The German Army in Belgium, the White Book of May 1915

by Germany. Auswärtiges Amt

Belgian Civilian Uprising in Aerschot on August 19th and 20th, 1914.

Comprehensive Report.

The officially summoned Belgian Commission of Inquiry, together with the foreign Press, have included the case of Aerschot in their innumerable calumnies against the German method of waging war in Belgium. Neither could find enough to say in their descriptions of the "barbarous" attitude adopted by the German troops and their officers towards the "harmless" inhabitants, nor against the utter lack of ground for the Court of Punishment held in the "peaceful" town. The true facts of the matter, which have been established by a number of carefully sworn testimonies given by unprejudiced witnesses, reveal quite a different picture.

On August 19, 1914, German troops of the 8th Infantry Brigade were housed in Aerschot. The town quietly watched the Brigade Staff enter on the same day. Colonel Stenger, in command of the brigade, sent his adjutant, Captain Schwarz, in advance, in order to procure billets for the members of the staff. Captain Schwarz was received in a friendly manner by the Mayor and his wife. The Mayor suggested that his own house, situated in the market-place, would provide the best accommodation. The Colonel and his orderly officer, Lieutenant Beyersdorff (App. 1), went there in the afternoon between four and five. The relations between the officer staying in those quarters and his host were from the very first amiable and polite (App. 1).

Colonel Jenrich, officer commanding Infantry Regiment No. 140, attached to the Brigade, was made Governor of the town, and summoned the Mayor in order to ask him whether any dispersed Belgian soldiers were hidden in the place, or disguised as civilians in the houses. The Mayor replied to both questions in the negative. Colonel Jenrich warned him expressly against attacks by the civil population, for which the Mayor, on penalty of death, would be held responsible. Further, he desired him to see that the inhabitants delivered up all weapons. This demand Colonel Jenrich had to repeat twice, as it turned out that great quantities of weapons were kept back by the population (App. 2).

At 8 o'clock in the evening a particularly loud report was heard in the town, which proved to be the signal for a general firing on the German troops gathered together in the streets and the market-place. The fire—evidently at the given signal—opened from the roof windows of a corner house near the market-place, situated opposite that of the Mayor (App. 3). Three volleys were fired from this house, then the shooting ceased for a short time, after which brisk and rapid firing began again from many of the houses. The shots came chiefly from the roof window. All the doors and windows of the house from which the first shot had been fired were firmly locked, and had to be broken open by the soldiers. The house was set on fire. Several civilians, who attempted to flee, were seized, many with weapons in their hands (App. 5). Eighty-eight men amongst them were shot as francs-tireurs (App. 3).

Colonel Stenger had remained alone in his room in the Mayor's house. By a notice on the door the house was easily recognisable as being the quarters of the Brigade Staff. Colonel Stenger, trusting to the assumed friendliness of the inhabitants, had spent the afternoon on the balcony adjoining his room, where he was clearly visible to all. Towards the evening he retired to his brightly lit room, leaving the balcony doors wide open (App. 1). When Captain Schwarz and Lieutenant Beyersdorff went to call on him in the evening about 8 o'clock, in order to receive instructions with reference to the uprising, they found Colonel Stenger lying mortally wounded in the middle of the lighted room, with the balcony doors still wide open. The doctor, who was immediately summoned, could only testify to the death that had already overtaken him (App. 1). The shots fired at the Colonel occurred then at the same time as those of the first lively volleys fired from the house opposite his room. It was the case of a systematic attack upon the German troops, who, robbed of their leader, were to fall into disorder and confusion. Hence the cessation of the firing after the first volleys, when the criminals saw they had succeeded in murdering the Colonel, and its immediate hostile renewal against the apparently leaderless troops. The sequence of events is so obvious that it is only confirmed by the previous pretence of friendliness on the part of the inhabitants, and not weakened by this fact, as the Belgian representation of events would have it.

An immediate search of the Mayor's house showed that the family were not only cognizant of the hostilities, but also participated in them. Shots were fired into the street from the locked cellar, the key of which the family declared to have been lost, and it had to be forcibly opened; a stand had even been moved to the cellar window, in order to make their position easier for the marksmen (App. 1), and a musketeer was positively certain that he had noticed a shot fired from the house (App. 1). The Mayor's son alone could be held responsible for the actual deed; hidden away by his family, he was fetched out of a dark room (App. 1). But since the whole family were guilty of the Colonel's murder after having received him with such "hospitality," according to Belgian reports, both father and son were shot on the following day, August 20 (App. 2).

At the town Governor's instigation, Captain Karge, officer commanding the Military Mounted Police, was lodged in the house of the Mayor's brother, and thus he too shared the same fate (Apps. 2, 3).

According to the nature of the firing, no doubt remains of its being a case of a systematic and murderous attack on the German garrison. This was also admitted to Captain Karge by a civilian prisoner of the educated classes (App. 3). The participation of the Mayor's whole family proves that the Belgian authorities supported such treacherous deeds against the German troops—deeds that were, unhappily, only too frequent. In Aerschot this mischievous official authority led to the ruthless murder of the commanding officer.