Troops belonging to the same army often fire by mistake upon each other.  That the German Army was no exception to this rule is proved not only by many Belgian witnesses, but by the most irrefragable kind of evidence—­the admission of German soldiers themselves, recorded in their war diaries.  Thus Otto Clepp, Second Company of the Reserve, says, under date of Aug. 22:  “Three A.M.  Two infantry regiments shot at each other—­9 dead and 50 wounded—­fault not yet ascertained.”  In this connection the diaries of Kurt Hoffman and a soldier of the 112th Regiment, (Diary No. 14,) will repay study.  In such cases the obvious interest of the soldier is to conceal his mistake, and a convenient method of doing so is to raise the cry of “francs-tireurs!”

Doubtless the German soldiers often believed that the civilian population, naturally hostile, had, in fact, attacked them.  This attitude of mind may have been fostered by the German authorities themselves before the troops passed the frontier, and thereafter stories of alleged atrocities committed by Belgians upon Germans, such as the myth referred to in one of the diaries relating to Liege, were circulated among the troops and roused their anger.

The diary of Barthel, when still in Germany on Aug. 10, shows that he believed that the Oberburgomaster of Liege had murdered a Surgeon General.  The fact is that no violence was inflicted on the inhabitants at Liege until the 19th, and no one who studies these pages can have any doubt that Liege would immediately have been given over to murder and destruction if any such incident had occurred.

Letters written to their homes which have been found on the bodies of dead Germans bear witness, in a way that now sounds pathetic, to the kindness with which they were received by the civil population.  Their evident surprise at this reception was due to the stories which had been dinned into their ears of soldiers with their eyes gouged out, treacherous murders, and poisoned food—­stories which may have been encouraged by the higher military authorities in order to impress the mind of the troops, as well as for the sake of justifying the measures which they took to terrify the civil population.  If there is any truth in such stories, no attempt has been made to establish it.  For instance, the Chancellor of the German Empire, in a communication made to the press on Sept. 2 and printed in the Nord Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of Sept. 21, said as follows: 

“Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of the German wounded.  Officials of Belgian cities have invited our officers to dinner and shot and killed them across the table.  Contrary to all international law, the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out and, after having at first shown friendliness, carried on in the rear of our troops terrible warfare with concealed weapons.  Belgian women cut the throats of soldiers whom they had quartered in their homes while they were sleeping.”

No evidence whatever seems to have been adduced to prove these tales, and though there may be cases in which individual Belgians fired on the Germans, the statement that “the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out” is utterly opposed to the fact.