After the enemy had evacuated the opposite bank in the late afternoon, and the crossing of single detachments of troops had already begun, I withdrew my company from the school and from the bank of the Meuse and assembled them in the street enclosed by two rows of houses. Towards 5 o'clock in the afternoon we were again fired on from these houses, and, consequently, I got the order from the Battalion Commander to search all the houses and to have all armed persons shot without compunction. On this occasion, the soldiers Hautschick and Altermann found in a house on the floor a soldier of the 9th Company of the 178th Regiment who had been shot. He lay with his face over a kneading-trough, and had obviously been shot from behind. In the adjoining room the soldiers found two sporting-rifles which plainly bore the traces of having been discharged quite recently. In a vineyard just above this house two men were caught with rifles by two other soldiers, whose names can no longer be ascertained, and shot. At about the same time Acting-Sergeant-Major Paatsch (who fell at Saunois), together with Private Kaspar, broke into a house close by the castle. Kaspar depicts the occurrence in the following way. On entering the house a man on the ground floor threatened him with a long-barrelled pistol. He struck this man down with a spade which he had at hand. He then mounted with Paatsch to the first floor. Six men were there with sporting-rifles, whom they shot or felled with rifle-butts. On the floor there stood a chair close to an attic window beside which lay a number of cartridges, a proof that the people had fired from this window. When they wanted to leave the house, five men armed with rifles again opposed them. They were only able to overcome these because their comrades came to their aid from outside. In executing the order given by the Battalion Commander to search all the houses, I met the Brigade Commander, who again enjoined me to proceed without any compunction, and to fire the houses in case the people could not be got hold of. On this occasion I reported that one company seemed too weak for such a task, especially as the searching of the houses, with darkness approaching, would take a lot of time. A second company was consequently given to me. During the searching of the houses we were continually being fired on by invisible marksmen. The orders given to me by my Battalion and Brigade Commanders I have carried out. Men caught in the act were shot; where the marksmen could not be seized, the houses were set on fire; women and children were taken to the convent. This order which, by reason of the high risk run by our troops, had proved to be absolutely necessary, I regarded as executed after about fifty men had been shot and the main street of Leffe had been rendered impassable as a result of the burning houses.