Their Crimes | Page 7

shot later on with fourteen other old men. More than 150 victims
were identified in this parish.
At Nomeny, M. Vassé provided shelter for a number of neighbours in
his cellar. Fifty soldiers got in and set fire to the house. To escape the
flames the refugees rushed out and were shot one by one as they
emerged. Mentré was killed first; his son Léon, with his little
eight-year-old sister in his arms, fell next: as he was not quite dead they
put the barrel of a rifle to his ear and blew his brains out. Then came
the turn of a family named Kieffer. The mother was wounded; the
father, his boy and girl, aged respectively 10 and 3, were shot down.
They fell on them with fury. Striffler, Guillaume, and Vassé were
afterwards massacred. Young Mlle. Simonin, 17 years old, and her
small sister, afraid to leave their refuge in the cellar, were eventually
driven out by the flames, and immediately shot at. The younger child
had an elbow almost blown off by a bullet; as the elder girl lay
wounded on the ground, she was deliberately kicked by a soldier. At
Nomeny 40 victims were identified.
And now we come to some of the wholesale slaughters. At Louvain,
more than 100 victims; at Aerschot, over 150; at Soumagne, 165; at

Ethe, 197; at Andenne, over 300; at Tamines, 400; at Dinant, upwards
of 600, of whom 71 were women, 34 old men of over seventy, 6
children from five to nine years old, and 11 under five. At Aerschot, a
first batch of 78 men were taken out of the town, and ordered to
advance in groups of three, holding each other by the hand, when they
were made to pass in front of some German Military Police, who shot
them all at short range with revolvers. Others had their hands bound so
tightly that many screamed with pain: they spent the night lying on the
ground, and were shot the next day. Many, before execution, were
compelled to dig their own graves. At Dinant, the victims were placed
in two rows, the first kneeling, the second standing. Then came the
order--"Fire!" At Tamines, several hundred men were massed in the
Place Saint-Martin, on the bank of the Sambre. The assassins stood ten
yards away and fired a volley. All fell, but some were not wounded.
The officer in command ordered them to "stand up." A second volley
was fired. As soon as the firing finished, there was a frightful scene
which lasted until the evening--the killing of the wounded. Many
soldiers, some wearing the badge of the Red Cross, approached their
victims by the light of small lanterns, and passed through their ranks,
clubbing them with the butt end of their rifles, and stabbing with
bayonets. A perfect shambles!
In these horrors we do not discern the musical note, or the
acknowledgment of the "Old German God." Yet, here is a specimen:--
At Andenne, Colonel Schumann, in command of the Potsdam Rifles,
organised a grand concert in the evening at the Place des Tilleuls. The
entertainment ended with a prayer!
It now remains for us to publish a few extracts from note-books found
upon officers and privates. Some are short items like the
following:--"Pepinster, 12th August. Burgomaster, Priest and
Schoolmaster shot, and houses burnt to the ground. We resume our
march." Another, "Villers-en-Fagne, village in flames. The population
had notified the French of the approach of the grenadiers; thereupon the
hussars set fire to the village, the Parish Priest and others being shot."
Others enter into details of the executions. "Leffe. We shoot everyone

who fires on our men. We put three, one behind the other, and a
Marburg rifleman kills them outright with a single shot. It is war to the
knife."
Another expresses something other than enthusiasm for such work.
"Considering that the King (of the Belgians) has given orders to defend
the country by all possible means, we have been ordered to shoot every
male inhabitant. At Dinant more than 100 were collected in a crowd
and shot. A dreadful Sunday." Another, an aesthete, writes as follows:
"During the night many more civilians were shot, so many that we were
able to count over 200. Women and children, with lamps in their hands,
were compelled to witness the horrible sight. We afterwards ate our
rice among the dead bodies. Sadly beautiful." He adds (in shorthand)
"Captain Hermann was drunk."
Again another: "Dinant. We have been firing on everyone who showed
himself, or on those thrown out of the houses, men or women. The
bodies lie in the streets, in heaps a yard deep."
A Saxon officer writes: "My company is at Bouvignes. Our men
behave like vandals: everything is upset; the sight of the slaughtered