During the three months of invasion, more than 21,000 houses had been
burnt down in five alone of the nine provinces of Belgium, and a far
greater number pillaged--more than 16,000, for instance, in the single
Province of Brabant. Of the civilian population, between 5,000 and 6,000
men, women, and children had been massacred, some singly and some in
batches, some by clean killing and some after lingering tortures,
some in frenzy and some in cold blood, but all with the object of
terrorization and with that result. Fleeing before the terror, many
hundreds of thousands of Belgians, especially of the middle and upper
classes, had taken refuge in Holland and the British Isles.
_Times History of the War._
[Illustration]
_DINANT: "I SEE FATHER"_
An hour later the women and children were separated and the prisoners
were brought back to Dinant, passing the prison on their way. Just
outside the prison the witness saw three lines of bodies which he
recognized as being those of neighbors. They were nearly all dead, but
he noticed movement in some of them. There were about 120 bodies. The
prisoners were then taken up to the top of the hill outside Dinant and
compelled to stay there till eight o'clock in the morning. On the
following day they were put into cattle trucks and taken thence to
Coblenz. For three months they remained prisoners in Germany.
Unarmed civilians were killed in masses at other places near the prison.
About ninety bodies were seen lying on the top of one another in a grass
square opposite the convent.