36
In one case, given very circumstantially, a witness 34 There is an overwhelming mass of evidence of the deliberate destruction of private property by the German soldiers. The destruction, in most cases, was effected by fire, and the German troops had been provided beforehand with appliances for rapidly setting fire to houses. Among the appliances enumerated by witnesses are syringes for squirting petrol, guns for throwing small inflammable bombs, and small pellets made of inflammable material. Specimens of the last-mentioned have been shown to members of the Committee. Besides burning houses the Germans frequently smashed furniture and pictures; they also broke in doors and windows. Frequently, too, they defiled houses by relieving the wants of nature upon the floor. They also appear to have perpetrated the same vileness upon piled up heaps of provisions, so as to destroy what they could not themselves consume. 25 Villages, even large parts of a city, were given to the flames as part of the terrorising policy. 35 The general conclusion is that the burning and destruction of property which took place was only in a very small minority of cases justified by military necessity.7. LOOTING, BURNING AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY.