2. Physical Tortures.
We shall not here refer to the innumerable cases of torture cited in the Reports of the Commission of Inquiry, nor those reported in Nothomb's La Belgique Martyre. We will confine ourselves to facts of which we have personal knowledge. The Germans will, of course, seek to deny them. So it is as well to begin by a declaration of their own. Vorwärts, on the 23rd August, 1914 (the very day on which the chief atrocities were committed in the Dinant district), protested against the proposal made by a German officer, not to kill francs-tireurs outright, but to wound them mortally and leave them to die slowly in agony, while forbidding any one to go to their assistance. What to our mind is even graver than the proposition itself is the fact that the Deutsches Offizierblatt accepted it as quite a natural thing.
It is clear that where they are proved, the cruelties committed by our enemies must be denounced, and that everything must be done to prevent their repetition. However, we must not allow the recital of these cruelties to force us to resort to a sort of policy of retaliation, or lead us to wash out what others have done with innocent blood.
What are we to say when we find an organ like the Deutsches Offizierblatt expressing its sympathy for the following proposition: The "brutes" captured as francs-tireurs should not be shot outright, but should be fired upon and left to their fate, all succour being prevented? What again are we to say when it is added that the destruction, in reprisal, of whole localities even does not represent "a sufficient vengeance for the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier assassinated"? These are the imaginings of bloodthirsty fanatics, and we are ashamed to perceive that men capable of speaking thus exist in our nation. Such expressions, even if they are not carried into action, are truly of a nature to place our struggle in an unfavourable light all the world over.
(Vorwärts, 23rd August, 1914.)
The Fate of the Valkenaers Family.
One of the most horrible tragedies of this war was the massacre of the Valkenaers family, at Thildonck, on the 26th August, 1914, while Louvain was burning. Because they had not prevented the Belgian soldiers from utilizing their farms as points of support, the members of the two Valkenaers households were shot down in cold blood. Of these fourteen unfortunate people three were grievously wounded and seven killed. The better to amuse themselves, the Germans forced the elder of the young girls to wave a sort of flag.
During the preceding night (that of the 25th August), in Louvain, they had savagely mangled the corpse of a young woman.
On the afternoon of the 25th, being still in the immediate neighbourhood, at Bueken, they had seized the curé and cut off his nose and ears before giving him the coup de grâce (p. [238]). At the same time began the torture of the curé of Pont-Brûlé, to end only on the 26th.
At Elewijt, on the 27th, they amused themselves by amputating the hands of four men—the three brothers Van der Aa and François Salu.
A little further to the east the first German troops who had passed through Schaffen, near Diest, on the 13th or 14th August, had there tortured the blacksmith Broeden. All day long he had laboured, shoeing the horses of the enemy's cavalry. Early in the evening he repaired to the church, with the sacristan, with the object of saving some precious articles which had not been placed in security. He was surprised by the soldiery and seized. Successively the Germans broke his wrists, his arms, and his legs; perhaps he suffered yet other tortures. When he was practically lifeless the soldiers asked him whether he thought that he would in future be capable of undertaking any kind of labour. On his replying, in an almost inaudible voice, that he did not, they declared that in that case he ought not to continue to live. Immediately they threw him, head first, into a ditch dug for the purpose; then the ditch was filled, leaving his feet protruding.
In other parts of the country also the most varied tortures. At Spontin, near Dinant, on the 23rd August, 1914, they pierced the curé and the burgomaster with bayonet-wounds until death ensued; but first they had bound each man with a strong cord, drawn violently tight round the waist by the combined efforts of two soldiers. It must be supposed that the officer who presided over the "severities" at Spontin had quite a special affection for cords, for having taken alive some 120 inhabitants of the place (the rest were killed, shot down while they were trying to escape), he had them all tied together by the wrists and conveyed them towards Dorinn; but many were shot before reaching that village.
On the same day, in Dinant prison, a soldier strangled a baby in the arms of its mother because it was crying too loud.
At Sorinnes, still in the Dinant district, and on the same day, Jules and Albert Houzieaux were burned alive.
At Aiseau, on the 21st August, the Germans shut two men into a house, to which they set fire. But the unexpected arrival of a shell prevented them from enjoying the sufferings of their victims.
At Hofstade chance favoured them better; they threw Victor de Coster, whom they had just stripped, into the furnace provided by his own house; his servant shared his fate.
We must suppose that the Germans take great pleasure in the contortions of the hanged. Herr Heymel had to content himself with admiring the corpse of a priest swinging in a tree; and his friend, Herr Klemm, was careful to devote, to the memory of this comforting spectacle, a drawing, published in Kunst und Künstler (January 1915). Herr Heymel expresses his great satisfaction before this spectacle; but what pleasure he would have experienced could he have witnessed the hanging of the men whom the Germans boast of having hanged to the trees of the Herve district; or could he have assisted to hang that inhabitant of Èvelette, whom the soldiers put to death at Andenne, on the 20th; or the cabaret-keeper who was strung up to a lantern before the Louvain railway-station, on the night of the 26th; but our fastidious littérateur would have tasted the keenest delight at Arlon, when an old man was put to death; he remained hanging for hours, with his feet just grazing the soil (p. [351]).
The Germans, perhaps, will say—supposing they think they ought to excuse themselves—that these executions were carried out as a result of the attacks of francs-tireurs, or after the mutilation of the German wounded by Belgian civilians. But it will be impossible for them to allege these lies as circumstances extenuating the inhuman treatment which they inflicted upon Belgian soldiers at the time of their first attacks on the forts of Liége, on the night of the 4th August; that is, a few hours after the commencement of hostilities. Not only did they maltreat in every imaginable manner their Belgian prisoners, but certain German soldiers pushed Kultur so far as to refuse water to poor wounded fellows dying of thirst; more, they even gave themselves the atrocious pleasure of spilling on the ground the water contained in the wounded men's own flasks, and this before their eyes.
3. Moral Tortures.
The physical tortures which the Germans have inflicted upon us cannot rival their methods of moral torture. In these they have achieved refinements worthy of the inventive genius of an Edgar Allan Poë.
Moral Torture before Execution.
To force those about to be shot to dig their own graves, as they did at Tavigny,[49] is quite a commonplace method. In the Fonds de Leffe, on the 23rd August, 1914 (p. [360]), they perfected their mode of operation. They had called up eight men of Dinant to bury the victims as they were shot (there was so much work to do that it had to be entrusted to experienced hands). In the evening each of the gravediggers dug his own grave; four were shot, and buried by their colleagues; just as these were about to suffer the same fate an officer "pardoned" them: not out of humanity (that would have been too decent), but simply because their services would be required during the following days.
At Dinant, during the bloody days of the 23rd and 24th August, they invented many other moral tortures. On the morning of the 23rd they shot, in a meadow of the Fonds de Leffe, a group of thirteen men. But instead of leading them all together before the firing platoon, they cunningly prolonged their pleasure; the thirteen unfortunates were tied, in succession, to the same tree, and shot down one by one.
The whole of the 23rd was consecrated, in the Fonds de Leffe, to killing the men in small batches of half a dozen; these were shot either before their wives and children, or at a short distance, but within earshot, so that the family should lose none of the groans of the dying.
When, later on, the women and children were shut up in a windmill, having first been marched in front of the corpses, the Germans allowed themselves the distraction of lighting fires before the windows from time to time, in order to make the women believe that they were about to be burned alive with their children, and to delight in their anguish.
While men were being shot in the Fonds de Leffe, horrible massacres were being committed at Leffe and at Dinant, at only a few minutes' distance. Here, too, men were shot before their families—for example, Victor Poncelet and Charles Naus—and the survivors were forced to pass through the midst of the corpses. The officers, too, devised more complicated diversions; for instance, allowing a group of women and children to escape into the mountains, in order to shoot them down from a distance.
A moral torture commonly employed is that which consists in making people believe that they are going to be killed. All the inhabitants of Sorinnes were placed before machine-guns, and a German chaplain, speaking French, ceremoniously shook each man by the hand. At Dinant two or three hundred persons were lined up against a wall; then a pastor recited the prayers for the dead (perhaps the chaplain of Sorinnes had found another opportunity for his pleasantry), and an empty machine-gun was pointed at them. An officer laughed as though his sides would split while he threatened, with his revolver, some fifteen women shut up in the convent of Prémontré, at Leffe.
Pretended executions and threats of execution were everywhere in common usage. At Wépion, near Namur, on the 23rd August, 1914 (the day of the Dinant horrors), the Germans packed the women into boats, and told them to row into the middle of the Meuse. They took aim at them several times; then, having sufficiently amused themselves, they allowed them to return to the bank.
On the 28th September, 1914, a group of civil prisoners from the north of Brabant were going towards the railway-station, whence they left for Germany. The procession was preceded by a military band, which played funeral marches, so that they were convinced that they were being led to execution.
Two citizens of Brussels, taking a walk on Sunday, the 30th August, ventured as far as Koningsloo, in the suburbs. They were seized by German sentinels, and imprisoned at the post. From time to time an under-officer approached them, held his revolver under their noses, and grimaced at them: "Ah, ah, walk's over, walk's done!" (Fini, promenade!). One of the prisoners asked the guard if they were really going to be shot; in which case they would wish to make certain arrangements. But the soldier reassured them: "Don't be afraid," he said, "it's only a game of our officer's; he does it every day to amuse himself." And sure enough, towards evening the two prisoners were set free without further ceremony.
Sectional execution—execution by small groups—under the eyes of those awaiting their fate, was applied on a large scale at Arlon. On the 26th August, 123 (or 118, or 127) inhabitants of Rossignol and neighbouring localities were taken thither, and were killed in groups of ten or twelve. Madame Hurieaux was reserved for the last; she saw her husband and all her companions in misfortune perish first; and she died crying "Vive la Belgique! Vive la France!"
It will be of interest to reproduce here the narrative of a medical student who was present at the executions which took place at Arlon. It may be taken as a sample, so to speak, of the German procedure: massacre and incendiarism, with no previous inquiry; the most varied moral and physical tortures; capricious condemnation or liberation of prisoners; pillage of the communal funds, etc.
At the beginning of August I left Y——, where my parents live, to go to the village of X——, lying to the north of my native town.
Two days later the French arrived, making towards the north of Luxemburg. There were movements of troops in different directions, and soon one could see that battles would be fought in the neighbourhood.
I thought I could make myself useful by opening a small ambulance, which I did.
I was lodging with one of my aunts, who has a son of my own age.
One day an engagement took place between the French and the German troops, and a wounded German soldier was brought into my little ambulance; his name was Kohn.
I gave him first aid; I apologized for not being able to do more, and I told him that towards evening it might be possible to carry him to Arlon, where he would receive all necessary care.
I returned to my aunt's house; I found her in tears; they had just taken away her son, my cousin Jules, on the pretext that he had fired on them. It was a piece of stupidity, for there was nothing in the whole house but one revolver, and I was carrying that on me. I had had it on me all the time I was at the ambulance. I hastened to hide it under a chest, and I decided to go and demand my cousin of the Germans. I speak their language a little, and I was so convinced of my cousin's innocence that I imagined a few words of explanation would make them give him up.
I soon found him, tied to a tree, beside other prisoners.
I began to parley with a German officer.
He replied that there was nothing to do for the moment, that the prisoners would be sent to Arlon, and that he was convinced that if I followed them I should be able, at Arlon, to obtain justice for my cousin.
We set out for Arlon; I was beside the prisoners. At a determined spot we were handed over to other soldiers. I was greatly astonished, at a given moment, to see that I had become a prisoner myself; I was no longer accompanying my cousin, to save him; I was sharing his fate.
We arrived at Arlon; we were lined up against a wall. There were with us, notably, a woman, with two young children of nine and ten, an old villager with his son, and other people whom I did not know.
An officer on horseback approached us. He was, it seemed a judge. He turned to the soldiers and asked, pointing to each of us: "Did that one fire?" And the soldiers always replied in the affirmative.
Now it should be noted that these soldiers had seen nothing, and could have seen nothing, for they were not those who seized the prisoners in the village in which they were arrested.
The head-dress of the troops was entirely different; the first had helmets, and the second caps.
When the officer had finished pointing at us, we were informed that we were all condemned to death.
An old man was seized; I myself was seized; and we were pushed to one side, to be shot.
The old man's son rushed towards him and tried to drag him away from the soldiers. The result was that the son was seized, to be shot with the father.
This is how things happened:
The two were put against a wall; a platoon of soldiers commanded by an officer took up their position in front of them.
The officer commanded all their movements with a deliberation calculated to increase the torture of the victims.
"Load!"... Then a pause. "Take aim!"... Then a pause. "Fire!"...
The two unhappy men fell to the ground, groaning.
The officer went up to them, recognized that they were not dead, and again gave orders to fire, with the same deliberation and the same method. This time the father ceased to move; it took a third volley to finish the son.
We were then all led to a guard-house.
There we remained for three days. We were given nothing to eat. We fasted from the morning we were taken; it was only on the following day, or the day after that, that we received a little water.
In that room we were literally tortured.
We were forced to stand upright; an old man was groaning he was so thirsty that his tongue protruded from his lips and the flies settled on it. As he could not stand any longer, the Germans passed a cord round his neck and attached it to a ring-bolt in the wall, so that he was supported only on his toes. The cord stretched and the wretched man fell now to this side, now to that. The soldiers made him stand upright again by striking his face with the butts of their rifles.
At one time his trousers fell down and we saw he was wounded in the thigh, by bayonet-thrusts. Later he became insane. In his delirium he cried: "Prepare food for the cows."[50] It was a horrible scene.
At another time the woman was taken out, with her two little children, and all three were shot against the wall of the Palais de Justice at Arlon. The soldiers asserted that they had "found a German soldier's purse" in this woman's house.
The time passed in the most atrocious moral anguish and physical suffering. We had lost all notion of time. The soldiers insulted us, spat upon us, made signs that our throats would be cut, that we were going to be shot. They took a pleasure in drinking in front of us.
At a certain moment an officer of superior rank entered the room. He came up to me and asked: "Why are you here?"
I replied: "They accuse us of having fired on the troops." Immediately he turned his back upon me, but I cried, with energy: "Yes, and far from having fired on them, I looked after them. If you want the proof of this, ask the soldier called Kohn who must be in the hospital here at Arlon."
I then told him of Kohn. He went to the hospital, and returned some time later; he had found the soldier Kohn, who confirmed my story.
An officer on horseback (the judge) came to the door of the guard-room: we were sent out, my cousin and I, and without even questioning us he said, "You are acquitted." I protested, saying: "There are still five or six people there of my village who are no more guilty than we are."
They were sent out, and the judge told them, as he told me, without any further inquiry, "You are acquitted."
As for the unhappy old man, I will tell you later how he escaped. He returned to his village; he is crippled.
I remained at Arlon until the end of August, at the house of one of my relatives, whose business brought him daily into contact with the Belgian authorities and the German army. I was thus able to obtain a good deal of precise information.
The Germans entered Arlon on the 12th August. They came from Mersch, in the Grand-Duchy. Several days earlier, all the weapons the inhabitants possessed had been deposited at the Hôtel de Ville. The people of Arlon knew from the newspapers what atrocities the Germans had committed in the neighbourhood of Liége, at Visé, Herve, Battice, Warsage, etc., and they were far from meditating any disturbance.
On entering the town the Uhlans began to break in the doors with the butts of their rifles.
On the following day Commandant von der Esch, commandant of the town, had a notice posted up, which I have copied verbatim.
Proclamation.
Luminous signals have been made to-night between Freylange and the lower part of this town; one of our patrols has been attacked; our telephone wires have been cut. To punish the population guilty of these acts of ill-will, I order for to-day at 3 o'clock the burning of the village of Freylange and the sack of 100 houses in the west of Arlon. I also condemn the town to pay a war contribution of 100,000 frs., which must be paid over before 6 p.m., or I shall have the hostages shot.
Von der Esch.
While the communal administration of Arlon was deliberating on the subject of the war contribution, the burning of Freylange and the sack of 100 houses of Arlon was carried out according to the programme.
After the 100,000 frs. had been paid to the Germans, they summoned to the general headquarters, established in the Hôtel de Ville of the northern portion of Arlon, a police agent, named Lempreur, and instructed him to proceed to arrest those who had fired on the German troops. He came back to say that he had found no one. "Ah!" they told him, "you are going about it unwillingly! Very good; you shall pay for the others." And without listening to his pleading, without allowing him to see his wife or children again, he was placed with his back to a door and a firing platoon shot him down.
I saw the door at the Hôtel de Ville; it was riddled with bullets.
A few days later another army division replaced the first. Immediately the town was condemned to pay a fresh war contribution: a million francs.
The town could get together only 238,000 frs. It was let off the remainder.
From the day when I was set at liberty we used almost daily to hear of executions in Arlon; they were of prisoners, brought just as we were, from the neighbouring villages, notably from Rossignol and Tintigny, who were shot in small parties.
One of these executions took place in the courtyard of the Church of St. Donat. The Dean succeeded in obtaining pardon for two of the condemned.
The most important execution was that of 123 (others say 127) inhabitants of Rossignol and its immediate surroundings, who were shot on 26th August. They were taken near the viaduct which passes over the Arlon railway-station (towards the connecting station). They were killed in small groups of ten or twelve. Those who were not dead were finished with the bayonet. Each group had to climb over the surrounding corpses. They kept to the last a lady of Rossignol, Mme. Hurieaux, who thus had to see her husband and the greater part of the inhabitants of her village killed before her eyes. She died crying "Vive la Belgique! Vive la France!"
Here is one little detail which I was able to verify. When the receiver and examiner of Customs of Arlon learned of the approaching arrival of the Germans they removed all the money from the safe, leaving only copper coin to the value of about a franc. The Germans immediately proceeded to break open the safe, but succeeded only after two days' work. Infuriated by this discomfiture, they used the safe as a commode.
But whatever the moral sufferings inflicted on those who were executed, the tortures which the Germans applied to those against whom no accusation was brought were a hundred times more atrocious. Think of the martyrdom of Mme. Cambier, of Nimy, who was forced to tread on her son's brains; and the sufferings of the innumerable men and women of whom the Germans made a living shield, at Anseremme, Mons, Tournai, and Charleroi (p. [195]). As to Charleroi, here is a detail not recorded by Herr Heymel. The prisoners collected at Jumet and Odelissert were tied in couples by the wrists, to prevent them from trying to escape when the French should fire on them. Moreover, they had to walk with their hands raised. When, by reason of fatigue, they dropped their arms, the soldiers struck them with the butts of their rifles. We know a man who was thus placed before the German troops, who saw one of his relatives killed at his side, and two of the latter's sons. He himself received three bullets, one in the right wrist, one in the left arm, and the third under the chin. He escaped, but is lamed for life.
Imagine also the tortures suffered by the civil prisoners who, in defiance of all justice, were sent to Germany. Hunger, thirst, threats, and insults; packed into cattle-trucks, they had no room to lie down, or even to sit. Above all, they had no news of their families. On the 4th September, 1914, more than 100 inhabitants of Lebbeke, near Termonde, were placed as a screen in front of the German troops marching against Termonde. In the evening, those who had not been shot were added to others just captured, and all together, in all some 300, were sent into Germany. At the moment when these unhappy folk were leaving Lebbeke the Germans set fire to some of the houses, and kindly informed the prisoners that the whole village was about to be burned. Moreover, they said, the women and children would in part be killed, and the rest driven off in the direction of Termonde and Gand. Imagine, if you can, the sufferings endured by these unfortunate people for the two months during which they remained without news of their homes, in the conviction that their families were massacred or wandering wretchedly across the devastated country. While by means of these cruel lies, whose horrible effect was systematically calculated, they filled with despair the hearts of those who were departing, the soldiers amused themselves also by wringing the hearts of the poor women—mothers, wives, sisters, daughters—who remained in the village. For they, too, were for long weeks without news from the prisoners, and the abominable manner in which the German troops, drunk with carnage, had assassinated, on the day of exodus, twelve of their fellow-citizens (9th Report), permitted them to entertain the most frightful suppositions.
Make no mistake: the case of Lebbeke is far from being exceptional. All the civil prisoners were treated with the same barbarity, a barbarity utterly unjustified, since, in the judgment of Baron von Bissing, no complaint had been formulated against the civil prisoners who have been sent back to their homes. But all have not returned. In June 1915, for example, most of the prisoners from Visé were still in Germany. As for those taken from Rossignol and so many other localities in Luxemburg, they will never return, alas! They have been shot without pretext.
Another horrible torture consists in the suppression of communications between the Belgian soldiers and their parents. Since mid-October 1914 all connections have been severed between the Belgian army which is fighting on the Yser and the Belgians remaining in Belgium. Those who seek to establish communication between the Belgian soldiers and their relatives are spied out and sentenced.
Against Jules-Arthur de Cuypere, bachelor, domiciled in the last instance at Liége, a deprivation of liberty of five months has been pronounced, because, contrary to the known regulations, he took charge, during a number of journeys to the Dutch frontier and into Holland, of a large number of letters from Belgian soldiers in France and interned Belgian prisoners in Holland; and delivered these letters, addressed to different members of families of Namur and the environs, at their addresses, by carrying them thither. At the same time he rendered himself guilty by crossing the frontier.
(L'Ami de l'Ordre, 5-6th July, 1915.)
Since the spring of 1915 the posts have been operating between Belgium and Holland, so that those few privileged persons who have a correspondent in Holland might thus indirectly obtain news if the Germans had authorized correspondence through an intermediary. But they have strictly forbidden it (pp. [22]-[3]). They could easily organize a service enabling soldiers to write to their relations: "I am going on all right ... I am wounded ..." and enabling the relations to reply, so that the soldiers' families would be reassured; while now the only news arrives by precarious methods, and often goes astray. But what our enemies desire is to make the poor relatives suffer as much as possible. We do not believe that such a form of torture has ever in any previous war been inflicted on a whole population. It is untrue, it seems, that Bismarck was the first to use the words which have been attributed to him: "In territories occupied by our victorious troops the inhabitants must be left nothing but eyes to weep with." But he quoted them with an approval that made them his own. Now they have come true.
Here is quite another kind of moral torture. The Germans are fond of leading small groups of Belgian prisoners through the streets of Brussels at moments when the latter are as busy as possible: for instance, on Sunday afternoons. One can imagine the humiliation of the poor soldiers exposed to the curiosity of the crowd; but it delights their guardians. It was evidently the desire to enjoy, simultaneously, the misery of the prisoners and the impotent anger of the spectators which led the Germans, at the time of their entry into Louvain on the 19th August, and into Brussels on the 20th, to place a few Belgian countrymen, with their hands tied behind their backs, at the head of their columns. In ancient Rome captives used to walk before the triumphal car of the conqueror. Do not the Germans realize how utterly this practice is contrary to the humane principles enjoined by Article 4 of the Hague Convention? We must suppose that they do not; for not only do they not abandon the practice, but they make use of it to coin money.
Condemnation of the Town of Roulers.
Amsterdam, 29th May (Havre Agency).—The town of Roulers is condemned to pay a fresh fine of 1½ millions, because the population cheered Belgian prisoners passing through the town.
(L'Ami de l'Ordre.)
Impossible, it will be said, to invent tortures yet more diabolic. But no, when it is a question of doing evil, Kultur can surpass itself.
Imagine the mentality of the person who sent to M. Brostens, of Antwerp, the identity-disc of his son, who was taken prisoner. And imagine the inward joy of the sender in picturing the parents' despair on receiving the medal!
Refined Cruelty.
When they make prisoners they sometimes detach the identification-discs from the men and send them, unaccompanied by comment, to the parents, to make them believe that their son is dead.
This is what has just happened to M. Brostens, Lieutenant of Customs, of Antwerp. Having received, a few days ago, his son's regimental number, he went into mourning. So yesterday morning, what was not his amazement to see his son return, who, having been made prisoner at the beginning of the war, had succeeded in escaping.
(Le Matin, Antwerp, 14th September, 1914.)
Here, perhaps, the culprit was an uncultivated soldier. But what are we to think of the mentality of Baron von der Goltz, when he informs us by placard that a record is kept in a register of all aggressions against the German army, and that the localities in which such attacks have taken place may expect to receive their punishment?
General Government of Belgium.
It has recently happened, in the regions which are not at present occupied by the German troops in more or less force, that convoys of wagons or patrols have been attacked, by surprise, by the inhabitants.
I draw the attention of the public to the fact that a register is kept of the towns and communes in whose vicinity such attacks have occurred, and that they may expect their punishment as soon as the troops are passing through their neighbourhood.
The Governor-General in Belgium,
Baron von der Goltz,
General-Field-Marshal.
When one learns on what ultra-trivial hints the German troops have based their condemnation of the inhabitants, one may conclude that not a commune will escape repression. It was evidently this generalized terror which the Governor wished to inspire. He, too, wished to have the pleasure of inflicting moral torture.
To give point to the contrast between the mentality of our oppressors and our own, between their Kultur and our civilization, we should like to reproduce a letter in which a young girl, living in Gand, invited Belgian women to enter the hospitals for the purpose of assisting the wounded, Germans as well as our own, to write to their families. Committees of this kind were immediately constituted, notably in Brussels.
Belgian Compassion.
M. Paul Fredericq, Professor at the University of Gand, writes to the Soir:—
"A young girl of Gand has had a touching inspiration.
"She wished Belgian women who can write English and German, forgetting international hatred, and listening only to the voice of compassion, to attend at the ambulances and hospitals, in order to place themselves at the disposal of wounded foreigners, without distinction, and to write, at their dictation, letters intended to reassure their relatives.
"This truly Christian work of charity would put an end to the anguish of so many mothers, who know that their sons are engaged on the Belgian battlefields.
"I am certain that this appeal to the good hearts of our girls and women will not have been made in vain."
While the Germans are butchering our sons and wives, this is what Belgian hearts are thinking of.
(Le Peuple, 10th August, 1914.)
Finally, to close with, here is a numerical example which, better than any reasoning, gives you the Kultur of the German Army to the life:—
On the morning of Sunday, the 23rd August, 1914, the population of Fonds de Leffe (a suburb of Dinant) comprised 251 men and boys, including some fifteen inhabitants of neighbouring communes whom the Germans had dragged away with them. By the evening of the following day 243 had been put to death: none of those taken was spared; the eight who escaped the massacre had succeeded in fleeing. "Happily"—we were told by a woman whose father, husband, and four brothers-in-law were massacred—"happily many of the men had left for the army and were fighting on the Yser. A strange war, in which the soldiers are less exposed than the children, the old folks, and the sick who are left at home!"