Prussia joined in a Guarantee of Belgian Neutrality. The neutrality of Belgium was guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1839 to which France, Prussia and Great Britain were parties. Recent German Assurances. In 1913 the German Secretary of State, at a meeting of a Budget Committee of the Reichstag, declared that "Belgian neutrality is provided for by international conventions, and Germany is determined to respect those conventions." On July 31st, 1914, when the danger of war between Germany and Fran

The Care of the Belgian Civil Authorities to Collect Firearms from Civilians and to Warn them against taking part in the Hostilities. The Belgian King and Government were aware of the danger which would confront the civilian population of the country if it were tempted to take part in the work of national defence. Orders were accordingly issued by the civil governors of provinces, and by the burgomasters of towns, that the civilian inhabitants were to take no part in hostilities, and to offer no

From the very first women were not safe. At Liège women and children were chased about the street by soldiers. One witness gives a story, very circumstantial in its details, of how women were publicly raped in the market place of the city, five young German officers assisting. Tamines. —A witness describes how he saw the public square littered with corpses, and after a search found those of his wife and child, a little girl of 7. Wetteren Hospital. —At this hospital was an old woman of 80 comple

There can be no possible defence for the murder of children. Whether or no Belgian civilians fired on German soldiers, young children, at any rate, did not fire. The number and character of these murders constitute the most distressing feature connected with the conduct of the war so far as it is revealed in the depositions submitted to the Committee. It is clearly shown that many offences were committed against infants and quite young children. On one occasion children were even roped together

At Denée , on August 28th, a Belgian soldier who had been taken prisoner saw three civilian fellow-prisoners shot. One was a cripple and another an old man of 80, who was paralysed. It was alleged by two German soldiers that these men had shot at them with rifles. Neither of them had rifles, nor had they anything in their pockets. The witness actually saw the Germans search them and nothing was found. Louvain. —"Subsequently my master—an old gentleman—was bayoneted and shot."... Among other pers

The Committee had before them a considerable body of evidence with reference to the practice of the Germans of using civilians and sometimes military prisoners as screens from behind which they could fire upon the Belgian troops, in the hope that the Belgians would not return the fire for fear of killing or wounding their own fellow-countrymen. The use of women and even children as a screen for the protection of the German troops is referred to.... From the number of troops concerned, it must ha

After making all allowances, there remain certain instances in which it is clear that quarter was refused to persons desiring to surrender when it ought to have been given, or that persons already so wounded as to be incapable of fighting further, were wantonly shot or bayoneted. In one case, given very circumstantially, a witness [a British lance-corporal, whose evidence has been confirmed by a lieutenant and a private] tells how a party of wounded British soldiers were left in a chalk pit, all

There is an overwhelming mass of evidence of the deliberate destruction of private property by the German soldiers. The destruction, in most cases, was effected by fire, and the German troops had been provided beforehand with appliances for rapidly setting fire to houses. Among the appliances enumerated by witnesses are syringes for squirting petrol, guns for throwing small inflammable bombs, and small pellets made of inflammable material. Specimens of the last-mentioned have been shown to membe

"The Committee have come to a definite conclusion upon each of the heads under which the evidence has been classified. " It is proved :— "( i ) That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organised massacres of the civil population, accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages. "( ii ) That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women, were murdered in large numbers, women violated, and children murdered. "( iii ) That looting,