Terror in Belgium
Brussels, 16 November 1916 - There are renewed reports of a ‘state of terror’ in Belgium.
Stories of mass deportations and the forced labour of Belgians by the German occupiers have drawn a huge international humanitarian outcry.
Germany has occupied Belgium since the first days of the Great War and there have been repeated reports of outrages in the country.
Prof. John Horne, TCD, considers the controversies over German behaviour in Belgium in summer, 1914
The Executive of the ruling Belgian Council in Brussels has now been arrested for not supplying a list of men for deportation to the Germans. The Germans are reported to have demanded the removal of 350,000 unemployed Belgians for ‘humanitarian reasons’.
Deportations have already begun and have drawn the most heartrending of scenes as able-bodied males over the age of 18 have been taken from their families and placed on trains apparently to be sent into forced labour.
Cardinal Mercier has sent letters of protest to neutrals such as the US, the Netherlands and Spain. In the letters, he noted: ‘Today all able-bodied men are carried off pell-mell, penned in trucks, and deported to unknown destinations, like gangs of slaves.’
There have been bitter protests in Britain against the treatment of the Belgians, but there appears to be no sign of the deportations ceasing.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
