(V.) MASSACRES AT HASTIERE AND SURICE
On August 23rd, the Germans entered the village of Hastiere-par-dela.[(1)] They arrested Dr. Halloy, a Surgeon of the Red Cross, and shot him. Crossing the street, they went to the house of Alphonse Aigret, a butcher, drove out him, his wife and his children, and shot him and his elder son. Next they went to the farm of Jules Rifon, took him out of his cellar, where he had hidden with his daughters, and shot him. They also killed the farmer Bodson and his two sons, with ten other inhabitants of the village. The place was then sacked, and the greater part of the houses burned. The number of persons killed or wounded was very large.
The ancient church of Hastiere suffered odious profanation. Horses were stabled in it. The priestly vestments were torn and befouled. The lamps, statues, and holy-water stoups were broken. The reliquary was smashed, and the relics scattered about. Among them were some relics of the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, which had escaped the fury of the Huguenots of 1590 and the Revolution of 1790. The tabernacle resisted an attempt at burglary, but two of the four altars were profaned; the sepulchres at the altars were broken open and the remains in them thrown out and trampled under foot.
The parish priest of Hastiere, Abbe Emile Schogel, had taken refuge in the crypt, with his brother-in-law, M. Ponthiere, a professor of the University of Louvain, the wife and two daughters of the professor, two servants, the schoolmaster of the village with his wife and family, and other inhabitants. The Germans fired at them through the windows of the crypt, and then forced them to come up to the road, where they were brought before several officers, of whom some were intoxicated. Some questions were put to the Abbe, but he was given no time to answer. The women were then dragged apart from the men, and the priest, M. Pointhiere, the schoolmaster, and the other men were shot; their bodies were left lying on the road. All this happened on August 24th, 1914, at about 5.30 in the afternoon.
On this same day the village of Surice was occupied by the German troops. At about 11 p. m. they set fire to some of the houses. Next morning, about 6 o’clock, the soldiers broke open doors and windows with the butts of their rifles, and forced all the inhabitants to come out. They were led off in the direction of the church. On the way several most inoffensive people were fired upon. For example, the old choirman, Charles Colot, aged 88, was shot as he came out of his door; the soldiers rolled his body in a blanket, and set fire to it.
A man named Elie Pierrot was seized by the Germans as he was coming out of his burning house, carrying his aged and impotent step-mother (she was over 80 years of age), and was shot at short range. The clerk, Leopold Burniaux, his son Armand, who had been recently ordained priest, and another of his sons were shot before the eyes of Madame Burniaux. She, with her last surviving son, a professor at the College of Malonne, were marched off with the surviving inhabitants on the road to Romedenne. In a garden below the road there was a dead woman lying, with two small children crying over her.
On arriving at Fosses the party were led to a piece of fallow ground—they numbered between 50 and 60 persons of both sexes. “It was about 7.15 a. m. when the men and the women were separated. An officer came up who said to us in French with a strong German accent, ‘You all deserve to be shot: a young girl of 15 has just fired on one of our Commanders. But the Court-martial has decided that only the men shall be executed: the women will be kept prisoners.’
“The scene that followed passes all description: there were eighteen men standing in a row: besides the parish priests of Anthee and Onhaye, and the Abbe Gaspiard, there was our own priest, Mons. Poskin, and his brother-in-law, Mons. Schmidt, then Doctor Jacques and his son Henri, aged just 16, then Gaston Burniaux, the clerk’s son, and Leonard Soumoy: next them two men named Balbeur and Billy, with the 17-year-old son of the latter: last two men from Onhaye and Dinant who had taken refuge in Surice, and two people more whom I did not know. Mons. Schmidt’s little boy of 14 was nearly put into the line—the soldiers hesitated, but finally shoved him away in a brutal fashion. At this moment I saw a young German soldier—this I vouch for—who was so horror-struck that great tears were dropping onto his tunic: he did not wipe his eyes for fear of being seen by his officer, but kept his head turned away.
“Some minutes passed: then under our eyes and amid the shrieks of women who were crying ‘Shoot me too; shoot me with my husband!’ and the wailing of the children, the men were lined up on the edge of the hollow way which runs from the high road to the bottom of the village. They waved last greetings to us, some with their hands, others with their hats or caps. The young Henri Jacques was leaning on the shoulder of one of the priests, as if to seek help and courage from him: he was sobbing, ‘I am too young; I can’t face death bravely.’ Unable to bear the sight any longer, I turned my back to the road and covered my eyes with my hands. The soldiers fired their volley, and the men fell in a heap. Someone said to me, ‘Look, they are all down!’ But they were not all shot dead; several were finished off by having their skulls beaten in with rifle-butts. Among these was the priest of Surice, whose head (as I was afterwards told) was dreadfully opened out.
“When the massacre was over the Germans plundered the corpses. They took from them watches, rings, purses, and pocket-books. Madame Schmidt told me that her husband had on him about 3,000 francs, which was stolen. Dr. Jacques had also a good sum on him, though his wife could not say exactly how much.
“After this some more German soldiers brought up a man named Victor Cavillot, and shot him before he reached the spot where the others were lying; they fired on him, and I saw him double up and fall into the hollow way.”[(2)]
The village of Surice was thoroughly sacked. The pillage began on Tuesday night, and continued all day on Wednesday. The safe of Madame Laurent-Mineur, a widow, was blown open with dynamite. Of the 131 houses of the village only eight escaped the conflagration.
This Report gives no more than an incomplete picture of the German ravages and crimes in the Province of Namur. We lack detailed knowledge of what went on in three of the six cantons which form the district of Namur. The total of 800 persons killed and 1,160 houses burned in that district may have to be largely increased. In the district of Dinant, that town itself and 21 villages have been destroyed. In the district of Philippeville 20 villages have been sacked, plundered, and more or less burned down. In the whole province, which has 364,000 inhabitants, nearly 2,000 unoffending people—men, women, and children—have been massacred.
The Commission makes it a rule to limit its publications to a mere statement of facts, thinking that no commentary could add anything to their tragic eloquence. It thinks, however, that the evidence given above leads to certain conclusions.
It has been said that when Belgium makes up the account of her losses, it may appear that war has levied more victims from the civil population than from the men who were called out to serve their country on the battlefield. This prophecy, which seemed contrary to reason, is now confirmed as regards the Province of Namur. In certain parts of it half the male adult population has disappeared: the horrors of the conflagrations at Louvain and Termonde, of the massacres at Aerschot and in Luxembourg and Brabant, are all surpassed by those of the slaughter at Dinant, at Andenne, at Tamines, and at Namur.
In this twentieth century the people of Namur have had to live through all the frightful details of a mediæval war, with its traditional episodes of massacres en masse, drunken orgies, sack of whole towns, and general conflagration. The “exploits” of the mercenary bands of the XVIIth Century have been surpassed by those of the national army of a State which claims the first place among civilized nations!
The German Government cannot deny the truth of these facts—they are attested by the ruins and the graves which cover our native soil. But already it has set to work to excuse its troops, affirming that they only repressed, in consonance with the Laws of War, the hostile acts of the Belgian civil population.
From the day of its First Session our Commission has been trying to discover what foundation there might be for this charge—a charge which seemed very unconvincing to anyone who knew the character of the Belgian people. After having examined hundreds of witnesses—foreigners and natives—and after having exhausted every possible means of investigation, we affirm once more that the Belgian people took no part in the hostilities. The supposed “France-Tireur” War, which is said to have been waged against the German Army, is a mere invention. It was invented in order to lessen in the eyes of the civilized world the impression caused by the barbarous treatment inflicted by the German Army on our people, and also to appease the scruples of the German nation, which will shudder with fear on the day when it learns what a tribute of innocent blood was levied by its troops on our children, our wives, and our defenseless fellow-citizens.
Moreover, the chiefs of the German Army have made a singular error when they try to influence the verdict of the civilized world by this particular argument. They seem unaware of the fact that the repression by general measures of individual faults—a system condemned by the International Conventions at which they scoff—has long been condemned by the conscience of the nations of to-day. Among those nations Germany appears for the future as a monstrous and disconcerting moral phenomenon.
(Signed) COOREMAN,
Minister of State, President.
COMTE GOBLET DE AVIELLA, Vice-President,
Minister of State and Vice-President of the Belgian Senate.
CHEVALIER ERNEST DE BUNSWYCK,
Chief Secretary to the Minister of Justice.
ORTS,
Councillor of Legation to H.M. the King of the Belgians.