Atrocities Around Liége.
Belgian officials reported from Liége devilish atrocities committed in
the town and suburbs. In the Place de l’Université, the Rue des
Pitteurs, and the Quai des Pecheurs most of the houses were burned. The
occupants, who had been awakened by the acrid smoke, fled in terror, and
fifteen persons, men, women, and children, were killed as they ran,
while in one instance a family were called together, and father and son
were killed and then mutilated in front of them. Apparently many of the
soldiers breaking into _cafés_ were drunk, and after firing accused the
inhabitants of it, taking vengeance by burning and murders without
restraint. This indeed appeared to be part of the German campaign, for
not only in Belgium, but also in France, the same inhuman and dastardly
excuses were resorted to in order to attempt to justify the awful crimes
which these “cultured” barbarians committed.
Road Strewn with Dead.
Georges Just, a restaurant-keeper at Chenee, province of Liége, said:
“When we heard of the German approach my wife and I fled across the
river into Liége. It seems now like a dream. Just before they entered
the town the Germans committed all kinds of outrages. Never shall I
forget the terrible sights along the roadside. Mutilated corpses of
people I knew, and many wounded and dying, lay strewn in our path. In
some places we saw the dead piled in heaps fifteen feet high.”
A letter written by a niece of Mr. John Redmond, M.P., who was living in
a Belgian town occupied by the Germans, contained the following:--
“They are absolute barbarians, and treat the women like dogs. For the
least thing the inhabitants are shot, and they all live in fear of their
lives. The town’s most prominent men, in relays of three, guarded by
soldiers, guarantee with their lives the good behaviour of the people.
My husband is one of the guarantors. On Wednesday night he spent his
hours of vigil in the town hall. Imagine my feelings.
“The Germans take everything. No matter how well they are treated and
received, they behave filthily and brutally, officers and men alike.
Empty houses they smash from top to bottom.”
“=The Belgian people are enduring the horrors of war, and after
making every allowance for the source from which our information
comes, we do not doubt that they are enduring them in a form which
ought to be impossible amongst civilized nations.=”--_Bonar Law._
What an Eye-Witness Saw.
Another eye-witness was Mr. Henry Frenkel, a Russian living in Antwerp,
who volunteered in the 6th regiment of the line to serve with his
Belgian friends. While the Germans were in Liége he was sent there upon
an important mission. This is how he tells his story:--
“I got into Liége by Holland. I went first to Rosendael, then to
Maastricht, last to Eysden, and then openly passed the frontier. I will
not describe Visé, Mouland, Berneau, and other places, all burned,
sacked, and devastated in the most horrible fashion. Although all I have
seen has hardened my nerve, I still shiver when I think of it. One
cannot grasp the idea of all that has really taken place there. The
Germans, mad with rage on account of the resistance which we opposed to
them, have acted like wild beasts, to give it a mild name. I have seen
men, women, and children hanged or horribly mutilated. I have seen heaps
of corpses, of which no trace will be left in a few hours, as the
inhabitants round Liége have been commandeered to bury them in lots. Ah!
the Prussians will have to render us a terrible account. I witnessed an
incident on the Place Lambert, in Liége. A Belgian chauffeur was arguing
with a German officer. Visibly, the Belgian chauffeur could not
understand what was wanted of him. The crowd gathered, and I could not
follow the rest of the scene; but I heard a revolver shot. Then German
soldiers rushed out of the palace to stop the crowds, and I saw the
chauffeur, with blood-covered face, carried into a house by two
soldiers. Not a sign of revolt from the crowd. The rifles are loaded,
ready to go off. At my side a German said, laughingly: ‘Ach, das ist
nichts! Eine kleinigkeit.’ (‘Oh! that’s nothing. Only a small thing.’)”
Dinant Destroyed.
It was at Dinant, one of the most famous beauty spots of Belgium, and
which is so well known to English tourists, who flock to it in great
numbers every year, that some particularly atrocious outrages took
place. According to the message of Reuter’s correspondent at Ostend, the
women were confined in convents whilst hundreds of men were shot. A
hundred prominent citizens were shot in the Place d’Armes. M. Hummers,
manager of a large weaving factory employing two thousand men, and M.
Poncelet, son of a former Senator, were both shot, the latter in the
presence of his six children. The Germans appeared at the branch of the
National Bank, where they demanded all the cash in the safe. When the
manager refused to give them the money they tried to blow the safe open.
Not succeeding in this they demanded the combination for the lock. The
manager refused. On this the Germans shot him immediately, together with
his two sons. Dinant was afterwards destroyed by shell-fire and
incendiarism.
“=The modern Attila respects neither the laws of nations nor the
laws of God. His evil deeds cry aloud to Heaven and to the
horror-struck watching nations.=”--_Times._
The wanton destruction of this ancient and beautiful town is a crime
second only to that committed at Louvain.
Children Outraged.
A Belgian soldier who fought at Dinant was eye-witness of a terrible
scene. Several German infantrymen had entered a house in a small village
on the Meuse, and he, with four other Belgians, lay in wait for them.
The Germans emerged with a young woman, whom they subjected to brutal
ill-usage. The Belgians feared that if they fired they might hit the
woman, but presently one of the Kaiser’s savages drew his bayonet and
plunged it into the poor girl’s breast, whereupon she sank down uttering
a piteous cry.
At Harseet the Uhlans suddenly descended upon the village, shot the
first men they came across, numbering seven; this was followed by
outrages on women, and twenty-two men were carried off as prisoners. Two
Uhlans demanded a fowl from a peasant, who replied that he had none.
They found one, and promptly shot him.
Because two Jesuit professors at Louvain University were found with
newspapers upon them, telling of German atrocities, one was shot, while
thirty of the Jesuits were taken away in carts to an unknown fate.
In La Préville a number of Uhlans who broke open a _café_ and satiated
themselves with drink saw a little boy of seven playing with a toy gun.
Because he pointed it at a German soldier he was shot.
Base Act of Ingratitude.
Many Belgian refugees, after weary wanderings, found themselves in
Paris, and some of them were given shelter in the vast Cirque de Paris,
where straw was laid upon the floor upon which those made homeless and
destitute by the Kaiser’s savage barbarians made their bed.
One old grey-haired man, bent and travel-stained, was found by a
correspondent seated alone and silently weeping. A kindly Red Cross
nurse inquired the reason of his despondency. He said: “My name is Jean
Beauzon. I kept a little coffee-house just across the river from Liége,
in the town of Grivegnee. When the army was mobilized my two sons, both
strapping fine fellows, went off to join the regiment. I have two
daughters, one left with my old father and the other here”; so saying he
pointed to a bright-eyed girl of sixteen, whose face and head were
swathed in bandages.
“You see,” he went on, “that poor dear face. Well, a German did that.
They burst into my place and demanded wine, which I gave them. What
happened then I cannot exactly remember. It all seems like a horrible
nightmare. We subsequently left our home and wandered away in the
opposite direction from the terrible cannonading that was going on.
“After walking in the dark for two hours my other daughter became too
tired to go any farther and sat down in despair by the roadside.
“This girl here and I then went on to try to find some means of
conveyance for her. A little way down the road we came upon a riderless
horse, which we managed with great difficulty to catch and mount. We
then went back to find my other daughter. We had not left her for more
than half an hour, but she was no longer there. We spent the rest of the
night looking for her, but found no sign or trace of her, and in the end
were obliged to give up the search.
“Finally we got into a train, which brought us here. I was cared for by
the Red Cross. I don’t know where they found me or anything else except
that I have prayed all the time to the Blessed Virgin to return my
cherished lamb to me undefiled.”
“=What kind of soldiers can these be who slaughter old women with
bayonet thrusts, who violate young girls and then murder them, who
strip and stab young boys, who hang and burn old men, and who
subject to degradation and insult innocent and unoffending
priests?=”
--From the _Daily Telegraph_.
[Illustration: HOW THE GERMAN VANDALS DEALT WITH THE WORLD-FAMED LIBRARY
OF LOUVAIN.
_Photo, Central News._
_Face p. 73._]