Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War Volume I Part 3

_THE HOSTAGES_

"_Father, what have we done?_"

The munic.i.p.al Government of Liege remind their fellow citizens, and all staying within the city, that international law most strictly forbids civilians to commit hostilities against the German soldiers occupying the country.

Every attack on German troops by others than the military in uniform not only exposes those who may be guilty to be shot summarily, but will also bring terrible consequences on the leading citizens of Liege now detained in the citadel as hostages by the commander of the German troops.

We beseech all residents of the munic.i.p.ality to guard the highest interests of all the inhabitants and of those who are hostages of the German Army, and not to commit any a.s.sault on the soldiers of this army.

We remind the citizens that by order of General commanding the German troops, those who have arms in their possession must deliver them immediately to the authorities at the Provincial Palace under the penalty of being shot.

_The Acting Burgomaster_, V. HENAULT.

_Liege, August 8th._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_HUSBANDS AND FATHERS_

Thousands of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to the prisons of Germany to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. At Munsterlagen alone, 3,100 civil prisoners were numbered. History will tell of the physical and moral torments of their long martyrdom.

Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but I know there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under pain of death, their fellow-citizens were compelled to dig their graves. In the Louvain group of communes 176 persons, men and women, old men and sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned.

CARDINAL MERCIER, _Archbishop of Malines, Belgium._

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_IT'S FATTENING WORK_

In Hofstade a number of houses had been set on fire and many corpses were seen, some in houses, some in back yards, and some in the streets.

Several examples are given below.

Two witnesses speak to having seen the body of a young man pierced by bayonet thrusts with the wrists cut also.

On a side road the corpse of a civilian was seen on his doorstep with a bayonet wound in his stomach, and by his side the dead body of a boy of 5 or 6 with his hands nearly severed.

The corpses of a woman and boy were seen at the blacksmith's. They had been killed with the bayonet.

In a cafe a young man, also killed with the bayonet, was holding his hands together as if in the att.i.tude of supplication.

Two young women were lying in the back yard of the house. One had her b.r.e.a.s.t.s cut off, the other had been stabbed.

A young man had been hacked with the bayonet until his entrails protruded. He also had his hands joined in the att.i.tude of prayer.

In the garden of a house in the main street bodies of two women were observed, and in another house the body of a boy of 16 with two bayonet wounds in the chest.

_British Government Committee's Report._

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_KULTUR HAS Pa.s.sED HERE_

It is nothing but fanaticism to expect very much from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war. For the present we know of no other means whereby the rough energy of the camp, the deep impersonal hatred, the cold-bloodedness of murder with a good conscience, the general ardour of the system in the destruction of the enemy ... can be as forcibly and certainly communicated to enervated nations as is done by every great war. _Kultur can by no means dispense with pa.s.sions, vices and malignities._

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_PEACE REIGNS AT DINANT_

In short, the town of Dinant is destroyed. Of 1,400 houses only 200 remained standing. The factories where the laboring population got their bread and b.u.t.ter were wrecked systematically. Many inhabitants were sent to Germany, where they are still kept as prisoners. The majority of the others are scattered all over Belgium. Those who stayed in the towns were starved.

The Belgian Committee has a list of victims. It contains 700 names, and is not complete. Among those killed are seventy-three women, thirty-nine children between six months and fifteen years old.

Dinant has 7,600 inhabitants, of whom ten per cent. were put to death; not a family exists which has not to mourn the death of some victims; many families have been exterminated completely.

"_The German Fury in Belgium_,"

By L. MOKVELD.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_LES BEAUTeS DE LA GUERRE_

_Folk who do not understand them_

It is only in war that we find the action of true heroism, the realization of which on earth is the care of militarism. That is why war appears to us, who are filled with militarism, as in itself a holy thing, as the holiest thing on earth.