I had a long talk with M. Carton de Wiart, during which he unfolded to me many frightful details, and
“These abominable crimes against humanity and civilization call for condign reprobation in the face of the civilized world.... Let us hear no more whining about German ‘culture.’ But let us make it known that we will make the world ring with our sense of horror.”—Frederic Harrison.
explained the reason for the appointment of a committee of inquiry. He described to me scenes he himself had witnessed. He laid stress upon the bombardment and destruction of open towns—that is, towns unprotected and undefended by any military works—such as Malines and Louvain; while Antwerp, being a fortified place, ought to have had twenty-four hours’ notice given to its inhabitants before it was attacked with bombs, yet no such notice was given. On the contrary, attacks by Zeppelins had been made without warning in the dead of night. He also described to me the atrocities committed by the Germans in the bombardment and setting fire to small villages without any military reason or necessity whatever. He related harrowing details of the massacre of perfectly innocent people, non-combatants, men, women, and children.
He showed me a letter from a person of repute in Belgium who had motored from Brussels to Louvain by the Tervueren road, in which I read: “After I got to a village named Veerde St. George I saw only burning villages; peasants beside themselves with terror threw up their arms in sign of submission on my approach. When I got to Louvain I found the whole town in ruins, and soldiers were still piling straw against buildings which had escaped the flames and igniting them.”
Authenticated Documents.
The mass of documents which the Mission were carrying to America, he informed me, were all signed statements of persons who had been eye-witnesses of the atrocities, as well as those of many who had suffered.
In a chat I also had with M. Emile Van der Velde, another member of the Delegation and the leader of the Belgian Socialists, he said: “I went to Malines after the fighting, in order to investigate the state of affairs. I found only eight Belgian people in the town, but even then the Germans were bombarding the deserted houses, apparently with the sole object of destroying them. The whole object of the Germans,” he added, “had been to create such a reign of terror that the whole population of Belgium should flee into Antwerp, and so render it impossible for the people congregated there to be fed. I myself examined the bodies of a peasant and his son which had been cut to pieces by bayonet thrusts.”
Another member of the Delegation told me that he had learned from several wounded persons how a druggist living near Tirlemont, on refusing to act as guide to the Uhlans, was shot three times and then bayoneted; and further, in the same hospital, wounded soldiers had told him how that while lying upon the battlefield many had been bayoneted or shot.
The Delegation had, earlier in the day on which I had this interview with them, presented an Address to His Majesty at Buckingham Palace, the text of which has been published. It ran:—
“Sire,—Belgium, having had to choose between the sacrifice of her honour and the peril of war, did not hesitate. She opposed the brutal aggression committed by a Power which was one of the guarantors of her neutrality.