“This hellish baptism accomplished, they waited. Ah! not for long. The flames burst forth with a fearful roaring noise, blackening the walls and rising above the front like a fiery serpent, and soon all was ablaze.
“This beautiful sight roused the brave soldiers. Close to the mayor’s residence and along the whole length of each side of the Rue des Deux Ponts there were beautiful houses, the residences of middle-class citizens. They sprinkled these sixty houses with petrol and with oil and ran their torches against the damp walls, and some minutes afterwards the whole street was on fire. The flames leaped out of the cellars, ran along the walls, rose, grew larger and larger and climbed up to the roof. They joined each other from one side of the street to the other, and, uniting, leaped to the sky like pillars of fire. The whole air was red. Flakes of flame sped outside the town, and left behind a trail of smoke. Up there on the top of the church the weathercock which revolved on the spire of the ruined belfry gleamed like a jewel of iridescent stones, and all at once, in a din of thunder claps, all the houses collapsed and shed on the town a rain of sparks.
“For five days the rubbish smoked.” One hundred and two houses were burnt down.
A Few Figures
These narratives are eloquent and yet they are far from giving an idea of the destruction which the Germans left behind them. The figures tell us still more than the narratives.
In Belgium, in fifteen towns and villages taken at random among the localities which the Germans systematically ravaged by fire, we note that 2191 houses were burnt: in other words, on an average each Belgian locality damaged by the fire of German torches had 146 houses burnt down. Moreover, we have mentioned in our investigations, which were made at haphazard, the names of ten Belgian localities entirely destroyed by fire, including Tirlemont, Linsneau, Andennes, Schaffer, Spontin, etc. It may easily be imagined what would be the result of a systematic inquiry.
In France, the number of villages completely burnt down like Nomény, Sommeilles, etc., was very great.
Some idea of the damage done may be formed from the fact that in the Meurthe-et-Moselle province alone twenty-two places suffered from fire. Of these twenty-two, two were completely destroyed (Villers-aux-Vents and Sommeilles), and in the other twenty, 663 houses were burnt. This gives an average of twenty-three houses a district.
Burning of Historic Monuments and Castles
It was not merely at Reims during the bombardment, and at Louvain during the fire, that the Germans showed their contempt for monuments and the treasures of art and science contained in them. In the following chapter we shall take note of the loot carried on in the interiors of these buildings. Here we speak only of fire and general destruction. Several castles were burnt down: those of Varolles, Moque-Souris, Sparre (in Chierry), the château of Brumetz (Aisne province), the town hall of Lunéville, the house of M. Alberic Magnard, author of Bérénice (at Baron), who saw all the works of art accumulated there, in value exceeding a million francs, destroyed by fire. In Poland, the town hall of Szydlowice, an architectural masterpiece, was destroyed, notwithstanding the 5000 crowns which the inhabitants of the place paid to the German commandant to secure its preservation.