A peasant woman, I remember, gave us the whole of her provisions, everything that remained in her humble dwelling. The enemy were then advancing on our heels in a threatening wave, and, on my expressing astonishment that she should strip her shelves bare in this fashion, she shook her fist towards the horizon in a fury of rage and exclaimed: “Ah, sir, I prefer that you should eat my provisions rather than leave them a crumb of bread.”
Up till the 19th August we had advanced in Belgium; the retreat of the division commenced that same day from Gembloux. We kept on seeking, without success, to get in touch with the German cavalry. Nothing but petty combats took place with insignificant details, a troop at most, but more often with patrols, reconnaissance parties and little groups who surrendered on our approach in a contemptible fashion.
I saw a German major, Prince R——, accompanied by two or three troopers, surrender themselves while still some two hundred mètres from one of our weak patrols. They threw down their arms and put up their hands. It was a sickening sight.
Everywhere the enemy’s cavalry gave ground, vanished in smoke, became a myth for our regiment, in spite of our forced marches. Each day we spent ten, fifteen, twenty hours in the saddle. One day we actually covered a hundred and thirty kilomètres in twenty-two hours, and reached our culminating point to the east, almost under the walls of Liége.
Although we hardly saw any Germans during this first month, we could, per contra, follow them by the traces of their crimes.
By day, from village to village, lamentations spread from one horizon to the other, and I regret not having noted the names of the places which were the scenes of the atrocities of which I saw the sequels. I regret not having taken the names of the unhappy women whose children, brothers and husbands had been tortured and shot without motive, not to speak of the outrages which they themselves had undergone, not to speak of the assaults of lechery and Sadism of which they had been the victims. They alluded to these in a fury of rage or made an involuntary confession in an agony of humiliation and grief.
By night a furrow of fire traced the enemy’s path. The Germans burnt everything that was susceptible of being burnt—ricks, barns, farms, entire villages, which blazed like torches, lighting the country-side with a weird light.
We entered villages of which nothing remained except smoking and calcined stones, before which families, who had lost their all, grieved and wrung their powerless hands at the sight of some black débris which had once been all their joy, their hearth and home.
I wish particularly to insist that these deeds were not the result of accident, for we were daily witnesses of them for a whole month. I still shiver when I think of the confidences which I have received. The pen may not write down all the facts, all the abominations, all the hateful things, all the lowest and most degrading filthiness inspired by the imagination of crazy erotomaniacs. It was always Sadism which seemed to guide their acts and predominate amongst their misdeeds.