Figure 1.--This is a funeral procession through the destroyed city of Louvaine. We think this may be a mass funeral. for the victims of the German ranpage -- morethan 2 days ofmirder, rape, pollage, abd kooting. Offivers and men looting, all within site of the towering Germn military iccupation headqwuatersd in ghe Town Hall (August 25-26, 1914).

German actions as they moved through Belgian cities and towns were not uncommomly accompanied not only by the shooting of civilian hostages, but extensive pillage and looting. A historian writes, "Visé, scene of the first fighting on the way to Liège on the first day of the invasion, was destroyed not by troops fresh from the heat of battle but by occupation troops long after the battle had moved on. In response to a report of sniping, a German regimen was sent to Visé from Liège on August 23. That night, the sound of shooting could be heard at Eysden just over the border in Holland five miles away. Next day Eysden was overwhelmed by a flood of 4,000 refugees, the entire population of Visé except for those who had been shot, and for 700 men and boys who had been deported for harvest labor to Germany. The deportations which were to have such moral effect, especially upon the United States, began in August. Afterwards, when Brand Whitlock, the American Minister, visited what had been Visé he saw only empty blackened houses open to the sky, "a vista of ruins that might have been Pompeii". Every inhabitant was gone. There was not a living thing, not a roof. At Dinant on the Meuse on August 23 the Saxons of General Von Hausen's army were fighting the French in a final engagement of the Battle of Charleroi. Von Hausen personally witnessed the 'perfidious' activity of Belgian civilians in hampering reconstruction of bridges "so contrary to International Law". His troops began rounding up 'several hundreds' of hostages, men women and children. Fifty were taken from Church, it being Sunday. The General saw them "tightly crowded, standing, sitting, lying, in a group under guard of the Grenadiers, their faces displaying fear, nameless anguish, concentrated rage and desire for revenge provoked by all the calamities they had suffered". Van Hausen felt an "indomitable hostility" emanating from them. He was the general who had been so unhappy in the house of the Belgium gentleman who clenched his fists in his pockets and refused to speak to Van Hausen at dinner. In the group at Dinant, he saw a wounded French soldier with blood streaming from his head, who lay dying, mute and apathetic, refusing all medical help. Van Hausen ends his description there, too sensitive to tell the fate of Dinant's citizens." [Tuchman, pp. 306-10.]

Sources

Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. The subject of attrocities is a difficult one. The British picked up every report and fed it to both their public and even more importantly, the American public. This was important in affecting American public opinion. The Germans played doen the reports, denying many, and attributing it all to Allied war propaganda. Tuchmans's work is important in wadeing theough the contending charges and claims becuse she is a respected Noble Prize winnining historian. Chapter 17 'The flames of Louvain' deal with this subject in detail.

Created: 5:12 AM 4/11/2022
Last updated: 5:12 AM 4/11/2022