Granted that vulgar elements of the Belgian population did transgress, there still remains incontrovertible evidence that almost unheard-of kindness was shown to the invading army, and that Germans had displayed brutal insolence to Belgians before a state of war had been declared.  Nearly every single letter from soldiers, published in German papers, records the fact that in the villages through which they passed they were given water, wine and food, while payment was in many cases refused.

It is part of Germany’s policy to blacken Belgium’s character in order to justify her own ruthlessness—­naturally Wolff’s Agency was one of the principal tools to that end.

“Much as we condemn the excesses of the Belgians, still we must not wreak vengeance on the whole nation as a section of our Press demands.  Have not harmless and defenceless foreigners been terribly ill-treated in Germany without distinction of sex?  Have not shops and restaurants been demolished in hundreds, wherever a French word was to be met?  And the rage of the German masses has found an outlet not only against foreigners, but against good German patriots and even German officers."[99]

[Footnote 99:  Leipziger Volkszeitung, August 12th.  This journal as well as the Fraenkische Tagespost names Wolff’s Agency as their authority in more than one issue.]

The same journal on the preceding day deplored that “we ourselves are not free from guilt.”  It recounts how German reservists, when leaving Antwerp and Brussels, had sung their national songs in a loud, provocative manner, and taunted the bystanders with such remarks as:  “In three days we shall be here again!”

According to the same authority German residents had insulted the populace by displaying their national flag; and German employers had been among the first to discharge employees of their own nationality, without salary in lieu of notice, thus increasing the difficulties of German residents in Belgium.

German official pronouncements are much more reticent in their judgment on these allegations of Belgian cruelties.  None the less the Berlin Government must be held responsible for them being scattered throughout the land.  After Germany’s official representative had returned from Brussels to Berlin he made a statement to the Press.  Considering that von Below was in the Belgian capital at the time, his views are instructive.

He expressed his great astonishment that such things should have happened, and asserted that up till the very last minute he had been treated with the greatest kindness and politeness.  Neither he nor any of his Legation Staff had experienced the slightest unpleasantness.  Further, von Below expressed the conviction that only single instances of such excesses had occurred and these were a result of the quarrelsome Walloon character.  No village fete passes off among them without such outbreaks, accompanied by bloodshed.[100]