Ill-Treatment
M. Auguste Mélot, deputy of Namur, published a book, Martyre du Clergé Belge, which throws light upon this conduct so far as Belgium is concerned.
The curés of Wygmael and Wesemael were forced to march, on the 29th August, before the army with their elbows bound together. A curé of Rotselaer and a curé of Wackerzeel, aged seventy years, were shut up for whole days in a church, almost without food and under dreadful conditions. They were finally brought away to Germany, where insults were heaped upon them. A German officer at Aix-la-Chapelle spat in the face of the curé of Rotselaer. Tainted bread was given them to eat. At last they were brought back to Belgium, by forced marches, from Brussels to Haeren, from Haeren to Vilvorde, from Vilvorde to Malines.
The Germans indulged in outrages of a disgraceful kind on the curé of Beyghem. The curé and the curate of Ellwyt were shut up for five days in their church. The curé of Schaffen-lez-Diest was hanged. They made him believe that he was going to be put to death, and when he was on the point of dying they loosed the rope; then they started again. Afterwards they compelled him to look at the sun, and if he lowered his eyes he was struck with the butt-ends of rifles and threatened with being hung up again. The curé of Yvoir was compelled to march in front of the troops as far as Marienburg, laden with a sack. At Pin the Germans made five priests walk for ten leagues, allowing them for food nothing but a little bread and water. The Superior of the French College of Florennes (in Belgium) was beaten, struck with butt-ends of rifles and with spurs on the back and the head. He was then stripped of his robes and left dying. The curate of Montigny-sur-Sambre was struck with the fist, and obliged to walk under the horsewhip, with hands bound, in front of the troops. The Bishop of Tournai, who was seventy-two years of age, was brought on foot, being beaten as he went, from Tournai to Ach.