THE PEACE CONGRESS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 218, 9 June 1919, Page 6

THE PEACE CONGRESS

BREACHES OF THE LAWS OF WAR EXAMPLES OP ENEMY'S CRIMES / AN AUTHENTIC RECORD i ■ (from Mr. 11. ltiley,. Official Journalist with the New Zealand Peace Delegation.) Paris, March 28. It is impracticable to give the complcto list of Germany's and her allies' offences against the laws and customs of war and the principles of humanity, as investigated by tho Sub-Commission on Facts redating to breaches of such laws, and reInorted to tho 1 Inter-Allied Peace Conference. The Eight Hon. W. P. Massey was chairman of the sub-commission, and also presided over the meetings of its Drafting Committee. , The list of crimes has no parallel in history, and shows that the worst had not been previously told regarding the ntrocities committed by the Central Era. pircs and their allies, Turkoy and Bulgaria. : Indeed, tho sub-commission decided that in regard to.certain offences, mostly committed by the. Bulgarians, the details of the repulsive obscenities' could not,, in the interests of common decency. 'Ibe.made public. Sufficient to say that enemy officers, officials, and f.oldiers (whoso names in. many cases are known) were on several occasions lower than the lowest beasts. As already reported, the snb-coinmissiou , enumerated thirty-one, different kinds of offences and investigate ed. official records of hundreds of shocking cases, the bald details of which fill thirty-ono pages of the'"'commission's report. And the list is anything but exhaustive. Each caso reported on is authenticated in every particular. Thn atrocities .were carried out brutally and deliberately, at different periods in Belgium, France, Greece, Poland, and: Serbia. Massacre and .Torture,of Civilians, The report cites undor the>iiestdings re; lating to the massacre and torture of civilians and hostages no fewer than 35 shocking examples of brutal offences against tho laws of war and the principles of humanity. On August 22, 1914, nt Tantines, in Belgium, German troops shot in front of a church n group of 450 civilians, ally men. During tho sauio month at Andenne and Scllles (Belgium) Gorman troops massacred 800 inhabitants, while at, B;inant they 606 persons (the list' of names is in tho commission's possession). Tho, following U an extract from a proclamation addressed by a German General to the municipal authorities nt Liege:—"lt was with* my consent that the Commanding General ordered'the.whole place (Andeniie) to be burnt down, and that about 100 persons jvere shot."' The commission adds: "In reality more than (00 personi disappeared, of whom mors than \ 200 were shot." . ' ■ . - ;

The German troops wero no less merciless in Northern Franco. On September 1, 1?M, atNery (Oise) civilians were used as shields against a flanking fire in order to protect German ■ troops. Civilians were shot by German troops at Verpillieres (Somme) in October, 19U. and during February, 1917, at IJaboeuf (Oise), about 200 paralysed and sick old people were indescribably neglected, 40 of them dying in ; three weeks. The Turkish authorities wore Tosponsiblo for tho massacre of a great nurnber of Greeks at( different places during

.The commission-lias more than fifty names of the Turkish Government authorities, military and administrative, Turkish civilians, and German authorities who systematically organised with German complicity • the- massacre of Armenians by the Turks. During: tho war period more than 200,000 victims were assassinated; burned. alive, or drowned m the lake of the Van, the Euphrates or the Black Sea.-

In Poland, during.:l9M,'.;at- Kalisz-, several hundred. inhabitants were shot the authors being the German military authorities. At various places, especially during the retreat of the Austrian armies tens of thousands, of Polish civilians were' hanged.

The Orgy In Serbia. Bulgarian, troops had an orgy of massacre in Sorbia, during, the autumn of 191 a, and again immediately before the insurrection of 1917. The principal victims were priests, teachers, mayors, influential notables, women and the aged and infirm. Even the children were hot spared, especially in ' Macedonia. Tho atrocities were carried out in a systematic manner, and corpses wero burntthrown into tho rivers, or left to do«s and pigs. In East Serbia many thousands were massacred, while executions were simply en masse, as many as ten gallows-being set up together at certain places. ....

Tho commission's report regarding the torturo of civilians, esoecially in Sorbin was appalling. Hero is the official list of authenticated cases of the torture inflicted by Bulgarians on Serbs in many districts at various dates (all particulars being tabulated in the commission's report):—Serbia: Frequent tortures, before murder; tearing.out eyes, cutting off ncse and ears, also breasts of women; beaten and liung up. Bastinado most frequent of the tortures. Men hung up by the feet, heavy weights fastened to feet, flesh torn with pincers, thrown into boiling water; women undressed nnd nailed to the. ground. .... (tho rest of this'part of the record 'had'better be left, to the imagination). Families compelled to, witness executions of relatives. Women in mourning forced to' dance the kolo in the very place whero massacred Serbs were buried. "Women lined up, insulted, beaten, Boat upon, and abominably tortured. The catalogue of crimes against women in Belgium,. Greece, and enemy officers, officials.- and troops includes obscene offences that cannot be detailed in public journals. The most revolting of these bestial crimes were committed in Serbia by Bulgarian officers who, after exploiting their viciousness bejond the limit of ordinary imagination, ordered unclean soldiers to ruin girls. And that was really not-.the worst kind of crime. Many of the criminals in swagger' uniforms are known to the , Allied authorities, and it is to bo hoped that the brutes will some day suffer adequate punishment.. The commission also cites innumerable cases of the deliberate starvation and deportation of thousands of civilians, male and female, and also of the internment of civilians under inhuman conditions. In many instances deportation led to torture, outrage, nnd massacre, and, most common of all. to enforced prostitution in countless infamous houses. In another artiolo a summary will }>o given of* what the Germans might call "respectable atrocities and crimes."