[Sidenote: 30]
From the very first women were not safe. At Liège women and children
were chased about the street by soldiers. One witness gives a story,
very circumstantial in its details, of how women were publicly raped in
the market place of the city, five young German officers assisting.
[Sidenote: 11]
_Tamines._--A witness describes how he saw the public square littered
with corpses, and after a search found those of his wife and child, a
little girl of 7.
[Sidenote: 24]
_Wetteren Hospital._--At this hospital was an old woman of 80
completely transfixed by a bayonet.
[Sidenote: 17]
_Sempst._--Witness saw a girl of 17 dressed only in a chemise and in
great distress. She alleged that she herself and other girls had been
dragged into a field, stripped naked and violated, and that some of
them had then been killed with the bayonet.
[Sidenote: 17]
_Eppeghem._--On August 25th a pregnant woman who had been wounded with
a bayonet was discovered in the convent. She was dying.
[Sidenote: 19]
_Louvain._--"In the middle of the night I heard a knock at the outer
door of the stable, which led into a little street, and heard a woman's
voice crying for help. I opened the door, and just as I was going to
let her in, a rifle shot fired from the street by a German soldier rang
out and the woman fell dead at my feet."
[Sidenote: 21]
The wife of a witness ... was separated from him, and she saw other
ladies made to walk before the soldiers with their hands above their
heads. One, an old lady of 85 (name given) was dragged from her cellar
and taken with them to the station.
"I saw the corpses of some women in the street. I fell down, and a
woman who had been shot fell on top of me.... One woman whom I saw
lying dead in the street was a Miss ---- about 35. I also saw the body
of ---- (a woman). She had been shot. I saw an officer pull her corpse
underneath a wagon."
[Sidenote: 13]
_Dinant._--He found his wife lying on the floor in a room. She had
bullet wounds in four places, but was alive, and told her husband to
return to the children.
[Sidenote: 30]
Sixty women and children were confined in the cellar of a convent from
Sunday morning till the following Friday (August 28th), sleeping on the
ground, for there were no beds, with nothing to drink during the whole
period, and given no food until the Wednesday, "when somebody threw
into the cellar two sticks of macaroni and a carrot for each prisoner."
[Sidenote: 16]
In _Malines_ itself many bodies were seen. One witness saw a German
soldier cut a woman's breasts after he had murdered her, and saw many
other dead bodies of women in the streets.
[Sidenote: 16]
_Gelrode._--A woman was shot by some German soldiers as she was walking
home. This was done at a distance of 100 yards, and for no apparent
reason.
[Sidenote: 17]
_Hofstade._--The corpse of a woman was seen at the blacksmith's. She
had been killed with the bayonet.... Two young women were lying in the
backyard of the house. One had her breasts cut off, the other had been
stabbed.... In the garden of a house in the main street bodies of two
women were observed.
[Sidenote: 30]
_Campenhout_ [Statement of a valet].--"One of the officers ... putting
a revolver to my mistress' temple shot her dead. The officer was
obviously drunk. The other officers continued to drink and sing, and
they did not pay great attention to the killing of my mistress. The
officer who shot my mistress then told my master to dig a grave and
bury my mistress. My master and the officer went into the garden, the
officer threatening my master with a pistol. My master was then forced
to dig the grave, and to bury the body of my mistress in it. I cannot
say for what reason they killed my mistress. The officer who did it was
singing all the time."