The reconnaissance showed that the roads in the Meuse Valley of Dinant-Leffe were impassable on account of the débris of fallen houses, conflagrations, and the shots fired from the houses by the inhabitants.
C. App. 22.
Extract from Report of the Staff, 64th Infantry Brigade.
The Infantry Regiment No. 178 had not only opposed to it a strong force of the enemy, but was also being heavily fired on by francs-tireurs from the houses of the village of Leffe. A company of the 2nd Battalion as well as a detachment of the Machine-Gun Company, Infantry Regiment No. 178, were, as the Brigade Staff itself saw, fired on in the same way from all the houses as they were entering the village of Leffe. This could only have come from the inhabitants; some of them were seized with weapons in their hands and shot. Toward 1.45 in the afternoon a detachment of heavy artillery opened fire on the houses of Bouvignes which were occupied by the enemy, with obvious results. As shots were being fired from the woods and cliffs north and south of Leffe on our troops passing through the village street, the Kurhessian Jäger Battalion No. 11 received the order to clear the woods. Here also civilians, without any military badge or uniform, were seized with weapons in their hands and shot.
64th Infantry Brigade.
Leffe, August 23rd, 1914, 11.50 a.m.
To Field Artillery Regiment No. 64.
The 3rd Company, Infantry Regiment No. 178, is suffering especially through infantry fire from the houses with the pointed towers and from the ruins to the right of them in Bouvignes. The 64th Brigade asks you to kindly bring these houses under fire.
64th Infantry Brigade.
C. App. 23.