12 
LAND & WATER 
Uctober .4, 1917 
the glitter from looted houses, till we came to a little crossing 
about lialf-wav to the Hotel de A'ille. Here we were stopped 
bv a small detachment of soldiers who told us that w(^ could 
go no farther ; that thev were clearing civilians out of some 
houses a little farther down the street and that th?re was 
likelv to be tiring at anv time. 
The officer in command spoke to us civilly and told 
us to stick close to him so that we could know just what we 
ought to do at anv time. He was in charge of the destruction 
of this part of tlr-town and had things moving along smartly. 
His men were .hring some houses near-by and he stood outside 
smoking a rank cigar and looking on gloomily. 
We exchanged remarks with him in German for a lew 
minutes. I limping along behind the more fluent Fons;'tte 
ai,id Bulle. Then I said something in an aside to Blount and 
the officer broke into the conversation in perfecth- good 
English. 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 which are 
so necessarv to (lermans even at a time like this, and when we 
came to Bulle the officer burst into a rapid tire of questions 
which ended in his proclaiming in rapture : 
•■ Why, 1 knew your father in Hamburg and went to school 
with vour Uncle So-and-So ! " 
Reminiscence went on as though we were round a dining 
table at home : minute inquirv was made into the welfare 
and activities of the Bulle familv from the cradle to the grav(-. 
On the strength of the respectability of Bulle'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 see 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 niimbcr of the men about us were drunk and e\identb,- 
had lieen in that state for some time. Our officer complained 
that they had luul very little to eat for several days, but 
added glumly that there was plenty to drink. 
A cart, ii<>aix-d high with logt, driven by a fat Landsturmer 
and pulled by a tiny donkey, came creaking past us. One of 
our party pulled his kodak from his ixjcket and inquired 
of our guardian in English: "May 1 take a picture?" 
His real intention evidently escaped the German who 
answered cordially : 
" Certainly ; go ahead. A'^ou will find some beautiful 
things over there on the corner in the house they are getting 
ready 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 iiad fired upon the 
German troops in Louvain and laid themselves ojjen to 
reprisals. To his -thinking there is nothing bad enough for 
them, 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 one stone was left 
on another," as he said. 
Ju^t to sec what would hapix-n I inquired about the provi- 
sion of the Hague Conventions prescriljing that no collective 
penalty can be imposed for lawless acts of individual^:. He 
dismissed that to his 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 us the purpose of bis 
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. I'or generati(tns 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, 1 tell you — nie cin Stein an c'nander ! " 
1 agreed with him when he remarked that people would 
come here for generations to see what Germany had done — 
but he did not seem to follow my line of thought. 
While we wt-re talking about these things 'and the busines.: 
of burning and looting was pursuing itu orderly course, a rifle 
.ihot rang out near by. Inst'mtly every soldier seized his rifle 
aiid stood waiting for an indication as to -what would happen 
next. In a few seconds a group of soldiers rushed into a 
house about a hundred feet away. There was'a sound 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 dri^' us mad, fighting is easy in com- 
parison, for thtn 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 regular 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 culling back : " I've had enough of this. Let's 
get out and go home. ' 
Our friend the officer said Bulle was right, and that it 
woidd 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 rriood 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. Our officer waded into the soldier 
in a way that would have caused a mutiny in any other 
aitny, and the soldier, very drunk and sullen, retreated 
muttering, to his armchair on the curb. We then moved on 
to the station. 
()utside the station was a crowd of se\eral hundred people, 
mostly women and children, being herded on to trains by 
soldiers to be run out of the town. Thev 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. They had both lost their husbands in the street 
lighting, and were in a terrible' state. The officers and men 
were 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. .\nd 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 given chairs and an orderly 
was despatched for a bottle of wine, so that a drink could 
be given to Bnlle.who said that after what he had l^een 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 
of machine guns, and the free application of the torch — 
the whole storv 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 ci\ilians were driven helter-skelter 
to cover— where. I don't know. The stands of arms in the 
freight j'ard were snatched up, and in less time than it takes 
to tell it, several hundred men were scattered behind anv' sort 
of shelter that olfered, ready for the. fray. 
I took one (juick 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. -•' 
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 on 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 cover and being ingloriously 
trampled to death. A joint debate on this important question 
kept us occupied for several' minutes. Wc ftnallv compromised 
