It has been shown how much value can be attached to the assertion of the alleged intention of France to invade Belgium. That intention, and the realization of that intention belongs exclusively to Germany and they must be left in her possession. This is especially the case in view of the fact that the military dispositions undertaken by France absolutely refute the allegations of the German Chancellor. So true is this that when the violation of Belgian territory became an accomplished fact, and when the King of Belgium appealed under the terms of the treaty of 1839 for support, in maintaining the neutrality of Belgium which these powers had guaranteed, France was so little prepared to invade Belgium that it took her more than ten days to get her troops into the country.

The world is familiar with the way Germany has repaired in Belgium the injustice of which she was guilty, to use the words of the German Chancellor.

Atrocities in Belgium.

Under the pretext that her troops were attacked by civilians, and even under no pretext at all, whole villages have been razed to the ground. Important towns whose boast it was to represent part of the common inheritance of civilization were not spared. Their monuments, which have been respected during the centuries in all of the constant wars of which Belgium has been the theatre, were deliberately destroyed. Open cities were bombarded. Exorbitant taxation was imposed upon conquered towns, and when the inhabitants were unable to pay the taxes, a large number of their houses were set on fire. That is what happened to Wavre, among other cities, whose 8,500 inhabitants were unable to pay a tax of $600,000. Termonde, with 10,000 inhabitants, was utterly destroyed. On the 15th of September, there only remained in that town 282 houses out of 1,400. The town of Aerschot, with 8,000 inhabitants, is now nothing but a mass of ruins and more than 150 of its inhabitants have been shot. Dirigible balloons have thrown bombs at night upon Antwerp. It cannot be maintained by those who were in the balloons that they were trying to hit the forts, as the forts are outside the boundaries of the town, and a good distance outside them as well. Nor could the bombs thrown have had any effect upon the forts, which are even stronger than those of Liege. There was no warning of this bombardment, a fact which constitutes a violation of Article 26 of the Fourth Convention of The Hague, and more than a dozen people were killed, all of them non-combatants and several of them women and children.

The town of Louvain, with its 42,000 inhabitants, was one of the centres of Belgian culture. It had no mercy shown to it and has been nearly obliterated. Several quarters of the town were set on fire, the Church of St. Pierre, a marvelous example of Gothic art; the buildings of the University, including the Library with more than 70,000 volumes, of which a large number were ancient manuscripts, the collections belonging to the University; nearly all the scientific institutions, and nearly all the houses of the town were deliberately burned. They are now nothing more than heaps of ashes. Their destruction has been a loss to the whole civilized world.

Numbers of absolutely innocent women and children lost their lives in the fire which was started by order of the German military officials. Of those who were saved, several thousand, including women enfeebled by age, and children in arms, are today wandering homeless over the roads, without food or clothing. They are not to blame for anything, unless it is because they belong to a nation which has refused to purchase peace at the price of dishonor. That can be the only crime accounted to them and it is for that they have lost all their possessions upon the earth.

From the declaration made by the Imperial German Chancellor it may be seen that the German Government is conscious of its wrongdoing. As one of the guarantors of Belgium's neutrality, it wanted to force Belgium to relinquish its neutrality for Germany's benefit. Because Belgium would not consent to this injustice and because Germany could not reproach her with anything else, Germany invaded and covered with blood and ruin a small peaceful country of hard-working and honest people, a country which it had promised to protect.

This attack upon her neutrality is the first violation for which Belgium asks judgment from the universal conscience.

The entire Belgo-German question today is dominated by the fact of this violation of the neutrality of Belgium. Therefore, there is not a single shot fired by a German soldier in Belgium, which is not manifestly and avowedly belying most sacred things: the keeping of a solemn pledge, and the right for an honest nation that never wanted war, nor showed aggressive dispositions, to be allowed to live its peaceful and neutral life.

Such is the Belgian case. Humanity will judge it.

* * * * *



Belgo-British Plot Alleged by Germany

Statement Issued by German Embassy at Washington, Oct. 13.

The German Ambassador drew special attention today to the telegram which came from German headquarters. This telegram proves the German contention that the Allies did not intend to respect Belgian neutrality. It even proves more, namely, that Belgian neutrality practically did not exist and that the Belgian Government was conspiring with the Allies against Germany. Notwithstanding the denials coming from French sources it is a fact that French prisoners were taken at Liege and Namur, who acknowledged that they had been in those fortresses before the German troops entered Belgium.

On the French side it has been asserted that the German Chancellor in Parliament had acknowledged that Germany was doing wrong in violating Belgian neutrality. It must, however, not be overlooked that the Chancellor further said:

We know that the Allies do not intend to respect Belgian neutrality, and Germany, in the position she is in, attacked from three sides, cannot wait, while the Allies can wait.

At that time the Belgian archives were not at the disposal of the German Government. If the Chancellor had known at the time he made his speech that Belgium was not neutral he would certainly have spoken of the alleged Belgian neutrality in a different way.

Germany has violated the frontiers of no really neutral country, while the Allies are on record for disregarding all obligations toward China.

Text of Wireless Message.

Headquarters report German military authorities searching archives of Belgian General Staff at Brussels, found portfolio inscribed "Intervention Anglaise-Belgique," containing important documents:

1. Report to Belgian War Minister, dated April 10, 1906, containing result detailed negotiations between Chief of Belgian General Staff and British Military Attache at Brussels, Lieut. Col. Barnardiston. Plan of English origin sanctioned by Major Gen. Grierson, Chief English General Staff, contains strength, formation, landing places, expeditionary-force 100,000 men; continuing, settles plan Belgian General Staff transport accommodations, feeding in Belgium, Belgian interpreters, gendarmerie, landing places at Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne. Details Barnardiston remarks for present Holland cannot be relied upon. Further confidential communication that English Government after destruction of German Navy will direct supply provision via Antwerp. Finally suggestion from England military attache that Belgian espionage service should be organized in Prussian Rheinland.

2. Map showing strategical drawing up of French Army demonstrating existence of French-Belgian agreement.

3. Report of Baron Greindl, Belgian Minister to Berlin, to Belgian Foreign Office, dated Dec. 23, 1911. Greindl, commenting on plan of Belgian General Staff for defense of Belgo-German frontier in Franco-German war, points to threatening violation of neutrality by France, saying: "Danger French attack threatening us, not only near Luxemburg, but on whole length of common frontier, This assertion no guess work, but founded upon positive facts."

Minister further thoroughly discusses Entente's plans for passage through Belgium, Calais, and England. France doubtful protectors, Barnardiston's insinuations relative Flushing question, both perfidious and naive postulates dressing plan of battle against threatening Franco-British invasion into Belgium in Franco-German war.

* * * * *



GREAT BRITAIN'S DENIAL.

Statement Issued by British Foreign Office, London, Oct. 14.

The story of an alleged Anglo-Belgian agreement of 1906, published in the German press and based on documents said to have been found at Brussels is only a press edition of a story which has been reproduced in various forms and denied on several occasions. No such agreement has ever existed as Germans well know. Gen. Grierson is dead and Col., now Gen., Barnardiston is commanding the British forces before Tsing-tau.

In 1906 Gen. Grierson was on the General Staff at the War Office and Col. Barnardiston was military attache at Brussels. In view of the solemn guarantee given by Great Britain to protect the neutrality of Belgium against violation from any side some academic discussions may, through the instrumentality of Col. Barnardiston, have taken place between Gen. Grierson and the Belgian military authorities as to what assistance the British Army might be able to afford to Belgium should one of her neighbors violate that neutrality. Some notes with reference to the subject may exist in the archives at Brussels.

It should be noted that the date mentioned, namely 1906, was the year following that in which Germany had, as in 1911, adopted a threatening attitude toward France with regard to Morocco and in view of the apprehensions existing of an attack on France through Belgium it was natural that possible eventualities should be discussed.

The impossibility of Belgium having been a party to any agreement of the nature indicated or to any design for violation of Belgian neutrality is clearly shown by reiterated declarations that she has made for many years past that she would resist to the utmost any violation of her neutrality from whatever quarter and in whatever form such violation might come. It is worthy of attention that these charges of aggressive designs on the part of other powers are made by Germany who, since 1906, has established an elaborate network of strategical railways leading from the Rhine to the Belgian frontier through a barren, thinly populated tract, deliberately constructed to permit of the sudden attack upon Belgium which was carried out two months ago.

* * * * *



REPLY TO GREAT BRITAIN.

Statement by Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador, Washington, Oct. 15.

Concerning the Anglo-Belgian military agreement existing since 1906, a formal denial has been issued by England, which proves nothing. The documents are in the hands of the German authorities, and will be published in full. The facts remain that a so-called "neutral" country concluded a military agreement with England, which provided for landing of British troops in this "neutral" country. The document proves that by its own free will "neutral Belgium" accepted the British offer and decided to fight on the side of the Allies.

England instigated Belgium to go to war, and when the time came to protect the unfortunate little country it was left to its own resources. Germany, on the other hand, which had heard of Belgium's agreement with England at the beginning of this war, offered to protect Belgium and to pay full indemnity for all her losses. Germany would have religiously kept her promise.

The documents found in Brussels further prove that as far back as 1906 England was systematically trying to bring about the coalition which has now forced war on Germany.

* * * * *



GRAY BOOK'S TESTIMONY.

Statement by E. Havenith, Belgian Minister to the United States, Washington, Oct. 22.

The Belgian Legation has just received the copies of the "Gray Book." It is evident from these documents that there has never existed any military agreement between Belgium and England, either offensive or defensive, such as the German Government asserts to have been in existence since 1906. The following extracts speak for themselves:

No. 28—Offer of intervention by England. Note handed to Sir Francis H. Villiers, British Minister to Belgium, to M. Davignon, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Brussels, Aug. 4, 1914.

I am instructed to inform the Belgium Government that, if Germany exercises pressure for the purpose of compelling Belgium to abandon her position of a neutral country, the Government of his Britannic Majesty expects Belgium to resist by every possible means.

The Government of his Britannic Majesty is ready in that event to join with Russia and France, if desired by Belgium, to offer to the Belgian Government at once common action for the purpose of resisting the use of force by Germany against Belgium and at the same time to offer a guarantee to maintain the independence and integrity of Belgium in the future.

No. 37—Offer of England for an alliance for the object of assuring the neutrality of Belgium against the pressure of Germany.

London, Aug. 4, 1914.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs has informed the British Ministers in Norway, Holland, and Belgium that Great Britain expects that these three kingdoms will resist the pressure of Germany and maintain neutrality. They will be supported in their resistance by England, who in such a case is ready to co-operate with France and Russia, if such is the desire of these three Governments, in offering an alliance to the said Governments to repel the employment of force against them by Germany and a guarantee for the future maintenance of the independence and the integrity of the three kingdoms.

I pointed out that Belgium is neutral in perpetuity. The Minister for Foreign Affairs replied: "It is for the event of neutrality being violated."

(Signed) LALAING,

Belgium Minister in London.

No. 40—Belgium appeals to the powers after the invasion of Belgium.

Brussels, Aug. 4, 1914.

Monsieur le Ministre—The Belgium Government regrets to have to announce to your Excellency that this morning the armed forces of Germany penetrated into Belgian territory, violating the engagements which they have undertaken by treaty.

The Belgian Government are firmly decided to resist by all means in their power.

Belgium appeals to England, to France, and to Russia to co-operate as guarantors in the defense of her territory.

There should be a concerted and common action, having as its object to resist the measures of force employed by Germany against Belgium and at the same time to guarantee the maintenance of the independence and integrity of Belgium for the future.

Belgium is happy to be able to declare that she will undertake the defense of the fortified places. I am, &c.,

(Signed) DAVIGNON,

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium.

Where is to be found the alleged military convention said to have been concluded in 1906 with England? Where is the agreement said to have existed since 1906 between the Allies to force war on Germany? These documents clearly prove that such compact never existed.

The Belgian nation preferred ruin and death to the shameful perjury proposed to her by Germany. For this reason Germany has devastated and immersed in blood a peaceful little country. Today she seeks to rob her of honor, her only remaining treasure.

The official documents, the confessions of the German statesmen, the ruins of Louvain, Malines, Aerschot, Termonde, and of so many villages burned and razed to the ground, the blood of her children unjustly massacred are the testimonies which the Belgian people cites before the tribunal of public conscience. To this tribunal, without fear, the Belgian Nation confides the cause of her honor.

* * * * *



BELGIUM'S ANSWER.

Transmitted to The London Times and Published Oct. 23.

The Times of Oct. 14 reproduces a long article from The North-German Gazette commenting on the discovery in the archives at Brussels of a map entitled "English Intervention in Belgium" and of a memorandum to the Belgian Minister of War which goes to prove that in the month of April, 1906, the Chief of the General Staff, on the suggestion of the British Military Attache and with the approval of Gen. Grierson, had worked out a plan of co-operation between British expeditionary forces and the Belgian Army against Germany in the event of a Franco-German war. This agreement is assumed to have been preceded in all probability by a similar arrangement with the French General Staff.

The North-German Gazette also publishes certain passages of a report of the Belgian Minister at Berlin in December, 1911, relating to another plan of the Belgian General Staff, in which the measures to be taken in case of the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany are discussed. Baron Greindl pointed out that this plan dealt only with the precautions to be taken in the event of an aggression on the part of Germany, while, owing to its geographical situation, Belgium might just as well be exposed to an attack by France and England. The North-German Gazette draws from this discovery the strange conclusion that England intended to drag Belgium into the war, and at one time contemplated the violation of Dutch neutrality.

We have only one regret to express on the subject of the disclosure of these documents, and that is that the publication of our military documents should be mangled and arranged in such a way as to give the reader the impression of duplicity on the part of England and adhesion by Belgium, in violation of her duties as a neutral State, to the policy of the Triple Entente. We ask the North-German Gazette to publish in full the result of its search among our secret documents. Therein will be found fresh and striking proof of the loyalty, correctness, and impartiality with which Belgium for 81 years has discharged her international obligations.

It was stated that Col. Barnardiston, the military representative at Brussels of a power guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, at the time of the Algeciras crisis, questioned the Chief of the Belgian General Staff as to the measures which he had taken to prevent any violation of that neutrality. The Chief of the General Staff, at that time Lieut. Gen. Ducarne, replied that Belgium was ready to repel any invader. Did the conversation extend beyond these limits, and did Col. Barnardiston, in an interview of a private and confidential nature, disclose to Gen. Ducarne the plan of campaign which the British General Staff would have desired to follow if that neutrality were violated? We doubt it, but in any case we can solemnly assert, and it will be impossible to prove the contrary, that never has the King or his Government been invited, either directly or indirectly, to join the Triple Entente in the event of a Franco-German war. By their words and by their acts they have always shown such a firm attitude that any supposition that they could have departed from the strictest neutrality is eliminated a priori.

As for Baron Greindl's dispatch of Dec. 23, 1911, it dealt with a plan for the defense of Luxembourg, due to the personal initiative of the Chief of the First Section of the War Ministry. This plan was of an absolutely private character and had not been approved by the Minister of War. If this plan contemplated above all an attack by Germany, there is no cause for surprise, since the great German military writers, in particular T. Bernhardi, V. Schlivfeboch, and von der Goltz, spoke openly in their treatises on the coming war of the violation of Belgian territory by the German armies.

At the outbreak of hostilities the Imperial Government, through the mouth of the Chancellor and of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, did not search for vain pretexts for the aggression of which Belgium has been the victim. They justified it on the plea of military interests. Since then, in face of the universal reprobation which this odious action has excited, they have attempted to deceive public opinion by representing Belgium as bound already before the war to the Triple Entente. These intrigues will deceive nobody. They will recoil on the head of Germany. History will record that this power, after binding itself by treaty to defend the neutrality of Belgium, took the initiative in violating it, without even finding a pretext with which to justify itself.

* * * * *



WHO BEGAN THE WAR, AND WHY?

ATROCITIES OF THE WAR



* * * * *



By Pope Pius X., Kaiser Wilhelm II., President Poincare, and King Albert of Belgium.

Official Message from Pope Pius X. at the Vatican, Aug. 2.

At this moment, when nearly the whole of Europe is being dragged into the vortex of a most terrible war, with its present dangers and miseries and the consequences to follow, the very thought of which must strike every one with grief and horror, we whose care is the life and welfare of so many citizens and peoples cannot but be deeply moved and our heart wrung with the bitterest sorrow.

And in the midst of this universal confusion and peril we feel and know that both Fatherly love and the Apostolic ministry demand of us that we should with all earnestness turn the thoughts of Christendom thither "whence cometh help"—to Christ, the Prince of Peace, and the most powerful mediator between God and man.

We charge, therefore, the Catholics of the whole world to approach the throne of Grace and Mercy, each and all of them, and more especially the clergy, whose duty furthermore it will be to make in every parish, as their Bishops shall direct, public supplication so that the merciful God may, as it were, be wearied with the prayers of His children and speedily remove the evil causes of war, giving to them who rule to think the thoughts of peace and not of affliction.

From the palace of the Vatican, the second day of August, 1914.

PIUS X. Pontifex Maximus.

* * * * *



THE POPE'S DYING WORDS.

Pronounced by Pius X. at the Vatican, Aug. 20.

In ancient times the Pope, with a word, might have stayed the slaughter. Now I am impotent and forced to see the spectacle of my own children, even those who yesterday worked here with me, leaving for the war and abandoning their cassocks and cowls for soldiers' uniforms. Yesterday, although belonging to different nationalities, we were here studying in sympathetic companionship. Now we are in different fields, armed against each other and ready to take each other's lives.

* * * * *



GERMAN KAISER'S PROTEST.

Addressed to Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, Aug. 7.

I consider it my duty, Sir, to inform you, as the most notable representative of the principles of humanity, that after the capture of the French fort of Longwy my troops found in that place thousands of dumdum bullets, which had been manufactured in special works by the French Government. Such bullets were found not only on French killed and wounded soldiers and on French prisoners, but also on English troops. You know what terrible wounds and awful suffering are caused by these bullets, and that their use is strictly forbidden by the generally recognized rules of international warfare.

I solemnly protest to you against the way in which this war is being waged by our opponents, whose methods are making it one of the most barbarous in history. Besides the use of these awful weapons, the Belgian Government openly incited the civil population to participate in the fighting, and has for a long time carefully organized their resistance. The cruelties practiced in this guerrilla warfare, even by women and priests, toward wounded soldiers, and doctors and hospital nurses—physicians were killed and lazarets fired on—were such that eventually my Generals were compelled to adopt the strongest measures to punish the guilty and frighten the bloodthirsty population from continuing their shameful deeds.

Some villages and even the old town of Louvain, with the exception of its beautiful town hall, (Hotel de Ville,) had to be destroyed for the protection of my troops.

My heart bleeds when I see such measures inevitable and when I think of the many innocent people who have lost their houses and property as a result of the misdeeds of the guilty.

WILHELM I. R.

* * * * *



REPLY TO THE KAISER.

Made by President Wilson at Washington, Sept. 16.

I received your Imperial Majesty's important communication of the 7th and have read it with the gravest interest and concern. I am honored that you should have turned to me for an impartial judgment as the representative of a people truly disinterested as respects the present war and truly desirous of knowing and accepting the truth.

You will, I am sure, not expect me to say more. Presently, I pray God very soon, this war will be over. The day of accounting will then come, when I take it for granted the nations of Europe will assemble to determine a settlement. Where wrongs have been committed, their consequences and the relative responsibility involved will be assessed.

The nations of the world have fortunately by agreement made a plan for such a reckoning and settlement. What such a plan cannot compass the opinion of mankind, the final arbiter in all such matters, will supply. It would be unwise, it would be premature, for a single Government, however fortunately separated from the present struggle, it would even be inconsistent with the neutral position of any nation which, like this, has no part in the contest, to form or express a final judgment.

I speak thus frankly because I know that you will expect and wish me to do so as one friend speaks to another, and because I feel sure that such a reservation of judgment until the end of the war, when all its events and circumstances can be seen in their entirety and in their true relations, will commend itself to you as a true expression of sincere neutrality.

WOODROW WILSON.

* * * * *



CHARGE AGAINST GERMANY.

President Poincare of the French Republic to President Wilson, Sept. 11.

Mr. President: I am informed that the German Government is attempting to abuse your Excellency's good faith by alleging that dumdum bullets are manufactured in French State workshops, and are used by our soldiers. The calumny is nothing but an audacious attempt to reverse the roles. Germany has since the beginning of the war employed dumdum bullets, and has daily committed violations of the laws of nations.

On Aug. 18 and on several occasions since then we have had to report crimes to your Excellency as well as to the powers signatory to the Convention of The Hague. Germany, which was aware of our protests, is now trying to deceive and to make use of pretexts and lies in order to indulge in further acts of barbarity in the name of right. Outraged civilization sends your Excellency an indignant protest.

RAYMOND POINCARE.

* * * * *



M. DELCASSE'S NOTE.

French Cabinet Minister Addresses the Danish Government, Sept. 10.

The French Government protested on Aug. 18 to the Permanent Bureau of The Hague Court of Arbitration against the use of dumdum bullets by the Germans, producing proof obtained by surgeons that French soldiers had been killed or wounded by these bullets. The German General Staff has countered this by alleging that it was the French and English who used the bullets, and the Imperial Chancellor has announced in fiery tones that in the presence of the example given by the English and French the German soldiers would henceforth use dumdum bullets; the responsibility for this procedure, which he himself describes as an act of cruelty and a violation of an international convention signed by Germany, will rest, he says, upon the powers of the Triple Entente.

By my Government's orders I have the honor to protest in the most formal manner to the Danish Government against the lying German allegations. French soldiers have never used dumdum bullets. The French Government has never authorized, nor will authorize, its troops to use such barbarous means of warfare, whatever be the infringements of law and the cruelties committed by its adversaries. The "Instructions for French Officers in Wartime" also lay down, and will continue to lay down, that they are to forbid their men to use bullets at variance with the stipulations of the Geneva and Hague conventions.

* * * * *



THE BELGIAN MISSION.

Officially Explained to President Wilson at the White House, Washington, Sept. 16.

His Majesty the King of the Belgians has appointed a special envoy for the purpose of acquainting the President of the United States of America with the deplorable state of affairs prevailing in Belgium, whose neutrality has been unjustly violated, and who since the beginning of hostilities has been the theatre of the worst outrages on the part of the invading German Army, in defiance of rules solemnized by international treaty and customs consecrated by public right and law of nations.

Mr. Henry Carton de Wiart, Minister of Justice, has been chosen for this mission. He is accompanied by Messrs. de Sadeleer, Hymans, and Vandervelde, Ministers of State. Count Louis Lichtervelde is attached to the mission as Secretary.

* * * * *



M. DE WIART'S ADDRESS.

Made to the President at the White House, Washington, Sept. 16.

Excellency: His Majesty the King of the Belgians has charged us with a special mission to the President of the United States.

Let me say to you how much we feel ourselves honored to have been called upon to express the sentiments of our King and of our whole nation to the illustrious statesman whom the American people have called to the highest dignity of the Commonwealth.

As far as I am concerned, I have already been able, during a previous trip, to fully appreciate the noble virtues of the American Nation, and I am happy to take this opportunity to express all the admiration with which they inspire me.

Ever since her independence was first established, Belgium has been declared neutral in perpetuity. This neutrality, guaranteed by the powers, has recently 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 obligations toward the others. And it was the sense of our international obligations as well as that of our dignity and honor that has driven us to resistance.

The consequences suffered by the Belgian Nation were not confined purely to the harm occasioned by the forced march of an invading army. This army not only seized a great portion of our territory, but it committed incredible acts of violence, the nature of which is contrary to the law of nations.

Peaceful inhabitants were massacred, defenseless women and children were outraged, open and undefended towns were destroyed, historical and religious monuments were reduced to dust, and the famous library of the University of Louvain was given to the flames.

Our Government has appointed a judicial commission to make an official investigation, so as to thoroughly and impartially examine the facts and to determine the responsibility thereof, and I will have the honor, Excellency, to hand over to you the proceedings of the inquiry.

In this frightful holocaust which is sweeping all over Europe, the United States has adopted a neutral attitude.

And it is for this reason that your country, standing apart from either one of the belligerents, is in the best position to judge, without bias or partiality, the conditions under which the war is being waged.

It is at the request, even at the initiative, of the United States that all civilized nations have formulated and adopted at The Hague a law regulating the laws and usage of war.

We refuse to believe that war has abolished the family of civilized powers, or the regulations to which they have freely consented.

The American people has always displayed its respect for justice, its search for progress, and an instinctive attachment for the laws of humanity. Therefore, it has won a moral influence which is recognized by the entire 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 it know the real truth of the present situation. Resolved to continue unflinching defense of its sovereignty and independence, it deems it a duty to bring to the attention of the civilized world the innumerable grave breaches of rights of mankind of which she has been a victim. At the very moment we were leaving Belgium, the King recalled to us his trip to the United States and the vivid and strong impression your powerful and virile civilization left upon his mind.

Our faith in your fairness, our confidence in your justice, in your spirit of generosity and sympathy—all these have dictated our present mission.

* * * * *



PRESIDENT WILSON'S REPLY.

Addressed to the Royal Belgian Commission in the White House, Washington, Sept. 16.

Permit me to say with what sincere pleasure I receive you as representatives of the King of the Belgians, a people for whom the people of the United States feel so strong a friendship and admiration, a King for whom they entertain so sincere a respect, and express my hope that we may have many opportunities of earning and deserving their regard.

You are not mistaken in believing that the people of this country love justice, seek the true paths of progress, and have a passionate regard for the rights of humanity.

It is a matter of profound pride to me that I am permitted for a time to represent such a people and to be their spokesman, and I am proud that your King should have turned to me in time of distress as to one who would wish on behalf of the people he represents to consider the claims to the impartial sympathy of mankind of a nation which deems itself wronged.

I thank you for the document you have put in my hands containing the result of an investigation made by a judicial committee appointed by the Belgian Government to look into the matter of which you have come to speak. It shall have my utmost attentive perusal and my most thoughtful consideration.

You will, I am sure, not expect me to say more. Presently, I pray God very soon, this war will be over. The day of accounting will then come, when, I take it for granted, the nations of Europe will assemble to determine a settlement. Where wrongs have been committed their consequences and the relative responsibility involved will be assessed.

The nations of the world have, fortunately, by agreement made a plan for such a reckoning and settlement. What such a plan cannot compass, the opinion of mankind, the final arbiter in such matters, will supply. It would be unwise, it would be premature for a single Government, however fortunately separated from the present struggle, it would be inconsistent with the neutral position of any nation, which, like this, has no part in the contest, to form or express a final judgment.

I need not assure you that this conclusion, in which I instinctively feel that you will yourselves concur, is spoken frankly because in warm friendship, and as the best means of perfect understanding between us, an understanding based upon mutual respect, admiration, and cordiality.

You are most welcome and we are greatly honored that you should have chosen us as the friends before whom you could lay any matter of vital consequence to yourselves, in the confidence that your cause would be understood and met in the same spirit in which it was conceived and intended.

* * * * *



OFFICIAL SUMMARY.

Findings Presented by the Belgian Royal Commission to President Wilson at Washington, Sept. 16.



* * * * *



I.

Acts at Linsmeau and Orsmael.

Belgium, which wanted peace, has been obliged by Germany to resort to arms and to oppose a legitimate defense to an aggression which nothing can justify, and which is contrary to the solemn pledges of treaties.

Belgium is bound in honor to fight loyally and to observe all the rules, laws, and customs of war.

From the beginning of the invasion of its territory by German troops, the Belgian Government had posted each and every day, in all the towns, and the papers have each day repeatedly printed, instructions warning the non-combatant civilians not to offer any resistance to the troops and soldiers invading the country.

The information on which the German Government believes today that it can base its contention that the Belgian population contravenes the law of nations and is not worthy of respect is absolutely unfounded.

The Government protests most vigorously against these allegations and against the odious threats of retaliation. If any deed contrary to the rules of warfare should ultimately be proved, to understand such fact it is only necessary to realize the well-founded excitement which the cruelties of the German soldiers are provoking among the Belgian population—a population which is thoroughly honest but energetic in the defense of its rights and in its respect for humanity.

If we were to publish a list of these atrocities, of which the first ones are here recorded, this would indeed be a long list.

Whole regions have been ravaged and abominable deeds perpetrated in the towns.

A committee attached to the Department of Justice is drawing up a list of these horrors with scrupulous impartiality.

As an example, a few facts are here published, facts which will depict the state of mind and the procedure of certain German troops:

1. German cavalry, occupying the village of Linsmeau, were attacked by some Belgian infantry and two gendarmes. A German officer was killed by our troops during the fight, and subsequently buried at the request of the Belgian officer in command. None of the civilian population took part in the fighting at Linsmeau. Nevertheless the village was invaded at dusk Aug. 10 by a strong force of German cavalry, artillery and machine guns. In spite of formal assurances 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 gun fire and burned. All the male population were then compelled to come forward and hand over whatever arms they possessed. No recently discharged firearms were found. Nevertheless the invaders divided these peasants into three groups. Those in one group were bound and eleven of them placed in a ditch, where they were afterward found dead, their skulls fractured by the butts of German rifles.

2. During the night of Aug. 10 German cavalry entered Velm in great numbers; the inhabitants were asleep. The Germans without provocation fired on Mr. Deglimme-Gever's house, broke into it, destroyed furniture, looted money, burned barns, hay, corn stacks, farm implements, six oxen, and the contents of the farm-yard. They carried off Mme. Deglimme half-naked to a place two miles away. She was then let go and fired upon as she fled; without being hit. Her husband was carried away in another direction and fired upon; he is dying. The same troops sacked and burned the house of a railway watchman.

3. Farmer Jef Dierchx of Neerhespen bears witness to the following acts of cruelty committed by German cavalry at Orsmael and Neerhespen on Aug. 10, 11, and 12. An old man of the latter village had his arm sliced in three longitudinal cuts; he was then hanged head downward and burned alive. Young girls have been raped and little children outraged at Orsmael, where several inhabitants suffered mutilations too horrible to describe. A Belgian soldier belonging to a battalion of cyclist carbineers, who had been wounded and made prisoner, was bound to a telegraph pole on the St. Trond road and shot.

4. On Wednesday, Aug. 12, after an engagement at Haelen, Commandant Van Damme, so severely wounded that he was lying on his back, was finally murdered by German infantrymen firing their revolvers into his mouth.

5. On Monday, Aug. 9, at Orsmael the Germans picked up Commandant Knappen very seriously wounded, propped him against a tree and shot him. Finally they hacked his corpse with swords.

6. Numerous soldiers, disarmed and unable to defend themselves, have been ill-treated or killed by certain German soldiers. The inquiry brings forth new facts of this kind every day.

7. In different places, notably at Hellonge-sur-Geer, at Barchon, at Pontisse, at Haelen, at Zelk, German troops have fired on doctors, nurses, ambulances, and ambulance wagons.

8. At Boncelles a body of German troops went into a battle carrying a Belgian flag.

9. On Thursday, Aug. 6, before a fort at Liege, German soldiers continued to fire on a party of Belgian soldiers, who were unarmed and had been surrounded while digging a trench, after these had hoisted the white flag.

10. On Thursday, Aug. 10, at Vootem, near the Fort of Loncin, a group of German infantry hoisted the white flag. When Belgian soldiers approached to take them prisoners the Germans suddenly opened fire on them at close range.

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II.

Report on Aerschot.

Antwerp, Aug. 28, 1914.

The commission of inquiry on violation of the laws of nations and the laws and customs of warfare, after an impartial and careful investigation, can make the following report of its findings:

It appears from precise and concurring testimony that in the entire region of Aerschot the Germans have committed veritable atrocities. The majority of the population fled in terror. On their passage the German troops set fire to farms and houses and furniture, shooting inoffensive citizens whom they found along the road or who were working in the field.

At Hersselt, north of Aerschot, thirty-two houses of the village were set on fire; the miller and his son, who fled, and about twenty-one other persons were killed; and all this while no Belgian troops were visible.

The German troops penetrated into Aerschot, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, on Wednesday, Aug. 19, in the morning. No Belgian forces remained behind. No sooner did the Germans enter the town than they shot five or six inhabitants whom they caused to leave their houses. In the evening, pretending that a superior German officer had been killed on the Grand Place by the son of the Burgomaster, or, according to another version of the story, that a conspiracy had been hatched against the superior commandant by the Burgomaster and his family, the Germans took every man who was inside of Aerschot; they led them, fifty at a time, some distance from the town, grouped them in lines of four men, and, making them run ahead of them, shot them and killed them afterward with their bayonets. More than forty men were found thus massacred.

They gave up the town to be pillaged, taking from private residences all they could take, breaking furniture, and forcing safes. The following day they lined up, three by three, the villagers whom they had arrested the day before, taking one man out of each line. These they led to a distance of about 100 meters from the town, taking with them the Burgomaster of the town, Mr. Tielmans, and his son, aged 151/2 years, and his brother, and shot them.

Later on they forced the remaining villagers to dig holes to bury their victims.

For three whole days they continued to pillage and set fire to everything in sight.

About 150 inhabitants of Aerschot are supposed to have been thus massacred.

The largest part of the city is totally destroyed. Five times the Germans tried to set fire to the large church, the interior of which has been sacked. The records of the town have been carried away.

The ambulance attendants, although wearing the Red Cross badge, were not respected. One of them reports that German troops fired upon him while he was collecting his wounded, and that they continued to fire even though he displayed his Red Cross armband. Moreover, during the entire day of the 19th, while he was engaged in hospital service, he was threatened and ill-used. A German officer, among others, took him by the head, thrusting against his forehead the butt of a revolver. A collector, wearing the insignia of the Red Cross, was killed in the Rue de l'Hospital on the evening of Aug. 19 by Germans.

Deny Any Civilian Attack.

From all the testimony taken it appears that the civil population of Aerschot has in no wise participated in the hostilities, that no shot was fired by them; that all the witnesses agree in pointing out the improbability of the German version, according to which the Burgomaster's son, a youth of 151/2 years, and of extremely gentle disposition, is said to have fired upon a superior German officer during the night of Aug. 19. Still more improbable is the version of the conspiracy organized by the Burgomaster. It is to be remarked that if—a thing which is not known—a German officer has been hit on the Grand Place, it might have happened by a stray bullet, German soldiers being engaged in shooting in the neighboring streets in order to frighten the populace.

Moreover, the Burgomaster, a very quiet man, had repeatedly warned his fellow-citizens, by means of posters and circulars addressed to every inhabitant of the town, that in case of invasion they were to abstain from any hostility. These posters were still in evidence when the Germans entered the city, and they were shown to them.

The German troops which were traversing localities situated on this side of Aerschot indulged in the same horrors. They shot fleeing citizens and set fire to and sacked private houses, all this without provocation.

At Rotselaer, for instance, they set fire to about fifteen houses. A German officer, addressing an inhabitant whose house was afire, wanted to make him declare, at the point of a pistol, that the fire had been started by the Belgians. When this inhabitant protested, claiming that the Belgians had left the town the previous evening, this officer declared that if the Germans had set fire to the town it was due probably to the fact that the civilians had fired at them, a fact which is also denied by all the witnesses.

There, too, the German troops pillaged everything they could lay their hands on during their passage.

Up to this writing the Commission of Inquiry has been unable to obtain the testimony of inhabitants of Diest and Tirlemont, which towns were occupied by the Germans on the 18th and 19th of August, 1914, and which are cut off from communication.

However, the inhabitants of Schaffen, a town near Diest, have stated that the same abominations were committed in their locality and in the adjoining communities, Lummen and Molenstede. The whole region has been laid waste. German troops, at an hour's distance from Diest, had begun their work of destruction all along the highway from Diest to Beeringen. Turning upon Diest they set fire to everything they could lay hands on—farms, houses, furniture. Arriving at the village of Schaffen, the Germans set fire to the town, massacring the few inhabitants who remained behind, and whom they found in their houses or in the streets.

The witness gives the names and addresses of eighteen persons whom he knows to have been massacred.

Among them are:

The wife of Francois Luyck, 45 years old, and her 12-year-old daughter, who were discovered in a sewer and shot.

The daughter of Jean Ouyen, 9 years old, who was shot.

Andre Willem, 23 years old, sexton, who was tied to a tree and burned alive.

Joseph Reynders, forty years old, who was killed together with his nephew, a lad of ten years.

Gustave Lodt, forty years old, and Jean Marken, also aged forty, probably buried alive.

The witness testifies that he personally proceeded to exhume these two bodies, and that he afterward buried them in the town cemetery.

The village of Rethy, near Turnhout, was the object of devastation and shooting during the day of Aug. 22 by seventeen cavalrymen who had penetrated into the village. A young woman of fifteen years was killed by a bullet.

Still more horrible crimes, if that were possible, have been committed by the German troops on account of their defeat at the hands of the Belgian Army before Malines. The City of Louvain, with its artistic and scientific riches, has not been spared.

New reports will be submitted very shortly.

GOOREMAN, President, ERNST DE BUNSWYCK, Secretary of the Commission.

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III.

Destruction of Louvain.

Antwerp, Aug. 31, 1914

To the Minister of Justice:

Sir: The Commission of Inquiry begs to make the following report on the deeds of which the City of Louvain and the surrounding localities and the vicinity of Malines have been the theatre.

The German Army penetrated into Louvain on Wednesday, Aug. 19, after having set fire to the towns through which it had passed.

From the moment of their entrance into the City of Louvain the Germans requisitioned lodgings and victuals for their troops. They entered every private bank of the city and took over the bank balances. German soldiers broke the doors of houses abandoned by their inhabitants, pillaged them and indulged in orgies.

The German authorities took hostages—the Mayor of the city, Senator Vander Kelm, the Vice Rector of the Catholic University, the Dean of the city; magistrates and Aldermen were also detained. All arms, down to fencing foils, had been handed over to the town administration and deposited by the said authorities in the Church of St. Peter.

In a neighboring village, Corbeek-Loo, a young matron, 22 years old, whose husband was in the army, was surprised on Wednesday, Aug. 19, with several of her relatives, by a band of German soldiers. The persons who accompanied her were locked in an abandoned house, while she was taken into another house, where she was successively attacked by five soldiers.

In the same village, on Thursday, Aug. 20, German soldiers were searching a house where a young girl of 16 years lived with her parents. They carried her into an abandoned house, and while some of them kept the father and mother off, others went into the house, the cellar of which was open, and forced the young woman to drink. Afterward they carried her out on the lawn in front of the house and attacked her successively. She continued to resist, and they pierced her breast with their bayonets. Having been abandoned by the soldiers after these abominable attacks, the girl was carried off by her parents, and the following day, owing to the gravity of her condition, she was administered the last rites of the Church by the priest of the parish and carried to the hospital at Louvain. At that time her life was in danger.

On Aug. 24 and 25 Belgian troops, leaving the intrenched camp in Antwerp, attacked the German Army which was outside of Malines.

The German troops were driven back as far as Louvain and Vilvorde.

Penetrating the towns which had been occupied by the enemy, the Belgian Army found the whole country devastated. The Germans, while retiring, had ravaged and set fire to the villages, taking with them all the male inhabitants, driving them before them.

Old Woman Killed by Bayonets.

Upon entering Hofstade, on Aug. 25, the Belgian soldiers found there the corpse of an old woman who had been killed by bayonet thrusts; she still held in her hands the needle with which she was sewing when she was attacked; one mother and her son, aged about 15 or 16 years, lay there, pierced with bayonet wounds; one man was found hanging.

In Sempst, a neighboring village, were found the corpses of two men partially burned. One of them was found with his legs cut off at the knees, the other was minus his arms and legs. A workman (whose charred body several witnesses have seen) had been pierced with bayonets, and afterward, while still living, the Germans soaked him with petroleum and locked him in a house, which they set on fire. An old man and his son had been killed by bullets; a woman coming out of her house had been stricken down in the same manner.

A witness whose declaration has been received by Edward Hertslet, son of Sir Cecil Hertslet, Consul General of Great Britain in Antwerp, testifies to have seen not far from Malines on Aug. 26 (that is, during the last attack of the Belgian troops) an old man attached by the arms to a beam of a barn. The body was completely burned; the head, the arms, and the feet were intact. Further on was a body all over stabbed with bayonet thrusts. Numerous corpses of peasants were found in positions of supplication, arms lifted and hands folded in prayer. The Belgian Consul to Unganda, who had entered the Belgian Army as a volunteer, reports that everywhere the Germans had passed through the country was devastated. The few inhabitants who remained in the villages told of horrors committed by the enemy. Thus in Wacherzeel seven Germans are said to have consecutively attacked a woman, afterward killing her. In the same village they had stripped a young boy, threatening him with death by pointing a revolver at his breast, piercing him with their lances, and chasing him into the open fields and shooting after him, without, however, hitting him.

Everywhere there was ruin and devastation. At Bulcken numerous inhabitants, including the priest, a man more than 80 years old, were killed.

Between Impde and Wolverthem two wounded Belgian soldiers were lying near a house which was burning. The Germans threw these two unfortunate men into the raging fire.

The German troops repulsed by our soldiers entered Louvain in full panic. Various witnesses assure us that at that moment the German garrison occupying Louvain was advised erroneously that the enemy was entering the town. Immediately the German garrison withdrew toward the station, where it met with the German troops that had been repulsed and pursued by the Belgian troops. Everything seems to indicate that a collision took place between the two German regiments. From that moment, under pretext that the Louvain civilians had fired upon them, a fact which is contradicted by all witnesses, and which would hardly have been possible inasmuch as all the inhabitants of Louvain, for several days past, had been obliged to hand their arms over to the local authorities, the German soldiers began to bombard the city. Moreover, not one of the witnesses has seen the body of a single civilian at the place where the affray happened. The bombarding lasted until 10 o'clock at night. Afterward the Germans set fire to the city.

Burning of the Town.

The houses which had not taken fire were entered by German soldiers, who threw fire grenades, which seem to have been provided for the occasion. The largest part of the City of Louvain, especially the quarters of the Ville Haute, comprising the modern houses, the Cathedral of St. Peter, the University Halls, with the whole library of the university, its manuscripts, its collections, the largest part of the scientific institutions, and the town theatres, were at the moment being consumed by flames.

The commission deems it necessary, in the midst of these horrors, to insist on the crime of lese humanity which the deliberate annihilation of an academic library—a library which was one of the treasures of our time—constitutes.

Numerous corpses of civilians covered the street and squares. On the route from Louvain to Tirlemont alone one witness testifies having seen more than fifty of them. On the threshholds of houses were found burned 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 of Louvain have been completely annihilated.

A group of seventy-five persons, among whom were several notables of the city, such as Father Coloboet and a Spanish priest, and also an American priest, were conducted during the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 26, to the square in front of the station. The men were brutally separated from their wives and children, and after having received the most abominable treatment, and after repeated threats of being shot, they were driven in front of the German troops as far as the village of Campenhout. They were locked in the church during the night. The following day at 4 o'clock a German officer came to inform them that they might all confess themselves, and that they would be shot half an hour later. But at 4:30 o'clock they were allowed to go, and shortly afterward they were again arrested by a German brigade, which forced them to march in front of them to Malines. Answering a question on the part of one of the prisoners, a German officer told them that they were going to taste some of the Belgian grapeshot before Antwerp. At last they were liberated on Thursday afternoon at the entrance of Malines.

Further testimony shows that several thousand male inhabitants of Louvain who had escaped the shooting and burning were sent toward Germany. We do not at this writing know for what purpose.

The fire continued for several days. An eye-witness, who on Aug. 30 left Louvain, describes the state of the city as follows:

"From Weert St. Georges," he says, "I have seen nothing except burned towns and crazed villagers lifting to each comer their arms as a mark of submission. From each house was hanging a white flag, even from those that had been set on fire, and rags of them were found hanging from the ruins.

At Weert St. Georges I inquired from the inhabitants the cause of the German reprisals. They all assured me that absolutely none of the inhabitants had fired; that all arms had been previously given up, and that the Germans had taken vengeance on the population because a Belgian soldier of the Gendarme Corps had killed a Uhlan.

The population which remained in Louvain took refuge in the suburb of Heverle, where they are all piled up, the population having been driven from the town by the troops and by the fire.

The fire in Louvain began a little above the American College, and the city is entirely destroyed, with the exception of the Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) and the depot. Today the fire continued, and the Germans—far from trying to stop it—seem rather to maintain it by throwing straw into the fire, as I have myself seen in the streets behind the Hotel de Ville. The cathedral and the theatres have been destroyed and have fallen in, also the library. The town resembles an old city in ruins, in the midst of which drunken soldiers are circulating, carrying bottles of wine and liquor; the officers themselves being installed in armchairs, sitting around tables and drinking like their own men.

In the streets dead horses are decaying, horses which are already inflated, and the smell of the fire and of the decaying animals is such that it has followed me for a long time."

The commission up to this writing has been unable to obtain any information regarding the fate of the Burgomaster of Louvain, nor regarding the prominent persons taken for hostages.

Conclusions of the Commission.

By facts which have thus far been brought to its attention, the commission reaches the following conclusions:

In this war, German occupation of territory is systematically followed by (and is at times preceded by and accompanied by) acts of violence against the civil population, which acts of violence are contrary to the conventional laws of war and to the most elementary principles of humanity.

The procedure of the Germans is everywhere the same. They advance along the roads, shooting inoffensive passersby, particularly cyclists and even peasants occupied in the fields which the Germans traverse.

In the towns and villages where they stop, the Germans first of all requisition victuals and drinks which they consume to the point of drunkenness; then they begin to shoot wildly, sometimes from the interior of empty houses, declaring that the inhabitants have fired the shots. It is then that the firing scenes begin, and murder and especially pillage accompanied by acts of cold cruelty set in, acts which respect neither sex nor age. Even where they claim to know the perpetrator of the deeds which they allege, they do not content themselves with executing the culprits summarily, but take advantage of the occasions to decimate the population, to pillage all the inhabitants, and to set fire to them.

After a first massacre, somewhat at random, they shut the men into the church of the town and order all women to go back to the houses and leave the doors open during the night.

In several localities the civil population has been sent to Germany, to be compelled there, it appears, to labor in the fields, as was done in the slave days of olden times. Numerous cases are known where the inhabitants were forced to serve as guides and to make trenches for the Germans. Numerous depositions reveal that in their march, and even in their attacks, the Germans put before them civilians, men and women, in order to prevent our soldiers from firing. Other testimony proves that German detachments do not hesitate to fly either a white flag or a Red Cross flag, so as to approach our troops without being suspected. On the other hand they fire on our ambulances and ill-treat our ambulance nurses. They ill-treat and even kill our wounded. Clergymen seem to be particularly the object of their attacks. Last, but not least, we have in our possession explosive bullets left behind them by the enemy at Wechter, and we are also in receipt of medical certificates testifying that the wounds must have been inflicted by bullets of the variety mentioned above.

Documents and testimonials in support of these facts will be published.

(Signed)

GOOREMAN, President. COUNT GOBLET D'ALVIELLA.

ERNST DE BUNSWYCK, ORTS, Secretaries.

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FURTHER REPORTS.

Cabled to Royal Commission at Washington from Belgian Foreign Office. Cablegram Received Sept. 8.

You have received the reports of the commission of Aug. 25 and 31. Since then a great many localities, situated in the Vilvorde-Malines- Louvain triangle, an extremely fertile and densely populated district, have been partially pillaged and totally destroyed by fire. Their inhabitants have fled, while a number of them, among others women and children, were arrested and shot without trial, and without apparent reason, except to inspire the population with terror. This was done in Sempst, Weerde, Elewyt, Hofstade, Wespelaer, Wilsele, Bucken, Eppeghem, Houthem, Tremeloo, Tistelt, Gelrode, Herent. At Wavre, where the population was unable to pay a levy of 3,000,000 francs, fifty-six houses were set on fire. The largest part of Cortenberg is burned. To excuse these attacks the Germans allege that an army of civilians resisted them. According to trustworthy testimony, no provocation can be proved at Vise, Aerschot, Louvain, Wavre, and in other localities situated in the Malines-Louvain-Vilvorde district, where fire was set and massacres committed several days after the German occupation.

Cablegram Received Sept. 15.

Inform the Belgian Commission that the Belgian Committee on Inquiry continues to report ruins and devastations and pillage, systematically organized by German troops in the towns invested by them. The City of Termonde was destroyed without any hostile participation on the part of the civilian population. Out of 1,400 houses, only 295 remain standing, others were destroyed by fire and razed from the ground, after the Germans entered the city. Several civilians were imprisoned and executed with bayonets in the presence of their relatives and fellow-citizens. In Melle nine civilians were killed and forty-five properties destroyed, without any reason.

The re-occupation of Aerschot by the Belgian Army reveals disastrous deeds. Dwellings, which were not destroyed by fire were completely sacked and pillaged on Sept. 6 before the return of the Belgian troops. Four hundred civilians, among them thirty clergymen, were locked since Aug. 30 in the church without food, carried off, and sent to destinations unknown. Localities in the neighborhood are completely destroyed, and everywhere along the road are corpses. Women and young girls were outraged. Systematic pillage.

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A SUPPLEMENT.

Published by Belgian Commission of Inquiry on Sept. 10 to Complete Its Report of Aug. 31.

Of the two reports, dated August 28 and 31, which the Commission has had the honor of addressing to you, the former recounted more particularly the events which occurred at Aerschot and in the neighboring district, while the latter dealt with the destruction of the town of Louvain by the German troops. In order to complete its report of Aug. 31, the Commission thinks it its duty to record that after the burning of Louvain the houses which remained standing, the inhabitants of which had been forced to flee, were pillaged under the eyes of German officers. On Sept. 2 the Germans were seen setting fire to four houses.

The "Chastisement" of Louvain.

Another fact which emphasizes the ruthless character of the treatment to which the peaceable population of Louvain was subjected has also been established. On Aug. 28 a crowd of 6,000 to 8,000 persons, men, women and children, of every age and condition, was conducted under the escort of a detachment of the 162nd Regiment of German infantry to the riding school of the town, where they spent the whole night. The place of confinement was so small in proportion to the number of the occupants that all had to remain standing, and so great were their sufferings that in the course of this tragic night several women lost their reason and children of tender years died in their mothers' arms.

A communique from the German Great General Staff, the text of which is published in the Cologne Gazette of Aug. 29, declares that the "chastisement" inflicted upon Louvain was justified by the fact that a battalion of Landwehr, which had been left unsupported in the town in order to guard the communications, had been attacked by the civil population, which was under the impression that the main German Army had definitely retired. The same journal has published a narrative purporting to come from a person who was a witness of the occurrence.

The inquiry has established that this statement must be considered false. It is, in fact, ascertained that the people of Louvain, who, moreover, had been disarmed by the Communal Authority, did not provoke the Germans by any act of hostility.

The commission has resumed the inquiry begun at Brussels on the subject of the occurrences at Vise.

This place was the first Belgian town destroyed in pursuance of the system applied subsequently by the invader to so many other of our cities and villages. It is for this reason that we have been careful to determine what truth there is in the German version according to which the civilian population of Vise took part in the defense of the town or rose against the Germans after the town had been occupied.

Several witnesses now at Antwerp have been heard, notably soldiers belonging to the detachment which disputed with the Germans the passage of the Meuse, north of Liege, and a lady of German nationality, who belongs to the religious community of the Sisters of Notre Dame at Vise.

Innocent Vise.

The result is to prove that the inhabitants took no part whatever in the fighting which took place on Aug. 4 at the ford of Lixhe and at Vise itself.

Moreover, it was only in the night of Aug. 15-16 that the destruction of the town began, the signal being given by several shots fired on the evening of the 15th. The Germans asserted that the inhabitants had fired upon them, particularly from a house the owner of which gave evidence before the commission.

The Germans discovered no arms in this house, any more than they did in neighboring buildings, which, nevertheless, were burned after being pillaged, and the male occupants of which were carried off to Germany.

The evidence has brought to light the improbability of any rising among a disarmed population against a numerous German garrison at a time when the last Belgian troops had for eleven days evacuated the district, and the witnesses have declared that the first shots were fired by intoxicated German infantry soldiers at their own officers. This fact appears not to be exceptional. It is, indeed, notorious that at Maestricht, either by mistake or in consequence of a mutiny, Germans about this same time killed one another during the night at a cavalry camp which they had established at Mesch, close to the Dutch frontier in Limbourg.

It is confirmed that the town of Vise was entirely burned, with the exception, it appears, of a religious establishment which seems to have been respected, and that several citizens, both of the town and of the village of Canne, were shot.

A Deliberate System.

A large number of places situated in the triangle between Vilvorde, Malines, and Louvain—that is to say, in one of the most populous and, a few days ago, one of the most prosperous regions in Belgium—have been given over to plunder, partially or entirely destroyed by fire, their population dispersed, while the inhabitants were indiscriminately arrested and shot without trial and without apparent reason, the sole object being, it seems, to inspire terror and to compel the migration of the population.

This was notably the case in the communes or hamlets of Sempst, Weerde, Elewyt, Holstade, Wespelaer, Wilsele, Bueken, Eppeghem, Wackerzeele, Rotselaer, Werchter, Thildonck, Boortmeerbeek, Houthem, Tremeloo. In this last village only the church and the presbytery remained standing. On the few houses which have been spared may be seen the following inscriptions: "Nicht abbrennen," (do not burn,) "Bitte schonen," (please spare,) "Gute leute, nicht plundren," (good people, do not plunder.) These houses, however, were sacked afterward.

In all these villages the women who have been unable to escape are exposed to the brutal instincts of the German soldiers.

The district immediately adjoins that of Aerschot, the devastation of which was described in an earlier report. It extends at present to the northwest of Brussels, where the important towns of Grimberghen and Wolverthem have been sacked, while southeast of the capital, more than twenty-five kilometers from the scene of military operations, the town of Wavre, which was unable to furnish the exorbitant war levy of 3,000,000 francs (L120,000) imposed by the General Staff of the enemy, has seen fifty-six of its houses destroyed by fire.

We must also record that on Sept. 4 and 5 bombs were hurled from an aeroplane upon Ghent and Escloo, which are open and undefended towns.

Finally, you are aware, M. le Ministre, that the town of Malines, after it had been completely evacuated by Belgian troops on Aug. 27, was subjected for several days to a bombardment which has seriously damaged the cathedral church of St. Rombaut, the pride of this ancient city. The town of Heyst-opden-Berg was also bombarded without mercy, though there was no strategic interest to warrant such an act.

The Plea of Armed Resistance.

The Germans, in order to excuse their violence, declare that, wherever they have shot civilians or burned and pillaged towns and villages, armed resistance has been offered by the inhabitants. While there may possibly have been isolated instances of this kind, that is nothing more than occurs in all wars, and if they had confined themselves to executing the guilty persons we could only have bowed before the rigor of military law. But in no case could individual and absolutely exceptional acts of aggression justify the wholesale measures of repression which have been adopted against the persons and the property of the inhabitants of our towns and villages—the shooting, the burning, the pillaging which has proceeded pretty well everywhere in our country, not only by way of reprisals but with a refinement of cruelty. Moreover, no provocation has been proved at Vise, Marsage, Louvain, Wavre, Termonde, and other places which have been entirely and deliberately destroyed several days after being occupied, not to mention the systematic burning of isolated buildings situated in the line of march of the troops, and the shooting of the unfortunate inhabitants who fled.

The Germans have asserted in their newspapers that the Belgian Government distributed to the civil population arms which were to be used against the invaders. They add that the Catholic clergy preached a sort of holy war and incited their flock everywhere to massacre the Germans. Finally, they have declared, in order to justify the massacres of women, that women showed themselves as ferocious as the men, and went so far as to pour boiling oil from their windows upon the troops on the march.

A Tissue of Falsehoods.

All these allegations are so many falsehoods. Far from having distributed arms, the authorities everywhere on the approach of the enemy disarmed the inhabitants. The Burgomasters everywhere warned the townspeople against acts of violence, which would involve reprisals. The clergy have unceasingly preached calm to their flock. As for the women, if we except a story in a foreign newspaper, the source of which is suspected, everything shows that their only anxiety was to escape the horrors of a ruthless war.

The true motives for the atrocities the moving evidence of which we have gathered can only be, on the one hand, the desire to terrorize and demoralize the people in accordance with the inhuman theories of German military writers, and, on the other hand, the desire for plunder. A shot fired, no one knows where, or by whom, or against whom, by a drunken soldier, or an excited sentry, is enough to furnish a pretext for the sack of a whole city. Individual plunder is succeeded by war levies of a magnitude which it is impossible to satisfy and by the taking of hostages who will be shot or kept in confinement until payment of the ransom in full, according to the well-known procedure of classic brigandage. It must also be stated that in order to establish the German case all resistance offered by detachments of the regular army is laid to the account of the civilian population, and that the invader invariably avenges himself upon the civilians for the checks or even the disappointments which he suffers in the course of the campaign.

In the course of this inquiry we use only facts supported by trustworthy evidence. It should be noted that up to the present we have been able to record only a small part of the crimes committed against law, humanity, and civilization, which will constitute one of the most sinister and most revolting pages in contemporary history. If an international inquiry, like that which was conducted in the Balkans by the Carnegie Commission, could be conducted in our country, we are convinced that it would establish the truth of our assertions.

[Signed by M. Gooreman, Minister of State, President.]

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"NOT A WORD OF TRUTH."

Denial of Belgian Charges by Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington, Sept. 17.

All that I care to say about the Belgian charges is that I have officially informed the State Department in Washington that there is not one word of truth in the statements made to the President yesterday by the Belgian Commission.

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GERMANY'S VERSIONS.

Official Dispatch from Berlin to German Embassy at Washington, Aug. 29.

In consequence of a sudden attack of Belgian troops from Antwerp the German garrison at Louvain meets the enemy, leaving only one battalion of the last reserve and army service corps in Louvain. Thinking that this meant the retreat of the German troops, priests at Louvain gave arms and ammunition to the civilians, who began, at different places, suddenly to shoot out of windows at unsuspecting German troops, of whom many were wounded. A fight of twenty-five hours between German soldiers and the civil population of Louvain took place. Parts of Louvain were burning. Civilians met with arms are killed. The manifesto of the Chief General speaks of bestial cruelties committed on wounded and makes the magistrates responsible for the provocation and for providing people with arms.

The German Army protests against the news spread out by enemies about the cruelty of German warfare. The German troops had to take severe measures sometimes when provoked, the population making treacherous attacks upon them and bestial atrocities against the wounded. The responsibility for the recourse of warfare falls entirely upon the authorities of the occupied territories who gave arms to the civil population and stirred them up to take part in the war wherever the population was not hostile. The German troops never did harm people or property. The German soldier is not an incendiary nor pillager. He only fights against a hostile army. The news published in foreign papers about the Germans chasing the population means the characterizing immorality of the authors.

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Official Communication of the German General Staff.

BERLIN, Aug. 30, 1914.

The City of Loewen (Louvain) had surrendered and was given over to us by the Belgian authorities. On Monday, Aug. 24, some of our troops were shipped there and intercourse with the inhabitants was developing in a quite friendly manner.

On Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 25, our troops, hearing about an imminent Belgian sortie from Antwerp, left in that direction, the Commanding General ahead in a motor car, leaving behind only a Colonel with soldiers to protect railroad, (landsturm battalion "neuss.")

As the rest of the Commanding General's staff, with the horses, was going to follow, and collected on the market place, suddenly rifle fire opened from all the surrounding houses, all the horses being killed and five officers wounded, one of them seriously.

Simultaneously fire opened at about ten different places in town, also on some of our troops, just arrived and waiting on the square in front of the station, and on incoming military trains. A designed co-operation with the Belgian sortie from Antwerp established beyond doubt. Two priests caught in handing out ammunition to the people were shot at once in front of the station.

Street fights lasted till Wednesday, the 26th, in the afternoon, (twenty-four hours,) when stronger forces, arrived in the meantime, succeeded in getting the upper hand. Town and northern suburbs were burning at different places and by this time have probably burned down altogether.

On the part of the Belgian Government a general rising of the population against the enemy had been organized for a long time; depots of arms were found where to each gun was attached the name of the citizen to be armed.

A spontaneous rising of the people has been recognized, at the request of the smaller States at The Hague Conference, as being within the law of nations as far as weapons are carried openly and the laws of civilized warfare are being observed; but such rising was only admitted in order to fight the attacking.

In the case of Loewen the town had already surrendered and the population renounced, without any resistance, the town being occupied by our troops. Nevertheless the population attacked on all sides and with a murderous fire the occupying forces and newly arriving troops, which came in trains and automobiles, considering the hitherto peaceful attitude of the population.

Therefore there can be no question of means of defense allowed by the law of nations, neither of a warlike guet-apens, (ambush,) but only of a treacherous attempt of the civil population all along the line, and all the more to be condemned as it was apparently planned long beforehand with simultaneous attack from Antwerp, as arms were not carried openly, as women and young girls took part in the fight and blinded our wounded, sticking their eyes out.

The barbarous attitude of the Belgian population in all parts occupied by our troops has not only justified our severest measures, but forced them on us for the sake of self-preservation. The intensity of the resistance of the population is shown by the fact that in Loewen twenty-four hours were needed to break down their attack.

We ourselves regret deeply that during these fights the town of Loewen has been destroyed to a great extent. Needless to say that these consequences are not intentional on our part, but cannot be avoided in this infamous franc-tireur war being led against us.

Whoever knows the good-natured character of our troops cannot seriously pretend that they are inclined to needless or frivolous destruction.

The entire responsibility for these events rests with the Belgian Government, who with criminal frivolity have given to the Belgian people instructions contrary to law of nations and incited the resistance, and who, in spite of our repeated warnings, even after the fall of Luettich, (Liege,) have done nothing to induce them to a peaceful attitude.

* * * * *

Official German Statement Published in Berlin, Sept. 7.

Belgium is officially spreading false representations about the occurrences through which the City of Louvain was made to suffer. It is claimed that German troops, having been repulsed by Belgians making a sortie from Antwerp, were fired upon by mistake by the German garrison of Louvain and that in this way fighting occurred there. But events prove incontestably that the Germans repulsed the Belgian sortie.

During this battle before Antwerp an undoubtedly organized attack was made upon the German troops at many places in Louvain, after apparently friendly relations between the Germans and the citizens of the town had seemed for twenty-four hours to be beginning. The attack was at first against a Landwehr battalion composed of older men of quiet disposition and themselves mostly fathers of families; also against sections of the General Staff that had remained in the city, and upon moving columns of troops. The Germans had many wounded and killed. They won the upper hand, however, owing to the arrival of fresh troops by rail, who were fired upon at the station. The truth of the foregoing statements is established beyond all cavil. The City Hall was saved, but further attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful.

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LOUVAIN'S ART TREASURES.

Official Report by Superior Confidential Councilor von Falke After Inspection of Louvain, Sept. 17.

The ancient Tuchhalle, which was used for university and library purposes, was completely destroyed by fire, with the exception of the front and rear facades in Gothic and Renaissance style. The library, with its very valuable treasures of manuscripts and books, was therefore a total loss. Officials of the library who might have called attention to the saving of the imperiled treasures were not present when the adjoining houses on both sides of the hall caught fire, and no hope exists that any of the books or manuscripts, or even parts thereof, might be found in the ruins.

Apart from this—by far the worst damage—and the partial destruction by fire of the Cathedral of St. Peter no other losses of extraordinary importance took place at Louvain.

The Rathaus, or City Hall, in late Gothic style, under reconstruction for several years and on which work has not been finished yet, was saved, thanks to the orders of the commander, Major von Manteuffel, who ordered that the burning houses on the right side of the City Hall be leveled to the ground. The military removed from a cellar of the City Hall a quantity of ammunition which threatened to explode through extreme heat of the fire. Four soldiers were severely injured thereby. The Rathaus, thanks to the precautions taken by the German military, and in spite of its nearness to the conflagration, was not damaged in the interior, nor did its rich outer architecture suffer any at all.

The roof of the Cathedral of St. Peter, which was set afire by sparks from adjoining buildings, was very considerably damaged, however only to such an extent as to allow its restoration to the original condition. The roof frame is burned to the beginning of the curve of the dome. The inner ceiling has prevented the fire from spreading to the inner part of the church, containing rich art treasures. Above the choir, however, the inner ceiling gave way, thereby partially damaging the upper part of the rococo altar of stone which was without any particular artistic value.

The small sacrament house standing next to the altar—a very fine and rich stonework of late Gothic style by the builder of the City Hall, M. de Layens—has been slightly damaged by the collapse of the ceiling, which chipped off the upper phiales. These broken pieces have been collected without any substantial loss and can easily be replaced. The damage to the sacrament house can therefore be replaced. Close to the main portal of the cathedral, following the fire in the bell tower, the falling bells pierced the roof. Near the entrance in the southerly part of the church at the right side the fire did some damage to the walls and the stone balustrades in the side chapel. Notable art treasures have, however, not been damaged. Only the ventilator in the main portal, a beautiful Renaissance carving, (of wood,) was burned. An ancient glass painting of the seventeenth century remained undamaged.

The left side chapel to the north of the entrance, with its Gothic bronze baptismal and the iron arm in Gothic style, (the cover being missing for many years,) with its rococo carved altars and heavy sideboards, are untouched, as well as the organ of the year 1556 in a beautiful carved oak inclosure of the Renaissance period in the northerly centre chapel.

The paintings in the choir chapels, to which belong the most precious art treasures of Louvain, such as the works of Dierik Bouts and the Master of Flemalle, together with all movable art treasures of St. Peter's Church, were saved by Lieut. Col. of Reserves Thelemann and transferred to a hall in the Rathaus, where they are now under the supervision of the Mayor. Here can be found "The Holy Communion" by Dierik Bouts, and his "Martyrdom of the Holy Erasmus," the "Kreuzabnahme" ("Removal from the Cross") by the Master of Flemalle, and two side paintings representing the donors (apparently by another artist.) Three paintings by J.v. Rillaerz and several later paintings of lesser value are stored there.

The oaken church treasure chest containing eight silver Holy Virgins, some of them from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a Gothic incense bowl, Gothic Renaissance monstrances of silver, highly artistic and valuable ciboriums of the eighteenth century, also chandeliers, candlesticks, swinging lamps, and other church regalia have been stored in the City Hall. The report continues that an architect of Louvain has been ordered to temporarily repair the damage of the roof regardless of cost.

Thus of the old art works of the Church of St. Peter only the ventilator is destroyed; the stone structure of the building itself remains intact. Until the framework of the roof is rebuilt a temporary roof should be constructed to shelter the interior of the church. A Louvain architect has been authorized by the Mayor to do this work.

The semi-official Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, after publishing this report, says:

"The disastrous accidental fire, called forth by the revolt of the populace and then spread further through the storm wind, devastated especially the rows of houses near the railroad station, in the Bahnhofstrasse and in the centre of the city. The remaining churches lie outside of the zone touched by the fire, which comprised about one-sixth the area of the city; they were therefore not touched by the fire. Thus there remained undamaged the Church of St. Michael, the Church of St. Jacob, the Church of St. Gertrude, with all their notable art works; likewise the College du Saint Esprit, with its library."

* * * * *



Bombardment of Rheims Cathedral



* * * * *



Protest Issued to Neutral Powers from French Foreign Office, Bordeaux, Sept. 21.

Without being able to invoke even the appearance of military necessity, and for the mere pleasure of destruction, German troops have subjected the Cathedral of Rheims to a systematic and furious bombardment. At this hour the famous basilica is but a heap of ruins.

It is the duty of the Government of the republic to denounce to universal indignation this revolting act of vandalism, which, in giving over to the flames this sanctuary of history, deprives humanity of an incomparable portion of its historic patrimony.

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POPE BENEDICT SILENT.

Authorized Dispatch to The London Daily News, Sept. 27.

Although the Pope is greatly shocked and deeply grieved at the destruction of the Rheims Cathedral, which he is convinced was entirely unnecessary, and could easily have been averted, he still declines to make a public statement. I am merely authorized to state that the Pope's sorrow at the destruction of the magnificent cathedral is so great that it is impossible for him to express it.

The Pope is convinced that his sorrow is shared not only by Catholics, but by all Christians, since all believers in God mourn the destruction of His temples, which even war does not justify.

A member of the Pope's entourage explained the reasons why a public statement was not issued. He said:

The Pope's sorrow is understood, if not publicly announced. It is inconceivable that even if the destruction of the cathedral was necessary for strategical reasons the intensity of the Pope's sorrow would be lessened, but a public statement implies blame, which the Pope thinks now is inopportune and inexpedient, hence he refrains from any comment. God's mercy is undoubted; His justice inevitable. Time will show whether the criminal destruction of one of the most famous of the world's cathedrals will remain unpunished. Vengeance is God's

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ATTACK NOT WILLFUL.

Statement by Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington, Sept. 23.

It would seem from certain published reports that the destruction of this grand old edifice was the result of malice or envy. This is ridiculous. All that I have to say on this matter is that I am positive that the attack on the cathedral at Rheims was not willful.

For my part, I feel much more for the thousands of men who have sacrificed their lives, although I regret as much as any man the destruction of such a beautiful work of art.

* * * * *



"SPARE THE CATHEDRAL."

German Government Disclaimer Issued by Count von Bernstorff, Washington, Sept. 23.

The German Government states officially in contradiction of the report made by the Havas Agency that German artillery purposely destroyed important buildings at Rheims, that, on the contrary, orders were given to spare the cathedral by all means.

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THE FRENCH ARE BLAMED

Official German Dispatch from Berlin, Received in Amsterdam, Sept. 23.

The Cathedral of Rheims was not used as a mark for a systematic bombardment. During the last few days the French had strengthened the fortress to defend their present position, and consequently the German bombardment became necessary. Orders had been given to spare the cathedral.

If it should prove true that during the fire the cathedral suffered, which cannot be yet ascertained, nobody would deplore it more than ourselves, but the French who made Rheims a fortress in support of their defense line are alone to blame.

* * * * *



THE DAMAGE DONE.

Official Report Made by Whitney Warren to the French Government, Sept. 28.

On Friday, Sept. 25, I received word from the embassy that the French Government had made arrangements to take me to Rheims in order that I might make a report on general conditions and especially upon the cathedral. So at 8 o'clock the next morning I started off with two automobiles under the escort of Capt. Henri Charbonnel, accompanied by two soldiers; one automobile, conducted by Mr. Hall of New York, containing Major Morton Henry, Major Cosby, and Lieut. Boyd of the embassy.

We followed the route direct to Meaux, then to La Ferte-sur-Jouarre, from there to Chateau-Thierry, where we picked up a third automobile containing Capt. Perrin, with authority from Gen. Joffre to conduct us anywhere we chose to go, providing it was safe.