In The Firing Line 9

In The Firing Line 9

“What did Louvain look like? Like what it was, a mass of flame

devouring our homes, our property--to some, perhaps, our relatives. It

was pitiful to behold. Most of us women were deprived of our husbands.

They had either fallen or were fighting for their country. In the town

everybody who offered any opposition was killed, and everyone found

to be armed in any way was shot. Wives saw their husbands shot in the

streets.

 

“I saw the burgomaster shot, and I saw another man dragged roughly away

from his weeping wife and children and shot through the head. Well, we

got a train and reached Boulogne, and now for the first time we feel

really safe.”

 

* * * * *

 

2. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Rotterdam correspondent, Sunday, August

30th.

 

The following account of the appalling and ruthless sacking of

Louvain by the Germans is given by a representative of the _Nieuwe

Rotterdamsche Courant_, who himself witnessed the outrages:

 

 

I arrived at Louvain on Tuesday afternoon, and, accompanied by a German

officer, made my way through the town. Near the station were the

Commander and Staff and many of the military, for a food and ammunition

train had just arrived. Suddenly shots rang out from houses in the

neighbourhood of the station. In a moment the shooting was taken up

from houses all over the town.

 

From the window of the third floor of an hotel opposite the station

a machine gun opened fire. It was impossible to know which of the

civilians had taken part in the shooting, and from which houses they

had fired. Therefore the soldiers went into all the houses, and

immediately there followed the most terrible scenes of street fighting.

Every single civilian found with weapons, or suspected of firing, was

put to death on the spot. The innocent suffered with the guilty.

 

There was no time for exhaustive inquiry. Old men, sick people, women

were shot. In the meanwhile, part of the town was shelled by artillery.

Many buildings were set on fire by the shells. On others petrol was

poured and a match applied. The German officer advised me to go away,

as several houses being still intact more firing was expected.

 

Under a strong escort two groups of men and women arrived, each a

hundred strong. They were hostages. They were stood in rows by the

station, and every time a soldier was shot in the town ten of these

pitiful civilians were slaughtered. There was no mercy. Tears and

pleadings were in vain. The good suffered with the bad. At night the

scene was terrible, burning buildings shedding a lurid glow over this

town, which was running with tears of blood.

 

This was no time for sleep. The sight of this terrible awfulness drove

away all thoughts and desire for rest. Towards dawn the soldiers took

possession of all buildings which had not been destroyed.

 

With the rising of the sun I walked on the boulevards, and saw them

strewn with bodies, many of them being of old people and priests.

Leaving Louvain for Tirlemont one passed continuously through utterly

devastated country.

 

* * * * *

 

A Dutchman who escaped from Louvain says that when the German artillery

began to demolish the houses and the German soldiers began looting

everything he and his little son hid in a cellar beneath a pile of

pneumatic tyres. One woman took refuge in a pit, in which water was up

to her waist. Such was the terrible plight of the civilians in Louvain.

Peeping out they saw that neighbours had been driven to the roof of a

burning building, where they perished.

 

While still concealed in the cellar the Dutchman and his son discovered

to their horror that the house above them was in flames. The situation

was terrible, as the people who dared to leave their houses were shot

like rabbits leaving burrows. They heard floor by floor, and then

the roof, crash down above them. The situation was desperate. It was

impossible to remain in the cellar. Driven out by dire necessity, they

fled. They were immediately stopped by military rifles at the “present.”

 

“Do not fire, I am German,” said the Dutchman in German, seized with

a sudden inspiration. This secured his safe conduct to the railway

station. The journey through the town was, said this refugee, “like

walking through hell.” From burning houses he heard agonised cries of

those perishing in the conflagrations. While he was waiting at the

station fifty people arrived there, driven by troops, who asserted

that they found them hiding in houses from which shots had been

fired. These people swore by all they held sacred they were innocent,

but notwithstanding all were shot. The Dutchman is of opinion that the

first firing was not by civilians, but by the German outpost on German

soldiers retreating to Louvain from Malines.

 

_Note:_--There is no confirmation whatever of the Dutch correspondent’s

assertion with regard to the firing on the German troops. On the

contrary it has been expressly said by the Belgian Government that the

Germans fired on their own men by mistake.

 

[Illustration:

 

_Drawn by E. Matania._ _Copyright of The Sphere._

 

GERMAN SOLDIERS DRIVING THE INHABITANTS OF LOUVAIN BEFORE THEM DURING

THE SACKING OF THE TOWN.]

 

 

3. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Rotterdam Correspondent, Monday, August

31st:

 

 

“With a crowd of other men, I was marched out of Louvain, and at

nightfall ordered into a church,” said an escaped Dutchman to a _Nieuwe

Rotterdamsche Courant_ representative. “All was dark, till suddenly,

through the windows, I saw the lurid glow of the neighbouring burning

houses. I heard the agonised cries of people tortured by the flames.

Six priests moved among us, giving absolution. Next morning the priests

were shot--why, I know not. We were released, and allowed to go to

Malines. We were compelled to walk with our hands in the air for fear

of arms being concealed.”

 

* * * * *

 

A Dutchman who has arrived at Breda from Louvain gives the _Nieuwe

Rotterdamsche Courant_ the following account of the massacre:

 

 

Several German soldiers were billeted on us, and just as we were

sitting down to the midday meal on August 25th the alarm was sounded

and the soldiers rushed out. Immediately firing started, and, knowing

the terrible consequences of civilians appearing in the streets at such

times, we sought refuge in the cellar. Next morning we attempted to

reach the railway station. We were arrested.

 

My wife was taken away from me, and the Mayor, the Principal of the

University, and I, with other men, were taken to a goods shed and

our hands bound. I saw 300 men and boys marched to the corner of the

Boulevarde van Tienen, and every one was massacred. The heads of police

were shot. We were then marched towards Herent, and on the way the

soldiers thought the enemy was approaching, and ordered us to kneel

down. Then they took cover behind us. Only after many such hardships

were we permitted to return to Louvain and escape by train.

 

 

4. From a _Daily Telegraph_ Rotterdam correspondent, Wednesday,

September 2nd:

 

A Dutchman who has just arrived at Breda from Louvain gives the

following vivid description of his terrible experiences in Louvain,

where he was present at the burning of the city:

 

We Dutchmen in Louvain at first had nothing to fear from the German

soldiers, but all the houses abandoned by their owners were ransacked,

notwithstanding the warnings from the military authorities forbidding

the troops to pillage. In Louvain, as in all other towns they have

occupied, the Germans imprisoned as hostages of war the Burgomaster,

two magistrates, and a number of influential citizens.

 

Before the Germans entered the town the Civic Guard had been disarmed,

and all weapons in the possession of the population had to be given up.

Even toy guns and toy pistols and precious collections of old weapons,

bows and arrows, and other antique arms useless for any kind of modern

warfare had to be surrendered, and all these things--sometimes of great

personal value to the owner--have since been destroyed by the Germans.

The value of one single private collection has been estimated at about

£1,000. From the pulpits the priests urged the people to keep calm, as

that was the only way to prevent harm being done to them.

 

A few days after the entry of the German troops, the military

authorities agreed to cease quartering their men in private houses, in

return for a payment of 100,000 francs (£4,000) per day. On some houses

between forty and fifty men had been billeted. After the first payment

of the voluntary contribution the soldiers camped in the open or in the

public buildings. The beautiful rooms in the Town Hall, where the civil

marriages take place, were used as a stable for cavalry horses.

 

 

At first everything the soldiers bought was paid for in cash or

promissory notes, but later this was altered. Soldiers came and asked

for change, and when this was handed to them they tendered in return

for the hard cash a piece of paper--a kind of receipt.

 

 

On Sunday, the 23rd, I and some other influential people in the town

were roused from our beds. We were informed that an order had been

given that 250 mattresses, 200 lbs. of coffee, 250 loaves of bread,

and 500 eggs, must be on the market-place within an hour. On turning

out we found the Burgomaster standing on the market-place, and crowds

of citizens, half naked, or in their night attire, carrying everything

they could lay hands on to the market, that no harm might befall their

Burgomaster. After this had been done the German officer in command

told us that his orders had been misinterpreted, and that he only wanted the mattresses.