THE DEPORTATION Translated textually from the Note ad- WITH EXTRACTS FROM OTHER DOCUMENTS, NEW YORK: THE DEPORTATION of WOMEN AND GIRLS FROM LILLE. Letter enclosing the Note to the Powers. The President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Diplomatic Representatives of the French Republic, Paris, 25th July, 1916. I have requested you to call the attention of the government to which you are accredited to the treatment to which the population of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing have been subjected by the German authorities (Ann. 5). I informed you that I was in receipt of a number of communications on this subject. In view of the facts which have been revealed to it, the French Government cannot think it sufficient to cite the 3rd Article of the Convention of the Hague relating to the laws and customs of land warfare, or to anticipate the indemnity for which Germany will be held responsible on the score of the breaches of the Regulations committed by persons belonging to her armed forces; the Government would feel itself guilty of a grave failure of duty if it did not endeavour to bring some remedial measures to bear on these sufferings. Until the fortune of war enables us to reconquer the occupied districts, the only means of furthering this effort is to make an urgent appeal, in the name of justice and of humanity, to the neutral Powers and to the public opinion of all nations. I therefore beg you to communicate the annexed Note to the Government to which you are accredited, and to call its most serious attention to the document. This Note embodies the protest of the French Government against the facts which it thereby brings to the knowledge of the civilised world; the Note is supported by much documentary evidence which is annexed to it. If our compatriots in enemy countries have a means of defence in the devoted zeal of the Governments charged with the protection of French interests, the same is not the case with our fellow-citizens in the territory for the administration of which Germany is temporarily responsible. In the name of military necessities-which it has not allowed to stand in the way of certain publicists being allowed access to its front-the German Government has, up to the present, refused to allow representatives of neutral Powers to be sent to the invaded Departments. Without doubt it fears the impression which would be produced abroad by a knowledge of the situation to which the unhappy resident population is reduced. Time has been necessary to collect and arrange the evidence establishing the guilt of the German authorities for the events of Holy Week, 1916. To these documents we add all the others which attest the various abuses to which our compatriots of the occupied districts have been subjected since the beginning of the war. The German Government has paid no attention to the successive suggestions which have been made to it with a view to putting an end to |