New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-02-20


"see.v they said, "if It had exploded j
would have been bad for u.s.
A dog was slowly starving in the rear OF
n house with an ayiary.
apo you understand dogs" a young char
asked me. "Can you coax him out! lie u
dying"
moved up to the suburbs.
81 can put my artillery on Ghent.' SAID
the German officer TO the American vice
consul.
That talk is typical Of the tone Of voice
used TO Belgians: threat backed by MURDER
They Think Belgium Conquered.
The whole policy Of the Germans OF late
Is 70 treat the Belgian matter as a thinG
accomplished.
at is over Let bygones be bygones."
II il a process like the trapping OF an IN
nocent woman, and when she Is trapped
saying:
Now YOU are compromised, anyway, 50
you had better submit"
A friend of mine who remained in Ghen'
after the German occupation had German
officers billeted in his home. Daily, INDUS
triousy, they said to him that the Englisf
had been poor friends Of his country, tha'
they had been late in coming TO the rescue
Germany was the friend not England. II
the homes throughout Belgium these un
hidden guests are claiming slavery IS
beneficent institution, that 1T is better to b'
ruled by the German military, and made eiil
Gent for German ends, than to continue
free people.
The Belgian Legation has protested TO oui
+bo on.
forced by the Germans to make Belgian
railway workers earn money for the Ger
mans.
For year our Red Cross corps worked un
der the direction and authority of the Belgian
Prime Minister, Baron de Broqueville. HIS sor
was in military command Of US. The Primo
Minister has sent to this country an offca
protest against the new tax levied by tbs
Germans on his people. The total tax fol-
the present year amounts to $192,Q00,000 He
writes:
"The German military occupation during
the last fifteen months has entirely prevented
all foreign trade, has paralyzed industrial
activity, and has reduced the majority OF the
laboring classes TO enforced ideness. Upon
the impoverished Belgian population whom
Germany has unjustly attacked, upon whom
she mas drought NdHk anu utoNiSSo, WIN hof
been barely saved from starvation by the
importation of food which Germany should
have provided this population Ger
many now imposes a new tax, equal in
amount to the enormous tax she has already
imposed and is regularly collecting"
After The Tribune article on the German
spy system a Belgian wrote me:
THAT spying business is not yet the worst
Since then the Germans have succeeded in
outdoing all that. The basest and the worst
that one can dream Of, is it not, that cam
paign of SANDER and blackmail which they
originated after their violation of Belgium
neutrality? OF course they did it-as q
murderer who ISLANDERS his victim-in the
hope to justify their crime"
More Cruel Than Murder.
II is evil to murder nOn-com batants. II
is more evil to "rationalize" the act-to in
vent moral reason for doing an infamous
thing. First, Belgium suffered vivisec;on
a veritable martyrdom. Now she is officially
informed by her executioners that she was
the guilty party. She is not allowed 10 pro
test. She must sit quietly under the charge
that her sacrifice was not sacrifice at all
but the penalty paid for her own mlsbehav'
ior. This IS a more cruel thing than the
spying that sapped her and the mutilations
practised upon her, because it is more crue
to take mans honor than his property and
his life.
"If the peasants had stayed in their homes
wouldn't they have been safe?"
When they stayed in their homes they
were burned along with the houses. | saw
this done on September Z, 1914, at NELLIE
Didn't the peasants shoot from their
houses at the advancing German army7'
saw German atrocities. The peasants did
not shoot. II is the old familiar formula o.
the franc-tireur. That means that the peas
ant. not a soldier, dressed in the clothing o.
a civilian, takes advantage of his immunity
as a non-combatant TO secrete a rifle and
from some shelter shoot at the enemy army
The Bishop of Namur writes:
at is evident that the German army trod
the Belgian soil and carried out the in
vasion with the preconceived idea that It
would meet with bands Of this sort, remi-
nscence of the war of 1870. But German
Imagination will not suffice TO create that
which does not exist.
There never existed a single body OF
francs-tireurs in Belgium.
mo isolated instance even is known o.
civilians having fired upon the troops, al
though there would have been no occasion
for surprise if any individual person had
committed an excess. In several of our vii
lagos the population was eXterminated be-
cause, as the military authorities alleged, a
major had been killed or young girl had
attempted 20 kill an officer, and so forth
In no case has an alleged culprit
been discovered and des grated by name"
This lie-that the peasants brought their
own deaths on themselves rehearsed be-
fore the war, as a carefully learned lesson.
The army came prepared to find the excuse
for the methodical outrages which they prac
tised. In the fight in the Dixmude district
German officer of the 202d Infantry had a
letter with this sentence on his body:
There are lot of francs-tireurs with the
enemy"
No Francs.Tireurs.
There were none. He had found what h.
had been drilled to find, in the years OF pre-
paredness. The front lines of the User were
raked clear by she'll, rifle and machine gun
IRE The district was in ruins. know, be-
I II