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
The bombs which were to have killed the Queen and her family and to have
shattered the Bourse fell into an adjoining street, wrecked a house, and
injured two women. That destined for the destruction of the Banque
struck the attic of a house near by, killed a servant as she slept, and
injured two others. Of the other bombs one fell into a shrubbery, dug a
deep, funnel-shaped hole, uprooted shrubs, and plucked from their frames
windows of the St. Elizabeth Hospital, where the wounded lay.
Another--and the most successful bomb--struck a private house inhabited
by poor people, murdered a woman, and horribly mutilated three girls,
killed two Civic Guards, and seriously injured another. It was at a
private house just off the Place de Meir that a bomb wrought much
destruction to life and property. It tore off the top storey and split
up the front.
Screams of Dying Women.
“As I arrived on the scene,” says a _Daily Telegraph_ correspondent, “a
woman tottered out covered with lime dust, crying out, ‘Docteur,
docteur!’ Beneath the ruins of the house two Civic Guards were dead.
Within the house pitiful screams came from three girls who had been
roused from sleep by receiving dreadful wounds on the face and body. One
girl had half her face blown away; the two others were seriously wounded
on the face. Evidently their bodies had been somewhat protected by the
bed-clothes.”
The Zeppelin at the time of this appalling incident was almost
stationary in the sky, some seven hundred feet from the ground. Needless
to say, a panic at once ensued, and thousands of people took refuge in
their cellars, while others dashed out into the streets in their night
attire. Time after time the earth trembled as the terrible bombs fell,
causing devastation everywhere, the spots being signalled, it is said,
from the roofs of houses occupied by prominent Germans, of whom there
was a large colony in Antwerp. Truly it was a night of terror, for the
populace through the hours of tension did not know from one moment to
another that they might not be blown to atoms. Ten bombs struck ten
different streets. One which fell in the Rue des Navets made a hole six
feet six inches in diameter and twenty-two inches deep. It was probably
filled with shot, for all the houses in the vicinity were riddled by
bullets, and presented the appearance of having been fired upon, all the
doors and windows being broken and the ceilings having fallen in.
“=The best protection of undefended cities against German Zeppelins
is that a repetition of the Antwerp occurrence will be greeted with
execration by the whole civilized world.=”--_Times._
Enormous Damage to Property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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