Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 107, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1917 — WHITLOCK DEPICTS BELGIANS’ MISERY [ARTICLE]

WHITLOCK DEPICTS BELGIANS’ MISERY

Calls Deportation of Natives “One of the Foulest Deeds That History Records.” VON HINDENBURG IS BLAMED Marshal Quarreled With Vton Bissing Because Latter's Policy Was Mild —Says German Capacity for Blundering Equals That for Cruelty. Washington.—The state department made public a report from Brand Whitlock, written at Brussels in January, when he was the American min- . ister to Belgium, in which he describes the terrible effects of the German policy of deporting Belgians to Germany to compel them to work there. Since the beginning of the war in Europe, this is the first report from Mr. Whitlock that the state department has permitted to reach the American people. Allowing for all exaggeration, Mr. Whitlock says there remains enough est that history records.” Statements made by Minister Whitlock suggest that Field Marshal von Hindenburg was responsible for the deportation policy. He was said to have criticized as too mild the rule of General von Bissing, the military governor of Belgium, and sent Von Blssing to Berlin with the intention of resigning. When Von Bissing returned the reign of terror in Belgium began. The report from Mr. Whitlock reads as follows: “In order to fully understand the situation, it is necessary to go back to the autumn of 1914. At the time we were organizing the relief work, the Comite National —the Belgian relief organization that collaborates with the commission for relief in Belgium — proposed an arrangement by which the Belgian government should pay its own employees left in Belgium, and other unemployed men besides, the wages they had been accustomed to receive. “The Belgians wished to do this for humanitarian and patriotic purposes ; they wished-to provide the unemployed with the means of livelihood, and, at the same time, to prevent their working for the Germans. Tempts German Cupidity. “The policy was adopted and has been continued in practice and on the rolls of the Comite National have been borne "the names of hundreds of thousands—some 700,000, I believe—of idle men receiving this dole, distributed through the communes. “The presence of these unemployed, however, was a constant temptation to German cupidity. Many times they sought to obtain the lists of the chomeurs (unemployed), but were always foiled by the claim that under the guaranties covering the relief work the records of the Comite National and its various sub-organiza-tions were immune. Rather than risk any interruptions of the ravitaillement, for which, while loath to own any obligation to America, the Germans have always been grateful, since it has had the effect of keeping the population calm, the authorities npver pressed the point other than with the burgomasters of the communes. Finally, howeverTthe military party, always brutal and with an astounding ignorance of public opinion and of moral sentiment, determined to put these Idle men to work. “In August Von Hindenburg was appointed to the supreme command. He is said to have criticized Von Bissing’s policy as too mild; there was a quarrel; Von Biasing went to Berlin to protest, threatened to resign, but did not. He returned, and a German official here said that Belgium would now be subjected to a more terrible regime, would learn what war was. The prophecy has been vindicated. “The deportations began in October In the etape, at Ghent and at-Bruges. The policy spread ; the rich indihrtrial districts of Hainaut, the mines and steel works about Charleroi were next attacked; now they are seizing men in Brabant, even in Brussels, despite some indications, and even predictions of the civil authorities, that the policy was about to be abandoned. Heavy Penalties Fixed. “During the last fortnight men have been Impressed here in Brussels, but their seizures here are made evidently

with much -greater care than in the provinces, with more regard for the appearances. There was no public announcement of the intention to deport, but suddenly about ten days age, certain men in towns whose names are on the list of chomev.rs receiving summons, notifying them to report at one of the railway stations on a given day, penalties were fixed for failure to respond to the summons and there was printed on the card an offer of employment by the German government, either in Germany or Belgium. “On the first day. out of about 1,500 men ordered to present themselves at the Gate du Midi, about 750 responded. These were examined by German physicians and 300 were taken. There was no disorder; a large force of mounted uhlans keeping back the crowds and barring access to the station to all but those who had been summoned to appear! Thecommisslon for relief in~ Belgium had secured permission to give to each deported man a loaf of bread and some of the communes provided warm clothing for those who had nope and in addition a small financial allowance. “As by one of the ironies' of life the winter has been more excessively cold than Belgium has ever known it, and while some of those who presented themselves were adequately protected against the cold, many of them were without overcoats. The men shivering from cold and fear, the parting from weeping wives and children, the barriers of brutal uhlans, all this made the scene a pitiable ansi distressing one.

“It was understood that the seizures would continue here in Brussels, but on Thursday last, a bitter cold day, those that had been convoked were sent home without examination. It is supposed that the severe weather has moved the Germans to postpone the deportations. Rage and Despair. “The rage, the terror, and the despair excited by this measure all over Belgium were beyond anything we had witnessed (hinee the day the Germans poured intp Brussels. The delegates of the commission for relief in Belgium, returning to Brussels, told-the most distressing. stories of the scenes of cruelty and sorrow attending the seizures. And daily, hourly, almost, since that time, appalling stories have been related by Belgians coming to the legation. It is impossible for us to verify them, first because it is necessary for us to exercise all possible tact in dealing with the subject at all. and. secondly. becwijse there Is u<> means of communication between the Occupations Gebiet and the Etappen Geblet. “Transportation everywhere in Belgium is difficult, the vicinal railways scarcely operating any more because of the lack of oil. while all the horses have been taken. The people who are forced to go from one village to another must do so on foot or In vans drawn by the few miserable horses that are left. The wagons of the breweries, the ope institution that the Germans have scrupulously respected, are hauled by oxen. .’ “The well-known tendency of sensa

tional reports to exaggerate themselves, especially in time of wy. i o a situation like that existing herewith no newspapers to seme as a dally clearing house for all the rumors that are as avidly believed as they are eagerly repeated, should, of course, be considered. but even if a modicum of all that is told is true, there still remains enough to stamp this deed as one of the foulest that history records. “I am constantly in receipt of rejsirts from all over Belgium that tend to bear out the stories one constantly hears of brutality and cruelty. A number of men sent back to Mons are said to be in a dying condition, many of them tubercular. At Malines and at Antwerp returned men have died, their friends asserting that they have been victims of neglect and cruelty, of cold, of exposure, of hunger. Promise* Ar* Not Kept. 5 “I have had requests from the burgomasters of ten communes from La Louviere. asking that permission be obtained to send to the deported men in Germany packages of food similar to those that are being sent to prisoners of war. Thus far the German authorities have refused to permit this except inspecial instances, and returning Belgians claim that even when such packages are received they are used by the camp authorities only as another means of coercing them to sign the agreements to work. f “It is said that in spite of the liberal salary promised those who would sign voluntarily no money has as yet been "received in Belgium fronTworkmen~nr Germany. “One interesting result of the deportations r pinalns-tu.be m.ote<L a result that once more places in relief the German capacity for blundering almost as great as the German capacity for cruelty. “They have dealt a mortal blow to any prospect they may ever have had of being tolerated by the population of Flanders; in tearing away from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and a father or a son and brother they have lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out; they have brought home to every heart in the land, in a way that will impress Its horror indelibly on the memory of three generations, a realization of what German methods mean, not, as with the early atrocities in the heat of passion and the first lust of war. but by one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race, a deal coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel that German soldiers are said to have kept in its execution, and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed.”