As to the intentional character of these acts of vandalism, it is indubitable. How otherwise explain the fact that in numerous villages the church has been the prey of the flames, in many cases even when the surrounding houses have remained intact? A few examples will suffice. The village of Haecht was occupied on the 19th and 20th August. On the 24th the Belgians in Antwerp made a sortie which was repulsed. The Germans, infuriated, shot 17 civilians and pillaged all the houses, particularly remembering the wine in the cellars. Then the inhabitants were expelled. A fresh sortie of the Belgians took place from the 9th to the 13th September; at noon on the last day our troops fell back; in the afternoon the Germans set fire to the church and 41 houses. The strong-box of the church was broken open after the fire. The destruction of the monument did not strike them as sufficient, and they dynamited the whole on the 16th (or 17th) September. In the neighbouring village of Werchter, after the battle of the 25th and 26th August, they shot 6 civilians and burned 267 houses out of the 513 which formed the village. After the second fight, on the 15th September, they burned the church. In both villages most of the houses round the churches were spared; it will therefore be difficult for the Germans to pretend, as at Louvain, that the burning of these churches was an accident (_Brandunglück_) due to burning fragments carried by the wind (p. 220). We have already (p. 73) noted another more significant case, that of the chapel of the Béguinage of Termonde, which was alone burned, in the centre of the Béguinage, not a dwelling of which was touched. _Conclusions--The Famine in Belgium._ Germany had need, in the conflict with France, of all the men who passed through Belgium; also she could leave in Belgium only weak garrisons of the Landsturm. To safeguard them against possible attack on the part of the Belgian population, it was necessary to terrorize the latter to such a point that it no longer dared to stir. Such was the object of the carnage and incendiarism which marked the beginning of the campaign, as was frankly admitted by Herr Walter Blöm, adjutant to the Governor-General in Belgium (p. 84). No doubt the massacres of Louvain, Andenne, Tamines, and Dinant, committed to order between the 19th and the 26th August, appeared insufficient, for a new series was organized between the 4th and 13th September.