100 Years Ago - Belgium

BELGIANS COMPELLED BY THE GERMANS TO DIG TRENCHES MONSTER PRISONERS' CAMP: FRENCH AND BELGIAN PRISONERS EMPLOYED TO DRAW WAGGONS A GERMAN PICTURE OF THE CAMP HOSPITAL AT SOLTAU BELGIAN REFUGEES RETURNING FROM HOLLAND TO ANTWERP UNDER THE GERMAN GUARANTEES OF IMMUNITY, WHICH PROVED WORTHLESS


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slave-raids-in-belgium-wzxl5xcgz?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1399025

Slave raids in Belgium

Along the railway line scraps of paper thrown out by the prisoners have been picked up. They bear the words: The young men of X and the surrounding villages have been captured.

November 8, 1916

The following information, which is of an absolutely trustworthy character, has reached us from various sources in regard to a system of slave raiding which has been put into force during the last six weeks by the German authorities in Belgian Flanders.
Since the beginning of October the two Provinces of Belgian Flanders have been the scene of tragic outrages upon the civil population. These provinces are in the Army zone, and are thus subject to the military authority, whereas the rest of Belgium under German occupation is subject to the civil administration, of which Baron von Bissing is the head. On October 3, a decree was placarded in the towns and villages of the region reproducing a decision of German Headquarters which conferred upon the military authorities the power to compel, by force if necessary, all non-invalids dependent for their livelihood upon others to undertake work away from their homes. The decree was directed against the unemployed of all classes, and especially against the men thrown out of work by thc closing of factories after the German seizures of all raw materials. These men, deprived of means of subsistence, became dependent for their food upon the local municipal authorities. The publication of the decree was quickly followed by a notice warning all persons concerned to present themselves, on a given day and hour, at places named. and to come furnished with articles of kit that were minutely specified. Failure to comply with the notice rendered absentees liable to heavy fines and imprisonment. Simultaneously, the municipal administrations, which alone possessed lists of the men who had been thrown out of work, were summoned to hand over the lists to the military authorities. They refused, as they were entitled to do, and were at once dispossessed and replaced by German military representatives. In some cases the municipal officials who had charge of the lists were brutally arrested and thrown into prison.
STARVED INTO SUBMISSION.
Not content with these arbitrary measures, the German authorities ordered the soldiery to round up workmen found in the streets and to drive them to a given spot. Here the captives were penned up like cattle. The most able-bodied among them were told off, shut up in barracks, and sent on the morrow, under military escort, to a part of Belgium where a military position was being prepared. Seeing that military work was required of them, these Flemish captives declined to do it. Thereupon they were imprisoned, and were kept without food of any kind until, in two or three days, hunger compelled them to submit. In one place, young men similarly collected were taken to camps near an aerodrome in course of construction. and compelled to perform military labour. In another place more than 2,000 men, rounded up haphazard, including many small tradesmen, were segregated and ordered to sign a German form of agreement to work in Germany.
The method was not identical in all places. In some towns the invalids, in others married men, were exempted. while the rest were told that they would only be employed on civil work and that they would be paid 3d a day. But the trains - made up of trucks open to wind and weather - in which these poor creatures were herded together, started for Germany and the North of France.

Each of these raids captured some 4,000 men. It w as literally slave raiding. Along the railway line scraps of paper thrown out by the prisoners have been picked up. They bear the words: The young men of X and the surrounding villages have been captured. The unmarried comrades of Y from the village of Z, from 18 to 30 years of age, are here together. We will never work for the Germans, and never sign their paper. Long live King Albert, Van T. and Dc R. from X were sent on October 10 to Germany, and arrived on October 20. If this note is found, please send it home to X.
During the passage of these long slave trains their unfortunate but undaunted occupants were heard singing the “Brabanconne” and “The Lion of Flanders.”

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slavery-in-belgium-hmc9hkhqm?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1399025

Slavery in Belgium

The full number of the victims so far driven off is not accurately known, but it is estimated as at least 15,000, and it is doubtless being increased. We need not waste words in denouncing the utter lawlessness of this action

November 8, 1916

We had fancied that the enormities perpetrated by the Germans on unhappy Belgium had reached the limit which even Prussian “militarism” would dare to inflict upon an unoffending nation. We were mistaken. Murder, arson, rape, and wholesale pillage - all the abominations recorded in Lord Bryce’s Report and in the voluminous publications of the Belgian Government - have been followed by one more crime.
An article which appears elsewhere proves that the German military authorities are reintroducing slavery in Belgian Flanders. There can be no doubt about the general character of the facts. We care not by what euphemism German diplomacy and its servile hacks in the Press may seek to disguise them. They have reached us from sources which establish them beyond dispute, and their true name is branded upon them.
They are quite simple. On October 3 a decree of the German Headquarters was published in the two Belgian provinces which include Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai, Alost, and Tournai. It empowered the military authorities to force all able-bodied persons who were dependent upon others for their living to undertake work away from their homes. As the Germans have long since seized all the raw materials in these districts, and have thereby thrown whole classes out of work, the number dependent for their food upon the municipalities is very large. They were summoned to present themselves at a given time and place, and their presence was checked by the relief lists violently taken from the municipal authorities. Workmen found in the streets were rounded up by the troops. Next day they were sent under escort to a place where a trench was being dug. They refused to assist in this military work directed against their own country. They were shut up and left for days without food of any kind, until they were literally starved into submission. A second group wero forced to do military labour near an aerodrome; a third were commanded to sign an undertaking that they would work in Germany. They were packed into trains for that country or for the north of France.
The full number of the victims so far driven off is not accurately known, but it is estimated as at least 15,000, and it is doubtless being increased. We need not waste words in denouncing the utter lawlessness of this action. Probably there is no explicit prohibition of the reduction into slavery of European populations in the text-books of international law or in the conventions made between civilized peoples. The deed was so inconceivable, so utterly opposed to the whole spirit of all Christian nations, that mankind would have deemed such a provision idle and superfluous.
But the Germans have committed it, and presumably they mean to repeat it. We ask neutrals what they think of it; above all we ask the great neutral Republic who staked her all upon the vindication of human freedom for a race that was not her own, and that had been born and bred in servitude for generations, what she thinks of these slave raids made upon white men. The male population in the other provinces of Belgium will probably share the fate of their brethren in Flanders, unless the hand of the oppressor is stayed by the reprobation of the world.

General von Bissing, it is true, has repeatedly declared that Belgians would not be called upon to perform any service forbidden by The Hague Conventions, and these Conventions explicitly forbid the compulsion of the inhabitants of occupied territory to take part in military operations against their own country. But the German Vice-Chancellor, Herr von Helfferich, has lately informed the Reichstag that the populations of such territory in German hands will be subject to compulsory labour. The example of Flanders shows what the nature of the labour is likely to be. The Germans are feeling acutely the wane of their native manpower. The slave raids are manifestly a device to supply the places of Germans now employed in munition works and other indispensable businesses at home, and thus to release them for service in the field. They confirm the view which we have expressed, and which is generally accepted by the Allies, as to the true meaning of Prussia-Germany’s anxiety to establish out of Russian territory a simulacrum of the Kingdom of Poland which Prussia betrayed and destroyed. A resolve to fill the depleted German ranks by any means is the explanation of both projects.
But sham Constitutions and slave raids are not the only instruments of German Kultur in the territories she has seized. She seeks to poison the souls of their peoples as well, under the guise of promoting the higher education. She has already endowed Warsaw with a university, and she has just blessed Ghent with a similar institution. The news which we print this morning under the heading “Through German Eyes” throws instructive light upon the character of the foundation and the aims of the founders. General von Bissing blurted out their real purpose when he declared that it was meant to be a “Low German” institution. It is professedly to be a home of “ Flemish patriotism,” but that is because the Germans are striving to split the brave little people whose “union makes their strength” into two hostile camps. Herr von Bethmann Hollweg ingenuously explained the whole precious scheme in the Reichstag months ago.
Lovers of liberty and of learning in all lands will rejoice that it has conspicuously failed. The true leaders of the Flemish movement have resisted it with such patriotic determination that two of the most eminent scholars amongst them have been relegated to Jena - where perhaps they may reflect upon Hegel’s servility towards Napoleon. The teachers have been for the most part imported, because no self-respecting Flemings would stoop to take German pay, and, with provident minds, they have insisted on a promise of pensions when the restored Government of King Albert turns them out.
Efforts, apparently unsuccessful, are being made to recruit students amongst the Belgian prisoners in Germany, as the Flemings at home visit this pretended boon from their oppressors with a resolute “boycott.” Professor Nyrop, of Copenhagen, has put his finger upon the fundamental German error which has condemned their anti-national university to barrenness from its birth. They have forgotten that, whatever domestic differences Flemings and Walloons have had, and may again have, amongst themselves, this war has welded them together as Belgians above all.
It is a characteristic German blunder, the blunder which has vitiated and turned against them all their cunning schemes for sowing division in the ranks of the Allies. They cannot understand the character of their enemies. Their sham generosity turns against them even more than their open brutality. The university for the Flemings will no more shake their loyalty than the slave raids themselves.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slavery-in-belgium-x7lx7mjv6?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1399025

Slavery in Belgium: British resolve

His Majesty’s Government are ready to support the Belgian Government in every step they desire to take in securing the cessation of these atrocities and the punishment of their perpetrators

November 25, 1916

Viscount Grey has addressed the following letter, dated November 22, to the Belgian Minister in London:
Sir, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 16th November, in which you were good enough to communicate the solemn protest of the Belgian Government against the measures of forced labour and deportation imposed by the German authorities on the Belgian population. Your Government will not expect from their Allies any elaborate expression of the horror and indignation which they, in common with the whole world, feel in the presence of these practices, hitherto resorted to only in connexion with the slave trade. It will be enough if I assure you that his Majesty’s Government are ready to support the Belgian Government in every step they desire to take in securing the cessation of these atrocities and the punishment of their perpetrators. His Majesty’s Government have, however, one assurance to give to the Belgian Government at this moment, namely, that they will use their utmost power to bring the war to a speedy and successful conclusion, and thus to liberate Belgium once and for all from the dangers which continually menace her so long as the enemy remains in occupation of her territory. This is a cardinal aim and object of all the Allies. and the people of the British Empire have already been inspired by this latest proof of German brutality with renewed determination to make every sacrifice for the attainment of that end.
We may state that the Germans are actually deporting a large number of small agricultural landowners in the province of Hainault and agricultural workmen, not at all unemployed, and many of them the heads of large families. About 200 women workers, belonging to the textile industry have been deported from Ghent.