GERMAN "OCCUPATION."

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15503, 13 November 1914, Page 3

GERMAN "OCCUPATION."

.WHAT IT MEANS

WAR FINES AND LOOT.

(By G. Ward Price in th.6 "Daily Mail.")

This is what a German occupation means: it is the story of what happened at Epernay and Reims while the enemy was there. The history of the German occupation of the isolated villages round about lies written in blackened heaps of ruins, but every witness of the Germans' cruelty whom they did not kill has fled and the story of their wanton destruction will only gradually be pieced together. The Germans came to Epernay on September 4; they left it on their retreat on September 12.- At Reims they spent about ten days, but arriving two days before they entered Epernay. To make a comparison for English purposes one might take the towns of Leamington and Coventry —for Epernay, which is chiefly made up of the beautiful villas of champagne merchants, has rather more than 20,000 inhabitants, 'while Reims, which is more of an industrial town, has about 105,000, and corresponds to Coventry in size and character.

The facts were given me at Epernay by the Deputy-Mayor, Maitre Perault, and at Reims by the priests of the cathedral and by a lawyer of the town. They are significant because they show that if the local authorities of a district about to be entered by the German troops stand their ground, and assert; their influence, the invaders hold their hands in that district from ties and the devastation that tney practise in lonely villages whereAhey have no one but the defenceless inhabitants to reckon with. It is a "great pity that in a. large number of the districts which have had to suffer German occupation, the local authorities had not the firmness to remain. Several prefects and sub-pre-fects and mayors have, in fact, been relieved of their office by the Minister of the Interior for failing in their duty at this crisis, and the debt which is owed to. their civic authorities by those towns where th e mayors did stay is a large one. The Germans regard constituted authority as a savage regards his fetish.

If, _ they find a properly recognised ■ municipal body exercising power in the districts which they enter they treat with it, brutally, it is true, but still logically. When, on the other hand, ~ they enter a town without a properly constituted body to represent ft they seem to regard its inhabitants as being by that fact alone outside the law of nations and deliver them over to the worst excesses and the most arbitrary exactions. They have, in fact, all a bully s dread for moral power, and fear to aunt it openly where it exists. THE BULLY'S WAY. _ At. Epernay. the Mayor is M. Bol.Koger the _clia mpagne merchant. Directly the Germans entered the town on the 4th—after bombarding it to the extent of about fifty shells, • which caused some damage and set several parts of the town alight—they went straight to the Town Hall and arrested. him together with Maitre Perault. bis deputy, and two municipal councillors They - were all confined in the TownHall, under the close guard of armed sentries, for thirty-six hours hostages while the Germans were bil etmg their troops m the town. It was the Prussian Guard that ocvon Pl P ?t ei K aya Un 4 6l ' General Baron lavaS o^i® rg : Ther ? ™ infantry, c ,„ '• ! , ei^ pioneers; but - nee a number of the troops were! spread about in the villages all round Epernay it is difficult to s>me by any 1 estimate of their total number. 7 y ihe position of the two Mayors and! their counciJors at the Town Hall was 1 not a p.easant one. They had hardlv the'gas supply B nS m th ? "iter and im/i +i U PPV-, His men, it armearpd quartCT " ?%sr!iX32 t 'Z ii £l^" .y°<T,ool!e»gni ta stand not slm! an you under- ! burnt and E P ern ay will be! p'etely." : P g d completely—com- | heads 8 onel into the kifccbAn and turned on Wh ° ? Tm ' n before; his e? e s to slot*him" eTwiST' "t?7 t« d <«■ i off. lonrr before +bft r se see ™ee <™t Epernay. ° Ge ™ans entered ' SPARE THE CHAMPAGNE." in Sc e towT a Th^K I hey simply demanded what' ?f tfJIf nt f d ~ food - wine > tcbaoco: and if payment were mentioned they refused brutally. "When they came in the tioops were very hungry. "They were smearing wagon grease on b.ts of dry fciS f a u eatm S the-vaiter at the hotel told me. But their first thought was tor the famous champagne of the Epernay district. The general issued a * st-nct order that neither the vines nor the celk.rs where the wine is stored were to be injured—for the invaders at that time regarded Epernay as ar permanent _conquest and were determined, not to damage ; what they cosidered ap henceforth their own property. The staff of the general on its sole account requisitioned 800 bottles, anr 1 pcid for them in notes redeemable—per i" er the war. But the private •soldiers 'and junior officers dispensed even with this formality. They had all the champagne brought up from the cellars of the houses where they were quartered., and they would drink noth ing They carried off quantifies of it. and after the battle of the Vesle. the en.element fcvrcht before the Ger' inabandoned Peirng and withdrew to tll'.e bills east of Ihe town, dozens of errmtv chn.mnacne bottles were found in trenches in which' they had beer fifl't'ng. •

The R+.iff emoted from the town as ? war contribution. *' 190 tons of oats. 210 tons of b»*e<*d. ' of rn,ast coffee. 10 torn -of 12 tons of salt bacon and Lnrd.

It was only with great difficulty that tlitse supplies coiua be prouueed by a iitue tos\(ii of just oyer inhabitants, and wiiile I was there on Wednesday night, lour da.ys after tJie. (ier iiaa gone, tnere was still a. most serious dearth of provisions.- It. wa? hard enougu for the ordinary person tc get a meal ; the sick and children whc need: special food, must' have' suffered-, greatly. ' . OXE GOOD ACT. \

In addition to this food levy, General -von -Piettenberg. imposed a fine of £7OOO on the town, which, had to b(? paid m "cash. The German general did, however, show one sign of decency dur ing his stay. As his troops were retiring he sent for the mayor and handed Back to him the £7OOO in -the same money in which it was paid over. "I do this," he said!- "in consideration-of nesday night,- four da,ys after fche'Ger-

man wounded in the hospitals at Eper nay." . . Most -of the inhabitants remained m doors as far as possible while the Ger- | mans were quartered upon them. The children especially were kept closely locked up for the eight days of the enemy's stay. Their behaviour m the houses and hotels where they were quartered varied considerably. , bome were brutal and insulting; others behaved themselves reasonably.. In the Hotel Terminus, where I the names of the officers quartered there were still marked on the doors ; written up in red chr.lk by their soldier servants. "Oberleunaut Hamberger had been living in my room four nights previously: "Oberarzt Reiner" was at No. 2, next door. It was after five days;' fighting round the town tlint Ilia Germans retired on Reims and through that town on to the ■wood hills beyond. At Reims, • a. much larger town than they had carried out their policy of intimidation on a more methodical plain. _Thev arrested 100 of the most prominent people of the town to hold as hostages. There were five priests among them, and representatives of all c l asses and many occupations. There was even an Englishman, a Mr liewenthwaite, connected witb the combing mills there. One of the hostages taken was an o!d man of .eisihty-two. I found the green nroclarrintioTi which announced w't.b brutal directness the German general's intention to hang all these perfectly . innocent persons if it seemed good to I him. sti 1 ! nested on the "vails. I The "protection" afforded to the hostages by the German Army was of a characteristic kind. For when the Germans had to retreat! from Reims with the French hard on their heels they formed up their 100 prisoners into a compact little body and forced them to march at the very end of the retiring column for three miles beyond the town so as to cover it from any rifle buTeis which the infuriated inhabitants of Reims might otherwise have been tempted .to send after them. They also carr ; ed off with them £6O-000 in cash 1—£40.000I —£40.000 of it a war fine and £20.000 "borrowed until September 20 '' But a week before September 20 the French Army had driven the enemy out of Reims . and the town has accordingly lost the whole sum.

„ Such was the passage through the historic town of Reims of this the invading horde, accompanied in this section of it by two Princes of the Prussian Royal Family, August Wiihelm and Adalbert, the Kaiser's sons, the latter of whom came as a messenger to fetch away the town's war levy fine of £40.-000.

If these towns fared better' than the lonely villages scattered round them — now no more than heaps of ruins without a soul left to tell how the Germans set about their work of criminal destruction —it is because even Germans are ashamed to carry out their ravages before the eyes of responsible authorities who could testify to their deeds.