[8] They have decorated the pirates who sank the _Lusitania_. They glory
in the crime, and have even struck a commemorative medal in its honour.
[9] In this case, and many of the following ones, the reader is
requested to note, and remember, the _motive_ for the murders.
[10] This cruel treatment of the Abbé Dergent, priest of Gelrode, near
Louvain, is reported by a neutral witness, Father G., a student at
Louvain. The German soldiers accused the Belgian priests of every
conceivable crime; the Assistant-Priest of Sainte-Gertrude (Louvain),
who was remonstrating with a soldier, received this reply: "We are
Catholics too, but you are pigs and black devils." In Belgium about one
hundred of the clergy were massacred. Note further that in this
unfortunate country _doctors_ were particularly ill-treated;
thirty-seven being shot in the small parishes, while more than one
hundred and fifty disappeared altogether from large towns.
[11] To whom did it belong, and where was it? Telephones exist in every
district of Meurthe-et-Moselle. Besides, our army installed field
telephones which were not all destroyed at the time of their retreat. It
is a most foolish pretext, yet where can one find a more stupid one than
this? A German official communiqué, in order to prove that the general
rising of the people had been organized for a long time, declares, "that
depôts of arms were installed, where each rifle bore the name of the man
for whom it was intended." It is absolutely clear that this applies to
arms taken from civilians by order of the local authorities in Belgium
and France, and deposited at the Town Hall, every weapon bearing the
name of its owner. Would they have taken that for an arsenal? No, stupid
as they may be, they are not so foolish as that. They feign stupidity
simply because they know very well that the conscience of the civilized
world is beginning to be moved.