Their Crimes

In Short

Compiled from official French and Belgian commission reports alongside captured German soldiers' notebooks, this searing volume documents the calculated destruction of towns, summary executions of civilians, and widespread terror unleashed by the invading German army in 1914. It systematically details robberies, arson, murder, and deportations to ensure that the English-speaking world remembers these atrocities. The work serves as both an authoritative historical record and a resolute call for justice, insisting that the victims must never be forgotten and that the perpetrators must face accountability before a lasting peace can be established.

The Story

The book opens with a clear declaration of purpose: to remind English-speaking people throughout the Empire and American allies of the wanton destruction and terror that overwhelmed occupied regions of France and Belgium, counteracting the wartime weariness that dims historical memory. Setting aside casual hearsay, the text builds its foundation on unimpeachable evidence drawn from official French and Belgian commission reports and recovered German military notebooks, exposing the documentary proof left behind by the invaders themselves.

The argument progresses methodically through specific categories of devastation. It examines personal and official robberies, detailing how ordinary soldiers, high-ranking officers like Prince Eitel Fritz, and municipal guides like Weill systematically looted valuables, emptied treasuries, and destroyed property with cynical indifference. Arson follows as a core methodology, showing how specialized military units utilized prepared torches, pastilles, and pumps to systematically burn down entire districts, from Louvain to Gerbéviller, while actively blocking local fire-fighting efforts to ensure total destruction.

Moving from property to life, the text chronicles widespread murders, detailing the judicial and summary execution of civilian hostages, priests, mayors such as M. Odent, and thousands of non-combatants. It incorporates chilling entries from captured German diaries that reveal both the cold efficiency and the ideological rationalizations of the perpetrators. The progression expands to encompass horrific outrages against women and children, the deliberate finishing off of wounded soldiers in the field and in casualty clearing stations like the one overseen by Dr. Sédillot, and the cowardly tactical use of civilians as human shields during combat advances.

The narrative arc deepens as it describes the mass deportation of surviving civilian prisoners to Germany, where men, women, and children endured brutal transit conditions and severe captivity, returning emaciated, sick, and broken. Confronting the official denials issued by German authorities, including the manifesto of intellectual leaders and the counter-reports published in the German White Book, the text exposes these defenses as premeditated falsehoods designed to shift blame onto the victims.

Finally, the work culminates in a solemn appeal and conclusion. It presents the desperate cry of Belgian workers threatened with forced labor and concludes with a resolute demand from regional authorities like L. Mirman. The argument insists that these crimes must be universally known so that the Allied nations maintain the resolve necessary to prevent future atrocities, refusing to normalize relations with unrepentant aggressors until genuine moral repentance takes place.

How It Unfolds

Establishing the documentary foundation The book opens by outlining its core sources, gathering comprehensive evidence from official French and Belgian government commissions of enquiry led by high-ranking magistrates. It reinforces these judicial findings with translated notebooks recovered from wounded or captured German soldiers, providing undeniable firsthand proof of military atrocities committed in cold blood.

Executing systematic robbery and arson The narrative details widespread pillage, ranging from common soldier-thieves to high-ranking figures like Prince Eitel Fritz looting private châteaux. It then exposes the technical precision of German incendiarism, where trained units utilized specialized chemical pastilles, pumps, and torches to reduce entire historic towns like Louvain and Gerbéviller to ashes while actively blocking local fire-fighting efforts.

Committing murders and field atrocities Moving deeper into the occupation, the text documents the summary execution of thousands of innocent civilians, including priests, hostages, and municipal leaders such as Mayor M. Odent. It incorporates chilling diary excerpts from soldiers and officers who recorded mass shootings and the deliberate finishing off of wounded men with brutal indifference.

Inflicting outrages and human shields The record addresses systemic sexual assaults on women, young girls, and children across occupied villages, noting that even nuns and grandmothers were not spared. It further details the cowardly military practice of forcing civilian men, women, and children to march directly in front of armed columns as human shields against enemy fire.

Deporting survivors and demanding justice The final section chronicles the mass deportation of tens of thousands of civilians to overcrowded, unsanitary cattle trucks and prisons in Germany under horrific conditions. It concludes by dismantling official German denials and issuing a solemn plea from leaders like L. Mirman that the Allied nations must maintain strict remembrance and refuse reconciliation without true moral repentance.

The People

The book features several key figures drawn from official records and testimonies who illuminate the human dimension of the conflict. Prince Eitel Fritz wants personal enrichment and luxury, taking part in the systematic looting of private châteaux in occupied territories, and ends up exposed as a royal participant in wartime theft. Weill, a civilian guide and non-commissioned officer who previously knew Lunéville, wants to aid the invading command, using his local familiarity to direct the destruction and dynamiting of safes, ultimately emerging as a key collaborator against his former acquaintances.

On the victims' side, M. Odent, the heroic mayor of Senlis, wants to protect his community and guide his staff through the occupation, but stands in the way of ruthless occupying forces, ending up executed alongside members of his municipal administration. Dr. Sédillot wants to provide medical care to the wounded in a casualty clearing station at Gomery, but faces violent intrusion from German soldiers, ultimately surviving a brutal massacre that claims the lives of fellow medical staff. Finally, L. Mirman, the Prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle, wants to ensure that the world does not forget these horrors, standing against wartime weariness, and concludes by demanding that the Allies maintain unyielding moral resolve and refuse to normalize relations with unrepentant executioners.

In Its Own Voice

At Louvain, they destroyed the fire-engines and fire-escapes; at Namur, they stopped the firemen at the very moment they were preparing to do their duty.

Context: The text details how German forces deliberately crippled local infrastructure to ensure complete destruction by fire.

During the night many more civilians were shot, so many that we were able to count over 200. Women and children, with lamps in their hands, were compelled to witness the horrible sight. We afterwards ate our rice among the dead bodies. Sadly beautiful.

Context: Recovered diaries written by occupying soldiers expose the harrowing indifference accompanying mass murders.

...so long as the nation in whose name and by whose hands these atrocities have been committed has not herself solemnly cast from her the scoundrels who dragged her into such decadence, we shall consider that it would betray our martyrs for us even to rub shoulders with their executioners...

Context: The concluding appeal insists that remembrance and moral accountability must precede any future reconciliation.

What It's Really About

Beneath its harrowing catalog of violence, the book addresses the profound moral collapse of an advanced nation and the dangerous psychological mechanisms of collective state-sponsored madness. It investigates how militarism, nationalist ideology, and absolute obedience transformed ordinary individuals into perpetrators of systematic atrocities. The work directly challenges official propaganda and elaborate government lies, arguing that unimpeachable documentary truth is essential for preserving historical accountability. Ultimately, it confronts deep questions about how free peoples can maintain justice, protect civilian rights, and rebuild international order when the foundational rules of humanity have been systematically shattered by an unrepentant aggressor.

Why Read It Today

Readers drawn to primary historical documentation, military history, and rigorous wartime analysis will find this uncompromising volume deeply compelling. Reading it feels like stepping directly into a historical tribunal of conscience, confronting an unyielding accumulation of official reports, sworn depositions, and recovered diary entries that strip away political abstraction to reveal raw human suffering. The book is certainly not an easy or comfortable experience; its unrelenting catalog of brutality, period-specific polemical tone, and raw outrage demand immense emotional fortitude from the reader. Yet what stays with you long after closing the page is the haunting clarity of the testimonies—the precise names of fallen victims, the chilling casualness recorded in captured military notebooks, and the unyielding insistence on moral accountability. It stands as a powerful historical artifact demonstrating the fragility of civilization and the enduring ethical duty of public remembrance, challenging modern readers to confront the dark realities of state violence without ever looking away.