At the news of this butchery a resounding cry of horror and indignation went up from all the nations of the earth. That the Belgian Army, on the field of battle, should have paid large tribute to the war unloosed upon us by Germany--that was to be expected, but no one would have dared to suppose that Germany, after participating in the second Hague Conference, would display towards our civil population such an implacable cruelty, such exterminating fury, as history has never recorded since the Thirty Years' War. But facts are facts; one must needs submit to the evidence; the German Army has destroyed our treasures of art and science, has shot down in cold blood, often by machine-gun fire, hosts of men, women, even old people and children; it has ordered the burning of thousands of houses; it has turned whole districts into deserts. Still, some semblance of motive was necessary; with a mathematical regularity the pretext of "francs-tireurs" was alleged. "_Man hat geschossen_"--that was enough; immediately the neighbourhood was given over to massacre, pillage, and fire. Never was any inquiry made, no matter how summary. Yet when it was desired to show a foreigner of note--for example, Dr. Sven Hedin--how they proceeded in the matter of punishing "francs-tireurs," a regular Council of War was constituted ... which brought in a verdict of _non-lieu_ (p. 78). We defy the Germans to cite a single case in which a tribunal of this kind has sat _before_ reprisals. In the few rare cases when witnesses, etc., have been questioned the examination has taken place _after_ the firing of houses and the shooting of inhabitants. This is why we declare without the slightest reservation that _not one single attack by civilians_ has been established by any kind of proof. _The Flight of the Belgians._ The inhabitants of our towns and our countryside soon realized to what they were exposing themselves if they awaited the arrival of the Germans in their own homes. So, as the Germans advanced, a void appeared before them. After the taking of Antwerp, the majority of the peasants of the "Campine" of Antwerp fled in all haste toward Holland. If to them we add the people of Antwerp, who had been driven out by the bombardment, and above all the innumerable villages of Brabant, Limburg, and the provinces of Liége and Antwerp, whose homes had been pillaged and reduced to ashes, we shall not be astonished to find that in October there were more than a million Belgian refugees in Holland.[30] To our northern neighbours we owe our profoundest gratitude for the fraternal manner in which they welcomed our unfortunate compatriots. _The Causes of the Famine._