In accordance with these facts, the attack evidently was carefully planned, and lasted for several days with the utmost stubbornness. The length of time during which the revolt against the German military force continued excludes any idea of spontaneous and excited actions on the part of isolated persons. The direction of the treacherous revolt must have been in the hands of highly placed persons. Everything points to the fact that the authorities had a hand in the organisation. The official headquarters of the Chief of the so-called Garde Civique were in Louvain; he was still in the town immediately before the rising, and the movement commenced there with the dispatch into Louvain of undisciplined young men not wearing any distinctive badge or uniform, who, together with soldiers transformed into civilians, concealed themselves in the houses in order, while invisible themselves, to fire at a suitable moment upon the apparently departing German troops. The Belgian Government itself has never dared to speak about the regular troops having participated in these actions. We are here dealing with the perfidious deeds of francs-tireurs who were most readily received and offered hiding-places by the population of Louvain. The crimes of the Garde Civique will be unveiled to the whole civilised world in the classical case of Louvain (Apps. 1, 30, 45, 48). Unfortunately a number of priests also allowed themselves to be carried away into misusing their influence upon the civilian population, and encouraging them to shelter the insurgents; it is certain that some of them even took direct part in the fighting (Apps. 1, 19, 34, 37, 38, 41, 42, 45, 48). Those who appreciate the authentic facts discovered by the German Government regarding the case of Louvain, facts which are not based upon hasty examinations of people labouring under strong excitement and possessing little education, by equally agitated examiners, but which are founded upon inquiries entered upon in a calm and quiet spirit, will be able to judge for themselves what value can be attached to other similar accusations on the part of the Belgians against the German troops. In the case of Louvain the Official Belgian Commission of Inquiry has tried to account for the doubtless very embarrassing fact, so difficult to be explained away, of the shots fired in the streets by maintaining that the German troops had fired on their own soldiers. But it conceals the point that the firing lasted several days and was renewed continuously. This simple fact does away with the thread-bare attempt to explain the beginning of the street-fights.