ATROCITIES***


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THE TRUTH ABOUT GERMAN ATROCITIES

Founded on the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages







1915
Parliamentary Recruiting Committee,
12, Downing Street, London, S.W.




CONTENTS.

                                                                  PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                                       1
      Appointment of Committee                                       2
      Terms of Reference                                             2
      Composition of Committee                                       2
  1. CIVILIANS murdered and ill-treated                              5
  2. WOMEN murdered and outraged                                    15
  3. Murder and ill-treatment of CHILDREN                           16
  4. Brutal treatment of the AGED, the CRIPPLED and the INFIRM      17
  5. The use of CIVILIANS as SCREENS                                18
  6. KILLING WOUNDED SOLDIERS and PRISONERS                         19
  7. LOOTING, BURNING and DESTRUCTION of PROPERTY                   19
  FINDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE                                         23


(1365) W. 5601/507 250M 7/15 H. C. & L., Ltd.




THE TRUTH ABOUT GERMAN ATROCITIES.




INTRODUCTION.


_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 France
seemed imminent, Herr von Below, the German Minister in Brussels, being
interrogated by the Belgian Foreign Department, replied that he knew of
the assurances given by the German Chancellor in 1911 (that Germany had
no intention of violating Belgian neutrality) and that he "was certain
that the sentiments expressed at that time had not changed."


_Passage through Belgium Demanded by Germany._

Nevertheless, on August 2nd, the same Minister presented a note to the
Belgian Government demanding a passage through Belgium for the German
Army on pain of an instant declaration of war.


_Passage Refused by Belgian King and Government._

Startled as they were by the suddenness with which this terrific war
cloud had risen on the eastern horizon, the leaders of the nation
rallied round the King of Belgium in his resolution to refuse the
demand and to prepare for resistance.


_Invasion._

On the evening of August 3rd, the German troops crossed the frontier.


_Early Outbreak of Atrocities._

No sooner had the Germans violated Belgian territory, than statements
of atrocities committed by German soldiers against civilians--men,
women and children--found their way into the newspapers of this
country. The public could hardly believe the record of cruelty that
rapidly accumulated, but the persistence with which reports from one
district tallied in general outline with reports from other localities
left little doubt in the public mind as to the truth of the alleged
atrocities. But it became necessary to make absolutely certain of the
facts.


_Home Office Collected Evidence._

The Home Office, in the autumn of 1914, wisely decided to collect
evidence of the truth, and, during the concluding months of 1914, a
great number of statements taken in writing were collected from Belgian
witnesses (mostly civilians), and from British officers and soldiers.
The statements were taken by the staff of the Director of Public
Prosecutions and a number of barristers who assisted the Home Office.


_Government Appointed a Committee to Investigate--Terms of Reference._

On December 15th, 1914, the Government took the important step of
appointing a Committee:--

  "To consider and advise on the evidence collected on behalf
  of His Majesty's Government, as to outrages alleged to have been
  committed by German troops during the present war, cases of alleged
  maltreatment of civilians in the invaded territories, and breaches
  of the laws and established usages of war; and to prepare a report
  for His Majesty's Government showing the conclusion at which they
  arrive on the evidence now available."=


_Careful Selection of Members of Committee._

In order that the findings of the Committee should command the
confidence of the public, the Government was careful to appoint upon
it men whose judicial outlook, training and experience for their
responsible task could not be questioned.

  The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., the distinguished British
  Ambassador at Washington from 1907 to 1912, was appointed
  Chairman, and the other members of the Committee were:--

  The Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., who was Corpus
  Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University, 1883-1903,
  and is Judge of the Admiralty Court of Cinque Ports. He is one of
  the leading authorities on the laws of this country;

  The Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., was Member of Parliament for
  Plymouth (20 years) and London City (1906); was Solicitor-General
  from 1886 to 1902;

  Sir Kenelm Digby, G.C.B., K.C., who was a County Court Judge from
  1892 to 1894, and Permanent Under-Secretary of the Home Office from
  1895 to 1903;

  Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., LL.D., represented Manchester and North
  Wiltshire in the House of Commons; was Principal of Owens College,
  Manchester, from 1898 to 1904; and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria
  University, Manchester, from 1900 to 1913;

  Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield;

  Mr. Harold Cox, the well-known Journalist and Editor of the
  "Edinburgh Review," who represented Preston in the House of
  Commons from 1906 to 1910.


_How the Committee Worked._

The Committee laboured for three months, examining the evidence, and
more than 1,200 statements made by witnesses were considered. These
depositions were in all cases taken down in this country by gentlemen
of legal knowledge and experience, and the greatest care was exercised
in the task.


_Doubt Removed as Work Proceeded._

The Committee approached their responsible task in a spirit of doubt,
but, to use their own words, "the further we went and the more
evidence we examined, so much the more was our scepticism reduced....
When we found that things which had at first seemed improbable were
testified to by many witnesses coming from different places, having
had no communication with one another, and knowing nothing of one
another's statements, the points in which they all agreed became more
and more evidently true. And when this concurrence of testimony, this
convergence upon what were substantially the same broad facts, showed
itself in hundreds of depositions, =the truth of those broad facts
stood out beyond question=."


_Fairness of Witnesses' Evidence._

The Committee expected "to find much of the evidence  by
passion, or prompted by an excited fancy. But they were impressed by
the general moderation and matter-of-fact level-headedness of the
witnesses."


_No desire to "Make a Case."_

Nor could the Committee, in examining the depositions, "detect the
trace of any desire to 'make a case' against the German Army." "In
one respect, the most weighty part of the evidence," according to
the Committee, consisted of the diaries kept by the German soldiers
themselves.


_A Terrible Record._

The Report of the Committee, with the Appendix, covers 240 foolscap
pages. These 240 pages of cold, judicial print make a terrible
indictment against a so-called Civilised Power--and one, moreover,
whose home is not in "Darkest Africa," but in the very heart of
enlightened Europe.

In this pamphlet space will only permit of the insertion of the
Findings of the Committee, and of some examples taken from the Report.
_Those who seek fuller information should obtain one or other edition
of the official Report and Appendix, particulars of which are given on
the cover of this pamphlet._

It should be borne in mind that this terrible record embraces a part
only of the area in the occupation of German troops, and is based
mainly on the statements of Belgian refugees _in this country_. If
it had been possible to extend the enquiry, and to get evidence from
the Belgians and the French now inhabiting the districts occupied by
Germany, there is no doubt that the volume of evidence would have been
much greater.

       *       *       *       *       *

Note.--_For the purpose of this short pamphlet, the methodical
arrangement in geographical areas followed in the Report has been
abandoned, and a simpler grouping adopted. The whole of the language,
however, in the following pages (apart from the headings) is the
official language of the Report. In no instance has it been altered,
except where an explanation is required, in which case the explanation
is put in brackets. The references in the margin are to the pages in
the report from which the statements have been taken. When taken from
the Appendix, the letter "A" is prefixed._




1. CIVILIANS MURDERED AND ILL-TREATED.


_The Care of the Belgian Civil Authorities to Collect Firearms from
Civilians and to Warn them against taking part in the Hostilities._

[Sidenote: 7]

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 provocation to the invaders. That no
excuse might be furnished for severities, the populations of many
important towns were instructed to surrender all firearms into the
hands of the local officials.


_The Kindness extended to the Invading Germans by the Civil Population
of Belgium._

[Sidenote: 26]

Letters written to their homes, which have been found on the bodies of
dead Germans, bear witness, in a way that now sounds pathetic, to the
kindness with which they were received by the civil population. Their
evident surprise at this reception was due to the stories which had
been dinned into their ears of soldiers with their eyes gouged out,
treacherous murders and poisoned food.


_Outbreak of Atrocities from the Moment the German Army crossed the
Frontier._

[Sidenote: 25]

Murder, rape, arson and pillage began from the moment when the German
Army crossed the frontier. For the first fortnight of the war, the
towns and villages near Liege were the chief sufferers.... There is a
certain significance in the fact that the outrages round Liege coincide
with the unexpected resistance of the Belgian Army in that district,
and that the slaughter which reigned from August 19th to the end of the
month is contemporaneous with the period when the German Army's need
for a quick passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed imperative.


  Article 46 of the Second International Peace Conference (Convention
  concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land), held at the Hague
  in 1907, reads as follows:--

  _Family honour and rights, individual life, and private property,
  as well as religious convictions and worship, must be respected._

  _Private property may not be confiscated._


_Instances from Herve and Melen._

[Sidenote: 7]

"On the 4th of August," says one witness, "at Herve" (a village not
far from the frontier), "I saw at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon,
near the station, five Uhlans [German cavalry]; these were the first
German troops I had seen. They were followed by a German officer and
some soldiers in a motor car. The men in the car called out to a couple
of young fellows who were standing about 30 yards away. The young men,
being afraid, ran off, and then the Germans fired and killed one of
them named D----." The murder of this innocent fugitive civilian was a
prelude to the burning and pillage of Herve and of other villages in
the neighbourhood, to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both
sexes, and to the organised military execution of batches of selected
males. Thus at Herve some 50 men escaping from the burning houses were
seized, taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, a hamlet west of
Herve, 40 men were shot. In one household alone the father and mother
(names given) were shot, the daughter died after being outraged, and
the son was wounded.


_The Slaughter of Civilians speedily became a Custom._

The burning of the villages in this neighbourhood, and the wholesale
slaughter of civilians, such as occurred at Herve, Micheroux and
Soumagne appear to be connected with the exasperation caused by the
resistance of Fort Fleron, whose guns barred the main road from
Aix-la-Chapelle to Liege. Enraged by the losses which they had
sustained, suspicious of the temper of the civilian population, and
probably thinking that by exceptional severities at the outset they
could cow the spirit of the Belgian nation, the German officers and men
speedily accustomed themselves to the slaughter of civilians.


_No Official German Denial of Atrocities._

[Sidenote: 25]

Citizens of neutral states who visited Belgium in December and January
report that the German authorities do not deny that non-combatants were
systematically killed in large numbers during the first weeks of the
invasion, and this, so far as we know, has never been officially denied.


_Flight of Belgian Refugees without Parallel._

[Sidenote: 25]

If it were denied, the flight and continued voluntary exile of
thousands of Belgian refugees would go far to contradict a denial, for
there is no historical parallel in modern times for the flight of a
large part of a nation before an invader.


_German Government seek to justify Severities, but no Proof given of
Alleged Firing by Civilians._

[Sidenote: 25]

The German Government have, however, sought to justify their severities
on the grounds of military necessity, and have excused them as
retaliation for cases in which civilians fired on German troops. There
may have been cases in which such firing occurred, but no proof has
ever been given, or, to our knowledge, attempted to be given, of such
cases, nor of the allegations of shocking outrages perpetrated by
Belgian men and women on German soldiers.


_On the contrary, Civilians were Warned after the Invasion._

[Sidenote: 26]

The inherent improbability of the German contention is shown by the
fact that after the first few days of the invasion every possible
precaution had been taken by the Belgian authorities, by way of
placards and handbills, to warn the civilian population not to
intervene in hostilities.


_Civilians Shot Indiscriminately and without any Inquiry._

[Sidenote: 26]

An invading army may be entitled to shoot at sight a civilian caught
red-handed, or anyone who though not caught red-handed is proved guilty
on inquiry. But this was not the practice followed by the German
troops. They do not seem to have made any inquiry. They seized the
civilians of the village indiscriminately and killed them, or such as
they selected from among them, without the least regard to guilt or
innocence. The mere cry "Civilisten haben geschossen" ("Civilians have
been shooting") was enough to hand over a whole village or district,
and even outlying places, to ruthless slaughter.


_Killing of Civilians on Scale without any Parallel in Modern Warfare
between Civilised Powers._

[Sidenote: 25]

In the present war--and this is the gravest charge against the German
Army--the evidence shows that the killing of non-combatants was carried
out to an extent for which no previous war between nations claiming to
be civilised furnishes any precedent.


_Mass of Evidence convinced Committee of its Truth._

[Sidenote: 27]

That these acts should have been perpetrated on the peaceful population
of an unoffending country which was not at war with its invaders, but
merely defending its own neutrality, guaranteed by the invading Power,
may excite amazement and even incredulity. It was with amazement and
almost with incredulity that the Committee first read the depositions
relating to such acts. But when the evidence regarding Liege was
followed by that regarding Aerschot, Louvain, Andenne, Dinant and the
other towns and villages, the cumulative effect of such a mass of
concurrent testimony became irresistible, and the Committee were driven
to the conclusion that the things described had really happened.


_Killing of Civilians deliberately planned by the Higher Military
Authorities and carried out methodically._

[Sidenote: 27]

The excesses recently committed in Belgium were, moreover, too
widespread and too uniform in their character to be mere sporadic
outbursts of passion or rapacity.

[Sidenote: 25]

That this killing was done as part of a deliberate plan is clear from
the facts set forth regarding Louvain, Aerschot, Dinant and other
towns. The killing was done under orders in each place. It began at a
certain fixed date, and stopped (with some few exceptions) at another
fixed date.


_German Army Disciplined to Obey._

[Sidenote: 27]

The discipline of the German Army is proverbially stringent, and its
obedience implicit.

[Sidenote: 23]

It was to the discipline rather than the want of discipline in the Army
that these outrages, which we are obliged to describe as systematic,
were due, and the special official notices posted on certain houses
that they were not to be destroyed show the fate which had been decreed
for the others which were not so marked.


_A few German Officers showed Feelings of Humanity._

[Sidenote: 27]

The Committee gladly record the instances where the evidence shows
that humanity had not wholly disappeared from some members of the
German Army, and that they realised that the responsible heads of that
organisation were employing them, not in war, but in butchery. "I am
merely executing orders, and I should be shot if I did not execute
them," said an officer to a witness at Louvain. At Brussels another
officer said: "I have not done one hundredth part of what we have been
ordered to do by the High German military authorities."

[Sidenote: 30]

A humane German officer, witnessing the ruin of Aerschot, exclaimed in
disgust: "I am a father myself, and I cannot bear this. It is not war,
but butchery."


_Drink Responsible for many of the Worst Outrages._

[Sidenote: 25]

[Sidenote: 30]

Many of the worst outrages appear to have been perpetrated by men under
the influence of drink. Unfortunately, little seems to have been done
to repress this source of danger.... Officers as well as men succumbed
to the temptation of drink.


_The German Army is Responsible for Crimes which it did not Check._

[Sidenote: 27]

When an army is directed or permitted to kill non-combatants on a large
scale, the ferocity of the worse natures springs into fuller life,
and both lust and the thirst of blood become more widespread and more
formidable. Had less licence been allowed to the soldiers, and had they
not been set to work to slaughter civilians, there would have been
fewer of those painful cases in which a depraved and morbid cruelty
appears.


_The Taking and Murder of Hostages._

[Sidenote: 27]

Two classes of murders in particular require special mention, because
one of them is almost new, and the other altogether unprecedented. The
former is the seizure of peaceful citizens as so-called hostages to
be kept as a pledge for the conduct of the civil population, or as a
means to secure some military advantage, or to compel the payment of a
contribution, the hostages being shot if the condition imposed by the
arbitrary will of the invader is not fulfilled. Such hostage taking ...
is opposed both to the rules of war and to every principle of justice
and humanity.


_Murder in the Villages._

[Sidenote: 27]

The latter kind of murder is the killing of the innocent inhabitants of
a village because shots have been fired, or are alleged to have been
fired, on the troops by someone in the village. For this practice no
previous example and no justification has been or can be pleaded.... In
Belgium large bodies of men, sometimes including the burgomaster and
the priest, were seized, marched by officers to a spot chosen for the
purpose, and there shot in cold blood, without any attempt at trial
or even enquiry, under the pretence of inflicting punishment upon the
village, though these unhappy victims were not even charged with having
themselves committed any wrongful act.

[Sidenote: 16]

The Committee is specially impressed by the character of the outrages
committed in the smaller villages.

_Aerschot and District_ (August 25th).--Immediately after the battle of
Malines ... a long series of murders were committed either just before
or during the retreat of the army. Many of the inhabitants who were
unarmed, including women and young children, were killed--some of them
under revolting circumstances.

Evidence given goes to show that the death of these villagers was due,
not to accident, but to deliberate purpose.


_A Death-stricken Area._

[Sidenote: 14]

The quadrangle of territory bounded by the towns of Aerschot, Malines,
Vilvorde, and Louvain, is a rich agricultural tract, studded with small
villages and comprising two considerable cities, Louvain and Malines.
This district on August 19th passed into the hands of the Germans, and,
owing perhaps to its proximity to Antwerp, then the seat of the Belgian
Government and headquarters of the Belgian Army, it became from that
date a scene of chronic outrage, with respect to which the Committee
has received a great mass of evidence.


_Systematic Massacres._

[Sidenote: 14]

The arrival of the Germans in the district on August 19th was marked by
systematic massacres and other outrages at Aerschot itself, Gelrode and
some other villages.


_Sudden Outburst of Cruelty follows Belgian Victory._

[Sidenote: 14]

On August 25th the Belgians, sallying out of the defences of Antwerp,
attacked the German positions at Malines, drove the enemy from the
town and re-occupied many of the villages in the neighbourhood. And
just as numerous outrages against the civilian population had been the
immediate consequence of the temporary repulse of the German vanguard
from Fort Fleron, so a large body of depositions testify to the fact
that a sudden outburst of cruelty was the response of the German Army
to the Belgian victory at Malines.


_A Reign of Terror._

[Sidenote: 14]

The battle of Malines ... was the occasion of numerous murders
committed by the German Army in retreating through the villages of
Sempst, Hofstade, Eppeghem, Elewyt and elsewhere. In the second place
it led ... to the massacres, plunderings and burnings at Louvain, the
signal for which was provided by shots exchanged between the German
Army, retreating after its repulse at Malines, and some members of the
German garrison of Louvain, who mistook their fellow countrymen for
Belgians. Lastly, the encounter at Malines seems to have stung the
Germans into establishing a reign of terror in so much of the district
comprised in the quadrangle as remained in their power.


_Louvain Peacefully Occupied by Germans for Six Days._

[Sidenote: 19]

_Louvain and District._--The events spoken to as having occurred in and
around Louvain between August 19th and 25th deserve close attention.

For six days the Germans were in peaceful occupation of the city. No
houses were set on fire--no citizens killed. There was a certain amount
of looting of empty houses, but otherwise discipline was effectively
maintained. The condition of Louvain during these days was one of
relative peace and quietude, presenting a striking contrast to the
previous and contemporaneous conduct of the German Army elsewhere.


_A Sudden Change--Murder of Civilians and Destruction of Property._

[Sidenote: 19]

On the evening of August 25th a sudden change took place. The Germans,
on that day repulsed by the Belgians, had retreated to and re-occupied
Louvain. Immediately the devastation of that city and the destruction
by fire of its population began.


_Defeated Germans Revenge themselves on Civilians._

[Sidenote: 19]

The inference is irresistible that the Army as a whole wreaked its
vengeance on the civilian population and the buildings of the city in
revenge for the setback which the Belgian arms had inflicted on them.
A subsidiary cause alleged was the assertion, often made before, that
civilians had fired upon the German Army.

The depositions which relate to Louvain are numerous, and are believed
by the Committee to present a true and fairly complete picture of the
events of August 25th and 26th and subsequent days.


_Civilians did not Fire._

[Sidenote: 19]

The Committee find no grounds for thinking that the inhabitants fired
upon the German Army on the evening of August 25th. Eye-witnesses
worthy of credence detail exactly when, where and how the firing
commenced. Such firing was by Germans on Germans. No impartial tribunal
could, so the Committee think, come to any other conclusion.


_Harried Villagers._

[Sidenote: 21]

The massacre of civilians at Louvain was not confined to its citizens.
Large crowds of people were brought into Louvain from the surrounding
districts.... Of the hundreds of people taken from the various villages
and brought to Louvain as prisoners, some were massacred there, others
were forced to march along with citizens of Louvain through various
places, some being ultimately sent on the 29th to the Belgian lines at
Malines, others were taken in trucks to Cologne, others were released.


_A Calculated Policy of Cruelty._

[Sidenote: 23]

The Committee are driven to the conclusion that the harrying of the
villages in the district, the burning of a large part of Louvain, the
massacres there, the marching out of the prisoners, and the transport
to Cologne--all done without enquiry as to whether the particular
persons seized or killed had committed any wrongful act--were due to
a calculated policy carried out scientifically and deliberately, not
merely with the sanction but under the direction of higher military
authorities, and were not due to any provocation or resistance by the
civilian population.


_The Tragedy of Beautiful Dinant._

[Sidenote: 13]

Just outside the prison one witness saw three lines of bodies, which he
recognised as being those of neighbours. They were nearly all dead, but
he noticed movement in some of them. There were about 120 bodies....
Unarmed civilians were killed in masses at other places near the
prison. About 90 bodies were seen lying on the top of one another in a
grass square opposite the convent. They included many relatives of a
witness.... It is stated that, beside the 90 corpses referred to above,
60 corpses of civilians were recovered from a hole in the brewery yard,
and that 48 bodies of women and children were found in a garden.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Committee have no reason to believe that the civilian population
of Dinant gave any provocation, or that any other defence can be put
forward to justify the treatment inflicted upon its citizens.

As regards this town and the advance of the German Army from Dinant
to Rethel on the Aisne, a graphic account is given in the diary of a
Saxon officer. This diary confirms what is clear from the evidence
as a whole both as regards these and other districts--that civilians
were constantly taken as prisoners, often dragged from their homes
and shot under the direction of the authorities without any charge
being made against them. An event of the kind is thus referred to in
a diary entry: "Apparently 200 men were shot. There must have been
some innocent men amongst them. In future we shall have to hold an
enquiry as to their guilt instead of shooting them." The shooting of
inhabitants--women and children as well as men--went on after the
Germans had passed Dinant on their way into France.


Further Examples of the Treatment of Civilians.

[Sidenote: 9]

Entries in a German diary show that on August 19th the German soldiers
gave themselves up to debauchery in the streets of Liege, and on the
night of the 20th (Thursday) a massacre took place in the streets....
The Belgian witnesses vehemently deny that there had been any
provocation given, some stating that many German soldiers were drunk,
others giving evidence which indicates that the affair was planned
beforehand. It is stated that at 5 o'clock in the evening, long before
the shooting, a citizen was warned by a friendly German soldier not to
go out that night.

Though the cause of the massacre is in dispute, the results are known
with certainty.... Many inhabitants were burnt alive in their houses,
their efforts to escape being prevented by rifle fire. Twenty people
were shot while trying to escape, before the eyes of one of the
witnesses.... Thirty-two civilians were killed on that day, the 21st,
in the Place de l'Universite alone.

[Sidenote: 20]

_Louvain._--On August 26th (Wednesday) massacre, fire and destruction
went on.... Citizens were shot and others taken prisoners.

Soldiers went through the streets saying "Man hat geschossen." ("They
have been shooting.") One soldier was seen going along shooting in
the air.... Some citizens were shot on opening the doors, others in
endeavouring to escape.

[Sidenote: 21]

These prisoners [civilians] were practically without food from early
morning on the 26th until midnight on the 29th. Of the corpses seen
on the road some had their hands tied behind their backs, others were
burnt, some had been killed by blows.

"I did not dare to look at the dead bodies in the street, there were so
many of them."

[Sidenote: 23]

"The officers were worse than the men.... We had had nothing to eat or
drink since the evening of the day before. A few compassionate soldiers
gave us water to drink, but no official took the trouble to see that we
were fed."

[Sidenote: 24]

_Louvain_ (German soldier's diary--No. 32).--"180 inhabitants are
stated to have been shot after they had dug their own graves."

[Sidenote: 11]

_Surice._--On August 24th and 25th massacres were carried out in which
many persons belonging to the professional classes as well as others
were killed.

[Sidenote: 11]

_Namur_ was entered on August 24th. The troops signalised their entry
by firing on a crowd of 150 unarmed, unresisting civilians, 10 alone of
whom escaped.... As the inhabitants fled from the burning houses they
were shot by the German troops.

[Sidenote: 11]

In _Tamines_, a large village on the Meuse between Namur and Charleroi,
the advance guard of the German Army appeared in the first fortnight
in August, and in this, as well as in other villages in the district,
it is proved that a large number of civilians, among them aged people,
women and children, were deliberately killed by the soldiers.

[Sidenote: 21]

_Tirlemont._--The prisoners, of whom there are said to have been
thousands, were not allowed even to have water to drink, although
there were streams on the way from which the soldiers drank. Witness
was given some milk at a farm, but as she raised it to her lips it was
taken away from her.

[Sidenote: 22]

_Journeys from Louvain to Cologne._--Some of the trucks were abominably
filthy. Prisoners were not allowed to leave to obey the calls of
nature.... They were, in all, eight days in the train, crowded and
almost without food. Two of the men went mad.

[Sidenote: 23]

_Termonde._--About 70 prisoners ... were taken to Lebbeke, where there
were in all 300 prisoners, and there they were locked up in the church
for three days and with scarcely any food.

[Sidenote: 23]

_Ermeton_ (Diary No. 19).--The exact translation of the extract, grim
in its brevity, is as follows: "August 24/14. We took about 1,000
prisoners; at least 500 were shot. The village was burnt because
inhabitants had also shot. Two civilians were shot at once."

[Sidenote: 9]

_Wandre_ (Diary of German soldier--Eitel Anders).--"In one house
a whole collection of weapons was found. The inhabitants without
exception were brought out and shot. This shooting was heart-breaking,
as they all knelt down and prayed; but that was no ground for mercy. A
few shots rang out, and they fell back into the green grass and slept
for ever."

[Sidenote: 10]

_Andenne._--Almost immediately, the slaughter of these inhabitants
began, and continued for over two hours, and intermittently during the
night. Machine guns were brought into play. The German troops were said
to be for the most part drunk, and they certainly murdered and ravaged
unchecked.

[Sidenote: 11]

About 400 people lost their lives in this massacre.... Eight men
belonging to one family were murdered. Another man was placed close to
a machine gun, which was fired through him. His wife brought his body
home on a wheelbarrow. The Germans broke into her house and ransacked
it, and piled up all the eatables in a heap on the floor and relieved
themselves upon it. A hair-dresser was murdered in his kitchen, where
he was sitting with a child on each knee.

[Sidenote: 12]

_Montigny-sur-Sambre._--On the Monday morning 27 civilians from one
parish alone were seen lying dead in the hospital.

[Sidenote: 12]

At _Monceau-sur-Sambre_, on August 21st, a young man of 18 was shot
in his garden. His father and brother were seized in their house and
shot in the courtyard of a neighbouring country house. The son was shot
first. The father was compelled to stand close to the feet of his son's
corpse and to fix his eyes upon him while he himself was shot.

[Sidenote: 11]

At _Temploux_, on August 23rd, a Professor of Modern Languages at the
College of Namur was shot at his front door by a German officer. Before
he died he asked the officer the reason for this brutality, and the
officer replied that he had lost his temper because some civilians had
fired upon the Germans as they entered the village. This allegation was
not proved.... After the murder the house was burnt.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Elewyt._--A man's naked body was tied up to a ring in the wall in the
backyard of a house. He was dead, and his corpse was mutilated in a
manner too horrible to record. A woman's naked body was also found in a
stable abutting on the same backyard.

[Sidenote: 24]

Bombardier Wetzel, of the 2nd Mounted Battery, 1st Kurhessian Field
Artillery Regiment, No. 11, records an incident which happened in
French territory near Lille on October 11th: "We had no fight, but we
caught about 20 men and shot them." By this time killing not in a fight
would seem to have passed into a habit.




2. WOMEN MURDERED AND OUTRAGED.


[Sidenote: 30]

From the very first women were not safe. At Liege 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.

[Sidenote: 11]

_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.

[Sidenote: 24]

_Wetteren Hospital._--At this hospital was an old woman of 80
completely transfixed by a bayonet.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Sempst._--Witness saw a girl of 17 dressed only in a chemise and in
great distress. She alleged that she herself and other girls had been
dragged into a field, stripped naked and violated, and that some of
them had then been killed with the bayonet.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Eppeghem._--On August 25th a pregnant woman who had been wounded with
a bayonet was discovered in the convent. She was dying.

[Sidenote: 19]

_Louvain._--"In the middle of the night I heard a knock at the outer
door of the stable, which led into a little street, and heard a woman's
voice crying for help. I opened the door, and just as I was going to
let her in, a rifle shot fired from the street by a German soldier rang
out and the woman fell dead at my feet."

[Sidenote: 21]

The wife of a witness ... was separated from him, and she saw other
ladies made to walk before the soldiers with their hands above their
heads. One, an old lady of 85 (name given) was dragged from her cellar
and taken with them to the station.

"I saw the corpses of some women in the street. I fell down, and a
woman who had been shot fell on top of me.... One woman whom I saw
lying dead in the street was a Miss ---- about 35. I also saw the body
of ---- (a woman). She had been shot. I saw an officer pull her corpse
underneath a wagon."

[Sidenote: 13]

_Dinant._--He found his wife lying on the floor in a room. She had
bullet wounds in four places, but was alive, and told her husband to
return to the children.

[Sidenote: 30]

Sixty women and children were confined in the cellar of a convent from
Sunday morning till the following Friday (August 28th), sleeping on the
ground, for there were no beds, with nothing to drink during the whole
period, and given no food until the Wednesday, "when somebody threw
into the cellar two sticks of macaroni and a carrot for each prisoner."

[Sidenote: 16]

In _Malines_ itself many bodies were seen. One witness saw a German
soldier cut a woman's breasts after he had murdered her, and saw many
other dead bodies of women in the streets.

[Sidenote: 16]

_Gelrode._--A woman was shot by some German soldiers as she was walking
home. This was done at a distance of 100 yards, and for no apparent
reason.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Hofstade._--The corpse of a woman was seen at the blacksmith's. She
had been killed with the bayonet.... Two young women were lying in the
backyard of the house. One had her breasts cut off, the other had been
stabbed.... In the garden of a house in the main street bodies of two
women were observed.

[Sidenote: 30]

_Campenhout_ [Statement of a valet].--"One of the officers ... putting
a revolver to my mistress' temple shot her dead. The officer was
obviously drunk. The other officers continued to drink and sing, and
they did not pay great attention to the killing of my mistress. The
officer who shot my mistress then told my master to dig a grave and
bury my mistress. My master and the officer went into the garden, the
officer threatening my master with a pistol. My master was then forced
to dig the grave, and to bury the body of my mistress in it. I cannot
say for what reason they killed my mistress. The officer who did it was
singing all the time."




3. THE MURDER AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.


[Sidenote: 32]

There can be no possible defence for the murder of children.

[Sidenote: 33]

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.

[Sidenote: 32]

It is clearly shown that many offences were committed against infants
and quite young children. On one occasion children were even roped
together and used as a military screen against the enemy, on another
three soldiers went into action carrying small children to protect
themselves from flank fire.

[Sidenote: 18]

At _Haecht_ several children had been murdered; one of two or three
years old was found nailed to the door of a farmhouse by its hands and
feet, a crime which seems almost incredible, but the evidence for which
we feel bound to accept. In the garden of this house was the body of a
girl who had been shot in the forehead.

[Sidenote: 18]

_Capelle-au-Bois._--Two children were murdered in a cart, and their
corpses were seen by many witnesses at different stages of the cart's
journey.

[Sidenote: 11]

_Tamines._--One witness describes how she saw a Belgian boy of fifteen
shot on the village green, and a day or two later on the same green a
little girl and her two brothers (name given) who were looking at the
German soldiers were killed before her eyes for no apparent reason.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Boort Meerbeek._--A German soldier was seen to fire three times
at a little girl of five years old. Having failed to hit her, he
subsequently bayoneted her. He was killed with the butt end of a
rifle by a Belgian soldier who had seen him commit this murder from a
distance.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Weerde._--Two children were killed in a village--apparently
Weerde--quite wantonly as they were standing in the road with their
mother. They were three or four years old, and were killed with the
bayonet.

[Sidenote: 19]

_Eppeghem._--The dead body of a child of two was seen pinned to the
ground with a German lance.

[Sidenote: 17]

_Hofstade._--On a side road ... was seen ... the dead body of a boy of
five or six with his hands nearly severed.

[Sidenote: 33]

In _Hofstade_ and _Sempst_, in _Haecht_, _Rotselaar_ and _Wespelaar_,
many children were murdered.

[Sidenote: 21]

_Louvain_ (August 28th).--One woman went mad, some children died,
others were born.... (August 29th, outside Louvain): Some corpses were
those of children who had been shot.

[Sidenote: 30]

_A small village._--There were two little children--a boy about 4 or
5, and a girl of about 6 or 7. The boy's left hand was cut off at the
wrist and the girl's right hand at the same place. They were both quite
dead.

[Sidenote: 32]

_Malines._--"One day when the Germans were not actually bombarding the
town, I left my house to go to my mother's house in High Street. My
husband was with me. I saw eight German soldiers, and they were drunk.
They were singing and making a lot of noise and dancing about. As the
German soldiers came along the street I saw a small child, whether boy
or girl I could not see, come out of a house. The child was about 2
years of age. The child came into the middle of the street so as to
be in the way of the soldiers. The soldiers were walking in twos. The
first line of two passed the child. One of the second line, the man
on the left, stepped aside and drove his bayonet with both hands into
the child's stomach, lifting the child into the air on his bayonet and
carrying it away on his bayonet, he and his comrades still singing. The
child screamed when the soldier struck it with his bayonet, but not
afterwards."




4. BRUTAL TREATMENT OF THE AGED, THE CRIPPLED AND THE INFIRM.


[Sidenote: 11]

At _Denee_, on August 28th, a Belgian soldier who had been taken
prisoner saw three civilian fellow-prisoners shot. One was a <DW36>
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.

[Sidenote: 20]

_Louvain._--"Subsequently my master--an old gentleman--was bayoneted
and shot."... Among other persons whose houses were burnt was an old
man of 90, lying dangerously ill, who was taken out on his mattress
and left lying in his garden all night. He died shortly after in the
hospital.

[Sidenote: 18]

The journey to Louvain is thus described by a witness: "We were all
marched off to Louvain, walking. There were some very old people,
amongst others a man 90 years of age. The very old people were drawn
in carts and barrows by the younger men. There was an officer with
a bicycle, who shouted, as people fell out by the side of the road,
'Shoot them.'"

[Sidenote: 8]

At _Heure le Romain_ ... some bedridden old men were imprisoned in the
church.

[Sidenote: 11]

_Andenne._--A paralytic was murdered in his garden.

[Sidenote: 29]

_Beaumetz._--They saw two old men--between 60 and 70 years of age--and
one old woman lying close to each other in the garden. All three had
the scalps cut right through.... They were still bleeding.




5. THE USE OF CIVILIANS AS SCREENS.


[Sidenote: 33]

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.

[Sidenote: 31]

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 have been commanded or acquiesced in by officers,
and in some cases the presence and connivance of officers is proved.

[Sidenote: 23]

_Termonde._--Two hundred civilians were utilised as a screen by the
German troops.

[Sidenote: 24]

_Binnenstraat._--The civilians were utilised on Saturday, the 26th
September, as a screen.

[Sidenote: 33]

_Mons._--On August 24th men, women and children were actually pushed
into the front of the German position outside Mons. The witness speaks
of 16 to 20 women, about a dozen children and half a dozen men being
there.

[Sidenote: 34]

At _Tournai_ 400 Belgian civilians--men, women and children--were
placed in front of the Germans, who then engaged the French.

[Sidenote: 34]

At _Ypres_ the Germans drove women in front of them by pricking them
with bayonets. The wounds were afterwards seen by the witness.

[Sidenote: 34]

At _Londerzeel_ 30 or 40 civilians--men, women and children--were
placed at the head of a German column.

One witness from _Termonde_ was made to stand in front of the Germans,
together with others, all with their hands above their heads. Those who
allowed their hands to drop were at once prodded with the bayonet.




6. THE KILLING OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND PRISONERS.


[Sidenote: 35]

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.

[Sidenote: 36]

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 very badly hurt, and quite unable to make resistance.
One of them, an officer, held up his handkerchief as a white flag, and
this "attracted the attention of a party of about eight Germans. The
Germans came to the edge of the pit. It was getting dusk, but the light
was still good, and everything clearly discernible. One of them, who
appeared to be carrying no arms, and who, at any rate, had no rifle,
came a few feet down the <DW72> into the chalk pit, within eight or ten
yards of some of the wounded men." He looked at the men, laughed, and
said something in German to the Germans who were waiting on the edge
of the pit. Immediately one of them fired at the officer, then three
or four of these 10 soldiers were shot, then another officer, and the
witness, and the rest of them. "After an interval of some time I sat up
and found that I was the only man of the 10 who were living when the
Germans came into the pit remaining alive, and that all the rest were
dead."




7. LOOTING, BURNING AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY.


[Sidenote: 34]

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 members of the Committee. Besides burning houses the Germans
frequently smashed furniture and pictures; they also broke in doors and
windows. Frequently, too, they defiled houses by relieving the wants of
nature upon the floor. They also appear to have perpetrated the same
vileness upon piled up heaps of provisions, so as to destroy what they
could not themselves consume.

[Sidenote: 25]

Villages, even large parts of a city, were given to the flames as part
of the terrorising policy.

[Sidenote: 35]

The general conclusion is that the burning and destruction of property
which took place was only in a very small minority of cases justified
by military necessity.

[Sidenote: 19]

_Louvain._--Then the corps of incendiaries got to work. They had
broad belts with the words "Gott mit uns" ("God with us"), and their
equipment consisted of a hatchet, a syringe, a small shovel and a
revolver. Fires blazed up in the direction of the Law Courts and St.
Martin's Barracks.

[Sidenote: 19]

A witness: "When we got to the Place de la Station ... not a single
house in the place was standing."

[Sidenote: 20]

On the 26th (Wednesday), in the city of Louvain, massacre, fire, and
destruction went on. The University, with its Library, the Church of
St. Peter, and many houses were set on fire and burnt to the ground.

[Sidenote: 12]

_Tamines._--A witness went there on August 27th and says: "It is
absolutely destroyed and a mass of ruins."

[Sidenote: 9]

_Liege._--The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de l'Universite
and the Quai des Pecheurs were systematically fired with benzine.

[Sidenote: 16]

_Aerschot._--The houses were set on fire with special apparatus.

[Sidenote: 12]

_Montigny-sur-Sambre._--Incendiaries, with a distinctive badge on their
arm, went down the main street throwing handfuls of inflammatory and
explosive pastilles into the houses. These pastilles were carried by
them in bags, and in this way about 130 houses were destroyed in the
main street.

[Sidenote: 11]

_Namur._--A witness of good standing ... describes how the town was
set on fire systematically in six different places.... Not less than
140 houses were burnt. On the 25th the hospital was set on fire with
inflammable pastilles, the pretext being that soldiers in the hospital
had fired upon the Germans.

[Sidenote: 13]

_Dinant._--The town was systematically set on fire by hand grenades....
The houses and villages were pillaged and property wantonly destroyed.

[Sidenote: 12]

At _Morlanwelz_, about this time, the British Army, together with some
French cavalry, were compelled to retire before the German troops. The
latter took the burgomaster and his manservant prisoner and shot them
both in front of the Hotel de Ville at Peronne (Belgium), where the
bodies were left in the street for 48 hours. They burnt the Hotel de
Ville and 62 houses. The usual accusation of firing by civilians was
made. It is strenuously denied by the witness, who declares that three
or four days before the arrival of the Germans, circulars had been
distributed to every house and placards had been posted in the town
ordering the deposit of all firearms at the Hotel de Ville, and that
this order had been complied with.

[Sidenote: 24]

_Erpe._--The village was deliberately burnt.

[Sidenote: 23]

_Termonde._--The town was partially burnt. One witness was taken
prisoner in the street by some German soldiers, together with several
other civilians. At about 12 o'clock on the 5th some of the tallest
and strongest men amongst the prisoners were picked out to go round
the streets with paraffin. Three or four carts containing paraffin
tanks were brought up, and a syringe was used to put paraffin on to
the houses, which were then fired. The process of destruction began
with the houses of rich people, and afterwards the houses of the poorer
classes were treated in the same manner.

[Sidenote: 8]

_Herve._--From the 8th to the 10th over 300 houses were burnt.

[Sidenote: 8]

_Vise._--On or about the 14th and 15th the village was completely
destroyed. Officers directed the incendiaries, who worked methodically
with benzine.

[Sidenote: 9]

_Diary of Eitel Anders_, a German soldier.--"We crossed the Belgian
frontier on August 15th, 1914, at 11.50 in the forenoon, and then we
went steadily along the main road till we got into Belgium. Hardly were
we there when we had a horrible sight. Houses were burnt down.... Not
one of the hundreds of houses were spared. Everything was plundered and
burnt."

[Sidenote: 24]

_Diary of Matbern, of the 4th Company of Jaegers_, states that at a
village between Birnal and Dinant, on Sunday, August 23rd, "about 220
inhabitants were shot, and the village was burnt.... All villages,
chateaux and houses are burnt down during the night. It is a beautiful
sight to see the fires all round us in the distance."


_Looting._

[Sidenote: 34]

The German troops, both in Belgium and France, are proved to have been
guilty of persistent looting. In the majority of cases the looting took
place from houses, but there is also evidence that German soldiers,
and even officers, robbed their prisoners, both civil and military,
of sums of money and other portable possessions. It was apparently
well known throughout the German Army that towns and villages would
be burned whenever it appeared that any civilians had fired upon the
German troops, and there is reason to suspect that this known intention
of the German military authorities in some cases explains the sequence
of events which led up to the burning and sacking of a town or village.
The soldiers, knowing that they would have an opportunity of plunder
if the place was condemned, had a motive for arranging some incident
which would provide the necessary excuse for condemnation. More than
one witness alleges that shots coming from the window of a house were
fired by German soldiers, who had forced their way into the house for
the purpose of thus creating an alarm.

[Sidenote: 15]

_Aerschot._--Throughout the day the town was looted by the soldiers.

[Sidenote: 8]

_Vise._--Antiques and china were removed from the houses before their
destruction by officers who guarded the plunder, revolver in hand.

[Sidenote: A 171]

Translated extract from diary of Stephan Luther: "We live like God in
France."

[Sidenote: A 181]

Translated extracts from the field notebook of an officer in the 178th
Regiment, XIIth (Saxon) Corps: "August 17th.--In the afternoon I had a
look at the little chateau belonging to one of the King's Secretaries
(not at home). Our men had behaved like regular vandals. They had
looted the cellar first.... Everything was topsy-turvy--magnificent
furniture, silk, and even china.... I am sure they must have taken away
a heap of useless stuff simply for the pleasure of looting."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: A 182]

"September 3rd.--Still at Rethel, ... the houses are charming inside.
The middle class in France has magnificent furniture.... Every bit of
furniture broken, mirrors smashed. The Vandals themselves could not
have done more damage. This place is a disgrace to our army."

"I could not resist taking a little memento myself here and there."


  Article 47 of the Second International Peace Conference (Convention
  concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land), held at the Hague
  in 1907, reads as follows:--

  _Pillage is expressly forbidden._




FINDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE.


[Sidenote: 37]

"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, house burning, and the wanton
  destruction of property were ordered and countenanced by the
  officers of the German Army, that elaborate provision had been made
  for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war, and
  that the burnings and destruction were frequent where no military
  necessity could be alleged, being indeed part of a system of
  general terrorization.=

  "(=iv=) =That the rules and usages of war were frequently
  broken, particularly by the using of civilians, including women
  and children, as a shield for advancing forces exposed to fire,
  to a less degree by killing the wounded and prisoners, and in the
  frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag.=

  "Sensible as they are of the gravity of these conclusions, the
  Committee conceive that they would be doing less than their duty if
  they failed to record them as fully established by the evidence.
  =Murder, lust, and pillage prevailed over many parts of Belgium
  on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilised nations during
  the last three centuries.=

  "Our function is ended when we have stated what the evidence
  establishes, but we may be permitted to express our belief that
  these disclosures will not have been made in vain if they touch
  and rouse the conscience of mankind, and we venture to hope that,
  as soon as the present war is over, the nations of the world in
  council will consider what means can be provided and sanctions
  devised to prevent the recurrence of such horrors as our generation
  is now witnessing."




Is YOUR conscience roused? Won't YOU take the most effective way of
showing it--if you are a man under 40 and fit? The only way to put a
stop to these and other crimes is to crush the German Army.

YOU can help either by joining the Army or by making munitions. Place
YOUR services at the disposal of the military authorities.

If YOU are a woman, cannot you help a man to decide?




[Illustration: Map of Belgium]




PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS.


REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ALLEGED GERMAN OUTRAGES,

  38 pages, F'cap. folio, with 2 maps. [Cd. 7894.]      Price 6_d._


APPENDIX TO REPORT,

  199 pages, F'cap. folio. Depositions, diaries and plates.
  [Cd. 7895.]                                     Price 1_s._ 9_d._


The above have been reprinted as Official Publications, in smaller
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       *       *       *       *       *

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or from the Agencies in the British Colonies and Dependencies, the
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      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber's note:

Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.

Inconsistent hyphenation was made consistent.

P. 17: Rotselaer and Wespelaer -> Rotselaar and Wespelaar.



***