The same outrages were committed between the Vesdre and the Ourthe. At Louveigné,[47] on Aug. 7th, the Germans, retreating from their attack on the southern forts, looted the drink-shops, fired in the streets, and accused the civilians of having shot. A dozen men (two of them over 70 years old) were imprisoned as hostages in a forge, and were shot down, when released, like game in the open. That evening Louveigné was systematically set on fire with the same incendiary apparatus that was used at Visé, and the curé was dragged round on the foot-board of a military motor-car to watch the work. There were more murders next day. The total number of civilians murdered at Louveigné was 29, and there were 77 houses burnt. The devastation impressed the German soldiers who passed through Louveigné on the following days. “Louveigné has been completely burnt out. All the inhabitants are dead,” writes a German diarist on Aug. 9th. “March to Louveigné,” another records on Aug. 16th. “Several citizens and the curé shot according to martial law, some not yet buried—still lying where they were executed, for everyone to see. Stench of corpses everywhere. Curé said to have incited the inhabitants to ambush and kill the Germans.”—“Bivouac! Rain! Burnt villages! Louveigné!” another exclaims on Aug. 17th. “We marched and bivouacked in the rain, in an orchard with a high hedge round it, full of fruit-trees. There was an abandoned house in front of it. The door, which was locked, was broken in with an axe. The traces of war—burnt houses, weeping women and children, executions of franc-tireurs—showed us the ruthlessness of the times. We could not have done otherwise.... But how many have to suffer with others, how many innocent people are shot by martial law, because there is no detailed enquiry first....”
At Lincé,[48] in the commune of Sprimont, a German officer was wounded when the troops returned in confusion from before the southern forts of Liége. The Germans forbade an autopsy to discover by what bullet the wound had been caused, and condemned two civilians with a proven alibi to be shot. All the next morning the destruction went on. Houses were burnt, the curé was mishandled, a farmer and his son were shot down at their farm gate, a girl of twelve received four bullets in her body. The execution of the hostages took place in the afternoon. Sixteen men were shot, of whom 7 were more than 60 years old. At Chanxhe,[49] on Aug. 6th, hostages from Poulseur were bound in ranks to the parapet of the bridge over the Ourthe, and kept there several days while the Germans filed across. “We were tortured by hunger and thirst,” writes one of them. “We shivered at night. And then, of necessity, there was the filth.... At the end of the bridge the women were pleading with the Germans in vain, and the children were crying.” On the 5th two civilian captives were shot on the bridge, and their bodies thrown into the river, and two more (one aged 70) were shot on the 7th. In the commune of Poulseur, from which these hostages came, 7 civilians were killed and 25 houses destroyed. In the commune of Sprimont 67 houses were destroyed and 48 civilians killed. At Esneux 26 houses were destroyed and 7 civilians killed.
(vii) Across the Meuse.
Meanwhile, the Germans had crossed the Meuse at Visé, and were descending on Liége from the north. At Hallembaye, in the commune of Haccourt,[50] 18 people were killed. There were women, children and old men among them, and also the curé,[51] who was bayonetted on his church threshold as he was removing the sacrament. In the commune of Haccourt 80 houses were destroyed, and 112 hostages were carried away into Germany. Hermalle-sous-Argenteau[52] was plundered on Aug. 15th, and 9 houses destroyed. There was a mock execution of hostages in the presence of women and children, and 368 men of the place were imprisoned in the church for 17 days. At Vivegnis[53] 6 civilians were shot on Aug. 13th, and 45 houses destroyed the day after. The Germans fired on the inhabitants through the windows and doors, and two men were thus killed in a single household. At Heure-le-Romain[54] the population was confined in the church on Aug. 16th (it was Sunday) and compelled to stand there, hands raised, under the muzzle of a machine-gun. Seven civilians were shot at Heure-le-Romain that day, including the Burgomaster’s brother and the curé,[55] who were roped together and shot against the church wall. All through the 16th and 17th the sack continued; on the 18th fresh troops arrived and completed the work by systematic arson and the slaughter of 19 people more. Twenty-seven civilians were killed at Heure-le-Romain altogether and 84 houses destroyed. At Hermée,[56] on Aug. 6th, the Germans, caught by the fire of Fort Pontisse, revenged themselves by shooting 11 civilians, including old men of 76 and 82 years. On the 14th, the day after the surrender of the fort, the inhabitants of Hermée were driven from their homes and the village systematically burnt, 146 houses out of 308 being destroyed. In the village itself, as apart from the outlying hamlets of the commune, only two or three houses were left standing. At Fexhe-Slins, near Hermée, 3 people were killed. Twenty-three were killed, and 13 houses destroyed, in the hamlet of Rhées in the commune of Herstal.[57]
Thus the Germans plundered private property, burned down houses, and shot civilians of both sexes and all ages, on every road by which they marched upon Liége—from the north-east, the south-east, and the north. One thousand and thirty-two civilians[58] were shot by the Germans in the whole Province of Liége, and 3,173 houses were destroyed in two arrondissements (those of Liége and Verviers) alone out of the four of which the Province is made up.
(viii) The City of Liége.
Twenty-nine of these civilians were killed and 55[59] of the houses destroyed in the city of Liége itself—on August 20th, a fortnight after it had fallen into the German Army’s possession. The Germans entered Liége on August 7th. Their entry was not opposed by Belgian troops, and arms in private hands had already been called in by the Belgian police.[60] The Germans found themselves in peaceful occupation of a great industrial city, caught in the full tide of its normal life. There was nothing to suggest outrage, still less to excuse it, in their surroundings there; their conduct on August 20th was deliberate and cold-blooded. The Higher Command was faced with the problem of holding a conquered country, and wanted an example. The troops in garrison were demoralised by the sudden change to idleness from fatigue and danger, and were ready for excitement and pillage.
“Aug. 16th, Liége,” writes a German soldier in his diary.[61] “The villages we passed through had been destroyed.
“Aug. 19th. Quartered in University. Gone on the loose and boozed through the streets of Liége. Lie on straw; enough booze; too little to eat, or we must steal.
“Aug. 20th. In the night the inhabitants of Liége became mutinous. Forty persons were shot and 15 houses demolished. Ten soldiers were shot. The sights here make you cry.”