Chapter 4 No.4

Acts at Linsmeau and Orsmael.

Belgium, which wanted peace, has been obliged by Germany to resort to arms and to oppose a legitimate defense to an aggression which nothing can justify, and which is contrary to the solemn pledges of treaties.

Belgium is bound in honor to fight loyally and to observe all the rules, laws, and customs of war.

From the beginning of the invasion of its territory by German troops, the Belgian Government had posted each and every day, in all the towns, and the papers have each day repeatedly printed, instructions warning the non-combatant civilians not to offer any resistance to the troops and soldiers invading the country.

The information on which the German Government believes today that it can base its contention that the Belgian population contravenes the law of nations and is not worthy of respect is absolutely unfounded.

The Government protests most vigorously against these allegations and against the odious threats of retaliation. If any deed contrary to the rules of warfare should ultimately be proved, to understand such fact it is only necessary to realize the well-founded excitement which the cruelties of the German soldiers are provoking among the Belgian population-a population which is thoroughly honest but energetic in the defense of its rights and in its respect for humanity.

If we were to publish a list of these atrocities, of which the first ones are here recorded, this would indeed be a long list.

Whole regions have been ravaged and abominable deeds perpetrated in the towns.

A committee attached to the Department of Justice is drawing up a list of these horrors with scrupulous impartiality.

As an example, a few facts are here published, facts which will depict the state of mind and the procedure of certain German troops:

1. German cavalry, occupying the village of Linsmeau, were attacked by some Belgian infantry and two gendarmes. A German officer was killed by our troops during the fight, and subsequently buried at the request of the Belgian officer in command. None of the civilian population took part in the fighting at Linsmeau. Nevertheless the village was invaded at dusk Aug. 10 by a strong force of German cavalry, artillery and machine guns. In spite of formal assurances given by the Burgomaster that none of the peasants had taken part in the previous fighting, two farms and six outlying houses were destroyed by gun fire and burned. All the male population were then compelled to come forward and hand over whatever arms they possessed. No recently discharged firearms were found. Nevertheless the invaders divided these peasants into three groups. Those in one group were bound and eleven of them placed in a ditch, where they were afterward found dead, their skulls fractured by the butts of German rifles.

2. During the night of Aug. 10 German cavalry entered Velm in great numbers; the inhabitants were asleep. The Germans without provocation fired on Mr. Deglimme-Gever's house, broke into it, destroyed furniture, looted money, burned barns, hay, corn stacks, farm implements, six oxen, and the contents of the farm-yard. They carried off Mme. Deglimme half-naked to a place two miles away. She was then let go and fired upon as she fled; without being hit. Her husband was carried away in another direction and fired upon; he is dying. The same troops sacked and burned the house of a railway watchman.

3. Farmer Jef Dierchx of Neerhespen bears witness to the following acts of cruelty committed by German cavalry at Orsmael and Neerhespen on Aug. 10, 11, and 12. An old man of the latter village had his arm sliced in three longitudinal cuts; he was then hanged head downward and burned alive. Young girls have been raped and little children outraged at Orsmael, where several inhabitants suffered mutilations too horrible to describe. A Belgian soldier belonging to a battalion of cyclist carbineers, who had been wounded and made prisoner, was bound to a telegraph pole on the St. Trond road and shot.

4. On Wednesday, Aug. 12, after an engagement at Haelen, Commandant Van Damme, so severely wounded that he was lying on his back, was finally murdered by German infantrymen firing their revolvers into his mouth.

5. On Monday, Aug. 9, at Orsmael the Germans picked up Commandant Knappen very seriously wounded, propped him against a tree and shot him. Finally they hacked his corpse with swords.

6. Numerous soldiers, disarmed and unable to defend themselves, have been ill-treated or killed by certain German soldiers. The inquiry brings forth new facts of this kind every day.

7. In different places, notably at Hellonge-sur-Geer, at Barchon, at Pontisse, at Haelen, at Zelk, German troops have fired on doctors, nurses, ambulances, and ambulance wagons.

8. At Boncelles a body of German troops went into a battle carrying a Belgian flag.

9. On Thursday, Aug. 6, before a fort at Liége, German soldiers continued to fire on a party of Belgian soldiers, who were unarmed and had been surrounded while digging a trench, after these had hoisted the white flag.

10. On Thursday, Aug. 10, at Vootem, near the Fort of Loncin, a group of German infantry hoisted the white flag. When Belgian soldiers approached to take them prisoners the Germans suddenly opened fire on them at close range.

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