The Germans have asserted in their newspapers that the Belgian
Government distributed to the civil population arms which were to be
used against the invaders. They add that the Catholic clergy preached a
sort of holy war and incited their flock everywhere to massacre the
Germans. Finally, they have declared, in order to justify the massacres
of women, that women showed themselves as ferocious as the men, and went
so far as to pour boiling oil from their windows upon the troops on the
march.
A Tissue of Falsehoods.
All these allegations are so many falsehoods. Far from having
distributed arms, the authorities everywhere on the approach of the
enemy disarmed the inhabitants. The Burgomasters everywhere warned the
townspeople against acts of violence, which would involve reprisals. The
clergy have unceasingly preached calm to their flock. As for the women,
if we except a story in a foreign newspaper, the source of which is
suspected, everything shows that their only anxiety was to escape the
horrors of a ruthless war.
The true motives for the atrocities the moving evidence of which we have
gathered can only be, on the one hand, the desire to terrorize and
demoralize the people in accordance with the inhuman theories of German
military writers, and, on the other hand, the desire for plunder.
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