The Rape of Belgium

[AOK4]

Paul,

We discussed this topic quite often before but Egbert is right. There are too many indications in personal memories and official war diaries about some kind of partisan activities. There must have been occasional partisan-like activity in France and Belgium in 1914, often also by semi-uniformed militia-like units and cyclist units. They couldn't be distinguished from the civilians in a lot of cases.

Also wounds made by hunting bullets can hardly be caused by military weapons...

Jan

[paul guthrie]

Hello Jan, one can't quarrel with occasional partisan activity, but think it much overstated. German soldiers were pre-conditioned to believe it would happen. Have you and Egbert read this book? Quite impressive.

[Guest AmericanDoughboy]

Many ones who are interested about this particular topic of study in the World War should also realize that the Germans were quite afraid too in Belgium due to Civillian Partisan Activities when quiet townspeople grabbed their personal revolvers and rifles and fired at German Soldiers marching through Belgium.

-Doughboy

[healdav]

I think it would be a miracle if no Belgian civilian had never fired a shot of any sort at a German soldier.

Frankly, I think that is anyone believes that the Germans (or come to that anyo ther army - some more recent incidents come to mind) have some sort of right to invade a country (and in this case a neutral country of whose neutrality they were one of the guarantors) and then complain bitterly because some local civilians took potshots at them, is doing more than living in cloud cuckoo land.

However, be that as it may, there is absolutely no doubt that the Germans did not simply fire back at and kill sometimes people who were firing at them - which would be fair enough - they were lining up entire populations of villages and shooting them in cold blood. Rossignol, Neufchateau, Tamines, Dinant; and in Belgium that's just for a start.

In France virtually every village right down to St. Mihiel was subjected to some sort of massacre. No particular reason; it must have been policy. I say must have been because whilst I can understand one unit going berserk, I find it difficult to believe that units throughout the German army were going berserk as they reached villages and were all leading out large parts of the population and shooting them. It doesn't sound right, unless coincidence is stretched to and beyond, breaking point.

If you read contemporary accounts (which may be biased, I admit), time and again you will find the most ridiculous reasons being given for massacres. I have quoted the empty water trough. Then there was the mayor who was found to have a small arsenal of guns in his house. Problem was that the Germans had ordered him to collect guns from the population and hand them over. He was shot for collecting them!

Several times you will come across the Germans shouting about people firing on them with shotguns or hunting rifles, refusing to believe that it could be the French army that had the temerity to shoot at them. This happened at Dinant among other places.

Crumbs, the French army are defending the crossing of the Meuse; what cheek. 600 or so shot (including women and small children and old men; you name it) Oh, and the town was burned as well.

One of those thing? I think it was more than that.

[paul guthrie]

The Dinant massacre was one of the very worse, the Germans decided they were under fire from civilians in houses when large elements of the French were firing on them form across the Meuse, then there was a mass execution.

Again, look at the memorials in the towns/villages which were occupied in 1914, the names are right there.

[AndyHollinger]

After reading through here ... I think we have to realize that although we may pretend that there are rules to warfare .... the essential thing about war is there are no rules. Well, one: Win at all costs. We may look at actions and say this was wrong because of American Public Opinion, Belgian resistance, etc ... but when it comes down to it, he with the power does what he wants and IF he can squeeze out a win, he'll decide if someone crossed the line ... What linee? The line the victor draws.

I remember some History Channel show where a senior Russian commander said they investigated the rapes and found there weren't any ... Mai Li (sp) trial was a sham and we both know Calley/Medina weren't to blame - totally ... (not crossing any lines here) ....

Germans did it ... what they did is open to investigation ... why they did it is open to conjecture ... people died. Frankly, I can think of no society "worse" than imperial Germany for being blind to anything but victory.

[paul guthrie]

Heinrich Mann's Man of Straw is a fantastic portrait of Imperial German quite similar to Sinclair Lewis's view of the USA in Bobbitt & Main Street, it's readily available.

[Guest AmericanDoughboy]

After reading through here ... I think we have to realize that although we may pretend that there are rules to warfare .... the essential thing about war is there are no rules.  Well, one: Win at all costs.  We may look at actions and say this was wrong because of American Public Opinion, Belgian resistance, etc ... but when it comes down to it, he with the power does what he wants and IF he can squeeze out a win, he'll decide if someone crossed the line ... What linee?  The line the victor draws.

I remember some History Channel show where a senior Russian commander said they investigated the rapes and found there weren't any ... Mai Li (sp) trial was a sham and we both know Calley/Medina weren't to blame - totally ... (not crossing any lines here) ....

Germans did it ... what they did is open to investigation ... why they did it is open to conjecture ... people died.  Frankly, I can think of no society "worse" than imperial Germany for being blind to anything but victory.

Andy,

I know what you are speaking of. A young American reporter in August 1914, spent several days in Belgium and in the German lines:

[...] Irvin S. Cobb of the Sunday Evening Post, eagerly asled every refugee he found for some hard evidence of German cruelty:

"Every one of them had a tale to tell of the German atrocities on noncombatants; but not once did we find an avowed eye-witness to such things. Always on our informant had heard of the torturing or the maiming or the mudering, but never had he personally seen it. It had always happened in another town - never in his own town."

Cobb certaintly found plently of evidenve of an invading army [...] He was also told by German officers that the penalty for Belgian civilians who shot at German troops was death by firing squad; Cobb witnessed evidence of such sentences. But where there was no resistance there was no house-burning, or any signs of wanton pillage. Even in Louvain, where Cobb spent three days before it was put to the torch, there was no German pillage in the first few days, when there was little initial resistance by the Belgian Populace:

"Young Belgian girls began smiling at [German] soldiers swining by and the soldiers grinned back and waved their arms [...] This phrase of the plastic Flemish temperament made us marvel. When I was told, a fortnight afterward, how these same people rose in the night to strike at these their enemies, and how, in so doing, they brough about the ruination of their city and the summary execution of some hundreds of themselves, I marvelled all the more."

Simply I can not find believing such things with such hard evidence, but why would the Belgian people be so passionate about these atrocities to their culture and permanantley scarring their history? Is it perhaps they've been blinded by propaganda? Or are they still splattered with the martydome of their ancestors?

-Doughboy

1: The Doughboys: America and the First World War, Gary Mead, p. 21

[AndyHollinger]

I guess it is personal perspective. An invaded people feel wronged to begin with ... every act is a "rape" ... Don't get me wrong ... Belgium was used hard and beyond devestation, worked to the bone and starved ...the Germans were not nice-guy-liberators ... but all the atrociities claimed ... many are built upon stories ... not all, but many ...

If you gave credence to all this stuff, nobody, no Confederate, No Yankee, no Texas Ranger, no Tommy, Doughboy or GI could sleep at night ... even the Einsatzgruppen had to send many of their guys home because they could not take being cruel ...

[Frank_East]

I guess it is personal perspective.  An invaded people feel wronged to begin with ... every act is a "rape" ... Don't get me wrong ... Belgium was used hard and beyond devestation, worked to the bone and starved ...the Germans were not nice-guy-liberators ... but all the atrociities claimed ... many are built upon stories ... not all, but many ...

If you gave credence to all this stuff, nobody, no Confederate, No Yankee, no Texas Ranger, no Tommy, Doughboy or GI could sleep at night ... even the Einsatzgruppen had to send many of their guys home because they could not take being cruel ...

The Einsatzgruppen measures in the Eastern occupied territories were state directed and reflected the policy of the government of Nazi Germany.This cannot be denied.

The atrocities of the Great War in Belguim and France against civilians could be regarded as miliary excesses and not coordinated within the military structure although the report of Viscount Bryce in 1915 speaks of "the deliberate and systematically organised massacres of the civil population had taken place,and that in the conduct of the war generally,both in Belgium and France, innocent civilians,both men and women,were murdered in large numbers,women violated, and children murdered".

I fail to see the evidence of the compassion of the Einsatzgruppen groups in the Eastern occupied territories.They were willing accomplices to genocide. They were fed an abundance of alcohol to fortify themselves for the act and in many cases used Ukrainian and Baltic state "liberated" henchmen.Their defence of course was that "they were acting on orders" or "doing their duty", the plea that was dismissed at Nurnburg post war.While some may have felt uncomfortable murdering women and children and engineered other duties,it is extremely unlikely that anybody was sent home.

Himmler changed the method of extermination by introducing Co poisoning piped from a vehicle and then commandered the resources of the industrial chemists to introduce Cyclon B. Himmler's own experience was that he fainted when he witnessed a multiple execution and was on the receiving end of a victims gore.However the real reason why the mass extermination policy was adopted was to quickly fulfil the hidden agenda of the Wannsee conference action plan.

Regarding civilain atrocities in both wars,the French have the declaration describing a martyred village by "Souviens-Toi.Remember".I noticed something similar while vistiting the Verdun area and staying overnight in Etain (a good hotel picked up from the internet).While having a look at the Etain military airfield I travelled through the village of Rouvres en Woevre.Here was a new monument possibly a refurbished one with the incription "A la memoire des victimes du 24 Aout 1914". A display cabinet related the events of 24 Aout 1914 when the viillagers were "put to the sword" by the Allemands.The perpetrators were identified as the Ist Battalion of the Allemand 130 RI.

I would think that there would have been survivors who lived quite recently and who could relate the events of long ago.

Regards

Frank East

[AndyHollinger]

I fail to see the evidence of the compassion of the Einsatzgruppen groups in the Eastern occupied territories.They were willing accomplices to genocide. They were fed an abundance of alcohol to fortify themselves for the act and in many cases used Ukrainian and Baltic state "liberated" henchmen.Their defence of course was that "they were acting on orders" or "doing their duty", the plea that was dismissed at Nurnburg post war.While some may have felt uncomfortable murdering women and children and engineered other duties,it is extremely unlikely that anybody was sent home.

Himmler changed the method of extermination by introducing Co poisoning piped from a vehicle and then commandered the resources of the industrial chemists to introduce Cyclon B. Himmler's own experience was that he fainted when he witnessed a multiple execution and was on the receiving end of a victims gore.However the real reason why the mass extermination policy was adopted was to  quickly fulfil the hidden agenda of the Wannsee conference action plan.

Browning's Ordinary Men - a recognised historical work on the subject - goes into detail about how the Germans couldn't keep the Einsatzgruppen up to strength as men kept asking to go home ... how they weren't "punished" for being unable to murder, etc. The Nazi hierarchy also tried out-sourcing to some success as they could find a lot of other people to do the nasty stuff for them. The decision to go to gas, etc. was a question of scope and speed ...

The center point of your argument is that the Nazi's efforts were state based thus differentiating them from WWI German deeds in Belgium. Although an over-simplification, the German WWI Army was the state ...

But, again, my major opinion here is that the scale and fierocity of the German actions were probably expanded for the needs of Allied propaganda, especially for the neutral audience. This is not to say horrible things didn't happen what I am saying is that one must put the claims of these publication in the context they deserve. Anything coming out of Britain about these issues before or immediately after the war, from "official" sources should be considered with grave suspicion.

Truth is often the first casualty in war. If you are old enough to remember Viet Nam .... did you believe the official US gov't enemy casualty figures then? now? Enemies must always be bad and our side must always be good.

Dealing with subject populations and partisans has never been easy ... not for the Romans (and before) and certainly not for the Germans during the 20th Century. I don't think ANYONE has figured it out in any war, present or otherwise. But, the Rape as described in Allied War information or publications PROBABLY didn't happen ... some stuff did, but, I would think, much of it is urban myth.

[healdav]

There is no doubt whatsoever that there were some appalling massacres in both Belgium and France in 1914.

The excuse was usually 'they were firing at us'. Golly, what a surprise to find the opposition firing at you! In most cases it wasn't even true. Myth may say that everyone in the Ardennes region has a hunting rifle, but it isn't true.

You only have to follow the villages. Start west of Liège and make an arc through Brussels and way down into France. . In fact, as far as St. Mihiel.

Just about every village has a memorial to those murdered in 1914 (as well as one to the 'normal' casualties). They can't all have made it up.

There was one village in the St. Mihiel salient where the population was simply pushed out into no mans land one evening and told to make their way to the French lines. They seem to have made it, but if they had not would it have been the Germans fault or the French?

Dinant was'nt invented nor was tamines nor Rossignol, nor Etain, etc. etc.

[Max]

The link below leads to a zip file that contains a whole page of fairly lurid articles from the Times of 13th May, 1915 describing supposed German attrocities committed against the Belgium people. Right click and save as. Its nearly a meg so be patient.

Andy

may13.zip

[AndyHollinger]

The Nazi hierarchy also tried out-sourcing to some success as they could find a lot of Poles to do the nasty stuff for them.

Andy I beleive you mean Ukrainians. If you don't please provide your source.

Take Care,

Neil

Ordinary Men is my source ... I believe he says Poles ... but remember Poland and the Ukraine were movable boundaries during the 20s, 30s and 40s ... I know the workers at the great Ghetto were Poles and the ones at Sorbebon were Poles ... but it doesn't matter to much to me, it's not that they were Polish or Ukranian ... the Germans couldn't keep their own death squads going because of the brutality of the murder ... I doubt the subcontractors could either ...

[AndyHollinger]

There is no doubt whatsoever that there were some appalling massacres in both Belgium and France in 1914.

The excuse was usually 'they were firing at us'. Golly, what a surprise to find the opposition firing at you! In most cases it wasn't even true. Myth may say that everyone in the Ardennes region has a hunting rifle, but it isn't true.

You only have to follow the villages. Start west of Liège and make an arc through Brussels and way down into France. . In fact, as far as St. Mihiel.

Just about every village has a memorial to those murdered in 1914 (as well as one to the 'normal' casualties). They can't all have made it up.

There was one village in the St. Mihiel salient where the population was simply pushed out into no mans land one evening and told to make their way to the French lines. They seem to have made it, but if they had not would it have been the Germans fault or the French?

Dinant was'nt invented nor was tamines nor Rossignol, nor Etain, etc. etc.

I have no doubt about large scale executions ... where I tend to draw the line is babies on picklhuabe or raping of Nuns ... some stuff just goes too far to believe ... Rember the German Officer or NCO who does this stuff has a family and stares God in the face as well ...

[egbert]

The link below leads to a zip file that contains a whole page of fairly lurid articles from the Times of 13th May, 1915 describing supposed German attrocities committed against the Belgium people.

Andy

Extract from White Book also published 1915 about Franctireurs:

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/HTML-docs/BPW_5.htm

[shelley]

Just finished watching a documentary on Canadian History Channel, "Crucified Soldier", I didn't catch who produced this documentary .

The point of this documentary was to try to find the identity of the crucified canadian soldier.

The name that came up was Sgt. Harry Band 27286, CEF. Born in Montrose, Scotland in 1885, came to Canada, later volunteering at Toronto in 1914. His attestation papers are on the Canadian Govt site.... he is listed as missing 24 April 1915. He was at St Julian, Belgium.

His sister Mrs Elizabeth Petrie received two letters from Pte William Freeman,who served with Sgt. Band, he told her about her brother's death, saying he had been crucified.

Harry Band's niece, Lettie Band, was interviewed in the documentary and stated she firmly believed that the crucifiction was fact.

Now before anyone jumps all over me , I am posting this to find out if anyone else has heard about Sgt Harry Band and would appreciate their input.

cheers Shelley

[Max]

Extract from White Book also published 1915 about Franctireurs:

I have read with interest excerpts from the White Book and must say that the title page just about sums the situation up "The Belgian Peoples War - A Violation of International Law". That has to be the biggest piece of chutzpah I have ever seen. It is at the same level as the man ,who having murdered his parents, throws himself on the mercy of the court claiming that he is an orphan.

Its certainly worth a read though, if only for "balance".

Andy

[egbert]

Sorry Andy/Max, you're a hopeless case: my point is : whatever was published 1915 in Great Britain and Germany was fouled to their interest; if you are really convinced that the British stuff published was not biased and was the source of all truth - good night for your judgement.....out

[Tony Lund]

The Diary of Sergeant B. Sanderson, Far Cliff, Holmfirth, 2nd Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

September 23rd 1914.

“They took me down to the Aisne, and we had a bathe, passed our 1st Battalion who have lost a good few. Draft of 400 joined today. Them Jack Johnsons won’t leave us alone. Duel in the air, German brought down. Magnificent view of the Aisne valley from here. B Company got shelled out of its billets, about 20 killed or wounded. Saw a Turco with a string of ears. Said he was saving them for souvenirs. That’s rhyme, but it’s a fact. Heard that the Yorks had been rushed. Just as I thought they tried the old white flag trick. We warned them before we left. ‘Mind the white flag business,’ but I suppose they thought we only said it in that lofty, experienced manner. Still they suffered considerably in killed and wounded, and prisoners.”

[Max]

whatever was published 1915 in Great Britain and Germany was fouled to their interest; if you are really convinced that the British stuff published was not biased and was the source of all truth

Egbert, I totally agree with you. In 1915 you are not likely to find a completely unbiased version of any event, that was the reason I posted the link to the Times articles to show the hysteria that can arise when one side attempts to make political gain from the supposed actions of the other. I am sure that there are comparative reports of allied attrocities in the German press of the time . I am in no doubt that atrocities did take place, by BOTH sides and this is to be condemned.

Unfortunately it happens in all wars. My Grandfather was witness to a mass execution of German prisoners of war in July 1944 and, to his eternal regret, did nothing about it.

Andy

[egbert]

Ok Andy,

This is an amazing place here: a little bit of clashing with other pals and after that you realize that you are not too far away from each other; thumbs up

[Guest AmericanDoughboy]

Just finished watching a documentary on Canadian History Channel, "Crucified Soldier", I didn't catch who produced this documentary .

The point of this documentary was to try to find the identity of the crucified canadian soldier.

The name that came up was Sgt. Harry Band 27286, CEF. Born in Montrose, Scotland in 1885, came to Canada, later volunteering at Toronto in 1914. His attestation papers are on the Canadian Govt site.... he is listed as missing 24 April 1915. He was at St Julian, Belgium.

His sister Mrs Elizabeth Petrie received two letters from Pte William Freeman,who served with Sgt. Band, he told her about her brother's death, saying he had been crucified.

Harry Band's niece, Lettie Band, was interviewed in the documentary and stated she firmly believed that the crucifiction was fact.

Now before anyone jumps all over me , I am posting this to find out if anyone else has heard about Sgt Harry Band and would appreciate their input.

cheers Shelley

Now that is one of the many things I find hard to believe about the German Atrocities in Belgium. There had been rumors and denial rumors in Belgium about "crucified soldiers" by the hands of the German Army, but as Irvin S. Cobb reported, it was impossible to understand how these atrocities really happend, or even if they did happen.

-Doughboy

[paul guthrie]

It is at the same level as the man ,who having murdered his parents, throws himself on the mercy of the court claiming that he is an orphan.

Andy

Evilandy max , throw in a brother and I am defending a woman in exactly that situation right now!

I have located what I consider a credible account of an allied atrocity but w/o much detail. Isonzo, by Schindler, a quite credible recent book, states Italians murdered Slovene civilians in that battle.

[Guest AmericanDoughboy]

It is at the same level as the man ,who having murdered his parents, throws himself on the mercy of the court claiming that he is an orphan.

Andy

Evilandy max , throw in a brother and I am defending a woman in exactly that situation right now!

I have located what I consider a credible account of an allied atrocity but w/o much detail. Isonzo, by Schindler, a quite credible recent book, states Italians murdered Slovene civilians in that battle.

Paul,

Mentioning allied war crimes explains many unsaid explanations of the war. War changes people, those who are weak are manipulated by it's ultimate power of chaos and murder. However, there is no excuse for killing the innocence.

-Doughboy