The immediate neighborhood of the town was the scene of many similar acts of violence. In this part of the province many mansions and villas were systematically pillaged. One citizen of Namur saw his own furniture from his country house going to the rear on a German cart. The plunder was all sent off to Germany.
At Vedrin a boy was shot because he was found to have in his possession an empty German cartridge case. Twenty-six priests and members of religious orders were shot in the diocese of Namur.
(II.) MASSACRE AT TAMINES.
Tamines was a rich and populous village situated on the Sambre between Charleroi and Namur. It was occupied by detachments of French troops on the 17th, 18th and 19th of August last. On Thursday, the 20th August, a German patrol appeared in front of the suburb of Vilaines. It was greeted by shots fired by French soldiers, and by a party of the Civic Guards of Charleroi. Several Uhlans were killed and wounded, and the rest fled. The people of the village came out of their houses and cried: “Vive la Belgique!” “Vive la France!” In all probability it was this incident which caused the subsequent massacre of Tamines.
Some time afterwards the Germans arrived in force at the hamlet of Alloux. They there burnt two houses and made all the inhabitants prisoners. An artillery combat broke out between the German guns posted at Vilaines and at Alloux and the French guns placed in a battery at Arsimont and at Hame-sur-Heure.
About 5 o’clock on 21st August, the Germans carried the bridge of Tamines, crossed the River Sambre, and began defiling in mass through the streets of the village. About 8 o’clock the movement of troops stopped, and the soldiers penetrated into the houses, drove out the inhabitants, set themselves to sack the place, and then burnt it. The unfortunate peasants who stopped in the village were shot; the rest fled from their houses. The greater part of them were arrested either on the night of the 21st of August or on the following morning. Pillage and burning continued all next day (22nd).
On the evening of the 22nd (Saturday) a group of between 400 and 450 men was collected in front of the Church, not far from the bank of the Sambre. A German detachment opened fire on them, but as the shooting was a slow business the officers ordered up a machine gun, which soon swept off all the unhappy peasants still left standing. Many of them were only wounded and, hoping to save their lives, got with difficulty on their feet again. They were immediately shot down. Many wounded still lay among the corpses. Groans of pain and cries for help were heard in the bleeding heap. On several occasions soldiers walked up to such unhappy individuals and stopped their groans with a bayonet thrust. At night some who still survived succeeded in crawling away. Others put an end to their own pain by rolling themselves into the neighboring river.
All these facts have been established by depositions made by wounded men who succeeded in escaping. About 100 bodies were found in the river.