Committee on Alleged German Outrages
The Committee on Alleged German Outrages, often called the Bryce Report after its chair, Viscount James Bryce, is best known for producing the "Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages," published on 12 May 1915. The report is seen as a major propaganda form that Britain used in order to influence international public opinion regarding the behaviour of Germany, which had invaded Belgium the year before. It was the first significant publication from the War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House.
The report was translated by the end of 1915 into every major European language and had a profound impact on public opinion in Allied and neutral countries, particularly in the United States. The eyewitness testimony published in its 320-page Appendix A included sensationalist accounts of mutilations and rapes for which there is no other evidence. These invented atrocities tainted the report and have made it an often cited example of propaganda and psychological warfare.
History
By the middle of September 1914, the Belgian government had issued three reports on German war crimes committed during the invasion of the country, and there were calls in the British Parliament and the press for a British commission to conduct its own inquiry. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith responded on 15 September by authorizing the Home Secretary and the Attorney General to investigate allegations of violations of the laws of war by the German Army. In the end, some 1,200 witnesses were interviewed by teams of barristers appointed by George A. Aitken, Assistant Home Secretary, who directed the investigation, and by clerks in the Attorney General's Office. Most of the witnesses were Belgian refugees; nearly two million Belgians had fled the country, and over 120,000 found refuge in the UK.On 4 December James Bryce was asked to chair the "German Outrages Inquiry Committee", which would review the material that had been collected and issue a report. The mission of this committee was to review the "charges that German soldiers, either directed or condoned by their officers, had been guilty of widespread atrocities in Belgium." Bryce asked if he would have a chance to interview witnesses, but was told that would not be necessary. The Britannic Majesty's Government appointed some of their most notable citizens to be a part of the committee: James Bryce who was a British ambassador to the United States, H.A.L Fisher a well-known Liberal historian, Sir Frederick Pollock who was a famous judge and legal historian, and Harold Cox, the Edinburgh Review editor, and two lawyers, Sir Edward Clark and Sir Alfred Hopkinson.
Viscount Bryce was an inspired choice to chair the committee. He was a Gladstonian Liberal who had opposed the Boer War and had sought accommodation with Germany until the invasion of Belgium. He also had a substantial reputation as a scholar, having studied at Heidelberg, had made his scholarly reputation with a book on the Holy Roman Empire, and had been awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Jena and Leipzig in addition to the Pour le Mérite. Still more important for the government, Bryce was a respected figure in both Britain and the United States, where he had been the British ambassador from 1907 to 1913, and was a friend of President Wilson. He had written an important work on the political system in the U.S., The American Commonwealth, had traveled widely in the country, and had many admirers among American politicians and intellectuals. His imprimatur guaranteed that the report would be widely read. In public statements and private correspondence, Bryce claimed that he hoped to exonerate the German Army from accusations of barbarism. Bryce was also known for his sympathy towards the German people and their culture. By selecting Bryce to be head of the committee, it was believed that the research and findings completed would be reviewed with extreme care and that it would hold the guilty responsible for their actions.
Membership
The membership of the committee incorporated many important individuals of British and international status, including Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Sir Kenelm E. Digby, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, and Mr. Harold Cox.Conflict within the Committee
By the beginning of March 1915, Harold Cox began to have reservations about some of the depositions and about the limited role the committee was playing in the investigation. He wanted the members to re-interview some of the witnesses, and threatened to resign if his request was not met. Bryce agreed to rewrite the report's preface to more clearly explain that the committee was simply evaluating statements submitted by others and he agreed to permit Cox to reject any deposition he found suspect. Cox had written: "...at the very least we ought to take the precaution of examining the barristers and other persons who have taken depositions," and this request Bryce also granted. He convinced Cox, however, that it would not be practical to re-interview witnesses, and the editor and former M.P. remained on the committee.The committee reportedly examined 1,200 witnesses, 500 of whose statements were incorporated in the report, along with excerpts from 37 personal diaries found on dead German soldiers, some of whom were officers. Many of the accounts in the final report had previously been published in newspaper stories or in official accounts released by the Belgian government, but they were given renewed credibility by the British committee.
Depositions were collected by a team of English barristers, assigned solely for the purpose of collecting witness accounts for the committee. The committee stressed the need for reliable sources, so that its findings would be both credible and truthful. The committee was unwilling to mention atrocity tales in fear of releasing inaccurate and biased stories as fact. As a result, the committee states within the Bryce Report that "many depositions have thus been omitted on which, although they are probably true, we think it safer not to place reliance. By removing the extreme witness accounts from its report, the committee believed it had "eliminated utterly unreliable and unsupported statements." To stress the importance of a truthful report, the committee on Alleged German Outrages used a professional process to investigate the war crimes the German army was accused of. To make sure the report maintained a professional level, the committee wrote its findings in legal terms. Once these depositions were completely analyzed, the original depositions were stored at the British Home Office for protection.
Findings of the committee
The Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages, more commonly known as the Bryce Report, was a 61-page document issued on 12 May 1915.The report
The British Home Office collected a vast amount of "evidence" from civilians whose villages were attacked by German troops, British officers, German soldier diaries, and other firsthand accounts. The evidence against the German soldiers verified their inhumane acts of violence.The report was divided into two parts:
- Part I, "The Conduct of the German Troops in Belgium" consists of descriptions and summaries of war crimes in six regions: "Liège and District," "Valleys of Meuse and Sambre," "The Aerschot, Malines, Vilvorde, and Louvain Quadrangle," "Louvain and District," "Termonde", and "Alost".
The Belgian Minister in 1911 requested from Germany that she would respect the Treaty of 1839. Germany's response to the request was, "Belgian neutrality is provided for by international conventions and Germany is determined to respect those conventions."
The German minister, Herr von Below, on 2 August 1914 presented Belgium with a note where they demanded with an instant declaration of war that they were allowed passage through Belgium.
The king of Belgium with concern for his civilians was reluctant to agree to Germany's request. But on the evening of 3 August, German troops crossed through Belgium territory. Belgian civilians were startled by the attacks, and German troops did not expect a difficult passage.
- Part II is divided into two sections summarizing "Treatment of Civilian Population" and "Offences Against Combatants."
A one-page Conclusion follows.
The Report came to four conclusions about the behavior of the German Army:
- "That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organized massacres of the civil population, accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages."
- “That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women, were murdered in large numbers, women violated, and children murdered."
- “That looting, house burning, and the wanton destruction of property were ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German Army, that elaborate provisions had been made for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war, and that the burnings and destruction were frequent where no military necessity could be alleged, being indeed part of a system of general terrorism.”
- “That the rules and usages in of war were frequently broken, particularly by the using of civilians, including woman and children, as a shield for advancing forces exposed to the fire, to a lesser degree by killing the wounded and prisoners, and in the frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag."
The committee sought to exonerate certain individuals. German peasants "are as kindly and good-natured as any people in Europe. But for Prussian officers, war seems to have become a sort of sacred mission... The Spirit of War is deified. Obedience to the State and its War Lord leaves no room for any other duty or feeling. Cruelty becomes legitimate when it promises victory."
The committee made an important note that this report was investigating the actions of the German army and that the German people should not be blamed for the crimes of their national army. This careful investigation of all 1,200 depositions created the belief that the term ‘atrocity’ should be directly connected with the German army, due to the army's extreme practice of militarism. This is confirmed by the German diaries, which showed the German account of the war crimes in Belgium was directly ordered by commanding army officers. In its final conclusion, the committee claimed that the militarism of the German army was the cause of the outrages in Belgium.