https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/germans-and-belgians-mdgxx9x8d
NOVEMBER 5, 1918
Germans and Belgians
We are vigorously following up our success at Valenciennes by attacking the sectors on the south. We are reported to be making good progress everywhere, and taking considerable numbers of prisoners. At many places the German retreat is reported to be most disorderly, and the Belgians have been following them up with the greatest eagerness.
An interesting document has fallen into Belgian hands in the shape of a General Order to the 5th Bavarian Division, dated October 5, showing how at that date German troops realized the change in their situation. The Order says: “However regrettable the condition of the civil population of Belgium may be, the consideration of revictualling the German Army must come first.” It therefore orders all horses, vehicles, &c, to be requisitioned and used for Army purposes, and continues: “Officers and men must understand that their relationship to the civilian population has changed since the alteration in the general situation. Civilians must now be regarded as an enemy people with whom we are in a state of war, and it is strictly forbidden to give them any assistance whatever. Military requirements alone must be taken into consideration, and all products of the country must be utilized solely in our own interest and not in that of the people.”
This order, of course, gives the German soldiery carte blanche to loot and pillage as they please, and they appear to have been taking advantage of it in a way which neither the Belgian Army nor the Belgian people will ever forget.
I mentioned some time ago a story, which I declined to vouch for, of Germans leaving one of their own dead as a booby trap so placed that when the body was lifted for burial it would explode a mine. The possibility that this was true is increased by the fact that our Engineers have in two places found an apparent grave with a cross marked “unknown Englishman”. The position of the graves was suspicious, and on careful examination they were found to contain, not a dead British soldier, but a German mine.
Another example of German cunning is in furnishing machine-gun crews left to cover rearguards with civilian suits of peasant clothes, enabling them to make their escape as harmless farming folk.
NOVEMBER 3, 1918
Another step towards victory
Germany now stands alone. The last and greatest of her confederates has fallen away from her. The Austro-Hungarian Commander has signed an armistice with General Diaz, and it will come into force this afternoon. The actual terms will not be made public until tomorrow, but it is easy enough to surmise their general tenor. Clearly they must be of such a kind as to ensure the complete and effective isolation of Germany. The Power whose ambitions Germany used to prepare and provoke the world-war, and who has been throughout her ready tool and accomplice in the nefarious policy of aggression, abandons her and leaves her either to oppose single-handed the foes whom she could not defeat when at the head of a great coalition, or to submit to the terms which they may dictate to her. It is still far from clear which course she will take. Until, therefore, her surrender becomes a fact, the first duty of the Allies and of America is to redouble their efforts, both military and diplomatic, to enforce her acceptance of the victorious peace they are resolved to secure.
There is no doubt, of course, that the armistice with Austria entirely changes the military situation to the great advantage of the Allies. It opens the way for the execution of plans which are doubtless already prepared and can now be put into immediate execution. Nor is it only in the military sphere that this great event imposes fresh duties upon us. It demands new efforts in the field of diplomacy. As the time approaches when Germany must sue for an armistice or be crushed, the Allies and the United States must exert themselves more than ever to attain perfect clearness and unity, both as to the terms which they would be prepared to grant and on the subject of the peace preliminaries themselves. We presume that the present meetings at Versailles, where the leading soldiers and sailors of the Alliance have been in conference, have at least resulted in agreement upon the essential measures, naval and military, which are required to enforce the only kind of peace that the democracies will sign. That is the first, and for now, most important, business. The peace preliminaries follow, but here too there is no time to be lost in correlating our main ideas if there is to be no subsequent misunderstanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment