Produced by Brian Coe, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriberâs Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Additional Transcriberâs Notes are at the end. * * * * * [Illustration: THE INVADED COUNTRY] * * * * * THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM _An Historical Record_ BY ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE LATE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY MCMXVII * * * * * COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE The subject of this book is the treatment of the civil population in the countries overrun by the German Armies during the first three months of the European War. The form of it is a connected narrative, based on the published documents[1] and reproducing them by direct quotation or (for the sake of brevity) by reference. With the documents now published on both sides it is at last possible to present a clear narrative of what actually happened. The co-ordination of this mass of evidence, which has gradually accumulated since the first days of invasion, is the principal purpose for which the book has been written. The evidence consists of first-hand statements--some delivered on oath before a court, others taken down from the witnesses without oath by competent legal examiners, others written and published on the witnessesâ own initiative as books or pamphlets. Most of them originally appeared in print in a controversial setting, as proofs or disproofs of disputed fact, or as justifications or condemnations of fact that was admitted. In the present work, however, this argumentative aspect of them has been avoided as far as possible. For it has either been treated exhaustively in official publications--the case of Louvain, for instance, in the German White Book and the Belgian Reply to it--or will not be capable of such treatment till after the conclusion of the War. The ultimate inquiry and verdict, if it is to have finality, must proceed either from a mixed commission of representatives of all the States concerned, or from a neutral commission like that appointed by the Carnegie Foundation to inquire into the atrocities committed during the Balkan War. But the German Government has repeatedly refused proposals, made both unofficially and officially, that it should allow such an investigation to be conducted in the territory at present under German military occupation,[2] and the final critical assessment will therefore necessarily be postponed till the German Armies have retired again within their own frontiers. Meanwhile, an ordered and documented narrative of the attested facts seems the best preparation for that judicial appraisement for which the time is not yet ripe. The facts have been drawn from statements made by witnesses on opposite sides with different intentions and beliefs, but as far as possible they have been disengaged from this subjective setting and have been set out, without comment, to speak for themselves. It has been impossible, however, to confine the exposition to pure narration at every point, for in the original evidence the facts observed and the inferred explanation of them are seldom distinguished, and when the same observed fact is made a ground for diametrically opposite inferences by different witnesses, the difficulty becomes acute. A German soldier, say, in Louvain on the night of August 25th, 1914, hears the sound of machine-gun firing apparently coming from a certain spot in the town, and infers that at this spot Belgian civilians are using a machine gun against German troops; a Belgian inhabitant hears the same sound, and infers that German troops are firing on civilians. In such cases the narrative must be interpreted by a judgment as to which of the inferences is the truth, and this judgment involves discussion. What is remarkable, however, is the rarity of these contradictions. Usually the different testimonies fit together into a presentation of fact which is not open to argument. The narrative has been arranged so as to follow separately the tracks of the different German Armies or groups of Armies which traversed different sectors of French and Belgian territory. Within each sector the chronological order has been followed, which is generally identical with the geographical order in which the places affected lie along the route of march. The present volume describes the invasion of Belgium up to the sack of Louvain. ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE. _March, 1917._ FOOTNOTES: [1] A schedule of the more important documents will be found in the âList of Abbreviationsâ pp. xi-xiii. [2] Belgian Reply pp. vii. and 97-8. CONTENTS FRONTISPIECE _The Invaded Country (Map)_ PAGE PREFACE v TABLE OF CONTENTS ix LIST OF MAPS ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi CHAPTER I.: THE TRACK OF THE ARMIES 15 CHAPTER II.: FROM THE FRONTIER TO LIÃGE 23 (i) ON THE VISÃ ROAD 23 (ii) ON THE BARCHON ROAD 27 (iii) ON THE FLÃRON ROAD 31 (iv) ON THE VERVIERS ROAD 37 (v) ON THE MALMÃDY ROAD 38 (vi) BETWEEN THE VESDRE AND THE OURTHE 42 (vii) ACROSS THE MEUSE 44 (viii) THE CITY OF LIÃGE 46 CHAPTER III.: FROM LIÃGE TO MALINES 52 (i) THROUGH LIMBURG TO AERSCHOT 52 (ii) AERSCHOT 57 (iii) THE AERSCHOT DISTRICT 74 (iv) THE RETREAT FROM MALINES 77 (v) LOUVAIN 89 MAPS THE INVADED COUNTRY _Frontispiece_ THE TRACK OF THE ARMIES: FROM THE FRONTIER TO MALINES[3] _End of Volume_ LOUVAIN, FROM THE GERMAN WHITE BOOK _End of Volume_ FOOTNOTE: [3] _This map shows practically all the roads and places referred to in the text._ ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE 1. MOULAND _To face page_ 16 2. BATTICE 17 3. LIÃGE FORTS: A DESTROYED CUPOLA 32 4. ANS: AN INTERIOR 33 5. ANS: THE CHURCH 48 6. LIÃGE: A FARM HOUSE 49 7. LIÃGE UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION 52 8. LIÃGE UNDER THE GERMANS: RUINS AND PLACARDS 53 9. LIÃGE IN RUINS 60 10. âWE LIVE LIKE GOD IN BELGIUMâ 61 11. HAELEN 64 12. AERSCHOT 65 13. BRUSSELS: A BOOKING-OFFICE 80 14. MALINES AFTER BOMBARDMENT 81 15. MALINES: RUINS 84 16. MALINES: RUINS 85 17. MALINES: CARDINAL MERCIERâS STATE-ROOM AS A RED CROSS HOSPITAL 92 18. MALINES: THE CARDINALâS THRONE-ROOM 93 19. CAPELLE-AU-BOIS 96 20. CAPELLE-AU-BOIS 97 21. CAPELLE-AU-BOIS: THE CHURCH 112 22. LOUVAIN: NEAR THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE 113 23. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE 116 24. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE ACROSS THE RUINS 117 25. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE--INTERIOR 124 26. LOUVAIN: STATION SQUARE 125 ABBREVIATIONS ALPHABET, LETTERS OF THE:-- CAPITALS Appendices to the German White Book entitled: â_The Violation of International Law in the Conduct of the Belgian Peopleâs-War_â (dated Berlin, 10th May, 1915); Arabic numerals after the capital letter refer to the depositions contained in each Appendix. LOWER CASE Sections of the â_Appendix to the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages, Appointed by His Britannic Majestyâs Government and Presided Over by the Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M._â (Cd. 7895); Arabic numerals after the lower case letter refer to the depositions contained in each Section. ANN(EX) Annexes (numbered 1 to 9) to the _Reports of the Belgian Commission (vide infra)_. BELG. _Reports (numbered i to xxii) of the Official Commission of the Belgian Government on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws and Customs of War._ (English translation, published, on behalf of the Belgian Legation, by H.M. Stationery Office, two volumes.) BLAND â_Germanyâs Violations of the Laws of War, 1914-5_â; compiled under the Auspices of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and translated into English with an Introduction by J. O. P. Bland. (London: Heinemann. 1915.) BRYCE _Appendix to the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages appointed by His Britannic Majestyâs Government._ CHAMBRY â_The Truth about Louvain_,â by RÃ©nÃ© Chambry. (Hodder and Stoughton. 1915.) DAVIGNON â_Belgium and Germany_,â Texts and Documents, preceded by a Foreword by Henri Davignon. (Thomas Nelson and Sons.) âEYE-WITNESSâ â_An Eye-Witness at Louvain_â (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1914.) âGERMANSâ â_The Germans at Louvain_,â by a volunteer worker in the _HÃ´pital St.-Thomas_. (Hodder and Stoughton. 1916.) GRONDIJS â_The Germans in Belgium: Experiences of a Neutral_,â by L. H. Grondijs, Ph.D., formerly Professor of Physics at the Technical Institute of Dordrecht. (London: Heinemann. 1915.) HÃCKER â_An der Spitze Meiner Kompagnie, Three Months of Campaigning_,â by Paul Oskar HÃ¶cker. (Ullstein and Co., Berlin and Vienna. 1914.) âHORRORSâ â_The Horrors of Louvain_,â by an Eye-witness, with an Introduction by Lord Halifax. (Published by the London _Sunday Times_.) MASSART â_Belgians under the German Eagle_,â by Jean Massart, Vice-Director of the Class of Sciences in the Royal Academy of Belgium. (English translation by Bernard Miall. London: Fisher Unwin. 1916.) MERCIER _Pastoral Letter_, dated Xmas, 1914, of His Eminence Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines. MORGAN â_German Atrocities: An Official Investigation_,â by J. H. Morgan, M.A., Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of London. (London: Fisher Unwin. 1916.) NUMERALS, ROMAN LOWER CASE _Reports (numbered i to xxii) of the Belgian Commission (vide supra)._ R(EPLY) â_Reply to the German White Book of May 10, 1915._â (Published, for the Belgian Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1916.) Arabic numerals after the R refer to the depositions contained in the particular section of the _Reply_ that is being cited at the moment: _e.g._, R15 denotes the fifteenth deposition in the section on Louvain in the _Reply_ when cited in the section on Louvain in the present work; but it denotes the fifteenth deposition in the section on Aerschot when cited in the corresponding section here. The _Reply_ is also referred to by pages, and in these cases the Arabic numeral denotes the page and is preceded by âp.â S(OMVILLE) â_The Road to LiÃ©ge_,â by Gustave Somville. (English translation by Bernard Miall. Hodder and Stoughton. 1916.) STRUYKEN â_The German White Book on the War in Belgium: A Commentary_,â by Professor A. A. H. Struyken. (English Translation of Articles in the Journal _Van Onzen Tijd_, of Amsterdam, July 31st, August 7th, 14th, 21st, 1915. Thomas Nelson and Sons.) N.B.--Statistics, where no reference is given, are taken from the first and second Annexes to the Reports of the Belgian Commission. They are based on official investigations. * * * * * THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM I. THE TRACK OF THE ARMIES. When Germany declared war upon Russia, Belgium, and France in the first days of August, 1914, German armies immediately invaded Russian, Belgian, and French territory, and as soon as the frontiers were crossed, these armies began to wage war, not merely against the troops and fortifications of the invaded states, but against the lives and property of the civil population. Outrages of this kind were committed during the whole advance and retreat of the Germans through Belgium and France, and only abated when open manÅuvring gave place to trench warfare along all the line from Switzerland to the sea. Similar outrages accompanied the simultaneous advance into the western salient of Russian Poland, and the autumn incursion of the Austro-Hungarians into Serbia, which was turned back at Valievo. There was a remarkable uniformity in the crimes committed in these widely separated theatres of war, and an equally remarkable limit to the dates within which they fell. They all occurred during the first three months of the war, while, since that period, though outrages have continued, they have not been of the same character or on the same scale. This has not been due to the immobility of the fronts, for although it is certainly true that the Germans have been unable to overrun fresh territories on the west, they have carried out greater invasions than ever in Russia and the Balkans, which have not been marked by outrages of the same specific kind. This seems to show that the systematic warfare against the civil population in the campaigns of 1914 was the result of policy, deliberately tried and afterwards deliberately given up. The hypothesis would account for the peculiar features in the German Armyâs conduct, but before we can understand these features we must survey the sum of what the Germans did. The catalogue of crimes against civilians extends through every phase and theatre of the military operations in the first three months of the war, and an outline of these is a necessary introduction to it. In August, 1914, the Central Empires threw their main strength against Belgium and France, and penetrated far further on this front than on the east and south-east. The line on which they advanced extended from the northern end of the Vosges to the Dutch frontier on the Meuse, and here again their strength was unevenly distributed. The chief striking force was concentrated in the extreme north, and advanced in an immense arc across the Meuse, the Scheldt, the Somme, and the Oise to the outskirts of Paris. As this right wing pressed forward, one army after another took up the movement toward the left or south-eastern flank, but each made less progress than its right-hand neighbour. While the first three armies from the right all crossed the Marne before they were compelled to retreat, the fourth (the Crown Princeâs) never reached it, and the army of Lorraine was stopped a few miles within French territory, before ever it crossed the Meuse. We shall set down very briefly the broad movements of these armies and the dates on which they took place. [Illustration: 1. MOULAND] [Illustration: 2. BATTICE] Germany sent her ultimatum to Belgium on the evening of Aug. 2nd. It announced that Germany would violate Belgian neutrality within twelve hours, unless Belgium betrayed it herself, and it was rejected by Belgium the following morning. That day Germany declared war on France, and the next day, Aug. 4th, the advance guard of the German right wing crossed the Belgian frontier and attacked the _forts of LiÃ©ge_. On Aug. 7th the town of _LiÃ©ge_ was entered, and the crossings of the Meuse, from LiÃ©ge to the Dutch frontier, were in German hands. Beyond LiÃ©ge the invading forces spread out like a fan. On the extreme right a force advanced north-west to outflank the Belgian army covering Brussels and to mask the fortress of Antwerp, and this right wing, again, was the first to move. Its van was defeated by the Belgians at _Haelen_ on Aug. 12th, but the main column entered _Hasselt_ on the same day, and took _Aerschot_ and _Louvain_ on Aug. 19th. During the next few days it pushed on to _Malines_, was driven out again by a Belgian sortie from Antwerp on Aug. 25th, but retook Malines before the end of the month, and contained the Antwerp garrison along the line of the Dyle and the DÃ©mer. This was all that the German right flank column was intended to do, for it was only a subsidiary part of the two armies concentrated at LiÃ©ge. As soon as Antwerp was covered, the mass of these armies was launched westward from LiÃ©ge into the gap between the fortresses of Antwerp and Namur--von Kluckâs army on the right and von BÃ¼lowâs on the left. By Aug. 21st von BÃ¼low was west of Namur, and attacking the French on the _Sambre_. On Aug. 20th an army corps of von Kluckâs had paraded through _Brussels_, and on the 23rd his main body, wheeling south-west, attacked the British at _Mons_. On the 24th von Kluckâs extreme right reached the Scheldt at _Tournai_ and, under this threat to their left flank, the British and French abandoned their positions on the Mons-Charleroi line and retreated to the south. Von Kluck and von BÃ¼low hastened in pursuit. They passed _Cambrai_ on Aug. 26th and _St. Quentin_ on the 29th; on the 31st von Kluck was crossing the Oise at _CompiÃ¨gne_, and on the 6th Sept. he reached his furthest point at _Courchamp_, south-east of Paris and nearly thirty miles beyond the _Marne_. His repulse, like his advance, was brought about by an outflanking manÅuvre, only this time the Anglo-French had the initiative, and it was von Kluck who was outflanked. His retirement compelled von BÃ¼low to fall back on his left, after a bloody defeat in the marshes of _St. Gond_, and the retreat was taken up, successively, by the other armies which had come into line on the left of von BÃ¼low. These armies had all crossed the Meuse south of the fortress of Namur, and, to retain connexion with them, von BÃ¼low had had to detach a force on his left to seize the line of the Meuse from LiÃ©ge to Namur and to capture Namur itself. The best German heavy artillery was assigned to this force for the purpose, and _Namur_ fell, after an unexpectedly short bombardment, on Aug. 23rd, while von BÃ¼lowâs main army at Charleroi was still engaged in its struggle with the French. The fall of Namur opened the way for German armies to cross the Meuse along the whole line from Namur to Verdun. The first crossing was made at _Dinant_ on Aug. 23rd, the very day on which Namur fell, by a Saxon army, which marched thither by cross routes through Luxembourg; the second by the Duke of WÃ¼rtembergâs army between _MeziÃ¨res_ and _Sedan_; and the third by the Crown Prince of Prussiaâs army immediately north of _Verdun_. West of the Meuse the Saxons and WÃ¼rtembergers amalgamated, and got into touch with von BÃ¼low on their right. Advancing parallel with him, they reached _Charleville_ on Aug. 25th, crossed the Aisne at _Rethel_ on the 30th and the Marne at _ChÃ¢lons_ on the 4th, and were stopped on the 7th at _Vitry en Perthois_. The Crown Prince, on their left, did not penetrate so far. Instead of the plains of Champagne he had to traverse the hill country of the _Argonne_. He turned back at _Sermaize_, which he had reached on Sept. 6th, and never saw the Marne. On the left of the Crown Prince a Bavarian army crossed the frontier between Metz and the Vosges. Its task was to join hands with the Crown Prince round the southern flank of Verdun, as the Duke of WÃ¼rtemberg had joined hands with von BÃ¼low round the flank of Namur. But Verdun never fell, and the Bavarian advance was the weakest of any. _LunÃ©ville_ fell on Aug. 22nd, and _Baccarat_ was entered on the 24th; but _Nancy_ was never reached, and on Sept. 12th the general German retreat extended to this south-easternmost sector, and the Bavarians fell back. Thus the German invading armies were everywhere checked and driven back between the 6th and the 12th September, 1914. The operations which came to this issue bear the general name of the _Battle of the Marne_. The _Marne_ was followed immediately by the _Aisne_, and the issue of the Aisne was a change from open to trench warfare along a line extending from the Vosges to the Oise. This change was complete before September closed, and the line formed then has remained practically unaltered to the present time. But there was another month of open fighting between the Oise and the sea. When the Germansâ strategy was defeated at the Marne, they transferred their efforts to the north-west, and took the initiative there. On Sept. 9th the Belgian Army had made a second sortie from Antwerp, to coincide with the counter-offensive of Joffre, and this time they had even reoccupied _Aerschot_. The Germans retaliated by taking the offensive on the Scheldt. The retaining army before Antwerp was strongly reinforced. Its left flank was secured, in the latter half of September, by the occupation of _Termonde_ and _Alost_. The attack on _Antwerp_ itself began on Sept. 27th. On the 2nd the outer ring of forts was forced, and on the 9th the Germans entered the city. The towns of Flanders fell in rapid succession--_Ghent_ on the 12th, _Bruges_ on the 14th, _Ostend_ on the 15th--and the Germans hoped to break through to the Channel ports on the front between Ostend and the Oise. Meanwhile, each side had been feverishly extending its lines from the Oise towards the north and pushing forward cavalry to turn the exposed flank of the opponent. These two simultaneous movements--the extension of the trench lines from the Oise to the sea, and the German thrust across Flanders to the Channel--intersected one another at _Ypres_, and the _Battle of Ypres and the Yser_, in the latter part of October, was the crisis of this north-western struggle. On Oct. 31st the German effort to break through reached, and passed, its climax, and trench warfare established itself as decisively from the Oise to the sea as it had done a month earlier between the Vosges and the Oise. Thus, three months after the German armies crossed the frontier, the German invasion of Belgium and France gave place to a permanent German occupation of French and Belgian territories behind a practically stationary front, and with this change of character in the fighting a change came over the outrages upon the civil population which remained in Germanyâs power. The crimes of the invasion and the crimes of the occupation are of a different order from one another, and must be dealt with apart. II. FROM THE FRONTIER TO LIÃGE. (i) _On the VisÃ© Road._ The Germans invaded Belgium on Aug. 4th, 1914. Their immediate objective was the fortress of LiÃ©ge and the passage of the Meuse, but first they had to cross a zone of Belgian territory from twenty to twenty-five miles wide. They came over the frontier along four principal roads, which led through this territory to the fortress and the river, and this is what they did in the towns and villages they passed. The first road led from Aix-la-Chapelle, in Germany, to the bridge over the Meuse at VisÃ©, skirting the Dutch frontier, and _Warsage_[4] was the first Belgian village on this road to which the Germans came. Their advance-guards distributed a proclamation by General von Emmich: â_I give formal pledges to the Belgian population that they will not have to suffer from the horrors of war.... If you wish to avoid the horrors of war, you must act wisely and with a true appreciation of your duty to your country._â This was on the morning of Aug. 4th, and the Mayor of Warsage, M. FlÃ©chet, had already posted a notice on the town-hall warning the inhabitants to keep calm. All that day and the next the Germans passed through; on the afternoon of the 6th the village was clear of them, when suddenly they swarmed back, shooting in at the windows and setting houses on fire. Several people were killed; one old man was burnt alive. Then the Mayor was ordered to assemble the population in the square. A German officer had been shot on the road. No inquiry was held; no post-mortem examination made (the German soldiers were nervous and marched with finger on trigger); the village was condemned. The houses were systematically plundered, and then systematically burnt. A dozen inhabitants, including the Burgomaster, were carried off as hostages to the German camp at Mouland. Three were shot at once; the rest were kept all night in the open; one of them was tied to a cart-wheel and beaten with rifle-butts; in the morning six were hanged, the rest set free. Eighteen people in all were killed at Warsage and 25 houses destroyed. At _Fouron-St. Martin_[5] five people were killed and 20 houses burnt. Nineteen houses were burnt at _Fouron-le-Compte_.[5] At _Berneau_,[6] a few miles further down the road, 67 houses (out of 116) were burnt on Aug. 5th, and 7 people killed. âThe people of Berneau,â writes a German in his diary on Aug. 5th, âhave fired on those who went to get water. The village has been partly destroyed.â On the day of this entry the Germans had commandeered wine at Berneau, and were drunk when they took reprisals for shots their victims were never proved to have fired. Among these victims was the Burgomaster, M. BruyÃ¨re, a man of 83. He was taken, like the Burgomaster of Warsage, to the camp at Mouland, and was never seen again after the night of the 6th. At _Mouland_[7] itself 4 people were killed and 73 houses destroyed (out of 132). The road from Aix-la-Chapelle reaches the Meuse at _VisÃ©_.[8] It was a town of 900 houses and 4,000 souls, and, as a German describes it, âIt vanished from the map.â[9] The inhabitants were killed, scattered or deported, the houses levelled to the ground, and this was done systematically, stage by stage. The Germans who marched through Warsage reached VisÃ© on the afternoon of Aug. 4th. The Belgians had blown up the bridges at VisÃ© and Argenteau, and were waiting for the Germans on the opposite bank. As they entered VisÃ©, the Germans came for the first time under fire, and they wreaked their vengeance on the town. âThe first house they came to as they entered VisÃ© they burnedâ (a 16), and they began to fire at random in the streets. At least eight civilians were shot in this way before night, and when night fell the population was driven out of the houses and compelled to bivouac in the square. More houses were burnt on the 6th; on the 10th they burned the church; on the 11th they seized the Dean, the Burgomaster, and the Mother Superior of the Convent as hostages; on the 15th a regiment of East Prussians arrived and was billeted in the town, and that night VisÃ© was destroyed. âI saw commissioned officers directing and supervising the burning,â says an inhabitant (a 16). âIt was done systematically with the use of benzine, spread on the floors and then lighted. In my own and another house I saw officers come in before the burning with revolvers in their hands, and have china, valuable antique furniture, and other such things removed. This being done, the houses were, by their orders, set on fire....â The East Prussians were drunk, there was firing in the streets, and, once more, people were killed. Next morning the population was rounded up in the station square and sorted out--men this side, women that. The women might go to Holland, the men, in two gangs of about 300 each, were deported to Germany as franc-tireurs. âDuring the night of Aug. 15-16,â as another German diarist[10] describes the scene, âPioneer Grimbow gave the alarm in the town of VisÃ©. Everyone was shot or taken prisoner, and the houses were burnt. The prisoners were made to march and keep up with the troops.â About 30 people in all were killed at VisÃ©, and 575 out of 876 houses destroyed. On the final day of destruction the Germans had been in peaceable occupation of the place for ten days, and the Belgian troops had retired about forty miles out of range. That is what the Germans did on the road from Aix-la-Chapelle; but, before reaching Warsage, the road sends out a branch through Aubel to the left, which passes under the guns of _Fort Barchon_ and leads straight to LiÃ©ge. The Germans took this road also, and Barchon was the first of the LiÃ©ge forts to fall. The civil population was not spared. (ii) _On the Barchon Road._ At _St. AndrÃ©_[11] 4 civilians were killed and 14 houses burnt. _JulÃ©mont_,[12] the next village, was completely plundered and burnt. Only 2 houses remained standing, and 12 people were killed. Advancing along this road, the Germans arrived at _BlÃ©gny_[13] on Aug. 5th. Several inhabitants of BlÃ©gny were murdered that afternoon, among them M. Smets, a professor of gunsmithry (the villagers worked for the small-arms manufacturers of LiÃ©ge). M. Smets was killed in his house, where his wife was in child-bed. The corpse was thrown into the street, the mother and new-born baby were dragged out after it. That night the population of BlÃ©gny was herded together in the village institute; their houses were set on fire. Next morning--the 6th--the women were released and the men driven forward by the German infantry towards Barchon fort. The CurÃ© of BlÃ©gny, the AbbÃ© Labeye, was among the number, and there were 296 of them in all. In front of Barchon they were placed in rows of four, but the fort would not fire upon this living screen, and they were marched away across country towards Battice, where five were shot before the eyes of the rest, and the curÃ© kicked, spat upon, and pricked with bayonets. They were again driven forward as a screen against a Belgian patrol, and were kept in the open all night. Next morning 4 more were shot--two who had been wounded by the Belgian fire, and one who had heart disease and was too feeble to go on. The fourth was an old man of 78. The Germans tortured these victims by placing lighted cigarettes in their nostrils and ears. After this second execution on the 7th, the remainder were set free.... On the 10th Aug. the curÃ© writes in his diary: âThere are now 38 houses burnt, and 23 damaged. âThursday the 13th: a few houses pillaged, two young men taken away. âFriday, the 14th: a few houses pillaged. âFriday night: the village of Barchon is burnt and the curÃ© taken prisoner....â The curÃ©âs last notes for a sermon have survived: âMy brothers, perhaps we shall again see happy days....â But on the 16th, before the sermon was delivered, the curÃ© was shot. He was shot against the church wall, with M. Ruwet, the Burgomaster, and two brothers, one of them a revolver manufacturer who had handed over his stock to the German authorities (from whom he received two passes) and had been working for the Red Cross. After the execution the church was burnt down. The nuns of BlÃ©gny were shot at by Germans in a motor-car when they came out that day to bury the bodies. From the 5th to the 16th Aug., about 30 people were killed in the commune of BlÃ©gny-Trembleur, and 45 houses burnt in all. The village of _Barchon_,[14] as the curÃ© of BlÃ©gny records, was destroyed on the 14th--in cold blood, five days after the surrender of the fort. There was a battue by two German regiments through the village. The houses were plundered and burnt (110 burnt in all out of 146); the inhabitants were rounded up. Twenty-two were shot in one batch, including two little girls of two and an old woman of ninety-four. Thirty-two perished altogether, and a dozen hostages were carried off, some of whom were tied to field guns and compelled to keep up with the horses. On the 16th the Germans evicted the inhabitants of _Chefneux_,[15] and shot 4 men. On the 17th they burned all the 22 houses in the hamlet. At _Saives_[16] they burned 12 houses, and shot a man and a girl. We have the diary of a German soldier who marched down this branch road from Aubel when all the villages had been destroyed except _Wandre_,[17] which stood where the road debouched upon the Meuse. â15th Aug.--11.50 a.m. Crossed the Belgian frontier and kept steadily along the high road until we got into Belgium. We were hardly into it before we met a horrible sight. Houses were burnt down, the inhabitants driven out and some of them shot. Of the hundreds of houses not a single one had been spared--every one was plundered and burnt down. Hardly were we through this big village when the next was already set on fire, and so it went on.... â16th Aug. The big village of Barchon set on fire. The same day, about 11.50 a.m., we came to the town of Wandre. Here the houses were spared but all searched. At last we had got out of the town when once more everything was sent to ruins. In one house a whole arsenal had been discovered. The inhabitants were one and all dragged out and shot, but this shooting was absolutely heart-rending, for they all knelt and prayed. But this got them no mercy. A few shots rang out, and they fell backwards into the green grass and went to their eternal sleep. âAnd still the brigands would not leave off shooting us from behind--that, and never from in front--but now we could stand it no longer, and raging and roaring we went on and on, and everything that got in our way was smashed or burnt or shot. At last we had to go into bivouac. Half tired out and done up we laid ourselves down, and we didnât wait long before quenching some of our thirst. But we only drank wine; the water has been half poisoned and half left alone by the beasts. Well, we have much too much here to eat and drink. When a pig shows itself anywhere or a hen or a duck or pigeons, they are all shot down and slaughtered, so that at any rate we have something to eat. It is a real adventure....â This was the temper of the Germans who destroyed Wandre. They burned 33 houses altogether and shot 32 people--16 of them in one batch. (iii) _On the FlÃ©ron Road._ There is another road from Aix-la-Chapelle to LiÃ©ge, which passes through Battice and is commanded by _Fort FlÃ©ron_ (Fort FlÃ©ron offered the most determined resistance of all the forts of LiÃ©ge, and cost the Germans the greatest loss). The Germans marched through _Battice_ on August 4th, and came under fire of the fort that afternoon. In the evening they arrested three men in the streets of Battice, and shot them without charge or investigation. The check to their arms was avenged on the civil population. âOn the arrival of the German troops in the village of _Micheroux_,â states a Belgian witness (a 12), âduring the time when Fort FlÃ©ron was holding out, they came to a block of four cottages, and having turned out the inhabitants, set the cottages on fire and burned them. From one of the cottages a woman (mentioned by name) came out with a baby in her arms, and a German soldier snatched it from her and dashed it to the ground, killing it then and there.â[18] âThe position was dangerous,â writes a German in his diary[19] on August 5th, from a picket in front of Fort FlÃ©ron. âAs suspicious civilians were hovering round, houses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 were cleared, the owners arrested (and shot the next day).... I shoot a civilian with my rifle, at 400 metres, slap through the head....â [Illustration: 3. LIÃGE FORTS: A DESTROYED CUPOLA] [Illustration: 4. ANS: AN INTERIOR] That day the curÃ© of Battice[20]: (who had been kept under arrest in the open since the evening of the 4th) was driven, with the Mayor and one of the communal councillors, under the Belgian fire. On the 6th the German troops again retired on Battice in confusion, and the village was destroyed that afternoon. Shots were fired indiscriminately and the houses set on fire. The first victim was a young man sitting in a cafÃ© with his _fiancÃ©e_--he fell dead by her side. Three people were taken to the field to which the men of BlÃ©gny had been brought, and were shot with the five victims there. On the 7th they shot a workman who had been given a safe-conduct by a German officer to buy bread in a neighbouring village, and was on his way home with his wife. On the 8th they set the fire going again, to burn what still remained. They burned 146 houses and killed 36 people in Battice from first to last. The town of _Herve_[21] lies a mile or so beyond Battice on the FlÃ©ron road, and was also traversed by the Germans on August 4th. The first to pass were officers in a motor car, and as they crossed the bridge they shot down two young men standing by the roadside--one was badly wounded, the other killed outright. In the evening they sent for the Mayor, accused the inhabitants of having fired on German troops, and threatened to shoot the inhabitants and burn the town to the ground. The Mayor and the curÃ© spent the night going from house to house and warning the people to avoid all grounds of offence--before they had finished there were more shots fired indiscriminately (by the Germans), and more (civilian) wounded and dead. The Mayor and curÃ© were then retained as hostages for the civiliansâ good behaviour. On the 6th the first house was burnt; on the 7th five men were shot in cold blood; on the 8th a fresh column of troops arrived from Aix-la-Chapelle, and these were the destroyers of Herve. âThey fired indiscriminately in all quarters of the town,â says an eye-witness (a 2), âand in the Rue de la Station they shot Madame Hendrickx, hitting her at close range, although she had a crucifix in her hand--begging for mercy.â All through the 8th the shooting and burning went on, and on the 9th the fires were kindled again. âThe Germans gave themselves up to pillage and loaded motor cars with everything of value they could find.â They burned and pillaged consecutively for ten days, and on the 19th and 20th fresh regiments arrived and carried on the work. Two hundred and seventy-nine houses were destroyed at Herve altogether, and 44 people killed. âOn the road to Herve everything is burnt,â writes a German soldier (Reply p. 127) who passed when all was over. âAt Herve, the same. Everything is burnt except a convent--everywhere corpses carbonised into an indistinguishable mass. (There are about a hundred, all civilians, and children among the number.) I only saw three people alive in the village--an old man, a sister of charity, and a girl.â The Belgian witness quoted above (a 2) records that âthe German staff officers staying in his hotel told his wife that the reason why they had so treated Herve was because the inhabitants of the town would not petition for a passage for the Germans at FlÃ©ron.â In the villages between Herve and Fort FlÃ©ron the slaughter and devastation were, if possible, more complete. At _la Bouxhe-Melen_[22] there were two massacres--one on Aug. 5th and another on the 8th. In the second the people were shot down in a field _en masse_, and 129 were murdered altogether, as well as about 40 people herded in from the farms and hamlets of the neighbourhood. Sixty houses in la Bouxhe-Melen were destroyed. In the commune of _Soumagne_,[23] on a branch road to the south, the Germans killed 165 civilians and burned 104 houses down. When they entered Soumagne on Aug. 5th, they killed indiscriminately in the streets. âThey broke the windows and broke the door,â writes a witness (a 5) who had taken refuge in a cellar. âMy mother went out of the cellar door.... Then I heard a shot and my mother fell back into the cellar. She was killed.â This indiscriminate killing was followed up the same afternoon by the massacre of 69 civilians in a field called the Fonds Leroy. âThe soldiers fired a volley and killed many, and then fired twice more. Then they went through the ranks and bayonetted everyone still living. I saw many bayonetted in this wayâ (a 4). One boy was shot and bayonetted in four places, and lay several days among the dead, keeping himself alive on weeds and grass. This boy survived. In another field 18 were massacred in one batch, in another 19. âI saw about 20 dead bodies lying here and there along the road,â writes one of the witnesses (a 4). âOne of them was that of a little girl aged 13. The rest were men, and most of them had had their heads bashed in.â--âI saw 56 corpses of civilians in a meadow,â deposes another. âSome had been killed by bayonet thrusts and others by rifle shots. In the heaps of corpses above mentioned was that of the son of the Burgomaster. His throat had been cut from ear to ear and his tongue had been pulled out and cut off.â In the hamlet of _FÃ©cher_ the whole population--about 1,000 women, children and men--was penned into the church on Aug. 5th, and next morning the men (412 of them) were herded off as a living screen for the German troops advancing between the forts (the first man to come out of the church being wantonly shot down as an example to the rest). The 411 were driven by bye-roads to the Chartreuse Monastery, above the Meuse, overlooking the bridge into the city of LiÃ©ge, and on the 7th they were planted as hostages on the bridge while the Germans marched across. They were held there without food or shelter or relief for a hundred hours. At _Micheroux_[24] 9 people were killed and 17 houses destroyed. These villages were all outside the eastern line of forts, but the places inside the line, between the forts and LiÃ©ge, were devastated to an equal degree. At FlÃ©ron[25] 15 civilians were killed and 152 houses destroyed.[26] At _Retinnes_[27] 41 civilians were killed and 118 houses destroyed.[26] At _Queue du Bois_[28] 11 civilians were killed and 35 houses destroyed. At _EvegnÃ©e_ 2 civilians were killed and 5 houses destroyed. At _Cerexhe_[29] 4 women and children were burnt alive in a house, and 2 houses destroyed. At _Bellaire_[30] 4 people were killed and 15 houses destroyed. At _Jupille_[31] 8 people were killed and 1 house destroyed. These villages were saved none of the horrors of war by the surrender of the forts. (iv) _On the Verviers Road._ The Germans converged on the forts by more southerly roads as well. At _Dolhain_,[32] on the road from Eupen to Verviers, 28 houses were burnt on Aug. 8th and several civilians killed. At _Metten_,[33] near Verviers, a German soldier confesses that he and his comrades âwere ordered to search a house from which shots had been fired, but found nothing in the house but two women and a child.... I did not see the women fire. The women were told that nothing would be done to them, because they were crying so bitterly. We brought the women out and took them to the major, and then we were ordered to shoot the women.... When the mother was dead, the major gave the order to shoot the child, so that the child should not be left alone in the world. The childâs eyes were bandaged. I took part in this because we were ordered to do it by Major Kastendick and Captain Dultingen....â But Verviers and the Verviers road remained comparatively unscathed. Far worse was done by the Germans who descended on the Vesdre from MalmÃ©dy, south-eastward, over the hills. (v) _On the MalmÃ©dy Road._ _Francorchamps_,[34] the first Belgian village on the MalmÃ©dy road, was sacked on Aug. 8th, four days after the first German troops had passed through it unopposed, and again on Aug. 14th by later detachments. At _Hockay_,[35] near Francorchamps, the curÃ© was shot. In Hockay and Francorchamps 13 people were killed altogether, and 25 houses burnt. âM. Darchambeau, who was wounded (in the cellar of a burning house), asked a young officer for mercy. This young officer of barely 22, in front of the women and children, aimed his revolver at M. Darchambeauâs head and killed him.â The fate of _Pepinster_[36] is recorded in a German diary: âAug. 12th, Pepinster, Burgomaster, priest, and schoolmaster shot; houses reduced to ashes. March on.â As a matter of fact, the three hostages were not shot, but reprieved. The Burgomaster of _Cornesse_[37] was shot in their stead (a 33, 34)--âan old man and quite deaf. (He was only hit in the leg, and a German officer came up and shot him through the heart with his revolver.)â Five houses in Cornesse were burnt. At _Soiron_,[38] on Aug. 4th, the Germans bivouacking there fired on one another, and eight German soldiers were wounded or killed. âBut the officers,â deposes a German private[39] who was present at the scene, âin their anxiety to prevent the fact of this blunder from being reported, hastened to pretend that it was really the civilians who had fired, and gave orders for a general massacre. This order was carried out, and there was terrible butchery. I must mention that we only killed the males, but we burned all the houses.â At _Olnes_[40] the curÃ© and the communal secretary were shot on Aug. 5th, and the schoolmaster the same evening, in front of his burning house, with his daughter and his two sons. Only two members of the schoolmasterâs family were spared. In the hamlet of _St. Hadelin_,[41] which came within the radius of Fort FlÃ©ronâs guns, there was a wholesale massacre on the same date. Early in the day the Germans ârequisitionedâ 300 bottles of wine; later they drove a crowd of people from St. Hadelin, _Riessonsart_, and _Ayeneux_, to a place called the Faveu, and shot down 33. The remainder were forced to haul German artillery towards the forts, but these were partly released next day, and partly massacred at the Heids dâOlne. Twenty inhabitants of Ayeneux were massacred in a batch elsewhere. Sixty-two civilians were murdered altogether in the commune of Olne, and 78 houses destroyed--40 in St. Hadelin and 38 in Olne itself. At _ForÃªt_[42] the Germans burned a farm and killed two of the farmerâs sons on Aug. 5th as they entered the place. They drove the farmer and his two surviving sons in front of them as a screen. The schoolmaster and two others were shot outside the village. âAt ForÃªt,â states the German soldier quoted above,[43] âwe found prisoners--a priest and five civilians, including a boy of 17. Pillage began ... but we were shelled ... and moved off to the next village. The house doors were at once broken in with the butt-ends of muskets. We pillaged everything. We made piles of the curtains and everything inflammable, and set them alight. All the houses were burnt. It was in the middle of this that the civilian prisoners of whom I have spoken were shot, with the exception of the curÃ©.â (The curÃ©, too, was shot that night.)[44] âA little further on, under the pretext that civilians had fired from a house (though for my own part I cannot say whether they were soldiers or civilians who fired), orders were given to burn the house. A woman asleep there was dragged from her bed, thrown into the flames, and burnt alive....â Thirteen people in all were killed at ForÃªt, and 6 houses destroyed. At _MagnÃ©e_[45] 18 houses were destroyed and 21 people killed. The German troops in MagnÃ©e were caught by the fire from the FlÃ©ron and Chaudfontaine forts, and they revenged themselves, as elsewhere, on the civilians, shooting people in batches and burning houses and farms. This was on Aug. 6th, and at _RomsÃ©e_,[46] on the same day, 34 houses were burnt and 31 civilians murdered--some of them being driven as a screen in front of the German troops under the fire of Fort Chaudfontaine. (vi) _Between the Vesdre and the Ourthe._ The same outrages were committed between the Vesdre and the Ourthe. At _LouveignÃ©_,[47] on Aug. 7th, the Germans, retreating from their attack on the southern forts, looted the drink-shops, fired in the streets, and accused the civilians of having shot. A dozen men (two of them over 70 years old) were imprisoned as hostages in a forge, and were shot down, when released, like game in the open. That evening LouveignÃ© was systematically set on fire with the same incendiary apparatus that was used at VisÃ©, and the curÃ© was dragged round on the foot-board of a military motor-car to watch the work. There were more murders next day. The total number of civilians murdered at LouveignÃ© was 29, and there were 77 houses burnt. The devastation impressed the German soldiers who passed through LouveignÃ© on the following days. âLouveignÃ© has been completely burnt out. All the inhabitants are dead,â writes a German diarist on Aug. 9th. âMarch to LouveignÃ©,â another records on Aug. 16th. âSeveral citizens and the curÃ© shot according to martial law, some not yet buried--still lying where they were executed, for everyone to see. Stench of corpses everywhere. CurÃ© said to have incited the inhabitants to ambush and kill the Germans.â--âBivouac! Rain! Burnt villages! LouveignÃ©!â another exclaims on Aug. 17th. âWe marched and bivouacked in the rain, in an orchard with a high hedge round it, full of fruit-trees. There was an abandoned house in front of it. The door, which was locked, was broken in with an axe. The traces of war--burnt houses, weeping women and children, executions of franc-tireurs--showed us the ruthlessness of the times. We could not have done otherwise.... But how many have to suffer with others, how many innocent people are shot by martial law, because there is no detailed enquiry first....â At _LincÃ©_,[48] in the commune of Sprimont, a German officer was wounded when the troops returned in confusion from before the southern forts of
{'title': 'The German Terror in Belgium: An Historical Record by Arnold Toynbee', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}