Chapter III: From Liége to Malines 52 (4)

This went on all day, and all day the women were compelled to watch it, while the surviving men were marched away in batches, and the houses on either side of the railway continued to burn. When night came the women were confined in the _Station_. “My aunt,” continues the witness quoted above,[284] “was taken to the _Station_ with her baby and kept there till the morning. It rained all the night, and she wrapped the baby in her skirt. The baby cried for food, and a German soldier gave the child a little water, and took my aunt and the child to an empty railway-carriage. Some other women got into the carriage with her, but during the whole night the Germans fired at the carriage for amusement....”

The firing by German soldiers had never ceased since the first outbreak at 8.0 o’clock the evening before. An eye-witness records two bursts of it on the 26th--one at 5.0 p.m., and a more serious one at 8.45.[285] This firing was due in part to panic, but was in part of a more deliberate character. “The whole day,” states a Belgian witness,[286] “the soldiers went and came through the streets, saying: ‘Man hat geschossen,’ but it seems that the shots came from the soldiers themselves. I myself saw a soldier going through the streets shooting peacefully in the air.” There was also killing in cold blood. A café proprietor and his daughter were shot by two German soldiers waiting to be served. The other daughter crept under a table and escaped.[287]

The women held prisoner at the _Station_ were only released at 8.0 o’clock on the morning of the 27th,[288] but they had suffered less during these hours than the men. “Of the men,” as a German witness puts it,[289] “some were shot according to Martial Law. In the case of a large number of others it was, however, impossible to determine whether they had taken part in the shooting. These persons were placed for the moment in the _Station_; some of them were conveyed elsewhere.”

The first batch[290] of those “not found guilty” was “conveyed” by the _Boulevard de Diest_ round the outskirts of the town, and out along the _Malines Road_, about 11.0 o’clock in the morning. It consisted of from 70 to 80 men, one of whom at least was 75 years old, while five were neutrals--a Paraguayan priest, Father Gamarra,[291] the Superior of the Spanish Hostel, Father Catala, and three of Father Catala’s students. There were doctors, lawyers, and retired officers among the Belgian victims. One prisoner was driven on ahead to warn the country people that all the hostages would be executed if a single shot were fired;[292] the rest were searched, had their hands bound behind their backs, and were marched in column under guard. On the way to _Herent_ they were used as a screen.[293] The village of _Herent_ was burning, and they had to run through the street to avoid being scorched by the flames.[294] “Carbonised corpses were lying in front of the houses.”--“At _Herent_” states the South American priest,[295] “I saw lying in the nook of a wall the corpse of a girl twelve or thirteen years old, who had been burnt alive.” On the road from _Herent_ to _Bueken_ “everything was devastated.” Beyond _Bueken_ and _Campenhout_ they were made to halt in a field, and were told that they were going to be executed. Squads of soldiers advanced on them from the front and rear, and they were kept many minutes in suspense. Then they were marched on again towards _Campenhout_, surrounded by a company which, they were given to understand, was the “execution company.” Crowds of German troops, bivouacked by the roadside, shouted at them and spat on them as they passed. They reached _Campenhout_ at dusk, and were locked up for the night in the church with the inhabitants of the village. At 4.30 a.m. they were warned to confess, as their execution was imminent. At 5.0 a.m. they were released from the church, and told they were free. But at _Bueken_ they were arrested again with a large number of country people, and were marched back towards _Campenhout_. One of these countrywomen bore a baby on the road.[296] From the outskirts of _Campenhout_ they were suddenly ordered to make their own way as best they could to the Belgian lines. They arrived at _Malines_ about 11.30 in the morning (of August 27th), about 200 strong. Within four hours of their arrival the German bombardment[297] of _Malines_ began, and they had to march on again to _Antwerp_.

A second batch[298] was driven out along the _Brussels Road_ on August 26th between 1.0 and 2.0 o’clock in the afternoon. As they marched through Louvain by the _Rue de Bruxelles_, the guard fired into the windows of the houses and shot down one of the prisoners, who was panic-stricken and tried to escape.[299] At _Herent_ they were yoked to heavy carts and made to drag them along by-roads for three hours,[299] and another civilian was shot on the way.[299] At 10.0 p.m. they were made to lie down in an open field with their feet tied together, and lay thus in pouring rain till 6.0 o’clock next morning. Then they were marched through _Bueken_, _Thildonck_, _Wespelaer_--still in pouring rain--with their hands bound by a single long cord. They reached _Campenhout_ at noon, and were set to digging trenches. At 7.0 p.m. they were allowed to sit down and rest, but only just behind the batteries bombarding the Antwerp forts,[300] which might have opened retaliation fire on them at any moment. That night they passed in Campenhout church, and at 9.0 o’clock next morning (August 28th) they were marched back again to Louvain, about 1,000 in all--women and children as well as men. “The houses along the road were burning. The principal streets of Louvain itself were burnt out.”[300] That night at Louvain they were crowded into the _Cavalry Riding School_ in the _Rue du Manège_. Six or seven thousand people were imprisoned there in all.[301] The press was terrible, and the heat from the burning buildings round was so great that the glass of the roof cracked during the night.[301] Two women went out of their minds and two babies died.[302] Next morning a German officer read them a proclamation to the effect that their liberty was given them because Germany had already won the war,[303] and they were marched out again through the streets. They passed corpses left unburied since the night of August 25th.[303] “The German soldiers giggled at the sight.”[304] Once more they were driven round the countryside. At _Herent_ the women and children, and the men over forty, were set free. At _Campenhout_ the curé was added to the company, after being dragged round his parish at the tail of a cart.[305] At _Boortmeerbeek_ the men between twenty and forty were also released at last, and told to go forward to the Belgian lines, under threat of being shot if they turned back. They arrived in front of _Fort Waelhem_ in the dark, at 11.0 p.m. on the 29th, and were fired on by the Belgian outposts; but they managed to make themselves known and came through to safety.

The third batch “conveyed elsewhere” from Louvain on August 26th consisted of the Garde Civique.[306] All members of this body were summoned by proclamation to present themselves at the _Hôtel-de-Ville_ at 2.0 p.m.[307] The 95 men who reported themselves were informed that they were prisoners, taken to the _Station_, and entrained in two goods-vans. There were 250 other deportees on the train, including the Gardes Civiques of _Beyghem_ and _Grimberghen_, and about a hundred women and children. They did not reach the internment camp at _Münster_ till the night of the 28th, and on the journey they were almost starved. At _Cologne Station_ a German Red Cross worker refused one of the women, who asked her in German for a little milk to feed her sick baby fourteen months old.[308] In the camp at _Münster_ all the men were crowded promiscuously into a single wooden shed. The floor was strewn with straw (already old), which was never changed. The blankets (also old, and too thin to keep out the cold) were never disinfected or washed. There was no lighting or heating. The food was insufficient and disgusting. The sanitary arrangements were indecent. And the deportees had to live under these conditions for months, in the clothes they stood in, though many had come in slippers and shirt-sleeves--the proclamation having taken them completely by surprise. In neighbouring huts there were the 400 Russian students from _Liége_, 600 or 700 people from _Visé_, the Gardes Civiques of _Hasselt_ and _Tongres_, people from _Haccourt_ and from several communes in the _Province of Limburg_--about 1,700 prisoners in all. On October 4th an article in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, signed by a German general, admitted that “only two of the prisoners at _Münster_ were under suspicion of having fired”; but none of the prisoners from Louvain were released till October 30th, and then only cripples and men over seventy years of age. The rest were retained, including a man with a wooden leg....

The fourth batch of prisoners on August 26th started about 3.0 o’clock in the afternoon, also by way of the _Boulevard de Diest_ and the _Malines Road_.[309] This group seems to have been treated even more brutally than the rest. One man was so violently mishandled that he fainted, and was carried in a waggon the first part of the way. He came to himself in time to see his own house burning and his wife waving him farewell. He was then thrown out of the waggon and made to go on foot. His bonds cut so deeply into his flesh that his arms lost all sensation for three days. The party was marched aimlessly about between _Herent_, _Louvain_, _Bueken_, and _Herent_ again till 11.0 at night, when they had to camp in the open in the rain. They were refused water to drink. At 3.0 a.m. on August 27th they were driven on again, and marched till 3.0 p.m., when they arrived at _Rotselaer_. At _Rotselaer_ they were shut up in the church--a company of 3,000 men and women, including all the inhabitants of the village. This respite only lasted an hour, and at 4.0 o’clock they started once more along the Louvain Road. They were destined for a still worse torment, which will shortly be described.

These preliminary expulsions on the 26th were followed up by more comprehensive measures on the morning of the 27th. Between 8.0 and 9.0 a.m. German soldiers went round the streets proclaiming from door to door: “Louvain is to be bombarded at noon; everyone is to leave the town immediately.”[310] The people had no time to set their affairs in order or to prepare for the journey. They started out just as they were, fearing that the bombardment would overtake them before they could escape from the town. The exodus was complete. About 40,000 people altogether were in flight,[311] and the majority of them streamed towards the _Station Square_, where they had been ordered to assemble, and then out by the _Boulevard de Tirlemont_, along the _Tirlemont Road_.

The Dominicans from the Monastery in the _Rue Juste-Lipse_ were expelled with the rest. “At the moment when they were leaving the Monastery an old man was brought in seriously wounded in the stomach; it was evident that he had but a few hours to live. A German officer proposed to ‘finish him off,’ but was deterred by the Prior. One of the monks attempted to pick up a paralysed person who had fallen in the street; the soldiers prevented him, striking him with the butt-ends of their muskets. The weeping, terrified population was hurrying towards the _Railway Station_....”[312] At the _Station_ the Dominicans were stopped and sent to Germany by train; the rest of the crowd was driven on. There were from 8,000 to 10,000 people in this first column.[313] “Nothing but heads was to be seen--a sea of heads.... The wind was blowing violently, and a remorseless rain scourged us.... The crowd was pressing upon us, suffocating us, and sometimes literally lifting us along like a wave, our feet not touching the ground. We progressed with difficulty, and had to stop every ten metres. Sometimes a German asked us if we had any arms....”[314] When they arrived at _Tirlemont_ they were kept outside the town till nightfall.[315] The inhabitants did their best for them, but _Tirlemont_, too, had been ravaged by the invasion. The number of the refugees was overwhelming, and there was a dearth of supplies. “My mother and I,” states a Professor of Louvain University,[316] “had to walk about 20 miles on the 27th and the following day before we could find a peasant cart. We had to carry the few belongings we were able to take away, and to walk in the heavy rain. We could find nothing to eat, but other people were yet more unfortunate than we. I saw ladies walking in the same plight, without hats and almost in their night-dresses. Sick persons, too, dragged themselves along or were carried in wheel-barrows. Thousands of people were obliged to sleep in _Tirlemont_ on the church pavements. We found a little room to sleep in....”

Ecclesiastics were singled out for special maltreatment. This professor, and twelve other priests or monks with him, was stopped by German troops encamped at _Lovenjoul_. They were informed that they were going to be shot for “having incited the population.”--“A soldier,” states the professor, “called me ‘Black Devil’ and pushed me roughly into a dirty little stable.”--“I was thrust into a pig-stye,” states one of his fellow-victims,[317] “from which a pig had just been removed before my eyes.... There I was compelled to undress completely. German soldiers searched my clothes and took all I had. Thereupon the other ecclesiastics were brought to the stye; two of them were stripped like me; all were searched and robbed of all they had. The soldiers kept everything of value--watches, money and so on--and only returned us trifles. Our breviaries were thrown into the manure. Some of the ecclesiastics were robbed of large sums--one had 6,000 francs on him, another more than 4,000. All were brutally handled and received blows.” They were saved from death by the professor’s mother, who appealed to a German officer with more sense of justice than his colleagues, and they were thankful to rejoin the other refugees.

A second stream of refugees was pouring out of Louvain by the _Tervueren Road_,[318] towards the south-west. “On the road,” states a professor,[319] “we had to raise our arms each time we met soldiers. An officer in a motor-car levelled his revolver at us. He threatened fiercely a young man walking by himself who only raised one arm--he was carrying a portmanteau in the other hand, which he had to put down in a hurry. At _Tervueren_ we were searched several times over, and then took the electric tram for Brussels....”

But here the ecclesiastics were singled out once more. One was searched so roughly that his cassock was torn from top to bottom.[320] Another was charged with carrying “cartridges,” which turned out to be a packet of chocolates.[321] One soldier tried to slip a cartridge into a Jesuit’s pocket, but the trick was fortunately seen by another monk standing by.[322] Insults were hurled at them--“Swine”; “Beastly Papists”; “You incite the people to fire on us”; “You will be castrated, you swine!” Then they were driven into a field, and surrounded by a guard with loaded rifles. About 140 ecclesiastics were collected altogether,[323] including Mgr. Ladeuze, the Rector of Louvain University; Canon Cauchie, the Professor of History; Mgr. Becker, the Principal of the American Seminary; and Mgr. Willemsen, formerly President of the American College. After they had waited an hour, 26 of them were taken and lined up against a fence. Expecting to be shot, they gave one another absolution, but after waiting seven or eight minutes they were marched out of the field and lined up once more with their backs to a wood. As they marched, a soldier muttered that “one of them was going to be shot.” The two Americans showed their passports to an officer, but were violently rebuffed. Then Father Dupierreux, a Jesuit student 23 years old, was led before them under guard, and one of their number was called forward to translate aloud into German a paper that had been found on Father Dupierreux’s person. The paper (it was a manuscript memorandum of half-a-dozen lines) compared the conduct of the Germans at Louvain to the conduct of Genseric and of the Saracens, and the burning of the Library to the burning of the Library at Alexandria. The officer cut the recitation short. Father Dupierreux received absolution, and was then ordered to advance towards the wood. Four soldiers were lined up in front of him, and the 26 prisoners were ordered to face about, in order to witness the execution. Among their number was Father Robert Dupierreux, the twin brother of the condemned.[324] “Father Dupierreux,” states Father Schill,[325] the Jesuit who had been forced to translate the document, “had listened to the reading with complete calm.... He kept his eyes fixed on the crucifix.... The command rang out: ‘Aim! Fire!’ We only heard one report. The Father fell on his back; a last shudder ran through his limbs. Then the spectators were ordered to turn about again, while the officer bent over the body and discharged his pistol into the ear. The bullet came out through the eye.”

The others were then placed in carts, and harangued:[326] “When we pass through a village, if a single shot is fired from any house, the whole village will be burnt. You will be shot and the inhabitants likewise.” They were paraded in these carts through the streets of _Brussels_ and liberated, at 7.0 o’clock in the evening, at eight kilometres’ distance beyond the city.

Meanwhile, the proclamation of the morning had had its effect. Louvain was cleared of its inhabitants, but the bombardment did not follow. Between 11.0 and 12.0 o’clock a few cannon shots were heard in the distance, but that was all.[327] “At _Rotselaer_,” states an inhabitant of Louvain who was in the party conveyed there on the 27th,[328] “I understood from the prisoners in the church that all the people of _Rotselaer_ were made to leave their houses on the pretext that they were in danger of bombardment, and the Germans stated that they were being placed in the church for security. While all these people were in the church the Germans robbed the houses and then burned the village.” At Louvain the German strategy was the same. The bombardment was only a pretext for the wholesale expulsion of the inhabitants, which was followed by systematic pillage and incendiarism as soon as the ground was clear. The conflagration of two nights before, which had never burnt itself out, was extended deliberately and revived where it was dying out; the plundering, which had been desultory since the Germans first occupied the town, was now conducted under the supervision of officers from house to house.[329]

On the morning of August 27th, even before the exodus began, a Dutch witness[330] waiting at the _Hôtel-de-Ville_ saw “soldiers streaming in from all sides, laden with huge packages of stolen property--clothes, boxes of cigars, bottles of wine, etc. Many of these men were drunk.”--“I saw the German soldiers taking the wine away from my house and from neighbours’ houses,” states a Belgian witness.[331] “They got into the cellar with a ladder, and brought out the wine and placed it on their waggons.”--“The streets were full of empty wine bottles,” states another.[332] “My factory has been completely plundered,” states a cigar-manufacturer.[333] “Seven million cigars have disappeared.” The factory itself was set on fire on the 26th, and was only saved by the Germans for fear the flames might spread to the prison. They saved it by an extinguishing apparatus which was as instantaneous in its effect as the apparatus they used for setting houses alight. “The soldiers, led by a non-commissioned officer, went from house to house and broke in the shop fronts and house doors with their rifle butts. A cart or waggon waited for them in the street to carry away the loot.”[334] Carts were also employed in the suburb of _Blauwput_, on the other side of the railway. “I saw German soldiers break into the houses,” states a witness from _Blauwput_.[335] “One party consisting of six soldiers had a little cart with them. I saw these break into a store where there were many bottles of champagne and a stock of cigars, etc. They drank a good deal of wine, smoked cigars, and carried off a supply in the cart. I saw many Germans engaged in looting.” This employment of carts became an anxiety to the Higher Command. A type-written order, addressed to the Officers of the 53rd Landwehr Infantry, lays down that “For the future it is forbidden to use army carts for the transport of things which have nothing whatever to do with the service of the Army. At some period these carts, which travel empty with our Army, will be required for the transport of war material. They are now actually loaded with all sorts of things, none of which have anything to do with military supplies or equipment.”[336]

This systematic pillage went on day after day. “The _Station Square_,” states a refugee from Louvain[337] who traversed the city again on August 29th, “was transformed into a vast goods-depôt, where bottles of wine were the most prominent feature. Officers and men were eating and drinking in the middle of the ruins, without appearing to be in the least incommoded by the appalling stench of the corpses which still lay in the _Boulevard_. Along the _Boulevard de Diest_ I saw Landsturm soldiers taking from the houses anything that suited their fancy, and then setting the house alight, and this under their officers’ eyes.” On September 2nd there was a fresh outbreak of plunder and arson in the _Rue Léopold_ and the _Rue Marie-Thérèse_.[338] As late as September 5th--ten days after the original catastrophe--the Germans were pillaging houses in the _Rue de la Station_ and loading the loot on carts.[339] Householders who returned when all was over found the destruction complete. “I found my parents’ house sacked,” states one.[340] “A great deal of the furniture was smashed, the contents of cupboards and drawers were scattered about the rooms.... In my sister’s house the looking-glasses on the ground floor were broken. On the bedding of the glass the imprint of the rifle-butts was clearly visible.”--“Inside our house,” states another,[341] “everything is upside down.... The floors are strewn with flowers and with silver plate not belonging to our house, the writing room is filled with buckets and basins, in which they had cooled the bottles of champagne.... There was straw everywhere--in short, the place was like a barn. To crown everything, my father was not allowed to sleep in his own house.... When the Germans at last quitted our residence, it was necessary to cleanse and disinfect everything. The lowest stable was cleaner than our bedrooms, where scraps from the gourmandising and pieces of meat lay rotting in every corner amid half-smoked cigars, candle ends, broken plates, and hay brought from I don’t know where.”

But these two houses were, at any rate, not burnt down, and more frequently, when they had finished with a house, the Germans set it on fire. They had begun on the night of August 25th; on August 26th they were proceeding systematically,[342] and the work continued on the 27th and the following days. All varieties of incendiary apparatus were employed--a white powder,[343] an inflammable stick,[344] a projectile fired from a rifle.[345] They introduced these into the house to be burnt by staving in a panel of the front door[346] or breaking a window,[347] and the conflagration was immediate when once the apparatus was inside. This scientific incendiarism was the regular sequel to the organised pillage. The firing by German soldiers also went on. “On August 27th,” states one German witness,[348] “I was fired at from a garden from behind the hedge, without being hit. It was in the afternoon; I could not see the person who had shot.” The identification can be inferred from the experience of the Rector of Louvain University, Mgr. Ladeuze, on the night of August 25th, when he detected two German soldiers firing over the garden wall of the _Chemical Institute_ into the _Rue de Namur_.[349] Another German witness, a military surgeon in the Neuss Landsturm,[350] who arrived at Louvain in the afternoon of August 27th, testifies that “in the course of the afternoon I heard the noise of firing in the _Rue de la Station_.... I had the impression that we were being shot at from a house there, in spite of my conspicuous armlet with the Red Cross. We approached the house. A German soldier of another battalion leapt out from the first floor, and in so doing broke the upper part of his thigh. He told me that he had just been pursued and shot at by six civilians in the house.” The surgeon, a young man of twenty-five, a new-comer to Louvain, and unused to the notion of German soldiers firing on one another, repeats this story without seeing that it fails to explain the shots fired _from_ the house and directed against himself, and he takes the presence of the “six civilians” on faith. Was the soldier who escaped punishment by this lie firing into the street from panic? This may have been so, for the German troops were in a state of nervous degeneration, but there is another possible explanation. Two days later, on August 29th, when Mr. Gibson, Secretary of the American Legation at Brussels, visited Louvain to enquire into the catastrophe, his motor-car was fired at in the _Rue de la Station_ from a house, and five or six armed men in civilian costume were dragged out of it by his escort and marched off for execution. But they were not executed, for they were German soldiers disguised to give Mr. Gibson an ocular demonstration that “the civilians had fired.” The German Higher Command had already adopted this as their official thesis, and they were determined to impose it on the world.[351]

After the exodus on the morning of the 27th, Louvain lay empty of inhabitants all day, while the burning and plundering went on. But at dusk a procession of civilians, driven by soldiers, streamed in from the north. They were the fourth batch of prisoners who had been marched out of Louvain on the previous day. They had spent the night in the open, and had been locked up that afternoon in _Rotselaer_ church. But after only an hour’s respite they had been driven forth again, and the whole population of _Rotselaer_ with them, along the road leading back to the city.

“On the way,” states one of the victims,[352] “we rested a moment. The curé of _Rotselaer_, a man 86 years of age, spoke to the officer in command: ‘Herr Offizier, what you are doing now is a cowardly act. My people did no harm, and, if you want a victim, kill me....’ The German soldiers then seized the curé by the neck and took him away. Some Germans picked up mud from the ground and threw it in his face....”

“We entered Louvain,” states the curé himself,[353] “by the _Canal_ and the _Rue du Canal_. No ruins. We reached the _Grand’ Place_--what a spectacle! The _Church of Saint-Pierre_! Rest in front of the _Hôtel-de-Ville_. Fatigue compelled me to stretch myself on the pavement, while the houses blazed all the time.

“Other prisoners from Louvain and the neighbourhood kept arriving. Soon I saw fresh prisoners arrive from _Rotselaer_--women, children and old men, among others a blind old man of eighty years, and the wife of the doctor at _Rotselaer_, dragged from her sick-bed. (She died during the journey to Germany.)...”

“In the _Grand’ Place_,” states the former witness,[354] “the heat from the burning houses was so great that the prisoners huddled together to get away from it....”

“After we had remained standing there about an hour,” states a third,[355] “we had to proceed towards the _Station_ along the _Rue de la Station_. In this same road we saw the German soldiers plundering the houses. They took pleasure in letting us see them doing it. In the city and at _Kessel-Loo_ the conflagration redoubled in intensity.”

“The houses were all burning in the _Rue de la Station_,” states the first,[356] “and there were even flames in the street which we had to jump across. We were closely guarded by German soldiers, who threatened to kill us if we looked from side to side.”

Yet these victims in their misery were accused of shooting by their tormentors. “On August 27th,” states an officer concerned,[357] “the Third Battalion of the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53 had to take with it on its march from _Rotselaer_ to Louvain a convoy of about 1,000 civilian prisoners.... Among the prisoners were a number of Belgian priests, one of whom,[358] especially caught my attention because at every halt he went from one to another of the prisoners and addressed words to them in an excited manner, so that I had to keep him under special observation. In Louvain we made over the prisoners at the _Station_.... On the following morning it was reported to me ... that the above-mentioned priest had shot at one of the men of the guard, but had failed to hit him, and in consequence had himself been shot in the _Station Square_.”

Such were the rumours that passed current in the German Army; but there is no reference in this officer’s deposition to what really happened at the _Station_ on the night of the 27th-28th. The prisoners arrived there about 7.0 p.m., and were immediately put on board a train. Their numbers had risen by now to between 2,000 and 3,000,[359] and the overcrowding was appalling. The curé of _Rotselaer_ was placed in a truck which had carried troops and was furnished with benches; but even this truck was made to hold 50 people,[360] while the majority were forced into cattle trucks--from 70 to 100 men, women, and children in each,[361] which had never been cleaned, and were knee-deep in dung.[362] They stood in these trucks all night, while the train remained standing in the _Station_. On August 28th, about 6.0 in the morning, they started for _Cologne_, but the stoppages and shuntings were interminable, and _Cologne_ was not reached till the afternoon of August 31st. During these four days--from the evening of August 27th to the afternoon of August 31st--the prisoners were given nothing to eat,[363] and were not allowed to get out of the train to relieve themselves when it stopped.[364] “We had nothing to eat,” states one of them,[365] “not even the child one month old.”--“My wife was suckling her child,” states another,[366] “but her milk came to an end. My wife was crying nearly all the time. The baby was dreadfully ill, and nearly died.”--“We had been without food for two days and nights, and had nothing to drink till we got to _Cologne_, except that one of my fellow-prisoners had a bottle of water, from which we just wetted our lips.”[367]--“I asked for some water for my child at _Aix-la-Chapelle_, and it was refused. It was the soldiers that I asked, and they spat at me when they refused the water. The soldiers also took all the money that I had upon me.”[368]--“We had not been allowed to leave the train to obey the calls of nature, till at _Cologne_ we went on our knees and begged the soldiers to allow us to get down.”[369]

The brutality of the soldiers did not stop short of murder. “At _Henne_,” where the train stopped at 3.30 a.m. on August 29th, “a man got out to satisfy nature. He belonged to the village of _Wygmael_. He was going towards the side of the line when three German soldiers approached him. One of them caught hold of him and threw him on the ground, and he was bayonetted by one or other of them in his left side. The man cried out; then the German soldier withdrew his bayonet and showed his comrades how far it had gone in. He then wiped the blood off his bayonet by drawing it through his hand.... After the soldier had wiped his bayonet, he and his comrades turned the man over on his face.... A few minutes after he had wiped his bayonet, he put his hand in his pocket and took out some bread, which he ate....”[370]

Between Louvain and the frontier two men in a passenger-carriage “tried to escape and broke the windows. The German sentinels bayonetted these two men and killed them.”[371]

Two people on the train went mad,[372] and two committed suicide.[373] When the train started again after its halt at _Liége_, a man from _Thildonck_ was run over, and it was supposed that he had thrown himself under the wheels to put himself out of his misery.[374] When the train was emptied at _Cologne_, three of the prisoners were taken out dead.[375]

The trucks were chalked with the inscription: “Civilians who shot at the soldiers at Louvain,”[376] and at every place in Germany where the train stopped the prisoners were persecuted by the crowd.[377] “At _Aix-la-Chapelle_,” states the curé of _Rotselaer_, “an officer came up to spit on me.”[378] At _Aix_, too, those destined for the internment camp at _Münster_ had to change trains and were marched through the streets. “As we went,” states one of them,[379] “the German women and children spat at us.”--“We arrived at _Aix-la-Chapelle_,” states another witness.[380] “There the German people shouted at us. At _Dürren_, between _Aix-la-Chapelle_ and _Cologne_, 4,000 German people crowded round. I turned round to the old woman with eight children, and said: ‘Do these people think we are prisoners? Show them one of your little children, at the window.’ This child was a month old, and naked. When the child was shown at the window a hush came over the crowd.”

“When we reached _Cologne_ a crowd came round the trucks, jeering at us, and as we marched out they prodded us with their umbrellas and pelted us and shouted: ‘Shoot them dead! Shoot them dead!’--and drew their fingers across their throats.”[381]

“At _Cologne_,” states the curé of _Rotselaer_,[382] “we had to leave the train and parade--men, women and children--through the streets under the surveillance of the police.”--“On the way,” adds another,[383] “the children in the streets threw stones at us.”

They were herded for the night into an exhibition-ground called the “Luna Park,” and here their first food was served out to them--for every ten persons one loaf of mouldy bread.[384] A certain number found shelter in a “joy-wheel”; the rest spent the night in the open, in the rain. The guards amused themselves by making individuals kneel down in turn and threatening them with execution.[385] Next morning they were marched back to the station, once more under the insults of the crowd, and started to retrace their journey, but not all of them were allowed to return. A batch of 300 men were kept at _Cologne_ for a week, during which time 60 of their number were shot before the eyes of the rest, while the survivors were paraded through the town again and subjected more than once to a sham execution.[386] Others[387] were sent direct from _Aix-la-Chapelle_ to the internment camp at _Münster_, where the Garde Civique of Louvain had been sent before. In this camp the men were separated completely from the women and children--one of them was the man[388] whose baby had nearly died on the way, and for six weeks he was kept in ignorance of what was happening to the baby and to his wife. For the first six weeks they were given no water to wash in, and no soap during the whole period of their imprisonment. They were not allowed to smoke or read or sing. This particular prisoner was allowed by special grace to return to Louvain with his family on December 6th, but the others still remained.

Meanwhile, the main body of the prisoners was being transported back to Belgium. This return journey was almost as painful as the journey out; they were almost as badly crowded and starved;[389] but the delays were less, and they reached _Brussels_ on September 2nd. While they were halted at _Brussels_, Burgomaster Max managed to serve out to each of them a ration of white bread.[390] They were carried on to _Schaerbeek_, detrained, and marched in column to _Vilvorde_. “I was in the last file,” states one of them.[391] “We were made to run quickly, and the soldiers struck us on the back with their rifles and on the arms with their bayonets.”--“On the way to _Vilvorde_ one man sprang into the water, a canal--he was mad by then. The German soldiers threw empty bottles at this man in the water; they were bottles they got from the houses as they passed, and were drinking from on the way.”[392] At _Vilvorde_ they were informed that they were free.[393] They dragged themselves forward towards the Belgian lines, but at _Sempst_ another party of Germans took them prisoner again.[393] “The Germans thrust their bayonets quite close to our chests,” states one of the prisoners;[394] “then four of them prepared to shoot us, but they did not shoot. One of the prisoners went mad; I was made to hold him, and he hurt me very much.” Finally the officer commanding the picket let them go once more. They asked if they might return to Louvain. “If you go back that way we will kill you,” the officer said; “you have to go that way,” and he pointed towards _Malines_.[395] It was now midnight, and pouring with rain. The prisoners stumbled on again, and made their way, in scattered parties, to the Belgian outposts.[396]

This horrible railway journey to _Cologne_ was the last stroke in the campaign of terrorisation carried out against Louvain after the night of August 25th by the deliberate policy of the German Army Command. A refugee who had returned to the city on August 28th, and had been kept prisoner during the night, was released with her fellow prisoners on the 29th. “We will not hurt you any more,” said the officer in command; “stay in Louvain. All is finished.”[397]

On August 30th the staff of the _Hôpital St.-Thomas_, who had defied the proclamation of the 27th and remained continuously at their posts, took the task of reconstruction in hand.[398] A committee of notables was formed, and overtures were made to Major von Manteuffel, the German Etappen-Kommandant in the town. On September 1st a proclamation, signed by the provisional municipal government, was posted up, with von Manteuffel’s sanction, in the streets.[399] It communicated a promise from the German Military Authorities that pillage and arson should thenceforth cease, and it invited the inhabitants to come back to Louvain and take up again their normal life. The most pressing task was to clear the ruins, and to find and bury the dead. In Louvain alone, not including the suburban communes, 1,120 houses had been destroyed and 100 civilians had been killed during this week of terror.

“We arrived at Louvain,” writes a German soldier in his diary on August 29th.[400] “The whole place was swarming with troops. Landsturmers of the Halle Battalion came along, dragging things with them--chiefly bottles of wine--and many of them were drunk. A tour round the town with ten bicyclists in search of billets revealed a picture of devastation as bad as any imaginable. Burning and falling houses bordered the streets; only a house here and there remained standing. Our tour led us over broken glass, burning wood-work and rubble. Tram and telephone wires trailed in the streets. Such barracks as were still standing were full up. Back to the _Station_, where nobody knew what to do next. Detached parties were to enter the streets, but actually the Battalion marched in close order into the town, to break into the first houses and loot--no, of course, only to ‘requisition’--for wine and other things. Like a wild pack they broke loose, each on their own; officers set a good example by going on ahead. A night in a barracks with many drunk was the end of this day, which aroused in me a contempt I cannot describe.”

* * * * *

* * * * *

SKETCH TAKEN FROM MAP ATTACHED TO THE GERMAN WHITE BOOK.

The cross hatching denotes the quarters burnt down, and is reproduced exactly from the German original.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[74] xv p. 20.

[75] Bryce pp. 183-4.

[76] xvii p. 66; xxi p. 129; Morgan p. 101; Bland p. 121; Davignon p. 107.

[77] The man was a glass-maker.

[78] xvii p. 66.

[79] xvii p. 63.

[80] Reply pp. 140-1; k4; Bédier pp. 10-1; i pp. 3-4.

[81] There had been Belgian _soldiers_ with a machine-gun in the village.

[82] k18.

[83] Reply p. 128.

[84] Davignon p. 97.

[85] xv p. 20.

[86] c1-38; Belg. xxi pp. 111-4; Anns. 1, 7; Reply pp. 147-178; German White Book, A; Struyken; Davignon p. 97.

[87] Reply No. 1; g2.

[88] c1, 6, 9, 15; R. No. 9.

[89] c1, 15; R. Nos. 4, 9, 11.

[90] German White Book, A 2.

[91] White Book A 3, Appendix.

[92] White Book A 5.

[93] A 4.

[94] White Book A 5.

[95] cp. A 3, Appendix.

[96] c 4, 8.

[97] R. No. 3; c 12.

[98] White Book A 2 and 3 (Appendix).

[99] c 1, 4, 5; R. No. 11.

[100] R. Nos. 9, 10, 15.

[101] R. No. 16.

[102] c 7, 13, 20, 23-5; R. Nos. 12, 13, 15, 16.

[103] R. No. 9.

[104] cp. the treatment of the monks at Louvain, p. 137 below.

[105] Davignon, p. 97.

[106] R. p. 171.

[107] c39-45.

[108] c3, 23-5, 40; R. No. 10 (Aerschot).

[109] c54-6.

[110] c48-9, 52; R. pp. 351-3.

[111] For his death see footnote on p. 151 below.

[112] c60-63.

[113] c 46-47.

[114] g 16-18.

[115] d 1-9.

[116] d 10-65; vii p. 54.

[117] d 18, 20, 21, 34, 52, 62.

[118] d 11, 18, 20, 21, 37, 39, 41, 44.

[119] d 36, 38, 40.

[120] d 32-4, 38-9.

[121] d 12, 13, 16, 17, 20, 21, 25, 27, 29-31, 33, 35, 38, 43, 46, 52, 54-7, 62-5.

[122] d 10, 13, 15, 26, 47.

[123] d 36, cp. 37.

[124] vii p. 54.

[125] d 66-83.

[126] d 67-9, 72, 75.

[127] d 66, 69-72, 77-9.

[128] d 74, cp. 81.

[129] d 87-9; g 20.

[130] xv p. 22; g 18; d 90-1, 26.

[131] x pp. 78-9.

[132] Mercier.

[133] d 92-3.

[134] d 112-4; cp. Massart, pp. 338-9.

[135] g 22.

[136] k 21.

[137] Reply p. 431; Mercier.

[138] d 125.

[139] 94.

[140] d 100-8.

[141] R. pp. 378-380.

[142] d 110-1.

[143] d 95-9.

[144] Mercier.

[145] “Germans,” p. 26.

[146] e23.

[147] R29; cp. “Germans,” p. 9; Chambry, p. 14; e5; R24.

[148] “Germans,” p. 15; R24.

[149] Chambry, p. 16.

[150] e2; R7, 10.

[151] R24; Chambry, p. 17.

[152] “Horrors,” p. 31.

[153] e25.

[154] R24; cp. R11; e2; “Germans,” p. 25.

[155] e23.

[156] e2; R18.

[157] “Germans,” p. 25.

[158] “Germans,” p. 26; R24.

[159] “Horrors,” p. 31.

[160] R7, 24.

[161] R10.

[162] R1, 24; “Germans,” pp. 28-9.

[163] R29.

[164] R2, 24, 29.

[165] “Germans,” p. 31; Grondijs, p. 34; e 1; R1, 8, 11, 17.

[166] “Germans,” pp. 31-2.

[167] e 1.

[168] e 1; “Germans,” p. 32; D7, 8.

[169] “Germans,” p. 32.

[170] “Germans,” p. 32; Davignon, p. 97; R17.

[171] Chambry, p. 21; e3; R17.

[172] R7; D46.

[173] D46.

[174] D46.

[175] D7, 8.

[176] e1; R8.

[177] R7, 17.

[178] Chambry, pp. 22-3.

[179] R6.

[180] D7, 10, 12, 13, 14-18, 22; cp. D46.

[181] R6.

[182] R4.

[183] R7.

[184] D46.

[185] D8.

[186] e8.

[187] D8, 22.

[188] R20.

[189] R3.

[190] “Germans,” p. 33.

[191] R3.

[192] R13.

[193] e 1; cp. R8.

[194] Morgan, p. 102.

[195] Chambry, p. 23.

[196] R2.

[197] “Horrors,” p. 38.

[198] “Germans,” p. 33.

[199] R27.

[200] Also in the _Rue Vital Decoster_, north of the _Rue de la Station_ (R13).

[201] D29; cp. R2.

[202] D20; cp. D25, 27.

[203] “Germans,” pp. 41, 107; e24; R29.

[204] “Germans,” p. 107; Grondijs p. 58.

[205] e5; cp. e13; R10.

[206] xxi p. 115.

[207] R5.

[208] D20.

[209] D9.

[210] R13.

[211] D9.

[212] D3.

[213] D1.

[214] D10.

[215] “Germans” pp. 33-5.

[216] R25.

[217] R29 (Statement by the Abbé van den Bergh, accredited by His Eminence Cardinal Piffl, Prince-Bishop of Vienna, to conduct inquiries on behalf of the Wiener Priester-Verein); cp. R25.

[218] e8.

[219] R3; cp. e24.

[220] R29; cp. e26.

[221] D1 (von Boehn), 2, 3 (von Manteuffel), 9, 49 (2).

[222] e13; cp. R17, 24.

[223] D3.

[224] D2; cp. D11.

[225] D36 (1).

[226] D36 (2).

[227] _Area of incendiarism_: “Eye-witness” p. 1; “Horrors” pp. 39, 43; “Germans” pp. 35-8, 92; Chambry pp. 25, 92; _Apparatus_: e2, 13; R8, 13; cp. also D31, 37 (2)

[228] R24.

[229] D46.

[230] R8; e23; cp. “Germans” p. 46.

[231] R13; cp. e14, 28.

[232] e13; cp. e24.

[233] D4.

[234] R14 (Grondijs); cp. R19, 29.

[235] R29; cp. “Eye-witness” p. 3; “Germans” p. 37; R25.

[236] e2, 23; R10, 11, 18, 24.

[237] e1; R8.

[238] R10.

[239] D46.

[240] R8, 26; e14.

[241] e1.

[242] e8; cp. “Horrors” p. 39; e17; R8, 15, 17.

[243] D9; cp. R24; e14 (M. David-Fischbach’s servant).

[244] Chambry pp. 26-7.

[245] “Germans” p. 42.

[246] e16.

[247] e1.

[248] e15.

[249] e17.

[250] e15.

[251] e19.

[252] e17.

[253] e13.

[254] Grondijs p. 39.

[255] “Germans” pp. 46-7.

[256] R19.

[257] “Germans” p. 43.

[258] R2.

[259] R11, 17.

[260] R13.

[261] e1, 9, 13; R7, 8, 26.

[262] D37 (2).

[263] Grondijs p. 41.

[264] “Germans” pp. 43-5; e2.

[265] R24.

[266] D2.

[267] “Horrors” p. 40; “Germans” p. 47; xxi p. 115; R6, 10.

[268] e3.

[269] e4; cp. R7.

[270] e1 = R8; cp. R1, 7.

[271] R17.

[272] e3.

[273] e1 = R8.

[274] Killed, October, 1914.

[275] D38.

[276] e4; cp. R20.

[277] e4.

[278] D38.

[279] D48.

[280] D38.

[281] e13.

[282] R9.

[283] D19; cp. D37 (3), 41, 43.

[284] e13; cp. Chambry pp. 38-9.

[285] “Eye-witness” p. 4; cp. “Horrors” p. 39; Chambry pp. 33, 71-2; D37 (2).

[286] e2.

[287] Grondijs pp. 50-1.

[288] e4; R9.

[289] D44.

[290] R1, 7, 8 (= e1), 20, 26.

[291] R26 (his deposition); cp. Grondijs, pp. 70-1.

[292] R1, 8 (= e1).

[293] R1, 7, 26.

[294] R1, 8.

[295] R26.

[296] R7.

[297] R8.

[298] xxi p. 117; e18, 21; R22; “Germans” pp. 59-61.

[299] e21.

[300] e21.

[301] e18.

[302] R22; cp. e18, 21; “Germans” p. 60.

[303] R22; e18.

[304] xxi p. 117.

[305] cp. p. 76 above.

[306] R23.

[307] Chambry p. 33; Grondijs p. 47.

[308] A German soldier was so much shocked at this that he fetched the milk himself.

[309] e3 = R15; R17.

[310] “Germans” pp. 52-4, 71; Chambry pp. 40-1, 73; “Horrors” pp. 40-1; Grondijs p. 52; “Eye-witness” p. 5; e2; R11; D31.

[311] “Germans” p. 54.

[312] xxi p. 116.

[313] R11.

[314] Chambry pp. 53-4.

[315] R11.

[316] e2.

[317] R12.

[318] “Eye-witness” pp. 5-9; “Germans” p. 58; Grondijs pp. 61-71 (= R14); Chambry p. 73; R4, 13, 21 (= xxi pp. 117-9; “Eye-witness” pp. 8-9).

[319] R13.

[320] R22.

[321] “Eye-witness” p. 5.

[322] R21.

[323] “Eye-witness” p. 6.

[324] R21; “Eye-witness” p. 7.

[325] R21.

[326] R21.

[327] “Germans” p. 72; “Horrors” p. 42; cp. Chambry p. 56.

[328] e3.

[329] R24.

[330] “Grondijs” p. 51.

[331] e4.

[332] e8.

[333] R10.

[334] R24.

[335] e26.

[336] Chambry p. 86; v. p. 29.

[337] R11.

[338] “Germans” pp. 73, 89.

[339] R10.

[340] R13.

[341] Chambry pp. 74-7.

[342] R19.

[343] e16.

[344] R19.

[345] R24.

[346] Chambry p. 52.

[347] R19.

[348] D19.

[349] “Germans” p. 107; Grondijs p. 58; cp. p. 105 above.

[350] D21.

[351] R27 (Deposition of Mgr. Deploige, President of the _Institut Supérieur de Philosophie_ and Director of the _Hôpital St.-Thomas_); R29 (Report by Abbé Van den Bergh, accredited by His Eminence Cardinal Piffl, Prince-Bishop of Vienna, to make enquiries on behalf of the Vienna Priester-Verein).

[352] e3.

[353] R16.

[354] e3.

[355] R17.

[356] e3.

[357] D34.

[358] This was the Priest of _Herent_, the Abbé van Bladel, whose body was exhumed at _Louvain_ on Jan. 14th, 1915, in the _Station Square_ (R30).

[359] e5, 7, 17; R16.

[360] R16; cp. e10.

[361] e3, 7, 17; “Germans” p. 68 (Narrative of a Bulgarian student).

[362] e3, 7, 10, 17; “Germans” p. 68.

[363] e3, 5, 10; R17.

[364] e3, 7, 17.

[365] e3.

[366] e5.

[367] e10.

[368] e5.

[369] e17.

[370] e10; confirmed by e11.

[371] e5.

[372] e3; cp. e7; R17.

[373] e3.

[374] e10, 11.

[375] e16.

[376] e16.

[377] e10.

[378] R16.

[379] e5.

[380] e3 = R15.

[381] e7; cp. e10.

[382] R16; cp. e10; R17; “Germans” p. 68.

[383] e17.

[384] e17; R16.

[385] R15.

[386] e16.

[387] e5.

[388] e5.

[389] e3.

[390] e7, 10, 17; R16, 17.

[391] e17; cp. e3; R15, 16, 17.

[392] e7; R16, 17.

[393] e3, 17; R15.

[394] e17.

[395] e3; R15.

[396] R16.

[397] e13.

[398] “Germans” p. 84 _seqq._; R27.

[399] “Germans” p. 86; R27.

[400] Ann. 8 (Extract from the Diary of Gaston Klein); cp. Bryce p. 80, No. 32.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and relabeled consecutively through the document.

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typos have been corrected.

Abbreviations for references have inconsistent spacing, such as c1 versus c 1, and these have been left as they appear in the original publication.

Changes have been made as follows:

Footnote 86: Struycken changed to Struyken (A; Struyken; Davignon)

Footnote 139: Reference letter is missing and is probably d (d 94).

End of Project Gutenberg's The German Terror in Belgium, by Arnold J. Toynbee