--- title: The Bryce Report on Alleged German Outrages url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/ description: 'The Bryce Report on Alleged German Outrages by Committee on Alleged German Outrages (chair: Viscount Bryce) (1915), full text with provenance and rights.' section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a First World War field-intelligence collage of trench maps, wireless transmission logs and aerial reconnaissance photographs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-wwi.jpg) [Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/) · Report # The Bryce Report on Alleged German Outrages ![Title page of the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages, 1915](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/thumb.jpg) Title page of the Macmillan (New York) edition, from a copy digitised by the Internet Archive. Public domain (published 1915); Internet Archive. Cropped from a scan of the page. [Source](https://archive.org/details/reportofcommitte00grea) At a glance The 1915 British government committee report on alleged German conduct in Belgium, a widely used document of First World War Allied propaganda, later criticised for its methods. - **Author:** Committee on Alleged German Outrages (chair: Viscount Bryce) - **Published:** 1915 - **Origin:** United Kingdom - **Length:** 29,069 words, 5 chapters Full details - **Edition:** Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages appointed by His Britannic Majesty's Government and presided over by the Right Hon. Viscount Bryce. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1915 (University of Massachusetts Boston scan, Internet Archive item reportofcommitte00grea) - **Language:** English - **Text source:** [Internet Archive, item reportofcommitte00grea (University of Massachusetts Boston)](https://archive.org/details/reportofcommitte00grea) - **Text basis:** Machine-read (OCR) text of a library scan, not proofread. - **Rights:** A 1915 official publication of the British government (Crown copyright, long expired), so in the public domain in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. - **Rights checked:** September 29, 2026 On this page - [Read the text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/#read) - [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/#provenance) - [Where it appears in the archive](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/#cited) **Content note:** Describes killings, sexual violence and the destruction of towns, as reported in witness statements the committee accepted. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) The report a British government committee, chaired by the jurist and diplomat Viscount Bryce, issued in May 1915 on alleged German conduct in Belgium and northern France. It was translated widely and used in Allied and American propaganda. Later historians have questioned its methods: the committee worked from depositions gathered by others rather than hearing the witnesses itself. Other sources document the killing of civilians in Belgium in 1914. The archive's case study on the report sets out that record; this is the report as issued. ## Read the text - [Warrant of Appointment](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/01-warrant-of-appointment/) 176 words - [Introductory Observations](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/02-introductory-observations/) 2,566 words - [Part I: Conduct of the German Troops in Belgium](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/03-part-i-conduct-of-the-german-troops-in-belgium/) 18,297 words - [Part II: Breaches of Rules and Usages of War and Acts of Inhumanity in Invaded Territories](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/04-part-ii-breaches-of-rules-and-usages-of-war-and/) 7,668 words - [Conclusions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/05-conclusions/) 362 words [Download as plain text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915/bryce-report-german-outrages-1915.txt) 29,069 words, with the provenance header above the text ## Provenance and rights - **Edition:** Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages appointed by His Britannic Majesty's Government and presided over by the Right Hon. Viscount Bryce. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1915 (University of Massachusetts Boston scan, Internet Archive item reportofcommitte00grea) - **Text source:** [Internet Archive, item reportofcommitte00grea (University of Massachusetts Boston)](https://archive.org/details/reportofcommitte00grea) - **Text basis:** Machine-read (OCR) text of a library scan, not proofread. - **Rights:** A 1915 official publication of the British government (Crown copyright, long expired), so in the public domain in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Checked September 29, 2026. - **Changes made:** Machine-read (OCR) text of a library scan, not proofread: recognition errors (for example "tlie" for "the") are the scan's, not edits. Page numbers, running heads and library stamps removed, line-end hyphens resolved and line wraps rejoined; nothing else changed. The report only; the separate volumes of witness evidence are not included. - **Source file checksum:** `a623e9cc769c709e…` (SHA-256 of the download this text was made from) ## Where it appears in the archive - [Wellington House and the Bryce Report: atrocity evidence, confirmed and unconfirmed (1914-1915)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/bryce-report-1915/) - [Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time (1928)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/)