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
A clear statement of the outrages at Dinant, which many travelers will
recall as a singularly picturesque town on the Meuse, is given by one
witness, who says that the Germans began burning houses in the Rue St.
Jacques on the 21st of August, and that every house in the street was
burned. On the following day an engagement took place between the French
and the Germans, and the witness spent the whole day in the cellar of a
bank with his wife and children. On the morning of the 23d, about 5
o'clock, firing ceased, and almost immediately afterward a party of
Germans came to the house. They rang the bell and began to batter at the
door and windows. The witness's wife went to the door and two or three
Germans came in. The family were ordered out into the street. There they
found another family, and the two families were driven with their hands
above their heads along the Rue Grande. All the houses in the street
were burning. The party was eventually put into a forge where there were
a number of other prisoners, about a hundred in all, and were kept there
from 11 A.M. till 2 P.M. They were then taken to the prison. There they
were assembled in a courtyard and searched. No arms were found. They
were then passed through into the prison itself and put into cells. The
witness and his wife were separated from each other. During the next
hour the witness heard rifle shots continually, and noticed in the
corner of a courtyard leading off the row of cells the body of a young
man with a mantle thrown over it. He recognized the mantle as having
belonged to his wife. The witness's daughter was allowed to go out to
see what had happened to her mother, and the witness himself was allowed
to go across the courtyard half an hour afterward for the same purpose.
He found his wife lying on the floor in a room. She had bullet wounds in
four places, but was alive and told her husband to return to the
children, and he did so. About 5 o'clock in the evening he saw the
Germans bringing out all the young and middle-aged men from the cells,
and ranging their prisoners, to the number of forty, in three rows in
the middle of the courtyard. About twenty Germans were drawn up
opposite, but before any thing was done there was a tremendous
fusillade from some point near the prison and the civilians were hurried
back to their cells. Half an hour later the same forty men were brought
back into the courtyard. Almost immediately there was a second fusillade
like the first and and they were driven back to the cells again. About 7
o'clock the witness and other prisoners were brought out of their cells
and marched out of the prison. They went between two lines of troops to
Roche Bayard, about a kilometer away. An hour later the women and
children were separated and the prisoners were brought back to Dinant,
passing the prison on their way. Just outside the prison the witness saw
three lines of bodies which he recognized as being those of neighbors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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