German Atrocities. A Record of Shameless Deeds. Le Queux William
burned down the villages through which it had passed.
As soon as they had entered the town of Louvain the Germans requisitioned food and lodging for their troops. They went to all the banks of the town and took possession of the cash in hand. German soldiers burst open the doors of houses which had been abandoned by their inhabitants, pillaged them, and committed other excesses.
The German authorities took as hostages the mayor of the city, Senator Van der Kelen, the Vice-Rector of the Catholic University, and the senior priest of the city, besides certain magistrates and aldermen. All the weapons possessed by the inhabitants, even fencing swords, had already been given up to the municipal authorities and placed by them in the Church of St. Pierre.
In a neighbouring village, Corbeek Loo, on Wednesday, August 19th, a young woman, aged twenty-two, whose husband was with the Army, and some of her relations, were surprised by a band of German soldiers. The persons who were with her were locked up in a deserted house, while she herself was dragged into another cottage, where she was assaulted by five soldiers.
Fate of 16-year-old Girl.
In the same village on Thursday, August 20, German soldiers fetched from their house a young girl, about sixteen years old, and her parents. They conducted them to a small deserted country house, and while some of them held back the father and mother, others entered the house, and, finding the cellar open, forced the girl to drink. They then brought her on to the lawn in front of the house and assaulted her. Finally they stabbed her in the breast with their bayonets.
When this young girl had been abandoned by them after these abominable deeds, she was brought back to her parents’ house, and the following day, in view of the gravity of her condition, she received extreme unction from the parish priest and was taken to the hospital of Louvain, as her life was despaired of.
On August 24 and 25 Belgian troops made a sortie from the entrenched camp of Antwerp and attacked the German army before Malines. The Germans were thrown back on Louvain and Vilvorde.
On entering the villages which had been occupied by the enemy the Belgian army found them devastated. The Germans, as they retired, had pillaged and burnt the villages, taking with them the male inhabitants, whom they forced to march in front of them.
Belgian soldiers entering Hofstade on August 25 found the body of an old woman who had been killed by bayonet thrusts. She still held in her hand the needle with which she was sewing when she was killed. A woman and her fifteen or sixteen year old son lay on the ground, pierced by bayonets. A man had been hanged.
At Sempst, a neighbouring village, were found the bodies of two men partially carbonised. One of them had his legs cut off at the knees; the other had the arms and legs cut off. A workman, whose burnt body has been seen by several witnesses, had been struck several times with bayonets, and then, while still alive, the Germans had poured petroleum over him and thrown him into a house to which they set fire. A woman who came out of her house was killed in the same way.
A witness, whose evidence has been taken by a reliable British subject, declares that he saw, on August 26, not far from Malines, during the last Belgian attack, an old man tied by the arms to one of the rafters in the ceiling of his farm. The body was completely carbonised, but the head, arms, and feet were unburnt. Further on, a child of about fifteen was tied up, the hands behind the back, and the body was completely torn open with bayonet wounds. Numerous corpses of peasants lay on the ground in positions of supplication, their arms lifted and their hands clasped.
Facts about Louvain.
At nightfall on August 26 the German troops, repulsed by our soldiers, entered Louvain panic-stricken. Several witnesses affirm that the German garrison which occupied Louvain was erroneously informed that the enemy were entering the town. Men of the garrison immediately marched to the station, shooting haphazard the while, and there met the German troops who had been repulsed by the Belgians, the latter having just ceased the pursuit.
Everything tends to prove that the German regiments fired on one another. At once the Germans began bombarding the town, pretending that civilians had fired on the troops, a suggestion which is contradicted by all the witnesses, and could scarcely have been possible, because the inhabitants of Louvain had had to give up their arms to the municipal authorities several days before.
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