Francs-tireurs
One semi-doctrinal issue that the Germans faced was what to do with irregulars and civilians known as francs-tireurs. Who exactly were francs-tireurs? One army corps deputy commander tried to define them as any citizen of a combatant nation not in a uniform, who in any way disrupted German operations communications or supply. They had been a major concern to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War. The French considered them partisans and the Germans regarded them as terrorists. If caught by German troops, the franc-tireurs could be shot out of hand if in the act or provided a one-officer court-martial that had the power of handing out death sentences. Residents of Alsace-Lorraine found with weapons could be shot and those suspected of being a franc-tireurs would be handed over to a formal court-martial.
This “francs-tireurs doctrine” really dealt with the application of the rules of war and has been the food for atrocity discussions for decades. There certainly were atrocities and standing orders to shoot civilians who were resisting. In the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, there were many stories of francs-tireurs. For four decades, stories abounded and were embellished about how francs-tireurs had ambushed, mutilated, and poisoned German forces during that war. The advancing armies in 1914 expected to encounter francs-tireurs whether they were there or not. As early as 4 August, shots fired from the small Belgian town of Battice at a cavalry patrol scouting the way into Liège were interpreted as franc-tireurs. This event led to the execution of three civilians and the burning of the town.
A view of the inevitability of civilian involvement in combat and an "appropriate" military response permeated the German military. There was an anti-French feeling against the "people's war" or “levée en masse,” which was seen as legal, but reprehensible. Julius v. Hartmann, a noted theorist, said, “where the people's war breaks out, terrorism becomes a principle of military necessity.” Senior commanders in their 60s and 70s during the invasion of 1914 had been young officers during the Franco-Prussian War and had distinct views based on their experiences with francs-tireurs. In the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907, there was an international endeavor to more tightly define the laws of war. The intent was to make things more civilized and less barbarous. As a result of the first convention, the German General Staff developed a "war book" to offer some guidance. It required that prisoners of war be conditionally identified, if there was some proof that they were operating as enemy soldiers. The negotiations involved a seesaw battle between smaller countries that wanted the ability to have a mass “people’s war” and imperial Germany that did not. In 1908, the German Army issued the Felddienstordnung, which provided guidance that preventive security measures were justified when there were possible attacks by enemy civilians. This guidance included threatening the inhabitants with penalties, taking hostages, and burning streets. This rule was in direct conflict to the previous endorsement of the Hague Convention, which was actually published as an appendix to the Felddienstordnung in 1911.
Despite this conflict, there was no change to the language of the Felddienstordnung. Imperial German officers were trained to expect civilian resistance and to treat it as a criminal act. Specifically, the Kriegs-Akademie taught that Article 2 of the convention did not comply with the German viewpoint. The noted theorist and writer v. d. Goltz dismissed the 1907 Hague Convention as hypocrisy because none of the signatories had any intention of sticking to it.
In the long run, the franc-tireurs situation did not turn out well for imperial Germany. Not only did Germany sustain a propaganda defeat, but also a tremendous amount of energy was used chasing reported sightings in 1914. Some of them may have been true, others of them false. There certainly were atrocities that in the German literature may have been justified, but they did not stand up in the court of international opinion. The actions could not be justified with the extant Hague Convention. It seems as though inexperienced soldiers, in total fear—sometimes fueled with alcohol—and a lifetime of stories, overreacted in many cases shooting at the "bogeyman" and taking revenge on entire cities for the actions of a real or imagined few.
:wink: 
