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Show AMERICAN DENIES ATROCITYSTORIES Declares the German Troops Did Not Commit Acts of Brutality. New York, Sept 16. An Associa ted Press staff correspondent of American birth and antecedents, who was sent from the Now York office and was rar.ht in Brussels at the time of the (iernian invasion, held as a prisoner for sc-verul days and flnall escapfd to Holland, has sent by mail the following story of his ex periences 'The night before the Germans entered en-tered Brussels, when the Belgian civil civ-il guards and refugees began pouting pout-ing into the city from the direction of Louvain, they brought stories of unspeakable German atrocities, maltreatment mal-treatment of old men and children and the violation of women "The Belgian capital reeled with apprehension. Within an hour tin: gaiety, the vivacitv and brilliancy of the city went out like a broken arc light The radiance of the cafes was exchanged for darkness, whispering gTOUPB of residents broke up hurriedly hurried-ly and locked themselves In their homes, where they put up the shutters shut-ters and drew in their trlcolored Belgian Bel-gian flags. Tho historic Belgian city went through a state of morbl l consternation remarkably like that from which it suffered on June 18, 1816, when It trembled with tho fear of a French victory at Waterloo. Fraternize With Invaders. "fn less thaja twentyyfour iiour the Belgian citizens were chatting comfortably with the German invaders inva-ders and tho allegation of German brutality and demoniacal torture din solved into one of the myths which have accompanied all wars. "Neither In Brussels, nco in its environs, was a single offensive act, so far as I know, committed by a German soldier In a city of over half a million people, invaded by a hostile army of perhaps a quarter ot a million soldiers, no act sufficiently flagrant to demand punishment or to awaken protest came to my attention atten-tion "Tho frightful reports that had pre-J ceded the German army into Bru3-; sels included the disemboweling ofj old men and the impaling of children i cm lances, just outside Louvaln. In-j estigation not only failed to substantiate sub-stantiate these rumors, but could not even discover any one In the immediate imme-diate vicinity who credited them. An eyewitness of unimpeachable veracity veraci-ty told mo that the worst behavior he had observed during the first German Ger-man entry Into Louvain (August 19) was that of a German soldier who leaned from his horse and kissed a pretty Flemish girl, who brought him a glass of beer Trails German Troops. "I marched for days with tho German Ger-man columns, often only one day behind be-hind the fighting, with the bouses that had been burned stll! smouldering, smoulder-ing, the ground freshly broken by shells, and trampled by horses and men and tho memory of tho German advance vivid in the minds of the inhabitants in-habitants 1 interviewed an average aver-age of twenty persons in each of a dozen towns and found only one Instance In-stance of a noncombatant who had been killed without a justifiable provocation prov-ocation In this case the evidence did not clearly prove that the man had been wantonly murdered. He lived in one of the typical small Belgian countryside houses which combine the comforts of home with the lure of a small public bar. This house was at the north end of Merbos-le-Chateau, a town through which a large part of the German army passed on the road to Maubeuge. A son of the murdered man, whose name was Arthur Nlcodem. showed me blood clots on the floor marking the place where Nlcodem fell, his throat tut by a sawedged German 6aber "It was said by some inhabitants that the murdered man showed a pair of binoculars; but a mere probable prob-able explanation was that English outposts had concealed themselves in the house, from which they poured a rain of fire upon the first German invaders. The inference that the shooting was done by Belgian civil; ans may have inflamed the Germans to reprisals. In that neighborhood four houses had been burned and one was still ablaze as 1 passed on Wednesday, Wed-nesday, August 2C. Houses Fired Upon. "This town of Merbes-Ie-Chateaux. which had been the scene of an un important skirmish between the German Ger-man and EngliBh on the previous Sunday was riddled with rifle shot:; The small number of windows intact showed that the Germans had made a deliberate assault upon the residents resi-dents of the town. But the Inhabit ants themselves admitted that all of the shooting had been done by a comparatively small number of Germans Ger-mans and that the firing had not been IF BOSTON BRAVES WIN PENNANT 'TWILL BE DEMONSTRATION OF Boston Brave outfielders. Left to right: Gather, Deal and Moran. If the Boston Braves win the National league pennant this year it will be a demonstration of how fielding and pitching- alono can cop the rag. In other departments of the game, particularly at the bat, they are doing indifferent work. Three important cogs in the Brave machine are Cather, Deal and Moran, outfielders. m begun until English soldiers who In J concealed themselves in tho houses fired first upon the Germans. "I have emphasized the one fatality fatali-ty of the noncombatants because the news of It traveled up and down the Snmbro and across to Hantes-Wibe-rle and Solro-Sur-Sambro, multiplying multiply-ing as it went and developing ghastly and Inhuman details until It seemed an unanswerable reproach to the whole German empire With this t one, possible exception. I did not en counter in Nivelles. in Bincho, Puis siere or Soire-Sur-Sambrc or any of the other towns 1 visited a single incident in-cident of mistreatment of any sort by German officers or soldiers. City Swept by Crossfire. "Bulssiere, particularly the lower part of the city, had been virtually destroyed by a crossfire, trom French and German artillery. Tops of breweries brew-eries had been hurled bodily to the ground and walls had either disappeared disap-peared or become grotesquely dislodged. dis-lodged. The whole city lay in smoking smok-ing ruins, with only Its drawbridge across the Samhro and a lew marble stations and boathouses towering above the debris. But here, two days after the battle, women and children were moving comfortably about the town and not a single complaint was uttered against German conduct ' The town of Solre-Sur-Sambre Is a small village about five miles south of Buisslere, and is Important not as a battlefield, but as a center about which French and German conflict waged steadily for two days, August 23 and 24, the French line after making mak-ing sporadic stands, being forced back steadily over the French borde; until the movement became a flight Into this town 130 French killed and more than 100 wounded were brought in a single day. Auguste Blariaux, burgomaster, said that he knew of no cases of German cruelties savo distant rumors which he had learned to discredit It ought to be said to tho credit of the Belgians that they have not allowed their btttemess toward to-ward the Germans to carry' them into unfair recrimination "Robert J Thompson, American consul at Aacnen, visited Liege during dur-ing and after the capture of the forts It is the opinion of Mr. Thompson that no outrage was committed by Germans during the several days' fighting here. 112 Natives Slain at Renounchamp. "There are, of course, reported outrages out-rages beyond investigation, either on account of thMr vagueness or because be-cause it is impossible to weight the provocation. It is known, for in stance, that 112 natives were killed in Renonchamp, not far from Ardennes; Arden-nes; German soldiers saj that they were killed because they fired upon them from the roofs and windows of the houses. "The history of the absolute destruction de-struction of the historic city of Louvain Lou-vain with Its cathedral and its uni versity is by this time well known. "The German version of this is that i the inhabitants under the direction ot I the burgomaster established them ! selves in tho church, where they also installed a machine gun, and pro-; ceeded to ci"eet the Germans with a deadly fire. "The Belgians say, on the other hand, that part of the German army, mistaking one of their own retiring divisions for the enemy, opened fire upon them, whereupon, deluded into thinking this an assault by Belgian Civilians, the Germans razed the whole city "I have not been able to acquire any direct evidence In regard to I these last two instances, but the ex-j planation generally credited by disinterested dis-interested persons is that the Belgians who had laid down their arms according accord-ing to the burgomaster's proclamation proclama-tion on the entrance of the enemy, took them up again when it looked as if the Germans were retreating from the town, and opened fire from their windows upon a retiring Ger-, man train. German Explanations Uniform. "The most authoritative German denial of German offenses comes from Major General Thaddeus Von Jarotz-sky, Jarotz-sky, military governor of Brussels.! who informed me that in numerous cases he had been received with a pretense of friendliness by Belgian civilians, who later fired upon the German soldiers from windows and from between the roof tiles. This was dont'. he said, after a declaration of surrender by the burgomaster and a rtrociamatlon warning the citlzens against any show of resistance. "In such violations of the rules of war, the general said, he punished the offender by burning the houses from which the shots were fired. "This explanation of the burning of villages is given with such perfect unanimity by all German officers and men i hat to go into separate instances Is unnecessary. It .seems to serve as a sort of blanket extenuation for all German severities. I can only say that in every case of reported outrages out-rages or reprisal which was susceptible suscept-ible of investigation I have found either that the outrage was a figment of the Belgian mind, or that it was more than half excused by clrcum stances. Belgians Confess Sniping. I have actual knowledge of the sniping by Belgian civilians at Manage Man-age and other towns and even the Belgian admit that in a few instances in-stances they have been guilty of this. This furnishes a provocation for the only German severity which I have had an opportunity to observe the burning of houses. "A Belgian fugitive from a suburb of Charlerot brought to Nlvelle a story of the Germans marching the priest and several of the inhabitants before the army as a protection against fire from the houses. This has received ample verification, but hardly comes under the heading ot atrocities " "The prevaience of the Belgian practice of sniping from the houses was perhaps Indicated by the warning of the German officer who acted as guard for five American correspondents, correspond-ents, including myself, who were be ing taken as prisoners from Beaumont to Aachen In an army train. We are advised to lie down on the floor of the car, as the Belgian snipers would shoot at us from the houses. But there was no firing. Soldiers Uniformly Kind. "Between Chauteau de Casteau and Lobfces, a particularly desolate neighborhood, neigh-borhood, whence Inhabitants had fled, the Germans found a huugry canary In an abandoned farmhouse. Without having experienced the genuine, genu-ine, almost womanly, tenderness ot the German soldiers one would have called their feeding of the canary an affectation or at best a passing whim but It was typical. in a little cafe iu Beaumont, concierge con-cierge and madam had fled before the approach of the soldiers and abandoned their business. Two officers offi-cers found them in hiding, brought them back and in a day they had taken in more money than iu any previous week in their career. "These incidents could be indefinitely indefi-nitely prolonged, but they would only offer additional support to a point that I think I have already established -the universal kindliness of German soldiers as I have observed them. 1 havo seen perhaps a dozen cases of drunkenness in observing nearly a million soldiers and these few were only good-naturedly maudlin "If the conduct of the German soldier sol-dier errs at all It Is on the side of a too complete subordination. It is impossible for anyone who has seen much of the German system to believe be-lieve in the tales of deliberate depredations dep-redations and unsoldlerly conduct "This, of course, is not a brief for the German army as is an account or German conduct as it appeared to an Impartial observer who had the rather extraordinary opportunity of traveling for days with the German columns over a distance of more than a hundred hun-dred miles through a dozen important import-ant cities and towns. "Sometimes I was near enough to the front to see the white artillery smoke spur into clouds along the horizon and hear tho double detonations detona-tions which came from artillery at short range. At other times I trailed behind through the desolate waste which a victorious army leaves behind be-hind It. But the waste was the inevitable in-evitable footprint of war, marking the most utter dreariness, misery and despair, but not with a hint of hav-agery, hav-agery, of wanton butchery or of excess." ex-cess." oo Head the Classiflod Ads. Read the Classified Ads. |