The villages Gougnies and Biesmes had been destroyed also; of the former not one house was left undamaged; but nothing happened to the townlet Mettet. Here we were forbidden to go on, as we were already more than nine miles and a half from Charleroi. This compelled us to leave the main road, and to proceed along byways which soon took us to the Ardennes, where our motor-car rushed along in zigzags.
From time to time the tour became a break-neck affair, as the mountain roads were wet and muddy after much rain, and at corners we were often in great fear of being hurled down into the depth. It was a wonderfully fine district of green rock, although somewhat monotonous after a time, as it seemed that we were simply moving in a circle, which impression was strengthened by the fact that frequently we passed through tunnels and viaducts which were very alike to one another.
I felt very sick, for the sweet rye-bread which I had forced down my throat in the morning did not agree with me at all. At last I felt so ill that I was obliged to lie down on the floor of the car, and it took my colleague all his time to convince me that he did not think that my last hour had struck.
In the end and in despair I accepted an aspirin tablet which he had pressed on me a hundred times, and although I do not know whether it was owing to that, or in spite of it, it was a fact that I felt somewhat better.
After touring quite a long while through this labyrinth, we got at last back to the main road from Namur to Dinant, near Anhec. Here immediately we saw proofs of war, drawn from widespread destruction. The railway bridge across the Meuse near Houx, so picturesquely situated at the foot of a high rock, had been blown up.
Bouvigne, a hamlet near Dinant, had suffered fearfully from the bombardment of that town. Trees were splintered by the shells, the church was nearly a total wreck from the same cause, and two houses by the road had been riddled by bullets into a sieve, and also damaged by shells. On the whole scene of war I have not seen one house carrying so many bullets in it; their holes made the doors look like wire-netting. In these houses the French had barricaded themselves, brought mitrailleuses to them, and defended them until the last. None of those heroes left them alive. My colleague took many snapshots of this remarkable spot, while I collected bullets, fragments of shell, and similar mementos of this warfield.
In order to give the reader some idea of the fearful things that happened at Dinant, I insert here some quotations from the reports drawn up by the Belgian Inquiry Committee about the Violations of International Law, of which I can affirm the truth word for word, because they are identical with the information that I got myself at Dinant.
"The destruction took place from August 21st to the 25th.
"On August 15th a fierce fight took place between the French troops on the left bank of the Meuse and the Germans who approached from the east. The Germans were defeated, put to flight, and chased by the French, who crossed the river. On that day the town was not damaged much. Some houses were destroyed by German howitzers, which were undoubtedly aimed at the French regiments on the left bank. One Red Cross helper who lived at Dinant was killed by a German bullet when he was taking up one of the wounded.
"The next day all remained quiet, the French keeping the surrounding places occupied; not one fight took place between the two armies and nothing happened which might be looked upon as a hostile action by the populations, and there were no German troops near Dinant.
"At about nine o'clock of Friday evening, August 21st, German soldiers arriving by rail from Ciney marched into the town by the Rue Saint Jacques. They began to shoot into the windows without the slightest provocation, killed a workman who was on his way home, wounded another inhabitant and compelled him to call out: 'Long live the Kaiser.' A third they wounded in the abdomen with thrusts of their bayonets. They burst into the cafés, requisitioned all spirits, got tipsy on them, and left after setting several houses on fire and knocking to pieces the doors and windows of others.
"The inhabitants, frightened and perplexed, hid themselves in the houses.
"On Sunday, August 23rd, at half-past six in the morning, the soldiers of the 108th regiment of the line drove the worshippers out of the Premonstratensian Church, separated the men from the women, and shot about fifty of the former through the head. Between seven and nine o'clock there were house-to-house looting and burning by the soldiers, who chased the inhabitants into the street. Those who tried to escape were shot off-hand.
"At about nine o'clock the soldiers drove all who had been found in the houses in front of them by means of blows from their rifle-butts. They crowded them together in the Place d'Armes, where they kept them until six o'clock in the evening. Their guards amused themselves by telling the men repeatedly that they would soon be shot.
"At six o'clock a captain separated the men from the women and children. The women were placed behind a line of infantry. The men had to stand alongside a wall; those in the first row were ordered to sit on their haunches, the others to remain standing behind them. A platoon took a stand straight opposite the group. The women prayed in vain for mercy for their husbands, their sons, and their brothers; the officer gave the order to fire. He had not made the slightest investigation, pronounced no sentence of any sort.
"A score of these men were merely wounded and fell among the dead. For greater certainty the soldiers fired once more into the mass. A few got off scot-free in spite of the double fusillade. For over two hours they pretended to be dead, remained among the corpses without budging, and when it was dark were able to fly to the mountains. Eighty-four victims remained behind and were buried in a garden in the neighbourhood.
"There were other murders on that same 23rd of August.
"Soldiers discovered inhabitants of the suburb Saint Pierre in the cellars of a brewery, and killed them on the spot.
"On the previous day many workmen of the silk factory Kimmer and their wives and children had found a shelter in the cellars of the building, with some neighbours and relatives of their employer. At six o'clock in the evening the unfortunate people made up their mind to leave their hiding-place and went into the street, headed by a white flag. They were immediately seized by the soldiers and roughly ill-treated. All the men were shot, among them Mr. Kimmer, Consul of Argentina.
"Nearly all the men of the suburb Leffe were massacred en masse. In another quarter twelve citizens were murdered in a cellar. In the Rue en Ile a paralytic was shot in his bath-chair, and in the Rue d'Enfer a boy, fourteen years old, was struck down by a soldier.
"The railway viaduct of the suburb Neffe became the scene of a bloody massacre. An old woman and all her children were shot in a cellar. A man sixty-five years old, his wife, a son and a daughter were placed against a wall and shot through the head. Other inhabitants of Neffe were placed in a boat, taken to the Rocher Bayard, and shot there; among them were a woman eighty-three years old and her husband.
"A number of men and women had been locked in the yard of the prison.... At six o'clock in the evening a mitrailleuse was placed on the mountain and fired at them, an old woman and three others being killed.
"Whilst some soldiers committed these murders, others looted and wrecked the houses, smashed the safes or blew them up with dynamite. They forced their way into the Banque Centrale de la Meuse, seized the manager, Mr. Xavier Wasseige, and called upon him to open the safe. As he refused to do so, they tried to force it open, but in vain. Thereupon they took Mr. Wasseige and his two eldest sons to the Place d'Armes, where they and 120 of their fellow-citizens were shot by means of a mitrailleuse. The youngest three children of Mr. Wasseige were held by soldiers and forced to attend the slaughter of their father and brothers. We were also informed that one of the young Wasseiges lay dying for an hour and nobody dared to come to his assistance.
"After the soldiers had performed their duty as vandals and bandits they set the houses on fire. Soon the whole town was one immense pool of fire.
"All the women and children had been taken to a convent, where they were kept imprisoned for four days, without hearing of the fate of their beloved ones. They themselves expected to be shot in their turn. Round about them the burning of the town went on.
"The first day the religious were allowed to give them some food, although not sufficient. Soon they had nothing to eat but carrots and unripe fruit.
"The inquiry also brought to light that the German soldiers on the right bank, who were exposed to the fire of the French, hid themselves here and there behind civilians, women and children.
"In short the town of Dinant is destroyed. Of 1,400 houses, 200 only remained standing. The factories, where the labouring population got their bread and butter, were wrecked systematically. Many inhabitants were sent to Germany, where they are still kept as prisoners. The majority of the others are scattered all over Belgium. Those who stayed in the towns were starved.
"The committee has a list of the victims. It contains 700 names, and is not complete. Among those killed are seventy-three women and thirty-nine children between six months and fifteen years old.
"Dinant had 7,600 inhabitants, of whom ten per cent. were put to death; not a family exists which has not to mourn the death of some victims; many families have been exterminated completely."
When we entered the town in our motor-car, those of the unfortunate population who had escaped from the murderous massacre had already left the town. Between the ruins and the deserted French Red Cross cars we drove to the pontoon bridge which the Germans had flung across the river by the side of the Meuse bridge, which had been blown up. Here we were stopped by German soldiers who guarded the pontoon bridge. In a café we came across a few of the citizens who had remained. These unfortunate people had no home, no money, and no food, lacked the wherewithal to go farther away, and now depended on the charity of the murderers of their relatives. Twice a day they were allowed to call at one of the German stores for a piece of bread, in exchange for a ticket which they might get at the commander's office. The Germans, upholders of morality and "Kultur," saw to it that their victims did not overeat themselves.
Our passport had to be stamped by this same commander, and my colleague had to ask him for a permit to take photographs. The commander would not hear of this, but finally agreed, after my colleague had snapshotted him and his staff in front of the office. Our passport was marked: "1. Landsturm Infantry Battalion, Dresden."