9. Liége in Ruins
10. “We Live Like God in Belgium”
About 5.0 p.m. Colonel Stenger, the commander of the 8th German Infantry Brigade, arrived in Aerschot with his staff. They were quartered in the Burgomaster’s house, in rooms overlooking the square. Captain Karge, the commander of the divisional military police, was billeted on the Burgomaster’s brother, also in the square but on the opposite side. About 8.0 p.m. (German time) Colonel Stenger was standing on the Burgomaster’s balcony; the Burgomaster, who had just been allowed to return home, was at his front door, offering the German sentries cigars, and his wife was close by him; the square was full of troops, and a supply column was just filing through, when suddenly a single loud shot was fired, followed immediately by a heavy fusillade. “I very distinctly saw two columns of smoke,” writes the Burgomaster’s wife (R. No. 11), “followed by a multitude of discharges.”—“I could perceive a light cloud of smoke and dust,” states Captain Karge,[91] who was at his window across the square, “coming from the eaves of a red corner house.” In a moment the soldiers massed in the square were in an uproar. “My yard,” continues the Burgomaster’s wife, “was immediately invaded by horses and by soldiers firing in the air like madmen.”—“The drivers and transport men,” observes Captain Karge, “had left their horses and waggons and taken cover from the shots in the entrances of the houses. Some of the waggons had interlocked, because the horses, becoming restless, had taken their own course without the drivers to guide them.” Another German officer[92] thought the firing came from the north-west outskirts of the town, and was told by fugitive German soldiers that there were Belgian troops advancing to the attack. A machine-gun company went out to meet them, and marched three kilometres before it discovered that there was no enemy, and turned back. “About 350 yards from the square,” states the commander of this unit,[93] “I met cavalry dashing backwards and transport waggons trying to turn round.... I saw shots coming from the houses, whereupon I ordered the machine guns to be unlimbered and the house fronts on the left to be fired upon.”
Who fired the first shot? Who fired the answering volley? There is abundant evidence, both Belgian and German, of German soldiers firing in the square and the neighbouring streets; no single instance is proved, or even alleged, in the German White Book, of a Belgian caught in the act of firing. “The situation developed,” deposes Captain Folz,[94] “into our men pressing their backs against the houses, and firing on any marksman in the opposite house, as soon as he showed himself.” But were they Belgians at the windows, or Germans taking cover from the undoubted fire of their comrades, and replying from these vantage points upon an imaginary foe? “Near the Hôtel-de-Ville,” continues Captain Folz, “there stood an officer who had the signal ‘Cease Fire’ blown continuously.[95] Clearly this officer desired in the first place to stop the shooting of our men, in order to set a systematic action on foot.”
The German soldiers’ minds had been filled with lying rumours. “I heard,” declares Captain Karge, “that the King of the Belgians had decreed that every male Belgian was under obligation to do the German Army as much harm as possible....
“An officer told me he had read on a church door that the Belgians were forbidden to hold captured German officers on parole, but had to shoot them....
“A seminary teacher assured me” (it was under the threat of death) “definitely, as I now think that I can distinctly remember, that the Garde Civique had been ordered to injure the German Army in every possible way....”