War is Hell: The German Rape of Belgium in WW I

War is a constant in human history; our generation is no different.  In my lifetime there have been World War II, Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, just to name a few.  I participated in one of them as soldier in the United States Army in Vietnam in 1968-69.  My father was a soldier in the Italian Army in Africa in WW II.  We tend to glamorize wars, especially those where we’ve succeeded. The movies have done their part to help. But war is hell on earth; it is the most grotesque example of man’s inhumanity to man.  The heart of evil shines in war.  Men in war tend to turn into monsters; they are forced to; kill or be killed.  On arrival to my post in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, just after the Tet Offensive of February 1968, the first sign I saw shocked me a bit, though it was not a surprise. The sign read “Although I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for I am the evilest son of a bitch in the valley.”  A purposeful distortion of Psalm 23.  Welcome to a surreal world, I thought.

They called WW I the Great War.  Don’t know exactly what was meant by this, but if it was in the sheer number of death and destruction of human life, it was on a grand scale.  Barbara Tuchman’s book on WW I, “The Guns of August” is a classic.  Most of what I report here comes from this book. Her book deals with the start of the war in August of 1914.  Right off the bat there was death and destruction on such a scale that you would have to go back to Roman times for a comparison.  the Battle of Cannae, August 2, 216 BC, between the Romans and the Carthaginians, led by the brilliant Carthaginian military leader, Hannibal, and the Roman General Gaius Varo, where 50,000 plus men were killed in one day could be comparable.

Germany was the main bad actor.  Since their war with France in 1870 when they crushed France and took two of their territorial provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, Germany was puffing their chest constantly and pressing for another war, again, with France.  Kaiser Wilhelm II was the main instigator.  The Germans thought of themselves as the “anointed ones” of Europe.  They thought they should rule Europe; they saw themselves as superior to other Europeans.  They had a philosophy of expansion and conquest.  From the early part of the 1900s the Germans were planning and preparing for war.  They were chomping at the bit, sort of speaking, to crush France again so they could be the one uncontested leader of Europe.  They took it as an insult that the French did not lie down completely and become subservient to them after their defeat in 1870.  Their military leaders spent years in detailed plans for conquering France, to the minute detail.  Their main planner was German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, (the “Schliffen Plan”). Plans included how many trains needed to be used, down to the time each train had to pass a certain point.

 

The German plan of attack was designed to go through Belgium to hit France.  This despite the fact that they had signed a treaty to respect Belgium’s territorial integrity.  Not a problem, they invaded Belgium in August of 1914.  It is estimated that they had a force of 700,000 to two million troops. They believed the Belgians would just lie down and let them pass.  When the Belgians resisted, the brutality started.  Upon entering a town in Belgium, German troops would round up civilians and point blank shoot them.  If they found any Belgian with any kind of weapon they would shoot and kill them on the spot.  Any town offering any resistance was burned to the ground.  When some of the Belgians cut telephone lines or blew up rail lines, the Germans were ruthless in slaughtering civilians and torching towns. On August 9 after German troops arrived in the small town of Aerschot, a town between Gette and Brussels and found that the Belgian Army had withdrawn, they took out their fury on the town civilians. 150 civilians were shot dead.  At the town of Dinant, 664 civilians were shot dead.  All innocent people going about their own business like tending their farm.  On August 20, the Germans took Brussels. They took down the Belgian flag and raised their own. An indemnity of 50 million francs was demanded (about $10 million dollars).  In the town of Nomeny on August 20, fifty civilians were bayoneted, and their houses burned to the ground.  In some of the most climactic battles in Belgium, including the battles of Charleroi, Mons, Haelen and Turcos more than 1,250,000 soldiers took part in combat between French, English and German forces.  French casualties, in just four days mounted to 140,000.

 

German brutality had no limits.  German General von Bulow posted signs in the city of Liege announcing that the people of Andenne, a small town near Namur, having attacked his troops, commands the burning of the town and had 110 civilians shot dead.  At the town of Tamines, 400 civilians were herded together in front of a church and a firing squad began systematically shooting them. Those still alive after the shooting were bayonetted.

 

On August 25 the burning of the town of Louvain began.  The beautiful medieval Belgian city was renowned for its University and magnificent Library, founded in 1426, with incomparable historic books.  All lost and destroyed.  The burning and sack of Louvain lasted six days.

 

At the same time as the attack on Belgium, the Russians engaged them on the Russian-German front. In what became known as the Battle of Tannenberg, the Germans wiped out two Russian Army Corps, they took 92,000 prisoners and the dead were estimated to by around 30,000.  All of this in the month of August 1914.  The Russians, in the meantime inflicted a massive defeat on the Austria-Hungary Army.  Between August 26 and September 6, they inflicted 250,000 casualties on the Austrians and took over 100,000 prisoners.  

 

World War I lasted until 1918.  The death and destruction was of biblical proportions.  Over 68 million troops took part, ten million soldiers were killed, twenty million were wounded. Over seven million civilians were killed.  In 1915 the Germans, for the first time in military history, used poison gas at the Belgian town of Ypres, devastating French troops.  Click here for details.  This is just a short list of casualties.  The evil started again twenty years later in World War II.  The Belgians were devasted for the second time by the Germans, on their way to Paris. The murder exploded exponentially with the killing of more than six million Jews by the Nazis.  Evil has no limits.  The definition of war crimes can be found with the German killing machine of WW I and II. One common denominator was that the leader of Germany in both cases was a despot, Kaiser Wilhelm II in WW I and the insane lunatic tyrant, Adolf Hitler in WW II.  Again, we must study and learn from history, otherwise we will repeat it. Yes, war is literally hell on earth.

 

Kings, Emperors and Tyrants

History is replete with one overriding theme: Kings, tyrants, emperors and all forms of non-representative government dominate world history up to the modern era.  In all but a few cases, these rulers were oppressive, murderous and in many cases mentally deranged.  We’ve all read about the madness of King Henry VIII of England.  Certainly, this man was completely insane. All you have to do is look at his misdeeds. In Roman times, we have examples of insane rulers such as Caligula and Nero.   Today we have Kim Jung Un in North Korea who certainly looks to be mentally unstable.  Successful emperors such as Justinian in the sixth century AD in the Eastern Roman Empire, more commonly referred to as the Byzantine Empire, was not outdone in depravity.  These men ruled with an iron hand and they were merciless killers of their own people. Justinian, for example, after some riots against him, herded 30,000 of his own people in his Hippodrome in Constantinople and murdered them all.  Nero burned Rome to the ground and blamed the Christians.  From antiquity on, whether emperor, tyrant or King, you could murder the king and take his place.  This happened often in Israel, Assyria, Greece and other areas.  For instance, King Philip II of Greece, also known as Phillip of Macedon was probably murdered in 336 BC on behalf of his son, Alexander, although this is not known for sure.  The Byzantine Empire had many such changes in emperors.

The brutality of kings, emperors and tyrants cuts across the spectrum.  For over a thousand years, the Pope in Rome controlled about one quarter of all Italy.  He was the political head of state, the judge and the jury of his people.  In 1849, Pope Pius IX fled Rome for his life when a rebellion against him started.  A new government was formed after his departure.  In order to get back to power he asked the French for a military intervention in which over 2,000 Romans were killed.  Upon his return he was merciless against those who had opposed him.  Many who fled were captured and killed on his behalf for no other reason than opposing the Pope.  See my previous post on this blog for more details.

The Ottoman Turks ruled a huge empire for about a thousand years until defeated in World War I.  The Ottoman Sultans ruled like kings and emperors, with an iron hand.  Brutality was their calling card.  When conquering a territory, they would offer a town or city peace if they surrendered, if not, they would kill everyone and everything and burn the city to the ground. Alexander the Great used a similar method of conquest.  After one or two of these examples, people got the message.  The Turks were equally brutal with their own people.  Troops would fight to the death because if they lost they would be killed.  After the 1683 Siege of Vienna, the commander of the Ottoman Army, Kara Mustafa, a brilliant military leader, was condemned to death upon returning home. They strangled him to death with a rope, cut off his head and dismembered his body.  This is the thanks he got for all the service he had done for the Ottomans.  See my October 2011 piece called “A House Divided Cannot Stand.” 

In our modern era we have countless examples too.  Adolf Hitler of Germany was responsible for more than four million German military deaths, not counting civilian deaths.  All in search of the glory of conquest which was so remote that at second grader could say it was impossible.  Hitler, again, one can easily say, was insane.  He murdered six million innocent people all because of their religion-Jewish. Benito Mussolini of Italy may not have been insane, but he was certainly crazy to partner with the suicidal Hitler then declare war on the rest of the world when he probably could not overpower any one country in Europe.   His military certainly had not one win and was defeated at every turn in places such as Greece, North Africa, Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and, of course, Russia, where he sent 250,00 troops, half of which perished.   In the Soviet Union we had Stalin, who certainly could be considered insane.  In his Purge of 1936-38, Wikipedia estimates that 1.2 million of his own people were murdered.  In the WW II Siege of Stalingrad, Russian soldiers who were captured by the Germans and then escaped or were released were executed upon their return.  In 1940 Stalin ordered the massacre of 22,000 Polish military officers in what became known as the Katyn Forest Massacre.  Today we have Kim Jung Un in North Korea, who, depending on how he feels, can order the execution of anyone, including his own family members.  In Iraq Saddam Hussein was a brutal killer; not only killing his own people but starting wars with Iran and Kuwait, for no reason, other than conquest and his own glory.

In all of these cases the people ruled by these tyrants were the victims.  In places where such tyrants rule, no one dares make a move or they will be killed on the spot.  And this is how such tyrants rule, by fear.  So, one man can have 50 million people under his thumb and in places such as the Soviet Union, Stalin had about 180 million under his thumb and subject to execution at his command.  

Now what is more alarming today is the political left, for example, here in America, tends to love these tyrants.  They love Maduro of Venezuela or Fidel Castro of Cuba, for instance.  Every day, you can find a young person wearing the Chè Guevara T-Shirt. Famous Hollywood actors, such as Sean Penn will go to Venezuela and speak glowingly of that country’s tyrant, similarly with Cuba. Leftist Hollywood director Michael Moore will speak glowingly of the Cuban health system, as described in his movie “Sicko,”for example.  None of these folks, of course, have ever lived under such political systems. They criticize America but will never leave it for these places they love like Cuba and Venezuela.

Pope Pius IX, Pope, King and Tyrant

As a life-long Catholic, I had no idea who Pope Pius IX was, other than a past pope.  That all changed after reading the fine book, “The Pope who Would be King” by David I. Kertzer (2018).  What follows is mostly taken from this book.  Pio Nono, as he was known in Italy, became Pope in 1846 and reigned until 1878.  His life as Pope was overshadowed by his rule as the temporal leader of the Papal States. The Papal States comprised of about one quarter of Italy.  Click here for a map.  The Papal States had been ruled by the Popes for over a thousand years.  The Pope was the head of state, the law and the judge of all his citizens. He was the all-powerful king of his subjects.  All government jobs were held by the clergy. The Pope’s government advisors were his Cardinals, usually two or three of his most trusted clergymen.  The most important advisor to Pio Nono was Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli.  A shrewd and ambitions man, Antonelli was not a priest, but a Deacon when he was named Cardinal.  Antonelli was no spiritual man; he was a power broker extraordinaire above all else.

Pope Pius IX saw his rule of the Papal States as a mandate from God and ruled that way.  “He believed that God had bestowed on him the right to wield absolute power.” “Parliamentary government and individual freedoms, according to Pio Nono, were not only incompatible with the divinely ordained nature of his own states but inherently evil.  It was a belief that he would hold for the rest of his life.”  When he encountered resistance to his clerical rule, he was dumbfounded to see that his subjects did not see it the same way. The Papal States were bordered on the north by the Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, which was controlled by the Austrian Hapsburg Empire and Tuscany which was an independent state.  To the South it was bordered by the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, ruled by King Ferdinand II, of the Bourbon Dynasty.

Revolution was in the air for all of the time  Pio Nono reigned.  France had a revolution in 1848 which deposed King Louis Phillipe, creating the Second French Republic headed by Louis Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon.  In Italy the entire peninsula was on fire for Italian unification and the removal of foreign armies, especially the Austrian Army which controlled the North East part of Italy.  In the Papal States, the citizens hated the rule of priests and longed for Italian unification. They were tired of the oppression of the clerics.  In the South, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was in turmoil and revolting against their ruler, King Ferdinand II.  This was the climate Pio Nono found upon being elected pope.

Citizens of the Papal States loved the Pope but hated being ruled by the heavy-handed priestly rule. Clergy were the police commanders, usually a bishop or a monsignor.  The courts were also headed by clergy.  The rule was nothing short of tyrannical.  A priest could barge into a home and inspect it to make sure no religious rules were being violated.  Any dissent or talk critical of the Pope was dealt with severely.  People lived in fear of arrest and torture, even killing for not supporting the Pope and his rule.  In Rome, the Jewish population was kept in a ghetto by law.  Jews could not own property, they could only work in some professions, but not others; they could not testify in court.  The Jews even had to pay a large sum each year to support the House of the Catechumens, the church organization dedicated to their conversion.

Subjects of the Papal States wanted a constitution and rule by civilians.  They wanted a separation between the church and the state.  The Pope refused.  They wanted Italian unification; the Pope refused to consider it. Revolution was in the air and things were getting hot.  When thousands of people besieged the papal residence and killed the Pope’s top government administrator, Pellegrino Rossi, as he was leaving his office, the Pope decided he needed to escape before they got him.  With the help of the Bavarian ambassador, Pio Nono escaped to a small coastal town of Gaeta, near Naples in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, riding in a horse drawn carriage all night.  King Ferdinand II welcomed him with open arms.  After the Pope escaped Rome, the citizens established their own government headed by a triumvirate which called themselves the Roman Republic. Soon after settling down in Gaeta, the pope, meeting with his advisors and foreign dignitaries, plotted to regain his rule by using military force.  He debated whether to ask the Austrian or the French for military help.  He decided the French were more to his liking.  The French agreed to send a military expedition to restore the pope to Rome.  

France sent an expeditionary force of 30,000 troops to help the pope regain his kingdom.  The troops landed in Civitavecchia, a port near Rome and marched into the city.  The French troops underestimated Roman resistance.  Although lacking a unified and trained army, they put together a defense made up of university students, former members of the papal army and local citizens who took up arms.  They did have one ace in the hole; Giuseppe Garibaldi had by this time returned from leading military wars in Brazil and Urugary.  He brought with him about 1200 of his trusted soldiers from South America.  These were seasoned troops.  When the French tried to break into Rome they met heavy resistance and were driven back with heavy losses.  Garibaldi, one of the best military commanders of his day, led his troops aboard his white horse.  His constant companion was a black man and a fierce warrior from Uruguay, the son of a former slave, Andrea Aguyar.  Garibaldi was wounded in the first encounter, shot in the stomach, but survived.  Aguyar, was killed in action on the last day of the battle.  The French commander, General Charles Oudinot, stung by his initial defeat, withdrew to the rear to wait for additional troops which arrived shortly thereafter.  Not only additional troops but additional heavy cannons were brought in to demolish the thick Roman defensive walls. Faced with overpowering odds, the Roman defenders had no chance.  The French troops breached the walls, poured in and occupied Rome.  Over 2,000 Romans were killed defending their city.  Much of Rome lay in ruins, although the French were careful not to destroy many of Rome’s treasures.  Upon the Pope's return, brutal reprisals were meted out to his opponents. Many were shot to death.

Pio Nono was ecstatic at the defeat of his enemies, although he said he lamented the loss of life. After the French occupation of Rome, French representatives, led by the famous Alexis de Tocqueville, and other French and Europeans emissaries begged the Pope to be lenient with his subjects. They all strongly asked him not to arrest the people who supported the new Roman Republic.  Pio Nono would have none of it.  He wanted punishment.  After returning to Rome that is what happened.  All those who had shown support for the Republic were arrested, many of them were tortured or killed.  In Rome, the French placed warnings on Roman walls that anyone found with any weapon would be summarily executed.  The executions were done in public squares.  One man accused of carrying weapons was brought before a firing squad in Piazza del Popolo, one of the biggest Piazzas in Rome where a large crown gathered to watch his execution.  The usual method of execution was by guillotine, but the guillotines were no longer working so they used firing squads.  Later on, a French Archbishop sent the Pope two new guillotines which were later used to execute the Pope’s enemies.

It did not end there.  After the French occupied Rome, many of its defenders managed to escape north. Giuseppe Garibaldi gathered his troops and his pregnant wife, Anita in St. Peter’s Square and they were led out of the city by fellow Romans.  Anita had earlier come to Rome from Nice (Nizza), Garibaldi’s home town, against his wishes.  The 27-year-old Brazilian beauty was also a seasoned warrior in her own right, having fought alongside her husband in Brazil and Uruguay.  Later in their escape north, she fell ill and died in his arms, along with the unborn baby, seven months in gestation. 

 While the French were attacking Rome, the Austrians were occupying Papal State cities Bologna, Ferrara and Ancona with their troops. Upon reaching the tiny principality of San Marino, Garibaldi released many of his troops from their vow to fight to the death with him. The San Marino authorities mediated a compromise for Garibaldi’s released troops.  The Austrian Army promised to let them go home if they would give up their arms; 900 of them did.  They would soon come to regret it. The following day, these same men were marched in chains into Bologna; their fate unknown. Garibaldi continued with 300 of his ardent followers.    

Ugo Bassi, a priest and chaplain serving Garibaldi’s troops, succeeded in reaching the town of Ferrara.  There a local person reported him to the Austrians. The Austrians arrested him and sentenced him to death, without trial, on a bogus charge that he had been carrying arms. He was shot by a firing squad.  Another popular Roman hero and a former supporter of Pio Nono nicknamed Ciceruacchio met even a crueler fate.  He was captured with his two young sons and, without a trial, all three were sentenced to death.  Tied together with his 13-year-old son, he begged the Austrians to spare the boy. All three were shot dead; the younger boy first then Ciceruacchio  and lastly, the older boy.  All for being part of the Roman Republic which opposed the pope. All in the name of Pio Nono.

In looking for current information on Pius IX, I learned that Pope John II, beatified Pius IX in the year 2000; the last step before being named a saint. Pius IX was the pope who first established Papal Infallibility in 1870; the doctrine that the pope, acting on his authority, or ex cathedra (from the chair) cannot err when teaching on faith and morals.  It has been used only once, in 1950 by Pope Pius XII on the assumption of Mary.

I highly recommend the book.  Excellent research and great story telling.  Click on the link at the top of this essay.

Click here for an interview with the author of the book referred to here about Pope Pius IX.