Note 16 — Chapter II · The First Year of the German Occupation

In certain districts, notably that of Kielce, there was a considerable amount of forced labour, for men were badly wanted to work in the unexploited mines there. Similarly we find that an appeal was made to the Pope in November, 1916, asking whether such compulsion was not an act of “intolerable tyranny.” After a considerable delay His Holiness replied that “as a neutral” he could not interfere in such internal questions. But in spite of such instances we shall probably be right to conclude that Germany did not make forced levies for labour to any considerable extent.