In a first decree, dated August 10th, 1915, a fortnight after his last pledge, Governor von Bissing promises from fourteen days’ to six months’ imprisonment to anyone dependent on public charity who refuses to undertake work “without a sufficient reason” and a fine of L500 or a year’s imprisonment to anyone who encourages refusal to work by the granting of relief.  Notice that the accomplice is punished more heavily than the principal culprit.  The idea is clearly to deprive every striker of the help of his commune and of the “Comite National.”  However, as it is still left to Belgian tribunals to decide which reasons are “sufficient” and which are not, this decree is not very harmful.

On May 2nd, 1916, the rising tide creeps nearer to us.  The power of deciding on the matter passes from the Belgian tribunals to the military authority, and thereupon every striker becomes a culprit.

On May 13th, there is a new decree by which “the governors, military commanders, and chiefs of districts are allowed to order the unemployed to be conducted by force to the spots where they have to work.”  This, no doubt, in order to avoid the crowding of prisons, which would have necessarily followed the last decree.  It only remains to declare that the workers can be deported to complete the process and to legalise slavery.

This step was taken on October 3rd last, when an order, signed by Quartier-Meister Sauberzweig and issued by the General Headquarters of the German Army, was posted in all the communes of Flanders.  This order warned all persons “who are fit to work that they may be compelled to do so even outside their places of residence,” when “they should be compelled to have recourse to public help for their own subsistence or for the subsistence of the persons dependent on them.”

[Footnote 4:  Another poster dated from Menin (August, 1915) reads as follows:  “From to-day the town is forbidden to give any support whatever even to the families, wives, or children of workmen who are not employed regularly on military work..”]

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But there is more to come in the story.  Three guarantees were left, which have been quoted again and again by the German Press and by Baron von Bissing in his various answers to Cardinal Mercier.  It was first stated that the men seized would not be sent to Germany, then that only the unemployed were taken, and finally that these would not be used on military work.  These last guarantees have been repeatedly broken.  Again, I will leave the Germans to condemn themselves.

In his decree published at Antwerp, on November the 2nd, General von Huene (the same man who had given Cardinal Mercier his formal written promise that no deportations should take place) declares that the men are to be concentrated at the Southern Station, “whence ... they will be conveyed in groups to workshops in Germany.”