German occupation of Belgium and northeastern France was accompanied by
horrible barbarities and systematic frightfulness, which were in
violation of the Hague Conventions as well as of other laws and usages
of civilized warfare. The aim at first was to terrorize the people and
reduce them to a condition of fear and of servility to the conquerors.
Men and women were executed without adequate evidence or trial; many
German soldiers were quartered in the homes; at the slightest sign of
resistance innocent persons were punished for the guilty; immense fines
and forced contributions were imposed upon the communities; furniture,
works of art, beautiful buildings, and historic structures were
ruthlessly pillaged and destroyed. In the second place, the Germans
began a systematic plundering of the occupied country, taking for
transportation to Germany anything they deemed useful or valuable.
Nearly every article made of metal, wool, rubber, or leather was seized.
Machinery from Belgian and French factories was taken to German
establishments. Households were compelled to surrender bathtubs, door
knobs and knockers, kitchen utensils, gas fixtures, bedclothes, etc.
Food, farm animals, and farm products were confiscated; and the
population was saved from actual starvation only by the energies of
Belgium's friends in France, England, and America. At a later time, a
third policy of the Germans was to drag Belgian and French young men and
women away from their families and relatives and compel them to work far
from their homes in factories, fields, and mines. Probably more than two
hundred thousand persons were forced into this industrial slavery.
Finally, where the Germans were forced to retire from the lands they had
occupied in northern France and in Belgium, they sought to reduce much
of the evacuated territory to a desert condition. Not only were bridges
and roads destroyed, but houses, factories, and churches were leveled to
the ground, and the foundation walls and cellars were obliterated. In