Chapter III: From Liége to Malines 52 (1)

(i) THROUGH LIMBURG TO AERSCHOT 52

(ii) AERSCHOT 57

(iii) THE AERSCHOT DISTRICT 74

(iv) THE RETREAT FROM MALINES 77

(v) LOUVAIN 89

MAPS

THE INVADED COUNTRY _Frontispiece_

THE TRACK OF THE ARMIES: FROM THE
FRONTIER TO MALINES[3] _End of Volume_

LOUVAIN, FROM THE GERMAN WHITE BOOK _End of Volume_

FOOTNOTE:

[3] _This map shows practically all the roads and places referred to in the text._

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

1. MOULAND _To face page_ 16

2. BATTICE 17

3. LIÉGE FORTS: A DESTROYED CUPOLA 32

4. ANS: AN INTERIOR 33

5. ANS: THE CHURCH 48

6. LIÉGE: A FARM HOUSE 49

7. LIÉGE UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION 52

8. LIÉGE UNDER THE GERMANS: RUINS AND PLACARDS 53

9. LIÉGE IN RUINS 60

10. “WE LIVE LIKE GOD IN BELGIUM” 61

11. HAELEN 64

12. AERSCHOT 65

13. BRUSSELS: A BOOKING-OFFICE 80

14. MALINES AFTER BOMBARDMENT 81

15. MALINES: RUINS 84

16. MALINES: RUINS 85

17. MALINES: CARDINAL MERCIER’S STATE-ROOM AS A RED
CROSS HOSPITAL 92

18. MALINES: THE CARDINAL’S THRONE-ROOM 93

19. CAPELLE-AU-BOIS 96

20. CAPELLE-AU-BOIS 97

21. CAPELLE-AU-BOIS: THE CHURCH 112

22. LOUVAIN: NEAR THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE 113

23. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE 116

24. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE ACROSS THE RUINS 117

25. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE--INTERIOR 124

26. LOUVAIN: STATION SQUARE 125

ABBREVIATIONS

ALPHABET, LETTERS OF THE:--

CAPITALS Appendices to the German White Book entitled: “_The
Violation of International Law in the Conduct of the Belgian
People’s-War_” (dated Berlin, 10th May, 1915); Arabic numerals
after the capital letter refer to the depositions contained in
each Appendix.

LOWER CASE Sections of the “_Appendix to the Report of the
Committee on Alleged German Outrages, Appointed by His Britannic
Majesty’s Government and Presided Over by the Right Hon. Viscount
Bryce, O.M._” (Cd. 7895); Arabic numerals after the lower case
letter refer to the depositions contained in each Section.

ANN(EX) Annexes (numbered 1 to 9) to the _Reports of the Belgian
Commission (vide infra)_.

BELG. _Reports (numbered i to xxii) of the Official Commission of the
Belgian Government on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and
of the Laws and Customs of War._ (English translation, published,
on behalf of the Belgian Legation, by H.M. Stationery Office, two
volumes.)

BLAND “_Germany’s Violations of the Laws of War, 1914-5_”; compiled
under the Auspices of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and
translated into English with an Introduction by J. O. P. Bland.
(London: Heinemann. 1915.)

BRYCE _Appendix to the Report of the Committee on Alleged German
Outrages appointed by His Britannic Majesty’s Government._

CHAMBRY “_The Truth about Louvain_,” by Réné Chambry. (Hodder and
Stoughton. 1915.)

DAVIGNON “_Belgium and Germany_,” Texts and Documents, preceded by a
Foreword by Henri Davignon. (Thomas Nelson and Sons.)

“EYE-WITNESS” “_An Eye-Witness at Louvain_” (London: Eyre and
Spottiswoode. 1914.)

“GERMANS” “_The Germans at Louvain_,” by a volunteer worker in the
_Hôpital St.-Thomas_. (Hodder and Stoughton. 1916.)

GRONDIJS “_The Germans in Belgium: Experiences of a Neutral_,” by L.
H. Grondijs, Ph.D., formerly Professor of Physics at the Technical
Institute of Dordrecht. (London: Heinemann. 1915.)

HÖCKER “_An der Spitze Meiner Kompagnie, Three Months of
Campaigning_,” by Paul Oskar Höcker. (Ullstein and Co., Berlin and
Vienna. 1914.)

“HORRORS” “_The Horrors of Louvain_,” by an Eye-witness, with an
Introduction by Lord Halifax. (Published by the London _Sunday
Times_.)

MASSART “_Belgians under the German Eagle_,” by Jean Massart,
Vice-Director of the Class of Sciences in the Royal Academy of
Belgium. (English translation by Bernard Miall. London: Fisher
Unwin. 1916.)

MERCIER _Pastoral Letter_, dated Xmas, 1914, of His Eminence Cardinal
Mercier, Archbishop of Malines.

MORGAN “_German Atrocities: An Official Investigation_,” by J. H.
Morgan, M.A., Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of
London. (London: Fisher Unwin. 1916.)

NUMERALS, ROMAN LOWER CASE _Reports (numbered i to xxii) of the
Belgian Commission (vide supra)._

R(EPLY) “_Reply to the German White Book of May 10, 1915._”
(Published, for the Belgian Ministry of Justice and Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, by Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1916.)

Arabic numerals after the R refer to the depositions contained
in the particular section of the _Reply_ that is being cited
at the moment: _e.g._, R15 denotes the fifteenth deposition
in the section on Louvain in the _Reply_ when cited in the
section on Louvain in the present work; but it denotes the
fifteenth deposition in the section on Aerschot when cited in the
corresponding section here.

The _Reply_ is also referred to by pages, and in these cases the
Arabic numeral denotes the page and is preceded by “p.”

S(OMVILLE) “_The Road to Liége_,” by Gustave Somville. (English
translation by Bernard Miall. Hodder and Stoughton. 1916.)

STRUYKEN “_The German White Book on the War in Belgium: A
Commentary_,” by Professor A. A. H. Struyken. (English Translation
of Articles in the Journal _Van Onzen Tijd_, of Amsterdam, July
31st, August 7th, 14th, 21st, 1915. Thomas Nelson and Sons.)

N.B.--Statistics, where no reference is given, are taken from the first and second Annexes to the Reports of the Belgian Commission. They are based on official investigations.

* * * * *

THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM

I. THE TRACK OF THE ARMIES.

When Germany declared war upon Russia, Belgium, and France in the first days of August, 1914, German armies immediately invaded Russian, Belgian, and French territory, and as soon as the frontiers were crossed, these armies began to wage war, not merely against the troops and fortifications of the invaded states, but against the lives and property of the civil population.

Outrages of this kind were committed during the whole advance and retreat of the Germans through Belgium and France, and only abated when open manœuvring gave place to trench warfare along all the line from Switzerland to the sea. Similar outrages accompanied the simultaneous advance into the western salient of Russian Poland, and the autumn incursion of the Austro-Hungarians into Serbia, which was turned back at Valievo. There was a remarkable uniformity in the crimes committed in these widely separated theatres of war, and an equally remarkable limit to the dates within which they fell. They all occurred during the first three months of the war, while, since that period, though outrages have continued, they have not been of the same character or on the same scale. This has not been due to the immobility of the fronts, for although it is certainly true that the Germans have been unable to overrun fresh territories on the west, they have carried out greater invasions than ever in Russia and the Balkans, which have not been marked by outrages of the same specific kind. This seems to show that the systematic warfare against the civil population in the campaigns of 1914 was the result of policy, deliberately tried and afterwards deliberately given up. The hypothesis would account for the peculiar features in the German Army’s conduct, but before we can understand these features we must survey the sum of what the Germans did. The catalogue of crimes against civilians extends through every phase and theatre of the military operations in the first three months of the war, and an outline of these is a necessary introduction to it.

In August, 1914, the Central Empires threw their main strength against Belgium and France, and penetrated far further on this front than on the east and south-east. The line on which they advanced extended from the northern end of the Vosges to the Dutch frontier on the Meuse, and here again their strength was unevenly distributed. The chief striking force was concentrated in the extreme north, and advanced in an immense arc across the Meuse, the Scheldt, the Somme, and the Oise to the outskirts of Paris. As this right wing pressed forward, one army after another took up the movement toward the left or south-eastern flank, but each made less progress than its right-hand neighbour. While the first three armies from the right all crossed the Marne before they were compelled to retreat, the fourth (the Crown Prince’s) never reached it, and the army of Lorraine was stopped a few miles within French territory, before ever it crossed the Meuse. We shall set down very briefly the broad movements of these armies and the dates on which they took place.

Germany sent her ultimatum to Belgium on the evening of Aug. 2nd. It announced that Germany would violate Belgian neutrality within twelve hours, unless Belgium betrayed it herself, and it was rejected by Belgium the following morning. That day Germany declared war on France, and the next day, Aug. 4th, the advance guard of the German right wing crossed the Belgian frontier and attacked the _forts of Liége_. On Aug. 7th the town of _Liége_ was entered, and the crossings of the Meuse, from Liége to the Dutch frontier, were in German hands.

Beyond Liége the invading forces spread out like a fan. On the extreme right a force advanced north-west to outflank the Belgian army covering Brussels and to mask the fortress of Antwerp, and this right wing, again, was the first to move. Its van was defeated by the Belgians at _Haelen_ on Aug. 12th, but the main column entered _Hasselt_ on the same day, and took _Aerschot_ and _Louvain_ on Aug. 19th. During the next few days it pushed on to _Malines_, was driven out again by a Belgian sortie from Antwerp on Aug. 25th, but retook Malines before the end of the month, and contained the Antwerp garrison along the line of the Dyle and the Démer.

This was all that the German right flank column was intended to do, for it was only a subsidiary part of the two armies concentrated at Liége. As soon as Antwerp was covered, the mass of these armies was launched westward from Liége into the gap between the fortresses of Antwerp and Namur--von Kluck’s army on the right and von Bülow’s on the left. By Aug. 21st von Bülow was west of Namur, and attacking the French on the _Sambre_. On Aug. 20th an army corps of von Kluck’s had paraded through _Brussels_, and on the 23rd his main body, wheeling south-west, attacked the British at _Mons_. On the 24th von Kluck’s extreme right reached the Scheldt at _Tournai_ and, under this threat to their left flank, the British and French abandoned their positions on the Mons-Charleroi line and retreated to the south. Von Kluck and von Bülow hastened in pursuit. They passed _Cambrai_ on Aug. 26th and _St. Quentin_ on the 29th; on the 31st von Kluck was crossing the Oise at _Compiègne_, and on the 6th Sept. he reached his furthest point at _Courchamp_, south-east of Paris and nearly thirty miles beyond the _Marne_. His repulse, like his advance, was brought about by an outflanking manœuvre, only this time the Anglo-French had the initiative, and it was von Kluck who was outflanked. His retirement compelled von Bülow to fall back on his left, after a bloody defeat in the marshes of _St. Gond_, and the retreat was taken up, successively, by the other armies which had come into line on the left of von Bülow.

These armies had all crossed the Meuse south of the fortress of Namur, and, to retain connexion with them, von Bülow had had to detach a force on his left to seize the line of the Meuse from Liége to Namur and to capture Namur itself. The best German heavy artillery was assigned to this force for the purpose, and _Namur_ fell, after an unexpectedly short bombardment, on Aug. 23rd, while von Bülow’s main army at Charleroi was still engaged in its struggle with the French.

The fall of Namur opened the way for German armies to cross the Meuse along the whole line from Namur to Verdun. The first crossing was made at _Dinant_ on Aug. 23rd, the very day on which Namur fell, by a Saxon army, which marched thither by cross routes through Luxembourg; the second by the Duke of Würtemberg’s army between _Mezières_ and _Sedan_; and the third by the Crown Prince of Prussia’s army immediately north of _Verdun_. West of the Meuse the Saxons and Würtembergers amalgamated, and got into touch with von Bülow on their right. Advancing parallel with him, they reached _Charleville_ on Aug. 25th, crossed the Aisne at _Rethel_ on the 30th and the Marne at _Châlons_ on the 4th, and were stopped on the 7th at _Vitry en Perthois_. The Crown Prince, on their left, did not penetrate so far. Instead of the plains of Champagne he had to traverse the hill country of the _Argonne_. He turned back at _Sermaize_, which he had reached on Sept. 6th, and never saw the Marne.

On the left of the Crown Prince a Bavarian army crossed the frontier between Metz and the Vosges. Its task was to join hands with the Crown Prince round the southern flank of Verdun, as the Duke of Würtemberg had joined hands with von Bülow round the flank of Namur. But Verdun never fell, and the Bavarian advance was the weakest of any. _Lunéville_ fell on Aug. 22nd, and _Baccarat_ was entered on the 24th; but _Nancy_ was never reached, and on Sept. 12th the general German retreat extended to this south-easternmost sector, and the Bavarians fell back.

Thus the German invading armies were everywhere checked and driven back between the 6th and the 12th September, 1914. The operations which came to this issue bear the general name of the _Battle of the Marne_. The _Marne_ was followed immediately by the _Aisne_, and the issue of the Aisne was a change from open to trench warfare along a line extending from the Vosges to the Oise. This change was complete before September closed, and the line formed then has remained practically unaltered to the present time. But there was another month of open fighting between the Oise and the sea.

When the Germans’ strategy was defeated at the Marne, they transferred their efforts to the north-west, and took the initiative there. On Sept. 9th the Belgian Army had made a second sortie from Antwerp, to coincide with the counter-offensive of Joffre, and this time they had even reoccupied _Aerschot_. The Germans retaliated by taking the offensive on the Scheldt. The retaining army before Antwerp was strongly reinforced. Its left flank was secured, in the latter half of September, by the occupation of _Termonde_ and _Alost_. The attack on _Antwerp_ itself began on Sept. 27th. On the 2nd the outer ring of forts was forced, and on the 9th the Germans entered the city. The towns of Flanders fell in rapid succession--_Ghent_ on the 12th, _Bruges_ on the 14th, _Ostend_ on the 15th--and the Germans hoped to break through to the Channel ports on the front between Ostend and the Oise. Meanwhile, each side had been feverishly extending its lines from the Oise towards the north and pushing forward cavalry to turn the exposed flank of the opponent. These two simultaneous movements--the extension of the trench lines from the Oise to the sea, and the German thrust across Flanders to the Channel--intersected one another at _Ypres_, and the _Battle of Ypres and the Yser_, in the latter part of October, was the crisis of this north-western struggle. On Oct. 31st the German effort to break through reached, and passed, its climax, and trench warfare established itself as decisively from the Oise to the sea as it had done a month earlier between the Vosges and the Oise.

Thus, three months after the German armies crossed the frontier, the German invasion of Belgium and France gave place to a permanent German occupation of French and Belgian territories behind a practically stationary front, and with this change of character in the fighting a change came over the outrages upon the civil population which remained in Germany’s power. The crimes of the invasion and the crimes of the occupation are of a different order from one another, and must be dealt with apart.

II. FROM THE FRONTIER TO LIÉGE.

(i) _On the Visé Road._

The Germans invaded Belgium on Aug. 4th, 1914. Their immediate objective was the fortress of Liége and the passage of the Meuse, but first they had to cross a zone of Belgian territory from twenty to twenty-five miles wide. They came over the frontier along four principal roads, which led through this territory to the fortress and the river, and this is what they did in the towns and villages they passed.

The first road led from Aix-la-Chapelle, in Germany, to the bridge over the Meuse at Visé, skirting the Dutch frontier, and _Warsage_[4] was the first Belgian village on this road to which the Germans came. Their advance-guards distributed a proclamation by General von Emmich: “_I give formal pledges to the Belgian population that they will not have to suffer from the horrors of war.... If you wish to avoid the horrors of war, you must act wisely and with a true appreciation of your duty to your country._” This was on the morning of Aug. 4th, and the Mayor of Warsage, M. Fléchet, had already posted a notice on the town-hall warning the inhabitants to keep calm. All that day and the next the Germans passed through; on the afternoon of the 6th the village was clear of them, when suddenly they swarmed back, shooting in at the windows and setting houses on fire. Several people were killed; one old man was burnt alive. Then the Mayor was ordered to assemble the population in the square. A German officer had been shot on the road. No inquiry was held; no post-mortem examination made (the German soldiers were nervous and marched with finger on trigger); the village was condemned. The houses were systematically plundered, and then systematically burnt. A dozen inhabitants, including the Burgomaster, were carried off as hostages to the German camp at Mouland. Three were shot at once; the rest were kept all night in the open; one of them was tied to a cart-wheel and beaten with rifle-butts; in the morning six were hanged, the rest set free. Eighteen people in all were killed at Warsage and 25 houses destroyed.

At _Fouron-St. Martin_[5] five people were killed and 20 houses burnt. Nineteen houses were burnt at _Fouron-le-Compte_.[5] At _Berneau_,[6] a few miles further down the road, 67 houses (out of 116) were burnt on Aug. 5th, and 7 people killed. “The people of Berneau,” writes a German in his diary on Aug. 5th, “have fired on those who went to get water. The village has been partly destroyed.” On the day of this entry the Germans had commandeered wine at Berneau, and were drunk when they took reprisals for shots their victims were never proved to have fired. Among these victims was the Burgomaster, M. Bruyère, a man of 83. He was taken, like the Burgomaster of Warsage, to the camp at Mouland, and was never seen again after the night of the 6th. At _Mouland_[7] itself 4 people were killed and 73 houses destroyed (out of 132).

The road from Aix-la-Chapelle reaches the Meuse at _Visé_.[8] It was a town of 900 houses and 4,000 souls, and, as a German describes it, “It vanished from the map.”[9] The inhabitants were killed, scattered or deported, the houses levelled to the ground, and this was done systematically, stage by stage.

The Germans who marched through Warsage reached Visé on the afternoon of Aug. 4th. The Belgians had blown up the bridges at Visé and Argenteau, and were waiting for the Germans on the opposite bank. As they entered Visé, the Germans came for the first time under fire, and they wreaked their vengeance on the town. “The first house they came to as they entered Visé they burned” (a 16), and they began to fire at random in the streets. At least eight civilians were shot in this way before night, and when night fell the population was driven out of the houses and compelled to bivouac in the square. More houses were burnt on the 6th; on the 10th they burned the church; on the 11th they seized the Dean, the Burgomaster, and the Mother Superior of the Convent as hostages; on the 15th a regiment of East Prussians arrived and was billeted in the town, and that night Visé was destroyed. “I saw commissioned officers directing and supervising the burning,” says an inhabitant (a 16). “It was done systematically with the use of benzine, spread on the floors and then lighted. In my own and another house I saw officers come in before the burning with revolvers in their hands, and have china, valuable antique furniture, and other such things removed. This being done, the houses were, by their orders, set on fire....”

The East Prussians were drunk, there was firing in the streets, and, once more, people were killed. Next morning the population was rounded up in the station square and sorted out--men this side, women that. The women might go to Holland, the men, in two gangs of about 300 each, were deported to Germany as franc-tireurs. “During the night of Aug. 15-16,” as another German diarist[10] describes the scene, “Pioneer Grimbow gave the alarm in the town of Visé. Everyone was shot or taken prisoner, and the houses were burnt. The prisoners were made to march and keep up with the troops.” About 30 people in all were killed at Visé, and 575 out of 876 houses destroyed. On the final day of destruction the Germans had been in peaceable occupation of the place for ten days, and the Belgian troops had retired about forty miles out of range.

That is what the Germans did on the road from Aix-la-Chapelle; but, before reaching Warsage, the road sends out a branch through Aubel to the left, which passes under the guns of _Fort Barchon_ and leads straight to Liége. The Germans took this road also, and Barchon was the first of the Liége forts to fall. The civil population was not spared.

(ii) _On the Barchon Road._

At _St. André_[11] 4 civilians were killed and 14 houses burnt. _Julémont_,[12] the next village, was completely plundered and burnt. Only 2 houses remained standing, and 12 people were killed. Advancing along this road, the Germans arrived at _Blégny_[13] on Aug. 5th. Several inhabitants of Blégny were murdered that afternoon, among them M. Smets, a professor of gunsmithry (the villagers worked for the small-arms manufacturers of Liége). M. Smets was killed in his house, where his wife was in child-bed. The corpse was thrown into the street, the mother and new-born baby were dragged out after it. That night the population of Blégny was herded together in the village institute; their houses were set on fire. Next morning--the 6th--the women were released and the men driven forward by the German infantry towards Barchon fort. The Curé of Blégny, the Abbé Labeye, was among the number, and there were 296 of them in all. In front of Barchon they were placed in rows of four, but the fort would not fire upon this living screen, and they were marched away across country towards Battice, where five were shot before the eyes of the rest, and the curé kicked, spat upon, and pricked with bayonets. They were again driven forward as a screen against a Belgian patrol, and were kept in the open all night. Next morning 4 more were shot--two who had been wounded by the Belgian fire, and one who had heart disease and was too feeble to go on. The fourth was an old man of 78. The Germans tortured these victims by placing lighted cigarettes in their nostrils and ears. After this second execution on the 7th, the remainder were set free....

On the 10th Aug. the curé writes in his diary:

“There are now 38 houses burnt, and 23 damaged.

“Thursday the 13th: a few houses pillaged, two young men taken away.

“Friday, the 14th: a few houses pillaged.

“Friday night: the village of Barchon is burnt and the curé taken
prisoner....”

The curé’s last notes for a sermon have survived: “My brothers, perhaps we shall again see happy days....” But on the 16th, before the sermon was delivered, the curé was shot. He was shot against the church wall, with M. Ruwet, the Burgomaster, and two brothers, one of them a revolver manufacturer who had handed over his stock to the German authorities (from whom he received two passes) and had been working for the Red Cross. After the execution the church was burnt down. The nuns of Blégny were shot at by Germans in a motor-car when they came out that day to bury the bodies. From the 5th to the 16th Aug., about 30 people were killed in the commune of Blégny-Trembleur, and 45 houses burnt in all.

The village of _Barchon_,[14] as the curé of Blégny records, was destroyed on the 14th--in cold blood, five days after the surrender of the fort. There was a battue by two German regiments through the village. The houses were plundered and burnt (110 burnt in all out of 146); the inhabitants were rounded up. Twenty-two were shot in one batch, including two little girls of two and an old woman of ninety-four. Thirty-two perished altogether, and a dozen hostages were carried off, some of whom were tied to field guns and compelled to keep up with the horses. On the 16th the Germans evicted the inhabitants of _Chefneux_,[15] and shot 4 men. On the 17th they burned all the 22 houses in the hamlet. At _Saives_[16] they burned 12 houses, and shot a man and a girl.

We have the diary of a German soldier who marched down this branch road from Aubel when all the villages had been destroyed except _Wandre_,[17] which stood where the road debouched upon the Meuse.

“15th Aug.--11.50 a.m. Crossed the Belgian frontier and kept steadily along the high road until we got into Belgium. We were hardly into it before we met a horrible sight. Houses were burnt down, the inhabitants driven out and some of them shot. Of the hundreds of houses not a single one had been spared--every one was plundered and burnt down. Hardly were we through this big village when the next was already set on fire, and so it went on....

“16th Aug. The big village of Barchon set on fire. The same day, about 11.50 a.m., we came to the town of Wandre. Here the houses were spared but all searched. At last we had got out of the town when once more everything was sent to ruins. In one house a whole arsenal had been discovered. The inhabitants were one and all dragged out and shot, but this shooting was absolutely heart-rending, for they all knelt and prayed. But this got them no mercy. A few shots rang out, and they fell backwards into the green grass and went to their eternal sleep.

“And still the brigands would not leave off shooting us from behind--that, and never from in front--but now we could stand it no longer, and raging and roaring we went on and on, and everything that got in our way was smashed or burnt or shot. At last we had to go into bivouac. Half tired out and done up we laid ourselves down, and we didn’t wait long before quenching some of our thirst. But we only drank wine; the water has been half poisoned and half left alone by the beasts. Well, we have much too much here to eat and drink. When a pig shows itself anywhere or a hen or a duck or pigeons, they are all shot down and slaughtered, so that at any rate we have something to eat. It is a real adventure....”

This was the temper of the Germans who destroyed Wandre. They burned 33 houses altogether and shot 32 people--16 of them in one batch.

(iii) _On the Fléron Road._

There is another road from Aix-la-Chapelle to Liége, which passes through Battice and is commanded by _Fort Fléron_ (Fort Fléron offered the most determined resistance of all the forts of Liége, and cost the Germans the greatest loss). The Germans marched through _Battice_ on August 4th, and came under fire of the fort that afternoon. In the evening they arrested three men in the streets of Battice, and shot them without charge or investigation.

The check to their arms was avenged on the civil population. “On the arrival of the German troops in the village of _Micheroux_,” states a Belgian witness (a 12), “during the time when Fort Fléron was holding out, they came to a block of four cottages, and having turned out the inhabitants, set the cottages on fire and burned them. From one of the cottages a woman (mentioned by name) came out with a baby in her arms, and a German soldier snatched it from her and dashed it to the ground, killing it then and there.”[18]

“The position was dangerous,” writes a German in his diary[19] on August 5th, from a picket in front of Fort Fléron. “As suspicious civilians were hovering round, houses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 were cleared, the owners arrested (and shot the next day).... I shoot a civilian with my rifle, at 400 metres, slap through the head....”

That day the curé of Battice[20]: (who had been kept under arrest in the open since the evening of the 4th) was driven, with the Mayor and one of the communal councillors, under the Belgian fire. On the 6th the German troops again retired on Battice in confusion, and the village was destroyed that afternoon. Shots were fired indiscriminately and the houses set on fire. The first victim was a young man sitting in a café with his _fiancée_--he fell dead by her side. Three people were taken to the field to which the men of Blégny had been brought, and were shot with the five victims there. On the 7th they shot a workman who had been given a safe-conduct by a German officer to buy bread in a neighbouring village, and was on his way home with his wife. On the 8th they set the fire going again, to burn what still remained. They burned 146 houses and killed 36 people in Battice from first to last.

The town of _Herve_[21] lies a mile or so beyond Battice on the Fléron road, and was also traversed by the Germans on August 4th. The first to pass were officers in a motor car, and as they crossed the bridge they shot down two young men standing by the roadside--one was badly wounded, the other killed outright. In the evening they sent for the Mayor, accused the inhabitants of having fired on German troops, and threatened to shoot the inhabitants and burn the town to the ground. The Mayor and the curé spent the night going from house to house and warning the people to avoid all grounds of offence--before they had finished there were more shots fired indiscriminately (by the Germans), and more (civilian) wounded and dead. The Mayor and curé were then retained as hostages for the civilians’ good behaviour. On the 6th the first house was burnt; on the 7th five men were shot in cold blood; on the 8th a fresh column of troops arrived from Aix-la-Chapelle, and these were the destroyers of Herve. “They fired indiscriminately in all quarters of the town,” says an eye-witness (a 2), “and in the Rue de la Station they shot Madame Hendrickx, hitting her at close range, although she had a crucifix in her hand--begging for mercy.” All through the 8th the shooting and burning went on, and on the 9th the fires were kindled again. “The Germans gave themselves up to pillage and loaded motor cars with everything of value they could find.” They burned and pillaged consecutively for ten days, and on the 19th and 20th fresh regiments arrived and carried on the work. Two hundred and seventy-nine houses were destroyed at Herve altogether, and 44 people killed. “On the road to Herve everything is burnt,” writes a German soldier (Reply p. 127) who passed when all was over. “At Herve, the same. Everything is burnt except a convent--everywhere corpses carbonised into an indistinguishable mass. (There are about a hundred, all civilians, and children among the number.) I only saw three people alive in the village--an old man, a sister of charity, and a girl.” The Belgian witness quoted above (a 2) records that “the German staff officers staying in his hotel told his wife that the reason why they had so treated Herve was because the inhabitants of the town would not petition for a passage for the Germans at Fléron.”

In the villages between Herve and Fort Fléron the slaughter and devastation were, if possible, more complete. At _la Bouxhe-Melen_[22] there were two massacres--one on Aug. 5th and another on the 8th. In the second the people were shot down in a field _en masse_, and 129 were murdered altogether, as well as about 40 people herded in from the farms and hamlets of the neighbourhood. Sixty houses in la Bouxhe-Melen were destroyed. In the commune of _Soumagne_,[23] on a branch road to the south, the Germans killed 165 civilians and burned 104 houses down. When they entered Soumagne on Aug. 5th, they killed indiscriminately in the streets. “They broke the windows and broke the door,” writes a witness (a 5) who had taken refuge in a cellar. “My mother went out of the cellar door.... Then I heard a shot and my mother fell back into the cellar. She was killed.” This indiscriminate killing was followed up the same afternoon by the massacre of 69 civilians in a field called the Fonds Leroy. “The soldiers fired a volley and killed many, and then fired twice more. Then they went through the ranks and bayonetted everyone still living. I saw many bayonetted in this way” (a 4). One boy was shot and bayonetted in four places, and lay several days among the dead, keeping himself alive on weeds and grass. This boy survived. In another field 18 were massacred in one batch, in another 19. “I saw about 20 dead bodies lying here and there along the road,” writes one of the witnesses (a 4). “One of them was that of a little girl aged 13. The rest were men, and most of them had had their heads bashed in.”--“I saw 56 corpses of civilians in a meadow,” deposes another. “Some had been killed by bayonet thrusts and others by rifle shots. In the heaps of corpses above mentioned was that of the son of the Burgomaster. His throat had been cut from ear to ear and his tongue had been pulled out and cut off.”

In the hamlet of _Fécher_ the whole population--about 1,000 women, children and men--was penned into the church on Aug. 5th, and next morning the men (412 of them) were herded off as a living screen for the German troops advancing between the forts (the first man to come out of the church being wantonly shot down as an example to the rest). The 411 were driven by bye-roads to the Chartreuse Monastery, above the Meuse, overlooking the bridge into the city of Liége, and on the 7th they were planted as hostages on the bridge while the Germans marched across. They were held there without food or shelter or relief for a hundred hours. At _Micheroux_[24] 9 people were killed and 17 houses destroyed. These villages were all outside the eastern line of forts, but the places inside the line, between the forts and Liége, were devastated to an equal degree. At Fléron[25] 15 civilians were killed and 152 houses destroyed.[26] At _Retinnes_[27] 41 civilians were killed and 118 houses destroyed.[26] At _Queue du Bois_[28] 11 civilians were killed and 35 houses destroyed. At _Evegnée_ 2 civilians were killed and 5 houses destroyed. At _Cerexhe_[29] 4 women and children were burnt alive in a house, and 2 houses destroyed. At _Bellaire_[30] 4 people were killed and 15 houses destroyed. At _Jupille_[31] 8 people were killed and 1 house destroyed. These villages were saved none of the horrors of war by the surrender of the forts.

(iv) _On the Verviers Road._

The Germans converged on the forts by more southerly roads as well. At _Dolhain_,[32] on the road from Eupen to Verviers, 28 houses were burnt on Aug. 8th and several civilians killed. At _Metten_,[33] near Verviers, a German soldier confesses that he and his comrades “were ordered to search a house from which shots had been fired, but found nothing in the house but two women and a child.... I did not see the women fire. The women were told that nothing would be done to them, because they were crying so bitterly. We brought the women out and took them to the major, and then we were ordered to shoot the women.... When the mother was dead, the major gave the order to shoot the child, so that the child should not be left alone in the world. The child’s eyes were bandaged. I took part in this because we were ordered to do it by Major Kastendick and Captain Dultingen....”

But Verviers and the Verviers road remained comparatively unscathed. Far worse was done by the Germans who descended on the Vesdre from Malmédy, south-eastward, over the hills.

(v) _On the Malmédy Road._

_Francorchamps_,[34] the first Belgian village on the Malmédy road, was sacked on Aug. 8th, four days after the first German troops had passed through it unopposed, and again on Aug. 14th by later detachments. At _Hockay_,[35] near Francorchamps, the curé was shot. In Hockay and Francorchamps 13 people were killed altogether, and 25 houses burnt. “M. Darchambeau, who was wounded (in the cellar of a burning house), asked a young officer for mercy. This young officer of barely 22, in front of the women and children, aimed his revolver at M. Darchambeau’s head and killed him.”

The fate of _Pepinster_[36] is recorded in a German diary: “Aug. 12th, Pepinster, Burgomaster, priest, and schoolmaster shot; houses reduced to ashes. March on.” As a matter of fact, the three hostages were not shot, but reprieved. The Burgomaster of _Cornesse_[37] was shot in their stead (a 33, 34)--“an old man and quite deaf. (He was only hit in the leg, and a German officer came up and shot him through the heart with his revolver.)” Five houses in Cornesse were burnt. At _Soiron_,[38] on Aug. 4th, the Germans bivouacking there fired on one another, and eight German soldiers were wounded or killed. “But the officers,” deposes a German private[39] who was present at the scene, “in their anxiety to prevent the fact of this blunder from being reported, hastened to pretend that it was really the civilians who had fired, and gave orders for a general massacre. This order was carried out, and there was terrible butchery. I must mention that we only killed the males, but we burned all the houses.” At _Olnes_[40] the curé and the communal secretary were shot on Aug. 5th, and the schoolmaster the same evening, in front of his burning house, with his daughter and his two sons. Only two members of the schoolmaster’s family were spared. In the hamlet of _St. Hadelin_,[41] which came within the radius of Fort Fléron’s guns, there was a wholesale massacre on the same date. Early in the day the Germans “requisitioned” 300 bottles of wine; later they drove a crowd of people from St. Hadelin, _Riessonsart_, and _Ayeneux_, to a place called the Faveu, and shot down 33. The remainder were forced to haul German artillery towards the forts, but these were partly released next day, and partly massacred at the Heids d’Olne. Twenty inhabitants of Ayeneux were massacred in a batch elsewhere. Sixty-two civilians were murdered altogether in the commune of Olne, and 78 houses destroyed--40 in St. Hadelin and 38 in Olne itself.

At _Forêt_[42] the Germans burned a farm and killed two of the farmer’s sons on Aug. 5th as they entered the place. They drove the farmer and his two surviving sons in front of them as a screen. The schoolmaster and two others were shot outside the village. “At Forêt,” states the German soldier quoted above,[43] “we found prisoners--a priest and five civilians, including a boy of 17. Pillage began ... but we were shelled ... and moved off to the next village. The house doors were at once broken in with the butt-ends of muskets. We pillaged everything. We made piles of the curtains and everything inflammable, and set them alight. All the houses were burnt. It was in the middle of this that the civilian prisoners of whom I have spoken were shot, with the exception of the curé.” (The curé, too, was shot that night.)[44] “A little further on, under the pretext that civilians had fired from a house (though for my own part I cannot say whether they were soldiers or civilians who fired), orders were given to burn the house. A woman asleep there was dragged from her bed, thrown into the flames, and burnt alive....”

Thirteen people in all were killed at Forêt, and 6 houses destroyed. At _Magnée_[45] 18 houses were destroyed and 21 people killed. The German troops in Magnée were caught by the fire from the Fléron and Chaudfontaine forts, and they revenged themselves, as elsewhere, on the civilians, shooting people in batches and burning houses and farms. This was on Aug. 6th, and at _Romsée_,[46] on the same day, 34 houses were burnt and 31 civilians murdered--some of them being driven as a screen in front of the German troops under the fire of Fort Chaudfontaine.

(vi) _Between the Vesdre and the Ourthe._

The same outrages were committed between the Vesdre and the Ourthe. At _Louveigné_,[47] on Aug. 7th, the Germans, retreating from their attack on the southern forts, looted the drink-shops, fired in the streets, and accused the civilians of having shot. A dozen men (two of them over 70 years old) were imprisoned as hostages in a forge, and were shot down, when released, like game in the open. That evening Louveigné was systematically set on fire with the same incendiary apparatus that was used at Visé, and the curé was dragged round on the foot-board of a military motor-car to watch the work. There were more murders next day. The total number of civilians murdered at Louveigné was 29, and there were 77 houses burnt. The devastation impressed the German soldiers who passed through Louveigné on the following days. “Louveigné has been completely burnt out. All the inhabitants are dead,” writes a German diarist on Aug. 9th. “March to Louveigné,” another records on Aug. 16th. “Several citizens and the curé shot according to martial law, some not yet buried--still lying where they were executed, for everyone to see. Stench of corpses everywhere. Curé said to have incited the inhabitants to ambush and kill the Germans.”--“Bivouac! Rain! Burnt villages! Louveigné!” another exclaims on Aug. 17th. “We marched and bivouacked in the rain, in an orchard with a high hedge round it, full of fruit-trees. There was an abandoned house in front of it. The door, which was locked, was broken in with an axe. The traces of war--burnt houses, weeping women and children, executions of franc-tireurs--showed us the ruthlessness of the times. We could not have done otherwise.... But how many have to suffer with others, how many innocent people are shot by martial law, because there is no detailed enquiry first....”

At _Lincé_,[48] in the commune of Sprimont, a German officer was wounded when the troops returned in confusion from before the southern forts of Liége. The Germans forbade an autopsy to discover by what bullet the wound had been caused, and condemned two civilians with a proven alibi to be shot. All the next morning the destruction went on. Houses were burnt, the curé was mishandled, a farmer and his son were shot down at their farm gate, a girl of twelve received four bullets in her body. The execution of the hostages took place in the afternoon. Sixteen men were shot, of whom 7 were more than 60 years old. At _Chanxhe_,[49] on Aug. 6th, hostages from _Poulseur_ were bound in ranks to the parapet of the bridge over the Ourthe, and kept there several days while the Germans filed across. “We were tortured by hunger and thirst,” writes one of them. “We shivered at night. And then, of necessity, there was the filth.... At the end of the bridge the women were pleading with the Germans in vain, and the children were crying.” On the 5th two civilian captives were shot on the bridge, and their bodies thrown into the river, and two more (one aged 70) were shot on the 7th. In the commune of Poulseur, from which these hostages came, 7 civilians were killed and 25 houses destroyed. In the commune of Sprimont 67 houses were destroyed and 48 civilians killed. At _Esneux_ 26 houses were destroyed and 7 civilians killed.

(vii) _Across the Meuse._

Meanwhile, the Germans had crossed the Meuse at Visé, and were descending on Liége from the north. At _Hallembaye_, in the commune of _Haccourt_,[50] 18 people were killed. There were women, children and old men among them, and also the curé,[51] who was bayonetted on his church threshold as he was removing the sacrament. In the commune of Haccourt 80 houses were destroyed, and 112 hostages were carried away into Germany. _Hermalle-sous-Argenteau_[52] was plundered on Aug. 15th, and 9 houses destroyed. There was a mock execution of hostages in the presence of women and children, and 368 men of the place were imprisoned in the church for 17 days. At _Vivegnis_[53] 6 civilians were shot on Aug. 13th, and 45 houses destroyed the day after. The Germans fired on the inhabitants through the windows and doors, and two men were thus killed in a single household. At _Heure-le-Romain_[54] the population was confined in the church on Aug. 16th (it was Sunday) and compelled to stand there, hands raised, under the muzzle of a machine-gun. Seven civilians were shot at Heure-le-Romain that day, including the Burgomaster’s brother and the curé,[55] who were roped together and shot against the church wall. All through the 16th and 17th the sack continued; on the 18th fresh troops arrived and completed the work by systematic arson and the slaughter of 19 people more. Twenty-seven civilians were killed at Heure-le-Romain altogether and 84 houses destroyed. At _Hermée_,[56] on Aug. 6th, the Germans, caught by the fire of _Fort Pontisse_, revenged themselves by shooting 11 civilians, including old men of 76 and 82 years. On the 14th, the day after the surrender of the fort, the inhabitants of Hermée were driven from their homes and the village systematically burnt, 146 houses out of 308 being destroyed. In the village itself, as apart from the outlying hamlets of the commune, only two or three houses were left standing. At _Fexhe-Slins_, near Hermée, 3 people were killed. Twenty-three were killed, and 13 houses destroyed, in the hamlet of _Rhées_ in the commune of _Herstal_.[57]

Thus the Germans plundered private property, burned down houses, and shot civilians of both sexes and all ages, on every road by which they marched upon Liége--from the north-east, the south-east, and the north. One thousand and thirty-two civilians[58] were shot by the Germans in the whole _Province of Liége_, and 3,173 houses were destroyed in two arrondissements (those of Liége and Verviers) alone out of the four of which the Province is made up.

(viii) _The City of Liége._

Twenty-nine of these civilians were killed and 55[59] of the houses destroyed in the _city of Liége_ itself--on August 20th, a fortnight after it had fallen into the German Army’s possession. The Germans entered Liége on August 7th. Their entry was not opposed by Belgian troops, and arms in private hands had already been called in by the Belgian police.[60] The Germans found themselves in peaceful occupation of a great industrial city, caught in the full tide of its normal life. There was nothing to suggest outrage, still less to excuse it, in their surroundings there; their conduct on August 20th was deliberate and cold-blooded. The Higher Command was faced with the problem of holding a conquered country, and wanted an example. The troops in garrison were demoralised by the sudden change to idleness from fatigue and danger, and were ready for excitement and pillage.

“Aug. 16th, Liége,” writes a German soldier in his diary.[61] “The villages we passed through had been destroyed.

“Aug. 19th. Quartered in University. Gone on the loose and boozed through the streets of Liége. Lie on straw; enough booze; too little to eat, or we must steal.

“Aug. 20th. In the night the inhabitants of Liége became mutinous. Forty persons were shot and 15 houses demolished. Ten soldiers were shot. The sights here make you cry.”

There are proofs of German premeditation--warnings from German soldiers to civilians on whom they were billeted,[62] and an ammunition waggon which drew up at 8.0 a.m. in the Rue des Pitteurs, and twelve hours later disgorged the benzine with which the houses in that street were drenched before being burnt.[63]

“The city was perfectly quiet,” declares a Belgian witness,[64] “until about 8.0 p.m. At about 9.15 p.m. I was in bed reading when I heard the sound of rifle-fire.... The noise of the firing came nearer and nearer.” The first shot was fired from a window of “Emulation Building,” looking out on the Place de l’Université, in the heart of the town.[65] The Place was immediately crowded with armed German soldiers, firing in the air, breaking into houses, and dragging out any civilians they could find. First nine men (5 of them Spanish subjects) were shot in a batch, then 7 more.[66] “About 10.0 p.m. they were shooting everywhere. About 10.30 p.m. several machine guns were firing and artillery as well.” (The artillery was firing on private houses from the opposite side of the Meuse.[67]) “About 11.0 p.m. I saw between 45 and 50 houses burning. There were two seats of the fire--the first at the Place de l’Université (8 houses--I was close by at the time), the second across the Meuse on the Quai des Pecheurs, where there were about 35 houses burning. I heard a whole series of orders given in German, and also bugle calls, followed by the cries of the victims, and I saw women with children running about in the street, pursued by soldiers....” (a 28).

The arson was elaborate. In the Rue des Pitteurs the waggon loaded with benzine moved from door to door.[68] “About 20 men were going up to each of the houses. One of them had a sort of syringe, with which he squirted into the house, and another would throw a bucket of water in. A handful of stuff was first put into the bucket, and when this was thrown into the house there was an immediate explosion” (a 31). At the Place de l’Université, when the Belgian fire-brigade arrived, they were forbidden to extinguish the fire, and made to stand, hands up, against a wall (a 28, 29). Later they were assigned another task. “About midnight,” states a witness (a 30), “a whole heap of civilian corpses were brought to the Hôtel de Ville on a fire-brigade cart. There were 17 of them. Bits were blown out of their heads....”

As the houses caught fire the inmates tried to escape. The few who reached the street were shot down (a 24, 26). Most were driven back into the flames. “At about 30 of the houses,” a witness states (a 31), “I actually saw faces at the windows before the Germans entered, and then saw the same faces at the cellar windows after the Germans had driven the people into the cellars.” In this way a number of men and women were burnt alive.[69] In some cases the Germans would not wait for the fire to do their work for them, but bayonetted the people themselves. In one house, near the Episcopal Palace,[70] two boys were bayonetted before their mother’s eyes, and then the man--their father and her husband. Another man in the house was wounded almost to death, and the Germans were with difficulty prevented from “finishing him off,” next morning, on the way to the hospital. An orphan girl, who lodged in the same house, was violated.