(ii) Aerschot.

The Germans marched into Aerschot [86] on the morning of Aug. 19th, driving before them two girls and four women with babies in their arms as a screen.[87] One of the women was wounded by the fire of the Belgian troops, who had posted machine guns to dispute the Germans’ entry, but now withheld their fire and retired from the town. The Germans encountered no further resistance, but they began to kill civilians and break into houses immediately they came in. They bayonetted two women on their doorstep (c 27). They shot a deaf boy (c 1) who did not understand the order to raise his hands. They shot 5 men they had requisitioned as guides (R. No. 3). They fired at the church (c 18). They fired at people looking out of the windows of their houses (R. No. 5). The Burgomaster’s son, a boy of fifteen, was standing at a window with his mother and was wounded by a bullet in the leg (R. No. 11). They killed people in their houses. Six men, for instance, were bayonetted in one house (R. No. 15). They dragged a railway employé from his home and shot him in a field (R. No. 2). “I went back home,” states a woman who had been seized by the Germans and had escaped (c 18), “and found my husband lying dead outside it. He had been shot through the head from behind. His pockets had been rifled.”

Other civilians (the civil population was already accused of having fired) were collected as hostages,[88] and driven, with their hands raised above their heads, to an open space on the banks of the River Démer. “There were about 200 prisoners, some of them invalids taken from their beds” (c 1). There was a professor from the College among them (R. No. 9), and an old man of 75 (c 15). After these hostages had been searched, and had been kept standing by the river, with their arms up, for two hours, the Burgomaster was brought to them under guard,[89] and compelled to read out a proclamation, ordering all arms to be given up, and warning that if a shot were fired by a civilian, the man who fired it, and four others with him, would be put to death. It was a gratuitous proceeding, for, several days before the Germans arrived, the Burgomaster (like most of his colleagues throughout Belgium) had sent the town crier round, calling on the population to deposit all arms at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and he had posted placards on the walls to the same effect (c 4, 7). A priest drew a German officer’s attention to these placards (c 20), and the Burgomaster himself had already given a translation of their contents to the German commandant (R. No. 11). That officer[90] disingenuously represents this act of good faith as a suspicious circumstance. “To my special surprise,” he states, “thirty-six more rifles, professedly intended for public processions and for the Garde Civique, were produced” (from the Hôtel-de-Ville). “The constituents of ammunition for these rifles were also found packed in a case.” But the only weapon still found in private hands on the morning of Aug. 19th was a shot gun used for pigeon shooting (c 1), and when the owner had fetched it from his home the hostages were released. Yet at this point 4 more civilians were shot down, two of them father and son—the son feeble-minded (c 15).

The Germans quartered in Aerschot were already getting out of hand. “I saw the dead body of another man in the street,” continues the witness (c 15) quoted above. “When I got to my house, I found that all the furniture had been broken, and that the place had been thoroughly ransacked, and everything of value stolen. When I came out into the street again I saw the dead body of a man at the door of the next house to mine. He was my neighbour, and wore a Red Cross brassard on his arm....”

The Germans gave themselves up to drink and plunder. “They set about breaking in the cellar doors, and soon most of them were drunk” (R. No. 15).—“An officer came to me,” states another witness (c 7), “and demanded a packet of coffee. He did not pay for it. He gave no receipt.”—“They broke my shop window,” deposes another. “The shop front was pillaged in a moment. Then they gutted the shop itself. They fought each other for the bottles of cognac and rum. In the middle of this an officer entered. He did not seem at all surprised, and demanded three bottles of cognac and three of wine for himself. The soldiers, N.C.O.’s and officers, went down to the cellar and emptied it....” Not even the Red Cross was spared. The monastery of St. Damien, which had been turned into an ambulance, was broken into by German soldiers, who accused the monks of firing and tore the bandages off the wounded Belgian soldiers to make sure that the wounds were real (R. No. 16). “Whenever we referred to our membership of the Red Cross,” declares one of the monks, “our words were received with scornful smiles and comments, indicating clearly that they made no account of that.”

9. Liége in Ruins

10. “We Live Like God in Belgium”

About 5.0 p.m. Colonel Stenger, the commander of the 8th German Infantry Brigade, arrived in Aerschot with his staff. They were quartered in the Burgomaster’s house, in rooms overlooking the square. Captain Karge, the commander of the divisional military police, was billeted on the Burgomaster’s brother, also in the square but on the opposite side. About 8.0 p.m. (German time) Colonel Stenger was standing on the Burgomaster’s balcony; the Burgomaster, who had just been allowed to return home, was at his front door, offering the German sentries cigars, and his wife was close by him; the square was full of troops, and a supply column was just filing through, when suddenly a single loud shot was fired, followed immediately by a heavy fusillade. “I very distinctly saw two columns of smoke,” writes the Burgomaster’s wife (R. No. 11), “followed by a multitude of discharges.”—“I could perceive a light cloud of smoke and dust,” states Captain Karge,[91] who was at his window across the square, “coming from the eaves of a red corner house.” In a moment the soldiers massed in the square were in an uproar. “My yard,” continues the Burgomaster’s wife, “was immediately invaded by horses and by soldiers firing in the air like madmen.”—“The drivers and transport men,” observes Captain Karge, “had left their horses and waggons and taken cover from the shots in the entrances of the houses. Some of the waggons had interlocked, because the horses, becoming restless, had taken their own course without the drivers to guide them.” Another German officer[92] thought the firing came from the north-west outskirts of the town, and was told by fugitive German soldiers that there were Belgian troops advancing to the attack. A machine-gun company went out to meet them, and marched three kilometres before it discovered that there was no enemy, and turned back. “About 350 yards from the square,” states the commander of this unit,[93] “I met cavalry dashing backwards and transport waggons trying to turn round.... I saw shots coming from the houses, whereupon I ordered the machine guns to be unlimbered and the house fronts on the left to be fired upon.”

Who fired the first shot? Who fired the answering volley? There is abundant evidence, both Belgian and German, of German soldiers firing in the square and the neighbouring streets; no single instance is proved, or even alleged, in the German White Book, of a Belgian caught in the act of firing. “The situation developed,” deposes Captain Folz,[94] “into our men pressing their backs against the houses, and firing on any marksman in the opposite house, as soon as he showed himself.” But were they Belgians at the windows, or Germans taking cover from the undoubted fire of their comrades, and replying from these vantage points upon an imaginary foe? “Near the Hôtel-de-Ville,” continues Captain Folz, “there stood an officer who had the signal ‘Cease Fire’ blown continuously.[95] Clearly this officer desired in the first place to stop the shooting of our men, in order to set a systematic action on foot.”

The German soldiers’ minds had been filled with lying rumours. “I heard,” declares Captain Karge, “that the King of the Belgians had decreed that every male Belgian was under obligation to do the German Army as much harm as possible....

“An officer told me he had read on a church door that the Belgians were forbidden to hold captured German officers on parole, but had to shoot them....

“A seminary teacher assured me” (it was under the threat of death) “definitely, as I now think that I can distinctly remember, that the Garde Civique had been ordered to injure the German Army in every possible way....”

Thus, when he heard the shots, Captain Karge leapt to his conclusions. “The regularity of the volleys gave me the impression that the affair was well organised and possibly under military command.” It never occurred to him that they might be German volleys commanded by German officers as apprehensive as himself. “Everywhere, apparently,” he proceeds, “the firing came, not from the windows, but from roof-openings or prepared loopholes in the attics of the houses.” But if not from the windows, why not from the square, which was crowded with German soldiers, when a moment afterwards (admittedly) these very soldiers were firing furiously? “This” (assumed direction from which the firing came) “is the explanation of the smallness of the damage done by the shots to men and animals,” and, in fact, the only victim the Germans claim is Colonel Stenger, the Brigadier. After the worst firing was over and the troops were getting under control, Colonel Stenger was found by his aide-de-camp (A 2), who had come up to his room to make a report, lying wounded on the floor and on the point of death. Captain Folz (A 5) records that “the Regimental Surgeon of the Infantry Regiment No. 140, who made a post-mortem examination of the body in his presence on the following day, found in the aperture of the breast wound a deformed leaden bullet, which had been shattered by contact with a hard object.” It remains to prove that the bullet was not German. The German White Book does not include any report from the examining surgeon himself.

Meanwhile, the town and people of Aerschot were given over to destruction. “I now took some soldiers,” proceeds Captain Karge, “and went with them towards the house from which the shooting”—in Captain Karge’s belief—“had first come.... I ordered the doors and windows of the ground floor, which were securely locked, to be broken in. Thereupon I pushed into the house with the others, and using a fairly large quantity of turpentine, which was found in a can of about 20 litres capacity, and which I had poured out partly on the first storey and then down the stairs and on the ground floor, succeeded in setting the house on fire in a very short time. Further, I had ordered the men not taking part in this to guard the entrances of the house and arrest all male persons escaping from it. When I left the burning house several civilians, including a young priest, had been arrested from the adjoining houses. I had these brought to the square, where in the meantime my company of military police had collected.

“I then ... took command of all prisoners, among whom I set free the women, boys and girls. I was ordered by a staff officer to shoot the prisoners. Then I ordered my police ... to escort the prisoners and take them out of the town. Here, at the exit, a house was burning, and by the light of it I had the culprits—88 in number, after I had separated out three cripples—shot....”

11. Haelen

12. Aerschot

These 88 victims were only a preliminary batch. The whole population of Aerschot was being hunted out of the houses by the German troops and driven together into the square. They were driven along with brutal violence. “One of the Germans thrust at me with his bayonet,” states one woman (c 9), “which passed through my skirt and behind my knees. I was too frightened to notice much.”—“When we got into the street,” states another (c 10), “other German soldiers fired at us. I was carrying a child in my arms, and a bullet passed through my left hand and my child’s left arm. The child was also hit on the fundament.... In the hospital, on Aug. 22nd, I saw three women die of wounds.”—“In the ambulance at the Institut Damien,” reports the monk quoted above, “we nursed four women, several civilians and some children. A one-year-old child had received a bayonet wound in its thigh while its mother was carrying it in her arms. Several civilians had burns on their bodies and bullet wounds as well. They told us how the soldiers set fire to the houses and fired on the suffocating inhabitants when they tried to escape.”

As elsewhere, the incendiarism was systematic. “They used a special apparatus, something like a big rifle, for throwing naphtha or some similar inflammable substance” (c 19).—“I was taken to the officer in command,” states a professor (c 14). “I found him personally assisting in setting fire to a house. He and his men were lighting matches and setting them to the curtains.”—“We saw a whole street burning, in which I possessed two houses,” deposes a native of Aerschot, who was being driven towards the square. “We heard children and beasts crying in the flames” (c 2). A civilian went out into the street to see if his mother was in a burning house. He was shot down by Germans at a distance of 18 yards (c 5). Another householder (R. No. 5) threw his child out of the first-floor window of his burning house, jumped out himself, and broke both his legs. His wife was burnt alive. “The Germans with their rifles prevented anyone going to help this man, and he had to drag himself along with his legs broken as best he could” (c 19).—“The whole upper part of my house caught fire,” declares another (R. No. 13), “when there were a dozen people in it. The Germans had blocked the street door to prevent them coming out. They tried in vain to reach the neighbouring roofs.... The Germans were firing on everyone in the streets....”

By this time the Germans were mostly drunk (c9) and lost to all reason or shame. Two men and a boy stepped out of the door of a public-house in which they had taken refuge with others. “As soon as we got outside we saw the flash of rifles and heard the report.... We came in as quickly as we could and shut the door. The German soldiers entered. The first man who entered said, ‘You have been shooting,’ and the others kept repeating the same words. They pointed their revolvers at us, and threatened to shoot us if we moved” (c 4).

In another building about 22 captured Belgian soldiers (some of them wounded) and six civilian hostages were under guard. They were dragged out to the banks of the Démer and shot down by two companies of German troops. “I was hit,” explains one of the two survivors (a soldier already wounded before being taken prisoner), “but an officer saw that I was still breathing, and when a soldier wanted to shoot me again, he ordered him to throw me into the Démer. I clung to a branch and set my feet against the stones on the river-bottom. I stayed there till the following morning, with only my head above water....” (R. No. 8).

The Burgomaster’s house was the first to be cleared. Colonel Stenger’s aide-de-camp dragged the Burgomaster out of the cellar where he and his family had taken refuge, and carried him off under guard. Half-an-hour later the aide-de-camp returned for the Burgomaster’s wife and his fifteen-year-old son. “My poor child,” writes the Burgomaster’s wife, “could scarcely walk because of his wound. The aide-de-camp kicked him along. I shut my eyes to see no more....” (R. No. 11).

“When we reached the square,” the same witness continues, “we found there all our neighbours. A girl near me was fainting with grief. Her father and two brothers had been shot, and they had torn her from her dying mother’s bedside. (They found her, nine hours later, dead). All the houses on the right side of the square were ablaze. One could detect the perfect order and method with which they were proceeding. There was none of the feverishness of men left to pillage by themselves. I am positive they were acting with orderliness and under orders.... From time to time, soldiers emerged from our house, with their arms full of bottles of wine. They were opening our windows, and all the interiors were stripped bare....”—“The square was one blaze of fire,” states a blacksmith (c 1), “and the civilians were obliged to stand there close to the flames from the burning houses.”—“They put the women and children on one side,” adds a woman (c 7). “I was among them, and my 5 children—one boy of fifteen and 4 girls. I saw that many of the men had their hands tied. They took the men away along the road to Louvain....”

The men were being led out of the town, as Captain Karge’s prisoners had been led out a few hours before, to be shot. The Burgomaster, his brother, and his son were in this second convoy. “Under the glare of the conflagration,” writes the Burgomaster’s wife, “my eyes fell upon my husband, my son and my brother-in-law, who were being led, with other men, to execution. For fear of breaking down his courage, I could not even cry out to my husband: ‘I am here.’” There were 50 or 60 prisoners altogether, and another batch of 30 followed behind.[96] “They made us walk in the same position, hands up, for 20 minutes,” one survivor states (c 4). “When we got tired we put our hands on our heads.”—“One of the prisoners,” states a second member of the convoy (c 8), “was struck on the back with a rifle-butt by a German soldier. The young man said: ‘O my father.’ His father said: ‘Keep quiet, my boy.’ Another soldier thrust his bayonet into the thigh of another prisoner, and afterwards compelled him to walk on with the rest.”—“Our hands,” states a third (R. No. 7), “were bound behind our backs with copper wire—so tightly that our wrists were cut and bled. We were compelled to lie down, still bound, on our backs, with our heads touching the ground. About six in the morning, they decided to begin the executions.”

An officer read out a document to the prisoners.—One out of three was to be shot. “It was read out like an article of the law. He read in German, but we understood it.... They took all the young men....” (c 4).

The Burgomaster’s chief political opponent was among the prisoners. He offered his life for the Burgomaster’s—“The Burgomaster’s life was essential to the welfare of the town.” The Burgomaster pleaded for his fellow citizens, and then for his son. The officer answered that he must have them all—the Burgomaster, his son and his brother. “The boy got up and stood between his father and uncle.... The shots rang out, and the three bodies fell heavily one upon another....” (R. No. 7).

“The rest were drawn up in ranks of three. They numbered them—one, two, three. Each number three had to step out of his rank and fall in behind the corpses; they were going to be shot, the Germans said. My brother and I were next to each other—I number two, he three. I asked the officer if I might take my brother’s place: ‘My mother is a widow. My brother has finished his education, and is more useful than I!’ The officer was again implacable. ‘Step out, number three.’ We embraced, and my brother joined the rest. There were about 30 of them lined up. Then the German soldiers moved slowly along the line, killing three at every discharge—each time at the officer’s word of command” (R. No. 7).

The last man in the line was spared as a medical student and member of the Red Cross (R. No. 5). The survivors were set free. On their way back they passed another batch going to their death (R. No. 7). They passed the corpse of a woman on the road, and another in the cattle-market (c 17). Other inhabitants of Aerschot were forced to bury all the corpses on the Louvain road in the course of the same day. They brought back to the women of Aerschot the sure knowledge that their husbands, sons and brothers were dead.[97]

The rest of what happened at Aerschot is quickly told. When the Germans had marched the second convoy of men out of the town and dismissed the women from the square, they evacuated the town themselves[98] and bombarded it from outside with artillery;[99] but in the daylight of Aug. 20th they came back again, and burned and pillaged continuously for three days—taking not only food and clothing but valuables of every kind, and loading them methodically on waggons and motor cars.[100] On the evening of the 20th, the Institut Damien, hospital though it was, was compelled to provide quarters for 1,100 men. “We spent all night giving food and drink to this mob, of whom many were drunk. We collected 800 empty bottles next morning.”[101]

On Aug. 26th and 27th the remnant of the population—about 600 men, women, and children, who had not perished or fled—were herded into the church.[102] They were given little food, and no means of sanitation. On the evening of the 27th a squad of German soldiers amused themselves by firing through the church door over the heads of the hostages, against the opposite wall. On the 28th the monks of St. Damien were brought there also. (Their hospital was closed, and the patients turned out of their beds.) The rest of the hostages were marched that day to Louvain. There were little children among them, and women with child, and men too old to walk. At Louvain, in the Place de la Station, they were fired upon, and a number were wounded and killed. The survivors were released on the 29th, but when they returned to Aerschot they were arrested and imprisoned again—the men in the church, the women in a chateau. The women and children were released the day following (that day the active troops at Aerschot were replaced by a landsturm garrison, who began to pillage the town once more).[103] The men were kept prisoners till Sept. 6th, when those not of military age were released and the remainder (about 70) deported by train to Germany. All the monks were deported, whatever their age.[104]

“On Aug. 31st,” writes a German landsturmer in his diary,[105] “we entered Aerschot to guard the station. On Sept. 2nd I had a little time off duty, which I spent in visiting the town. No one, without seeing it, could form any idea of the condition it is in.... In all my life I shall never drink more wine than I drank here.”

Three hundred and eighty-six houses were burnt at Aerschot, 1,000 plundered, 150 inhabitants killed, and after this destruction the Germans admitted the innocence of their victims. “It was a beastly mess,” a German non-commissioned officer confessed to one of the monks in the church of Aerschot on Aug. 29th.[106] “It was our soldiers who fired, but they have been punished.”