There is an overwhelming mass of evidence of the deliberate destruction of private property by the German soldiers. The destruction, in most cases, was effected by fire, and the German troops had been provided beforehand with appliances for rapidly setting fire to houses. Among the appliances enumerated by witnesses are syringes for squirting petrol, guns for throwing small inflammable bombs, and small pellets made of inflammable material. Specimens of the last-mentioned have been shown to members of the Committee. Besides burning houses the Germans frequently smashed furniture and pictures; they also broke in doors and windows. Frequently, too, they defiled houses by relieving the wants of nature upon the floor. They also appear to have perpetrated the same vileness upon piled up heaps of provisions, so as to destroy what they could not themselves consume. [Sidenote: 25] Villages, even large parts of a city, were given to the flames as part of the terrorising policy. [Sidenote: 35] The general conclusion is that the burning and destruction of property which took place was only in a very small minority of cases justified by military necessity. [Sidenote: 19] _Louvain._--Then the corps of incendiaries got to work. They had broad belts with the words "Gott mit uns" ("God with us"), and their equipment consisted of a hatchet, a syringe, a small shovel and a revolver. Fires blazed up in the direction of the Law Courts and St. Martin's Barracks. [Sidenote: 19] A witness: "When we got to the Place de la Station ... not a single house in the place was standing." [Sidenote: 20] On the 26th (Wednesday), in the city of Louvain, massacre, fire, and destruction went on. The University, with its Library, the Church of St. Peter, and many houses were set on fire and burnt to the ground. [Sidenote: 12] _Tamines._--A witness went there on August 27th and says: "It is absolutely destroyed and a mass of ruins." [Sidenote: 9] _Liège._--The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de l'Université and the Quai des Pêcheurs were systematically fired with benzine. [Sidenote: 16] _Aerschot._--The houses were set on fire with special apparatus. [Sidenote: 12] _Montigny-sur-Sambre._--Incendiaries, with a distinctive badge on their arm, went down the main street throwing handfuls of inflammatory and explosive pastilles into the houses. These pastilles were carried by them in bags, and in this way about 130 houses were destroyed in the main street. [Sidenote: 11] _Namur._--A witness of good standing ... describes how the town was set on fire systematically in six different places.... Not less than 140 houses were burnt. On the 25th the hospital was set on fire with inflammable pastilles, the pretext being that soldiers in the hospital had fired upon the Germans. [Sidenote: 13] _Dinant._--The town was systematically set on fire by hand grenades.... The houses and villages were pillaged and property wantonly destroyed. [Sidenote: 12]