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Show STORIES OF GERMAN ATROCITIES ROT PROVED, SAYS AMERICAN WRITER The Chicago Tribune prints a lon copyrighted dispatch from James O'Doimell Bennett, stalt correspondent, dated at Aix-la-C'hapel'.a, Cerniany, which In specilic detail disputes and denies the charges ot cruellies and atrocities lodged against the Germans )n Belgium. Mr. Dennett, in company: with John T. McCutcheou of the China-i go Tribune, Irvin S. Cobb of the Sa turday t-urday Evening Post, Roger Lewis ot the Associated Press and Marry Hansen Han-sen 'of the Chicago -Dairy News, traveled trav-eled 100 miles through 20 towns and their observations lead him to the ftr-i conviction that the reports of barbarities bar-barities alleged to have been perpetrated perpe-trated by German troops are falsehoods. false-hoods. The following dispatch to the Associated Asso-ciated Press, evidently forwarded by Roger Lewis, Is in substantial agreement agree-ment with Mr. Bennett's story in the Chicago Tribune: By the Associated Press. New York. An Associated Press itaff correspondent of American birth ind antecedents, who was sent from the New York office and was caught In Brussels at the time of the German Ger-man invasion, held as a prisoner for Eeveral days, and who finally escaped to Holland, has sent by mail the following fol-lowing Story of his experiences: "The night before the Germans entered en-tered Brussels, when the Belgian civil guards and refugees began pouring nto the city from the direction of Louvain, they brought stories of unspeakable un-speakable German atrocities, maltreatment maltreat-ment of old men and children, and the fiolation of women. "The Belgian capital reeled with apprehension. ap-prehension. Within an hour the gay-ety, gay-ety, the vivacity, and brilliancy of the city went out like a broken arc light. The radiance of the cafes was exchanged ex-changed for darkness; whispering groups of residents broke up 'hurriedly 'hurried-ly and locked themselves into this homes, where they put up the shutters shut-ters and drew in their tri-colored Bel-gian Bel-gian flags. Fears of Brussels Quieted. "The historic Belgian city went through a state of morbid consternation, consterna-tion, remarkably like that from which It suffered on June 18, 1815, when it Irembled with the fear of a French victory vic-tory at Waterloo. "In less than 24 hours the Belgian citizens were chatting comfortably Kith the German invaders and the allegations al-legations of German brutality and demoniacal de-moniacal torture dissolved into one of the myths which have accompanied all wars. "Neither in Brussels nor in its en-Jirons en-Jirons was a single offensive act, so tar as I know, committed by a German Boldier. In a city of over half a million mil-lion people, invaded by a hostile army of perhaps a quarter of a million sol-fliers, sol-fliers, no act sufficiently flagrant to demand punishment or to awaken protest pro-test came to my attention. None Knows of Outrages. "The frightful reports that had preceded pre-ceded the German army into Brussels Included the disemboweling of old men and the impaling of children on lances lust outside Louvain. Investigation not only failed to substantiate these rumors, but could not even discover any one in the immediate vicinity who credited them. "An eye witness of unimpeachable veracity told me that the worst behavior be-havior he had observed during the first German 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. I "I marched for days wiih the Ger-I Ger-I nan columns, often only one day be-J be-J hind the fighting, with the houses that ; had been burned still smoldering, the I ground freshly broken by shell and i trampled by horses and men, and the memory of the German advance vivid la the minds of the inhabitants, No Proofs of Murder. "I Interviewed an average of twenty Persons in each of a dozen towns and found only one instance of a noncom- batant who had been killed without i & justifiable provocation. 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 com-bine the comforts of home with the j lure of a small public bar. This house as at the north of Merbes-le-Chateau, & 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 Nicodem, showed me blood clots on the floor marking the Place where Nicodem fell, his throat cut by a saw-edged German saber. English Fired From House. "H was said by some inhabitants i. that the murdered man showed a pair : of binoculars; but a more probable explanation is that English outposts I had Concealed themselves in the house, from which they poured a rain of fire I - upon the first German invaders. The '"erence that the shooting was done by Belgian civilians mav have inflamed in-flamed the Germans to reprisals. In that neighborhood four houses had been burned and one was still "blaze as I passed on Wednesday, Aug. 26. "This town of Merbes-le-Chateau, winch had been the scene of an unimportant unim-portant skirmish between the Germans Ger-mans and English on the previous Sunday, was riddled with rifle shots. The small number of windows intact showed that the Germans had made a deliberate assault upon the residents of the town. But the inhabitants themselves admitted that all of the shooting had been done by a comparatively com-paratively small number of Germans, and that the firing had not been begun be-gun until English soldiers who had concealed themselves in the houses had fired first upon the Germans. News of Incident Goes Far. "I have emphasized the one fatality of the noncombatant because the news of it traveled up and down the Sambre and across to Hantes-Wiberie and Solre-sur-Sambre, multiplying as it went and developing ghastly and inhuman in-human details until it seemed an unanswerable un-answerable reproach to the whole German empire. "With this one possible exception, I did not encounter in Nivelles, in Binche, Buissiere, or Soire-sur-Sam-bre, or any of the other towns I visited, a Bingle incident of mistreatment mistreat-ment or any sort by German officers or soldiers. "Bruissiere particularly the lower part of the city had been virtually destroyed by a cross fire from 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 grrotesquely dislodged. dis-lodged. Burgomaster Denies Reports. "Into thig town 130 French killed and more tnan a hundred wounded were brought in a single day. August Au-gust Blairiaux, burgomaster, said that he knew of no cases of German cruelties, cruel-ties, except distant rumors which he had learned to discredit. It ought to be said to the credit of the Belgians that they have not allowed their bitterness bit-terness toward the Germans to carry them into unfair recrimination. "Robert J. Thompson, American consul at Aachen, visited Liege during and after the capture of the forts. It is the opinion of Mr. Thompson that no outrage was committed by Germans Ger-mans during the several days' fighting there. "There are, of course, reported outrages out-rages beyond investigation, either on account of their vagueness or because it is impossible to weigh the provocation. provoca-tion. It is known, for instance, that 112 natives were killed in Reno-uchamp, not far from Ardennes; German soldiers sol-diers say that they were killed because be-cause they fired upon them from the roofs and windows of the houses. Differ on Louvain Incident. "The history of the absolute destruction de-struction of the historic city of Louvain Lou-vain with its cathedral and its university univer-sity is by this time well known. The German version of this is that the inhabitants, in-habitants, under the direction of the burgomaster, established themselves in the church, where they also installed in-stalled a machine gun. They proceeded proceed-ed to greet the Germans wi,th a deadly fire. "The Belgians say, on the other hand, that part of the German army, mistaking one of their own retiring divisions di-visions for the enemy, opened fire upon them, whereupon, deluded into thinking this an assault by Belgian civilians, the Germans razed the city. "I have not been able to acquire any direct evidence in regard to these last two instances, but the explanation generally gen-erally credited by disinterested persons per-sons is that the Belgians, who had laid down their arms, according to the burgomaster's bur-gomaster's proclamation on the entrance en-trance of the enemy, took them up again vhen it looked as if the Germans Ger-mans were retreating from the town, and opened fire from their windows upon a retiring German train. Jarotzsky Tells Outrages. "The most authoritative German denial de-nial of German offense comes from Maj Gen. Thaddeus von Jarotzsky, military governor of Brussels, who informed in-formed 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 done, he said, after a declaration of surrender by the burgomaster and a proclamation warning warn-ing the citizens 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. "I can only say that in every case of reported outrage or reprisal which waB susceptible of investigation X havo found either that the outrage was a figment of the Belgian mind or that it was more than half excused by cir-cumstances. cir-cumstances. "The prevalence of the Belgian practice prac-tice of sniping from the houses was perhaps indicated by the warning of the German officer who acted as guard for five American correspondents, including in-cluding myself, who were being taken as prisoners from Beaumont to Aachen in an army train. We were 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. "This, of coursn. is not a brief for the German army; it is an account of German conduct ao 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 cities and towns. "Sometimes I was near enough to the front to see the white artillery smoke spurt into clouds along the horizon and hear the 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 . Pay All and Tip Well. "On the contrary, I witnessed numerous nu-merous cases of the most careful courtesy cour-tesy on the part of German soldiers. In Brussels they not only paid their cafe bills, but tipped generously. Along the road, when a German officer or soldier entered a Belgian house foi food or shelter, it was not with a demand de-mand but a request. In spite of the confusion and errors which arose from a strange tongue there was almost no friction of any sort. "The German soldiers were punctiliously punctil-iously considerate and polite to women wom-en and children, apologizing for the discomfort they were causing. Upon leaving a house where they have been given shelter, I have seen them shake hands with the concierge, peasant woman, or in some cases with the gentlewoman of a Belgian villa, as pleasantly as if they were bidding adieu to theirhostesB at a week-end house party. "So many Instances of this sort are at hand that a recital of them would be tedious. "Naturally inclined to be gruff with their soldiers, the German officers always al-ways gave the French prisoners a pleasant word, and treated them with every consideration. Not a single exception ex-ception to this civility toward prisoners prison-ers has come to my attention. "A French lieutenant and two English Eng-lish officers traveled with us In the prison train from Beaumont to Aachen, a halting journey which took over thirty-six hours. The train was crowded with German wounded and French and English prisoners, and there was nothing to eat or drink, except a few fragments of rye bread, hard as a stone, and a little liquid compound of chicory, which in Belgium Bel-gium masquerades under the name of coffee. Since there was not enough even of this disheartening fare to go around, German officers went without food so that the prisoners might be fed. Aid Owners of Cafe. "In a little cafe in Beaumont, concierge con-cierge and madame had fled before the approach of the soldiers and abandoned aban-doned their business. Two officers found them in hiding, brought them back, and in a day they had taken in more money than in any previous week in their career. "These incidents could be indefinitely indefinite-ly prolonged, but they would only offer of-fer additional support to a point that I think I have already established the universal kindliness of German soldiers as I have observed them. "I have seen perhaps -half a dozen cases of drunkenness in observing nearly 1,000,000 soldiers, and these few were only good-naturedly maudlin. maud-lin. In Beaumont while I was detained for 24 hours in the small cafe previously pre-viously mentioned, with an armed guard at the door, although specifically specifical-ly told that I was not an ordinary prisoner, a swaggering petty officer of some sort, lunged toward me and showed me the sharp convincing edge of his sword, insisting that I run my hand across it. Warned to Avoid Drinking. "German discipline and German training seem to have put into the German soldier an exemplary behavior which is nothing less than remarkable. Before I fell asleep on the floor of the Beaumont cafe, with two German soldiers' sol-diers' guns slanting almost over me, I heard the petty officer who was in charge of us. giving instructions to the guards, which included the statement state-ment that any one of us who stirred outside the door should be shot. Then he counseled them, almost in a fatherly father-ly way to drink only moderately, stating stat-ing that If they became drunk he would recommend a sentence of 15 years in the penitentiary. "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 im-possible for any one who has seen much of the German system to believe be-lieve in the tales of deliberate depredations depre-dations and unsoldierly conduct." |