Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-06-11
The Truth
About Belgium
BY BRAND WHITLOCK
CONTINUED from Last Issue)

THE White Book, issued May 10,
1915, to justify the deeds OF
- the German army in Belgium,
admits all the essential facts and at
| tempts a Justification plea in con-
fession and avoidance. The claim
was not that here and there some
maddened and desperate peasant had
| fired from behind hay-racks or trees
that might have been conceivable,
perhaps not unnatural under all the
circumstances; it was not even that
there were here and there bands of
''franc-tireurS; but that the whole
nation, secretly and officially organ
lied, had risen and flung itself on the
invader. Man hat geschossen!' be-
| comes Der Belgischen Volkskrieg.
In Brussels, to convict a Belgian or
anything, the word of a German SOL
dier suffced; he did not have to give
evidence of the fact, much less prove
it; he merely had to assert it. 1t
may be that some similar notion &C
counts for the fact that in the White
Book there is no convincing evidence
that the Germans were actually fired
upon, and indeed it seems that no Sc
eliOII was ulduS "
establish the fact. AS to have town
given over to fire and sword it suf-
feed simply for a German soldier to
cry Man hat geschossen!" when
justification is attempted it seems
sufficient to say THE Belgians fired
on u.s." The fact that in moment
of panic some soldier cried MAN hat
geschossen!" is offered as proof that
some one did shoot at them. Three
hundred times the White Book con-
tents itself with repeating the I'M
supported allegation, They fired on
u.s." 1t was, of course, sufficient for
Germany, for "a German soldier said
SOL
In the White Book there is not a
word about Tamines, not a word
about Surice, not a word about Spon-
tin, not a word about NamuT, not
word about Ethe, not a word about
Gomeries, not a word about Latour
not a word, in short, about sixty
five other places where there were
pillage and massacre and incendiar-
ism.
The testimony, most OF it gathered
! for the Louvain inquiry, consists al
most wholly of such statements as
those of Berghausen and his com
rades; they were the star witnesses.
Testimony accepted
"Men of all professions" says the
White Book, workers, manutactur-
/ ers, doctors, professors, even clergy
men-yes, even women and children,
were taken with weapons in their
/ hands, in the regions from which the
/ regular troops had retired. They
were shooting from houses or from
gardens, from roofs and from cellars,
| from fields and from forests, on the
] Germans. They used means that
would never be employed by regular
| troops-shotguns and lead shot, old
revolvers and old pistols, and numer-
Gus were the men found mutilated or
scalded with boiling tar or boiling
water. In short, it is not to be doubt
| ed that the German wounded were
struck and killed by the Belgian pop
ulation, and also greatly mutilated;
nor is it to be doubted that women
and even girls participated in these
shameful exploits. German wounded
| had their eyes punctured, their noses
| and ears and fingers and their sexual
/ organs mutilated, their bodies ripped
| open; in other cases German soldiers
were poisoned, sprayed with boiling
| liquid or roasted, so that they SUI
/ fered an atrocious death.
And by an even more extensive
/ fight of the Imagination, one Ger
man soldier says that he saw Bel
| gian boy going about in a field with
/ a basket filled with the eyes of Ger
man soldiers.
And hence it was necessary to do
what was done at Wise, at Dinant,
| at Aerschot, at Louvain and in
hundred other towns-sacked, pill
LACED and burned, with masses
moved down by machine guns, chill
dren murdered and women raped.
And yet, if the alleged firing by
civilians was done on such a scale,
it would seem rather simple to pro-
duce some direct evidence of the
fact, and show who fired on the SOL
diers, and where, and when, and the
names of the numerous victims.
Doubtless it is not given to us,
with our common-law notions of
4 evidence and of proof, to penetrate
the mystery of the German idea Of
Justice. Man hat geschOssen!" A
German soldier said so. That set
ties it.
1t is, of course, inconvenient to
argue with an opponent who has
such a supreme and impregnable re-
fuge Attemps to have all the facts
submitted to some impartial tribu-
nal, as well as appeals, were all in
vain.
The Belgian senator, Charles
Magnetic. grand master OF the Bel
gian Free Masons. wrote letter,
September Ct, 1914. proposing to
the grand lodge of. Germany that a
commission of inquiry be constitut-
ed, with delegates from the lodges
of neutral countries. but the pro-
nosaI was not accepted.
Cardinal Mercier's Appeal
On January "a, 1915, Count Won