When the Germans in overwhelming force had beaten back the Belgians who were trying to defend Louvain, and had placed their guns in position to bombard it, they sent an officer to the mayor offering to spare the place if the townsfolk would find food and lodgings for their soldiers. They promised that if this was done the soldiers would not molest the townsfolk, and that those of them who were not billeted in private houses would pay cash for all the goods which they needed. To this the mayor agreed, and the Germans marched in. Soon, however, they broke all their promises. The German soldiers rushed into private houses and took what they fancied, without any payment but worthless paper. They broke open the cellars and drank the wine in them as though it were beer. Their officers ordered the city treasurer to give them 100,000 francs, and grumbled greatly when he could only find part of the money. Meanwhile, though the city was full of drunken Germans, the people remained very quiet and orderly. On Tuesday evening, 25th August, the foul deed was done. That day the Belgians had made an attack on a body of Germans outside the town, and had driven them helter-skelter into it. The drunken Germans in Louvain thought that the fugitives were Belgians, and began firing on them. This was a bad mistake, which would be certain to bring down blame on the officer in command. In order to cover up the mistake, he pretended that the townsfolk had attacked his soldiers, and proceeded to punish them for a crime which they had not committed. A number of the male inhabitants were shot, and then he ordered his men to burn the city down. An eye-witness, who was threatened with death, tells us the terrible story. "At six o'clock," he says, "when everything was ready for dinner, alarm signals sounded, and the soldiers rushed into the streets; shots whistled through the air; cries and groans arose on all sides; but we did not dare leave our houses, and took refuge in the cellars, where we stayed through long and fearful hours. "At break of day I crawled from the cellar to the street door, and saw nothing but a raging sea of fire. At nine o'clock there was a lull in the shooting, and we resolved to make a dash for the station. Leaving our home and all our goods except what we could carry, and taking all the money we had, we rushed out. No pen can describe what we saw on our way to the station. Everything was burning; the streets were covered with bodies, shot dead and half burnt... "The station was crowded with people, and I was just trying to show an officer my papers when the soldiers separated me from my wife and children. All protests were useless, and a lot of us were marched off to a big shed in the goods yard, from which we could see the finest buildings in the city burning fiercely.