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Python Flash Cards Syntax Concepts and Examples Eric
Matthes Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Eric Matthes
ISBN(s): 9781593278960, 1593278969
Edition: Flc Crds
File Details: PDF, 1.03 MB
Year: 2019
Language: english
 From the best-selling author of Python Crash Course

PY T HON
F L A SH C A R DS

101 C A R D S

ERIC M AT THE S
1 Co n ce p t s a n d Voc a bu l a ry

Concep ts and
Vocabul ary

These cards introduce a variety of important programming

concepts. Understanding these concepts will help you make
sense of the relevant syntax when you get to it, in Python or
any other language you choose to study.
You can read these cards as a set before moving on to
the syntax cards, or you might visit relevant concepts here
as you work on individual topics from the syntax cards.
1.1 Programming 1.19 Databases
Languages
1.20 Data Structures
1.2 Operating Systems and Types

1.3 Terminal 1.21 Variables

1.4 Text Editors 1.22 Strings

1.5 IDEs 1.23 Numerical

Data Types
1.6 Comments
1.24 Sequences
1.7 Style Guides
1.25 Mappings
1.8 Project
Specifications 1.26 Functions

1.9 Syntax 1.27 Classes

1.10 Debugging 1.28 Inheritance

1.11 Refactoring 1.29 Other Data Types

1.12 Standard Library 1.30 if Statements

1.13 Third-Party 1.31 Loops

Libraries
1.32 Modules
1.14 Frameworks
1.33 Saving State
1.15 Error Handling

1.16 Version Control

1.17 Testing

1.18 User Interfaces

Progr amming
L anguages
• What is a programming language?
• What’s unique about Python?
• How does a programming language affect
the way we think about solving problems?

1.1
A programming language is a set of rules for
giving instructions to a computer. It provides the
syntax for giving instructions and specifies the
ways to store information, and it controls the order
in which instructions are executed in a program.

Python is a high-level programming language, which

means it takes care of many low-level tasks for you so you
can focus on solving problems. For example, when you
assign a value to a variable, Python deletes the variable
automatically when it’s no longer needed, sparing you from
having to manage memory.
Every language has unique features that lead to charac-
teristic programming styles and philosophies. Python focuses
on simplicity, readability, and getting the job done.
Oper ating
Systems
• What is an operating system?
• What does an operating system do?
• How does Python interact with the operating
system?

1.2
The operating system (OS) is the software that con-
trols the computer’s inner workings.

An operating system performs low-level functionality, such

as reading from and writing to memory, and interacts with
hardware devices, like hard drives, RAM, CPU, graphics
processors, displays, batteries, and other external devices.
Windows, macOS, and Linux (such as Ubuntu and Fedora)
are major operating systems.
Python is a cross-platform programming language. You
can write Python code on any OS, and it will run on any
other OS.
Terminal
• What is a terminal?
• How do you run a Python program from a
terminal?
• How do you start a Python session from a
terminal?

1.3
A terminal is a program that allows you to interact
with the OS, and it is often referred to as the con-
sole or command line. You use a terminal (rather
than going through a GUI) to issue clear, concise,
text-based commands to the OS to quickly perform
tasks.

You can run a Python program from a terminal using a

command like this:
$ python hello_world.py

You can also start a Python session in a terminal. In a

Python terminal session, each line of code executes as soon
as you enter it:
$ python
>>> print("Hello, terminal world!")
Hello, terminal world!
Te x t Editors
• What is a text editor?
• What is syntax highlighting?
• What are some beginner-friendly text editors?
• What are some more advanced text editors?

1. 4
A text editor is a program designed for writing
and editing code.

Most text editors have features to make writing and edit-

ing code easier: syntax highlighting, for example, colors
your code so you can quickly recognize different parts of a
program—a string might be green and a method might be
purple.
Sublime Text, Atom, and Geany are some commonly
used beginner-friendly text editors because of their ease of
use and familiar interfaces. They also have powerful fea-
tures that help you work more efficiently as you learn.
Emacs and Vim are advanced text editors that were
introduced in the 1970s. Their learning curve is steep, but
once you learn to use them well, writing and editing code
is incredibly efficient. Most Linux systems install Vim, or its
predecessor vi, by default.
IDE s
• What is an IDE?
• What are some typical features of IDEs?
• What IDEs are best for Python?

1. 5
An integrated development environment (IDE) is
a text editor with powerful project management
features.

Typical IDE features include debugging tools, auto-filling

for certain code elements, and the ability to catch errors as
you’re entering code. For projects that span multiple files,
the IDE looks through the files and helps maintain consis-
tency across the project.
IDEs can make code testing easier and identify portions
of your code that you could refactor. IDEs help you interact
with other project elements, such as HTML and JavaScript in
a web application, and help you work with a database.
Popular Python IDEs include PyCharm, PyDev, Spyder,
and Visual Studio.
Comments
• What are comments?
• Why are comments useful in programming?
• What kinds of comments should you write?

1. 6
Comments are lines in a program that the program
ignores when it executes. They allow you to add
notes about how the program works to help you
and other developers understand the code.

Use comments to explain:

• The role of important variables when you introduce

them
• How you’ve approached a problem after considering
multiple approaches
• What your functions do
• What classes are used for in the program

Writing comments will remind you what your code does

when you return to it later. Comments also help teams of
programmers collaborate effectively.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
and in fact committed, of its unjust character. In spite of the advice
given by their Government, the Belgians consequently did not lose
their right “to take up arms spontaneously on the approach of the
enemy to oppose invading troops,” and, notwithstanding that
opposition, of being treated as belligerents by the Germans.
Did the Belgians exercise this right? In certain places it is reported
that some people did exercise it. If the fact is as stated, we can see
nothing in it but what is worthy of admiration. Such instances do
infinite honour to Belgian patriotism. However, it appears clear that
the order given was followed, and that the whole thing, if it took
place at all, reduces itself to the acts of individuals. The acts of
violence committed by the Germans have been no less far-reaching
and extreme, so true is it that, though invoking principles which
were notoriously erroneous and cruel, the application which they
made of them was nevertheless lying and arbitrary. Such is the first
category of crimes committed by the Germans against non-
combatants.
Moreover, even if they had had in this respect some complaint to
make of civilians, if they had been authorised by the law of war to
punish acts of violence committed against them under conditions
that were forbidden, the right of repression which they invoke could
never go so far as the penalty of death. Every addition thereto in
point of punishment is excess, and an indication of barbarism. To
extend to a whole population reprisals inflicted in consequence of a
single act is something no less abominable, but that is just what the
Germans have done.

Crimes committed by the Germans in the Exercise of

Reprisals
At Liège, on the 21st August, a shot was fired from a house
situated on the Quai des Pêcheurs. Immediately the Germans
opened fire with a machine-gun and blew up on the spot twenty
houses, whose inhabitants were killed. Shortly afterwards ten other
houses on the Place de l’Université were set on fire, but as the
flames seemed to be spreading too much, the firemen were ordered
to put them out.
At Champguyon, on the 6th September, a man named Louvet was
arrested for having fired under conditions forbidden by the laws of
war. He was liable to the penalty of death. Accordingly, ten German
soldiers fell on the wretched man, beat him unmercifully with sticks
in the presence of his wife, dragged him away covered with blood,
broke his wrist, shattered his skull, and dragged him to the end of
the village, where at length they gave him the finishing stroke.
The same rule would apply to the cases of André Willen (twenty-
three years of age), Gustave Lodts (forty) and Jean Marken (forty),
all inhabitants of Aerschot, in Belgium, if they had been guilty. The
Germans, instead of shooting them, bound them to a tree and beat
them, before burning the first alive and burying the other two alive.
In the province of Namur a young man whom some Uhlans had
arrested was bound to two horses, who dragged him along, then
tied to a tree, and finally shot. Under the same conditions M.
Cognon, of Visé, was thrown into the water with his abdomen torn
open. Holding in his entrails with one hand, he clung with the other
to a boat, until he grew weak and died.
The innumerable mutilations inflicted on Serbian peasants at
Chabatz and elsewhere show on this side of the area of war the
same barbarism in the carrying out of reprisals. Some who were
hardly wounded were buried alive, for they had been shot in the
lump, and every one who fell was thrown into the common ditch
which had been dug out beforehand.

Massacres of Civilians for Paltry Reasons

No less criminal are the attacks made by the Germans on the lives
of civilians, for paltry reasons, for slight insubordination to
unimportant orders, or even for acts that were quite blameless. The
following are some examples of these crimes.
In the government of Warsaw the Germans killed a Polish
magnate, Count Thomas Potocki, for merely protesting against a
requisition.
At Dartainitza, near Semlin, on the frontier of Austria and Serbia,
the whole of the inhabitants were led by the Austrians to
Petenwarden, where a quarter of them were shot. The accusation
alleged against these peasants was that they had given expression
to their joy when the Serbians had entered Semlin. It was the same
with the villages of Bejania, Sourtchine, Beclika and Pancsova.
At Vingias, in the department of the Aisne, the owner of a farm
was thrown into the flames because he had harboured the French
headquarters staff on his farm.
At Mauperthuis four Germans who had previously come in the
morning to the house of a man named Roger presented themselves
again the afternoon. “There were three of you this morning; there
are now but two! Get out!” said one of them. Immediately Roger
and an immigrant named Denet, to whom he had been giving
hospitality, were seized, carried off and shot.
A young druggist who lived in a village near Étain was shot for
having gone to Étain with the sub-prefect of Briey, who had carried
letters there for his fellow-citizens.
As for non-combatants who were found carrying arms, they were
consistently massacred.

Massacre of Civilians without any Pretext

Other executions took place without any pretext. Sometimes the
Germans gathered together, without rhyme or reason, all the male
inhabitants of a village, and chose at haphazard a certain number,
whom they shot without any form of trial and simply with the object
of terrorising the population. Sometimes their fury was directed
against peasants who were already struck with terror, and then
whoever showed any signs of wanting to avoid meeting the enemy
was shot for the mere reason that he had tried to flee before the
invader. Sometimes they took vengeance on the inhabitants of a
village where one of their number had been killed by some enemy
soldier in retreat.
Sometimes they forced their way into houses, bent on pillage, and
as they thought the presence of the inhabitants seemed
inconvenient, they made haste to assassinate them. Sometimes the
fusillade was merely an amusement or recreation for the Germans.
This took place sometimes during their marches from village to
village. The peasant who had the misfortune to find himself in their
path at once had a taste of their cruelty. Sometimes the execution of
peaceable, quiet people served the Germans as a consolation for
checks which the enemy had inflicted upon them. Sometimes, in
their desire to offer some excuse for massacre, they have been seen
to make a show of evacuating a village which it was said had been
threatened, and then to fire some shots, which they then blamed the
inhabitants for doing. Reprisals thereupon followed. Sometimes they
attacked peaceable peasants because the latter opposed some
offence which they wanted to commit. The following are some
accounts of acts of this kind. They took place at Dinant, at Louvain,
at Nomény, at Lunéville, where, perhaps to a greater extent than
elsewhere, the fury of the invader was let loose upon inoffensive
persons.

At Dinant
A Dutchman, M. Staller, has told as follows in the Telegraaf
(quoted above, see Chap. XI) the story of the massacre of the
people of Dinant.
“On Friday, the 21st August, about a dozen Germans ventured as
far as the middle of the town in an armoured motor, a regular
moving fortress. They had machine-guns with them, and whilst the
motor rolled along they fired to right and left at the houses, aiming
chiefly, I maintain, at the upper storeys. It was already late, and, as
the majority of the people had retired, many of them were killed or
wounded in their beds.
“What happened on that night? Were there some civilians who
replied to this cowardly and unexpected attack by revolver shots? I
do not think so, for some days before, by order of the burgomaster,
they had all given up their arms. Were the Germans drunk—as their
comrades told me later—and had they a quarrel amongst
themselves? What is certain is that the next morning three soldiers
were found dead on the streets. I saw them. The Germans laid hold
of this fact as an excuse for bombarding the town.
“On Monday morning the Germans entered the town. Their first
act was to arrest 153 civilians, to lead them on the Petite Place and
shoot them. In these terrible days, at Dinant as well as in the
surrounding villages like Anseremme, Leffe and Neffe, more than
800 persons were killed, amongst whom there were many women
and children; and all this for three German soldiers? No; but the
Germans alleged that after the bombardment, at the moment of
their attack on the town, the inhabitants had fired from their houses.
What had happened? I know very well, and the Germans could not
fail to know it. The Grand Rue of Dinant, parallel with the Meuse, is
joined to the river by a number of lanes; the French, who were
posted on the other bank, killed through these lanes a large number
of Germans, and the enemy pretended that the citizens had fired on
them. They started then by shooting 153 people, after which 500
were arrested and brought to Cassel. As for us, we were brought to
the Abbaye des Prémontrés; for three days women and children
were shut up in little rooms without a seat, and the unfortunate
women spent three days on a stone pavement almost without food.
Four of them were confined under these terrible circumstances.
Some officers took an infernal pleasure in making us every moment
undergo the dread anticipation of death: they made us line up, and
the soldiers pretended they were going to charge their rifles; then
the officers laughed and said the execution would be resumed on
the following morning. I am certain that some of those who were
thus detained went mad.
“But what a martyrdom was endured by the women and children
who saw their fathers, husbands or brothers shot! All this went on
with frightful rapidity; in the twinkling of an eye, in spite of heart-
rending cries, the women and children were separated from the men
and ranged on the other side of the Petite Place, then between the
two groups were placed the platoons which were to execute them;
153 wretched people fell bleeding; six of these, of whom two had
not been touched by the bullets and four were only slightly
wounded, shammed death, but the officer ordered the two who
could still stand upright to rise, as there would be no more firing.
When the six survivors obeyed, he gave the order, ‘Down with them
also!’ Then he had machine-guns fired at the heaps of bodies. It is
impossible to describe the grief and the cries of the women and
children, but the monster who had given the order for this butchery
remained unmoved. ‘Ladies,’ he said, with a strong German accent,
‘I have done my duty.’ Then off he went with his men. The bodies
must have lain untouched on the square for three days; after this
interval they were buried on the very spot where they had been
executed. I took part in the work of interment.”

At Louvain
Several people who had been killed at Louvain by the Germans
had been buried by them on the square in front of the railway
station. The Kölnische Zeitung had the assurance to deny the fact.
But search was made, and the bodies of these victims of German
barbarism were discovered. The following account of the exhumation
was given by the Tijd of Amsterdam, above the signature of a
journalist who took part in the work in the presence of several
Belgians, Colonel Lubbert, German commandant of Louvain, and his
aide-de-camp.
 “Fortunately a fresh wind was blowing on that day, as the stench
which came out of the open tomb was unbreatheable. The objects
found on the bodies were immediately thrust into a sack, which was
duly numbered. Twenty bodies were disinterred after frightful
labour; twenty bodies jammed into a hole not more than four square
metres in extent!
“We had to take infinite care not to collect legs or arms belonging
to other bodies, so much were the limbs jumbled together.
“Emotion overwhelmed us all, but the German Colonel Lubbert
could not refrain from saying to the burgomaster, ‘How such an
event could have taken place is incomprehensible when you think
how educated and cultivated our people are.’ And the aide-de-camp
added, ‘I am glad I was not at Louvain during these tragic
moments!’ Words which have their value, and which show that plain
people in Germany now regret the indescribable act ordered by their
leaders, in contempt of the laws of the most elementary humanity!
“Professor Maldague, who was among the wretched prisoners
callously picked out one after another for slaughter, and who had
miraculously escaped death, could not control the profound emotion
which overwhelmed him. On that fatal day the crowd of people were
forbidden to look at the atrocities committed by civilised Germany,
but a woman who happened to be near Professor Maldague
ventured nevertheless, and saw that the victims marked out for
expiation were compelled to lie face downwards on the paving-
stones. Then they were killed by shots in the nape of the neck, the
back or the head.
“The majority of the victims consequently lay with skulls fractured,
not merely as a result of shots, but of blows from the butt-end of
rifles. Even that was not enough. All the bodies which were
recovered—the medical reports assure us on this point—had been
pierced through with bayonet thrusts. Some had their legs and arms
broken. Two bodies only had no wound. A post-mortem examination
of them will be made to discover the causes of death.
 “Mme. Van Ertrijck then recognised at the edge of the pit her
husband, aged sixty years, the well-known cigar manufacturer, and
her son, aged twenty-seven years; then appeared the bodies of a
Belgian soldier, who could not be identified, and of a young lad not
fifteen years old. The following victims were afterwards identified:
Charles Munkemer, husband of Amélie Marant, born 1885; Edgard
Bicquet, brewer at Boort-Meerbeek, whose family, known throughout
Louvain, lives in the Rue de la Station; the retired Belgian Major
Eickhorn, aged sixty years, inventor of short-range cartridges; A. Van
de Gaer, O. Candries, Mme. A. Bruyninckx, née Aug. Mariën; Mme.
Perilleux, aged about sixty years. But on turning over the ground we
discovered a second tomb, which contained seven other corpses
concealed under thirty centimetres of earth.
“On the next day the melancholy task was resumed. In quite a
small pit two more bodies were brought to light: that of Henri
Decorte, an artisan of Kessel-Loo, and that of M. Van Bladel, curé of
Hérent. There was not a sound when the wretched priest’s tall form
was disinterred. R. P. Claes merely gasped, ‘The curé of Hérent!’ The
poor man was seventy-one years old” (see the Temps of 5th
February, 1915).

At Nomény
On the 20th August, 1914, the 8th Bavarian Regiment entered
Nomény in command of Colonel Hannapel. “According to a story told
by one of their soldiers,” said the French Commission of Inquiry,
“their leaders had told them that the French tortured the wounded
by tearing out their eyes and gashing their limbs. Thus they were in
a fearful state of unusual excitement. From all sides came the rattle
of rifle shots. The wretched inhabitants, whom the dread of fire
drove from their cellars, were shot down like game, some in their
domiciles and others on the public road.
“Messrs. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam, Jeanpierre, Meunier,
Schneider, Raymond, Dupoucel, Hazatte, father and son, were
murdered on the street by rifle shots. M. Killian, seeing himself
threatened with a sabre stroke, put his hands on his neck to protect
himself. Three of his fingers were cut off and his throat cut open. An
old man of eighty-six years old, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his
armchair, was struck by a ball which cracked his skull, and a German
thrust Mme. Bertrand in front of the body, saying to her, ‘You saw
that ⸺!’ M. Chardin, municipal councillor and acting mayor, was
ordered to supply a horse and carriage. He had hardly promised to
do all he could to comply, when he was killed by a shot. M. Prevot,
who saw the Bavarians rushing into the chemist’s shop of which he
was in charge, told them that he was the chemist, and that he would
give them all that they wanted, but three shots rang out and he fell
with a heavy groan. Two women who happened to be with him
escaped, but were pursued with blows from the butt-ends of rifles
up to the approaches to the railway station, where they saw in the
garden and on the road many corpses heaped together.
“Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon the Germans
forced their way into Mme. François’ butcher’s shop. Thereupon she
came out of her cellar with her son Stub and an employee named
Contal. As soon as Stub came to the threshold of the outside door
he fell, seriously wounded by a rifle shot. Then Contal, who escaped
into the street, was immediately murdered. Five minutes afterwards,
as the death-rattle was still in Stub’s throat, a soldier leant over him
and dispatched him with a blow of a hatchet in the back.
“The most tragic incident of these horrible scenes took place at
the house of M. Vassé, who had gathered together a number of
people in his cellar in the suburb called Nancy. About four o’clock a
party of about fifty soldiers forcibly entered the house, bursting open
the door and the windows, and immediately set fire to it. The
refugees then endeavoured to escape, but they were felled one after
another at the exit. M. Mentré was first murdered. His son Léon then
fell with his little sister, eight years old, in his arms. As he was not
quite dead, the end of the barrel of a gun was put to his head and
his brains blown out. Then it was the turn of the Kieffer family. The
mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder; the father, a little son
of ten years old and a little girl of three years old were shot. The
scoundrels fired at them again as they were lying on the ground.
Kieffer, who was lying on the ground, got a fresh bullet in the
forehead; his son had the top of his skull blown off by a rifle shot.
Then M. Strieffert and Vassé, one of his sons, were murdered, and
M. Mentré was struck by three bullets, one in the left leg, another in
the arm on the same side, and a third on the forehead, which was
merely grazed. M. Guillaume, who was dragged out into the street,
met his death there. Finally, a young girl called Somonin, aged
seventeen years, came out of the cellar with her young sister
Jeanne, aged three. The latter had her elbow nearly carried off by a
bullet. The eldest threw herself on the ground and pretended to be
dead, remaining for five minutes in fearful agony. A soldier kicked
her and called out, ‘Kaput’ (done for).
“An officer came up at the end of this slaughter. He ordered the
women who were still alive to get up, and called out to them, ‘Go to
France.’”

At Lunéville
The murders at Lunéville were committed, according to the French
Commission of Inquiry, under the following circumstances—
“On the 25th August, after firing two shots from the inside of the
Worms tannery, to make it appear that they had been attacked, the
Germans rushed into a workshop of this manufactory, in which an
artisan named Goeury was working in company with Messrs.
Balastre, father and son. Goeury was dragged out into the street,
stripped, and brutally ill-treated, whilst his two companions,
discovered in the lavatory where they had sought refuge, were shot.
“On the same day the soldiers came and called for M. Steiner, who
was concealed in his cellar. His wife, in dread of some disaster, tried
to keep him back. As she clasped him in her arms she was struck by
a bullet in the neck. Some moments afterwards Steiner, having
obeyed the command which had been given him, fell mortally
wounded in his garden. M. Kahn also was murdered in the garden of
his house. His mother, aged ninety-eight, whose body was burnt to a
cinder in the fire, had previously been killed in her bed with a
bayonet thrust, according to the story of an individual who was
acting as interpreter to the enemy. M. Binder, who was going out to
get away from the flames, was also struck down. The German by
whom he was killed admitted that he had wantonly killed him when
the poor man was quietly standing before a door. M. Vernier met
with the same fate as Binder.
“About three o’clock the Germans, breaking the windows and
firing shots, forced an entrance into a house in which were Mme.
Dujon, her daughter, aged three, her two sons and a M. Gaumier.
The little girl just missed being killed; her face was singed by a shot.
At this moment Mme. Dujon, seeing her youngest son lying on the
ground, begged him to get up and flee with her. She then noticed
that he was holding with full hands his intestines, which were
dropping out. The house was on fire and the poor lad was burnt to a
cinder, as was M. Gaumier, who had been unable to escape.
“M. Wingstermann and his grandson, aged twelve, who had gone
to dig potatoes a little way off from Lunéville, at a place called ‘les
Mossus,’ in the Chanteheux district, had the misfortune to meet the
Germans. The latter put them both against a wall and shot them.
“Finally, about five o’clock in the evening, some soldiers went into
the house of a woman named Sibille, in the same place, and without
any excuse seized her son, dragged him off 200 metres from the
house, and massacred both him and a M. Vallon, to whose body
they had bound him. A witness who saw the murderers just when
they were dragging off their victim saw them return without him,
and declared that their bayonets were covered with blood and pieces
of flesh.
“On the same day a male nurse, named Monteils, who was
tending a wounded enemy officer at the Lunéville hospital, was
struck by a bullet in the forehead as he was watching through the
window a German soldier firing rifle shots.
 “On the following day, the 26th, M. Hammann and his son, aged
twenty-one years, were arrested at their house and dragged outside
by a gang who had broken in the door and entered. The father was
unmercifully beaten, and as for the young man, when he tried to
struggle a non-commissioned officer cracked his skull with a revolver
shot.
“At 1 p.m. M. Riklin, a druggist, who had been told that a man had
fallen about thirty metres from his shop, went to the spot and
recognised in the victim his own brother-in-law, M. Colin, aged sixty-
eight years, who had been struck in the stomach by a bullet. The
Germans alleged that this old man had fired on them, but M. Riklin
formally denies this statement.
“Colin, he told us, was an inoffensive man absolutely incapable of
any act of aggression, and quite ignorant of the use of firearms.
“The mind refuses to believe that all these massacres took place
without excuse,” continues the French Commission of Inquiry. “That,
however, is the case. The Germans, it is true, have always given the
same excuse, alleging that civilians were the first to fire on them.
This allegation is false, and those who have made it have been
unable to make it appear probable, even by firing rifle shots close to
dwelling-houses, as they were in the habit of doing so that they
might be able to declare that they had been attacked by unoffending
civilians upon whose ruin or massacre they had decided. On many
occasions we obtained proof of this; the following, for example, is
one of many others. One evening, when a report rang out while the
Abbé Colin, curé of Croismare, happened to be with an officer, the
latter exclaimed, ‘That is sufficient reason, M. le Curé, why you and
the burgomaster should be shot and a farm burnt. Look! there is one
burning.’ ‘M. l’Officier,’ replied the priest, ‘you are too intelligent not
to recognise the crack of your rifle. For my part, I do recognise it.’
The German did not insist.”

Outrages and Attacks on Hostages

 Before ending this chapter and putting on record the admissions
which German officers and soldiers have involuntarily made on the
subject with which we are engaged, we may draw up two other
categories of criminal acts which they have committed: (1) the
practice of taking hostages, everywhere and on all kinds of pretexts,
some of whom were ill-treated and killed, and (2) the callous
deportation of civilians to Germany.
To take hostages from among civilians whom the fortune of war
condemns to invasion is a thing so cruel in itself that all civilised
nations try to limit the practice. The Germans, on the contrary, are
noted for the fact that they extend it as much as they can. The
name of hostages repeated everywhere gave a melancholy
significance to the Prussian barbarism of 1870. “This practice,” writes
Bluntschli, “is all the more open to criticism, as it endangers the lives
of peaceful citizens without any fault of theirs, and, moreover,
without bringing any appreciable increase of security.” On the other
hand, Geffcken writes: “We cannot approve of the practice by which
in 1870 Germany forcibly seized the chief people in enemy
communes to secure the railroads against attacks by francs-tireurs.”
This opinion of German jurists, which is, moreover, shared by all
writers, has not prevented the Germans from resorting in 1914 to
the same practices as in 1870, and even adding thereto fresh
cruelties.
In Belgium it was the clergy who principally served as hostages.
The majority of the Belgian priests who had been ill-treated came
under this category.
M. Hottier, mayor of Homécourt; M. Varin, curé (both of whom
were taken prisoner on the night of the 3rd-4th August, 1914); MM.
Alexis and Jean Samain (of the Souvenir Français) were taken away
to Alsace and German Lorraine.
MM. Hottier and Varin had both been denounced by a spy living at
La Petite-Fin, whose reports served as a pretext for the accusation
made against them by the German authorities.
 Mayor and curé were first brought to Malancourt, the seat of
headquarters.
“My companion,” the mayor of Homécourt afterwards told an
editor of L’Est Républicain, “was more unfortunate than I. He was
not allowed time to take his hat nor put on his stockings; he was
clad only in his cassock. He marched in a bad pair of slippers. His
colleague at Malancourt clothed the wretched ecclesiastic.
“They searched me, seized my purse, which contained a sum of
twenty-seven francs, my papers… But the acutest suffering which
rent my heart was when the hands of a Boche officer snatched my
poor ribbon of 1870, my humble decoration. It was as if I had been
punished with a lowering of rank.”
MM. Hottier and Varin were transferred to Metz and brought
before a court-martial. The former was charged with having
organised a campaign of francs-tireurs; in regard to the latter,
another complaint was formulated—that he had urged some young
people in the annexed territories to enlist in the foreign legion.
The discussions ended in a double acquittal. But M. Hottier was
treated with no more consideration on that account. For five days he
was shut up in a cell, getting only food that was uneatable.
Fortunately a generous intervention took place. M. Winsbach, an ex-
chemist, succeeded in bringing about some mitigation of the rigour
of certain orders. He enjoyed a high reputation at Metz. He used his
business connections, his influence, his knowledge of the German
and French languages sometimes to recommend sick people to the
care of the doctors, sometimes to act as interpreter and express
their desires or pass on their explanations. These are services which
will never be forgotten by the hostages, to whom M. Winsbach
rendered them with unwearied devotion.
The hostages were brought from Metz to Ehrenbreitstein, where
there were 232 French prisoners, all natives of Metz, Thionville, etc.
There were also the brothers Samain, the eldest of whom was (until
the month of December) supposed in France to be dead, executed
by the Germans. He had tried in vain to get news of himself brought
through, but his correspondence could not escape the fine net of
supervision which encompassed him.
The majority of these hostages carried away by the Germans were
detained by them. Only men of more than sixty years of age were
set free in the month of November. M. Hottier and some of his
companions then set off on the 20th November, went through the
Grand Duchy of Baden, crossed the Swiss frontier, and finally arrived
at Nancy. The brothers Samain were amongst those who were
detained in Germany.
In France, almost everywhere he went, the invader took hostages
amongst the men of the villages or the representatives of authority.
In Belgium also several people were carried off on the same plea.
Everybody knows of the case of M. Max, mayor of Brussels, who
was imprisoned at Glatz; but Brussels did not pay punctually the war
tax which the Germans had levied on it.
Often the hostages whom the Germans appeared to have taken
merely for the time of their passing through disappeared. This was
the case at Gueraid, Seine-et-Marne, where, of six hostages whom
the Germans took, one only was able to escape and to return to the
country; and at Révigny, where one of the hostages, a man named
Wladimir Thomas, was never set at liberty again.
In other cases the hostages were shamefully ill-treated. M. Colin,
a Professor of Science at the Louis-le-Grand Lycée at Paris, who
happened to be rusticating at Cogney, was carried off barefoot and
in his shirt, loaded with insults as he went. Enraged at the treatment
which other people and especially children were made to undergo,
M. Colin said to a lieutenant, “Have you not a mother?” “My mother,”
the German officer had the insolence to reply, “did not give birth to
⸺ like you!”
The hostages taken at Lunéville were no less brutally treated.
Neither violence nor outrage was spared these peaceful citizens.
They were put with their backs to the parapet of a bridge, before the
houses in the town were set fire to, and the German troops who
passed by behaved brutally to them. As an officer accused them of
having fired on the Germans, a teacher among them pledged his
word of honour that it was not so. “You French ⸺,” said the officer,
“do not speak of honour, for you have none.” One of the hostages
taken at Lunéville, named Rebb (sixty-two years of age), was
pummelled on the face with the butt-end of a rifle, and bayoneted in
the side. Nevertheless he continued to follow the column, although
he lost much blood. Then a Bavarian amused himself by inflicting
fresh blows upon him and throwing a bucket at his head.
The wretched old man died on the way, between Hénaménil and
Bures.

Massacre of Hostages
At Blamont in Lorraine, ex-Mayor Barthélemy, aged forty-six years,
was taken as a hostage and shot. The same fate awaited the then
mayor and the chief people in the locality; when the French entered
the town they found notices on the walls announcing that these
people would be shot on the following morning.
This was also the case at Courtacon (Seine-et-Marne), where five
men and a child of thirteen years, taken as hostages, were exposed
to the French fire during an engagement. Another hostage, named
Rousseau, a conscript of the 1914 class, arrested in the same
commune, was murdered under tragic conditions.
Questioned about the military position of this young man, the
mayor, who happened to be amongst the hostages, replied that
Rousseau had passed the military court, that he had been passed as
fit for service, but that his class had not yet been called up. The
Germans then made the prisoner undress, in order to discover what
was his physical condition, then they put on his trousers again and
shot him fifty metres away from his compatriots.
 Hostages in Serbia
The hostages taken by the Austrians may be divided into two
categories. They were, in the first place, the best-known Serbians,
mayors or prominent inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose
imprisonment had no other object than to stop the invasion of that
province by the threat of shooting them. The second category was
composed of peasants, living in Serbian villages, who were shot in
order to strike terror into the inhabitants. Amongst the hostages of
the first category several were shot. There were amongst them
priests, both Orthodox and Catholic, the Mayor of Raguse, M.
Tchingrin, the Vice-President of the Municipal Council of this town,
Dr. Puglissi, the poet, and the Serbo-Croatian deputy, Tressitch.
As for the others, here is the story told by M. Reiss, whom we
mentioned above—
“A group of hostages of from eight to eighty-two years had been
brought to Lechnitza. There were 109 of them. Quite close to the
railway station of the place the soldiers dug a pit twenty metres
long, three wide and two deep. In front of this grave they placed the
group of 109 persons and bound them with ropes round their necks.
Then a squadron of infantry took up a position on the slopes of the
railway and fired a volley at the peasants. The whole group stumbled
into the pit, and the soldiers threw earth upon them without having
first made sure that all those who had been shot were dead. It is
certain that a large number of victims had not been mortally
wounded and even that some of them had not been struck at all. I
think I am not mistaken in calculating that fifty per cent. of these
poor people were buried alive.
“During these proceedings, another group of forty hostages had
been brought up. The latter were compelled to be present at the
massacre of their fellow-citizens and they were forced to shout,
whilst the others were being killed, ‘Long live the Emperor Franz-
Joseph.’
 “I saw the pit opened into which these wretches fell, and I was
able to establish the fact that the number of those who died of
suffocation was very large. This huge human bundle was firmly
fastened together: no rope had been broken.”

Deportation of Civilians
“The German military authorities had as profound contempt for
liberty as for human life. Almost everywhere, people of every age
were dragged from their homes and led away to captivity. Many died
or were killed on the way.” These are the words in which the French
Commission of Inquiry denounces that other crime committed by the
Germans in the territories which they had invaded. In several places
the inhabitants found they were deported en masse to Germany to
dig trenches or to replace German agricultural labourers. In other
places the inhabitants were imprisoned. It is hardly necessary to say
that such acts are a violation of the law of nations in the very point
where it is most universally recognised. We read in the articles of the
Hague Convention that operations of war may be carried on
“provided the inhabitants are not compelled to take part in them, in
any form whatever,” that “the occupant of a country shall not raise
reserves among them, nor compel them to fight, nor put them in the
trenches, nor employ them on the offensive,” etc., and finally, “that
the peaceful and inoffensive inhabitants of the territory and passive
enemies must not be taken into captivity.”
Although by carrying away hostages the Germans have done
violence to that rule of law which is accepted by their own authors,
the deportation of civilians is something more serious still, as it
cannot be justified by any military necessity or by any plea for
security.
Nevertheless, this policy was practised on a large scale. The
following are some examples. At Lebbeke, in Flanders, forty-five
farmers were brought away and sent to Germany to make hay. At
Boisschot, also in Belgium, 200 men were seized and deported to
Germany for the same purpose. At Louvain, several thousand men,
who escaped the fusillades and the conflagration, were led away to
Germany.
In France, in the department of the Nord, at Saint Pol-en-Ternois,
350 civilians were taken prisoner. This was also the case at Douai,
Cambrai, Caudry, Noyon, where the German authorities demanded
that the young people of fifteen to seventeen years, a list of whom
had been supplied by spies, should be returned. Those who failed to
answer the summons were sought for, and they and their parents
were shot. The inhabitants did as they were told, and the young
people to the number of 4000 were made prisoner and brought to
the Russian frontier to dig trenches or else to the German
countryside to make hay.
At Marcheville, at Saint Mihiel, women and children met with the
same fate. At Avillers, too, all the men of sixteen to sixty years were
brought away to Germany, including the deputy mayor, M. Alcide
Blaise.
As in the provinces of the Nord and Meuse, so also in the
Ardennes, the Germans made a regular practice of putting the
inhabitants in prison. In all the towns and villages of this region men
who were liable to be mobilised were treated as prisoners of war.
This was the case at Rethel, where Dr. Bourgeois and ten of his
colleagues had the experience of being shut up in a spinning-mill
with 400 men taken from the villages of the province. The prisoners
were compelled to work for their enemies: they had to wash the
soldiers’ linen, gather potatoes in the fields, and make earthworks.
At Charleville, men whom the Germans had the assurance to call
civil prisoners were employed in making entrenchments, while the
women, as we have said above, were given sewing-work, which was
to be used for the equipment of the troops. Their wage was half a
loaf of bread.
In the province of Oise, about a hundred inhabitants of Creil,
Nogent-sur-Oise and the adjoining districts were imprisoned, and
had to submit to the disgrace and vexation of working against their
country, cutting a field of maize, which might have been in the way
of the German fire, and digging trenches which were to be used as
shelters for the enemy. For the seven days they were kept without
food being dealt out to them. Fortunately the women of the country
were able to get some provisions through to them.
At Lamath (Meurthe-et-Moselle), three inhabitants, one of whom
had chest complaint, were deported. At Amiens, in particular, the
scandal of incidents of this kind was shocking. An order of the
military authority, which the mayor thoughtlessly countersigned,
required all citizens liable to be mobilised to go to the citadel and
declare their position as regards military service. Relying on the
mayor’s signature, about 1500 men, of whom nearly 800 were
railway workers at the Amiens passenger and goods stations, went
to the citadel. There the Germans made a selection. They sent back
the men of the auxiliary services and kept the others as prisoners, to
the number of more than 1000, whom they brought on foot to
Personne. The wretched procession halted and slept at La Motte-en-
Santerre. Some prisoners, with the assistance of the few residents in
Santerre, managed to hide and make good their escape. The others
were entrained and taken away to Germany.
The second official report of the French Commission of Inquiry is
full of really shocking details of outrages suffered by the French,
who were taken from their homes and interned in Germany (Journal
Officiel, 11th March).
Ten thousand of these wretched people were reinstated in French
territory in the month of March. The order for internment had
included a very large number of old men, children and women,
several of whom were pregnant. All of these people had to submit to
long and painful marches, ill-treatment and wretched diet.
The Vareddes hostages especially went through a veritable
Calvary. Several of them, all old people, were murdered, as we have
already mentioned. Those of Sinceny, about 200 in number, were
likewise shockingly ill-treated.
 At Gravelines, 2000 conscripts were deported, and all the natives
of Combres, after being exposed to the French fire, were transferred
to the camp at Zurickau.
Life in the camps was intolerable. Several of these “civil prisoners”
lay in tents: others were huddled together in prisons. At Landau, an
old woman aged eighty-seven was undressed and drenched with
petrol. She succumbed some time afterwards to the fearful burns
which she sustained. Blows, ill-treatment and painful forced labour
were the order of the day. We cannot, therefore, be surprised at the
enormous number of cases of death and illness among them. The
only medicine prescribed by the doctors was tincture of iodine. As
one of the victims said, “We were like burnt-out candles, for we no
longer had the strength to stand upright.” Those who went back to
France had their health more or less permanently affected, and the
mental depression to which they were subject was really an illness.
The effects, therefore, of German activity continued after they were
released.
The Austrians followed the example of the Germans, even in
carrying out this kind of policy, especially in Syrmie (Semlin and the
regions adjoining).
At Chid, also, all the inhabitants, children excepted, were
deported: at Pazoon, M. Petrovitch, deputy to the Parliament of Pest,
was arrested with his son, pummelled with the butt-end of a rifle,
and deported. At Karlowitz and at Rouma, all the inhabitants of
Serbian extraction were arrested and deported.

The Germans admit all these Crimes

As in the case of other kinds of outrage, so in that of the actions
which we have just enumerated we are in possession of some
admissions which have come from the Germans themselves.
A soldier named Philip, of Kamenz in Saxony, writes as follows: “At
ten p.m. the first battalion of the 178th regiment went down into a
burnt village to the north of Dinant, a sadly beautiful spectacle,
which made us shudder. At the entrance to the village there lay
about fifty citizens, who had been shot for having fired on our troops
from an ambuscade.
“In the course of the night many others also were shot, to such an
extent that we could count more than 200 of them. Women and
children, lamp in hand, were compelled to look on at this fearful
sight. We then ate our rice in the middle of the dead bodies, for we
had had nothing to eat since morning.”
“At Leppes” (writes a Saxon officer, of the same regiment as
Private Philip, 12th army corps, 1st Saxon corps), “two hundred
inhabitants were killed, among whom there must have been some
unoffending people. In future, we must have a regular inquiry and
establish the guilt of the accused before shooting them.”
Even the Kölnische Zeitung published the story of an eye-witness
of the destruction of Aerschot, who would not have escaped had he
not called out to the soldiers, “Do you want to kill a man who comes
from Cologne?” The Germans then set him at liberty again. “In the
streets,” he writes, “the fusillade lasted the whole night. All those
found in possession of a weapon were mercilessly shot. The sight
was terrifying … the wretches who were shot lay on the pavement,
and all the time fresh ‘culprits’ were being brought before the
platoons charged with the task of execution. Women and children
wept and asked for mercy. In spite of all their indignation at the
attack which had been made upon them, no German heart could be
untouched by pity for the innocent victims.”
In the notebook of Private Hassemer of the 8th corps we find this
fearful confession—
“3rd September, 1914. At Sommepy (Marne), dreadful slaughter,
the village burnt to the ground, the French thrown into the burning
houses; civilians and all burnt together.”
“On the third of September, at Creil,” writes a German soldier of
the 32nd reserve regiment of infantry, “the iron bridge was blown
up. For this reason we set the streets on fire and shot civilians.”
The Saxon officer, some of whose narratives we have already
reproduced, also admits that the inhabitants were not spared
punishment by fire. “The fine village of Gué-d’Hossus (Ardennes) has
been consigned to the flames, although it had committed no offence
that I can see. I have been told that a man on a bicycle fell from his
machine and that, in his fall, his gun went off of itself, and then
some one fired in his direction. After that men were simply thrown
into the flames. We must hope that atrocities of this kind shall not
be repeated.”
“At Bouvignes, north of Dinant,” writes this Saxon officer of the
178th Regiment of the Line, “we entered, through a breach made in
the rear, the grounds of a well-to-do resident and occupied the
house. Through a labyrinth of rooms we reached the entrance of the
house. There lay the body of the owner. Outside, in the fields, the
sight of the inhabitants who had been shot, and whose bodies were
lying on the ground, baffles all description. The point-blank fusillade
almost decapitated them. Each house was searched in the tiniest
corners and the residents dragged out from all their hiding-places.
The men were shot.”
The writer of this notebook alleges no pretext which would excuse
or explain, in his eyes, all these murders. No more does the reservist
Schlanter (3rd battery of the 4th regiment of field artillery of the
Guard) mention any reason in justification of the murders which he
describes. He writes: “25th August. In Belgium, three hundred
inhabitants of the town were shot. Those who survived the volley
were requisitioned to act as grave-diggers (which proves that they
were not considered guilty). You should have seen the women at
this moment!”
“All the French, though civilians, were shot,” writes another, “if
they only looked suspicious or ill-disposed. We shot them all: men
and even young boys.”
 “I have seen three convoys of French peasants pass by,” writes a
third; “all will be shot.” An officer admits that the allegation that
civilians took part in the fighting is a mere excuse. “We shall say,” he
writes, “that it was not the civilians who fired, but it was the custom-
house officers and foresters.” The same admission is also made by a
Saxon officer of the 178th regiment, who writes: “Near Lisogne, the
23rd August. The company lost its way. Our men say that they could
not advance any further, as francs-tireurs were firing upon them
from the houses. We seized these alleged francs-tireurs, placed
them in three ranks so that a single shot would hit three men at
once.”
Lieutenant Eberlein, who (in the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten)
tells the story of the barbarous manner in which the troops entered
Saint Dié, added on his part: “Everybody who showed himself in the
streets was shot.” On the other hand, the commandant of the
garrison of Hay was so enraged at the disgraceful conduct of the
troops that he issued the following order of the day, which
constitutes a terrible accusation against the Germans—
 “25th August, 1914.
“Last night a terrible fusillade took place. It has not been proved
that the inhabitants of the town were still in possession of arms.
Neither has it been proved that civilians took part in the firing. On
the contrary, according to all appearances the soldiers were under
the influence of alcohol, and opened fire through incomprehensible
fear of an enemy attack.
“The conduct of the soldiers, with few exceptions, appears to have
been disgraceful.
“When officers, or non-commissioned officers set fire to houses
without permission or order of the commandant, or at least of the
senior officer, and encourage their troops to burn and pillage, it is an
act in the highest degree to be deplored.
“I expect that in every case strict instructions shall be given as to
the attitude to be observed towards the life and property of civilians.
I forbid any one to fire into a town without the order of an officer.
“The regrettable conduct of the troops has had the result that a
non-commissioned officer and a soldier have been seriously
wounded by German fire.
“Von Bassewitz (Major),
“Commandant.”

Even the proclamations issued by the German authorities show for

what hateful purposes the hostages were taken away, and how
precarious was their condition as soon as the slightest check was
inflicted on the German troops, or the slightest attack was made
upon them.
“The life of hostages,” wrote Commandant Dieckmann at
Grivegnée, on the 6th September, “depends on whether the
inhabitants of the communes previously mentioned keep quiet under
all circumstances.” And he adds, “I shall mark in the lists submitted
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