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A demand for 450,000,000 francs was made upon the province of Brabant, but the amount was so excessive and the protests of the local authorities so strong that the Germans were finally induced to cancel it.1

On September 6, 1914, a contribution of 30,000,000 francs was levied on the department of the Marne. In the absence of the prefect the German officer in command addressed his demand to the mayor of Châlons. The mayor protested that it was impossible to raise so large a sum, but the German commander persisted in his demand and required a reply by 9 o'clock the following day. Of the total amount, 22,000,000 was required to be raised by the city of Rheims and the remaining 8,000,000 by the city of Châlons. After some pour parlers the German officer agreed to accept the sum of 500,000 francs with the understanding, however, that it should be regarded as only the initial payment, and that the remainder would have to be paid later. He thereupon handed the mayor the following receipt:

"I certify that I have this day received from the city of Châlons-surMarne on the part of the representative of the city the sum of 500,000 francs in notes. This sum represents a part of the contribution of war of 30,000,000 which the General-in-chief of the German army in the department of the Marne has imposed on the department. Châlons-sur-Marne. September 8, 1914.

Signed: FREIHERR VON SECKENDORFF
Intendant of the Army.”

On account of the early evacuation of this region, however, the
Germans were unable to collect the remainder of the contribution.

A contribution of 15,000,000 francs was levied on the department of the Nord in addition to a monthly contribution of 2,000,000 francs.3 The town of Laon appears to have been systematically exploited. In 1914 it was required to raise 500,000 francs; in 1915, 1,000,000; in 1916, 1,800,000, and in 1917, 3,000,000. The city of Lille also appears to have been fre

Passalecq, Les Déportations Belges, p. 176; Massart, p. 156, and Gomery, Belgium in War Time, p. 181. Hugh Gibson, secretary of the American legation in Belgium, adverting to the amount of the demand, remarks that it was equal to nearly one-tenth of the total indemnity imposed on France at the close of the war of 1870-1871. Journal from Our Legation in Belgium, p. 115.

2 Text in Matot, Reims et la Marne, Almanach de la Guerre (1916), pp. 146-150. Lille sous le Joug Allemand, p. 4.

• Press despatch from Laon, October 14, 1918.

GERMAN PRACTICE IN RECENT WAR III

quently and heavily mulcted by exactions of one kind or another, the exact nature of which is not clear. In a letter dated July 17, 1917, the mayor protested to the military governor, General Graevenitz, in the following words:

"Scarcely have we paid over the money for a forced levy of 24,000,000 francs, when you demand the payment of a new sum of 33,000,000. During the first year of occupation when the city of Lille still possessed a large proportion of its resources, you demanded from it, in various forms, the sum of 28,000,000 francs. During the second year a total of 30,000,000. And during the third year, when the city is in the deepest distress, when its trade is annihilated, its stores closed, its industries destroyed, you double the tribute and raise it to the sum of 60,000,000 francs."

Denouncing such exactions as contrary to the Hague convention and adverting to the threat of the German commander that in case the amount were not promptly raised, the city would be fined 1,000,000 francs for each day of arrears, the mayor concluded:

"Consequently I come to declare to you, in the name of the city council, whose spokesman I am, that the city of Lille, bowed under oppression, isolated from the outer world, powerless to appeal to any tribunal from the arbitrary tyranny to which it is subjected, will pay the new tribute on the dates indicated, but it will pay with the knife at its throat."1

These are some examples of contributions levied upon particular communities, the facts as to which seem to be authentic enough. The instances referred to above by no means exhaust the list. It may be safely assumed that few towns or cities escaped either a fine or a contribution, and many were subjected to both.3

1 Text of the letter in the Figaro of October 13, 1917. An official despatch from Paris, published in the New York Times of October 19, 1918, stated that 500,000,000 francs had been levied on Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing under the form of contributions by the Germans since the beginning of the war, and that of this amount 250,000,000 had been extorted from Lille. This city, it is said, was compelled to pay rent for the use of the German Emperor's castle on the island of Corfu, which was occupied as a military hospital by the allies. New York Times, November 18, 1918. See also Fage, op. cit., ch. IV.

2 The facts as to the exactions referred to above have in the main been gathered from official reports issued by the Belgian and French governments. In addition to the reports cited in the preceding footnotes, the Belgian government issued a series entitled Cahiers Documentaires, from which I have derived much information. There is also much documentary information in M. Passalecq's work Les Déportations Belges (Paris and Nancy, 1917).

' Cf., for example, various instances mentioned by the abbé Charles Calippe in his book, La Somme sous l'Occupation Allemande, especially pp. 25, 29, 45, 102,

§ 389. The General Contribution on Belgium. In addition to the special contributions levied upon particular cities, towns, and villages, a general contribution of 480,000,000 francs was imposed by General von Bissing on the nine occupied provinces of Belgium by a decree of December 10, 1914.1 The contribution was to be paid in monthly instalments of 40,000,000 francs on the tenth of each month. It appears that the monthly amount at first demanded by General von Bissing was 35,000,000 francs, but that in consideration of an undertaking on the part of the German authorities that they would pay cash for the supplies requisitioned by them, that the levy would be limited to one year, and that no additional contributions would be exacted, the Belgian authorities agreed that the contribution should be fixed at 40,000,000 francs per month. This appears from an avis published by General von Bissing on January 9, 1915.2 With this understanding the instalments were promptly paid each month through the agency of an association of banks at the head of which was the Société Générale to which the German authorities had granted the exclusive privilege of issuing bank notes.

The Belgians contend that the understanding was violated by the Germans when they renewed in November, 1915, for an indefinite term, the contribution of 40,000,000 francs, whose duration had been limited to one year, and by their refusal to make prompt payments for goods and services requisitioned.3 In November, 1916, the monthly contribution was increased from 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 francs, and in May, 1917, it was raised to 60,000,000 francs, the reason alleged by the German authorities being the increased cost of provisioning the army in the occupied region.*

and 104. Péronne, he says, was required în September, 1915, to raise 1,860,000 francs per month, beginning retroactively on July 1, making a total of 3,720,000 (p. 102). Cf. also De Saint-Aymour, Autour de Noyon, a book which contains much information regarding German practices in the region of which Noyon is the chief town. Cf. especially his account of how Nesle was bled by contributions (p. 187).

1 Text in Arrêtés et Proclamations de Guerre Allemandes, p. 49; in Huberich and Speyer, German Legislation in Belgium, 2d Series, p. 11, and Passalecq, op. cit., P. 396.

Text in Arrêtés et Procs., pp. 72-74.

• Brand Whitlock in Everybody's Magazine, August, 1918, p. 82, says the Germans violated the above-mentioned undertaking four different times. • Cahiers Documentaires, No. 84 (September 20, 1917), p. 3.

PROVISIONS OF HAGUE CONVENTION

113

The Belgian government protested against the continuation of the levy, not only as a violation of an agreement entered into by the Belgian authorities and the governor-general, but also on the ground that it was excessive, being between two-thirds and three-fourths of the total budget of the State. The amount of the contribution, it was complained, would be burdensome under normal conditions when the country was prosperous, but in view of the fact that a large part of Belgium had been laid waste, the people impoverished and their industries to a considerable extent paralyzed, the contribution amounted to confiscation.1

It is impossible to determine from the information now available the total amount of money that was exacted by the Germans under the form of contributions from the regions occupied by them. The Belgian government estimated that down to August 10, 1917, the total amount of the general contribution paid over aggregated 1,440,000,000 francs. To this had to be added 200,000,000 francs levied on the communes 2 and, of course, many other millions levied under the form of community fines, to say nothing of the enormous exactions in the form of requisitions. No statistics are available to the author as to the total exactions in the occupied regions of France or in the other territories which fell under German occupation.

§390. Provisions of the Hague Convention in Respect to Contributions. Article 49 of the Hague convention of 1907 respecting the laws and customs of war declares that if an

1 Cf. also a protest of the Belgian Senators and Deputies, text in the United States Official Bulletin of January 5, 1918.

2 Cahiers Documentaires, No. 84 (September 20, 1917), p. 3. Cf. also Passalecq, p. 176.

3 In the autumn of 1918, after the conclusion of the armistice, the Belgian government, in preparing its bill of reparations to be presented to the German government, estimated that the total amount of contributions and fines that had been extorted from Belgium was 2,575,000,000 francs (New York Times, October 22 and November 8, 1918). Lord Robert Cecil, speaking in the House of Commons on August 6, 1918, said the Germans had levied contributions upon Belgium amounting to 2,280,000,000, and that these "monstrous exactions" must certainly be taken into account when the peace terms were being arranged. Among the categories of "damages" enumerated in the treaty of peace which the reparations commission is authorized to take into consideration in determining the amount of the indemnity to be paid by Germany is "damage in the form of levies, fines and other similar exactions imposed by Germany or her allies upon the civil population." Art. 244, annex 1, par. 10.

VOL. II-8

occupant levies in addition to the regular taxes "other money contributions . . . this shall be only for the needs of the army or for the administration of the territory in question." The phrase "needs of the army" is very elastic1 and might be interpreted to cover almost unlimited exactions, but it was clearly not the intention of the conference to authorize military commanders to exact contributions for the enrichment of the occupying belligerent, for the purpose of meeting the expenses of the war, or to lay contributions under the disguise of fines. Bluntschli justly remarks that international law forbids a military occupant from exacting any other contributions than those which are absolutely indispensable for the administration of the territory and the needs of the army.2 Spaight holds a similar view, and he adds that even under the restrictions imposed by international law they strike one as being peculiarly unjust and are in fact a relic of the theory that an invader has a vested right to the private property of those who fall within his power.3 The committee of the first Hague conference which considered the article relating to contributions reported that its effect was to prohibit military occupants from enriching themselves, and this was the general understanding. Nevertheless, Loening and other German writers hold that it is legitimate for a military occupant to exact money contributions for the purpose of forcing an enemy to submit,5 and Lammasch defended this proposition at the Hague in 1899, but it found no favor.

8391. Purposes for which Contributions may be Levied. Likewise the theory held by some writers, such as Massé and Vedari, that the power of a belligerent to levy contributions on

1 At the Second Hague Conference an effort was made to substitute for the vague term "needs of the army" a more precise one (e.g., "absolute necessity"), but the proposal was rejected through fear of compromising the success of the convention. Several delegates, notably Lansberge, Odier, and Karnebeek, advocated the abolition of contributions, but this proposal was defeated. Actes et Documents, III, p. 134.

2 Op. cit., sec. 654.

Op. cit., p. 383.

• Cf. Rolin's Report, 2d commission, July 5, 1899. The Institute of International Law considered the matter at its session of 1880 and adopted the following rule, which is incorporated in art. 58 of its manual of the laws of war: "The occupant may levy extraordinary money contributions only as an equivalent for fines or taxes, or of supplies in kind not delivered." Cf. on this point an article entitled Contributions de Guerre Imposées par l'Allemagne, by M. Clunet in Clunet's Journal, 43: 48 ff.

•Rev. de Droit Int., Vol. V, p. 107.

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