Keep These Off the USA

"On 29th August it was officially announced that the German Army had burned and looted the town and university of Louvain as a reprisal because Belgian partisans had sniped at German Troops. No such measure had been taken in European warfare since the seventeenth century. Reports began to filter through from many parts of France and Belgium that the Germans, especially in Von Kluck's First Army, had made a practice of seizing the leading citizens of each occupied town as hostages for the good conduct of the populace. In town after town--at Vise, Andenne, Aershot, Malines, Senlis, and many others--batches of innocent hostages had been massacred in order to terrorize the recalcitrant. This was the policy of 'frightfulness' (Schrecklichkeit) which was announced in public German orders as their professed intention. It had no precedent in the history of civilized warfare. The easy-going British, with their Victorian respect of German culture, treated these reports at first with skepticism--or at any rate I did--but the confirmation came from German sources. They did it and they were proud of doing it, and in the long run it had a disastrous effect on their cause."

- Charles E. Carrington, Soldier from the Wars Returning

 

A large crowd of German prisoners of war

Some of the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners taken by the Allies.

The War of the Nations Portfolio (New York: The New York Times Co., 1919), 149.

(image 36 of 45)

United Sates
1918
John Norton
100 x 77 cm