Thus from the advance-guard we had become the rear-guard. We had to consider how we could regain the main body of the troop. In the first place hostages were taken, some curés among them; the cavalry and artillery were no longer marching alone and unprotected, but flanked by the infantry and pioneers; one soon learns when once one has been caught. With great difficulty we again penetrated the streets in the smoke and heat, in the midst of the flames we ourselves had lit; now we continually heard the popping of cartridges, bursting harmlessly, piled up in the houses, and betraying the friendly intention of the ex-inmates![32]... We learned later, when we had found the uniforms, that two battalions of crack French infantry were distributed everywhere, in order to organize and discipline the fire of the Belgian civic guard and the francs-tireurs. The rumour (of marksmen on the neighbouring heights) spread.... I thought I perceived--this chilled my heart, and I still hope I was mistaken--that my cavalrymen, otherwise so brave, did not really feel inclined to go forward; their gait became slower and slower; they continually observed more minutiæ and took a longer time in seizing civilians; in short, I saw the necessity of intervening, at need, against my own troops, the most heart-breaking thing that can happen to you in war. In any case I prepared myself, with a heart full of pain, to face even the abyss of this prospect.... _Kunst und Künstler_, January 1915 (Amm. xiii, part 4). We must not overlook an article by Captain Walter Blöm, adjutant to General von Bissing. Herr Blöm, who is greatly admired in Germany, and whose novels may be seen at this moment on the shelves of the travellers' libraries installed in our railway stations, does not hesitate to declare that the conflagrations at Battice and Dinant were not intended to punish the population, but to terrorize them (p. 84). The article already mentioned, which incidentally describes the shooting of a French hostage, is highly typical. One sees that the death of this man--shot because the French army does not consent to cease its bombardment--does not in the least affect the writer, who finds the conduct of his countrymen quite natural.