16. Malines: Ruins
In the district between Malines and Aerschot it was the same, and places which had suffered already on Aug. 19th were devastated again on Aug. 25th and the following days. At Hever[138] in the Canton of Haecht, a baby was found hanged by the neck to the handle of a door. Thirty-five houses were burnt. At Boortmeerbeek[139] 103 houses were burnt and 300 sacked (out of 437); 5 civilians were killed—one of them a little girl who was bayonetted in the road. At Haecht[140] 5 men were seized as hostages and then shot in cold blood. One of them survived, though he was bayonetted twice after the shooting to “finish him off.” Seven others were stripped naked and threatened with bayonets, but instead of being killed they were used as a screen. The Belgian troops found the body of a woman on the road, stripped to the waist and with the breasts cut off. There was another woman with her head cut off and her body mutilated. There was a child with its stomach slashed open with a bayonet, and another—two or three years old—nailed to a door by its hands and feet. At Haecht 40 houses were burnt.
At Thildonck 31 houses were burnt and 10 civilians killed. Seven of those killed in the commune of Thildonck belonged to the family of the two Valckenaers brothers, whose farms (situated close to one another) were occupied by the Belgian troops early on the morning of August 26th. As the Germans counter-attacked, the Belgian soldiers opened fire on them from the farm buildings and then retired. A platoon of Germans, with an officer at their head, entered Isodore Valckenaers’ farm (where the whole family was gathered) about 8.0 a.m. Isodore and two of his nephews—barely more than boys—were shot at once. His daughter, who clung to him and begged for his life, was torn away. The two young men were killed instantaneously. The elder, though horribly wounded by the bullet, survived, and was rescued next day. The rest of the family—a group of eleven women and children, for François-Edouard Valckenaers, the other brother, was away—were shot down half-an-hour later. They were herded together in the garden and fired on from all sides. Madame Isodore Valckenaers was holding her youngest baby in her arms. The bullet broke the child’s arm and mangled its face, and then tore the mother’s lip and destroyed one of her eyes. (The baby died, but the mother survived.) Madame F.-E. Valckenaers also survived—her dress was spattered with the brains of her fourteen-year-old son, whom she was holding by the hand. Five died altogether out of this group of eleven—some instantaneously, some after hours of agony. The eldest of them was only eighteen, the youngest was two-and-a-half. Thus seven of the Valckenaers’ family were killed in all out of the fourteen present, and three were severely wounded. Only four were left unscathed.[141]
At Werchter[142] 267 houses were burnt and 162 sacked (out of 496), 15 civilians were killed, and 32 deported. The priests of Wygmael and Wesemael were dragged away as hostages, and driven, with a crowd of civilians from Herent, as a screen in front of the German troops on Aug. 29th. At Wesemael 46 houses were burnt, 13 civilians killed and 324 deported. At Holsbeek one civilian was killed and 35 houses burnt. In the whole Canton of Haecht 899 houses were burnt, 1,772 plundered, 116 civilians killed, and 647 deported.
As the Germans fell back south-eastward, the devastation spread into the Canton of Louvain. “When the Germans first arrived at Herent,”[143] states a witness (d 97), “they did nothing, but when they were repulsed from Malines they began to ill-treat the civilians.” They shot a man at his door, and threw another man’s body into a burning house. At Aanbosch, a hamlet of Herent, they dragged 4 men and 9 women out of their houses and bayonetted them. In the commune of Herent they killed 22 civilians (the priest was among the later victims)[144] and deported 104 altogether, burned 312 houses and sacked 200. At Velthem they killed 14 civilians and burned 44 houses. At Winxele they burned 57 houses and killed 5 civilians—the soldier who had shot and bayonetted one of them thrust his bayonet into the faces of the hostages: “Smell, smell! It is the blood of a Belgian pig” (d 97-8). At Corbeek-Loo 20 civilians were killed, 62 deported, and 129 houses burnt. At Wilsele 36 houses were burnt and 7 people killed. One of them was an epileptic who had a seizure while he was being carried away as a hostage. Since he could go no further, he was shot through the head (d 129). At Kessel-Loo 59 people were killed and 461 houses burnt; at Linden 6 and 103; at Heverlé 6 and 95. In the whole Canton of Louvain 2,441 houses were burnt, 2,722 plundered, 251 civilians killed, and 831 deported. About 40 per cent. of this destruction was done in the City of Louvain itself, on the night of August 25th and on the following nights and days. The destruction of Louvain was the greatest organised outrage which the Germans committed in the course of their invasion of Belgium and France, and as such it stands by itself. But it was also the inevitable climax of the outrages to which they had abandoned themselves in their retreat upon Louvain from Malines. The Germans burned and massacred invariably, wherever they passed, but there was a bloodthirstiness and obscenity in their conduct on this retreat which is hardly paralleled in their other exploits, and which put them in the temper for the supreme crime which followed.
(v) Louvain.
The Germans entered Louvain on August 19th. The Belgian troops did not attempt to hold the town, and the civil authorities had prepared for the Germans’ arrival. They had called in all arms in private possession and deposited them in the Hôtel-de-Ville. This had been done a fortnight before the German occupation,[145] and was repeated, for security, on the morning of the 19th itself.[146] The municipal commissary of police remarked the exaggerated conscientiousness with which the order was obeyed. “Antiquarian pieces, flint-locks and even razors were handed in.”[147] The people of Louvain were indeed terrified. They had heard what had happened in the villages round Liége, at Tongres and at St. Trond, and on the evening (August 18th) before the Germans arrived the refugees from Tirlemont had come pouring through the town.[148] The Burgomaster, like his colleagues in other Belgian towns, had posted placards on August 18th, enjoining confidence and calm.
The German entry on the 19th took place without disturbance. Large requisitions were at once made on the town by the German Command. The troops were billeted on the inhabitants. In one house an officer demanded quarters for 50 men. “Revolver in hand, he inspected every bedroom minutely. ‘If anything goes wrong, you are all kaput.’ That was how he finished the business.”[149] It was vacation time, and the lodgings of the University students were empty. Many houses were shut up altogether, and these were broken into and pillaged by the German soldiers.[150] They pillaged enormous quantities of wine, without interference on the part of their officers. “The soldiers did not scruple to drain in the street the contents of stolen bottles, and drunken soldiers were common objects.”[151] There was also a great deal of wanton destruction—“furniture destroyed, mirrors and picture-frames smashed, carpets spoilt and so on.”[152] The house of Professor van Gehuchten, a scientist of international eminence, was treated with especial malice. This is testified by a number of people, including the Professor’s son. “They destroyed, tore up and threw into the street my father’s manuscripts and books (which were very numerous), and completely wrecked his library and its contents. They also destroyed the manuscript of an important work of my late father’s which was in the hands of the printer.”[153]—“This misdemeanour made a scandal,” states another witness. “It was brought to the knowledge of the German general, who seemed much put out, but took no measures of protection.”[154] The pillage was even systematic. A servant, left by an absent professor in charge of his house, found on August 20th that the Germans “had five motor-vans outside the premises. I saw them removing from my master’s house wine, blankets, books, etc., and placing them in the vans. They stripped the whole place of everything of value, including the furniture.... I saw them smashing glass and crockery and the windows.”[155] On August 20th there were already acts of violence in the outskirts of the town. At Corbeek-Loo a girl of sixteen was violated by six soldiers and bayonetted in five places for offering resistance. Her parents were kept off with rifles.[156] By noon on August 20th the town itself “was like a stable. Streets, pavements, public squares and trampled flower beds had disappeared under a layer of manure.”[157]
On August 20th the German military authorities covered the walls with proclamations: “Atrocities have been committed by (Belgian) franc-tireurs.”[158]—“If anything happens to the German troops, le total sera responsable”[159] (an attempt to render in French the Prussian doctrine of collective responsibility). Doors must be left open at night. Windows fronting the street must be lighted up. Inhabitants must be within doors between 8.0 p.m. and 7.0 a.m. Most of these placards were ready-made in German, French and Russian. There were no placards in Flemish till after the events of August 25th. Yet Flemish was the only language spoken and understood by at least half the population of Louvain.
