the honor of writing to your Excellency that I was being treated almost as a prisoner. Today I am being treated as a dangerous prisoner. Also I must record that during our journey which from Berlin to Denmark has taken twenty-four hours, no food has been prepared nor provided for me nor for the persons who were traveling with me to the frontier.

"JULES CAMBON."

I thought that our troubles had finished, when shortly afterwards Major von Rheinbaben came, rather embarrassed, to inform me that the train would not proceed to the Danish frontier if I did not pay the cost of this train. I expressed my astonishment that I had not been made to pay at Berlin and that at any rate I had not been forewarned of this. I offered to pay by a cheque on one of the largest Berlin banks. This facility was refused me. With the help of my companions I was able to collect, in gold, the sum which was required from me at once, and which amounted to 3,611 marks, 75 pfennig. This is about 5,000 francs in accordance with the present rate of exchange.

After this last incident, I thought it necessary to ask Major von Rheinbaben for his word of honor as an officer and a gentleman that we should be taken to the Danish frontier. He gave it to me, and I required that the policeman who was with us should accompany us.

In this way we arrived at the first Danish station, where the Danish Government had had a train made ready to take us to Copenhagen.

I am assured that my British colleague and the Belgian Minister, although they left Berlin after I did, traveled by the direct route to Holland. I am struck by this difference of treatment, and as Denmark and Norway are, at this moment, infested with spies, if I succeed in embarking in Norway, there is danger that I may be arrested at sea with the officials who accompany me.

I do not wish to conclude this dispatch without notifying your Excellency of the energy and devotion of which the whole staff of the Embassy has given unceasing proof during the course of this crisis. I shall be glad that account should be taken of the services which on this occasion have been rendered to the Government of the Republic, in particular by the Secretaries of the Embassy and by the Military and Naval Attaches.

JULES CAMBON.



APPENDIX III

HOW GERMANS ARE WAGING WAR

The French Government, as soon as it heard of the first German atrocities, instituted a Commission of inquiry composed of three high French magistrates: Mr. Georges Payelle, President of the Cour des Comptes, Mr. Georges Maringer, Councilor of State, and Mr. Edmond Paillot, Councilor of the Cour of Cassation. That Commission proceeded to the spot where the atrocities had been perpetrated and heard witnesses, who deposed under oath.

All evidence and proceedings have been printed and fill up ten heavy volumes.

Among many depositions, the following one, taken the twenty-third of October, 1915, at Paris, will give an idea of the horrors to which the invaded regions of France were submitted.

* * * * *

Duren Virginie, wife of Berard Durem, 29 years of age, inhabitant of Jarny in the Department of Meurthe et Moselle, a refugee at Levallois-Perret:

I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

On the 25th of August, 1914, the sixty-sixth and sixty-eighth Bavarian regiments were quartered together at Jarny. I was ordered to bring water for the soldiers, so went in search of a large number of water pails. At three o'clock in the afternoon an officer, who met me, told me I had carried enough water and ordered me to go back to my house. As the Germans were firing on our house with mitrailleuses, I took refuge in the cellar with my two sons, Jean, aged six, and Maurice, aged two, and also my daughter Jeanne, nine years of age. The Aufiero family was also there. Soon petrol was poured over the house; it got into the cellar through the air-hole, and we were surrounded by flames. I saved myself, carrying my two little boys in my arms, while my daughter and little Beatrice Aufiero ran along holding on to my skirt. As we were crossing the Rougeval brook, which runs near my house, the Bavarians fired on us. My little Jean, whom I was carrying, was struck by three bullets, one in the right thigh, one in the ankle, and one in the chest. The thigh was almost shot away, and from the place where the bullet through his chest came out the lung projected. The poor child said, "Oh, Mother, I have a pain," and in a moment he was dead. At the same time little Beatrice had her arm broken so badly that it was attached to her shoulder only by a piece of flesh, and Angele Aufiero, a boy of nine years, who followed a short distance behind us, was wounded in the calf of the leg. Little Beatrice suffered cruelly and wept bitterly, but she did not fall down, continuing to go along with me.

While these things were taking place, the Perignon family, which lived next door to us, was massacred.

When they were no longer shooting at us, I tried to wash my baby, who was covered with blood, in the brook; but a soldier prevented me, shouting, "Get away from there."

Finally we got to the road. Meanwhile they were driving M. Aufiero out of the cellar. The Germans, who spoke French after a fashion, said to his wife, "Come see your husband get shot." The poor man, on his knees, asked for mercy, and as his wife shrieked "My poor Come," the soldiers said to her, "Shut your mouth." His execution took place very near us.

The Bavarians sent me, my children, Mme. Aufiero and her daughter to a meadow near the Pont-de-l'Etang. A general ordered that we be shot, but I threw myself at his feet, begging him to be merciful. He consented. At this moment an officer, wearing a great gray cloak with a red collar, said, as he pointed to the dead body of my child, "There is one who will not grow up to fight our men."

The next day, in my flight to Barriere Zeller, an officer came up and told me that the body of my dead child smelled badly and that I must get rid of it. Since I could find no one to make a coffin, I found in the canteen two rabbit hutches. I fastened one of these to the other, and there I laid the little body. It was buried in my garden by two soldiers, and I had to dig the grave myself.



APPENDIX IV

HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY

In the first days of April, 1916, the following notice, bearing the signature of the German commander, was posted on all the walls of Lille, the great town in the north of France which has been occupied by the Germans since the beginning of the war.

All the inhabitants of the town, except the children under fourteen years of age, their mothers, and the old men, must prepare to be transported within an hour and a half.

An officer will decide definitely which persons shall be conducted to the camps of assembly. For this purpose, all the inhabitants must assemble in front of their homes, in case of bad weather they shall be permitted to stay in the lobbies. The doors of the houses must be left open. All complaints will be unavailing. No inhabitant of a house, even those who are not to be transported, can leave the house before eight o'clock in the morning (German time).

Each person may take thirty kilograms of baggage with him. Should there be any excess over this amount, all that person's baggage will be refused regardless of everything. Separate packages must be made up by each person, and a visibly written, firmly secured address must be on each package. The address must bear the person's name, surname, and the number of his identification card.

It is very necessary for each person to provide himself with utensils for eating and drinking, also with a woolen blanket and some good shoes and some linen. Each person must have on his person his identification card. Whoever shall attempt to evade deportation shall be punished without mercy.

ETAPPEN—KOMMANDANTUR

The threat contained in the notice cited here was carried out to the letter. Here is an account of it from the communication addressed by M. D——, formerly the receveur particulier of Lille, to M. Cambon, formerly the French Ambassador to Berlin:

On Good Friday night at three o'clock the troops who were going to occupy the designated section, Fives, came through our houses. It was dreadful. An officer passed by, pointing out the men and women whom he chose, leaving them a space of time amounting to an hour in some cases and ten minutes in others, to prepare themselves for their journey.

Antoine D. ... and his sister, twenty-two years of age, were taken away. The Germans did not want to leave behind the younger daughter in the family, who was not fourteen. Their grandmother, ill with sorrow and terror, had to be cared for at once. Finally they met the young daughter coming back. In one case an old man and two infirm persons could not keep the daughter who was their sole support. And everywhere the enemy sneered, adding vexatious annoyance to their hateful task. In the house of the doctor, who is B.'s uncle, they gave his wife the choice between two maids. She preferred the elder and they said, "Well, then she is the one we are going to take." Mlle. L., the young one who has just got over typhoid and bronchitis, saw the non-commissioned officer who took away her nurse coming up to her. "What a sad task they are making us do." "More than sad, sir, it could be called barbarous." "That is a hard word, are you not afraid that I will sell you?" As a matter of fact the wretch denounced her. They allowed her seven minutes and took her away bare-headed, just as she was, to the Colonel who commanded this noble battle and who also ordered her to go, against the advice of a physician. Only on account of her tireless energy and the sense of decency of one who was less ferocious than the rest, did she obtain permission, at five o'clock in the afternoon, to be discharged, after a day which had been a veritable Calvary. The poor wretches at whose door a sentry watched, were collected together at some place or other, a Church or a school. Then the mob of all sorts and conditions of people, or all grades of social standing, respectable young girls and women of the street, was driven to the station escorted by soldiers marching at the head of the procession. From there they were taken off in the evening without knowing where they were going or for what work they were destined.

And in the face of all this our people evidenced restraint and admirable dignity, although they were provoked that day by seeing the automobiles going around which were taking away these unfortunate people. They all went away shouting "Vive la France. Vive la Liberte!" and singing the Marseillaise. They cheered up those who remained; their poor mothers who were weeping, and the children. With voices almost strangled with tears, and pale with suffering, they told them not to cry as they themselves would not; but bore themselves proudly in the presence of their executioners.

Another document shows better than all this talking the treatment the French have been receiving from the Germans for over thirty months. This document is a German notice which was found at Holnon, northwest of St. Quentin. The document bore the official seal of the German commander.

HOLNON, 20th July, 1915.

All workmen, women and children over fifteen years of age must work in the fields every day, also on Sunday, from four o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, French time. For rest they shall have a half-hour in the morning, an hour at noon and a half-hour in the afternoon. Failure to obey this order will be punished in the following manner:—

1.—The men who are lazy will be collected for the period of the harvest in a company of workmen under the inspection of German corporals. After the harvest the lazy will be imprisoned for six months and every third day their nourishment shall be only bread and water.

2.—Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to work. After the harvest the women will be imprisoned six months.

3.—The children who do not work shall be punished with blows from a club.

Furthermore, the commandant reserves the right to punish men who do not work with twenty blows from a club daily.

Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been punished severely.

(Signed) GLOSE, COLONEL AND COMMANDANT.



APPENDIX V

HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE

Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Count von Hertling and Herr von Kuhlmann state that Alsace-Lorraine is a province of the German Empire by right and by fact, and that it is firmly attached to Germany.

The following picture shows how this German province is treated by Germany:

Treatment of the Civilian Population

The Government has established for the duration of the war an insurmountable barrier between Alsace-Lorraine, which is called a territory of the Empire, and the rest of the German states. Briefly, Alsace-Lorraine is treated as a suspect.

An inhabitant of Alsace-Lorraine can not mail his letters in Germany. For example, Wissembourg is on the border of the Palatinate. There is a great temptation for the citizens of this town to assure a rapid delivery of their letters and their escape from annoying censorship by making use of the German mail system. A music teacher, Mlle. Lina Sch—— was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred marks in March, 1917, for an infraction of this sort. The war council at Saarbruck, which pronounced this sentence, had already, in June, 1916, sentenced for like cause, the Spanish Consul, to the payment of a fine of eighty marks because he had allowed a citizen of Sarreguimine to have letters to his sons, who were refugees at Lausanne, addressed to the Spanish Consulate.

In addition, German hostility to the Alsatians is shown by a number of childish measures against Alsatian uniforms and costumes, in proportion as they resemble the French.

In all seriousness the question arose of forbidding the Catholic Clergy to wear the soutane, as it was the custom in the Latin countries. It was given up; but steps were taken in the case of the firemen.

The Nouvelle Gazette of Strassburg published an official notice, dated the ninth of December, 1915, which emphasized an order suppressing the uniforms worn by the Alsatian firemen because the cut was French, as was the cap, and complained that this order was not everywhere observed:

Recently, in the course of a fire which broke out near Molsheim, it is an established fact that the firemen wore their old Alsatian uniforms, and that the fire alarm was sounded by means of the old clarions of the type in use in France. The Kreisdirection finds itself obliged to insist that the suppressed uniforms disappear, and that the clarions do likewise; and to ask that it be informed of contraventions that happen in the future.

Other societies and associations, such as the singing societies which frequently still wear uniforms recalling those of the French collegians, ought to lay aside the forbidden garments, which are to be entrusted to the guard of the police.

But these puerilities seem insignificant compared to other things to which the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been subjected, things which unite them more firmly than ever to the French and the Belgians of the invaded regions.

The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The inhabitants of Muelhausen between the ages of seventeen and sixty years were assembled in the barracks at that place, whence they were sent into the interior of Germany.

This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called Schutzhaft, was applied to Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at Cologne and then sent to the Russian front, where he was killed. It was also applied to M. Bourson, former correspondent of Le Matin, who is interned at Cannstatt in Wurtemburg. Other citizens, after having been held in prison for weeks and months, have been exiled finally into Germany.

The Germans themselves have been so demoralized by the regime they have established that the authorities have had to put a check on anonymous denunciations, almost all of which were false, by an official communique published in the Gazette de Hagenau for the sixth of December, 1916.

The story of how the civilian population has been treated will only be known in its entirety later on. The government has, as a matter of fact, forbidden the press to publish accounts of the war councils' debates because the population, far from being terrified by them, would find in them laughing matter.

It is estimated that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have served in actual hours more than five thousand years in prison. Here are some crimes committed by them:

M. Giessmann, an old man seventy years old, saluted French prisoners in a Strassburg street: Sentence, six weeks in prison.

Guillaume Kohler, an infantry soldier from Saverne, during a journey in Germany, censured the inhuman manner in which certain German officers treated their men at the front. The council at Saarbruck sentenced him to two years in prison.

Emilie Zimmerle, a cook at Kolmar, sang an anti-German song as she washed out her pots. Thirty marks fine.

Mlle. Stern, the daughter of a pastor at Mulhouse, spoke against the violation of Belgium. One month in prison.

Abbe Theophile Selier, cure at Levencourt, for the same offense, six weeks in prison.

Even children and young girls have been punished for peccadillos that were absolutely untrue.

The Metz Zeitung for the twenty-second of October mentions the sentences pronounced against Juliette F. de Vigy, eighteen years old, a pupil in the commercial school, and Georgette S——, twenty-three years old, a shop girl, dwellers at Mouilly. Having gone one morning to the station at Metz, they saw some French prisoners in a train to whom they spoke and at whom they "made eyes."

Juliette F——, the more guilty of the two, was sentenced to pay a fine of eighty marks, and Georgette S—— to pay one of forty marks, because "acting this way to prisoners of war exercises a particularly disturbing effect on them."

Two little girls of Kolmar, named Grass and Broly, were arrested for "having answered, by waving their hands, kisses French prisoners threw to them."

A boy fifteen years old, pupil in the upper school at Mulhouse, named Jean Ingold, who, in the classroom tore down the portrait of the Emperor and painted French flags on the wall with the inscription "Vive la France," was condemned to a month in prison. The War Council saw an aggravating circumstance in the fact that Jean's father "occupies a very lucrative position as a German functionary."

On the thirtieth of March, 1916, two sisters from Guebwiller—Sister Edwina, nee Bach, Mother Superior, and Sister Emertine, nee Eckert, were charged with anti-German manifestations for having treated as lies the figures regarding French and Russian prisoners sent out in the German communiques, for having protested against the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral, for having treated as false the German victories that had been announced, and for having said on the subject of the German invasion of Belgium, "How can they attack a country that asked for nothing?"

The result was that they got six months' imprisonment.

The case of Mme. Berthe Judlin, in the faith Sister Valentine, is more tragic.

The Mulhouse newspapers have published the account of the proceedings in the case of this Sister before the War Council. It appears that she has been the victim of monstrous calumnies, and that her fate can well be compared to that of Miss Edith Cavell.

She was accused of having, from the ninth to the fourteenth of August when she was assigned to the convent of the Redemptorists at Riedishiem, favored the French wounded at the expense of the German wounded. These accusations, which specified in particular, that she had taken various objects away from one wounded man (a charge the prosecution withdrew) and that she hid the cartridges of the French wounded in the attic, were contested by Sister Valentine. After the testimony of the witnesses, nine for the prosecution and fourteen for the defendant, the government commissioner asked that she be punished with a sentence of fifteen years at hard labor and ten years of deprivation of civil rights. Her lawyer asked for her acquittal. The War Council on the fourteenth of December, 1915, after an hour and a quarter's deliberation, decided that "Sister Valentine has done harm to the German Army" and has hidden the cartridges. It condemned Sister Valentine to "five years of hard labor and five years' deprivation of civil rights."

The War on the French Language

The Germans never cease recalling and von Hertling has just repeated the fact that eighty-seven per cent of the Alsatians speak German. It is strange, then, that the German reign of terror has manifested itself in one particular against the use of French, even in the region where French is the language universally spoken.

The fact that a person speaks French has become a special offense, that of "provocation." And this offense appears to be a frequent one.

On the twenty-second of February, 1916, the sous-prefect of Boulay gave the following warning to the mayors of his arrondissement:

The use in public of French will be considered a "provocation" when used by persons who know enough German to make themselves understood or who can have recourse to persons who understand German as intermediaries.

The War Council Extraordinary at Metz, in consequence handed down a decision condemning two women to fourteen days in prison because, in a manner that gave "provocation," they spoke French in a trolley car in spite of the warnings of the conductress.

In addition, the War Council Extraordinary at Strassburg fined a salesman who "not only let a French label remain on his packages, but had put a French label on a package addressed to a customer who understood German."

A little girl from Bourg-Bruche who, although she spoke German, used the French language in spite of repeated warnings, had a sentence of detention inflicted on her by the same tribunal.

The Mulhouse Tageblatt for the twenty-third of September, 1917, announced that women who had conversed to one another in French in public had been condemned to from two to three weeks imprisonment by the War Council at Thionville.

Another person who had made a usage of the French language that gave grounds for "provocation," was condemned to pay a fine of fifty marks or serve ten days in prison.

The Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung for the twelfth and twenty-sixth of October published the following sentences: "Fines of twenty and ten marks to the venders A. Nemarg and M. Cahen for having spoken to a convoy of French officers in the station at Thionville."

Twenty and thirty marks fine to Amelie Bany and Catherine Jacques of Knutange "for having spoken French although they understood German."

The Mayor of Broque, a commune where French is spoken, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for having spoken French to his councilors.

In Alsace this campaign against the French language is carried even into the girls' boarding schools, which have always been the principal centers for the study of French.

An order from the Statthalter, dated March tenth, 1915, forbade French conversations in the schools.

A German pastor of the Lutheran Church named Curtius, who had opposed suppressing the old parish of Saint Nicholas at Strassburg, was removed. His successor, who was better disciplined, gave in to the measure that was demanded.

The war against the French language has been marked by the suppression of all French newspapers since the war's beginning, the Journal d'Alsace-Lorraine, the Messin, the Nouvelliste d'Alsace-Lorraine. But nothing shows better the necessity of having organs of public opinion in French than the establishment at Metz of the Gazette d'Alsace-Lorraine by the government, which served as a model for the Gazette des Ardennes, founded later on at Mezieres, to demoralize the inhabitants of the invaded districts in the north and west of France.

The Treatment of the Soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine

The soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine, whose loyalty was proclaimed at the war's beginning, have, as a matter of fact, been treated like spies and embryo deserters.

In August, 1915, at the opening of the Alsatian parliament, the Statthalter denounced the anti-patriotism of a part of the population and stigmatized the "traitors" who had "gone over to the enemy."

In fact, no less than fourteen thousand Alsatians, in the face of manifold perils and difficulties, had rejoined the colors of their true country. All the newspapers of Alsace-Lorraine still publish the lists of them as citizens and of their belongings as "refractory individuals."

The movement has never stopped. During the thirty-second month of the war, on the fourteenth of March, 1917, General von Nassner, commandant for the district of Saarbruck, published the following extraordinary order:

"Whoever, after due examination, has reason to believe that a soldier or a man on reprieve proposes to desert and who can still prevent the execution of this crime, must without delay give notice of this fact to the nearest military or police authority."

The Strassburg Neueste Nachrichten for the twenty-seventh of September announced that the "chambre correctionnelle at Kolmar had condemned by default one hundred and ninety men from the arrondissements of Guebwiller and Ribeauville to fines of six hundred marks or forty days in prison for having failed to perform their military obligations."

The Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung for the eleventh of October, 1917, announced sentences of fines of three thousand marks or three hundred days in prison for the same reason against seven persons.

The Haguenauer Zeitung from the eleventh to the twentieth of October published the names of seventeen soldiers, some of them deserters, the others guilty of rebellion in favor of the enemy or of treason.

On the twenty-fifth of October there was another list of deserters, nineteen of whom were natives of Strassburg.

In his book, "The Martyrs of Alsace and Lorraine," M. Andre Fribourg has fifteen pages taken from the lists of the debates of the German war councils. These pages are made up of the names of young Alsatians who have left their country rather than fight against France.

Besides, far from treating the Alsatians enrolled in the German Army like Germans, the government has accorded them a distinctly different treatment.

It has sent them to the Russian front and employed them at the most dangerous posts, as this secret order, from the Prussian Minister of War to the temporary commander of the Fourteenth Army Corps, proves:

All men from Alsace-Lorraine employed as secretaries, ordnance officers, etc., must be relieved of their duties and sent to the battle front. In the future, all the men from Alsace-Lorraine will be sent to the "General Kommando," who will send them at once to the units on the Eastern Front. This order to go into effect before the first of April, 1916.

FOR THE STELLVERT, GENERAL KOMMANDO RADECKE, MAJOR.

Finally, it was only on the ninth of October, 1917, that the Strassburg Neue Zeitung announced the abolition of the special postal control to which the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were submitted at the front.

It is but just [says the Freie Presse on that occasion] that the exceptional measures taken against the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine be abolished at last. Among these measures we consider the interdiction still in force for a man to return to his native town. And [the same newspaper adds] from the moment that the bravery of our soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine is vaunted everywhere, it is absolutely wrong to reward them with scorn and insults.

In the notice from G. Q. G. for the twenty-fifth of November, 1917, are the details gathered from the Alsatian prisoners themselves of the treatment their compatriots endure in the German Army.

On the twenty-second of last June, all the Alsatians received orders to present themselves at the F. R. D. of their division, where they were received by the Vize Sergeant, flanked by two guards.

The former said to them:

"What! You have not yet laid aside your accoutrements; traitors, deserters, scoundrels, rascals. Get into the shelter quick where you can put up nine additional supports for the roof and where you can kick the bucket at your ease."

Since some of the Alsatians declared that, having received nothing to eat or to drink, they could not work, a lieutenant, who was summoned by the adjutant, ran up with his riding whip and, making one of them step forward, beat him until he lost consciousness.

Later on another lieutenant ordered the Vize Sergeant to "train the Alsatians well. They are all robbers and traitors."

All these facts proclaim in an undeniable manner that the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine are not treated like ordinary citizens by the German Army, but like foreigners temporarily under the domination of Germany.

The Sequestration of Property

For a "German" country, Alsace-Lorraine seems to have a great number of landowners who are French, if one is to judge by the sequestrations and confiscations with which the authorities have been so desperately busy for three years.

In fact the local newspapers contain lists of sequestrations that are almost as long as the lists of deserters.

And these confiscations apply not only to the landowners who live in France. A large number have been pronounced against inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine who live abroad. Orders were given them to reenter the German Empire, orders they had no possible chance of obeying, but which gave the imperial government an easy pretext for pronouncing their denationalization and the confiscation of their property.

Also, the sequestrations followed by sales under the hammer, of French and Alsatian properties were extremely numerous. Among these properties there are a certain number of considerable importance.

On the twenty-fourth of August, 1916, Les Dernieres Nouvelles de Strasbourg, advertised the sale under the hammer of the properties of Prince de Tonnay-Charente, situated at Hambourg and consisting of a splendid chateau, furnished in Louis Fourteenth style, Gobelin tapestries of great value, family portraits, green houses, outhouses, ponds, farms, etc., etc.

The Strassburg Post for the twenty-ninth of October announced the liquidation sale of Cite Hof, belonging to the heirs of Paul de Geiger, including "forty-two hectares of fine arable land, fine dwelling houses, barns and stables, a very fine park, summer houses, a coach house, etc." ... "of the Villa Huber, with a fine park, servants' quarters, garden, surrounded by twenty-eight hectares of fields."

The same paper for the fourth of October announces the sale of the famous chateau of Robertsau, the property of Mme. Loys-Chandieu, nee Pourtales, with two hundred and thirty hectares of farm land and one hundred and thirty hectares of forest.

The Metzer Zeitung for the twentieth of October announced the liquidation of twenty properties in the Moyeuvre Grande district, and of eleven in that of Sierek.

Many people have obviously been covetous of these French possessions.

On this subject curious letters and unceasing polemics appeared in the Alsatian newspapers.

Certain interested persons complained (Strassburger Post for the third of November) that the time was so short that only the inhabitants of the country and their immediate neighbors had any opportunity of profiting by these occasions. They remarked with all justice that to get the highest prices for these sales there ought to be a large number of bidders.

For the farm lands, the neighbors would suffice to bring up the bids to a high enough sum, but when it was a matter of a magnificent chateau, like that at Osthofen, with a garden and a park, bidders for this luxury would scarcely be found among the peasants. The speculators alone would step in and would acquire for a mere nothing properties of great value. And the plaintiffs added, "Is that desirable?"

The following considerations advanced by one of the plaintiffs are not without interest. "Sufficient means of communication still remain between France and Germany. Do you not see the danger of feigned sales, to third persons, who will buy in the goods at small cost and will hand them over later on to their former proprietors? In this way the French influence over the ownership of the land will be reestablished in the future."

To these complaints and wrongs the Strassburger Post for the eighth of November replied in detail.

It assured that the list of goods to be disposed of had not only been placed by the authorities in the several states of the empire, to give buyers time to take advantage of possible bargains, but also a catalogue of stationary objects had been published in fifteen hundred copies by Schultz & Co. of Strassburg.

This catalogue was quickly used up and the demand for it continued to come in, which proved that the buyers were informed in time.

The newspaper adds that the things to be sold have been visited by buyers coming from old Germany as well as from Alsace-Lorraine, and sales propositions have been made before the publication of notices in the newspapers.

It seems, furthermore, that if the sales of land and the exploitation of farm lands have ended rapidly, it was because colonization societies, called "black bands," have overtly bought up or had bought up the properties by their agents, in the hope that their plans would be realized after the war. In industrial matters, there was recently founded in Berlin a German syndicate which proposes to buy up the actions.

For the textile industry in particular, it is a question of a veritable trust against which is arrayed "a syndicate of Alsatian manufacturers who have felt the need of defending themselves."

The entire scope of recent German policies with regard to Alsace-Lorraine shows that this land which von Hertling said was "allied to Germanism by more and more intimate bonds" has been, as a matter of fact, to treat it like a foreign land, kept by force under imperial domination and submitted, like the occupied portions of France and Belgium, to a veritable reign of terror.



APPENDIX VI

HOW GERMANS UNDERSTAND FUTURE PEACE

If an account is desired of the manner in which the Germans understand a future peace, this letter suffices. It was addressed to the Berliner Lokalanzeiger by Herr Walter Rathenau. He was in charge of the direction of all industrial establishments in Germany:

We commenced war a year too soon. When we shall have obtained a German peace, reorganization on a broader and more solid basis than ever before must commence immediately. The establishments which produce raw materials must not only continue their work, but they must also redouble their energies and thus form the foundation of Germany's economical preparation for the next war.

On the lessons taught by actual war we must figure out carefully what our country lacks in raw materials and accumulate great stores of these which shall never be utilized until Der Tag of the future. We must organize the industrial mobilization as perfectly as the military mobilization. Every man of technical training or partial technical training, whether or not he is enrolled in the list of men who can be mobilized, must have received authority by official order to take over the direction of industrial establishments on the second day which shall follow the next declaration of war.

Every establishment which manufactures for commercial purposes ought to be mobilized and to know officially that the third day after the declaration of war it must make use of all its facilities in satisfying the needs of the Army.

The quantity of merchandise which each one of these establishments can furnish to the Army in a given time and the nature thereof ought to be determined in advance. Every establishment also ought to furnish an exact and complete list of the workmen with whose services it can dispense, and those men alone can be mobilized for military services.

Finally commercial arrangements will be made necessary with nations outside Europe through which we will give them sufficient advantages, specified in detail, so that it would be directly advantageous to their commercial interests to carry on commerce with none of the belligerents and not to sell them munitions.

We can accept such obligations for ourselves without any fear and finally, when the next war shall come, it cannot come a year too soon.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes

Pg. 6, Sunday, August third, left as original as it's uncertain which day the author meant. Sunday was actually August 2, Monday was August 3; and the context from the beginning of the chapter was that the declaration of war was delivered late afternoon Monday, August 3. (Mobilization had commenced the previous evening. To be exact, it was on Sunday, August third, at midnight.)

Pg. 7, unforgetable changed to unforgettable. (It recalled the unforgettable scenes.)

Pg. 14, thirteenth changed to thirtieth, per context (when Sunday the thirtieth of August came).

Pg. 14, week changed to weeks. (For several weeks our troops)

Pg. 54, beseiged and beseiger left as original, as author quoted from another book. (in a beseiged city can hasten the place's fall; in consequence it would be very foolish of the beseiger to renounce)

Pg. 88, removed ending double quotes. (I feel better for it.')

Pg. 90, mobolization changed to mobilization (priests who went off at the beginning of the mobilization).

Pg. 100, sum of artillery kilos do not equal Total kilos. Left as original.

Pg. 108, tetragon changed to tarragon (16,900 tarragon plants).

Pg. 162, catastrophies changed to catastrophes (irremediable catastrophes could be avoided?).

Pgs. 163, 206, Bethmann-Hollweg, hyphenation inconsistent with Pgs. 180, 182, Bethmann Hollweg. Kept as in original.

Pg. 167, ARTICLE 23 has no (b) paragraph.

Pg. 193, protect changed to protest to reflect the actual letter (I consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the Ambassador).

Pg. 219, correstionnelle changed to correctionelle ("chambre correctionnelle at Kolmar).

Pg. 229, Appendix VI, added HOW to title to match Table of Contents and make it consistent with rest of Appendices.

THE END