It is said that more civilians than soldiers have fallen in Belgium.
Peruse the horrible accounts taken by the Belgian Commission, who took
evidence in the most careful and conscientious fashion. Study the
accounts of that dreadful night in Louvain which can only be equaled by
the Spanish Fury of Antwerp. Read the account of the wife of the
Burgomaster of Aerschot, with its heartrending description of how her
lame son, aged sixteen, was kicked along to his death by an aide de
camp. It is all so vile, so brutally murderous that one can hardly
realize that one is reading the incidents of a modern campaign conducted
by one of the leading nations in Europe.
Do you imagine that the thing has been exaggerated? Far from it--the
volume of crime has not yet been appreciated. Have not many Germans
unwittingly testified to what they have seen and done? Only last week we
had the journal of one of them, an officer whose service had been almost
entirely in France and removed from the crime centres of Belgium. Yet
were ever such entries in the diary of a civilized soldier? "Our men
behaved like regular Vandals." "We shot the whole lot," (these were
villagers.
Pages:
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392