back: "_Normal conditions will be restored and the refugees will be
allowed to go back to Holland to look after their families_." (See also
the letter of the Dutch Consul in Antwerp urging the refugees to come
back to their homes.)

6th. July 25th, 1915. Placard of Governor von Bissing posted in
Brussels: "_The people shall never be compelled to do anything against
their country_."

7th. April, 1916: Assurances given to the neutral powers after the Lille
raids that _such deportations would not be renewed_.

* * * * *

Now, let us confront these texts, not even with the facts which come to
us from the most trustworthy sources, but with the German decrees and
proclamations preparing and ordering the recent deportations. We are not
opposing a Belgian testimony to a German one, neither are we, for the
present, propounding even our own interpretation of what occurred. We
will merely oppose a German document to another German document and let
them settle their differences as best they can.

The first trouble began in April and May, 1915, in Luttre, at the
Malines arsenal, and in several other Flemish towns, when the German
authorities exerted every possible pressure to compel the Belgian
workmen to resume work. They were brought, under military escort, to
their workshops, imprisoned, starved, and about two hundred of them were
deported to Germany, where they were submitted to the most cruel
tortures. (See the _Nineteenth Report of the Belgian Commission of
Enquiry_.) The threats and persecutions are sufficiently established by