I bring this fact to the knowledge of the City of Liége, so that
citizens of Liége may realize the fate with which they are menaced if
they adopt a similar attitude.
The General Commanding in Chief
VON BUELOW.
From that morning on, terror ruled. Human wolves, emboldened by
official permission, wrought whatever crime they would in Beaufays.
The Germans, checked before Liége and held up to the world's scorn
by a handful of Belgian soldiers, took their vengeance on women and
children, on the aged and on babies alike.
Aunt Abigail, though doubting the evidence of her senses, was compelled
to admit that the hysteria of blood had changed the bodies inside those
iron-gray uniforms and made them something other than human beings. It
was the were-wolf come again.
"These are not men," she said, to Horace, one dreadful night, "they are
maddened machines marked with the Mark of the Beast."
On Saturday, August 15, the eastern forts fell and the troops which
had been billeted in Beaufays received orders that they were to march
westward the next day, but, before they left, they were given full
liberty to ravage the village as they would.
The orgy of devastation began. The soldiers racked and pillaged every
house, seizing every valuable article they could find and committing
acts so vile that they cannot be told. They came, at last, to the house
of Mme. Maubin. Remembering her defiance, the officer in command, in
cruel jest, bade his men leave the house unpillaged and as they drew
back in surprise at this unexpected mercy, he added,
"But she wished her house burned down!"
His men grinned comprehension.
With the special incendiary fuses and bags of compressed powder
officially served out to the German soldiers for their work of
"frightfulness," they set fire to the house, men with fixed bayonets
being stationed at the door to drive the master's wife back into the
flames should she try to escape.
Horace heard the cries of the woman, as she was being burned alive,
and, boy though he was, vowed to avenge her.
The horrors of the day continued under a sky like blue-hot steel.
The heat was terrific and rendered hotter by the flaming houses of
the village. The wild delirium of license gleamed in the eyes of the
soldiers. The school was among the buildings set on fire. It was the
officer's poor revenge.
Late in the afternoon, darting out from some hiding-place, probably
chased by the flames, suddenly the hunchback shot across the street
carrying the black eagle which had been sought so long. At the sight of
the iron cage a shout of rage went up. The officer would have ordered
his men to fire, but the superstition that this might be regarded as an
evil omen seized him. The "captive Kaiser" must be rescued, not killed.
"After him, men!" he cried.
The soldiers, most of them drunk and all of them blind with blood and
fire, raced after the hunchback.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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