A Special Commission was appointed by the Peace Conference to determine the responsibility of the kaiser and other German military and civil authorities for the crimes committed by the Germans in the territory they occupied. A report was handed in by Liautard, Dean of the Faculty of Law, and De la Pradelle, Professor of International Law of the University of Paris, which concludes that the kaiser is answerable both in penal and civil law for these crimes. These crimes are catalogued as follows:

1. Massacre of civilians.
2. Killing of hostages.
3. Torture of civilians.
4. Starvation of civilians.
5. Rape.
6. Abduction of girls and women for purposes of enforced prostitution.
7. Deportation of civilians.
8. Internment of civilians under brutal conditions.
9. Forced labor of civilians in connection with military operations of the enemy.
10. Usurpation of sovereignty under military occupation.
11. Compulsory enlistment among inhabitants of occupied territory.
12. Pillage.
13. Confiscation of property.
14. Exaction of illegitimate or of exorbitant contributions and requisitions.
15. Debasement of currency and issue of spurious currency.
16. Imposition of collective penalties.
17. Wanton devastation and destruction of property.
18. Bombardment of undefended places.
19. Wanton destruction of religious, charitable, educational, and historical buildings and monuments.
20. Destruction of merchant ships and passenger vessels without examination and without warning.
21. Destruction of fishing-boats and of a relief-ship.
22. Bombardment of hospitals.
23. Attack on and destruction of hospital-ships.
24. Breach of other rules relating to the Red Cross.
25. Use of deleterious and asphyxiating gases.
26. Use of explosive and expanding bullets.
27. Orders to give no quarter.
28. Ill-treatment of prisoners of war.
29. Misuses of flags of truce.
30. Poisoning of wells.

A list has also been issued of specific crimes that can be proved against different German generals and officers in Belgium, Northern France, Poland, etc. The feeling of the Conference was unquestionably in favor of making the guilty suffer, not only for the sake of just retribution but because of its effect on the mind of unrepentant Germany and the rest of the world. ---(Adapted from Literary Digest, April 26, 1919.)

Frothingham, Handbook of War Facts and Peace Problems, Chapter VIII at http://www.ukans.edu/~libsite/wwi-www/WarFacts/wfacts4b.ht.