Among the monuments destroyed artists especially deplore the marvellous Halles of Ypres, and the churches of Nieuport, Ypres, and Dixmude. This last contained a very remarkable Gothic rood-screen, of which Herr Stübben, one of the most eminent architects of modern Germany, stated that its loss would be irreparable. It escaped the shells, but not the German soldiery, who destroyed it with the butts of their rifles, after the capture of the town. Always _Kultur_! _Pillage._ ARTICLE 28. _The giving over to pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is forbidden._ ARTICLE 46. _Family honour and rights, individual life, and private property as well as religious convictions and worship, must be respected._ ARTICLE 47 _Pillage is expressly forbidden._ "Family honour and rights!" The cases of rape prove the respect of the German army for these prescriptions! "Individual life!" By the end of September 1914 the Germans had killed more civilians than soldiers. This simple statement says more than could a long exposition. "Private property!" Theft and pillage are phenomena so commonplace that the inhabitants no longer insist upon them; if they mention the subject it is to say: "The Germans behaved well here; they only took all we had." We shall therefore confine ourselves to citing a few cases particularly typical of the German mentality. It is indisputable that the conflagrations started under the pretext of chastising "francs-tireurs" were in reality designed to conceal the pillage committed by the German army. This was certainly the case at Aerschot (_4th Report_) and at Louvain. The officers who gave orders to start these fires were therefore accomplices of the pillaging soldiery. For that matter, how could they have disavowed the thefts of their men, seeing that they themselves largely took part in the scramble? Whole trains left Brussels, Louvain, Malines, and Verviers for Germany, loaded with "war booty for officers." During their journey to Belgium, Herren Koester and Noske, on the 23rd September, at Hubesthal, saw numerous trains passing which were laden with war booty (_Kriegsfahrten_, p. 8); there were at that time no serious battles either in France or in Belgium, so that there was no capture of war booty in the Western sense of the term.[28] The trains observed by the Socialist authors could only have been carrying the fruits of pillage; they came probably from Malines, which the Germans at this time were scrupulously emptying, as well as the numerous châteaux of the neighbourhood.