Читать книгу German Atrocities: An Official Investigation - J. H. Morgan - Страница 17

Such was the situation when at seven o’clock on a summer evening (August 25th) of notorious memory, the deep-laid plans of the Belgian authorities suddenly and murderously revealed themselves. A German company of Landsturm37 was marching through the town; the main body of the German troops quartered there were engaged several miles away, and only a few details remained in the city. This small body of unsuspecting soldiers—a company numbers not more than two or three hundred men—were suddenly set upon, at a signal given by rockets, by trained marksmen of the Belgian Army and the Garde Civique, disguised as civilians, acting with the aid of machine-guns and hand-grenades and actively assisted by the greater part of a large civilian population. The fire, as various soldiers of the Landsturm testify, was not only carefully controlled and directed, but was “murderous” in the extreme. Yet, after carefully searching through their depositions, we find that only “five men of the company were wounded” (D 8)! Lieutenant Sandt and Dr. Berghausen feel constrained to explain these remarkably light casualties. They can only account for them by saying that in spite of the “carefully planned” and disciplined attack the Belgians, shooting from carefully chosen positions, shot “too high” (D 8), “at night” (D 8, D 9) although the light at eight o’clock on an August evening is usually remarkably good, and one of the witnesses (D 26) says that at 8 p.m. it was “fairly light.” The company appear to have disarmed the infuriated Belgians with remarkable ease, going into the houses two or three at a time (D 9), and finding the occupants apparently as docile as sheep, so that although found with arms in their hands they allowed themselves to be led out in “a crowd” and “immediately shot” (D 44). In one case, on entering an inn, the Germans found “behind the bar, a waiter,” who had apparently taken up this strong strategical position alone with “a case for shot placed by his side with the corresponding ammunition.” He also allowed himself to be led forth like a lamb to the slaughter (D 37).