Now I ask any unbiased reader whether these depositions, in each case uncorroborated, are such as to carry conviction to any reasonable man? Yet the whole of the “proofs” adduced as to Belgian atrocities are of this character.
When we come to the justification alleged for the wholesale massacres of communities the evidence is even more suspicious. In order to prove the Belgians unspeakable knaves the German Government have to present them as incredible fools. At Andenne, “a small town of a population of about 8,000 people,” there were affrays in which “about 200 inhabitants lost their lives.”[23] According to the German document, “two infantry regiments and a Jäger battalion” were marching through this place when they were set upon by the inhabitants. Two regiments and a battalion would constitute the greater part of a brigade; they must have amounted to at least 7,000 men.[24] We are asked to believe that this small unprotected community (one of the German witnesses expressly says, “I did not see one single French or Belgian soldier in the entire town or the environs”)[25] made an unprovoked attack on this overwhelming force, and that the women assisted with pots of scalding water. Two hundred of the civilians were, by the German admission, shot. The German losses were, it is added, “singularly small.” So singularly small were they that the German Report omits even to enumerate them.
In another case--the village of Jamoigne--an ammunition column halted for water. The attitude of the population “was friendly; water, coffee, and tobacco were offered to some non-commissioned officers and men.” Suddenly, while part of the population are standing outside their doors fully exposed, “a general shooting” is opened upon the crowd in the streets from the roofs and windows of the houses.[26] Is it intrinsically probable that Belgian civilians would be so careless of the lives of their fellow-citizens? Or take the case of Tintigny. An artillery ammunition column is welcomed, “apparently with the best goodwill,” assisted to water its horses, and then (but not before) “when the horses had been again harnessed” and the opportunity for a surprise attack had passed, the inhabitants opened fire on the whole column.[27] Statements like these carry their own refutation with them.