The Bryce Report

The Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages, commonly known as the Bryce Report, was a 61-page document describing and analyzing German war crimes in Belgium during August and September 1914. Issued on May 12, 1915 and quickly translated into every European language, it had a profound impact on public opinion in Allied and neutral countries, particularly in the U.S. Though the findings of the Report have been substantiated by several scholars in the 21st century, the eye-witness testimony published in the 320-page Appendix A included some sensationalist accounts of mutilations and rapes for which there is no other evidence. These invented atrocities stigmatized the Report and made it a target for revisionist historians and writers on propaganda down to the present.

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 Parliament and in the Press for a British commission to conduct its own inquiry. Prime Minister Herbert Asquith responded on September 15 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 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 wound up in the U.K.

On December 4, James Bryce was asked to chair the "German Outrages Inquiry Committee", which would review the material that had been collected and issue a report. Bryce asked if he would have a chance to interview witnesses, but was told that would not be necessary. Appointed along with Bryce were Sir Frederick Pollock, a well-known jurist and legal historian; H. A. L. Fisher, an historian serving as Warden of New College, Oxford and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield; two lawyers, Sir Edward Clark and Sir Alfred Hopkinson; and Harold Cox, an economist and former Member of Parliament and editor of the "Edinburgh Review".

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 1907-1913, 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.J. Lipkes, "Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914". 2007. pp. 689-693.]

Conflict within the Committee

By the beginning of March 1915, Harold Cox began to have reservations about the 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.Oxford University, Bodleian Library Bryce Papers, 247-8.]

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 which 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 were given renewed credibility by the British committee.

The Report

The Report is divided into two parts. The first, “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 (Aarschot), Malines (Mechelen), Vilvorde (Vilvoorde), and Louvain (Leuven) Quadrangle,” “Louvain (Leuven) and District,” “Termonde” (Dendermonde), and “Alost” (Aalst). Part II is divided into two sections summarizing “Treatment of Civilian Population” and “Offences Against Combatants.” A one-page Conclusion follows.

The Report comes to four conclusions about the behavior of the German Army:1. “That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organised massacres of the civil population, accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages.” 2. That women and children were among the victims. 3. That German officers ordered “the looting, house burning, and the wanton destruction of property.” 4. That civilians were used as shields, wounded prisoners murdered, and the Red Cross and White Flag abused."Report of the British Committee on Alleged German Outrages". 1915. pp. 60-1.]

The Committee determined that “these excesses were committed–in some cases ordered, in others allowed–on a system and in pursuance of a set purpose. That purpose was to strike terror into the civil population and dishearten the Belgian troops, so as to crush down resistance and extinguish the very spirit of self-defence. The pretext that civilians had fired upon the invading troops was used to justify not merely the shooting of individual francs-tireurs, but the murder of large numbers of innocent civilians, an act absolutely forbidden by the rules of civilised warfare.”

The Committee sought to exonerate individual soldiers. 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.” p. 41]

Impact

On 27 May 1915 it was reported that every New York newspaper had reprinted the Bryce Report. Charles Masterman, head of the British War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House, had 41,000 copies shipped to the US. The same month the German government attempted to combat the report with the publication of its own reports on atrocities committed against German soldiers by Belgian civilians. It offered depositions and eyewitness accounts but had little impact. [cite book | last = Quinn | first = Patrick J. | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Conning of America: The Great War and American Popular Literature | publisher = Rodopi | date = 2001 | location = | pages = p. 39 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 904201475X]

The Committee on Public Information urged US newspapers not to publish stories that might undermine the Bryce Report. A column titled "The Daily German Lie" linked support for the Report's authenicity to a War Department request for a ban on printing unsubstantiated atrocity stories. [cite book | last = Sweeney | first = Michael S. | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Military and the Press: An Uneasy Truce | publisher = Northwestern University Press | date = 2006 | location = | pages = p. 49 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0810122995]

Criticism

The Report was attacked on various grounds by defenders of the German Army from the date of its issue to 1941. These accusations have been repeated in the decades since World War II, with the addition of one new charge by Trevor Wilson.

Objections were made to the timing of its release, to the fact that the testimony of witnesses was not given under oath and the individuals were not identified by name, and to the improbability of some of the testimony. It was repeatedly claimed that the charges had been refuted by subsequent investigations. The fact that the original depositions were lost was said to show bad faith. The motives of Bryce and the other members were also questioned. Wilson claims in particular that members believed that if they rejected the more sensationalist accusations against the German Army, involving rape and mutilation, audiences would question the more prosaic was crimes that the Army did indeed commit.T. Wilson, "Lord Bryce's Investigation into Alleged German Atrocities," "Journal of Contemporary History" 14. 1979. pp. 369-83]

It was subsequently revealed that the committee did not personally interview a single witness, relying instead on hearsay evidence and depositions given without oaths. A Belgian Commission of Enquiry in 1922 failed to corroborate a single major allegation in the Bryce report. [cite book | last = Knightley | first = Phillip | authorlink = | coauthors = John Pilger | title = The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo | publisher = Johns Hopkins University Press | date = 2002 | location = | pages = p. 88 | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 080186951X]

Criticisms have seldom been dispassionate. Convinced that reports of German war crimes were fabrications, revisionists have vilified Bryce and the Report for nine decades. The latter was “in itself one of the worst atrocities of the war.” Bryce was guilty of “an irresponsible misuse of judicial procedure that disseminated...huge untruths.” For Bryce, “no lie was too great and no distortion too bizarre.”H. Peterson, "Propaganda for War: The Campaign Against American Neutrality, 1914-1917". 1938. p. 56; G. Messinger, "British Propaganda and the State in the First World War". 1992. pp. 83-4; J. Hayward, "Myths and Legends of the First World War". 2003. p. 127.]

Among the books attacking the Bryce Report are Harold Laswell, "Propaganda Techniques in the World War" (1927), Arthur Ponsonby, "Falsehood in Wartime" (1928), H. Grattan, "Why We Fought" (1928), Harry Elmer Barnes, "In Quest of Truth and Justice" (1928), George Viereck, "Spreading Germs of Hate" (1930), James Squires, "British Propaganda at Home and in the United States" (1935), H. C. Peterson, "Propaganda for War: The Campaign Against American Neutrality, 1914-1917" (1938) and James Read, "Atrocity Propaganda, 1914-1919" (1941).

Responses to the Criticism

As to the specific charges made by inter-war revisionists, there is no evidence that the Report was rushed into print five days after the sinking of the Lusitania in order to capitalize on the outrage caused by that event. When there can be no prosecution for perjury, the taking of testimony under oath is no guarantee of its reliability, as evidenced by the German White Book (which claimed the Belgian government had organized guerrilla attacks on the German Army in 1914), where most of the depositions are sworn. The Belgian government requested that witnesses not be identified by name for fear of reprisals against relatives and friends in occupied Belgium. Most witnesses can be identified from lists of names in the Committee’s papers in the National Archive.

When James Read wished to consult the original depositions in 1939, he was told, with much embarrassment, that they were lost. On August 13, 1942, however, the missing depositions were located. The depositions, however, were subsequently destroyed, most likely by a German rocket. p.698.] There is no evidence that they were deliberately withheld from Read or intentionally destroyed.

However, the claim by revisionists that some of the testimony is not credible is entirely legitimate. The Committee included in Appendix A depositions it should have been much more skeptical of, particularly from Belgian soldiers. Critics repeatedly cited as the most egregious accusations a claim by a Belgian soldier that he had witnessed a mass rape in central Liège and the claim of two civilians in Mechelen that they saw a German soldier spear a child with his bayonet as he marched past.

There is a clear correlation between the unreliability of the testimony in a given town or region and the percentage of soldiers offering testimony. In an analysis of the plausibility of testimony in Appendix A, based on other sources, Jeff Lipkes found that in the testimony about Liège and the villages to its east, the 35 depositions average 3.8 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents “probably a legend or invention” and 5 represents “very likely.” Soldiers, however, rate only 2.16, while civilians average 4.14. The former accounted for just 17% of the depositions. Similarly, in the section on the valleys of the Meuse and Sambre, the 30 statements by witnesses average 3.77, with civilians rating 4.04, while soldiers only average 2.4. The soldiers again comprised a low percent of the total, 16.6%. It is in the region designated “The Aershot, Malines, Vilvorde, Louvain Quadrangle,” where the majority of the testimony comes from soldiers, that the most dubious depositions occur. Even within this region, testimony from townspeople tends to be reliable. In Aarschot, the 38 depositions average 4.0. Soldiers, 31.6% of the total, averaged only 2.4, whereas the 26 civilians rated 4.73, providing credible accounts that fully tallied with other evidence.pp. 699-700.]

Although the claim was made repeatedly that subsequent investigations disproved the charges of the Bryce Report, this is not the case. There was no systematic attempt to analyze the findings of the Committee, and certainly no official re-investigation. Read, the most scholarly of the revisionists, compared eyewitness reports in three towns with the reports of the post-war Belgian Commission of Inquest. In Mechelen and Elewijt, there are certainly some dubious allegations among the Bryce Committee witnesses. However, the 14 reports from Aalst are almost entirely corroborated by testimony from the Belgian Commission. Most of the slashings, stabbings, and burnings described by witnesses were likely to have taken place.J. Read, "Atrocity Propaganda, 1914-1919." 1941. p. 207; Commission d’Enquête sur les Violations des Régles du Droit des Gens, des Lois et des Coutumes de la Guerre, "Rapports et Documents d’Enquête", premier vol., tome 2. 1922-3. pp. 621-5.)]

In areas where there were mass executions, the Bryce Report actually underestimates the killing. In Aarschot, where 169 civilians were murdered, the report records only ten deaths. No totals are given for Dinant, where 685 civilians were killed; however, various figures, added together, come to 410. As for Tamines, where 383 were killed, the Report only states: “A witness describes how he saw the public square littered with corpses...” The Committee had few witnesses to draw upon for the French-speaking regions of Belgium. Most Walloons fled to France.

There is no evidence that Committee members felt that the graver charges would not be believed in if the more sensationalist accusations were dismissed, as Wilson claims. However, there is no question that the Committee members exercised poor judgement in their selection of testimony. They reprinted 55 depositions from the small town of Hofstadt, many dubious, where fewer than ten murders occurred. (The depositions average only 2.11 on Lipkes’s scale, with soldiers providing 85% of the testimony.) Meanwhile, the Committee failed to investigate carefully well-documented cases of mass executions, such as Andenne, Tamines, and Dinant.

Despite its flaws, the four conclusions the Report comes to have been amply documented by recent historians: J. Horne and A. Kramer, "German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial" (2001), L. Zuckerman, "The Rape of Belgium" (2003), and J. Lipkes, "Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914" (2007). Lipkes endorses the Report’s analysis as well, while Horne and Kramer emphasize German paranoia.

References

External links

[http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/brycereport.htm Bryce Report]

* Secondary Document: [http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/bryce.html Linda Robertson's article on The Bryce Report] from the Brigham Young University website