Private Handschuhmacher (11th Battalion reserve light infantry) also writes: “8th August, 1914, Gouvy (Belgium). The Belgians having fired on the German soldiers, we at once began to pillage the goods station. Some cash-boxes, eggs, shirts, and everything which could be eaten was taken away. The safe was gutted and the gold distributed amongst the men. As for bank-bills they were torn up.” “The enemy,” wrote another non-commissioned officer (Hermann Levith, of the 160th regiment of infantry 7th corps), “occupied the village of Bièvre and the outer-fringe of the wood in the rear. The third company advanced as a first line. We took the village, _then pillaged almost all the houses_.” “The second battalion,” wrote a third (Schiller of the 133rd infantry, 19th corps) “entered into the village of Haybes (Ardennes), _ransacked the houses and pillaged them_.”… One thing which must be remembered as a feature of German character is that German doctors took part in pillage. This is what we learn from a letter of Private Jean Thode (4th reserve regiment): “Brussels, 5. 10. 14. A motor came up to the hospital and brought some war booty: a piano, two sewing-machines, many albums, and all sorts of other things.” Some admissions are couched in the form of indignation. “They do not behave like soldiers,” writes a soldier of the 65th Landwehr infantry, “but like highway robbers, bandits, and brigands, and they are a disgrace to our regiment and to our army.” “_No discipline_,” writes another, (a lieutenant of the 77th reserve infantry); “_the pioneers are not much good; as for the artillery they are a band of robbers_.” But if this particular lieutenant blames the conduct of his men, others, on the contrary, deliberately order them to pillage. Like the soldier who writes at Louvain that the officers set a good example, four other German soldiers, named Schrick and Weber (of the 39th Prussian infantry), Waberzech (of the 35th Brandenburg), and Brugmann (of the 15th Mecklenburg hussars), on whom were found a quantity of French paper money, watches and jewels, all taken from houses in Senlis and Chantilly, confessed before the French court-martial that it was their officers who should have been blamed. “If I had not taken the jewels” (said one of them) “one of my officers would have taken them.”… “We got from our leaders” (the others declared) “the order to pillage the houses.” CHAPTER XVI DEGREES OF RESPONSIBILITY. CONCLUSION