"The curé went through the village with a bell, to give the signal for the fight. The battle began immediately after, very hotly."
The military authority of Andenne, Lieutenant Colonel v. Eulwege:
"My own investigation, very carefully made, shows no proof that the curé excited the people to a street fight. Every one at Andenne gives a different account from that, to the effect that most of the people have seen hardly anything of the battle, so-called, because they had hidden themselves from fear in the cellars."
Finally, the War Ministry and the press wearied of individual denials, and one great blanket denial was issued. Der Völkerkrieg, which is a comprehensive chronicle of review of the war, states:
"It is impossible to present any solid proof of the allegation, made by so many letters from the front, to the effect that the Belgian priests took part in the war of francs-tireurs. Letters of that kind which we have heretofore reproduced in our record—for example, the recital of events at Louvain and Andenne—are left out of the new editions."
Der Fels, Organ der Central-Auskunftstelle der katholischen Presse, states:
"The serious accusations which I have listed are not only inaccurate in parts and grossly exaggerated, but they are invented in every detail, and are at every point false."
And, again, it says:
"All the instances, known up to the present and capable of being cleared up, dealing with the alleged cruelties of Catholic priests in the war, have been found without exception false or fabrications through and through."
Turning to the "mutilations," we have the Nach Feierabend publishing a "letter from the front" which tells of a house of German wounded being burned by the French inhabitants. Asked for the name of the place and the specific facts, the editor replied that "you are not the forum where it is my duty to justify myself. Your proceeding in the midst of war of representing the German soldiers who fight and die as liars, in order to save your own skin, I rebuke in the most emphatic way."