MvR - The Dark Side

[bristol scout]

'Late on the 31st. after Germany had issued its 12 hour ultimatum to Russia, Grey tried to position Belgium outside the arena of war. In similar dispatches, addressed to both the French and German governments, he asked each for an assurance that Belgium neutrality would be respected provided it was not violated by another power.

France immediately agreed. The German reply was EVASIVE. Jagow told Goschen that he would have to consult the Emperor and chancellor before he could answer, and he 'rather doubted whether they could answer at all, as any reply they might give could not fail, in the event of war, to have the undesirable effect of disclosing to a certain extent part of their plan of campaign'

'Dreadnought' R.K. Massie.

[Barry Hickson]

Originally Posted by stratus

Belgium was neutral? It was involved in the outbreak of WWI as all these ****ing nations in Europe, in the catastrophe of the 20th century. Hypocrisy wherever you look.

YES! stratus, Belgium WAS Neutral or tried to be until Germany ran roughshod over her Borders!
I thought you said you were a man of History? Well History records Belgium WAS Neutral.
Also read the Communiques between the German Government & the Belgium Government.
Sheesh, I cant believe you think the Belgiums were guilty of Hypocrisy but then you seem to think everybody but you are Hypocrites.

[stratus]

I bet you will read a lot more about Hypocrites in the years to 2014. This here is only a thought-provoking impulse.

Belgium was the forefront of the British Empire and France in a war with Germany. You call it neutral.

[Catfish]

Hello,
i really wanted to stay out of this after posting the link to the propaganda article (which some people obviously did not read ), but things are much more complicated than it has been discussed here at the aerodrome.

First, the monks:
There seem to have been priests killed, not monks, but is this really a difference ?
This hanging indeed took place, but von Richthofen did not partake in the hanging. He agreed with some of them being hanged though.
It is in a way like with the Viet Cong. Searching villages and no enemy there but civilians. Turn your back around and one will take up a gun and shoot = kill them all and burn down the whole village with your Zippo lighter. This did not take place in Europe but "far away", and it is not meant as a justification - but how soldiers (= normal people in strained circumstances) behave, in a war. Always.

As we can also read a good part of atrocities was made up by the WPB and CPI, if you read the articles i mentioned - not that they are the only ones existing. I can provide further evidence that those propaganda lies were published by private companies and "independent writers" factually initiated by the War propaganda bureau, because in England some people would not belive texts being published or "passed" officially. One of the reasons why this is still printed in school books of today.

After this incident with the priests, which seems to have been gladly picked up by the WPB and later also by the CPI (because in all lies there has to be a spark of reality to make people belive) suddenly german beasts/huns/boches/sourkrauts were killing especially monks all over occupied territory. And if they kill monks (imagine that, peaceful clerical people, it is like they murdering god himself !) they could be easily described as barbarians who would kill everything.

" ... During the course of the war 1160 pamphlets were published, many bringing propaganda to a new level. An early pamphlet, Report on Alleged German Outrages, written during 1915, said that the Germans had systematically tortured Belgium civilians. To make the pamphlet more believable, the famous Dutch artist Louis Raemaker was asked to make some drawings that would create high emotion among the British public. The artist never actually went to Belgium. ..."
(Esmond Collins: "Did World War One and British government propaganda affect the culture of publishing during the War?"

Again, this other article i mentioned is not the only one - and also again no doubt atrocities happened in the war. But "witness reports", if published by the WPB, have to be taken with a grain of salt, or better tons of it.


Second, off-topic, Belgium:
How Stratus can say that Belgium was as guilty as the other belligerent nations and not being neutral goes over my imagination. There can be no doubt that Belgium was neutral, and overrun by german troops after forbidding Germany to march through their country, towards Fance.

The question is not whether Belgium was neutral or not. It was. From the papers and reports it may well have been it would have denied access to France as well, would it have asked for troops marching-through.

But this a distraction - the real question is whether France would have used belgian territory, if not Germany would have done that first. Or England, using the precious ports along the coast.
From all that i have read England went to war on the side of France, with Germany disregarding the belgian interdiction to use their country for a marching-through, this was a welcomed justification for England to declare war and join France's side, as it would have done anyway.


" ... Whatever may have been the causes of the Great War, the German invasion of Belgium was certainly not one of them. It was one of the first consequences of war. Nor was it even the reason of our [english.] entry into the war. But the Government, realizing how doubtful it was whether they could rouse public enthusiasm over a secret obligation to France, was, able, owing to Germany's fatal blunder, to represent the invasion of Belgium and the infringement of the Treaty of Neutrality as the cause of our participation in it. ..."

Regarding going to war at France's side:

" ...The Government already know, but I give them now the assurance on behalf of the party of which I am Leader in this House, that in whatever steps they think it necessary to take for the honour and security of this country, they can rely on the unhesitating support of the Opposition". (quoted from "Twenty-Five Years", by Viscount Grey).

"They do not reflect that our honour and our interest must have compelled us to join France and Russia even if Germany had scrupulously respected the rights of her small neighbours, and had sought to hack her way into France through the Eastern fortresses". ("The Times" March 15, 1915).
(SIR D. MACLEAN : "We went into the war on account of Belgium.")


"... We had such a treaty with Belgium. Had it been France only, we could not have stayed out after the conversations that had taken place. It would not have been in our interests to stay out, and we could not have stayed out without loss of security and honour".
(Chamberlain; House of Commons, February 8, 1922.)


" ... Moreover, the attack on Belgium did not come as a surprise. All our [England] plans were made in preparation for it. The Belgian documents which were published disclosed the fact that the "conversations" of 1906 concerned very full plans for military co-operation in the event of a German invasion of Belgium, but similar plans were not drawn up between Belgium and Germany. The French and British are referred to as the Allied armies, Germany as "the enemy." Full and elaborate plans were made for the landing of British troops. ..."
(Arthur Ponsonby, 1928 Allen and Unwin "Falsehood in Wartime: Propaganda Lies of the First World War)


"... He asserts categorically that in the mind of the French General Staff the war was to take place in Belgium, and, indeed, six months after the signature of the agreement between the French and Russian General Staffs quoted above, Artillery-Colonel Picard, at the head of a group of officers of the General Staff, made a tour in Belgium to study utilization, when the time should come, of this field of operations.

General Percin : "The treaty of 1839 could not help but be violated either by the Germans or by us. It had been invented to make war impossible. The question that we have to judge upon, then, is this : Which of the two, France or Germany, wanted war the most ? Not which showed most contempt for this treaty. The one that willed war more than the other could not help but will the violation of Belgian territory."


The invasion of Belgium was not the cause of the war; the invasion of Belgium was not unexpected; the invasion of Belgium did not shock the moral susceptibilities of either the British or French Governments. But it may be admitted that, finding themselves in the position which they had themselves largely contributed to create, the British and French Governments in the first stages of the Great War were fully justified, and indeed urgently compelled, to arrange the facts and, distort the implications as they did, given always the standard of morality which war involves. To colour the picture with the pigment of falsehood so as to excite popular indignation was imperative, and it was done with complete success. "
(General Percin, article in 'Ere Nouvelle' 1925, quoted and commented on in the Manchester Guardian of January 27, 1925)



As said before I do not question Belgium's neutrality at all. It was stuck between two nations that wanted to wage war.
Saying "Germany invaded Belgium" is historically right as well. But to place all guilt on one belligerent nation is indeed - if i may say - hypocritical. But then we are used to it, and it is certainly easier to believe that, than to admit being a victim of propaganda. I just think Germany has learned a bit more about governments and their justifications.

Thanks and greetings,
Kai

[stratus]

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish, and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons. These still-active conflicts have caused far-reaching reforms of the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state which might lead to a partition of the country.

On the partisan war (1914) of the French-speaking Belgians (Walloons), the German military responded with retaliation in the form of shootings, fires and hostage taking.

(Wiki)

This is not off-topic, it describe the situation of Manfred von Richthofen among Walloons.

[frontflieger]

Originally Posted by Testerchild

As to international law etc: what I cannot understand is how international law says a civilian in a country being invaded by an aggressor has no right to fight back. I accept the law does say that, but the law plainly takes no account of human nature, and seems designed to protect the aggressor rather than the victim.

You may fight for your country... BUT you have to do it in a proper form. Read the text of the international law and you will see, that combatants 1.) wear uniforms [and not civilian cloths) 2.) have national markings 3.) carry their weapons openly etc. ... Civilians are not to take part in a proper fight [though they did & do it in many war theaters].

Thorsten

[bristol scout]

"As early as September 1914, when a quick victory still seemed certain, Bethmann- Hollweg (Imperial chancellor) was formulating his governments DEMANDS for the surrender----To weaken France to the extent that she could never re-gain world power status, and to push back Russia as far as possible from Germany's borders. Germany was to be the centre of a Middle-European economic bloc. The French and Belgian iron ore-fields, and the ownership of the factories therein to be ceded to Germany. The military were to comment on the advisability of demanding the the cession of Belfort, the western slopes of the Vosges and the coastal strip from Dunkirk to Boulogne, with Fortressess remaining in French hands to be demolished.
The French market was to be secured for Germany and British trade excluded.

As for Belgium! She was to be reduced to a German vassal state, economically a PROVINCE of Germany, and her forts were to be occupied by German garrisons. The Emperor lodged a suggestion that the portion of Belgium bordering on Germany be 'resettled by deserving NCO's and men of the German army'. He did not say where the poor wretches already living there would be sent-----but given that thousands were already working in Germany as slaves (some might say they were the lucky ones) it is, perhaps, not difficult to imagine!

Let us not forget that it would take the next generation to publicly sanction genocide in Europe!!

Tirpitz demanded Antwerp and the Belgian channel ports as bases for the German Navy!!

Britain went to war, and I am really amazed it is somehow not understood by some here, for the same reasons EVERY other country goes to war----THUCYDIDES' THREE reasons are as apposite now as they were in the Fifth century B.C. HONOUR, AGGRANDISMENT, SELF INTEREST---

Britains SELF INTEREST demanded it could not allow any ONE SUPERPOWER on the European continent.

England fought a long war against France for EXACTLY that reason. Niether a European ruling, then WORLD ruling France --nor a dominating and victorious Germany could be allowed to rule Europe.

England had NO TERRITORIAL AIMS in Europe-----it wanted to be simply left alone---BUT never threatened by either France or Germany----what is SO difficult to come to terms with about such an outlook----IT EVEN HAD A NAME---'Splendid Isolation'

Also an England that did not 'HONOUR' its treaty obligations would have been morally bankrupt. There are TWO of Thucydides's reasons 'SELF INTEREST' and 'HONOUR'---not the worst reasons to go to war, the reasonably open minded here might think.

Now Germany's reasons are Listed above--by Bethmann-Hollweg himself---and they amount to the OTHER reason country's go to war---'SELF AGGRANDISMENT'

Simple conquest----simply a lust for power-----don't try to hide it in silly talk of 'business rivals' or jealousy of an industrially and scientifically and huge population growth Germany vis a vis England----AMERICA was all of those things, but the two country's did not go to war!

ANY talk of Germany or France would have invaded Belgium is pointless 'what if' fantasy world talk in a VERY thinly vieled attempt to minimise the terrible reality of one superpower saying to its tiny neighbour---

'I intend to smash your powerful ally, but to do so I must be allowed by you to invade your country. If you let me do this, fair enough (for now) but if you refuse to allow me to invade, I shall invade anyway, and the blame will be yours.

By the way, IF you ALLOW me, and I fail to defeat your powerful ally, I cannot vouch for the revenge it might want to take on you for helping to facilitate my plans of conquest'.......

As for citizens of Belgium being non uniformed combatants---

The Germans were marching to a very tight schedule in the west---to forget this is to misunderstand what was needed---and what was done!

A deliberate policy of 'SCHRECKLICHKEIT' was resorted to, a 'policy' designed to terrify and cow the Belgians into total submission and acquiescence---a policy of BARBARISM reminiscent of mediaeval times-----in the 20th. century.

HERVE, -----Hienrich Binder of the 'Berliner Tageblatt' wrote, "...was razed to the ground, of about five hundred homes in Herve, only nineteen remain, corpses are everywhere, the CHURCH IS A BROKEN HEAP OF RUINS"

Herve a one off? No, sadly there were many others--

ANDENNE, near Namur--burned down on Agust 20th. The German proclamation of the deed said that 110 people were shot, according to the Belgian accounts it was 211.

At Seilles it was fifty! At Tamines, the little cemetery (it got suddenly a bit more crowded) contains 384 graves -- on each of which is written ------- '1914-Fusille par les Allemands'.

Vise, on the Dutch frontier was destroyed on the night of the 23rd. august---4,000 refugees left the city---all that was left of the population alive---EXCEPT for 700 young men and boys taken to Germany for FORCED LABOUR.

That was a first stream that would soon become a torrent!


So would the torrent of 'hostages'---TEN from every street in namur, elsewhere, ONE FROM EVERY HOUSE!

However, DINANT and LOUVAIN----General von Hausens Saxons take hundreds of hostages, FIFTY OF THEM from a church (23rd. august was a Sunday) then with the arrival of evening, the arrival of the firing squads also.

The firing began, and when it subsided 612 bodies were later buried, one of them AN INFANT THREE WEEKS OLD.

At Louvain the city burned--the American Legation secretary, Mr. Hugh Gibson, with Swedish and Mexican colleagues saw, in the burning city, "blackened buildings and dead bodies of people and horses in the streets, wreckage of all kinds, and soldiers of IX reserve corps, often drunk, driving people out of there homes to complete the destruction. A German officer kept repeating to Gibson-"we shall wipe it out, not one stone will stand upon another! KEIN STEIN AUF EINANDER! Not one, I tell you. We will teach them to respect Germany. For Generations people will come here to see what we have done"

Barbara Tuchman-'The Guns of August'

Understand ALL of the above is MAINSTREAM HISTORY----SIMPLE AS THAT.

I have NEVER, in any thread, and never in the 'other' one also, EVER descended to passing of the Lurid propaganda stories as truth---and I challenge anyone to contradict me on that. I do not NEED to embrace propaganda as the truth is MORE than enough to give the lie to ANY talk of Belgians asking for it.

Really, some here need to read a bit more history.

Dave.

[stratus]

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish, and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons. These still-active conflicts have caused far-reaching reforms of the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state which might lead to a partition of the country.

On the partisan war (1914) of the French-speaking Belgians (Walloons), the German military responded with retaliation in the form of shootings, fires and hostage taking.
(Wiki)

Was there a kind of partisan war or not? Important to know. If there was, why did bristol scout not speak about them? Hypocrisy?

[bristol scout]

IS THAT WHAT SELF STYLED "REVISIONIST HISTORIANS" CONSULT NOWADAYS---WIKI?

Is that all you have? PLEASE tell us you have more than that, you self styled "friend of History". Go and read some books-----

[stratus]

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish, and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons. These still-active conflicts have caused far-reaching reforms of the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state which might lead to a partition of the country.

On the partisan war (1914) of the French-speaking Belgians (Walloons), the German military responded with retaliation in the form of shootings, fires and hostage taking.
(Wiki)

Was there a kind of partisan war or not? Important to know. If there was, why did bristol scout not speak about it? Hypocrisy?