The German Army in Belgium, the White Book of May 1915Germany. Auswärtiges Amt
History
The German Army in Belgium, the White Book of May 1915
Germany. Auswärtiges Amt
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Belgium
The German wounded, among them the adjutant of the 1st mounted
detachment Field Artillery Regiment No. 11, declared they had had
little to eat. The Sisters in the convent alleged that they possessed
only a meagre quantity of provisions; at the same time they informed us
that women and children had been collected into the cellar after their
flight from the village. These statements of theirs did not arouse any
feelings whatever of distrust. After the whole of the wounded, and, at
the request of the Sisters, also a few poor old folk in the village had
been fed from our field-kitchen, and medical treatment of the wounded
was still taking place, shots were fired at the stretcher-bearers
halted in the convent garden from the tower of the convent, a thicket
in the convent garden, and the roof windows of the hospital some 500
metres away.
Meanwhile a detachment of stretcher-bearers proceeded to the convent
with the special order to search it thoroughly from the cellar to the
attics and tower. The firing here at once ceased. In the search of the
convent there were found in the cellar not only children and women,
but also men, and, beside these, a particularly large quantity of
eggs--three kegs holding 750 each.
Another detachment advanced towards the thicket in the convent gardens
lying close by the convent. Here two elderly men were discovered
standing up to their waists in a stream which flowed through the
thicket. Both these men had guns which they threw into the water the
instant they were caught by the detachment; the pair of them were shot
outside the convent precincts.
For protection against the firing from the hospital on the other side
of the principal street of the village, the Medical Corps Company
went into a narrow court belonging to the convent. While this was in
progress, shots were fired also from the roof windows of the houses
lying opposite the convent garden and near the hospital. This fire was
diverted from the Medical Corps Company by the passage through the
village of a munitions column.
The Medical Corps Company quitted Jamoigne and bivouacked outside the
village, taking with it the German wounded and the lightly wounded
French who might still be able to bear arms. The two priests and the
doctor of the village, as well as all the male inhabitants found in
the cellar of the convent, were carried off to the bivouac for greater
security.
With the exception of the convent and the hospital, the houses from
which shots had been fired were burned to the ground. During the
conflagration a great many explosions occurred. It may be assumed that
in the course of the fire quantities of ammunition exploded, which had
been stored in the houses.
Signed: BRETTNER, Captain and Column Commander.
App. 31.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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