The witness was thereupon sworn.
Signed: Schweinitz. Signed: Lips.
C. App. 51.
Present:
President of the Court, Schweinitz.
Secretary, Lips.
Neufchâtel, February 18th, 1915.
In the matter for inquiry concerning the events in Dinant, there appeared as witness Staff-Surgeon Dr. Petrenz who, after the importance of the oath had been pointed out to him, was examined as follows:
My name is Max Georg Hand Petrenz. I am 36 years old; Roman Catholic; by profession Dr. med., Staff-Surgeon with the Commander of the Train, XIIth Army Corps.
Questioned on the subject of his examination, he stated the following:
On August 21st and 22nd, 1914, I was in Taviet; on August 23rd the mounted echelon of the General Command started off and reached the Meuse at Les Rivages towards 10 o'clock in the evening. As I learned, the village of Sorinnes had been cleared on August 22nd of all the men and suspicious characters by our troops. When I came to Sorinnes early on the 23rd August I saw a burning house surrounded by our troops. I learned that passing hussars had been fired on from the house, that the house had been searched for the marksmen without result, and that in order to smoke them out of their hiding-places the house had been set on fire. I related this when I had ridden back again to Taviet, to my billet-landlady, a woman of the middle class. She gave it as her opinion that they were certainly, some of them, once more from Dinant. She related further, that suspicious characters had been sent out from Dinant to the surrounding districts; if these did anything to the German troops, the blame was put upon the inhabitants. I gathered from her words that the resistance to the German troops was directly organised in Dinant.
Our mounted escort set out from Taviet at three in the afternoon, made a halt for some time to the south of the Sorinnes-Dinant road, and carried out the descent to the Meuse in the ravine which leads to Les Rivages. We reached this point when it was already dark. In the night there came here a large number of women and children who really wanted to go still farther south. As this was attended with great danger, because everything on the way was burning, we detained them there and sheltered them in a large empty house, just opposite the pontoon bridge, where they were safe from the danger of fire. Besides myself, a number of Grenadier officers of the (Guards) Grenadier Regiment No. 100 also looked after the sheltering of the women and children. The next morning, at my request, all the women and children were provided with warm coffee by Captain von Criegern.