Throughout Belgium steps had been taken to secure the
handing over of all firearms in the possession of civilians before the
German Army arrived. These steps were sometimes taken by the police and
sometimes by the military authorities.
The invaders appear to have proceeded upon the theory that any chance
shot coming from an unexpected place was fired by civilians. One
favorite form of this allegation was that priests had fired from the
church tower. In many instances the soldiers of the allied armies used
church towers and private houses as cover for their operations. At
Aerschot, where the Belgian soldiers were stationed in the church tower
and fired upon the Germans as they advanced, it was at once alleged by
the Germans when they entered the town, and with difficulty disproved,
that the firing had come from civilians. Thus one elementary error
creeps at once into the German argument, for they were likely to
confound, and did in some instances certainly confound, legitimate
military operations with the hostile intervention of civilians.
Troops belonging to the same army often fire by mistake upon each other.
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