Germans living in England were being targeted

The Plight of the Germans: This advert (on the page left) placed in the Courier of 29th August by Henry Korner of Elland illustrates the dilemma German born people faced in 1914. Although he had become a naturalised British citizen in 1908 and had married and brought up children in England, his family, in common with similar families throughout the country, were regarded with suspicion upon the outbreak of war. In some places, although there are no cases reported in the Courier as happening locally, they encountered outright hostility with looting and physical assaults occurring. Henry Korner ran a pork butcher’s business in Southgate, Elland, helped by his wife Mary and eldest son Charles. By 1916 Charles had taken over the business and this formed a part of his successful appeal against conscription at the Elland Military Tribunal. It is not known what happened to the family or their business after the war. Perhaps there are members of the family still living in the area who can shed some light on this? of the forest of Morval. The western portion of the army co comprising of II Corps unde der the command of Gener eral Smith-Dorrien found th the Germans were close on th their heels and were forced to stand and fight on 25th Augu gust near the village of Le Cate teau where they successfully halted the German advance and n were able to continue the withdrawal with the rest of th the army. Although this battl tle is almost unknown to the British public, 7,800 casualti ties were suffered in contrast to the 1,600 sustained at the much better known battle of Mons. These were the “Heavy Casualties” mentioned in the headlines although by the standards of later battles they were negligible. several days from the 25th August 1914. It is estimated that 2,000 buildings were destroyed, including the university library containing many priceless ancient texts, and an unknown number of civilians executed. The incident started after German troops were fired at on the evening of the 25th. German paranoia about partisan activity immediately led them to believe it was the work of Belgian civilians although there was no evidence to support this. Although many of the atrocity stories which circulated at the time were gross exaggerations, the Germans did not rape nuns or bayonet babies for example, they did act with ruthless brutality towards the civilian population of the occupied territories, the sack of Louvain being just one example. These acts were not those of individual soldiers but were official German policy to intimidate the population of the conquered areas. It is estimated that 6,500 civilians, including many women and children, were arbitrarily executed in reprisal for alleged partisan activity. Investigations made after the war came to the conclusion that there was little or no such activity. ulation were underutilised. Ladies were to the forefront of activities supporting the troops and, as will be seen, as the war dragged on many women became involved in war work and work traditionally the reserve of men.