German Atrocities: A Record of Shameless DeedsLe Queux, William
History
German Atrocities: A Record of Shameless Deeds
Le Queux, William
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
“Absolutely incredible was the picture of incidents connected with the
burning of Visé by the Germans and the shooting given in private letters
which arrived from Eysden, on the Dutch frontier, and seen by the
_Telegraaf_. According to these letters, the Germans alleged that the
citizens had fired on the troops. All the inhabitants were then hunted
out of their houses to spend the night in the square watching the
burning. Men were taken prisoners, and possibly shot, and the rest were
driven out of the town, which was given to the flames. Eysden is filled
with refugees--one hundred and fifty in one canteen and two hundred and
fifty in the Protestant Church, while four hundred have been sent to
Maastricht.
“Two trainloads of refugees came into Brussels from the Tirlemont
district. The scenes I have witnessed,” telegraphs a Press Association
correspondent, “and the stories told by these poor people would melt a
heart of stone. Removal from the face of the earth--a phrase of the
German papers themselves--continues to be the invader’s idea of how best
to deal with unarmed, unoffending villages, the only crime of whose
people is that they have fallen in his path.
“The Germans entered Tirlemont, in the vicinity of which they have been
for some days. They were in strong force, mostly cavalry and artillery.
The big guns shelled the place, and the cavalry played at war by
attacking the flying and panic-stricken populace, shooting and stabbing
them at random.
“Never have I seen such a picture of woe as a peasant woman and five
children who stood bewildered in the Place de la Gare here, all crying
as if their hearts would break. It was a terrible story the woman had to
tell. ‘They shot my husband before my eyes,’ she said, ‘and trampled two
of my children to death.’
“A German knocked at the door of the house of the Burgomaster at Venne,
near the Dutch frontier, and when the Burgomaster’s wife opened the door
she was knocked down and killed with the butt end of a rifle.
“A solicitor, who was a member of the Belgian Chamber, and who was
staying in the house, rushed to the front door, and he also was
instantly knocked down and killed with a bayonet thrust. On hearing of
these atrocities the population fled in terror.”
Lancer’s Fiendish Act.
M. Isadore Felix Cruls, a Belgian refugee who arrived in London, had a
tragic story to tell. He carried on a prosperous printing business at
Saint Jossé, a suburb of Brussels. When hostilities broke out he was
called up for service in the Civil Guard, and stationed on the Chaussée
de Louvain, the road between Louvain and Brussels. As reported in the
_Daily Telegraph_, he stated:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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