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Remembered Today:

sexual violence as a weapon of war in Belgium


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Dear,

I am looking for diary note and/or story's about sexual violence during World War I (I know a very delicate theme that will be treated  
with the necessary respect) for my master degree thesis at the University of Ghent. The main theme of my thesis revolves around  
'sexual violence as a weapon of war' and I would like to apply this approach to (mainly) Dutch primary sources (French, English or German  
sources are also useful!). In this my question to you: do you know of any of these occurrences or could you help me with relevant reading  
material (preferably applied to Belgium) à la 'Eine Frau in Berlin' which is about the Russian rapes of German women and their diary  
passages during the invasion of the Red Army in Germany during WWII (although I would prefer to focus on WWI).
Finding primary (ego)-sources is, to my great regret, looking for a pin in a haystack if you do not have an 'entrance' (people or cases  
where you can focus on).

However, if you are not aware of these ego documents concerning rape by soldiers, I wondered if you might know about German (or French /  
Belgian) military judicial documents that might discuss the subject.  
If so, where I could best find them (which archives are known for this). And/or if police reports could also be useful for this matter.
Apart from that, I am certainly open to strong secondary literature about the link between (military) masculinity and sexual violence.

I am fairly new to this forum so I did not yet have the time to search all the topics, my apologies in advance.

If there are topics on this subject on this forum, or beyond, I'd love to be tagged in it or receive a link. You can always contact me with further information!

Thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Glen.

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Good Afternoon, Glen, and welcome to the Forum.

 

I think there are a couple of books about sexual matters and the Great War that may cover rape, but I can't recall the titles - Googling may lead to them.

 

As it's a(nother) wet day here in England, I've dug out my copy of Myths and Legends of the First World War by James Hayward,, which briefly considers the exaggerated tales of "frightfulness" by the Boche. An epidemic of such stories led to the British Government appointing the Bryce Committee to compile a report (published in May 1915 and described by some as an atrocity in itself), which "offered the public a lurid litany of bestial rape, sadistic mutilation and violent murder". (Who knows, a copy may be available on-line.)

 

Chapter 4 of Hayward's book  is titled "The Rape of Belgium", a term - as you may know - used to cover many forms of indignities suffered by that country. It mentions various lurid cases that were little more than "hysterical and pornographic fantasies", as such the Vicar's letter to The Times of September 12, 1914, supposedly quoting from  a letter of an officer at the Front, who had "three girls in the trenches with us who came to us for protection. One had no clothes on, having been outraged by the Germans ... Another poor girl ... had both her breasts cut off".

 

Googling "1915 postcards rape" will lead to propaganda images of despoiled women.

 

It would be interesting to know if the Germans made comparable claims about Allied troops ...

 

Good luck with your project.

 

 

Moonraker

Edited by Moonraker
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In order for sexual violence to be used as a weapon of war, there has to be doctrine behind it that encouraged it, which was not the case for the German army.

I don't deny that many acts of (mainly "normal") violence happened, usually based upon what had happened in the 1870-1871 war. Orders were that any possible similar acts of resistance should be severely punished, including by executions. Yet sexual violence was never among the measures to be used against alleged or real acts of "illegal resistance" as the Germans saw it (civilians participating in active war against the German army).

As far as I can see, it is almost impossible to find a lot of well documented acts of rape by the German army during their advance. A lot is hearsay and often also exaggerated propaganda (which doesn't mean individual German soldiers didn't commit acts of sexual violence).

 

And if you want to prove it was used as a weapon of war, you will need to show proof of that with German sources.

 

Jan

 

BTW: if it would really have been a widespread weapon of war, shouldn't it be very easy to find plenty of examples?

Edited by AOK4
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Jan makes a good point. This topic isn't really something I know much about, but I don't suppose that any nation or its armies decided to use sexual violence as a weapon.  But it could be said that the fear of sexual violence was a factor in warfare, and, as I've suggested  above, Britain used - exaggerated - that fear for propaganda purposes.

 

I suppose that when a village was threatened by approaching enemy soldiers - of whatever nationality - the risk to its womenfolk featured high among the occupants' fears, but this was not regarded as a weapon. And  I doubt that in Europe any military leader warned  his opponents that their womenfolk would suffer. But what about in Asia and Africa, when traditional tribal enmities might be a factor?

 

Two earlier threads, of 2004, may include  a couple of useful leads:

 

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I can only echo what Jan has said, and wonder how sexual violence against the female segment of an occupied area can be termed a weapon; rather than simply beastly behavior.

 

Much of these "tales" concerning Belgium brutality stem from a very successful Brit propaganda effort.   While I am equally certain instances of rape did occur, the simple fact that the enemy was a occupying force made such stories entirely believable to the world at the time.

 

In my estimation, the closest thing to your theme would be the post-war occupation of the Ruhr.  A good number of rapes were reported to the commandants of the occupying French Colonial Force, and no Senegalese were held accountable because all incidents were considered consensual.  Just as many Walloon children may have been born during the war with blue eyes, so were 3000 infants brought into the world as mulatto in the Rhineland shortly after the war.  They were termed "Rhinelander ********", and proved a handy tool for Hitler to add to his box of incinerating rhetoric two decades later.   

Yes,  I do believe these Senegalese troops accomplished the goal of German national humiliation; even as "The Tiger" intended for them to do.

 

Another book you might consider consulting is:

Book Faleshoods094.jpg

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There were certainly atrocities involving in total thousands of Belgians during the war, but I have not seen anywhere any claim that rape, etc was a deliberate policy.

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  The following references may help a bit:

 

Atrocities and war crimes

Winter, Jay (Editor)

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013

The Cambridge History of the First World War, The Cambridge History of the First World War, pp.561-584

   *  Good introduction to the subject, based on up to date scholarly literature

 

German atrocities, 1914 : a history of denial

John N. Horne; Alan Kramer 1954-

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press 2001

    

Sexual Violence and Family Honor: British Propaganda and International Law during the First World War

Gullace, Nicoletta F

The American Historical Review, 1997, Vol. 102(3), pp.714-747

   * Atrocities in Belgium were a particular vehicle of British propaganda during the Great War-   the quantity of truth is another matter

 

Lustmord and loving the other: A history of sexual murder in modern Germany and Austria (1873–1932)

Aragon-Yoshida, Amber; Kieval, Hillel (advisor) ; Friedman, Andrea (committee member) ; Izenberg, Gerald (committee member) ; Lutzeler, Paul (committee member) ; Tatlock, Lynne (committee member) ; Treitel, Corinna (committee member)

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing 2011

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

   * Gives a fair amount of information about crimes of violence  in German/Germanic society-not war crimes particularly

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Glen, 

 

This sounds like a really interesting but complex topic you've chosen, both from the historical and the legal point of view... may I ask for which faculty you're writing? I'd be interested in your findings!!  

I've tackled the subject a few times from an international law point of view, and through a military lens. If I can help you in any way, feel free to ask!

I think the most difficult point here in the legal point of view is going to find a definition of sexual violence as a way of waging war, for the period in question. It was only defined as such by the ICTY and the ICTR... 

I promise to dive into my books and documentation once I'm back home (in a bit more than 4 weeks now) and send you some references. 

You an always PM me if you need something specific. 

 

Regards, 

 

Marilyne

 

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On 4/8/2018 at 16:54, Moonraker said:

t I don't suppose that any nation or its armies decided to use sexual violence as a weapon. 

 

 

The ICTR defined sexual violence as a weapon, not only in war, but more specifically in genocide. 

So yes, it is a weapon and a means of warfare. The literature and the jurisprudence of both the ICTY and the ICTR and the impact it had on the drafting of the Statute of Rome make for fascinating read! I can try to summarize it one of these days... without hijacking Glen's thread of course... just tell me if you want more input and I'll jot down a few notes for you guys. 

But the thing is, without wanting to be mean, but what you say here, Moonraker, is quite naive... from the moment on the government or the commanders on an army encourage the use of sexual violence in order to force a population into submission, then the nation "decides" it and is responsible for it. This was exactly the case in Rwanda, where rape was encouraged in order to "eradicate" the "bad ethnic". 

 

OK... I'll stop here... 

 

Once I start on this topic, I'm off for hours !! 

 

Marilyne

 

 

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49 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

 

Tfrom the moment on the government or the commanders on an army encourage the use of sexual violence in order to force a population into submission, then the nation "decides" it and is responsible for it. This was exactly the case in Rwanda, where rape was encouraged in order to "eradicate" the "bad ethnic". 

 

 

 

Come on... I don't know of any commander ever encouraging this, nor was there a policy in WWI to "eradicate the bad ethnic".

 

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25 minutes ago, AOK4 said:

 

Come on... I don't know of any commander ever encouraging this, nor was there a policy in WWI to "eradicate the bad ethnic".

 

 

I'm talking RWANDA here... 1994  !!!! 

My point being, that you won't find any legal description of it in WWI, because the definition of the use of sexual violence as a mean of war was only defined by the ICTR... 

 

Groundbreaking case being the Akayesu case. 

 

M.

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   Is there any hope that this thread might actually have something to do with German  activities in Belgium in c.1914- rather than Rwanda or Former Yugoslavia., which is distinctly NOT Great War?

    1)  No troops of any army are well behaved- kill someone one day and revert to being a gentleman the next? No, Sirree- switch on violent conduct and it's hard to switch off again.

    ii)   Ponsonby "Falsehood" is a tirade- a long-term opponent of the "Secret Diplomacy". Bits are true/bits might be true.  Try finding the original primary evidence- eg the shop in Vienna selling atrocity pics. to all and sundry

 

  iii) 

24 minutes ago, AOK4 said:

Tfrom the moment on the government or the commanders on an army encourage the use of sexual violence in order to force a population into submission, then the nation "decides" it and is responsible for it. This was exactly the case in Rwanda, where rape was encouraged in order to "eradicate" the "bad ethnic". 

 

 

    Any contemporary documentary evidence for this from  German official records?????   It might help.

 

           The conduct of  German troops in Belgium in 1914  reflected perhaps the harshness of the German  (ex-Prussian) military code- very strong against any form of involvement of the civilian population of the country invaded- draconian against franc-tireurs,etc.

     I turned up one small contemporary reference which might help-the privately printed letters of Captain Loscombe Law Stable, held at IWM- Stable commented during the RWF retreat that contrary to what one might read in the papers, the conduct of British troops was just as bad.. There are any number of  atrocity stories at local level in Belgium and Northern France. Having an "ex" who is French and coming from the Sedan area, then such stories are still part of the local heritage. I heard first-hand accounts of the behaviour of German troops in 1914 from Madam's grandparents in the 1970s and 1980s- 3 of them were still alive (Born 1903,1904 and 1905) and had either been evacuated in the front of the German advance or had endured the German occupation as children.  It would be well to remember that the German Army occupied a large chunk of Northern France- so the argument of sexual violence as a tactic to force state submission doesn't really stack up- what? all of France raped and pillaged?  

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7 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

I'm talking RWANDA here... 1994  !!!! 

My point being, that you won't find any legal description of it in WWI, because the definition of the use of sexual violence as a mean of war was only defined by the ICTR... 

 

     Remind you again that this is  GREAT WAR Forum.  So, c'mon, let's have the Great War evidence, please. Rwanda and Former Yugoslvia is  "rear window History"-  if you apply today's values to the past, then you get revisionist history (which can be very useful and interesting)  but you come back to the same 3 Golden Rules of History:

1) Rule 1 EVIDENCE

2) Rule 2- EVIDENCE

3) Rule 3- EVIDENCE

 

       You don't  "prove" your case by saying there won't be any evidence as the concept was only defined nigh on a century later. This is polemicisation, not History.

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OK OK.... I get it... 

 

I was just making a legal comparison... sorry for dragging you all into my rantings on the subject... That's what lawyers do ... 

 

I'll just shut up now... 

 

M.

Edited by Marilyne
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1 minute ago, Marilyne said:

I was just making a legal comparison... sorry for dragging you all into my rantings on a fascinating subject... 

But I stand my ground: you can't LEGALLY define sexual violence as a weapon of war if you don't have the jurisprudence and the laws to do so, and those only showed up in the late nineties... 

 

I'll just shut up now... 

 

M.

 

     Now that is  a fair enough point- but it means some involved historical jurisprudence as to what the situation was with regard to the conduct of German troops in Belgium in 1914.  Volumes and volumes of that (The publications of the Carnegie Endowment for one). But as Clausewitz observed, when it comes to war, International Law is a trifle which can be disregarded.

     Perhaps come at the topic from the other way round: Are there recorded examples of German courts-martial on their own troops for misconduct????  I believe there are-  the records of those -if any survived the destruction of military records in Potsdam in 1945 should have been turned over and over in modern monograph literature.

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3 minutes ago, johnboy said:

 

     Bryce and Pollock were lawyers. Bryce-a Liberal reformer, Pollock an excrutiatingly dull legal historian (It was said that Maitland speeded up writing their classic History of English Law in order to crowd Pollock out,as he was so awful a writer).. Herbert Fisher was a professional historian and a good one-  but also a  a pro-Government man (and not a very successful pedestrian later on). Story after story after story after story- and b*gger-all evidence. The report is basically a plea for more international law in future wars- see the last page. It would fail as an undergraduate History essay- what are your sources?

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Perhaps come at the topic from the other way round: Are there recorded examples of German courts-martial on their own troops for misconduct????  I believe there are-  the records of those -if any survived the destruction of military records in Potsdam in 1945 should have been turned over and over in modern monograph literature.

 

I remember having seen or read some things indeed (unfortunately I can't come up with hard evidence for now). Just look at the huge number of Militär-Gefangenen-Kompagnien in 1918 where convicted German soldiers (for all kinds of crimes) served until their punishment was finished.

 

 

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1 minute ago, AOK4 said:

 

I remember having seen or read some things indeed (unfortunately I can't come up with hard evidence for now). Just look at the huge number of Militär-Gefangenen-Kompagnien in 1918 where convicted German soldiers (for all kinds of crimes) served until their punishment was finished.

 

 

 

     Yes- the military punishment companies/battalions of both wars. Good point.  But do we have evidence of German troops being sent to them as punishment in 1914-1915 for "sexual" violence-as opposed to just "violence"??

 

      To me, the most obvious point is that the German Army of 1914 was (OK with a few non-combat exceptions) a MALE army-Consequently, any violence against a civilian MALE AND FEMALE population is de facto going to have a sexual aspect to it.  

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Rape then, even more than now, was grossly under reported, but I think it would be well nigh impossible to find irrefutable evidence that it was actually used as a “weapon of war”.  Since time immemorial, invading armies have considered women to be part and parcel of the spoils of war, but I can’t see any early 20th century Army Commander, from a civilized country, advocating it.  POSSIBLY, the odd platoon commander or some such lower echelon person, but I suspect that the men just got drunk and became obnoxious.

Hazel

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I have been absent from the forum for some considerable time, due to personal circumstances. However, I do occasionally manage to find time to read posts every few days or so. Unfortunately, I find I am no longer able to contribute because I would not be able to guarantee time to respond to questions or posts etc. In this case, I am making an exception as it may provide a piece that may help or contribute to your studies.

 

A few years ago, I purchased a large, privately compiled and bound book that had belonged to Earl Fortescue. The title on the spine is ‘Atrocities and Prisoners 1914-1918’ and therefore, would be one of a kind. In the main, it contains many of the Parliamentary Reports produced during the war. And yes, the Bryce Report. However, there are also some pieces pasted into the book which relate to sexual violence - hence this post.

 

One item speaks for itself, taken from The Times newspaper and smacks heavily as a piece of propaganda. However the other piece, on thin flimsy paper, is of the quality usually found in the original War Diaries held at TNA. From the date of it, it would seem to relate to operations on the attack mounted at Cambrai. The source, pencilled at the top, might be traceable. I wish you the best with your studies.

20812B89-559D-4213-90C3-45D970039F29.jpeg

8FA09B04-D999-4911-A519-7F7733D4F30E.jpeg

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Are there recorded examples of German courts-martial on their own troops for misconduct????  I

 

If there are some about sexual violence, I'd be happy to read them... because that would turn about the complete literature on the prosecution of sexual violence as we know it now... 

 

The first thing you have to figure out is on what base these court martials would have taken place?? 

Meaning what were the laws in place in Germany (if any) forbidding the troops to rape..." nullum crimensine lege" and all that... 

 

Internationally speaking, nobody was tried for sexual violence in Leipzig... and this is basically because there was no rule of law saying sexual violence is a war crime. 

The Lieber Code of 1863 specified rape as a war crime but this code was not directly applicable in WWI. 

The source of LOAC for WWI were the Geneva Convention of 1906 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 in which rape and sexual violence are not specifically cited as war crimes.

One could point out to customary law. As Prof. Schabas has pointed out, : "rape has always been a war crime, although it was not mentioned as such in either the Nuremberg charter or the Geneva Conventions"... 

 

So it remains a tricky question, legally speaking. 

 

M.

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When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.

 

 

German Military Law (Kriegsartikel)

 

Artikel 17

Im Felde darf der Soldat nie vergessen, daß der Krieg mit der bewaffneten Macht des Feindes geführt wird. Hab und Gut der Bewohner des feindlichen Landes, der Verwundeten, Kranken und Kriegsgefangenen stehen unter dem besonderen Schutz des Gesetzes, ebenso das Eigentum von gebliebenen Angehörigen der deutschen oder verbündeten Truppen.
Eigenmächtiges Beutemachen, Plünderung, boshafte oder mutwillige Beschädigung oder Vernichtung fremder Sachen im Felde, Bedrückung der Landesbewohner werden mit den schwersten Strafen belegt. Als Plünderung ist es nicht anzusehen, wenn die Aneignung sich nur auf Lebensmittel, Heilmittel, Bekleidungsgegenstände, Feuerungsmittel, Futter und Beförderungsmittel erstreckt und dem vorhandenen Bedürfnis entspricht.

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For numpties like me Google translate has that as:

 

In the field the soldier must never forget that the war is waged with the armed might of the enemy. The property of the inhabitants of the enemy country, the wounded, the sick and the prisoners of war are under the special protection of the law, as well as the property of remaining members of the German or allied troops. Unauthorized looting, plundering, malicious or wanton damage or destruction of foreign objects in the field, oppression of the inhabitants of the country are subject to the heaviest penalties. It is not to be considered plunder if the acquisition covers only food, medicines, clothing, firefighters, food and means of transport, and meets the existing need.

 

Regards

Chris

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