The
officer was obviously drunk. The other officers continued to
drink and sing, and they did not pay great attention to the
killing of my mistress. The officer who shot my mistress then
told my master to dig a grave and bury my mistress. My master
and the officer went into the garden, the officer threatening
my master with a pistol. My master was then forced to dig the
grave and to bury the body of my mistress in it. I cannot say
for what reason they killed my mistress. The officer who did
it was singing all the time."
In the evidence before us there are cases tending to show that
aggravated crimes against women were sometimes severely punished. One
witness reports that a young girl who was being pursued by a drunken
soldier at Louvain appealed to a German officer, and that the offender
was then and there shot. Another describes how an officer of the
Thirty-second Regiment of the Line was led out to execution for the
violation of two young girls, but reprieved at the request or with the
consent of the girls' mother. These instances are sufficient to show
that the maltreatment of women was no part of the military scheme of the
invaders, however much it may appear to have been the inevitable result
of the system of terror deliberately adopted in certain regions.
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