(v)Louvain.

13.Brussels: A Booking-Office

14.Malines After Bombardment

In one house they bound a bed-ridden man to his bed, and shot another man in the presence of 13 children who were in the house (d 29). In another house they burned a woman and two children (d 71); they burned the owner of a bicycle shop in his shop;[127]these four bodies were found, carbonised, by the Belgian troops. The Belgians also found a woman dead in the street, with four bayonet wounds in her body (d 36), and saw an Uhlan overtake a woman driving in a cart, thrust his lance through her body, and then shoot her in the chest with his carbine (d 80). In a farmhouse the farmer was found with his head cut off. His two sons, killed by bullet wounds, were lying beside him. His wife, whose left breast had been cut off, was still alive, and told how, when her eight-year-old son had gone up a ladder into the loft, the Germans had pulled away the ladder and set the building on fire.[128]Twenty-seven houses were burnt at Sempst, 200 sacked, 18 inhabitants killed, and 34 deported to Germany.

AtWeerde34 houses were burnt. As the Germans retreated they bayonetted two little girls standing in the road and tossed them into the flames of a burning house—their mother was standing by (d 85). AtEppeghem[129]176 houses were burnt, 8 civilians killed, and 125 deported. The killing was done with the bayonet. A woman with child, whose stomach had been slashed open, died in the hospital at Malines. When the Germans returned to Eppeghem again, they used the remaining civilians as a screen. On August 28th they did the same atElewyt,[130]not even exempting old men or women with child. We have the testimony of a Belgian priest who was driven in the screen, and of a Belgian soldier in the trenches against which the screen was driven. A hundred and thirty-three houses were burnt at Elewyt, and 10 civilians killed. The Belgian troops found the body of a man tied naked to a ring in a wall. His head was riddled with bullets, there was a bayonet wound in his chest, and he had been mutilated obscenely. A woman, also mutilated obscenely after violation, was lying dead on the ground. In another house a man and a woman were found, with bayonet wounds all over their bodies, on the floor. AtPerck180 houses (out of 243) were sacked and 5 civilians killed. AtBueken50 houses were burnt, 30 sacked (out of 84), and 8 civilians killed. The victims were killed in a meadow in the sight of the women and children.[131]Among them wasthe parish priest.[132]“He was a man 75 or 80 years old. He could not walk fast enough. He was driven along with blows from rifle-butts and knocked down. He cried out: ‘I can go no further,’ and a soldier thrust a bayonet into his neck at the back—the blood flowed out in quantities. The old man begged to be shot, but the officer said: ‘That is too good for you.’ He was taken off behind a house and we heard shots. He did not return....” (d 97, cp. 98). AtVilvorde[133]33 houses were burnt and 6 civilians killed. In the wholeCanton of Vilvorde, in which all these places, except Malines, lay, 611 houses were burnt, 1,665 plundered, 90 civilians killed, and 177 deported to Germany.

The devastation spread through the whole zone of the German retreat. AtCapelle-au-Bois[134]the Belgian troops found two girls hanging naked from a tree with their breasts cut off, and two women bayonetted in a house, caught as they were making preparations to flee. A woman told them how German soldiers had held her down by force, while other soldiers had violated her daughter successively in an adjoining room. Four civilians were killed at Capelle-au-Bois and 235 houses burnt. AtLonderzeel[135]18 houses were burnt and one civilian killed. He was a man who had tried to preventthe Germans from violating his two daughters. When the Germans re-entered Londerzeel they used the civilian population as a screen. AtRamsdonck, near Londerzeel, a woman and two children were shot by the Germans as they were flying for protection towards the Belgian lines.[136]AtWolverthem10 houses were burnt and 5 people killed. AtMeysse3 houses were burnt and 350 sacked, 2 civilians killed and 29 deported. AtBeyghem32 houses were burnt. AtPont-Brûlé,[137]on Aug. 25th, the priest was imprisoned with 28 other civilian hostages in a room. The German soldiers compelled him to hold up his hands for hours, and struck him when he lowered them from fatigue. They compelled his fellow-prisoners to spit on him. They tore up his breviary and threw the fragments in his face. When he fainted they threw pails of water on him to revive him. As he was reviving he was shot. Fifty-eight houses were burnt in the commune of Pont-Brûlé-Grimbergen, 5 civilians shot, and 65 deported. These places lay in theCanton of Wolverthem, west of the river Senne, between Termonde, Malines, and Brussels. In the whole canton 426 houses were burnt, 1,292 plundered, 29 civilians killed, and 182 deported to Germany.

15.Malines: Ruins

16.Malines: Ruins

In the district between Malines and Aerschot it was the same, and places which had suffered already onAug. 19th were devastated again on Aug. 25th and the following days. AtHever[138]in the Canton of Haecht, a baby was found hanged by the neck to the handle of a door. Thirty-five houses were burnt. AtBoortmeerbeek[139]103 houses were burnt and 300 sacked (out of 437); 5 civilians were killed—one of them a little girl who was bayonetted in the road. AtHaecht[140]5 men were seized as hostages and then shot in cold blood. One of them survived, though he was bayonetted twice after the shooting to “finish him off.” Seven others were stripped naked and threatened with bayonets, but instead of being killed they were used as a screen. The Belgian troops found the body of a woman on the road, stripped to the waist and with the breasts cut off. There was another woman with her head cut off and her body mutilated. There was a child with its stomach slashed open with a bayonet, and another—two or three years old—nailed to a door by its hands and feet. At Haecht 40 houses were burnt.

AtThildonck31 houses were burnt and 10 civilians killed. Seven of those killed in the commune of Thildonck belonged to the family of the two Valckenaers brothers, whose farms (situated close to one another) were occupied by the Belgian troops early on the morningof August 26th. As the Germans counter-attacked, the Belgian soldiers opened fire on them from the farm buildings and then retired. A platoon of Germans, with an officer at their head, entered Isodore Valckenaers’ farm (where the whole family was gathered) about 8.0 a.m. Isodore and two of his nephews—barely more than boys—were shot at once. His daughter, who clung to him and begged for his life, was torn away. The two young men were killed instantaneously. The elder, though horribly wounded by the bullet, survived, and was rescued next day. The rest of the family—a group of eleven women and children, for François-Edouard Valckenaers, the other brother, was away—were shot down half-an-hour later. They were herded together in the garden and fired on from all sides. Madame Isodore Valckenaers was holding her youngest baby in her arms. The bullet broke the child’s arm and mangled its face, and then tore the mother’s lip and destroyed one of her eyes. (The baby died, but the mother survived.) Madame F.-E. Valckenaers also survived—her dress was spattered with the brains of her fourteen-year-old son, whom she was holding by the hand. Five died altogether out of this group of eleven—some instantaneously, some after hours of agony. The eldest of them was only eighteen, the youngest was two-and-a-half. Thus seven of the Valckenaers’ family were killed in all out of the fourteenpresent, and three were severely wounded. Only four were left unscathed.[141]

AtWerchter[142]267 houses were burnt and 162 sacked (out of 496), 15 civilians were killed, and 32 deported. The priests ofWygmaelandWesemaelwere dragged away as hostages, and driven, with a crowd of civilians from Herent, as a screen in front of the German troops on Aug. 29th. At Wesemael 46 houses were burnt, 13 civilians killed and 324 deported. AtHolsbeekone civilian was killed and 35 houses burnt. In the wholeCanton of Haecht899 houses were burnt, 1,772 plundered, 116 civilians killed, and 647 deported.

As the Germans fell back south-eastward, the devastation spread into the Canton of Louvain. “When the Germans first arrived atHerent,”[143]states a witness (d 97), “they did nothing, but when they were repulsed from Malines they began to ill-treat the civilians.” They shot a man at his door, and threw another man’s body into a burning house. AtAanbosch, a hamlet of Herent, they dragged 4 men and 9 women out of their houses and bayonetted them. In the commune of Herent they killed 22 civilians (the priest was among the later victims)[144]and deported 104 altogether, burned 312 houses and sacked 200. AtVelthemthey killed 14 civilians and burned 44 houses. AtWinxelethey burned 57 houses and killed 5 civilians—the soldier who had shot and bayonetted one of them thrust his bayonet into the faces of the hostages: “Smell, smell! It is the blood of a Belgian pig” (d 97-8). AtCorbeek-Loo20 civilians were killed, 62 deported, and 129 houses burnt. AtWilsele36 houses were burnt and 7 people killed. One of them was an epileptic who had a seizure while he was being carried away as a hostage. Since he could go no further, he was shot through the head (d 129). AtKessel-Loo59 people were killed and 461 houses burnt; atLinden6 and 103; atHeverlé6 and 95. In the wholeCanton of Louvain2,441 houses were burnt, 2,722 plundered, 251 civilians killed, and 831 deported. About 40 per cent. of this destruction was done in the City of Louvain itself, on the night of August 25th and on the following nights and days. The destruction of Louvain was the greatest organised outrage which the Germans committed in the course of their invasion of Belgium and France, and as such it stands by itself. But it was also the inevitable climax of the outrages to which they had abandoned themselves in their retreat upon Louvain from Malines. The Germans burned and massacred invariably, wherever they passed, but there was a bloodthirstiness and obscenity in their conduct on this retreat which is hardly paralleled in their other exploits,and which put them in the temper for the supreme crime which followed.

The Germans enteredLouvainon August 19th. The Belgian troops did not attempt to hold the town, and the civil authorities had prepared for the Germans’ arrival. They had called in all arms in private possession and deposited them in the Hôtel-de-Ville. This had been done a fortnight before the German occupation,[145]and was repeated, for security, on the morning of the 19th itself.[146]The municipal commissary of police remarked the exaggerated conscientiousness with which the order was obeyed. “Antiquarian pieces, flint-locks and even razors were handed in.”[147]The people of Louvain were indeed terrified. They had heard what had happened in the villages round Liége, at Tongres and at St. Trond, and on the evening (August 18th) before the Germans arrived the refugees from Tirlemont had come pouring through the town.[148]The Burgomaster, like his colleagues in other Belgian towns, had posted placards on August 18th, enjoining confidence and calm.

The German entry on the 19th took place without disturbance. Large requisitions were at once made onthe town by the German Command. The troops were billeted on the inhabitants. In one house an officer demanded quarters for 50 men. “Revolver in hand, he inspected every bedroom minutely. ‘If anything goes wrong, you are allkaput.’ That was how he finished the business.”[149]It was vacation time, and the lodgings of the University students were empty. Many houses were shut up altogether, and these were broken into and pillaged by the German soldiers.[150]They pillaged enormous quantities of wine, without interference on the part of their officers. “The soldiers did not scruple to drain in the street the contents of stolen bottles, and drunken soldiers were common objects.”[151]There was also a great deal of wanton destruction—“furniture destroyed, mirrors and picture-frames smashed, carpets spoilt and so on.”[152]The house of Professor van Gehuchten, a scientist of international eminence, was treated with especial malice. This is testified by a number of people, including the Professor’s son. “They destroyed, tore up and threw into the street my father’s manuscripts and books (which were very numerous), and completely wrecked his library and its contents. They also destroyed the manuscript of an important work of my late father’s whichwas in the hands of the printer.”[153]—“This misdemeanour made a scandal,” states another witness. “It was brought to the knowledge of the German general, who seemed much put out, but took no measures of protection.”[154]The pillage was even systematic. A servant, left by an absent professor in charge of his house, found on August 20th that the Germans “had five motor-vans outside the premises. I saw them removing from my master’s house wine, blankets, books, etc., and placing them in the vans. They stripped the whole place of everything of value, including the furniture.... I saw them smashing glass and crockery and the windows.”[155]On August 20th there were already acts of violence in the outskirts of the town. At Corbeek-Loo a girl of sixteen was violated by six soldiers and bayonetted in five places for offering resistance. Her parents were kept off with rifles.[156]By noon on August 20th the town itself “was like a stable. Streets, pavements, public squares and trampled flower beds had disappeared under a layer of manure.”[157]

On August 20th the German military authorities covered the walls with proclamations: “Atrocities have been committed by (Belgian) franc-tireurs.”[158]—“Ifanything happens to the German troops,le total sera responsable”[159](an attempt to render in French the Prussian doctrine of collective responsibility). Doors must be left open at night. Windows fronting the street must be lighted up. Inhabitants must be within doors between 8.0 p.m. and 7.0 a.m. Most of these placards were ready-made in German, French and Russian. There were no placards in Flemish till after the events of August 25th. Yet Flemish was the only language spoken and understood by at least half the population of Louvain.

17.Malines: Cardinal Mercier’s State-Room as a Red Cross Hospital

18.Malines: The Cardinal’s Throne-Room

Hostages were also taken by the German authorities.[160]The Burgomaster, a City Councillor and a Senator were confined under guard in the Hôtel-de-Ville on the first day of occupation. From August 21st onwards they were replaced successively by other notables, including the Rector and Vice-Rector of the University. On August 21st there was another German proclamation, in which the inhabitants were called upon (for the third time) to deliver up their arms.[161]Requisitions and acts of pillage by individual officers and soldiers continued, and on the evening of August 24th the Burgomaster was dragged to the Railway Station and threatened with a revolver by a German officer, who had arrived with 250 men by train and demandeda hot meal and mattresses for them at once. Major von Manteuffel, the Etappen-Kommandant in the city, was called in and the Burgomaster was released, but without reparation.[162]On that day, too, the German wounded were removed from Louvain[163]—an ominous precaution—and in the course of the following day there were spoken warnings.[164]On the morning of this day, Tuesday, August 25th, Madame Roomans, a notary’s wife, is said to have been warned by the German officers billeted on her to leave the town. In the afternoon, about 5.0 o’clock, another lady reported how an officer, billeted on her and taking his leave, had added: “I hope you will be spared, for now it is going to begin.” At supper time, when the first shots were fired and the alarm was sounded, officers billeted on various households are said to have exclaimed “Poor people!”—or to have wept.

On the morning of August 25th there were few German troops in Louvain. The greater part of those that had entered the town since the 19th had passed on to the front in the direction of Malines, and were now engaged in resisting the Belgian sortie from Antwerp, which was made this day. As the Belgian offensive made progress, the sound of the cannon became louder and louder in Louvain,[165]and the German garrison grewincreasingly uneasy. Despatch riders from the front kept arriving at the Kommandantur;[166]at 4.0 o’clock a general alarm was sounded;[167]the troops in the town assembled and marched out towards the north-western suburbs;[168]military waggons drove in from the north-west in disorder, “their drivers grasping revolvers and looking very much excited.”[169]At the same time, reinforcements[170]began to detrain at theStation, which stands at the eastern extremity of the town, and is connected with the centralGrand’ Placeand with the University buildings by the broad, straight line of theRue de la Station, flanked with the private houses of the wealthier inhabitants. These fresh troops were billeted hastily by their officers in the quarters nearest theStation.[171]The cavalry were concentrated in thePlace du Peuple, a large square lying a short distance to the left of theRue de la Station, about half-way towards theGrand’ Place.[172]The square was already crowded with the transport that had been sent back during the day from the front.[173]As the reinforcements kept on detraining, and the quarters near theStationfilled up, the later arrivals went on to theGrand’ Placeand theHôtel-de-Ville,[174]which was the seat of the Kommandantur.

During all this time the agitation increased. About 7.0 o’clock a company of Landsturm which had marched out in the afternoon to the north-western outskirts of the town, were ordered back by their battalion commander to thePlace de la Station—the extensive square in front of thestation buildings, out of which theRue de la Stationleads into the middle of the city.[175]The military police pickets[176]in the centre of the city were on the alert. Between 7.0 and 7.30 the alarm was sounded again,[177]and the troops who had arrived that afternoon assembled from their billets and stood to arms.[178]The tension among them was extreme. They had been travelling hard all day; they had entered the town at dusk; it was now dark, and they did not know their way about the streets, nor from what quarter to expect the enemy forces, which were supposed to be on the point of making their appearance. It was in these circumstances that, a few minutes past eight o’clock, the shooting in Louvain broke out.

All parties agree that it broke out in answer to signals. A Belgian witness,[179]living near theTirlemont Gate,saw a German military motor-car dash up from theBoulevard de Tirlemont, make luminous signals at the Gate, and then dash off again. A fusillade immediately followed. The German troops bivouacked in thePlace de la Stationsaw two rockets, the first green and the second red, rise in quick succession from the centre of the town.[180]They found themselves under fire immediately afterwards. A similar rocket was seen later in the night to rise above the conflagration.[181]It is natural to suppose that the rockets, as well as the lights on the car, were German military signals of the kind commonly used in European armies for signalling in the dark. There had been two false alarms already that afternoon and evening; there is nothing incredible in a third. The German troops in thePlace de la Stationassumed that the signals were of Belgian origin (and therefore of civilian origin, as the Belgian troops did not after all reach the town), because these signals were followed by firing directed against themselves. They could not believe that the shots were fired in error by their own comrades, yet there is convincing evidence that this was the case.

It is certain that German troops fired on each other in at least two places—in theRue de la Stationand in theRue de Bruxelles, which leads into theGrand’ Placefrom the opposite direction.

“We were at supper,” states a Belgian witness,[182]whose house was in theRue de la Station, “when about 8.15, shots were suddenly fired in the street by German cavalry coming from theStation. The troops who were bivouacked in the square replied, and an automobile on its way to theStationhad to stop abruptly opposite my house and reverse, while its occupants fired. Within a few seconds the din of revolver and rifle shots had become terrific. The fusillade was sustained, and spread (north-eastward) towards theBoulevard de Diest. It became so furious that there was even gun-fire. The encounter between the German troops continued as far as theGrand’ Place, where on at least two occasions there was machine-gun fire. The fight lasted for from fifteen to twenty minutes with desperation; it persisted an hour longer after that, but with less violence.”

19.Capelle-au-Bois

20.Capelle-au-Bois

“At the stroke of eight,” states another witness,[183]“shots were heard by us, coming from the direction of thePlace du Peuple, where the German cavalry was concentrated. Part of the baggage-train, which was stationed in theRue Léopold, turned right about and went off at a gallop towards theStation. I was at my front door and heard the bullets whistling as they came from thePlace du Peuple. At this moment a sustainedfusillade broke out, and there was a succession of cavalry-charges in the direction of theStation.”

The stampede in thePlace du Peupleis described by a German officer[184]who was present. “I heard the clock strike in a tower.... Complete darkness already prevailed. At the same moment I saw a green rocket go up above the houses south-west of the square.... Firing was directed on the German troops in the square.... Whilst riding round the square, I was shot from my horse on the north-eastern side. I distinctly heard the rattling of machine-guns, and the bullets flew in great numbers round about me.... After I had fallen from my horse, I was run over by an artillery transport waggon, the horses of which had been frightened by the firing and stampeded....”

The shots by which this officer was wounded evidently came from German troops in theRue Léopold, where they were attacking the house of Professor Verhelst. The Landsturm Company bivouacked in theStation Squarewas already replying vigorously to what it imagined to be the Belgian fire, coming from theRue Léopoldand theRue de la Station.

“I stood with my Company,” states the Company Commander,[185]“at about ten minutes to eight in theStation Square. I had stood about five minutes, when suddenly, quite unexpectedly, shots were fired at myCompany from the surrounding houses, from the windows, and from the attics. Simultaneously I heard lively firing from theRue de la Station, as well as from all the neighbouring streets.” (Precisely the district in which the newly-arrived troops had taken up their quarters.) “Shots were also fired from the windows of my hotel—straight from my room” (which had doubtless been occupied by some newly-arrived soldier during the afternoon, while the witness was on duty at the Malines Gate)....

“We now knelt down and fired at the opposite houses.... I sought cover with my Company in the entrances of some houses. During the assault five men of my Company were wounded. The fact that so few were wounded is due to the fact that the inhabitants were shooting too high....

“About an hour later I was summoned to His Excellency General von Boehn, who was standing near by. His Excellency asked for an exact report, and, after I had made it, he said to me: ‘Can you take an oath concerning what you have just reported to me—in particular, that the first shots were fired by the inhabitants from the houses?’ I then answered: ‘Yes, I can swear to that fact.’”

But what evidence had the Lieutenant for the “fact” to which he swore? There was no doubt about the shots, but he gives no proof of the identity of those whofired them, and another witness,[186]who lived in a house looking on to theStation Square, is equally positive that the assailants, too, were German soldiers.

“Just before eight,” he states, “we heard one shot from a rifle, followed immediately after by two others, and then a general fusillade began. I went at once to my garden; the bullets were passing quite close to me; I went back to the house and on to the balcony, and there I saw the Germans, not fighting Belgians, but fighting each other at a distance of 200 or 300 yards. At 8.0 o’clock it begins to be dark, but I am perfectly certain it was Germans fighting Germans. The firing on both sides passed right in front of my house, and from the other side of the railway. I was low down on the balcony, quite flat, and watched it all. They fought hard for about an hour. The officers whistled and shouted out orders; there was terrible confusion until each side found out they were fighting each other, and then the firing ceased. About half an hour after, on the other side of the railway, I heard a machine-gun—I was told afterwards that the Germans were killing civilians with it. It went on certainly for at least five or six minutes, stopping now and then for a few seconds....”

This fighting near theStationseems to have been the first and fiercest of all, but the panic spread like wildfire through the city. It was spread by the horsesthat stampeded in thePlace du Peupleand elsewhere, and galloped riderless in all directions—across theStation Square,[187]through the suburb ofCorbeek-Loo,[188]down theRue de la Station,[189]and up theRue de Tirlemont,[190]theRue de Bruxelles,[191]and theRue de Malines.[192]The troops infected by the panic either ran amok or took to flight.

“About 8.0 o’clock,” states a witness,[193]“theRue de la Stationwas the scene of a stampede of horses and baggage waggons, some of which were overturned. A smart burst of rifle-fire occurred at this moment. This came from the German police-guard in theRue de la Station, who, seeing troops arrive in disorder, thought that it was the enemy. Another proof of their mistake is that later during the same night a group of German soldiers, under the command of an officer, got into a shop belonging to the F.’s and in charge of their nephew B., and told him, pointing their revolvers at him, to hide them in the cellar. A few hours afterwards, hearing troops passing, they compelled him to go and see if it was the French or the Germans, and when they learnt that it was the Germans, they calledout: ‘Then we are safe,’ and rejoined their compatriots.”

These new troops hurrying into the town in the midst of the uproar were infected by the panic in their turn and flung themselves into the fighting. “On August 25th,” states one of them in his diary,[194]“we hold ourselves on the alert atGrimde(a sugar refinery); here, too, everything is burnt and destroyed. FromGrimdewe continue our march upon Louvain; here it is a picture of horror all round; corpses of our men and horses; motor-cars blazing; the water poisoned; we have scarcely reached the outskirts of the town when the fusillade begins again more merrily than ever; naturally we wheel about and sweep the street; then the town is peppered by us thoroughly.”

In theRue Léopold, leading from theRue de la Stationinto thePlace du Peuple, “at 8.0 o’clock exactly a violent fusillade broke out.” The newly-arrived troops, who had been under arms since the alarm at 7.0 o’clock, “took to flight as fast as their legs could carry them. From our cellar,” states one of the householders on whom they had been billeted,[195]“we saw them running until they must have been out of breath.”

There was a single shot, followed by a fusillade and machine-gun fire, in theRue des Joyeuses Entrées.[196]Waggons and motor-cars were flying out of the town down theRue de Parc, and soldiers on foot down theRue de Tirlemont.[197]In theRue des Flamands, which runs at right-angles between these two latter roads, “at ten minutes past eight, a shot was fired quite close to theInstitut Supérieur de Philosophie” (now converted into theHôpital St. Thomas). “We had scarcely taken note of it,” states one of the workers in the hospital,[198]“when other reports followed. In less than a minute rifle-shots and machine-gun fire mingled in a terrific din. Accompanying the crack of the firearms, we heard the dull thud of galloping hoofs in theRue de Tirlemont.”

Mgr. Deploige, President of the Institute and Director of the Hospital, reports[199]that “a lively fusillade broke out suddenly at 8.0 o’clock (Belgian time), at different points simultaneously—at theBrussels Gate, at theTirlemont Gate, in theRue de la Station,Rue Léopold,Rue Marie-Thérèse,Rue des Joyeuses Entrées,Rue de Tirlemont, etc.[200]It was the German troops firing with rifles and machine-guns. Some houses were literally riddled with bullets, and a number of civilians were killed in their homes.”

Higher up theRue de Tirlemont, in the direction oftheGrand’ Place, there was a Belgian Infantry Barracks, which had been turned into a hospital for slightly incapacitated German soldiers. The patients were in a state of nervous excitement already. “Every man,” states one of them,[201]“had his rifle by his side, also ball-cartridge.”—“About 9.0 o’clock,” states another,[202]“we heard shots.... We had to fall in in the yard. A sergeant-major distributed cartridges among us, whereupon I marched out with about 20 men. In theRue de Tirlemonta lively fire was directed against us from guns of small bore.... We pushed our way into a restaurant from which shots had come, and found in the proprietor’s possession about 100 Browning cartridges. He was arrested and shot.”—“We now,” continues the former, “stormed all the houses out of which shots were being fired.... Those who were found with weapons were immediately shot or bayonetted.... I myself, together with a comrade, bayonetted one inhabitant who went for me with his knife....”

But who would not defend himself with a knife when attacked by an armed man breaking into his house? The witness admits that only five civilians were armed out of the twenty-five dragged out. Were these “armed” with knives? Or if revolver bullets were found in their houses, was it proved that they had not delivered up their revolvers at the time when they hadbeen ordered to do so by the municipal authorities and the German Command? The witness does not claim to have found the revolvers themselves as well as the ammunition, though even if he had that was no proof that his victims had been firing with them, or even that they were theirs. The German Army uses “Brownings” too, and at this stage of the panic many German soldiers had broken into private houses and were firing from the windows as points of vantage. Two German soldiers broke into the house of Professor Verhelst (Rue Léopold,16), and fired into the street out of the second storey window. Other Germans passing shouted: “They have been shooting here,” and returned the fire.[203]Mgr. Ladeuze, Rector of Louvain University, was looking from the window of his house adjoining the garden of theChemical Institute, Rue de Namur, and saw two German soldiers hidden among the trees and firing over the wall into the street.[204]Moreover, there is definite evidence of Germans firing on one another by mistake in other quarters beside the neighbourhood of theStation.

“I myself know,” declares a Belgian witness,[205]“that the Germans fired on one another on August 25th. On that day, at about 8.0 p.m., I was in theRue de Bruxellesat Louvain. I was hidden in a house. Therewas one party of German soldiers at one end of the street firing on another party at the other end. I could see that this happened myself. On the next day I spoke to a German soldier called Hermann Otto—he was a private in a Bavarian regiment. He told me that he himself was in theRue de Bruxellesthe evening before, and that the two parties firing on one another were Bavarians and Poles, he being among the Bavarians....”

The Poles openly blamed the Bavarians for the error. A wounded Polish Catholic, who was brought in during the night to the Dominican Monastery in theRue Juste-Lipse, told the monks that “he had been wounded by a German bullet in an exchange of shots between two groups of German soldiers.”[206]On the Thursday following, a wounded Polish soldier was lying in the hospital of the Sisters of Mary at Wesemael, and, seeing German troops patrolling the road between Wesemael and Louvain, exclaimed to one of the nuns: “These drunken pigs fired on us.”[207]

The casualties inflicted by the Germans on each other do not, however, appear to have been heavy. One German witness[208]saw “two dead transport horses and several dead soldiers” lying in thePlace du Peuple. Another[209]saw a soldier lying near theJuste-Lipse Monumentwho had been killed by a shot through the mouth. But most express astonishment at the lightness of the losses caused by so heavy a fire. “It is really a miracle,” said a German military doctor to a Belgian Professor in the course of the night,[210]“that not one soldier has been wounded by this violent fusillade.”—“A murderous fire,” states the surgeon of the Second Neuss Landsturm Battalion,[211]“was directed against us fromRue de la Station,No. 120. The fact that we or some of us were not killed I can merely explain by the fact that we were going along the same side of the street from which the shots were fired, and that it was night.”—“A tremendous fire,” states Major von Manteuffel, the Etappen-Kommandant,[212]“was opened from the houses surrounding theGrand’ Place, which was now filled with artillery (one battery), and with transport columns, motor-lorries and tanks of benzine.... I believe there were three men wounded, chiefly in the legs.” General von Boehn, commanding the Ninth Reserve Army Corps, estimates[213]that the total loss, in killed, wounded, and missing, of his General Command Staff, which was stationed in thePlace du Peuple, “amounts to 5 officers, 2 officials, 23 men, and 95 horses.”—“I note that the inhabitants fired far toohigh,” states a N.C.O. of the Landsturm Company drawn up in theStation Square.[214]“That was our good luck, because otherwise, considering the fearful fire which was directed against us from all the houses in theStation Square, most German officers and soldiers would have been killed or seriously wounded.”

Thus the German troops in Louvain seem not merely to have fired on one another, but to have exaggerated hysterically the amount of danger each incurred from the other’s mistake. And the legend grew with time. The deposition last quoted was taken down on September 17th, 1914, less than a month after the event. But when examined again, on November 19th, the same witness deposed that “Many of us were wounded, and some of us even received mortal wounds.... I fully maintain my evidence of September 17th,” he naïvely adds in conclusion.

On the night of August 25th these German soldiers were distraught beyond all restraints of reason and justice. They blindly assumed that it was the civilians, and not their comrades, who had fired, and when they discovered their error they accused the civilians, deliberately, to save their own reputation.

The Director and the Chief Surgeon of theHôpital St.-Thomaswent out into the street after the first fusillade was over. Three soldiers with fixed bayonets rushed at them shouting: “You fired! Die!”—and itwas only with difficulty that they persuaded them to spare their lives. When the firing began again a sergeant broke into the hospital shouting: “Who fired here?”—and placed the hospital staff under guard.[215]This was the effect of panic, but there were cases in which the firing was imputed to civilians, and punishment meted out for it, by means of criminal trickery. It was realised that the material evidence would be damning to the German Army. The empty cartridge cases were all German which were picked up in the streets,[216]and it is stated that every bullet extracted from the bodies of wounded German soldiers was found to be of German origin.[217]The Germans, convicted by these proofs, shrank from no fraud which might enable them to transfer the guilt on to the heads of Belgian victims.

“The Germans took the horses out of a Belgian Red Cross car,” states a Belgian witness[218]living in theStation Square, “frightened them so that they ran down the street, and then shot three of them. Two fell quite close to my house. They then took a Belgian artillery helmet and put it on the ground, so as to prepare amise-en-scèneto pretend that the Belgians had been fighting in the street.”

At a late hour of the night a detachment of German soldiers was passing one of the professors’ houses, when a shot rang out, followed by a volley from the soldiers through the windows of the house. The soldiers then broke in and accused the inmates of having fired the first shot. They were mad with fury, and the professor and his family barely escaped with their lives. A sergeant pointed to his boot, with the implication that the shot had struck him there; but a witness in another house actually saw this sergeant fire the original shot himself, and make the same gesture after it to incite his comrades.[219]

A staff-surgeon billeted on a curé in the suburb ofBlauwputpretended he had been wounded by civilians when he had really fallen from a wall. On the morning of the 26th the officer in local command arrested fifty-seven men atBlauwput, this curé included, in order to decimate them in reprisal for wounds which the surgeon and two other soldiers had received. The curé was exempted by the lot, when the surgeon came up with a handful of revolver-cartridges which he professed to have discovered in the curé’s house. The officer answered: “Go away. I have searched this house myself,” and the surgeon slunk off. The curé was not added to the victims, but every tenth man was shot all the same.[220]

That “the civilians had fired” was already an official dogma with the German military authorities in Louvain. Mgr. Coenraets, Vice-Rector of the University, was serving that day as a hostage at theHôtel-de-Ville. A Dominican monk, Father Parijs, was there at the moment the firing broke out, in quest of a pass for remaining out-of-doors at night on ambulance service. He was now retained as well, and Alderman Schmit was fetched from his house. Von Boehn, the General Commanding the Ninth Reserve Corps, harangued these hostages on his arrival from the Malines front, and von Manteuffel, the Etappen-Kommandant, then conducted them, with a guard of soldiers, round the town. Baron Orban de Xivry was dragged out of his house to join them on the way. The procession halted at intervals in the streets, and the four hostages were compelled to proclaim to their fellow-citizens, in Flemish and in French, that, unless the firing ceased, the hostages themselves would be shot, the town would have to pay an indemnity of 20,000,000 francs, the houses from which shots were fired would be burnt, and artillery-fire would be directed upon Louvain as a whole.[221]

But “reprisals” against the civil population had already begun. The firing from German soldiers in the houses upon German soldiers in the street was answered by a general assault of the latter upon all houses withintheir reach. “They broke the house-doors,” states a Belgian woman,[222]“with the butt-ends of their rifles.... They shot through the gratings of the cellars.”—“In theHôtel-de-Ville,” states von Manteuffel,[223]“I saw the Company stationed there on the ground floor, standing at the windows and answering the fire of the inhabitants. In front of theHôtel-de-Ville, on the entrance steps, I also saw soldiers firing in reply to the inhabitants’ fire in the direction of their houses.”—“Personally I was under the distinct impression,” states a staff officer,[224]“that we were fired at from the Hôtel Maria Theresa with machine-guns.” (This is quite probable, and merely proves that those who fired were German soldiers.) “The fire from machine-guns lasted from four to five minutes, and was immediately answered by our troops, who finally stormed the house and set it on fire.”—“The order was passed up from the rear that we should fire into the houses,” states an infantryman who had just detrained and was marching with his unit into the town.[225]“Thereupon we shot into the house-fronts on either side of us. To what extent the fire was answered I cannot say, the noise and confusion were too great.”—“We now dispersed towards both sides,” states a lance-corporal in the samebattalion,[226]“and fired into the upper windows.... How long the firing lasted I cannot say.... We now began shooting into the ground-floor windows too, as well as tearing down a certain number of the shutters. I made my way into the house from which the shot had come, with a few others who had forced open the door. We could find no one in the house. In the room from which the shot had come there was, however, a petroleum lamp, lying overturned on the table and still smouldering....”

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