The correctness of the above is certified by:
Signed: Dr. Jotel, Chief Regimental Surgeon.
Signed: Winand Engel, Clergyman of the field hospital.
D. App. 34.
Quarters at Thiescourt, November 29th, 1914.
Present:
Leader of the proceedings, Lieutenant Stegmueller.
Secretary, Schmidt.
There appeared as witness Captain Josephson, who, after the importance of the oath had been pointed out, declared:
As to Person: My name is Walter Josephson, aged 46; Protestant; Leader of 2nd Battalion, Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53.
As to Case: On August 27th, 1914, the 3rd Battalion, Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53, marching from Rotzelaer to Louvain, had to conduct a transport of about 1000 civilian prisoners. At first, the 9th Company, under my leadership, and the 12th Company, Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53, under the leadership of Captain Ernst, carried out the supervision. When subsequently further transports of prisoners were added, the 1st Battalion of the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53 assisted in the supervision. Amongst the prisoners were a number of Belgian clergymen, one of whom particularly attracted my attention because at every halt he went from one prisoner to the other and spoke to them excitedly, so that I had to put him under special supervision. At Louvain we delivered the prisoners at the station; another section of the troops, whom I cannot now name, undertook the watch over them. On the following morning I was told by various people, amongst whom was also Captain Ernst, that the clergyman above mentioned had fired upon a guard, but had not hit him, and that he had therefore been shot on the square outside the station, probably by the order of the local commandant. Captain Ernst saw his body still lying there on the following day.
With regard to the conditions then prevailing at Louvain I am able further to state the following:
The 3rd Battalion, Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53, entered Louvain on August 25th, that is, on the day of the sudden attack, and remained at Louvain from August 27th to September 1st. My company was quartered on the Belgian rector of an intermediate school, a very quiet, sober-minded man, with whom I fully discussed the attack. He related to me that he had gone for a walk in the neighbourhood of Louvain on the day of the attack, and had visited an inn. The host told him that on that day a troop of about 100 young men, who conversed in different languages, had passed his house on the way to Louvain. They asked for drinks and lodgings for the night, but the whole thing appeared to him so suspicious that he removed the sign outside his inn, so as to have nothing to do with these people. He said to the rector literally, "If these people get to Louvain, there will be bad smells there to-morrow," by which he meant to say that then blood would flow. The rector also stated to me that in almost every house at Louvain a room for students is to be let. These rooms were tenantless at the time in question on account of the university holidays; friends and acquaintances of the students, or persons who posed as such, could quite easily get admission to these rooms; he assumed that these rooms had been occupied by the above-mentioned persons. It was, at any rate, a striking fact that when I rode at the head of my battalion, together with Captain Ernst and the adjutant, Lieutenant Stegmueller, in order to quarter myself at Louvain in the Rue des Joyeuses Entrées, there was a young man in almost every house, whereas the younger Belgian male population had been called up for war service; that, furthermore, the inhabitants absolutely urged us to quarter only officers in their houses, and that, finally, in all officers' quarters there was—so we were told—only in the outhouses room for the officers' servants, and never in the houses in which officers were quartered.