As far as concerns pillage carried on by way of requisitions we have the evidence of proclamations, letters, and other official communications issued by the German authorities. In no other documents could the chapter of admissions be so explicit. As for theft and pillage committed by soldiers or by officers in their private capacity, the following is evidence supplied by Germans themselves. A German reservist who died in France, _privat-docent_ of a university, married, and father of a family, carefully notes in his pocket-book, which was found by the French, the parcel he sent to his wife of jewels which he found in an empty house. Another day he confesses he stole a microscope. “The Frenchman” (he wrote) “bought it in Germany, and I took it back again.” Another German soldier, Gaston Klein (1st Landsturm company), describes the sack of Louvain in the following terms: “At first only a few troops went back to the town, but afterwards the battalion marched into the town in close ranks _to break into the first houses_ to plunder—I beg pardon, to requisition—wine and other things as well. Like a company which had been disbanded, every one went where he pleased. The officers went on in front and set us a good example. One night in barracks, many men drunk, and there the story ends. This day filled me with a disgust which I could not describe.” The Saxon officer of the 178th regiment, who supplied us with so much precious evidence about German crimes, writes in his pocket-book: “Herpigny-Baclan (17th August). I visited the little château, which belongs to a secretary of the King of the Belgians. Our men behaved like Vandals: first they ransacked the cellar, then they burst into the rooms and threw everything upside down: attempts were even made to burst open the safes; our men carried off heaps of useless things for the mere pleasure of marauding.” “At Rethel,” continued the same officer, “the interior of the house is charming. The furniture was magnificent. Now everything is in pieces. _Vandals could not have done more damage. The leaders of the columns were responsible—they could have prevented pillage and destruction. The damage may be reckoned in millions. Safes were burst open. In an attorney’s house a collection of old pottery and oriental_ objets d’art _was broken into a thousand pieces_.” In spite of protests made to the German troops and their leaders, the Saxon officer at length succumbed to the contagion and followed their example. “As for myself,” he naïvely writes, “I could not help being carried away to this side and that by little souvenirs. I found a magnificent waterproof cloak and a photographer’s apparatus which I am going to give to Felix.” “In a village near Blamont,” writes another soldier, Paul Spielmann, 1st company, 1st Infantry Brigade of Guards, “_everything was given up to pillage_.”…