The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-09-06
GERMANY LEVIED ENORMOUS TAXES ON BELGIAN LAND

Parish Sept. - (Correspondence of the Associated Press)- has exacted war contributions from Belgium during the first four years Of the war amounting to a total of $466, 6,000,000. This is in addition to the vast amount of machinery, ma- terials and men taken from Belgium to sustain Germany.
 In this fifth year of war 1t is in- teresting to review the financial ac- | tivities" of the Germans in Belgium since that Hateful day in Belgium's I history, August 20, 1914, when the | German hordes entered Brussels. During that month, as the German armies were hacking their way through the little kingdom, numer- ous towns and cities were fined" and 1 war contributions were levied from | each province as the Germans pro- gressed southwestward.
 l The first move of the German staff when entering town was to proceed to the city hall and announce to the | Burgomaster that for resisting the advance of Emperor Williams armies l his city or town had been fined so many thousand or million francs, as the Case might be. When the Burgo-
 master would remonstrate, Uhlans and Deaths Head Hussars would ca wort innocently in city hall square or the Burgomaster would be taken pris- oner.
 In one instance in the Province of Liege the German commander of the i1f d
 the Burgomaster that war contri-
 button of 100000 francs would have
 to be forthcoming within two hours.
 The Burgomaster demurred. Never
 in the history of the little town had
 there been so much money in the city
 treasury. At the present moment
 there was only 8 little over 5000
 francs in the strong box. Well, we'll take that" calmly re-
 sonded the German.
 More than 2OO,OOO,000 francs were
 thus levied between August and No-
 vember, 1914.
 Then Field Marshal Baron von der
 Goltz-Pasha decreed that Belgium would have to pay monthly coptribu-
 tion of 40,000,00O francs during one year and it would not be increased
 and that it would not be renewed
 The Pasha's decree, however, proved
 to be but another scrap of paper. In November, 1915. Baron von Bis
 sing called upon the councils of the
 nine Belgian provinces to meet and
 informed them that the promise ot
 his predecessor had been made 1T good faith but with the implied con.
 dition that war would be ended with. in the year and that he saw no alter
 native but than to renew the monthly
 contribution of 40,000,000 francs fol : another year.
 On the goth of November, 1916, in stead of abolishing the onerous ta1 2 on Belgium, von Bissing decided that owing to the duration of the war, tht 3 increase in prices-high cost of liv ing-he would have to increase tn,
 monthly payments to 50,000,00 francs. He added ominously, item porarily."
 It proved to be so, indeed, for, ol ! the 21st of May, 1917, the contribu
 tion was further raised to 60,O00, ,00 $ francs.
 The flow of francs into the coffer
 
 q satisfy the gargantuan appetites 0 . the military men, however, and on tn 18th of September, 1918, they "seized z 430,00O,000 million marks, constitut ing all the deposits in German bill of the Banque Rationale and the So ciete Generale de Belgique, the tw = largest banks in Belgium. When on . of the directors of the Societe Gen . erale refused to divulge that part c the combination of the vaults whic . he alone knew and without which tn . vaults could not be opened, the Ger mans said that they would blow ther open with high explosives. The al rector rather than have the vaults C the institution wrecked decided t . acquiesce. Thus what will probabl = go down as the greatest burglary ( = modern times was perpetrated.