Transcriber’s Notes:
Larger versions of the maps canbe viewed by clicking on each map in a web browser.
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at theend.
THE INVADED COUNTRY
THE GERMAN TERROR
IN BELGIUM
An Historical Record
BY
ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE
LATE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE,
OXFORD
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
MCMXVII
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
The subject of this book is the treatment of thecivil population in the countries overrun bythe German Armies during the first threemonths of the European War. The form of it is aconnected narrative, based on the published documents[1]and reproducing them by direct quotation or (for thesake of brevity) by reference.
With the documents now published on both sides itis at last possible to present a clear narrative of whatactually happened. The co-ordination of this massof evidence, which has gradually accumulated sincethe first days of invasion, is the principal purposefor which the book has been written. The evidenceconsists of first-hand statements—some delivered onoath before a court, others taken down from the witnesseswithout oath by competent legal examiners,others written and published on the witnesses’ own initiativeas books or pamphlets. Most of them originallyappeared in print in a controversial setting, asproofs or disproofs of disputed fact, or as justificationsor condemnations of fact that was admitted. In thepresent work, however, this argumentative aspect ofthem has been avoided as far as possible. For it haseither been treated exhaustively in official publications—the[vi]case of Louvain, for instance, in the GermanWhite Book and the Belgian Reply to it—or will notbe capable of such treatment till after the conclusionof the War. The ultimate inquiry and verdict, if it isto have finality, must proceed either from a mixedcommission of representatives of all the States concerned,or fro