Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights

n Fiends-Firebrand and Torch-Rape and Pillage-The S

he civilized world, and furnished the primary glimpse of how Imperialism made light of human rights. What the Kaiser and his arrogant followers di

inisters of State, and Count Louis de Lichtervelde, serving as secretary of the mission. On being received by Presi

t me say how much we feel ourselves honored to have been called upon to express the sentiments of our King and of our w

tly been violated by one of them. Had we consented to abandon our neutrality for the benefit of one of the belligerents, we would have betrayed our oblig

the forced march of the invading army. This army not only seized a great portion of our territory, b

en and undefended towns were destroyed; historical and religious monuments were reduce

to thoroughly and impartially examine the facts and to determine the responsibility thereof

D STATES'

s sweeping over Europe, the United S

er one of the belligerents, is in the best position to judge, without

States, that all civilized nations have formulated and adopt

d the family of civilized powers, or the re

world. It is for this reason that Belgium, bound as she is to you by ties of commerce and increasing friendship, turns to the American people at this time to let you know the real truth of the present situation. Resolved

and strong impression your powerful and virile civilization left upon his mind. Our faith in your fairness, our c

TIGATING

ssels Court of Appeals; Wodon, professor at the Brussels University; Secretary, Mr. Gillard, Director of the Department of Justice. Afterwards, when the invasion made it necessary to transfer the seat of the government from Brussels to Antwerp, a sub-committee was appointed there, consisting of Mr. Cooreman, Minister of State; Member

ment had no intention of making war against Belgium, and that if Belgium made no opposition it would evacuate Belgium after hostilities ceased, and during the period the German forces were in the country, would buy everything needed for its army. Belgium replied that it had assu

ough Belgium. Quoting articles from the Ha

S OF BA

capacity. At that time," as Ghering writes ironically, "'the enemy was absolutely deprived of rights; everyt

erty of individuals. While the present doctrine allows the conqueror to seize, in a general way, everything in the way of movable property belon

vilized States, among others by Germany, contains the followi

l and private property, as well as religious convictions and the exerci

laging is form

entirely to the State; also depots of arms, ways and means of transportation, warehouses and provisions, a

ecrated to worship, to charity and instruction; to art and science, ev

accepted by Germany, she has committed, from the beginning of her

N CUP

ounting to 4,000,000 francs. Moreover, upon finding at that branch bundles of bank notes of 5-franc denomination, representing an amount of 400,000 francs, and which were not yet signed, they forced a printer to sign those bank notes by means of a rubber

, Crown Prince Frederick ordered that funds which were found at the bank could not be seized so long as they were not used for the maintenance of the French army, it having been contended by directors of the institution that the

OBLIG

the commanding officer of the attacking party must warn the authorities that such bombardment is to take place, German aeroplanes and dirigibles bombarded relentlessly from the beginning. In Antwerp a Zeppelin threw explosive bomb

ere visited. In the first there were three corpses. Blood was scattered all over the place. The floor was covered with fragments of windows and with blood-soaked underwear. On the ceiling and walls, parts of intestines and brains were visible. In the other house two old persons had been killed while looking down upon the street. Later Antwerp was bombarded, as was

ets used by the Germans at Werchter, and submitted briefs fro

ATROCITIE

he atrocities are

lage was invaded at dusk on August 10 by a strong force of German cavalry, artillery and machine guns. In spite of the assurance given by the Burgomaster that none of the peasants had taken part in the previous fighting two farms and six outlying houses were destroyed by gunfire and burned. All the male population were

s house, broke into it, destroyed furniture, looted money, burned barns, hay, corn stacks, farm implements, six oxen, and the contents of the farmyard. They carried off Mm

the following acts of cruelty committed by German c

G BARBA

ed and little children outraged at Orsmael, where several inhabitants suffered mutilations too horrible to describe. A Belgian soldier belonging to a battali

f the Germans during the early days of the war, is descr

day, August 19, after having set fire

tuals for their troops. They entered every private bank of the city and took over the bank funds. German

ic University, the Dean of the City; magistrates and aldermen were also detained. All arms down to fencing foils

ednesday, August 19, with several of her relatives, by a band of German soldiers. The persons who accompanied her were lo

UELTY OF T

he cellar of which was open, and forced the young woman to drink. Afterwards they carried her out on the lawn in front of the house and violated her successively. She continued to resist and they pierced her breast with bayonets. Having been abandoned by the s

illages everywhere, taking with them and driving before them all the male inhabitants. "Upon entering Hofstade, the Belgian soldiers found the corpse of an old woman who had been killed by bayonet

legs. A workman had been pierced with bayonets, afterward while he was still living the Germans soaked him with petroleum and locked him in a house which they set on fi

EXCUSE

Belgian soldiers, and attacked one another. This was the basis for the pretext that they had been attacked by the citizenry of Louvain and was res

t part of the city of Louvain, especially the quarters of 'Ville Haute,' comprising the modern houses, the Cathedral of St. Peter, the University Halls, with the whole libr

on the crime of lese-humanity which the deliberate annihilation of an acade

he threshold of houses were found burnt corpses of people, who, surprised in their cellars by the fire, had tried to escape and fell into the heap of live embers. The suburbs o

NITIES TO

wives and children, after having received the most abominable treatment after repeated threats of being shot, and were driven in front of the German troops as far as the village of Campenhout. They were locked, during the night, in the church. The following day, at 4 o'clock, a German

e American College, and the city is entirely destroyed, with the exception of the town hall and the depot. Today the fire continues and the Germans, instead of trying to stop it-seem rather to maintain it by throwing straw into the flames, as I have myself seen behind the Hotel de Ville. The Cathedral and the th

ompletely inflated, and the smell of the fire and the decayi

essness and cruelty at every stage and during every period of the war. Nowhere is there written a single line which tells of the humanitarian acts of the German soldiers. Those who fight against

AN MINISTE

er to the devastated country, Brand Whitlock, sent a report to the State Department in the beginning of 1917, w

ns, "Von Hindenburg was appointed supreme commander. He is said to have criticised Von Bissing's policy as too mild, and there was a quarrel; Von Bissing went to Berlin to protest, threate

ts at Hainaut, the mines and steel works about Charleroi were next attacked, and they seized men in Brabant, even in Br

presented themselves were adequately protected against the cold, many of them were without overcoats. The men, shivering from cold and

RROR AND

sels, told the most distressing stories of the scenes of cruelty and sorrow attending the seizures. And daily, hourly almost, since that time, appalling stories have been related by Belgians coming to the legation. It is impossible f

ruelty. A number of men sent back to Mons are said to be in a dying condition, many of them tubercular. At Molines and at Antwerp

to those that are being sent to prisoners of war. Thus far the German authorities have refused to permit this except in special instances, and returning Belgi

BLOW TO

lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out; they have brought home to every heart in the land, in a way that will impress its horror indelibly on the memory of three generations, a realization of what German methods mean, not as with the early atrocities in the heat of passion and the first lust of war, but

out the pale" so far as civilized warfare is concerned her conduct in wantonly de

ght for military advantage, or "necessity," why shouldn't the soldiers pollute wells, kill trees, carry off the girls, smash the

defeat, advancing or retreating. The treatment accorded the evacuated cities of the Somme district was foretold by the treatm

e most treacherous manner. With my authority the general commanding these troops has reduced the town to ashes and has had 110 persons shot. I

L von

Aug. 22

REME OF P

expected. It was left for the retreating Germans of 1917 to destroy, without provocation an

heir trenches and put up the question, "Tommy, how do you like your new trenches?" But why smear filth over the photograph of three little girls, a family treasure? All around Bapau

attractive home, was not blown down for strategic purposes, but some soldiers did find time to drive axes through th

e a shell never fell in the course of

A HOPELE

lic. W. Beach Thomas wrote after the retreat that nothing was left that was valuable enough to be wo

was wantonly blown up by the Germans on retreat. It was built in the thirteenth century by Enguerrand II

most barbarous wars of the past, whose donjon (greatest in all Europe)

tonishment and sorrow, proposed to make reprisals on Hindenburg, sho

cy; but among them, one loved more than all the glorious old ruin and its story which began with Enguerrand, the Sire of Coucy, in the year 1210. This was the late Edmund Kelly, of New York and Paris, international lawyer and for many

y bought out by the wealthy Louis of Orleans, and all the later glories of the place. Mazarin dismantled Coucy, but left it standing in its beauty; and Lawyer Kelly discovered it to be a State

E TOWN

re to make a price on the nearest. As soon as he had bought his tower, he used loving care restoring it. He pierced windows through walls 16 feet thick. He built rooms in three stories, furnishi

st masses of crumbled stones. The German papers boast that it took 28 tons of high explosives, and any one

ot true. Nothing is cleared. The masses of crumbled

They tell a story about Mazarin. He deemed so strong a place, so near to Paris, might be dangerous to the Crown; so he dismantled Coucy militarily, without destroying its architectural beauty. The donjon worried him in those days when artillery could make no impression on i

VE ARCHI

, a Tribunal Hall, the Hall of the Nine Peers (whose statues remained), the Hall of the Nine Countesses (whose medallion-portraits were carved on the monumental chimney). Ther

Grand Constable and the entire historic Chateau of Ham, and equally the Castle of Peronne, a jewel of

public buildings, churches, hospitals and poorhouse were blown up. Three hundred towns and villages were burning at one time in this small section of the Cradle of France. Hindenburg was at Roisel when they rounded up the populations, went through their pockets for their

O THE PRINC

correspondent to cable these words to his papers: "The enemy will find great difficulty to take shelter on a battlefield where everything has been comple

rch-and left the forest standing! No battlefield was cleared, but they hacked the bark to kill great noble trees by thousands. They made no effort to clear the forest; but weeping o

hey burned 223 houses; but all

icot and pear tree has been assassinated-hacked and standing, when the trunks are thick, and sprawling, severed by one blow of a sharp hatchet, young trees from the thickness of your wris

TION OF

to pieces. One might see a measure of advantage that the deliverers would gain from these things if not destroyed, but it is an awful war doctrine that refuses to discriminate between the immediate and the eventual, the

, declared that never before in the history of the world had there been

the log hut and shooting box of the Kaiser's son, Eitel Friederick. Its white-barked beech was unburnt, its glass windows unbroken, its inside adornments unlooted, the tables

work were taken along with the retreating forces. Near Peronne some hundreds of old men, women and children were found locked in a barn. One woman pathetically asked of an English officer, "Are you many?" And he was able to answer, "

MEAT N

never received a quarter of the rations Americans sent. Girls were compelled to attend the market gardens, and then the Germa

em. But the last patrols completely sacked the American relief storehouses of all eatables and then dynamited the building. And it was from this place that fi

daughters being carried away, remonstrated, she was told that as an alt

heir conduct toward a delayed train of Canadian prisoners. When he heard it he thought that at last the Government was going to put a stop to the maltreatmen

War is always hell and most of the awful things in this war have had their counterparts in other conflicts, though the Teutonic

REPARED

nt are so unrestrained in cruelty, but urge that they are too soft and kind to make effective war. The German correspondents all write enthusiastically of the devastation of the country they are leaving and of the desert created by German genius. Editors speak

gument in the fable of the wolf and the lamb as serious philosophy and accepting the position of the

g and full test. The great initial advantages are more than offset by new opponents. The gain of the invasion of Belgium was canceled by England

conceive of a group of German officers playing football or baseball or cricket and abiding by the rules of the game. If Barbara F