“All these deliberate organized massacres of civilians, all these murders and outrages, the violation of women, the killing of children, wanton destruction, burning, looting and pillage, and whole towns destroyed, were acts for which no possible military necessity can be pleaded. They were wilfully committed as part of a deliberately prepared and scientifically organized policy of terrorism.”
And now, having considered these outrages as part of the German policy of terrorism, let us turn to the facts presented by those who made investigations at first hand in devastated Belgium and Northern France.
Let us first return to the tragic story of the destruction of Louvain. The first document comes in the form of a cable sent from the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs under date of August 8, 1914:
“On Tuesday evening a body of German troops who had been driven back retired in disorder upon the town of Louvain. Germans who were guarding the town thought that the retiring troops were Belgians and fired upon them. In order to excuse this mistake the Germans, in spite of the most energetic denials on the part of the authorities, pretended that Belgians had fired on the Germans, although all the inhabitants, including policemen, had been disarmed for more than a week. Without any examination and without listening to any protest the commanding officer announced that the town would be immediately destroyed. All inhabitants had to leave their homes at once; some were made prisoners; women and children were put into a train of which the destination was unknown; soldiers with fire bombs set fire to the different quarters of the town; the splendid Church of St. Pierre, the markets, the university and its scientific establishments, were given to the flames, and it is probable that the Hotel de Ville, this celebrated jewel of Gothic art, will also have disappeared in the disaster. Several notabilities were shot at sight. Thus a town of 40,000 inhabitants, which, since the fifteenth century, has been the intellectual and scientific capital of the Low Countries, is a heap of ashes. Americans, many of whom have followed the course at this illustrious alma mater and have there received such cordial hospitality, cannot remain insensible to this outrage on the rights of humanity and civilization which is unprecedented in history.”
Minister Whitlock made the following report on the same outrage:
“A violent fusillade broke out simultaneously at various points in the city (Louvain), notably at the Porte de Bruxelles, Porte de Tirlemont, Rue Leopold, Rue Marie-Thérèse, Rue des Joyeuses Entrées. German soldiers were firing at random in every street and in every direction. Later fires broke out everywhere, notably in the University building, the Library, in the old Church of St. Peter, in the Place du Peuple, in the Rue de la Station, in the Boulevard de Tirlemont, and in the Chaussée de Tirlemont. On the orders of their chiefs, the German soldiers would break open the houses and set fire to them, shooting on the inhabitants who tried to leave their dwellings. Many persons who took refuge in their cellars were burned to death. The German soldiers were equipped with apparatus for the purpose of firing dwellings, incendiary pastils, machines for spraying petroleum, etc....
“Major von Manteuffel (of the German forces) sent for Alderman Schmidt. Upon the latter’s arrival, the major declared that hostages were to be held, as sedition had just broken out. He asked Father Parijs, Mr. Schmidt, and Mgr. Coenraedts, First Vice-Rector of the University, who was being held as a hostage, to make proclamations to the inhabitants exhorting them to be calm and menacing them with a fine of twenty million francs, the destruction of the city and the hanging of the hostages, if they created disturbance. Surrounded by about thirty soldiers and a few officers, Major Manteuffel, Father Parijs, Mr. Schmidt and Mgr. Coenraedts left in the direction of the station, and the alderman, in French, and the priest, in Flemish, made proclamations at the street corners....
“Near the statue of Juste-Lipse, a Dr. Berghausen, a German surgeon, in a highly excited condition, ran to meet the delegation. He shouted that a German soldier had just been killed by a shot fired from the house of Mr. David Fishbach. Addressing the soldiers, Dr. Berghausen said: ‘The blood of the entire population of Louvain is not worth a drop of the blood of a German soldier!’ Then one of the soldiers threw into the interior of the house of Mr. Fishbach one of the pastils which the German soldiers carried and immediately the house flared up. It contained paintings of a high value. The old coachman, Joseph Vandermosten, who had re-entered the house to try to save the life of his master, did not return. His body was found the next day amidst the ruins....
“The Germans made the usual claim that the civil population had fired upon them and that it was necessary to take these measures, i. e., burn the churches, the library and other public monuments, burn and pillage houses, driving out and murdering the inhabitants, sacking the city in order to punish and to spread terror among the people, and General von Luttwitz had told me that it was reported that the son of the burgomaster had shot one of their generals.
“But the burgomaster of Louvain had no son, and no officer was shot at Louvain. The story of a general shot by the son of a burgomaster was a repetition of a tragedy that had occurred at Aerschot, on the 19th, where the fifteen-year-old son of the burgomaster had been killed by a firing squad, not because he had shot a general, but because an officer had been shot, probably by Belgian soldiers retreating through the town. The story of this tragedy is told by the boy’s mother, under oath, before the Belgian Commission, and is so simple, so touching, so convincing in its verisimilitude, that I attach a copy of it in extenso to this report. It seems to afford an altogether typical example of what went on all over the stricken land during those days of terror. (In other places it was the daughter of the burgomaster who was said to have shot a general.)