Proceedings closed.
Signed: Greeven. Signed: Dr. Wolter.
D. App. 30.
Aix-la-Chapelle, November 14th, 1914.
Garrison Command.
Present:
President of the Court, Captain Schneider.
Secretary, Klinke.
On citation there appears as witness Herr Hubert Sittart, Member of the Imperial Diet, living in Aix-la-Chapelle, and on being questioned he declares the following:
On August 31st a number of women of Louvain told me there, with tears in their eyes, of the sorrow caused them by the bombardment of the town. They admitted emphatically that our troops had been fired at from the houses and cellars. One of them, the widow of a medical man, thought the firing had been done by the Garde Civique. But when she heard that wounded were lying at Aix-la-Chapelle who had been seriously wounded by small shot, she had to admit that civilians had also taken part in the firing. She also agreed with me when I declared that the Garde Civique, as well as the regular troops, deserved no forbearance if they fired from an ambush, from cellars and roofs instead of in open, honest fighting.
The vice-rector of Louvain University, Monsignore Coenraets, told me that he was ordered as hostage to read out to the people a proclamation to the effect that the hostages would be shot and fire opened on the town if the troops were treacherously fired at. He had hardly read this out in one street when shots were actually fired upon the German soldiers accompanying him.
The importance of the oath having been pointed out to the witness, he was sworn according to regulations.