The German Fury in Belgium: Experiences of a Netherland Journalist during four months with the German Army in BelgiumMokveld, L. (Lambertus)
History
The German Fury in Belgium: Experiences of a Netherland Journalist during four months with the German Army in Belgium
Mokveld, L. (Lambertus)
Belgium -- History -- German occupation, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
During the last days hundreds of lads had left Louvain for The
Netherlands, and the migration went on throughout the whole occupied
part of Belgium. It was the exodus of the levies of 1914 and 1915,
who had been called up, and many of whom had been sent to Germany as
prisoners. The Germans themselves had not a little furthered the flight
of these crowds; by proclamations they had warned the lads not to try
to escape, for otherwise all of the levies of '14 and '15 would be
taken prisoners, and the parents of the fugitives would be punished. At
Heverlee and Louvain the lads of both levies had to present themselves
every Friday at this station. The consequence was that the following
Friday not one single boy of those levies was to be found in either
place.
No more wounded were taken to the hospitals of Louvain, as it had
been decided to send them straight on to Germany for the present; yet
there were many wounded men who were being nursed there already, and
the doctors had their hands full attending to the wounded who passed
the town. Dr. Noyons told me that the previous Sunday a train with 600
wounded had arrived from Northern France, and he and his assistants had
been requested "just" to dress the wounds again of some of them. The
condition of these unfortunate men must have been awful; not one had
a dressing less than eight days old. Most of them had had it on much
longer, and then these were merely emergency dressings. They were laid
on straw in cattle trucks, many of them even in filth, and infection
had worsened their condition to a great extent. Dr. Noyons and his
colleagues tried to give the poor fellows as much relief as possible,
but as a matter of course they could not do very much during a short
stay at a station.
The general condition of the town was not calmer during these last
days. New hostages were taken continually, and generally, as before,
they were clerics, in consequence of which the religious services were
in a continual muddle, and sometimes on Sundays no Holy Mass could
be said. Burgomaster Nerinx had now posted proclamations in which he
called for volunteers to serve as temporary hostages, instead of the
priests, during the hours of religious service. As if it were office
work they mentioned: "The service begins in the afternoon at ...
o'clock and will end after ... days at ... o'clock."
It was self-evident that very few were keen to offer themselves as
temporary substitutes for the clerics.
I have, happily, not seen much of the distressing flight of the Antwerp
population, as I happened to be at Liège when the fortress fell into
German hands. I went to Zundert viâ Maastricht and Breda, in order
to go to the conquered fortress from that Netherland frontier-town,
north-east of Antwerp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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