Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
THE FATHERLAND 7
ployed for thirty years by the Red Star Line and been
decorated by King Albert was persecuted like every one
else, despite the fact that two of his sons were fighting
in the Belgian army.
“The German school, the best school in Antwerp,
was the special object of Flemish vengeance, as also
the German Seamen’s Home. Every window was
smashed, and the work of destruction only ceased when
the two buildings were turned into hospitals and the
Red Cross flag hoisted over their roof.
“Countless Germans with their families were thrown
into prison, and a young Russian woman who had been‘
mistaken for a. German and had also been locked up,
told me of harrowing scenes of small, half-naked chil-
dren, weeping, starving and sick on the naked stones of
the Prison."
BELGIAN, FRENCH VS. GERMAN GRUELTY.
N view of the circumstance of Belgian’s reported pro-
test against “German Cruelty” to the American
Government at Washington, the following letter of a
German surgeon attached to the Red Cross, received in
New York last week, is peculiarly timely:
“At the hands of men, women and half-grown boys our
"OOPS have experienced here all the horrors usually attri-
buted to savages. Belgian non-combatants are blazing away
31 everything German from every house and every thicket
with perfectly fanatical hatred. During the very first days
We had a number of dead and wounded from assaults by
civilians, women as well as men. Day before yesterday a
Gcrman had his throat cut from ear to ear in bed during the
night; another house displayed the red Cross flag; five men
W979 quartered there. The next day all fire were found
assassinated. '
“Yesterday morning we found in a village in front of
Verviers a single soldier, his hands tied behind his back
with both eyes gouged out. A motor car from Liel;e.d8Y be-
"”e yesterday stopped in a village; a young Woman Stepped
UP close to the chauffeur, suddenly put a pistol to his head
and killed him. Of course, such acts are promptly fol-
1"‘Ved by the execution of the criminals, but neither this’
“W the burning of their houses deters the inhabitants. Of
the wounded under my care several had wounds 1 001114 110‘
account for. . . . . (Description omitted because un-
Printable). Two of my patients have birdshot each in one
We; a serious wound of the wrist was inflicted while the
"9093 in passing a hedge in the dark were fired upon by a
C0ncealed sniper at such short range that the powder marks
were left on the skin. Another had his right arm so badly
lacerated with birdshot fired at close range in the dark that
is arm had to be immediately amputated. .
At Gemmenich, an hour’s tramp from Aix la Chapelle, an
automobile sanitary column was fired upon in ‘"355 ‘mm
‘he Snipers by the villagers last Wednesday. The escort 03
hllssars was too weak, but two of the miscreants were seized
and shot, and the house from which most of the shots were
“Ted was burned, The Red Cross on our sleeves and
“E005 affords the surgeons no protection. In Several
engagements it happened that wounded men carried
m“ 0f the firing lines, and others being conveyed "3 the Held
“$90315 in the rear,- were butchered in cold blood b)’ the
Peasants from the villages. In removing the obstructions
‘mm a barred tunnel many Germans were seriously in-
jured. Women who come from all directions threw stones
at the wounded men, and jeered them. A gentleman from
Aix la Chapelle, driving with a military chauffeur through a
Belgian frontier village, Gemmenich, while compelled to
alight just beyond the place, was killed by a shot from a
near-by hedge.
That is the way the civilized people of Belgium are con-
ducting the war. Can a man be held accountable if his
blood boils and his mind is robbed of the power of reflection
by such deeds? Yet the Belgians profess surprise that
we should summarily proceed against civilians who give
rise to suspicion.
RE the French any less blood-thirsty than the Bel-
gians in their furious assaults on helpless Ger-
mans? if any one thinks so let him read the following"
from the new York American of August 25th: ,
“it will never be known how many Germans. were killed
in Paris during the three-day riots of July 30 and 31 and
August 1. The crimes of that period, could they but be-
come known, would shame the civilized world.”
This statement was made yesterday by Henry M. Ziegler,
a Cincinnati millionaire, who has made his home in Paris
for the last five years, but fled with the American refugees
and returned on the steamship La France. Describing the
scenes in Paris during the three days of rioting before mar- .
tial law was declared, Mr. Ziegler said:
“It was unsafe for any foreigner, particularly one who
could not speak French, to go on the streets. For a Ger-
man it was little short of suicidal.
“l saw one German driving down a boulevard with a
woman in a cab. How the mob ieamed he was a German I
do not know, but they upset the cab. The woman fainted and
was trampled on, but some one finally dragged her away.
“The man made a gallant fight for his life. With his
back to the overturned cab he fought desperately for sev-
eral minutes, and he was a big fellow, too He struck out,.
with his fists, right and left, and bowled 'iis assailants over
as fast as they got within reach. But he was finally over-
powered and trampled and stabbed to death by the mob.
“Every shop over which there appeared a Gennan name
was wrecked. ‘At frequent points along the boulevards
were shops with the windows broken and the interior look-
ing as though a bomb hadbeen exploded there. in other
quarters of the city even buildings were torn down. i
“l know a family that had a German cook a woman who
had been with them many years. The sons went off to
war with the first army, but that was not guarantee of pro.
tection for the woman. Some one toldthe mob, and my
friends had to hide the ‘old woman in the cellar under a
pile of boxes to save her life. .
“l was on the street one evening with a friend. We saw
the mob chasing a German. He almost got away but was
‘caught in an alley. My friend recognized one of his em.
ployees in theumob. The next day he told me‘ his employee
had boasted that they not only got the German we saw
them after but three others. All were stabbed to death after
being beaten into insensibility. V
“One of the most noticeable things in Paris are the elee-
tric signs of ‘Maggi’ the big milk distributor. He has up-
wards of 100 milk depots in Paris, and is worth between
$5,000,000 and 6,000,000. He is a German, but has lived
in Paris for twenty years or more.
“The mob wrecked his electric signs and milk depots
and then some one started the report that he had poisoned
the milk and Was going to kill all his customers. The mob
went hunting for him, but he escaped.”