12 
LAND & WATER 
October 4, 1917 
the gutter from looted houses, till we came 'to a little crossing 
about hulf-wav to the Hotel tie \ille. Here we were stopped 
by a small detachment of soldiers who told it; that we could 
Ko no farther ; that they were clearing civilians out of some 
houses a little farther down the street and that there was 
likely to be tiring at any time. 
The ofiftct»r in command spoke to us civilly and told 
us to stick close to him so that we could know just what vve 
ought to do at any time. He was in charge of the destruction 
of this part of the town and liad things moving along smartly. 
His uien were firing some houses near-by and lie stood outside 
smoking a rank cigar and looking on gloomily. 
We exchanged remarks with liim in German for a few 
minutes. I hmping along behind the more fluent Pousette 
anil Hulle. Then I said something in an aside to Blount and 
the tifticer broke into the conversation in perfectly good 
luiglish. He turned out to be a volunteer officer from Ham- 
burg who had spent some thirty years in England and was 
completely at home in the language. 
We then accomplished the formal introductions whicli ar.^ 
so necessary to Germans -^'ven at a tim« like this, and when we 
came to Riille the officer burst into a rapid fire of questions 
which ended in his proclaiming in rapture ; 
■ Why, I knew your father in Hamburg and went to school 
with your Uncle So-and-So ! " 
Reminiscence went on as though we were round a dining 
table at home ; minute inquiry was made into the welfare 
and activities of the Bulle family from the cradle to the grave. 
On the strength of the respectability of Bulk's relatives we 
were then taken under the officer's wing and piloted by him 
through the rest of our visit. 
Dynamite and Drunkenness 
From where we stood we could sec down the street through 
the smoke as far as the Hotel de \ille. It was still standing, 
but the Cathedral across the street was badly damaged and 
smoke was rising in clouds from its roof. The business houses 
beyond were not to be seen ; the smoke was too dense to tell 
how many of them were gone. 
Machine-guns were at work near by, and occasionally there 
was a loud explosion when the destructive work was helped 
with dynamite. 
.A numi)er of the men about us were drunk and evidently 
had been in that state for some time. Our officer complained 
tliat they had had very little to eat for several days, but 
added glumly that there was plenty to drink. 
A cart, lieaped high with loot, driven by a fat Landsturmer 
and pulled by a tiny donkey, came creaking pa.st us. One of 
our party pulled his kodak from his pocket and inquired 
of our guardian in English : " May I take a picture?" 
His real intention evidently escaped the German who 
answered cordially : 
"Certainly; go ahead. You will find some beautiful 
things over there on the corner in the house they are getting 
leady to burn." 
We kept our faces under control, and he was too much 
occupied with his other troubles to notice that we did not 
avail of his kind permission to join in the pillage. 
He was rabid against the Belgians and had an endless 
scries of stories of atrocities they had committed— though 
he admitted that he had none of them at first hand. He 
took it as gospel, however, that they had fired upon the 
(lerrnan troops in Louvain and laid themselves open to 
reprisals. To his thinking the^e is nothing bad enough for 
Ihem, and his chief satisfaction seemed to consist in repeating 
to us over and over that he was going the limit. Orders 
had been issued to raze the town—" till not oiie stone was left 
on another," as he said. 
just to see what would hapj^en I inquired about the provi- 
sion of the Hague Con\-entions prescribing that no collective 
penalty can be imposed for lawless acts of individualf. He 
dismissed that to liis own satisfaction by remarking that : 
" All Belgians are dogs, and all would do" these things unless 
they are taught what will happen to them." 
Convincing logic ! 
With a hard glint in his eye he told tis the purpose of his 
work ; he came back to it over and over, but the burden of 
what he had to say was something like this : 
" We shall make this place a desert. We shall wipe it 
out so that it will be hard to find where Louvain used to 
stand. For generations people will come here to see what 
we have done, and it will teach them to respect Germany 
and to think twice before they resist her. Not one stone on 
another, I tell you — nie ein SUin an e'nandcr I " 
1 agreed with him when he remarked that people would 
com<^ here for generations to see what Gerinany had done— 
but he did not seem to follow my line of thought. 
While we were talking about these things and the bu.sines.; 
of burning and looting was pursuing its orderly course, a rifle 
shot rang out near by. Instnntly evfry Sfiklier seized his rifle 
and stood waiting for an indication as to what would happen 
next. In a few s.:>con<ls a group of soldiers rushed into a 
liouse about a hundred feet away. There was a soimd of 
blows as though a door was being beaten in ; then a few 
shots, and the soldiers came out wiping the perspiration 
from their faces. 
"Snipers ! " said our guide, shaking his fist at the house. 
" We have gone through that sort of thing for three days 
and it is enough to drive us mad, fighting is easy in corii- 
l)arison, for then you know what you are doing." Then, 
almost tearfully : " Here we are so helpless !" - 
While he was talking, another shot rang out, and then there 
was a regul-ar fusillade, which lasted for fifteen seconds or 
so : then an explosion. 
Bulle stood not upon the order of his going but ran for 
the station calling back : " I've had enough of this. Let's 
get otit and go home." 
Our friend the officer said Bulle was right, and that it 
would be the part of wisdom for us all to fall back to the 
station where we would be near the car in case anything 
happened. He started off at a good pace, and, as we were 
in no mood to argue, we went meekly along in his wake. 
We overtook Bulle engaged in an altercation with a very 
drunken .soldier who wanted to see his papers and was insulting 
about it. Instead of taking the easy course and showing 
his papers, Bulle was opening a debate on the subject when we 
arrived and took a hand. , Om officer waded into the soldier 
in a way that would have caused a mutiny in any other 
army, and the soldier, very drunk and sidlen, retreated 
muttering, to his armchair oii the curb. We then moved on 
to the station. 
Outside the station was a crowd of several hundred people, 
mostly women and children, being herded on to trains by 
soldiers to be run out of the town. They seemed to be de- 
cently treated, but were naturally in a pitiable state of terror. 
Just inside the gates of the freight yard were a couple of 
women telling their troubles to a group of officers and sol- 
diers. Thcv had both lost their husbands in the street 
fighting, and were in a terrible state. The officers and men 
w>?re gathered about them, evidently distressed by their 
trouble and trying to comfort them". They had put the 
older woman in an arm-chair and were giving her a little 
brandy in a tea cup. And the same men may have been the ones 
who killed the husbands 
We went on into the freight yards and were greeted by 
a number of officers with hopeful talk of a train coming from 
Brussels with food. We were gi\en chairs and an orderly 
was despatched for a bottle of wine, so that a drink could 
be given to Bulle.who said that after what he had been through 
he would appreciate a glass of something comforting. 
Teaching Respect for Germany 
We settled down and listened to the stories of the past 
few days. It was a story of clearing out civilians from a large 
part of the town ; a systematic routing out of men from 
cellars and garrets, wholesale shootings, the generous use 
o,f machine guns, and the free application of tlie torch— 
the whole story enough to make one 'see red. .\nd for our 
guidance it was impressed on us that this would make people 
respect Germany, and think twice about resisting her. 
Suddenly several shots rang out, apparently from some 
ruins across the street, and the whole place was instantly 
in an uproar. The lines of civilians were driven helter-skelter 
to cover— where, I don't know. The stands of arms in the 
freight yard were snatched up. and in less time than it takes 
to tell it, several hundred men were scattered behind any sort 
of shelter that ofi'efed, ready for the fray. 
I took one quick look about and decided that the substan- 
tial freight station was the most attractive thing in sight. 
In no time I was inside, closely followed by my own crowd 
and a handful of soldiers. First we lay "down upon the 
platform, and then, when we got our bearings, rolled over on 
to the track, among a lot of artillery horses that were tethered 
there. ' 1 
Apparently a number of civilians, goaded to desperation 
by what they had seen, had banded together, knowing that 
they were as good as dead, and had determined to sell their 
lives as dearly as they could. They had gathered in the 
ruins of the houses fronting on the station and had opened 
up oil us. There was a brisk interchange of shots, with an 
occasional tinkle of broken glass and a good deal of cursing 
by the soldiers who had taken refuge with us. 
The artillery horses did not welcome us very cordially, and 
began to get restive in a way that made us debate whether 
we preferred staying up on the platform with a chance of 
being potted, or staying under co^-er and being ingloriously 
trampled to death. ' h joint debate on this important qucstioii 
kept us occupied for se-\-eral minutes. We finally compromised 
1 
