Truth about German Atrocities

[Skipman]

Truth about German Atrocities

Fact or Propaganda? ( Make up your own mind on this one )

Mike

[Guest]

Also

Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages

Mike

[bookworm1914]

I just downloaded both the Report on German Outrages (aka: Bryce Report) and The Truth About German Atrocities from the Internet Archive. From what I can tell, "The Truth" is a redacted version of the Report, presenting highlights of the original document.

The Report makes for harrowing reading indeed--a litany of the worst atrocities imaginable allegedly committed by German forces as they invaded Belgium in 1914. I did some reading around the document and most scholars concur it is highly unreliable as a historical document--basically a piece of propaganda. That said, some of the incidents in the Report have been corroborated by other sources, although the fact that witnesses did not give testimony under oath and the interview files were later lost are both grounds for suspicion according to the scholars I read.

Some useful secondary sources: Peter Buitenhuis's The Great War of Words (UBC Press), which devotes a couple of pages to the Report; also: Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War (Basic Books) which dismisses it outright; H.C. Peterson's Propaganda for War: The Campaign Against American Neutrality (Univ. of Oklahoma P).

I'm interested in hearing further information/ opinions about the report from anyone familiar with it.

Cheers.

[AndyHollinger]

I have in my possession a "History of the Great War" published in America, 1914. In it many German atrocities are documented as truth ... of couse there is a cavalry charge on the cover as well.

I think we've covered a lot of this in other threads .. but the fact that abnormal things did happen in Belgium and that they were played up doesn't mean they didn't happen. Determined and driven men, commanding armed, tired, scared, nervous men do strange things.

I am beginning to think that, outside of the "normal battles" war is a series of atrocities. I was reading about British and American patrol activities around New York City during 1778-1780 and it seems there was much plunder, rapine and destructive activity. British patrols got bigger and bigger to deny desertion and hence became more and more destructive. American reprisals also got more determined.

Truth is always the first casualty.

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon All,

As Andy says there have been many previous threads concerning the atrocities committed, generally speaking the more outlandish (bayonetting babies, mutilating women etc.) have little or no corroboration but there appears to be overwhelming evidence that significant numbers of Belgian civilians were shot, of all ages and sexes, in the early days of the conflict.

The reasons for the executions are more hotly debated but I would respectfully suggest that the sheer numbers put it beyond "shooting franc-tireurs" etc.

When I get home I will try and find the previous threads or at least post specific examples of these atrocities.

[Guest]

More on-line books/articles HERE

Mike

[cdr]

The Bryce report is interesting. It describes a series of actual events but unfortunately adds a layer of propaganda. It still is a lot more relevant (eg closer to the actual events and talking to some witnesses) than for instance German regimental records written years after the events and taken as holy writ by some.

Carl

[bookworm1914]

Thanks, all, for the replies and Skipman for the links.

My interest in the Bryce Report comes from research I'm doing on the popular war novelist Ralph Connor, who cites the report as gospel in his 1917 novel The Major. Connor's works are dated and forgotten--themselves quite propagandist--but they were read by thousands during and immediately after the war (I often think of Connor as a sort of Tom Clancy of his day).

Connor repeats several of the Report's accounts of German bayonetting babies, etc, so whatever the accuracy/ inaccuracy of the Report it certainly got through to one author who had the ear of many in his day. As with much propaganda, the issue of truth/ untruth becomes of secondary concern to the effects such works have on people's attitudes and the prosecution of the war.

The Bryce Report may have boosted enlistments, but indirectly it also brought a lot of unwarranted prejudice upon German immigrants in North America, who for many became equated with (as Connor wrote) "woman-raping, baby-killing devils."

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon Bookworm,

I would suggest perhaps more importantly and unfortunately, it meant that the other well documented atrocities were also dismissed in the same terms i.e as propaganda -(well documented by Schmitz and Nieuwland, then more recently by Kramer and Horne)

[bookworm1914]

Good point, Steve Marsdin.

[healdav]

There is not the slightest doubt that there were German atrocities and that they were well orchestrated i.e. policy.

Whether every story told was true is another matter. I recently came across one story of atrocities at Arlon where a mn said he had seen large scale shootings. No one else could understand what e was talking about. Eventually the priest got him to admit that he had made up the entire story.

To add to it, there was an atrocity in Arlon when, if I remember rightly, about 100 men were shot near the ailway station, having been brought from Rossignol for deportation to Germany (heaven knows why), but the guards appear to have just got fed up with the job nd shot them instead.

Memorial at Arlon station and their graves in Rossignol.

[SteveMarsdin]

Your memory is good Dave !

108 from Rossignol (including one woman) and 14 from elsewhere were shot in groups of 10 by firing squads on 25 August 1914 in a railway siding at Arlon. Colonel von Thessmar, on been told there were no available carriages for onward transfer to Germany, issued instructions to request carriages be sent from Trier. He then changed his mind and issued orders to Major von Hedemann of Landsturm Battalion Gotha to execute the "franc-tireurs".

[cdr]

The orders of von Hedemann (from Durlach) still exist in the Munich archives (HS 2708). The Belgian gouvernement gave in 1915 the number of 111 victims for Arlon (so pretty accurate !)

Carl

there is probably a link between this massacre and the battles against the French near Rossignol