It was made known to the witness that the Governor-General Field-Marshal General Baron von der Goltz had ordered an inquiry by the Court in order to establish whether a punishable offence in connection with the burning of Louvain could be charged to the account of German military persons, and, if so, to which persons; he states as follows: As to Case: When the first échelon of the General Command entered Louvain on August 25th, the orders received were first briefly talked over, and the report to the Army Headquarters, dealing with the time of arrival of the troops of the 9th Reserve Corps, was prepared. The detraining had not yet been terminated when the report was received from the 18th Reserve Division that the enemy was advancing to the attack against Bueken, along the road Malines-Louvain. I went immediately by motor to the battlefield with the Chief and a part of the Staff. Here the action was principally sustained by the 18th Reserve Division. Our losses were only small. While the different portions of the 18th Reserve Division were advancing, the hussars and one part of the infantry were furiously fired upon by the inhabitants in Herent, as well as from the windows of the houses south of Bueken. They lost heavily. People caught firing were shot and their houses set on fire. When I was on the point of returning to Louvain at midnight with the officers of my Staff, I was warned by the 17th Landwehr Brigade, which was resting to the north of the town, not to enter it, as infantry fire had been heard there. But, as it was necessary for the whole Staff to be in Louvain, I drove in my motor into the town, where we were very soon fired upon. I ordered the above-mentioned Landwehr Brigade to enter Louvain, and went with portions of it to the town hall, where the Mayor and other hostages were arrested. Under the protection of a detachment of infantry they were instructed to announce that if the firing out of houses continued, the hostages would be shot and the place set on fire by the artillery. It now also came to my knowledge that the first échelon of the Staff, after having entered the town, and being drawn up in the market-place, was suddenly assailed by a murderous fire from the surrounding houses.