The following is the second report issued by the Belgian Commission of
Inquiry, and which was published by the British Official Press Bureau on
September 15th, 1914.
Second Report of the Belgian Committee of Inquiry.
To M. Carton de Wiart, Minister of Justice, Antwerp.
Sir,--The Commission of Inquiry has the honour to make the following
report on acts of which the town of Louvain, the neighbourhood, and the
district of Malines have been the scene.
The German Army entered Louvain on Wednesday, August 19th, after having
burned down the villages through which it had passed.
As soon as they had entered the town of Louvain the Germans
requisitioned food and lodging for their troops. They went to all the
banks of the town and took possession of the cash in hand. German
soldiers burst open the doors of houses which had been abandoned by
their inhabitants, pillaged them, and committed other excesses.
The German authorities took as hostages the mayor of the city, Senator
Van der Kelen, the Vice-Rector of the Catholic University, and the
senior priest of the city, besides certain magistrates and aldermen.
All the weapons possessed by the inhabitants, even fencing swords, had
already been given up to the municipal authorities and placed by them in
the Church of St. Pierre.
In a neighbouring village, Corbeek Loo, on Wednesday, August 19th, a
young woman, aged twenty-two, whose husband was with the Army, and some
of her relations, were surprised by a band of German soldiers. The
persons who were with her were locked up in a deserted house, while she
herself was dragged into another cottage, where she was assaulted by
five soldiers.
Fate of 16-year-old Girl.
In the same village on Thursday, August 20, German soldiers fetched from
their house a young girl, about sixteen years old, and her parents. They
conducted them to a small deserted country house, and while some of them
held back the father and mother, others entered the house, and, finding
the cellar open, forced the girl to drink. They then brought her on to
the lawn in front of the house and assaulted her. Finally they stabbed
her in the breast with their bayonets.
When this young girl had been abandoned by them after these abominable
deeds, she was brought back to her parents’ house, and the following
day, in view of the gravity of her condition, she received extreme
unction from the parish priest and was taken to the hospital of
Louvain, as her life was despaired of.
On August 24 and 25 Belgian troops made a sortie from the entrenched
camp of Antwerp and attacked the German army before Malines. The Germans
were thrown back on Louvain and Vilvorde.
On entering the villages which had been occupied by the enemy the
Belgian army found them devastated. The Germans, as they retired, had
pillaged and burnt the villages, taking with them the male inhabitants,
whom they forced to march in front of them.
Belgian soldiers entering Hofstade on August 25 found the body of an old
woman who had been killed by bayonet thrusts. She still held in her hand
the needle with which she was sewing when she was killed. A woman and
her fifteen or sixteen year old son lay on the ground, pierced by
bayonets. A man had been hanged.
At Sempst, a neighbouring village, were found the bodies of two men
partially carbonised. One of them had his legs cut off at the knees; the
other had the arms and legs cut off. A workman, whose burnt body has
been seen by several witnesses, had been struck several times with
bayonets, and then, while still alive, the Germans had poured petroleum
over him and thrown him into a house to which they set fire. A woman who
came out of her house was killed in the same way.
A witness, whose evidence has been taken by a reliable British subject,
declares that he saw, on August 26, not far from Malines, during the
last Belgian attack, an old man tied by the arms to one of the rafters
in the ceiling of his farm. The body was completely carbonised, but the
head, arms, and feet were unburnt. Further on, a child of about fifteen
was tied up, the hands behind the back, and the body was completely torn
open with bayonet wounds. Numerous corpses of peasants lay on the ground
in positions of supplication, their arms lifted and their hands clasped.
Facts about Louvain.
At nightfall on August 26 the German troops, repulsed by our soldiers,
entered Louvain panic-stricken. Several witnesses affirm that the German
garrison which occupied Louvain was erroneously informed that the enemy
were entering the town. Men of the garrison immediately marched to the
station, shooting haphazard the while, and there met the German troops
who had been repulsed by the Belgians, the latter having just ceased the
pursuit.
Everything tends to prove that the German regiments fired on one
another. At once the Germans began bombarding the town, pretending that
civilians had fired on the troops, a suggestion which is contradicted by
all the witnesses, and could scarcely have been possible, because the
inhabitants of Louvain had had to give up their arms to the municipal
authorities several days before.
The bombardment lasted till about ten o’clock at night. The Germans then
set fire to the town. Wherever the fire had not spread, the German
soldiers entered the houses and threw fire grenades, with which some of
them seemed to be provided. The greater part of the town of Louvain was
thus a prey to the flames, particularly the quarters of the upper town,
comprising the modern buildings, the ancient Cathedral of St. Pierre,
the university buildings, together with the university library, its
manuscripts and collections, and the municipal theatre.
The Commission considers it its duty to insist, in the midst of all
these horrors, on the crime committed against civilisation by the
deliberate destruction of an academic library which was one of the
treasures of Europe.
The corpses of many civilians encumbered the streets and squares. On the
road from Tirlemont to Louvain alone a witness counted more than fifty.
On the doorsteps of houses could be seen carbonised bodies of
inhabitants, who, hiding in their cellars, were driven out by the fire,
tried to escape, and fell into the flames. The suburbs of Louvain
suffered the same fate.
We can affirm that the houses in all the districts between Louvain and
Malines, and most of the suburbs of Louvain itself, have practically
been destroyed.
Thousands Sent to Germany.
On Wednesday morning, August 26th, the Germans brought to the station
squares of Louvain a group of more than seventy-five persons, including
several prominent citizens of the town, among whom were Father Coloboet
and another Spanish priest, and also an American priest.
The men were brutally separated from their wives and children, and after
having been subjected to the most abominable treatment by the Germans,
who several times threatened to shoot them, they were forced to march to
the village of Campenhout in front of the German troops. They were shut
up in the village church, where they passed the night.
About four o’clock the next morning a German officer told them they had
better go to confession, as they would be shot half an hour later. About
half-past four they were liberated. Shortly afterwards they were again
arrested by a German brigade, which forced them to march before them in
the direction of Malines. In reply to a question of one of the
prisoners, a German officer said they were going to give them a taste of
the Belgian quickfirers before Antwerp. They were at last released on
the Thursday afternoon at the gates of Malines.
It appears from other witnesses that several thousand male inhabitants
of Louvain, who had escaped the shooting and the fire, were sent to
Germany for a purpose which is still unknown to us.
Eye-Witness’s Account.
The fire at Louvain burnt for several days. An eye-witness who left
Louvain on August 30th gave the following description of the town at
that time:--“Leaving Weert St. George’s, I only saw burnt-down villages
and half-crazy peasants, who on meeting anyone held up their hands as a
sign of submission. Before every house, even those burnt down, hung a
white flag, and the burnt rags of them could be seen among the ruins.
“At Weert St. George’s I questioned the inhabitants on the causes of the
German reprisals, and they affirmed most positively that no inhabitant
had fired a shot, that in any case the arms had been previously
collected, but that the Germans had taken vengeance on the population
because a Belgian soldier belonging to the gendarmerie had killed an
Uhlan.
“The population still remaining in Louvain have taken refuge in the
suburb of Héverlé, where they are extremely crowded. They have been
cleared out of the town by the troops and the fire.
“The fire started a little beyond the American College, and the town is
_entirely_ destroyed, except for the town hall and the station.
Furthermore, the fire was still burning to-day, and the Germans, far
from taking any steps to stop it, seemed to feed it with straw, an
instance of which I observed in the street adjoining the town hall.
“The cathedral and the theatre are destroyed and have fallen in, as also
the library; in short, the town has the appearance of an ancient ruined
city, in the midst of which only a few drunken soldiers move about,
carrying bottles of wine and liqueurs, while the officers themselves,
seated in arm-chairs round the tables, drink like their men.”
The Commission has not yet been able to obtain information about the
fate of the Mayor of Louvain and of the other notables who were taken as
hostages.
The Commission is able to draw the following conclusions from the facts
which have so far been brought to its notice:--
In this war, the occupation of any place is systematically accompanied
and followed, sometimes even preceded, by acts of violence towards the
civil population, which acts are contrary both to the usages of war and
to the most elementary principles of humanity.
Brutality Everywhere.
The German procedure is everywhere the same. They advance along a road,
shooting inoffensive passers-by--particularly bicyclists--as well as
peasants working in the fields.
In the towns or villages where they stop they begin by requisitioning
food and drink, which they consume till intoxicated.
Sometimes from the interior of deserted houses they let off their rifles
at random and declare that it was the inhabitants who fired. Then the
scenes of fire, murder, and especially pillage begin, accompanied by
acts of deliberate cruelty, without respect to sex or age. Even where
they pretend to know the actual person guilty of the acts they allege,
they do not content themselves with executing him summarily, but they
seize the opportunity to decimate the population, pillage the houses,
and then set them on fire.
After a preliminary attack and massacre they shut up the men in the
church, and then order the women to return to their houses and to leave
their doors open all night.
From several places the male population has been sent to Germany, there
to be forced, it appears, to work at the harvest, as in the old days of
slavery. There are many cases of the inhabitants being forced to act as
guides and to dig trenches and entrenchments for the Germans. Numerous
witnesses assert that during their marches, and even when attacking, the
Germans place civilians, men and women, in their front ranks, in order
to prevent our soldiers firing.
The evidence of Belgian officers and soldiers shows that German
detachments do not hesitate to display either the white flag or the Red
Cross flag in order to approach our troops with impunity. On the other
hand, they fire on our ambulances and maltreat the ambulance men. They
maltreat and even kill the wounded. The clergy seem to be particularly
chosen as subjects for their brutality.
Finally, we have in our possession expanding bullets which had been
abandoned by the enemy at Werchter, and we possess doctors’ certificates
showing that wounds must have been inflicted by bullets of this kind.
The documents and evidence on which these conclusions rest will be
published in due course.
(Signed)
The President, COOREMAN.
Members of the Commission, COUNT GOBLET D’ALVIELLA, RYCKMANS,
STRAUSS, VAN CUTSEM.
Secretaries, CHEV. ERNST DE BUNSWYCK, ORTS.
“=The report of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry into the German
atrocities in Belgium is perhaps the most appalling document that
has ever been submitted to civilised man. It reveals a cruelty more
perverse than that of the Boxer or Bashi-Bazuk, and it covers the
reputation of the German soldiery with eternal shame.... They
themselves have transgressed every law of God and man.=”
--From the _Daily Mail_.