About 10 in the morning the officers told the women to withdraw, giving them the order to gather together the dead bodies and to wash away the stains of blood which defiled the street and the houses. About midday the surviving men to the number of 800 were shut up as hostages in three little houses near the bridge, but they were not allowed to go out of them on any pretext, and so crammed together that they could not even sit down on the floor. Soon these crowded buildings reached a highly insanitary condition. The women later in the day were allowed to bring food to their husbands. Many of them, fearing outrage, had fled from the Place. These hostages were not finally released till the Tuesday following.
The statistics of the losses at Andenne give the following total:—Three hundred were massacred in Andenne and Seilles, and about 300 houses were burnt in the two localities. A great number of inhabitants have fled. Almost every house has been sacked; indeed, the pillage did not end for eight days. Other places have suffered more than Andenne, but no other Belgian Town was the theatre of so many scenes of ferocity and cruelty. The numerous inhabitants whom we have cross-examined are unanimous in asserting that the German troops were not fired upon. They told us that no German soldier was killed either at Andenne or in its neighbourhood. They are incapable of understanding the causes of the catastrophe which has ruined their town, and to explain it they give various hypotheses. Some think that Andenne was sacrificed merely to establish a reign of terror, and quote words uttered by officers which seemed to them to show that the destruction of the place was premeditated. Others think that the destruction of the bridge, the ruining of a neighbouring tunnel, and the resistance of the Belgian troops were the causes of the massacre. All protest that nothing happened in the place to excuse the conduct of the Germans.
(IV.) SACK OF DINANT.
The town of Dinant was sacked and destroyed by the German Army, and its population was decimated on the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th August.
On August 15th a lively engagement took place at Dinant between the French troops on the left bank of the Meuse and the German troops coming up from the East. The German troops were routed by the French, who passed over to the right bank of the river following them. The town had little to suffer on that day. Some houses were destroyed by German shells, aimed no doubt at French regiments on the left bank, and a citizen of Dinant belonging to the Red Cross was killed by a German ball as he was picking up a wounded man.
The days which followed were calm. The French occupied the neighborhood of the town. No engagement took place between the hostile armies, and nothing happened which could be interpreted as an act of hostility by the population. No German troops were anywhere near Dinant. On Friday, the 21st, about 9 o’clock in the evening, German troops coming down the road from Ciney entered the town by the Rue St. Jacques. On entering they began firing into the windows of the houses, and killed a workman who was returning to his own house, wounded another inhabitant, and forced him to cry “Long live the Kaiser.” They bayoneted a third person in the stomach. They entered the cafes, seized the liquor, got drunk, and retired after having set fire to several houses and broken the doors and windows of others. The population was terrorised and stupefied, and shut itself up in its dwellings.
Saturday, August 22nd, was a day of relative calm. All life, however, was at an end in the streets. Part of the inhabitants, guided by the instincts of self-preservation, fled into the neighbouring country side. The rest, more attached to their homes, and rendered confident by the conviction that nothing had happened which could be interpreted as an act of hostility on their part, remained hidden in their houses.
On Sunday morning next, the 23rd, at 6.30 in the morning, soldiers of the 108th Regiment of Infantry invaded the Church of the Premonastrensian Fathers, drove out the congregation, separated the women from the men, and shot 50 of the latter. Between 7 and 9 the same morning the soldiers gave themselves up to pillage and arson, going from house to house and driving the inhabitants into the street. Those who tried to escape were shot. About 9 in the morning the soldiery, driving before them by blows from the butt ends of rifles men, women, and children, pushed them all into the Parade Square, where they were kept prisoners till 6 o’clock in the evening. The guard took pleasure in repeating to them that they would soon be shot. About 6 o’clock a Captain separated the men from the women and children. The women were placed in front of a rank of infantry soldiers, the men were ranged along a wall. The front rank of them were then told to kneel, the others standing behind them. A platoon of soldiers drew up in face of these unhappy men. It was in vain that the women cried out for mercy for their husbands, sons, and brothers. The officer ordered his men to fire. There had been no inquiry nor any pretense of a trial. About 20 of the inhabitants were only wounded, but fell among the dead. The soldiers, to make sure, fired a new volley into the heap of them. Several citizens escaped this double discharge. They shammed dead for more than two hours, remaining motionless among the corpses, and when night fell succeeded in saving themselves in the hills. Eighty-four corpses were left on the Square, and buried in a neighbouring garden.