New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
Namur was entered on the 24th of August. The troops signalized their
entry by firing on a crowd of 150 unarmed unresisting civilians, ten
alone of whom escaped.
A witness of good standing who was in Namur describes how the town was
set on fire systematically in six different places. As the inhabitants
fled from the burning houses they were shot by the German troops. Not
less than 140 houses were burned.
On the 25th the hospital at Namur was set on fire with inflammable
pastilles, the pretext being that soldiers in the hospital had fired
upon the Germans.
At Denee, on the 28th of August, a Belgian soldier who had been taken
prisoner saw three civilian fellow-prisoners shot. One was a cripple and
another an old man of eighty who was paralyzed. It was alleged by two
German soldiers that these men had shot at them with rifles. Neither of
them had a rifle, nor had they anything in their pockets. The witness
actually saw the Germans search them and nothing was found.
CHARLEROI DISTRICT.
In Tamines, a large village on the Meuse between Namur and Charleroi,
the advance guard of the German Army appeared in the first fortnight in
August, and in this as well as in other villages in the district, it is
proved that a large number of civilians, among them aged people, women,
and children, were deliberately killed by the soldiers. One witness
describes how she saw a Belgian boy of fifteen shot on the village
green at Tamines, and a day or two later on the same green a little girl
and her two brothers, (name given,) who were looking at the German
soldiers, were killed before her eyes for no apparent reason.
The principal massacre at Tamines took place about Aug. 28. A witness
describes how he saw the public square littered with corpses, and after
a search found those of his wife and child, a little girl of seven.
Another witness, who lived near Tamines, went there on Aug. 27, and
says: "It is absolutely destroyed and a mass of ruins."
At Morlanwelz, about this time, the British Army, together with some
French cavalry, were compelled to retire before the German troops. The
latter took the Burgomaster and his man servant prisoner and shot them
both in front of the Hotel de Ville at Peronne, (Belgium,) where the
bodies were left in the street for forty-eight hours. They burned the
Hotel de Ville and sixty-two houses. The usual accusation of firing by
civilians was made. It is strenuously denied by the witness, who
declares that three or four days before the arrival of the Germans,
circulars had been distributed to every house and placards had been
posted in the town ordering the deposit of all firearms at the Hotel de
Ville and that this order had been complied with.
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