Article 28 of The Hague Convention of 1907, subscribed to by Germany,
uses this language: "The sacking of any town or locality, even when
taken by assault, is prohibited." And Article 47 runs: "[in occupied
territory] pillage is forbidden."

We shall see how the German armies interpret these articles.

Private Handschuhmacher (Eleventh Battalion of Chasseurs Reserves)
writes in his notebook:

Aug. 8, 1914, Gouvy, (Belgium.)--There, the Belgians having
fired on some German soldiers, we started at once pillaging
the merchandise warehouse. Several cases--eggs, shirts, and
everything that could be eaten was carried off. The safe was
forced and the gold distributed among the men. As to the
securities, they were torn up.

This happened as early as the fourth day of the war, and it helps us to
understand a technical article on the operations of the military
treasury (Der Zahlmeister im Felde) in the Berliner Tageblatt of the
26th of November, 1914, in which an economic phenomenon of rather
unusual import is recited as a simple incident: "Experience has
demonstrated that very much more money is forwarded by postal orders
from the theatre of operations to the interior of the country than vice
versa."

As, in accordance with the continual practice of the German armies,
pillaging is only a prelude to incendiarism, the sub-officer Hermann
Levith (160th Regiment of Infantry, Eighth Corps) writes: