Published by Belgian Commission of Inquiry on Sept. 10 to Complete Its
Report of Aug. 31.
Of the two reports, dated August 28 and 31, which the Commission has had
the honor of addressing to you, the former recounted more particularly
the events which occurred at Aerschot and in the neighboring district,
while the latter dealt with the destruction of the town of Louvain by
the German troops. In order to complete its report of Aug. 31, the
Commission thinks it its duty to record that after the burning of
Louvain the houses which remained standing, the inhabitants of which had
been forced to flee, were pillaged under the eyes of German officers. On
Sept. 2 the Germans were seen setting fire to four houses.
The "Chastisement" of Louvain.
Another fact which emphasizes the ruthless character of the treatment to
which the peaceable population of Louvain was subjected has also been
established. On Aug. 28 a crowd of 6,000 to 8,000 persons, men, women
and children, of every age and condition, was conducted under the escort
of a detachment of the 162nd Regiment of German infantry to the riding
school of the town, where they spent the whole night. The place of
confinement was so small in proportion to the number of the occupants
that all had to remain standing, and so great were their sufferings that
in the course of this tragic night several women lost their reason and
children of tender years died in their mothers' arms.
A communiqué from the German Great General Staff, the text of which is
published in the Cologne Gazette of Aug. 29, declares that the
"chastisement" inflicted upon Louvain was justified by the fact that a
battalion of Landwehr, which had been left unsupported in the town in
order to guard the communications, had been attacked by the civil
population, which was under the impression that the main German Army had
definitely retired. The same journal has published a narrative
purporting to come from a person who was a witness of the occurrence.
The inquiry has established that this statement must be considered
false. It is, in fact, ascertained that the people of Louvain, who,
moreover, had been disarmed by the Communal Authority, did not provoke
the Germans by any act of hostility.
The commission has resumed the inquiry begun at Brussels on the subject
of the occurrences at Visé.
This place was the first Belgian town destroyed in pursuance of the
system applied subsequently by the invader to so many other of our
cities and villages. It is for this reason that we have been careful to
determine what truth there is in the German version according to which
the civilian population of Visé took part in the defense of the town or
rose against the Germans after the town had been occupied.
Several witnesses now at Antwerp have been heard, notably soldiers
belonging to the detachment which disputed with the Germans the passage
of the Meuse, north of Liége, and a lady of German nationality, who
belongs to the religious community of the Sisters of Notre Dame at Visé.
Innocent Vise.
The result is to prove that the inhabitants took no part whatever in the
fighting which took place on Aug. 4 at the ford of Lixhe and at Visé
itself.
Moreover, it was only in the night of Aug. 15-16 that the destruction of
the town began, the signal being given by several shots fired on the
evening of the 15th. The Germans asserted that the inhabitants had fired
upon them, particularly from a house the owner of which gave evidence
before the commission.
The Germans discovered no arms in this house, any more than they did in
neighboring buildings, which, nevertheless, were burned after being
pillaged, and the male occupants of which were carried off to Germany.
The evidence has brought to light the improbability of any rising among
a disarmed population against a numerous German garrison at a time when
the last Belgian troops had for eleven days evacuated the district, and
the witnesses have declared that the first shots were fired by
intoxicated German infantry soldiers at their own officers. This fact
appears not to be exceptional. It is, indeed, notorious that at
Maestricht, either by mistake or in consequence of a mutiny, Germans
about this same time killed one another during the night at a cavalry
camp which they had established at Mesch, close to the Dutch frontier in
Limbourg.
It is confirmed that the town of Visé was entirely burned, with the
exception, it appears, of a religious establishment which seems to have
been respected, and that several citizens, both of the town and of the
village of Canne, were shot.
A Deliberate System.
A large number of places situated in the triangle between Vilvorde,
Malines, and Louvain--that is to say, in one of the most populous and, a
few days ago, one of the most prosperous regions in Belgium--have been
given over to plunder, partially or entirely destroyed by fire, their
population dispersed, while the inhabitants were indiscriminately
arrested and shot without trial and without apparent reason, the sole
object being, it seems, to inspire terror and to compel the migration of
the population.
This was notably the case in the communes or hamlets of Sempst, Weerde,
Elewyt, Holstade, Wespelaer, Wilsele, Bueken, Eppeghem, Wackerzeele,
Rotselaer, Werchter, Thildonck, Boortmeerbeek, Houthem, Tremeloo. In
this last village only the church and the presbytery remained standing.
On the few houses which have been spared may be seen the following
inscriptions: "Nicht abbrennen," (do not burn,) "Bitte schonen,"
(please spare,) "Gute leute, nicht plundren," (good people, do not
plunder.) These houses, however, were sacked afterward.
In all these villages the women who have been unable to escape are
exposed to the brutal instincts of the German soldiers.
The district immediately adjoins that of Aerschot, the devastation of
which was described in an earlier report. It extends at present to the
northwest of Brussels, where the important towns of Grimberghen and
Wolverthem have been sacked, while southeast of the capital, more than
twenty-five kilometers from the scene of military operations, the town
of Wavre, which was unable to furnish the exorbitant war levy of
3,000,000 francs (£120,000) imposed by the General Staff of the enemy,
has seen fifty-six of its houses destroyed by fire.
We must also record that on Sept. 4 and 5 bombs were hurled from an
aeroplane upon Ghent and Escloo, which are open and undefended towns.
Finally, you are aware, M. le Ministre, that the town of Malines, after
it had been completely evacuated by Belgian troops on Aug. 27, was
subjected for several days to a bombardment which has seriously damaged
the cathedral church of St. Rombaut, the pride of this ancient city. The
town of Heyst-opden-Berg was also bombarded without mercy, though there
was no strategic interest to warrant such an act.
The Plea of Armed Resistance.
The Germans, in order to excuse their violence, declare that, wherever
they have shot civilians or burned and pillaged towns and villages,
armed resistance has been offered by the inhabitants. While there may
possibly have been isolated instances of this kind, that is nothing more
than occurs in all wars, and if they had confined themselves to
executing the guilty persons we could only have bowed before the rigor
of military law. But in no case could individual and absolutely
exceptional acts of aggression justify the wholesale measures of
repression which have been adopted against the persons and the property
of the inhabitants of our towns and villages--the shooting, the burning,
the pillaging which has proceeded pretty well everywhere in our country,
not only by way of reprisals but with a refinement of cruelty. Moreover,
no provocation has been proved at Visé, Marsage, Louvain, Wavre,
Termonde, and other places which have been entirely and deliberately
destroyed several days after being occupied, not to mention the
systematic burning of isolated buildings situated in the line of march
of the troops, and the shooting of the unfortunate inhabitants who fled.
The Germans have asserted in their newspapers that the Belgian
Government distributed to the civil population arms which were to be
used against the invaders. They add that the Catholic clergy preached a
sort of holy war and incited their flock everywhere to massacre the
Germans. Finally, they have declared, in order to justify the massacres
of women, that women showed themselves as ferocious as the men, and went
so far as to pour boiling oil from their windows upon the troops on the
march.
A Tissue of Falsehoods.
All these allegations are so many falsehoods. Far from having
distributed arms, the authorities everywhere on the approach of the
enemy disarmed the inhabitants. The Burgomasters everywhere warned the
townspeople against acts of violence, which would involve reprisals. The
clergy have unceasingly preached calm to their flock. As for the women,
if we except a story in a foreign newspaper, the source of which is
suspected, everything shows that their only anxiety was to escape the
horrors of a ruthless war.
The true motives for the atrocities the moving evidence of which we have
gathered can only be, on the one hand, the desire to terrorize and
demoralize the people in accordance with the inhuman theories of German
military writers, and, on the other hand, the desire for plunder. A
shot fired, no one knows where, or by whom, or against whom, by a
drunken soldier, or an excited sentry, is enough to furnish a pretext
for the sack of a whole city. Individual plunder is succeeded by war
levies of a magnitude which it is impossible to satisfy and by the
taking of hostages who will be shot or kept in confinement until payment
of the ransom in full, according to the well-known procedure of classic
brigandage. It must also be stated that in order to establish the German
case all resistance offered by detachments of the regular army is laid
to the account of the civilian population, and that the invader
invariably avenges himself upon the civilians for the checks or even the
disappointments which he suffers in the course of the campaign.
In the course of this inquiry we use only facts supported by trustworthy
evidence. It should be noted that up to the present we have been able to
record only a small part of the crimes committed against law, humanity,
and civilization, which will constitute one of the most sinister and
most revolting pages in contemporary history. If an international
inquiry, like that which was conducted in the Balkans by the Carnegie
Commission, could be conducted in our country, we are convinced that it
would establish the truth of our assertions.
[Signed by M. Gooreman, Minister of State, President.]
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"NOT A WORD OF TRUTH."
Denial of Belgian Charges by Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at
Washington, Sept. 17.
All that I care to say about the Belgian charges is that I have
officially informed the State Department in Washington that there is not
one word of truth in the statements made to the President yesterday by
the Belgian Commission.
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