“We were on the march in closed column and passing through a Belgian village west of Herve. In the village some German wounded were lying and I recognised some Jäger of the Jäger Battalion, No. 4. Suddenly the column marching through was fired upon from the houses, and accordingly the order was given that all civilians should be removed from the houses and driven together to one point. _While this was being done_ I noticed that girls of eight to ten years old, armed with sharp instruments, busied themselves with the German wounded. Later, I ascertained that the ear lobes and upper parts of the ears of the most seriously injured of the wounded had been cut off.”[20] That is to say, a whole column of German troops is on the march in close formation, they round up the civilians and _while they are doing this_ some little girls continue, in presence of this overwhelming force, to “busy themselves” by cutting up their comrades with the contents of their mothers’ work-box. (3) Landwehrman Alwin Chaton, of the 5th Company of the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 78, declared: “In the course of the street fighting in Charleroi, as we fought our way through the High Street and had reached a side street leading off the High Street, I saw, when I had reached the crossing and shot into the side street, a German dragoon lying in the street about fifty or sixty paces in front of me. Three civilians were near him, of whom one was bending over the soldier, who still kicked with his legs. I shot among them and hit the last of the civilians; the others fled. When I approached I saw that the shot civilian had a long knife, covered with blood, in his hand. The right eye of the German dragoon was gouged out.”[21] The witness adds that “much smoke was rising from the body of the dragoon,” This is to say that a general engagement, one of the hardest fought during the war, is going on in the middle of a town and three civilians are discovered within fifty or sixty paces, leisurely carving up a German dragoon! Is it credible? (4) My fourth example is too long to quote, but in substance it is this. Reservist G. Gustav Voigt deposes that on August 6th he and seven comrades suddenly saw five Belgian soldiers, fully armed, holding up their arms to surrender. When they went up to them they discovered that the Belgians had a German hussar strung up and freshly mutilated, and that they had two other hussars upon whom they were about to perform similar operations.[22] Without firing a shot, these men, caught red-handed under circumstances which made their own death inevitable, surrender immediately. Now I ask any unbiased reader whether these depositions, in each case uncorroborated, are such as to carry conviction to any reasonable man? Yet the whole of the “proofs” adduced as to Belgian atrocities are of this character. The Massacres--Andenne.