German Atrocities. A Record of Shameless Deeds

Screams of Dying Women.

“As I arrived on the scene,” says a Daily Telegraph correspondent, “a woman tottered out covered with lime dust, crying out, ‘Docteur, docteur!’ Beneath the ruins of the house two Civic Guards were dead. Within the house pitiful screams came from three girls who had been roused from sleep by receiving dreadful wounds on the face and body. One girl had half her face blown away; the two others were seriously wounded on the face. Evidently their bodies had been somewhat protected by the bed-clothes.”

The Zeppelin at the time of this appalling incident was almost stationary in the sky, some seven hundred feet from the ground. Needless to say, a panic at once ensued, and thousands of people took refuge in their cellars, while others dashed out into the streets in their night attire. Time after time the earth trembled as the terrible bombs fell, causing devastation everywhere, the spots being signalled, it is said, from the roofs of houses occupied by prominent Germans, of whom there was a large colony in Antwerp. Truly it was a night of terror, for the populace through the hours of tension did not know from one moment to another that they might not be blown to atoms. Ten bombs struck ten different streets. One which fell in the Rue des Navets made a hole six feet six inches in diameter and twenty-two inches deep. It was probably filled with shot, for all the houses in the vicinity were riddled by bullets, and presented the appearance of having been fired upon, all the doors and windows being broken and the ceilings having fallen in.

“The best protection of undefended cities against German Zeppelins is that a repetition of the Antwerp occurrence will be greeted with execration by the whole civilized world.” —Times.

Enormous Damage to Property.

It was calculated that about nine hundred houses were more or less damaged and about sixty houses destroyed. In a single house four persons were found dead. Indeed, in one room two people had been blown to atoms. Three men were walking in the Rue de la Corne, when one of the bombs fell. One was killed and the other two mortally wounded, while another passer-by had his leg blown off. All the bombs, which created a terrific explosion, were found to have been in a steel cover one and a half inches thick and about a foot in diameter. The Zeppelin was, of course, fired upon from the forts with guns and rifles, but having launched its deadly missiles it moved off into the darkness.

A subsequent examination of the projectiles thrown showed that they had a double covering, the two covers being joined together by mushroom-shaped rivets, which act the part of bullets, and must cause horrible injuries, as the two covers or envelopes are torn to fragments by the explosive.

“If Germany had fought fairly we should have retained the respect for her which we had in the past; but her barbarous method of conducting war by sea and land has made all the nations of the Old World and the New regard her as the enemy of the human race.”

– Military Correspondent of The Times.

A Miraculous Escape.

The story of that terrible night would not, however, be complete without a reference to the miraculous escape of M. Vamberg, a cigarette-maker. Had he slept in the bed he usually occupied, he would now be a dead man. But for some reason he chose another bed in another room, his wife being absent in the country, and so saved his life. The bed which Mme. Vamberg occupies when at home was crushed by the falling roof. More than that, having been aroused by the sound of the cannon, and having jumped out of bed and rushed down to the first floor, M. Vamberg found himself suddenly hanging from the window, the house having fallen about his ears. He was rescued from this position by the firemen.

More Cowardly Raids.

But, as though not satisfied with the success of the first attempt, the Germans determined upon another dastardly raid. A few nights after the first outrage a Zeppelin again appeared over the city in the dead of night. Ten bombs were discharged, and damaged a number of houses. No lives were lost, however. A boy of fifteen had his right arm injured by a flying splinter, while his father and sister and one or two others were slightly injured. A graphic description of the raid is given by the Daily Telegraph correspondent. “I was awakened,” he relates, “by the rattle of rifle-fire from neighbouring roofs and the hideous crash of exploding bombs. Hurriedly descending into the Place Verte, I was just in time to see an airship disappearing southward. She was at a tremendous height, but could be clearly seen in the rays of the searchlight. There was an incessant rattle of shots from rifles and machine guns from the darkened town, and shrapnel could be seen exploding like meteorites in the trail of the flying marauder. All round the Place Verte from the roadway, and from points of vantage on the high buildings, spurts of flame indicated the efforts of the firers to bring down the hated ship. Immediately the searchlights fixed upon her the Zeppelin made off at great speed.”

Worse than the Boxers.

Surgeon-Major Seaman, of the United States Army Reserve Corps, who helped to tend the wounded, was so indignant with these cowardly tactics on the part of the Germans that he communicated with his Government, asking it to join at once in exacting reparation from Germany for such infamies. He declared that in all his eight campaigns, of which one was against the Boxers in China, he had never seen an act of war so ruthless, so horrible, as the sight of three young girls mutilated and defaced, and of the dead young mother, all attacked in their beds at night. And with him the civilized world will agree.

Other airship and aeroplane raids were made on Antwerp and also upon Paris, but fortunately none has been attended with either great loss of life or destruction of property. But that such should be the case affords no excuse for crimes which rank among the greatest committed by the ruthless German army.

“At this moment the words ‘German culture’ are synonymous for rapine, murder, and hideous cruelty. This is a state of things which ought to be grasped by the people of Germany.”

– From the Morning Post.

XVII

“Against ordinary though severe reprisals upon civilians who have fired upon the German troops we have not a word to utter; but outrage, mutilation, burning alive, and so forth are not reprisals; they are atrocities which make the name of Germany stink in the nostrils of mankind. It is hard to believe that a civilized nation should have so reverted to savagery, but unfortunately the facts admit of no dispute.” – From the Globe.

“The Hussar-like Stroke.”

The laying of mines in neutral waters in contravention of the rules by which civilized warfare was to be conducted was in itself a most dastardly act. To place contact mines in the open sea and then to skulk behind them was declared by the Kaiser’s wireless press bureau to be a “Hussar-like stroke.” The Kaiser himself referred with satisfaction to the fact that his navy had sown the North Sea with death. The laying of mines is only admissible for the purpose of guarding estuaries and harbours, and by The Hague Convention it was specifically laid down that neutral waters must not be mined. In consequence of this cruel action of the enemy many crews of British and Danish trawlers, the hard toilers of the sea, were sent to their deaths, while the Wilson liner Runo, on a voyage to Archangel, and His Majesty’s ships Amphion and Speedy were sent to the bottom with great loss of life. In addition, several trawlers, while engaged in mine-sweeping operations, were also destroyed. All craft and cunning in naval warfare was, of course, admissible, including the alteration and extinguishing of lights, the removal of landmarks and buoys, and the disguising of warships as merchantmen; but to scatter death indiscriminately along a neutral waterway was a stab-in-the-back method worthy, indeed, of the pinchbeck Napoleon.

Such is the case against the German Soldier – the terrible and overwhelming record which makes the very heart sick with horror, and the blood run chill. One of our great poets called upon the human race to “move upward, working out the beast, and let the ape and tiger die.” Apes and tigers are noble creatures beside the living apostle of German “culture.” He has built himself a monument upon the heights of infamy, a monument from which, through all the ages yet to come, every honest man will turn away in loathing and disgust.

JOHN RUSKIN’S words: —

“For blessing is only for the meek and merciful, and a German cannot be either; he does not understand even the meaning of the words … but a German, selfish in the purest states of virtue and morality … but no quantity of learning ever makes a German modest…

“Accordingly, when the Germans get command of Lombardy, they bombard Venice, steal her pictures (which they can’t understand a single touch of), and entirely ruin the country, morally and physically, leaving behind them misery, vice, and intense hatred of themselves, wherever their accursed feet have trodden. They do precisely the same thing by France – crush her, rob her, leave her in misery of rage and shame, and return home, smacking their lips, and singing Te Deums.” —Fors Clavigera.

THE DAYBy THE “BATH RAILWAY POET”

[This very striking poem, which we reproduce below by kind permission of the Daily Express, is published in leaflet form at a halfpenny, for the benefit of the National Relief Fund. The author is Mr. Henry Chappell, a railway porter at Bath. Mr. Chappell is known to his comrades as the “Bath Railway Poet.” The Express acclaims the author of “The Day” as a national poet – an opinion which is very largely shared by the general Press.]

YOU boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day,And now the Day has come.Blasphemer, braggart, and coward all,Little you reck of the numbing ball,The blasting shell, or the “white arm’s” fall,As they speed poor humans home.You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day,And woke the Day’s red spleen.Monster, who asked God’s aid Divine,Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine;Not all the waters of the RhineCan wash thy foul hands clean.You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day;Watch how the Day will go.Slayer of age and youth and primes(Defenceless slain for never a crime),Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime,False friend and cowardly foe.You have sown for the Day, you have grown for the Day;Yours is the harvest red.Can you hear the groans and the awful cries?Can you see the heap of slain that lies,And sightless turned to the flame-split skies,The glassy eyes of the dead?You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the DayThat lit the awful flame.’Tis nothing to you that hill and plainYield sheaves of dead men amid the grain;That widows mourn for their loved ones slain,And mothers curse thy name.But after the Day there’s a price to payFor the sleepers under the sod,And He you have mocked for many a day —Listen and hear what He has to say:“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”What can you say to God?