Part 25

All alteration of the articles subject to seizure is forbidden. All judicial disposition or change of ownership is interdicted, except in so far as the following paragraphs permit.

SECTION V. _Obligation to Deliver._ The delivery of the seized articles must be made at the time and places designated by the Division of Trade and Industry; it can also be made before the requisition at the Zentral-Einkaufsgesellschaft for Belgium. Upon delivery the ownership of the articles is vested in the German Military Administration.

Articles of artistic or historic value, if so recognized by the Bureau of Delivery, need not be delivered.

The Bureau of Delivery may, for unusual cause, grant exemptions from delivery.

SECTION VI. _Indemnity._ The following prices will be paid for the delivered articles:

Francs. Copper, per kilo 4 Tin 7.50 Nickel 13 Brass 3 Bronze 3 Tombac 3

In arranging the weight, seizures of nondesignated materials will not be included.

The payment will take place on the basis of the estimate made by the Bureau of Delivery. Payment will be made to the deliverer without question of his ownership.

If the deliverer refuses to accept the payment he will be given a receipt, and the determination of the indemnity in this case will follow through the Reichsentschädigungskommission according to the rules in force.

SECTION VII. _Persons and Corporations Affected by This Decree:_

1. House owners, inhabitants and heads of establishments.

2. Persons, associations, and corporations of a private or public nature whose buildings or rooms contain articles enumerated in Section 2.

To this group, furthermore, belong also State, Church, and community business and industrial establishments, including business, industrial, and office buildings in the ownership, possession, or guardianship of military and civil authorities. For buildings abandoned or not occupied by their owners or inhabitants, the communal authorities are responsible for the execution of this decree. The district commanders are authorized to furnish further instructions to the communities in this case. If dwelling houses are occupied as quarters by German military or civil authorities the execution of this order rests upon the military authorities concerned.

SECTION VIII. _Confiscation._ [Failure to comply with the provisions of the decree entails confiscation.]

SECTION IX. _Co-operation of Communities._ [Local authorities ordered to co-operate in execution of this order.]

SECTION X. _Certificates of Exemption._ [Verwaltungschef empowered to issue certificates of exemption.]

SECTION XI. _Punishment for Violations._ Any one who intentionally or through gross negligence violates the present decree or supplementary regulations will be punished with imprisonment not to exceed two years or a fine not to exceed 20,000 marks, or both. Any one who urges or incites others to violate the present decree or its supplementary regulations will be punished in like manner, unless he has incurred graver punishment under the general law. The attempt is punishable. Military courts and military authorities are empowered to try cases. (_From "German Legislation," &c., Vol. IX., pp. 398-394._)

Some industries which were not directly useful to the Germans were at first allowed to resume work in whole or in part, for the Government did not wish to cut off all sources of the enormous indemnities which it was levying upon towns and individuals. But the rival manufacturers in Germany objected angrily against this policy. Thus Dr. Goetze, head of the German Glassmakers' Union, wrote in the Wirtschaftzeitung der Zentralmächte, Nov. 10, 1916:

It has become vital to the German manufacturers of glass wares that the Belgian manufacturers should be stopped from going to neutral markets, and it must be admitted that the German Civil Administration has fully recognized the necessity of arranging this matter according to the demands of the German industry, and that it has taken suitable action. [In spite of this some Belgian shops were able to do some exporting and had affected the market price.] Measures must be taken to stop this. For this reason the factories of Central and Eastern Germany, which are most directly concerned, have secured the promulgation of an order stopping importation, transit, and exportation. * * * We must demand that the German Civil Administration of Belgium should first of all look out for the protection of the interests of the German industry.

In addition to securing the aid of the German Government in ruining Belgian industries which competed with them, German manufacturers have also been aided by the German Government in obtaining Belgian trade secrets. For example, Dr. Bronnert secured a permit from the War Ministry to visit the factory at Obourg for making artificial silk. He took full notes of all that he could learn when he visited it, on Dec. 9, 1916, and carried away designs and parts of the machinery. Dr. Bronnert is a director of a German factory for making artificial silk which competes with the Belgian factory. (_From the "Informations Belges," No. 307._)

HAGUE REGULATIONS FLOUTED

When Belgium attempted to protest against the illegal requisitions, citing The Hague regulations, they received answers such as the following, which was read to the Municipal Council and notables of the town of Halluin, June 30, 1915:

Gentlemen: What is happening is known to all these gentlemen. It is the conception and interpretation of Article 52 of The Hague Convention which has created difficulties between you and the German military authority. On which side is the right? It is not for us to discuss that, for we are not competent, and we shall never arrive at an understanding on this point. It will be the business of the diplomatists and the representatives of the various States after the war.

Today it is exclusively the interpretation of German military authority which is valid, and for that reason we intend that all that we shall need for the maintenance of our troops shall be made by the workers of the territory occupied. I can assure you that the German authority will not under any circumstances desist from demanding its rights, even if a town of 15,000 inhabitants should have to perish. The measures introduced up to the present are only a beginning, and every day severe measures will be taken until our object is obtained.

This is the last word, and it is good advice I give you tonight. Return to reason and arrange for the workers to resume work without delay; otherwise you will expose your town, your families, and your persons to the greatest misfortunes.

Today, and perhaps for a long time yet, there is for Halluin neither a prefecture nor a French Government. There is only one will, and that is the will of German authority.

_The Commandant of the Town_, SCHRANCK.

(_From Massart's "Belgians Under the German Eagle," New York, 1916, pp. 192-3._)

GERMANY'S PROFITS

The German profits from the Rathenau plan were summarized thus frankly by Herr Ganghofer in an article published in the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten Feb. 26, 1915:

For three months about four-fifths of the army's needs were supplied by the conquered country. Even now, although the exhausted sources in the land occupied by us are beginning to yield less abundantly, the conquered territory is still supplying two-thirds of the needs of the German Army in the west. Because of this, for the last four months the German Empire has saved an average of 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 marks a day. This profit which the Germans have secured by their victory is very greatly increased by another means. That is the economic war which, in accordance with the rules of international law, is being carried on against the conquered land by the exhaustion of the goods which belong to the State, which are being carried to Germany from Belgium and Northern France. These are in enormous quantities and consist of war booty, fortress supplies, grain, wool, metal, expensive hardwood, and other things, not including all private property which cannot be requisitioned. In case of necessity this private property will, of course, be secured to increase the German supply, but it will also be paid for at its full value. What Germany saves and gains by this economic war, carried on in a businesslike way, can be reckoned at a further 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 marks a day. Thus the entire profit which the German Empire has made behind its western front since the beginning of the war can be estimated at about 2,000,000,000 marks. For Germany this is a tremendous victory through the sparing and increase in her economic power; for the enemy it is a crushing defeat through the exhaustion of all of the auxiliary financial sources in those portions of his territory which have been lost to us.

Of the branches and management of this economic war I shall have more to say. Then people will learn to banish to the lumber room of the past the catch phrase about "the unpractical German." A German officer of high rank at St. Quentin characterized this happy change which has taken place in our favor in these half-serious, half-humorous words: "It is extraordinary how much a man learns! Although in reality I am an officer of the Potsdam Guard, now I am in the wool and lumber business. And successful, too!"

Governor General von Bissing's testimony on this subject, as recorded in his "Testament," will be found in full in CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE for February, 1918, pp. 330-38. Among the passages from it quoted in the pamphlet here under review is this:

The advantages which we have been able during the present war to obtain from Belgian industry, by the removal of machinery and so on, are as important as the disadvantages which our enemies have suffered through the lack of their fighting strength.

LANGHORNE'S DISPATCH

That the systematic exploitation and destruction in Flanders and Northern France were still going on in the Fall of 1917 is shown by the following dispatch from the American Chargé d'Affaires in Holland:

The Hague, Sept. 29, 1917.

SECRETARY OF STATE, WASHINGTON: A person who has recently arrived here from Ghent gives the following information as to conditions in East and West Flanders and Northern France:

The looms and machinery are being taken away from the textile mills in Roubaix and Tourcoing and sent to Germany. Such machines as cannot be removed and transported have in some instances been dynamited, and in others are being destroyed with hammers. In the neighborhood of Courtrai in Flanders all the mills have been ordered to furnish a list of their machinery. The measures which have been applied to the north of France will be carried out in Flanders. All textile fabrics have been requisitioned by the military authorities, even in small retail stores, and woolen blankets have been taken from private houses. There is also extensive requisitioning of wine. In the larger cities in the course of the past few weeks large numbers of children of from 10 to 15 years have been brought in for office work. There is a rapid increase in the number of women brought in for this purpose. A marked animation was observed in the Etappen inspection at Ghent last week. It is believed that at the meeting of the inspection something unusual was being discussed.

LANGHORNE, _Charge d' Affaires._

DESTRUCTION STILL GOING ON

That the Rathenau plan is still wringing the remnants of industrial supplies from Belgium in 1918 is shown by documents still later than those printed in the brochure just reviewed. In January linen and mattresses were being taken from hotels, boarding houses, and convents all over Belgium. The inhabitants were forbidden by law to have any wool in their possession, but were offered a substitute made of seaweed. The large electrical plant at Antwerp known as l'Escaut was stripped of its machinery, which was transferred to a German plant. Belgian kitchens did not escape. The huge copper pans and kettles, the glory of Belgian housewives, had to go to Germany with the bright jars and jugs of the milkmaids. Nearly every conceivable brass, copper, and bronze object had been requisitioned by that time.

The Belgian Government sent out a statement on Feb. 17, 1918, containing these passages:

The German authorities then aggravated the evils of industrial stoppage by forbidding public works and commandeering the factories and metals and leather for military purposes. After this they instituted the barbarous system of deporting workmen to perform forced labor in Germany, a system which they had to interrupt officially, after some months, because it proved revolting to the conscience of mankind, but only to substitute for it immediately the forced labor of the civilian population, in work of military value, by the order of the military authorities. This system is still being cruelly maintained in the zones lying back of the fighting line in the provinces of East and West Flanders, Hainault, Namur, and Luxemburg.

Meanwhile, the commandeering has become general, and affects both natural and manufactured products and also tools, motors, and means of transportation, whether mechanical or animal. Finally, fiscal and administrative measures have been taken to close the last remaining outlets for Belgian products into neutral countries.

These facts are incontestable. They are proved by many rules and regulations officially published by the German authorities.

At present the raid upon the last economic resources of occupied Belgium has been carried on to such an extent that they are methodically taking away all the machinery from the factories, which they themselves have made idle, in some cases to set it up again in Germany, in other cases, to break it up and use it for grapeshot.

The purpose of this entire system of destruction is double: First, to supply deficiencies in German industry; secondly, to put an end to Belgian competition and later to subject Belgian industry to that of Germany when the time comes for refitting the factories with machinery after the war.

The proofs collected by the Belgian Government in support of this statement are conclusive. It is significant that in general the task of systematically stripping Belgian factories was intrusted to German manufacturers who were the direct competitors of the Belgian owners. Some of them have taken advantage of their official positions to steal secrets of manufacturing processes, for example, at the artificial silk shops of Obourg, and personal methods of production and sale.

And as to the fact that Germany is destroying the factories for a military reason without any regard for the economic needs of Belgium or for the rights of nations, it is sufficient to cite the following passages from a semi-official note that appeared in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 392, of Dec. 18, 1917, in which Germany distinctly pleads guilty:

"All measures taken in Belgium are inspired by military necessity.

"The exploitation, under military control, of Belgian factories in order to repair locomotives and automobiles, and also to obtain material of war for the front, is carried out for the purpose of relieving the strain on German industry and economizing transportation. It has become necessary to strip the Belgian factories of their machinery and other fittings, because all German industry is busy filling orders for material of war. * * * By relieving the home market from the necessity of enlarging our own factories we are accelerating the production of munitions and other products. * * * In consequence of the intense activity of all German industry our machinery and other equipment is tremendously overworked, and must from time to time be partly replaced by new machines, while, furthermore, we must be able to furnish spare parts rapidly unless we wish to see our output of munitions diminish. The machinery and equipment required for these purposes are evidently brought from Belgian factories. The destruction of whole factories for the production of grapeshot is effected in order to maintain at its present level the supply of iron and steel in Germany, or, if possible, to raise it. * * * It is not only possible, but even evident, that, in view of all the steps taken by the military authorities, the question of keeping up work in some of the factories of the occupied country must be subordinated to considerations tending to spare the lives of German soldiers and thus protect our national power."

[Illustration: Trafalgar Square, London, as it appears after three and a half years of war

(© Western Newspaper Union)]

[Illustration: A typical scene in Flanders today, with all signs of civilization completely obliterated

(_International Film Service_)]

This record of the deliberate crippling of Belgian industries was brought up to March 6, 1918, by an official dispatch to the United States Government, quoting the statement of Belgian refugees to the effect that dynamite was being used to destroy machines and equipment in factories in the Mons district. Rails of tramways were being taken up, and in some cities they were entirely destroyed. Meanwhile, deportation of men, and even of children 13 years old, was proceeding, several hundred boys between the ages of 13 and 15 being taken from Mons alone.

Spoliation of Belgian Churches

Cardinal Mercier's Protest

Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, issued the following letter to the clergy and people of his diocese on March 2, 1918:

_My Very Dear Brethren:_

The painful tidings, announced semi-officially on Feb. 8, by the occupying power, have been confirmed. The bulletin of laws and edicts, dated Feb. 21, requires an inventory of the bells and organs of our churches. Informed by experience, we need not delude ourselves; the inventory of today is the signal for the requisition of tomorrow.

The repeated protests of the Sovereign Pontiff, our appeal to the Chancellor of the Empire, appear thus to have been in vain.

Your Christian hearts will bleed. At a time when we are in such need of comfort, a veil of mourning will descend upon our land, covering like a shroud our every day. It is to be for Catholic Belgium an interminable Way of the Cross.

It is true, is it not, dear brethren, that we should have borne this sorrow, added to so many others, if it had concerned ourselves alone, but this time the rights of God, of our Saviour, Jesus, the freedom of the Church and of her heritage are to be sacrificed to what is called necessity, that is, to the military need of our enemies.

"This term, liberty of the Church, rings harshly on the ears of politicians," writes the great Dom Gueranger. They immediately discern therein the signs of a conspiracy. Now there is no thought in our minds either of conspiracy or of revolt, but of the indefeasible affirmation of the rights granted to His Immaculate Spouse by our Saviour, Jesus.

The freedom of the Church lies in her complete independence with regard to all secular powers, not alone in her teachings of the Word, in the administering of the sacraments, in the untrammeled relations between all ranks of her Divine hierarchy, but also in the publishing and applying of her disciplinary decrees--in the conservation and administration of her temporal heritage.

"Nothing in the world is dearer to God than this liberty of His Church," says St. Anselm.

The Apostolic See, through the medium of Pope Pius VIII., wrote on June 30, 1830, to the Bishops of the Rhine Province: "It is in virtue of a Divine order that the Church, spotless spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, Jesus Christ, is free and subject to no earthly dominion."

"This freedom of the Church," continues Dom Gueranger, "is the bulwark of the very sanctuary, hence, the shepherd, sentinel of Israel, should not wait until the enemy has entered into the fold to sound the cry of alarm. The duty of protecting his flock begins for him at the moment of the enemy's siege of his outposts, upon whose safety depends the police of the entire city."

In the execution of this duty of our pastoral office we protest, dear brethren, against the injury which the forcible seizure of church property will cause to the liberty of our mother, the Holy Church.

We add that the removal of the bells without the consent of the religious authorities and despite their protests will be a sacrilege.

The bell is, in fact, a sacred object its function is sacred. It is a consecrated object; that is to say, it is devoted irrevocably to Divine service. It has been not only blessed but anointed by the Bishop with the holy oil and the holy chrism, just as you were anointed and consecrated at holy baptism; just as anointed and consecrated as the priest's hands which are to touch the consecrated wafer.

The function of the bell is holy. The bell is sanctified by the Holy Ghost, says the liturgy, sanctificetur a Spiritu Sancto, to the end that, in its voice, the faithful shall recognize the voice of the Church calling her children to hasten to her breast.

It announced your initiation into Christian life, your confirmation, your first communion. It announced, dear parents, your Christian marriage; it weeps for the dead; thrice daily it marks the mystery of the Incarnation; it recalls the immolation of the Lamb of God on the altar of sacrifice; it sings the joys of Sabbath rest, the cheer of our festivals of Christmas, of Easter, of Pentecost. Her prayers are associated with all the events and all the great memories, happy or unhappy, of the fatherland.

Yes, the seizure of our bells will be a profanation; whosoever assists in it will lend the hand to a sacrilege.

The Catholic Bishops of Germany and Austria will not deny these principles. If their patriotism has wrung from them concessions which must have cost their religious spirit dear, patriotism with us confirms on the contrary the law of resistance. We would be betraying the Church and the fatherland were we so cowardly as to permit without a public act of reprobation the taking away of metal to be converted by the enemy into engines of destruction, destined to carry death into the ranks of the heroes who are sacrificing themselves for us.

The authorities, strangers to our beliefs, will not be greatly moved, I fear, by the protest, however worthy of respect, of our religious consciences, but at least they should remember their given word and not tear up a juridical code which their believers have elaborated with us and promulgated. Morality has force of law for Governments as for individuals.

On Oct. 18, 1907, the representatives of forty-four Governments gathered together at The Hague, drew up a convention concerning laws and customs of war on land.

They were assembled, they proclaimed unanimously, for a double purpose--in the first place to safeguard peace and prevent armed conflicts between nations; and, in the second place, in the extreme hypothesis of an appeal to arms, to serve, nevertheless, the interests of humanity and the progressive demands of civilization by restraining, as much as possible, the rigors of war.

To this convention there was annexed a set of regulations which, the general tenor of its clauses having been examined a first and a second time, respectively, during the peace conferences held in 1874 at Brussels and in 1899 at The Hague, was submitted a third time, in 1907, to careful study at the second conference at The Hague and signed by the plenipotentiaries of all the great powers.

The first signer of this code of international law in wartime was Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, delegated by his Majesty, the German Emperor, King of Prussia.

Articles 52 and 46 of the regulations annexed to the convention are formulated as follows:

"Article 52. Neither requisitions in kind nor service can be demanded from communes or inhabitants, except for the necessities of the army of occupation."

"Article 46. Family honor and rights, individual life and private property, as well as religious convictions and worship, must be respected."

Evidently bells and organs are not necessary to supply the needs of the army of occupation, they lie in the domain of private property, are destined for the exercise of Catholic worship.