Part 27 (2/2)
”On Sunday, September 27th, after all the necessary preparations had been made, the white flag was hoisted. In a few hours the town was teeming with black and white English and French landing parties, who were received with indescribable joy by the natives. The latter followed the soldiers about like dogs, and in real dog-manner began to show their teeth (against the Germans).
”Everything remained quiet on Sunday, but on the following day robbery and plundering began in a way which we had never believed possible.
Still less were we prepared for the brutal treatment which the English practised on us defenceless Germans. At first they made sure of those who had borne arms; with lies and deceit they were enticed into a trap.
They were requested to give in their names, whereupon they would be set at liberty. However, when the English thought that the majority had been collected, the victims were driven on to a steamer which took them to French Dahomey.
”During the months of our imprisonment I had ample opportunity to observe how the Germans have been ill-treated by the blacks. The English incited them like a pack of hounds to worry their own race--and looked on with a laugh. Yet the Germans bore all this degradation with proud calm, and with the consolation that a day will come when all this shame will be wiped out.
”On the way to the harbour I met about twenty Germans; our company increased from hour to hour. Women were weeping who did not know the fate of their husbands, but this had not the faintest effect on the brutal hearts of the English. At last night fell; we were tortured by hunger and burning thirst. We were in anguish as to what would become of us. Why were our enemies so inconceivably bitter?[220] Why did they tell us no word of truth? They declared openly that everything German was to be destroyed, German thrones overthrown and the German devils driven out.
[Footnote 220: Norden has had ample opportunities to learn the story of Belgium, but he and all other Germans writers, in apparently holy innocence, look upon all bitterness against their nation as a cruel injustice.--Author.]
”Albion's heroic sons were only able to capture the Cameroons with the aid of native treachery. The blacks showed them the ways, betrayed the German positions, and murdered Germans in cold blood wherever opportunity occurred. The English even paid a Judas reward of twenty to fifty s.h.i.+llings for every German, living or half-dead, who was brought in by the natives.
”Later I met various prisoners whose evidence corroborated the inhuman tortures which they had endured. Herr Schlechtling related how he was attacked at Sanaga by natives with bush-knives, just as he was aiming at an English patrol. Herr Nickolai was captured by blacks and his clothes torn from his body and numerous knife wounds inflicted on his body. The natives took him to an English steamer whose captain paid them twenty s.h.i.+llings.
”Another German, Herr Student,[221] was compelled to look on while the natives drowned his comrade (Herr Nickstadt) in a river, while he himself was afterwards delivered up to the English. Yet another, Herr Fischer, was surprised while taking a meal, bound hand and foot, beaten and then handed over to the English.”[222]
[Footnote 221: Four of these men are still in British captivity. Another Teuton who has sent blood-curdling tales to Germany may be found in the person of Martin Trojans, prisoner on Rottnest Island. It would be good to give these men an opportunity of making statements in London before a commission of neutral diplomatists.--Author.]
[Footnote 222: ”In englischer Gefangenschaft,” pp. 1-30.]
After all, the picture does not seem so terrible as this good missionary would make out. In any case he has failed to make out a case which will bear comparison with that already proved against the German army in Europe, or even so bad as the treatment dealt out by German civilians to their fellow-countrymen during August, 1914. Furthermore it may be safely a.s.sumed that the bitterness of the natives is to be ascribed to German tyranny, which culminated, as Norden relates on p.16 of his book, in the strangling of a number of natives, including chiefs of tribes just before the advent of the British.
Still his book has had due influence on German public opinion. A German lady in a book full of hysterical hate[223] has based a foul charge upon Norden's statements (besides publis.h.i.+ng his experiences the missionary has delivered many public lectures), that the English and French left German women to the mercies of the natives!
[Footnote 223: Louise Niessen-Deiters: ”Kriegsbriefe einer Frau” (”The War Letters of a Woman”), p. 56.]
”In the hearts of all those Germans who in this great time, are banished from the Fatherland and who do not know how things really stand, there burns a great hate, hate for England and the ardent desire to fight against her--the basest and most hated of all our enemies.
”I have come to the end of my report, which contains only a fraction of the outrages committed by Albion. And this nation talks of German atrocities! If all the lies spread by the English Press were true, even then England would have every reason to be dumb. Only he who has felt the effects of English hate upon his own person can understand the brutal deeds perpetrated recently on Germans in London and Liverpool.
There, England's moral depth is revealed only too clearly, and before the world she seeks to drag us down to the same level.”[224]
[Footnote 224: Norden's book, p. 43 _et seq_.]
Considering that the total number of Germans captured in the Cameroons is only equal to the number of civilians murdered or wounded in British towns by Zeppelin bombs, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the German Government, one begins to wonder whether Norden and his countrymen possess any sense of proportion. Germans are a.s.siduous students of Shakespeare, but have seemingly overlooked the comedy: _Much ado about Nothing_.
Ireland is another text for long and windy sermons of German hate, but the conclusion of one of these tirades[225] will suffice to show Germany's real motive.
[Footnote 225: Dr. Hans Rost: ”Deutschland's Sieg, Irland's Hoffnung”
(”Germany's Victory, Ireland's Hope”), p. 25 _et seq_.]
”At present the direction of the Irish revolutionary movement is in the hands of Professor Evin MacNeill, Mac O'Rahilly and, above all, Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt. The final acceptance of the 'Const.i.tution of Irish Volunteers' was carried on Sunday, October 25th, 1914, in Dublin. At that congress of Irish volunteers--who to-day number more than 300,000 well-armed men--special stress was laid on the fact that the volunteers are Irish soldiers and not imperialistic hirelings.
”Further the members of the organization have engaged not to submit under any circ.u.mstances to the Militia Ballot Act, a kind of national service law which, remarkable to say, is only enforced in Ireland.
”The Irishmen are thronging to join the movement, and pamphlets are being distributed, and appeals made on all sides. Besides which, weapons are being gathered and money collected. The entire episcopacy of Ireland has warned the young men against enlisting in English regiments on the ground that they will be placed in regiments to which no Catholic priest is attached. The warning has been most successful in hindering recruiting. In order to break the opposition of the bishops, England has appointed a special representative to the Vatican.
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