“I got into Liége by Holland. I went first to Rosendael, then to Maastricht, last to Eysden, and then openly passed the frontier. I will not describe Visé, Mouland, Berneau, and other places, all burned, sacked, and devastated in the most horrible fashion. Although all I have seen has hardened my nerve, I still shiver when I think of it. One cannot grasp the idea of all that has really taken place there. The Germans, mad with rage on account of the resistance which we opposed to them, have acted like wild beasts, to give it a mild name. I have seen men, women, and children hanged or horribly mutilated. I have seen heaps of corpses, of which no trace will be left in a few hours, as the inhabitants round Liége have been commandeered to bury them in lots. Ah! the Prussians will have to render us a terrible account. I witnessed an incident on the Place Lambert, in Liége. A Belgian chauffeur was arguing with a German officer. Visibly, the Belgian chauffeur could not understand what was wanted of him. The crowd gathered, and I could not follow the rest of the scene; but I heard a revolver shot. Then German soldiers rushed out of the palace to stop the crowds, and I saw the chauffeur, with blood-covered face, carried into a house by two soldiers. Not a sign of revolt from the crowd. The rifles are loaded, ready to go off. At my side a German said, laughingly: ‘Ach, das ist nichts! Eine kleinigkeit.’ (‘Oh! that’s nothing. Only a small thing.’)”
Dinant Destroyed.
It was at Dinant, one of the most famous beauty spots of Belgium, and which is so well known to English tourists, who flock to it in great numbers every year, that some particularly atrocious outrages took place. According to the message of Reuter’s correspondent at Ostend, the women were confined in convents whilst hundreds of men were shot. A hundred prominent citizens were shot in the Place d’Armes. M. Hummers, manager of a large weaving factory employing two thousand men, and M. Poncelet, son of a former Senator, were both shot, the latter in the presence of his six children. The Germans appeared at the branch of the National Bank, where they demanded all the cash in the safe. When the manager refused to give them the money they tried to blow the safe open. Not succeeding in this they demanded the combination for the lock. The manager refused. On this the Germans shot him immediately, together with his two sons. Dinant was afterwards destroyed by shell-fire and incendiarism.
“The modern Attila respects neither the laws of nations nor the laws of God. His evil deeds cry aloud to Heaven and to the horror-struck watching nations.”—Times.
The wanton destruction of this ancient and beautiful town is a crime second only to that committed at Louvain.
Children Outraged.
A Belgian soldier who fought at Dinant was eye-witness of a terrible scene. Several German infantrymen had entered a house in a small village on the Meuse, and he, with four other Belgians, lay in wait for them. The Germans emerged with a young woman, whom they subjected to brutal ill-usage. The Belgians feared that if they fired they might hit the woman, but presently one of the Kaiser’s savages drew his bayonet and plunged it into the poor girl’s breast, whereupon she sank down uttering a piteous cry.
At Harseet the Uhlans suddenly descended upon the village, shot the first men they came across, numbering seven; this was followed by outrages on women, and twenty-two men were carried off as prisoners. Two Uhlans demanded a fowl from a peasant, who replied that he had none. They found one, and promptly shot him.
Because two Jesuit professors at Louvain University were found with newspapers upon them, telling of German atrocities, one was shot, while thirty of the Jesuits were taken away in carts to an unknown fate.