“Like so many brutes,” says the Times correspondent, “these burgesses of Louvain, among them merchants, brewers, advocates, engineers, and representatives of all social grades, were herded into wagons which had served for the transport of horses and were inches deep in filth. Into each wagon ninety men were crushed at the point of the bayonet by soldiers who seemed to glory in the maltreatment of their fellow-men. The unhappy prisoners had, of course, to stand, and to add to the horrors of the fetid atmosphere, the doors were shut, and only fugitive rays of light filtered through the chinks.
“For two hours they were kept like this at Louvain station, after which the train left for Cologne. The journey occupied about fifty hours, and the Belgians during this awful time were given neither food nor drink. ‘After such an experience,’ states one of them, ‘hell itself can have no terrors.’
“Once strong physically and prosperous, he who spoke is now a nervous wreck and destitute, living on the charity of friends who do not know but what it may be their turn to-morrow.
“Arrived at Cologne, the prisoners were marched through jeering crowds to the Exhibition Gardens. Men and women surged round the pitiful band, hurling at them vile epithets, and shouting, ‘Zum Tod, zum Tod!’ (‘Kill them, kill them!’) Even the children joined in kicking the prisoners as they passed. The Belgians could gather no idea as to why they had been dragged off to Germany, and even feared the worst. The night was passed in the open, and in the morning they broke their prolonged fast on a small portion of black bread.
“Suddenly the German authorities changed their minds. Back the prisoners must go to Belgium, and, four abreast, the motley column regained the station. A passenger train awaited them, but each compartment for nine people was made to hold eighteen or nineteen. In some ways the home journey was more terrible than the outward. For two days and three nights the unfortunate inhabitants of Louvain were jolted about between Cologne and the capital of their own country, again absolutely without food.
“On rare occasions the guard exhibited a glimmering of pity, and permitted the prisoners a mouthful of water. At the Gare du Nord, in Brussels, compatriots smuggled food through the windows. The train only stopped a short time here, and was off again to Schaerbeek.
“Completely at a loss what to do with their charges, the Prussian officers ordered them out of the train, and under an armed guard marched them on foot through Vilvorde and Pont Brulé and on to Malines. When crossing the fields the prisoners tore up turnips and beetroots and ate them ravenously. At Malines the officer in charge of the escort told the half-dead men they were free, and by different routes they reached Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, and other places in territory unoccupied by the enemy.”
The Massacre of Innocents.
The stories of the poor panic-stricken women of Louvain who emerged alive from the night of terror cannot fail to arouse horror. One woman upon whose face were marks of the intense suffering through which she had passed told how she tore down the curtains from her windows, wrapped them round some wearing apparel, and ran from the house with her two children. In the street she became involved in a stampede of men, women, and children rushing away from their burning town, whither she knew not.
This miserable refugee’s story was so disjointed, so interspersed with hysterical sobs and exclamations, that it is impossible to make a full and coherent narrative of it.