The system had other aspects. I do not intend to discuss the terrorization of Belgium here, except to say that the worst allegations of the Allies are fully borne out by the tales the German soldiers relate to one another. Man after man has told me how, when he was in Belgium, he used to fill Feldpostpakete with jewellery and send them home. Looting was frequent, unashamed, and not reproved by those in command. The tales of murder were just as numerous. Children knee-high were killed, women and girls driven into a house, which was then set on fire, and they were deliberately burned alive. The Germans had a peculiar liking for humiliating their victims before killing them. The condemned were nearly always made to dig their own graves. I heard one particularly touching story of a girl. She had shot a German officer; the reason was not stated, but it may be guessed. She was sentenced to be executed next morning. When she came out to her death, her face showed that she had spent the night in dreadful agony of soul. And yet the soldiers insulted her and clubbed her with their rifles before shooting her. Educated men used to feel shame at times. One such wrote home to his mother in a fit of remorse and described how, before shooting a French officer, he had made him put on his coat inside out. His mother was beside herself. “How could my son,” she said, “do a thing like that?” Another man told me about his experiences at Louvain. I give his words exactly. “We were sitting round the table in our room. Suddenly shots fell and some bullets whizzed past our heads and buried themselves in the wall opposite. The lieutenant said, ‘Put out the light, somebody.’ This we did. ‘Go out into the street, and wherever you see a Belgian or wherever you see a light in a house, shoot.’” The tale speaks for itself. The lieutenant had not the slightest evidence that the shots had come from the Belgians. This same soldier told me that from the first they had orders to give no quarter to the English. [SN: FRANCE] I heard similar tales of rapine, arson, and murder in France. One army corps, I think it was the tenth, was especially famous for its record in these things. Villages were burned as a matter of course, without any military reason. Sheer savage lust of destruction was the motive and nothing else. The men of this corps were proud of what they had done and were regarded by the others with envy.