“But the burgomaster of Louvain had no son, and no officer was shot at Louvain. The story of a general shot by the son of a burgomaster was a repetition of a tragedy that had occurred at Aerschot, on the 19th, where the fifteen-year-old son of the burgomaster had been killed by a firing squad, not because he had shot a general, but because an officer had been shot, probably by Belgian soldiers retreating through the town. The story of this tragedy is told by the boy’s mother, under oath, before the Belgian Commission, and is so simple, so touching, so convincing in its verisimilitude, that I attach a copy of it in extenso to this report. It seems to afford an altogether typical example of what went on all over the stricken land during those days of terror. (In other places it was the daughter of the burgomaster who was said to have shot a general.) “The following facts may be noted: From the avowal of Prussian officers themselves, there was not one single victim, among their men at the barracks of St. Martin, Louvain, where it was claimed that the first shot had been fired from a house situated in front of the Caserne. This would appear to be impossible had the civilians fired upon them point blank from across the street. It was said that when certain houses near the barracks were burning, numerous explosions occurred, revealing the presence of cartridges; but these houses were drinking houses much frequented by German soldiers. It was said that Spanish students shot from the schools in the Rue de la Station, but Father Catala, rector of the school, affirms that the schools were empty.... “If it was necessary, for whatever reason, to do what was done at Vise, at Dinant, at Aerschot, at Louvain, and in a hundred other towns that were sacked, pillaged and burned, where masses were shot down because civilians had fired on German troops, and if it was necessary to do this on a scale never before witnessed in history, one might not unreasonably assume that the alleged firing by civilians was done on a scale, if not so thoroughly organized, at least somewhat in proportion to the rage of destruction that punished it. And hence it would seem to be a simple matter to produce at least convincing evidence that civilians had fired on the soldiers; but there is no testimony to that effect beyond that of the soldiers who merely assert it: _Man hat geschossen_. If there were no more firing on soldiers by civilians in Belgium than is proved by the German testimony, it was not enough to justify the burning of the smallest of the towns that was overtaken by that fate. And there is not a scintilla of evidence of organized bands of francs-tireurs, such as were found in the war of 1870.” [Illustration: _From a painting by F. Gueldry to illustrate an official report._ GERMAN ATROCITIES