(2) An examination of the evidence relating to breaches of the
rules and usages of war and acts of inhumanity, committed by
German soldiers or groups of soldiers, during the first four
months of the war, whether in Belgium or in France.
This second part has again been subdivided into two sections:
a. Offenses committed against noncombatant civilians during
the conduct of the war generally.
b. Offenses committed against combatants, whether in Belgium
or in France.
PART I.
THE CONDUCT OF THE GERMAN TROOPS IN BELGIUM.
Although the neutrality of Belgium had been guaranteed by a treaty
signed in 1839 to which France, Prussia, and Great Britain were parties,
and although, apart altogether from any duties imposed by treaty, no
belligerent nation has any right to claim a passage for its army across
the territory of a neutral State, the position which Belgium held
between the German Empire and France had obliged her to consider the
possibility that in the event of a war between these two powers her
neutrality might not be respected. In 1911 the Belgian Minister at
Berlin had requested an assurance from Germany that she would observe
the Treaty of 1839; and the Chancellor of the empire had declared that
Germany had no intention of violating Belgian neutrality.
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