Part 7
On October 19th we marched through Roulers, which had previously been captured by Infantry Regiment No. 233. Our company formed the head of the column; the entire town was badly injured by artillery fire, and there was only one street which was fairly intact. From the houses of this street shots were fired at us, coming more especially from the cellar windows. My comrade, Kremst of Coblenz, fell in front of me, and two other comrades were slightly wounded. When we searched the houses we found six to eight francs-tireurs and a number of revolvers. A large quantity of ammunition was indubitably stored in the houses, for when the houses were set on fire a continuous series of explosions occurred.
On October 22nd I arrived at a field hospital in Roulers. There I heard four or five shots strike the hospital; a wounded Jäger, who was lying on a stretcher in front of the hospital, was shot dead by francs-tireurs.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: FRANZ BREIDBACH. Signed: LANDSBERG. Signed: VELTMAN.
App. 50.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Ersatzreservist Gottfried Hilberath, Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 236.
Proceedings at Werne in the hospital, October 31st, 1914.
Königliches Amtsgericht, Langendreer.
Present: Magistrate HIDDING, as Judge. District Court Assistant, HARRIES, Secretary.
On the suggestion of the authorities of the hospital at Werne, the above-mentioned Court Commission visited the hospital in order to examine a sick soldier.
There was brought before them Gottfried Hilberath, of 60 Moselstrasse, Cologne, who, after being warned against the giving of a false oath, was examined as follows:
As to Person: My name is Gottfried Hilberath; hotel waiter; born at Neuenahr, August 12th, 1893; Catholic; Ersatzreservist, Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 236, 3rd Battalion, 12th Company.
As to Case: Our regiment marched off on September 13th, 1914. We were conveyed by rail from our manoeuvre ground. In the middle of October 1914 our detachment lay in the neighbourhood of the Belgian village of Deynze, near which we had to throw up trenches. During the night we occupied quarters in the town. At dawn we again entered the trenches. On the evening of October 25th we brought the wounded into the field hospital established in a village. At Deynze, with ten to fifteen comrades, we entered a house which was lighted, and found a number of our men already there, sitting in the room and drinking coffee. The housewife made coffee for the party of soldiers, as well as for ourselves, who came in afterwards. The husband was busily occupied with his grocery shop. All the soldiers spent the night in the house. That same evening about eight of our men filled their field flasks with coffee made by the woman. In the evening some bought themselves sugar in the shop for 10 centimes. I did this myself, and put it into my field flask, like the others. The sugar was ready for use in little packets. It struck me that a sticky mass adhered to the paper, which looked like gum-arabic. The sugar was made up in twisted pieces of paper, which were not stuck together and were apparently filled by the shopkeeper.
On the following day, some ten minutes after partaking of the coffee in the trenches, I became unconscious, and must have remained in this condition about five hours. Two cyclists brought me through the village of Deynze to the field hospital at West-Roosebeck. Here I heard that the other comrades too had been poisoned, and also that some of them were already dead. What happened to the grocer and his wife in consequence of this, I do not know.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: GOTTFRIED HILBERATH.
The examined witness, after once more being warned against the giving of false evidence, thereupon took the oath.
Proceedings concluded.
Signed: HIDDING. Signed: HARRIES.
App. 51.
Court of the Belgian Government-General.
BRUSSELS, _December 14th, 1915_.
Present: President of the Court, SÄGER. Military Court Assistant, DUNVE, as Secretary. Interpreter FULLES of the Military Court of the Province of Brabant, once for all put on oath.
There appeared as witness the merchant, Heinrich Bloch, of 35 Rue du Marché, Brussels, who made the following statements:
As to Person: My name is as given above. I am 68 years old, of the Jewish faith; a citizen of Baden.
As to Case: Up to 6 a.m. on August 20th, 1914, I was in Brussels. In the Brussels newspaper there was published a demand that weapons should be given up. On August 19th, 1914, I sent my man-servant to the Commissariat, Rue Croisate, with a revolver which he was to hand in. After a brief interval he returned and used these exact words, "One must not believe everything one reads in the newspapers" ("Il ne faut pas croire tout qu'on lit dans les journeaux").
The proclamations were officially issued by the Burgomeister. That the Commissaire took us to be Belgians, I have no reason to believe. The Commissaire who had refrained from taking the revolver from my man-servant fell in Belgium, when and where I cannot say.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: H. BLOCH.
There appeared further as witness, the man-servant Jules Brontine, 38 years of age, Catholic, a Belgian citizen, who made the following statement:
I can only state what Herr Bloch has already made known. He sent me on August 19th to the police station, in order to surrender his revolver. The Commissaire of Police, to whom I handed the weapon, sent me off with the words, "One must not believe everything one reads in the newspapers." Thereupon, I returned home again with the revolver. I said that the weapon belonged to Herr Bloch, who, as a German, was personally known to the Commissaire of Police. I assumed that the demand in the newspapers only referred to guns and swords.
Read over in French, approved, signed.
Signed: J. BRONTINE.
The witnesses Brontine and Bloch were sworn according to regulations.
Proceedings concluded.
Signed: SÄGER. Signed: DUNVE.
App. 52.
REPORT of Lieutenant von Manstein, commanding 1st Squadron, Dragoon Regiment No. 4.
_August 27th, 1914._
On August 9th the patrol, while evading two French squadrons in the direction of Behême, was fired upon by inhabitants of this village.
A communication dated August 8th was seized, in which the Chief of the Gardes Forestiers writes to the Burgomeister that Gendarmes and Verderers were instructed to organise the inhabitants for armed resistance. An inhabitant of Chiny informed me on August 10th, in answer to my questions--he took me for a Frenchman or an Englishman--that on the previous day the Garde Civile had been in the village and carefully instructed the inhabitants in the handling of weapons and the defence of the village.
On August 24th the inhabitants of Peissant had placed strong barricades across all the entrances to the village, shut the doors and window-shutters of every house, and furnished them with loopholes. They refused to open me a passage through, because they knew I wanted to avoid a company of English infantry, which was quite close to the village, and had with me only a single dispatch rider. During the night they then divulged to the English artillery the names of the farms occupied by the 1st Squadron, Uhlan Regiment No. 1, and the 1st Squadron, Dragoon Regiment No. 4, and also the houses in which our valuable goods had been stored, so that the next morning the English artillery brought these farms and houses under shell-fire.
Signed: VON MANSTEIN, Lieutenant, Uhlan Regiment No. 10, commanding 1st Squadron, Dragoon Regiment No. 4.
App. 53.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Lieutenant of Reserve Bohme, Infantry Regiment No. 165.
Court of the 7th Infantry Division, Cherisy.
Present: President of the Court, Dr. WELT. Secretary, LORENZ, as Recorder of the Court.
_November 25th, 1914._
There appeared as witness Lieutenant of Reserve Bohme, Infantry Regiment No. 165, who, after the importance of the oath had been pointed out to him, was examined as follows:
When I was quartered at Retinne, an officer of the Rhine Regiment came to me, and showed to myself and other officers a Bond, which, according to his account, had been found in the Burgomeister's office, in a neighbouring village. The Bond was typewritten, and contained the demand issued by the Belgian Government to the populace, that they should carry on armed resistance for payment. A fixed sum of money was mentioned in the Bond. The Bond was stamped with an official seal. The Bond was seen at the time by my comrades Pusch and Kurt Wagner, as well as by Lieutenant of Research Bloch, Infantry Regiment No. 27, and Lieutenant Brohm, Jäger Battalion No. 4.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: BOHME.
Proceedings concluded.
Signed: Dr. WELT. Signed: LORENZ.
App. 54.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Reservist Richard Weise, Fusilier Regiment No. 36.
BLANKENBURG (HARZ), _November 13th, 1914_.
Herzogliches Amtsgericht.
Present: Oberamtsrichter Dr. SCHILLING, Judge. Gerichtsobersecretär HORNIG, Secretary.
There appeared as witness the reservist Richard Weise, 6th Company, Fusilier Regiment No. 36, born March 29th, 1890, at Hohenmölsen, District of Weissenfels, at present in the hospital of this place.
There were read over to him the following statements made by 1st Lieutenant Reyner on October 31st, 1914:
"In the early days of August, it may have been the middle of the month, I was on officer-patrol duty near the Belgian frontier, with orders to occupy a bridge. A brief engagement took place, and after an hour and a half the patrol retired. I, with some fusiliers, received some special orders, and for that reason left the patrol.
"During our retirement over a meadow we noticed in a street-trench, near a group of houses, several civilians who remained there. When we approached nearer, we saw lying in the trench a German soldier whose eyes had both been cut out. Thereupon we attacked the civilians, who ran off into the adjacent houses, and from these opened fire upon us. What became of the cruelly treated soldier I cannot say."
The witness thereupon declared: This statement is correct. I adopt it also as my own statement to-day, and make the following addition to it. I did not see the three or four civilians (who, in fear of us, ran away from the wounded German soldier into the adjacent houses) put out the eyes of the soldier. That these men, however, were guilty is clear from the fact that our wounded German comrade implored us, "Take me with you; they have just put out my eyes."
The attention of the witness was then called to the importance of the oath, and he accordingly gave his sworn testimony.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: RICHARD WEISE. Signed: Dr. SCHILLING. Signed: R. HORNIG.
App. 55.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of the Reservists, Gustav Voigt, Fritz Marks, and Heinrich Hartmann, Infantry Regiment No. 165.
Proceedings at Quedlinburg, in the Reserve Hospital.
Present: President of the Court, KEIL. Secretary, FAHLBERG.
SCHILLING, _November 11th, 1914_.
In the Reserve Hospital at Schilling, to which the above-mentioned Court officials had proceeded, the following examinations took place after the witnesses had been individually warned as to the importance of the oath:
1. Reservist Gustav Voigt.
As to Person: My name is Gustav Voigt. I am 24 years old; Protestant; Reservist of the 6th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 165.
As to Case: On the morning of August 6th found myself with seven comrades separated from my detachment. In order to get cover we had to creep through the gardens of a village lying just beyond Herve in Belgium. We suddenly saw five Belgian soldiers, who held up their arms and offered to surrender. They called to us, and when we reached them we noticed that they had with them two German soldiers of the 10th Hussars in handcuffs. One of them brought to our notice that a third hussar was hanging dead in the tree. We observed that the ears and nose of the corpse had been cut off. The two hussars told us also that the five Belgians, who were there, had hung and mutilated their comrade. The Belgians were just on the point of slaughtering or mutilating these two also, had we not arrived on the scene. We disarmed the Belgians, took them prisoners, and handed them over to a party of five Uhlans, who were already taking several Belgian prisoners away with them. We, too, then joined the Uhlans in order to regain our company, and, while passing through the village, were fired at from the cellars and windows. The name of the village I do not know, but it lies between Herve and a large coalpit shaft in the direction of Liège. I myself was wounded in the street-fighting at Liège. On the day before this occurrence our company had an outpost fight to the right of Herve, in the course of which an Einjähriger of the 5th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 165, was wounded and left behind. When we passed this spot again on the following morning we found the body of the Einjähriger lying under a garden fence; both his eyes had been gouged out. We were all convinced that this had been done by villagers.
On about August 7th, as we were advancing towards Liège, we saw a German infantry-man; I believe he belonged to Infantry Regiment No. 27. He showed no marks of any shot wound, but was dead, and all his private parts had been cut away.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: GUSTAV VOIGT.
2. Reservist Fritz Marks.
As to Person: My name is Fritz Marks. I am 23 years old; Protestant; by calling a factory worker; Reservist of the 2nd Company, Infantry Regiment No. 165.
As to Case: On August 5th our battalion marched through a village near Herve in Belgium. A man of the 5th Company came to meet us with the words, "What brutality! Now they have gouged out the eyes of one of our Einjähriger." He pointed to the place where the Einjähriger lay. We all had to go to the place, and saw the Einjähriger lying dead by a garden fence, with his eyes put out. We were convinced that this was the work of the villagers. Next day, when we again passed through the village, we were fired at from cellar gratings and windows, so that orders were received to disarm the villagers and make them prisoners. We forced our way into the houses and carried out the order. As, in spite of this, the firing did not cease, six guilty Belgian peasants were shot by order of an officer.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: FRITZ MARKS.
3. Reservist Heinrich Hartmann.
As to Person: My name is Heinrich Hartmann. I am 24 years old; Protestant; Reservist in the 2nd Company, Infantry Regiment No. 165.
As to Case: I saw lying on the ground the Einjähriger of the 5th Company, with his eyes gouged out. Our company leader, Hauptmann Burkholz, ordered us to search the houses in the place. Inside the house, by the garden fence of which the Einjähriger was found, we came across a big strong man of middle age, who was lying on his bed and pretending to be asleep. We brought him before the officer, who cross-examined him. The man was then shot by a musketeer of the 4th Company.
On the advance towards Liège we came across a German infantry-man who had been thrust into a swampy pool with his head and half his body under water; the man was dead.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: HEINRICH HARTMANN.
The witnesses were thereupon sworn.
Proceedings end.
Signed: KEIL. Signed: FAHLBERG.
App. 56.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Musketeer Paul Blankenburg, Infantry Regiment No. 165.
BLANKENBURG (HARTZ), _November 14th, 1914_.
Herzogliches Amtsgericht.
Present: Oberamtsgerichter Dr. SCHILLING, Judge. Gerichtsobersecretär HORNIG, Secretary.
There appears as witness Musketeer Paul Blankenburg, 7th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 165, at the present time in the Reserve Hospital of this place. The witness, after the importance of the oath had been pointed out to him, was examined as follows:
As to Person: My name is Paul Blankenburg. I was born in Magdeburg, September 4th, 1893; Protestant.
As to Case: The following statement, which he had made on October 31st of this year before 1st Lieutenant Reyner in this place, was read over to the witness:
"We were on the march in close column, and in the course of it passed through a Belgian village, lying west of Herve. In the village German wounded were lying, and indeed I recognised some Jäger troops from Jäger Battalion No. 4. The column in marching through suddenly came under fire from the houses, and the order was therefore given to remove all the civilians from the houses, and to get them together into one place. While this was going on I noticed that some girls of eight or ten years of age, armed with sharp instruments, were busying themselves with the German wounded. I subsequently ascertained that, from the most severely wounded, the lobes and the upper parts of their ears had been cut off. On continuing our march, an ambulance soldier, belonging, as far as I remember, to the 27th Regiment, was shot dead from a house by Belgian civilians while he was occupied in a school-yard in rendering assistance to a wounded man."
The witness therefore declared: "The statement just read over to me corresponds to the truth. I again emphasise the fact that I myself saw girls of some eight or ten years of age busying themselves with severely wounded men in the Belgian village. The girls had steel instruments in their hands--but they were not knives or scissors--and with these instruments, which were sharp on one side, they busied themselves among the wounded. We took the instruments from them. The wounded had fresh wounds on their ears, from which the lobes and upper portions had evidently been just cut off. One of the wounded told me in reply to a question that he had been mutilated by the girls in the way here described."
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: PAUL BLANKENBURG.
The witness was thereupon sworn.
Signed: Dr. SCHILLING. Signed: HORNIG.
App. 57.
STATEMENT and MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Dragoon Funke, 2nd Hanoverian Dragoon Regiment No. 16.
CAISNES, _November 7th, 1914_.
Dragoon Funke states: At Herve men of the Magdeburg Field Artillery Regiment, which was marching through the place, drew my attention to the fact that a dead hussar was lying near a straw stack. I went towards the body and saw that the ears and nose of the hussar had been cut off, and also that the whole of his face had been mangled.
Signed: HEINICHEN, Lieutenant.
CAISNES, _November 7th, 1914_.
Present: Deputy-President of the Court, Dr. STAHL (Gerichtsassessor). Secretary, FREDERSDORF.
There appeared as witness Corporal Funke. The witness Funke made the same statement as that previously made by Lieutenant Heinichen. After this had been read over he declared, "This is so correct that I have nothing to add to it."
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: FUNKE.
The witness Funke was thereupon sworn. Proceedings took place as above.
Signed: STAHL. Signed: FREDERSDORF.
App. 58.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Reservist Ernst Baldeweg, Infantry Regiment No. 35.
MAGDEBURG, _November 1st, 1914_.
Gericht der immobilen Etappen-Kommandantur No. 1.
Present: Military Assistant-Judge Dr. PAULS, Judge. GLADROW, Secretary.
At the request of the Deputy-General in Command of the IV. Army Corps, the Reservist Ernst Baldeweg, dairy assistant in Berlin, 37 Rathenower Street, 11th Company, Infantry Regiment 35, 28 years of age, Reformed Church of Germany, after the sanctity of the oath had been pointed out to him, was examined as follows:
About the 8th of August 1914, in a village close to Verriers, I saw with my own eyes that in one stable one horse, and in another stable four horses, had had their tongues cut off. In the first case I noticed that the tongue had not been completely severed, but hung from the mouth on the jaws by a small fragment of flesh. I am of opinion that Belgian civilians had mutilated the animals in order to prevent their being taken on farther by the Germans.
Either on Sunday, August 9th, 1914, or on Monday, August 10th, 1914, I saw at a village quite close to Herve in Belgium a German hussar bound to a tree by his hands and feet. Two large, long nails had been driven through his eyes and his head, so that he was fixed to the tree by the two nails. The hussar had ceased to live. In the same village there was lying by a wooden fence in front of a farm an infantry-man of the 52nd Infantry Regiment. His eyes had been put out, his ears, nose, and fingers cut off, and his stomach slashed about so that the intestines were visible. The breast of the dead soldier had also been so badly stabbed that it was completely mangled. For both these cases of gross cruelty the Belgian civilians alone can be held responsible.
I again assert that I have reported only what I personally observed, and have refrained from any exaggeration.
Read over, approved, and signed.
Signed: ERNST BALDEWEG.
The witness was sworn.
Signed: Dr. PAULS. Signed: GLASDROW.
App. 59.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of Musketeer Lagershausen, Ersatz Regiment No. 230.
HANOVER, _November 21st, 1914_.
President of the Court, LINDENBURG. Secretary, Non-commissioned Officer of Reserve KOEPF.
There appears as witness Musketeer Lagershausen, 1st Ersatz Company, Reserve Regiment No. 230, who, after the importance of the oath has been pointed out to him, made the following declaration:
As to Person: My name is Hugo Lagershausen. I am 19 years of age; Protestant.
As to Case: I was attached to the 8th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 73, which had pushed forward from Spa towards Liège. We, _i.e._ a corporal of Regiment No. 74, several musketeers of Regiments Nos. 82 and 83, and I myself, forthwith got the order to act as a reconnoitring patrol on the right. This was on the night of August 5th-6th. As the darkness had set in, and we had to proceed very quietly, I suddenly found myself separated from all the rest of the patrol. Towards midday on August 6th I reached a dressing-station which had been arranged in some farm buildings near the village of Chênée. I found in the house some fifteen severely wounded German soldiers, four or five of whom had been shockingly mutilated. Both eyes had been put out, and some of the victims had several finger joints cut off. Their wounds were still comparatively fresh, though the blood was already somewhat coagulated. These soldiers were still alive and groaning. It was impossible for me to give them any help. There was no doctor in the place, as I had already ascertained by questioning other wounded men lying in the house. At the same time I came across in the house six or seven Belgian civilians; four of these were women, who gave the wounded water. The men remained quite inactive. I saw no weapons in their possession; further, whether their hands were bloodstained I cannot say, because they kept them concealed in their pockets. As regards the point whether it was these persons who had perpetrated these cruelties on the wounded soldiers, I can make no definite pronouncement. I could take no action against these persons, because I was absolutely alone.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: Musketeer LAGERSHAUSEN.
The witness was sworn in accordance with regulations.
Signed: LINDENBERG. Signed: KOEPF.
App. 60.
MILITARY COURT EXAMINATION of the soldier Koch, Infantry Regiment No. 25.
STADEN, _November 27th, 1914_.
Divisional Headquarters.
Present: President of the Court, JÄGER. Secretary, BREHMER.
There appeared as witness the soldier Koch, 4th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 25. After he had been made aware of the object of the inquiry, and the importance of the oath had been pointed out to him, he was examined as follows:
As to Person: My Christian name is Mathias. I am 32 years of age; Catholic; smelter by trade; living in Eschweiter-Röhe.