That “the civilians had fired” was already an official dogma with the German military authorities in Louvain. Mgr. Coenraets, Vice-Rector of the University, was serving that day as a hostage at the Hôtel-de-Ville. A Dominican monk, Father Parijs, was there at the moment the firing broke out, in quest of a pass for remaining out-of-doors at night on ambulance service. He was now retained as well, and Alderman Schmit was fetched from his house. Von Boehn, the General Commanding the Ninth Reserve Corps, harangued these hostages on his arrival from the Malines front, and von Manteuffel, the Etappen-Kommandant, then conducted them, with a guard of soldiers, round the town. Baron Orban de Xivry was dragged out of his house to join them on the way. The procession halted at intervals in the streets, and the four hostages were compelled to proclaim to their fellow-citizens, in Flemish and in French, that, unless the firing ceased, the hostages themselves would be shot, the town would have to pay an indemnity of 20,000,000 francs, the houses from which shots were fired would be burnt, and artillery-fire would be directed upon Louvain as a whole.[221]
But “reprisals” against the civil population had already begun. The firing from German soldiers in the houses upon German soldiers in the street was answered by a general assault of the latter upon all houses within their reach. “They broke the house-doors,” states a Belgian woman,[222] “with the butt-ends of their rifles.... They shot through the gratings of the cellars.”—“In the Hôtel-de-Ville,” states von Manteuffel,[223] “I saw the Company stationed there on the ground floor, standing at the windows and answering the fire of the inhabitants. In front of the Hôtel-de-Ville, on the entrance steps, I also saw soldiers firing in reply to the inhabitants’ fire in the direction of their houses.”—“Personally I was under the distinct impression,” states a staff officer,[224] “that we were fired at from the Hôtel Maria Theresa with machine-guns.” (This is quite probable, and merely proves that those who fired were German soldiers.) “The fire from machine-guns lasted from four to five minutes, and was immediately answered by our troops, who finally stormed the house and set it on fire.”—“The order was passed up from the rear that we should fire into the houses,” states an infantryman who had just detrained and was marching with his unit into the town.[225] “Thereupon we shot into the house-fronts on either side of us. To what extent the fire was answered I cannot say, the noise and confusion were too great.”—“We now dispersed towards both sides,” states a lance-corporal in the same battalion,[226] “and fired into the upper windows.... How long the firing lasted I cannot say.... We now began shooting into the ground-floor windows too, as well as tearing down a certain number of the shutters. I made my way into the house from which the shot had come, with a few others who had forced open the door. We could find no one in the house. In the room from which the shot had come there was, however, a petroleum lamp, lying overturned on the table and still smouldering....”
21. Capelle-au-Bois: The Church
22. Louvain: Near the Church of St. Pierre
These assaults on houses passed over inevitably into wholesale incendiarism. “The German troops,” as the Editors of the German White Book remark in their summarising report on the events at Louvain, “had to resort to energetic counter-measures. In accordance with the threats, the inhabitants who had taken part in the attack were shot, and the houses from which shots had been fired were set on fire. The spreading of the fire to other houses also and the destruction of some streets could not be avoided. In this way the Cathedral” (i. e., the Collegiate Church of St. Pierre) “also caught fire....”
There is a map in the German White Book which shows the quarters burnt down. The incendiarism started in the Station Square, and spread along the Boulevard de Tirlemont as far as the Tirlemont Gate. It was renewed across the railway and devastated the suburbs to the east. Then it was extended up the Rue de la Station into the heart of the town, and here the Church of St. Pierre was destroyed, and the University Halles with the priceless University Library—not by mischance, as the German Report alleges, but by the deliberate work of German troops, employing the same incendiary apparatus as had been used already at Visé, Liége and elsewhere.[227]
The burning was directed by a German officer from the Vieux Marché, a large open space near the centre of the town, and by another group of officers stationed in the Place du Peuple.[228] The burning here is described by a German officer[229] (whose evidence on other points has been quoted above). “The Company,” he states, “continued to fire into the houses. The fire of the inhabitants (sic) gradually died down. Thereupon the German soldiers broke in the doors of the houses and set the houses on fire, flinging burning petroleum lamps into the houses or striking off the gas-taps, setting light to the gas which rushed out and throwing table-cloths and curtains into the flames. Here and there benzine was also employed as a means of ignition. The order to set fire to the houses was given out by Colonel von Stubenrauch, whose voice I distinguished....”