No sooner had the farmer departed, than soldiers entered his house, raided the wine-cellar and, after drinking themselves into beasts, assaulted his wife and daughter. The assistant had attempted to defend them, but being unequal to the task against so many, ran to the village for help. When he returned with others it was too late; they found the farm vacated; wife, daughter, and soldiers gone!
The farmer, half-maddened with fear on hearing this, set out with a number of others to search for his dear ones; but only after nightfall they found a trace of them, in a wood some distance from the farm.
While following with lanterns the foot-marks of soldiers which led them to this spot, the farmer suddenly espied a bit of the gown his daughter had worn, protruding from the ground. The place was opened, and there, just beneath the sod, lay the body of his daughter in the ghastly pose of hurried burial.
Later his wife was discovered, quite demented, roaming far off in the country.
This story is not given as one of the most atrocious of those we heard almost daily; for it is far from that. In this case the criminals were drunken soldiers, not cold-blooded, sober officers, such as the authors of the Aerschot tragedy, those committed at Tamines, and all along the route from Liège to Brussels!
Many of the stories were so unspeakably horrible I should not care to perpetuate them in print. I have, moreover, limited myself to such events as came to me first-hand, and also to avoid those already known. These two are recounted merely to demonstrate the lack of human understanding evinced by the German authorities, who expected a people so treated submissively to yield up their possessions, even their very beds and mattresses, to an enemy that had scorned all principles of right and shown them no slightest hint of mercy.
It was little to be wondered at that they hid or destroyed their goods rather than yield them, even though obliged to endure severe punishment when discovered. And no less comprehensible was their contempt for the peace-whines,—the subtle endeavours of a defeated bully to avert the punishment every heart in Belgium was eager should overtake them.
The stupidity of Prussian rule in Belgium was only equalled by this childish effort to escape the consequences of their stupendous crime!—an effort scorned, not only by the Belgians, but by every neutral who had seen with what appalling contempt for all laws of humanity, justice, and civilization they had misused their power, when victory had seemed likely to be theirs.
Long before the too-patient United States raised an avenging hand, several of her children were arrested in Brussels for bitter utterances they could not control. I remember how a young fellow who, having diplomatic connections, had long suppressed his ire, let out one day when he and some friends were lunching together in a café. It was at the time when Belgian civilians were being taken by force to work for the enemy, and one of the party had related a heart-breaking scene witnessed at one of the railroad stations. Mothers, wives, and sisters were gathered there, weeping and shrieking against the unpardonable cruelty.
This pitiable tale, and others quite as distressing, had roused them all; but the young fellow referred to was beside himself, and when others endeavoured to quiet him, he sprang up and rushed into the street. One or two followed, fearing what he might do, and saw him deliberately cross to the centre of a public square, where, standing bare-headed, he shouted at the top of his voice: “To hell with the Kaiser! To hell with the Kaiser!”