Evening star., 1919-03-23
AMERICANS ARREST
COBLENz OFFICIALS
Burgomaster and Acting
President Are Accused of
Defying Requisition.
ONE OF MANY oFFENsEs
BY WILBUR FOREST.

BY WILBUR FOREST.
Cablexram to The sunday Star and the
New York Tribune. Copyright, 1919.
coBLENz March sa.-rhs Amsri-
i;an military authorities today arrest
ted Herr4Jansef, burgomaster of Co
blenz. and also Herr Jurtensen, acting
president Of cobfen4. s.for. neglect and
refusal to obey requisition made by
the American authorities." Both were
held for trial before q military COM
mission. which. under the law. is en-
!, powered to impose any penalty. in
cluding that of death
The requisition in question was a
demand for 800 laborers for work on
roads near Bensdorf. The technical
defense made by the accused was that
the reQuisition was not made out in
proper form and without respect to
the dignity of the. German officials
concerned. ~.
One Of Many Misdemeanors.
Today's defiance of American mill
tary law by leading officials was the
most fragrant of series of misde-
meanors. Thefts, violations Of liquor
regulations and failure to observe the
military law by German civilians gen.
orally during. the last three weeks
are some of the things charged
against the Germans by the American
authorities.
Since the beginning Of March. the
Germans seem to have discarded the
thin veneer Of obedience and docility
SO evident at the beginning of our
occupation. and are now becoming
more and more openly defiant
Many Provost Trials.
In the week ending March 1 there
we're 17s provost court trials to deal
with enemy offenders. In the week
ending March there were 302 trials
and in the week ending March Is the
number rose to 37s, showing that the
Germans now are cognixant of the
failure Of their campaign of pretended
love for the Americans, designed to
get lighter peace terms and abundant
food, and even to drive a wedge be-
tween ourselves and our allies, and
are beginning to allow their real
feelings to come to the surface.
This is equally manifested by the
first encounter between American
soldiers and German civilians, which
occurred few days ago. In the trial
OF Jansen and Jurgenzen the military
authorities will cite interesting pre-
cedents, including the shooting of
French and Belgian civilians for the
slightest sinfractions Of German mill
'tary laws during the German occupa-
ton OF those territories.
Likewise these German dighitaries
who, violate our laws SO lightly will
be forced to listen to an exact parallel
Of their case occurring in 1870 when
the German army requisitioned 500
laborers from the French city of
Nancy. e .....
500 Workmen Demanded,
The mayor Of Nancy refused to de-
liver the workmen. The Germans i'm
mediately and brutally arrested ten of
Nancy's leading citizens and placed
them before a firing squad with the
threat to shoot them unless the work
men were forthcoming within two
hours. The French mayor to save
his compatriots completed the .requi-
sition. Though the American feaui-
sition demanded 800 workmen on Mon
day 1t is not yet complied with.
The penalty to be imposed on these
"all highest" violators of American
military law will be interesting in
the extreme. establishing as well
whether the American military au-
thorities will continue their decent
and humane policy In; the occupied
area fpr whether the military iron