The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1914-09-04
SEES CITY SACKED
BY GERMAN ARMY
GO UP IN SMOKE.
Priceless Works of Art, Uni
versity and Library Des-
troyed.
Louvain a Beautiful, Cultured City
Founded in Eleventh Century.

Louvain a Beautiful, Cultured City
Founded in Eleventh Century.
| In a special cable, Richard Hard
ing Davis has sent the following ac-
count of the destruction of the beau
tiful city of Louvain, Belgian, by the
invading German army:
Last Thursday afternoon | left
Brussels and have just arrived in
London. For two hours Thursday
night was in what for 600 years had
been the city of Louvain. The Ger
mans were burning it and to hide
their work kept us locked in the rail-
road carriages. But the story as
written against the sky was told to
US by German soldiers incoherent
With excess, and we could read it
in the faces of women and children
oeing led to concentration camps and
of citizens on their way to be shot:
Wednesday the Germans sentenced
Louvain to become wilderness and
Win German system and love or
thoroughness left Louvain as empty
as blackened shell. The reason for
this appeal to the torch and the exc
cution of nome -combatants as given to
me Thursday morning by Gen. Won.
Lutwitz, military governor OF Brus-
els, was this:
Says Civilians Fired on Troops.
Wednesday while the German mill
tary commander of the troops in Lou
vain was at the Hotel De Vile talk
ing to the burgomaster, the son Of
the burgomaster with an automatic
pistol shot the chief of staff and a
; German staff surgeon. Won Lutwitz
claims this was a signal for the civil
guard in civilian clothes on roofs to
nre upon the German soldiers in open
square below. He said also that the
belgians had quick-fring guns
brought from Antwerp.
For week the Germans have &C.
cupied Louvain and closely guarded
ali the approaches, and to say that
there was any gun running is absurd.
; Fifty Germans were killed and wound
!, ed. For that, said Won Dutwitz, Lou
vain must be wiped out. In panto-
mine with his fist he swept the pa
pers across the table.
Was Beautiful Cultured City.
: Ten days ago l was in Louvain
: when it was occupied by the Belgian
troops and King Albert and his staff.
=. The city dates from the Eleventh
: Century and the population was AZ
=, 600. The citizens were brewers, lace
l makers and manufacturers of orna-
= ments for churches. Its university
= once was the most celebrated in Eu-
= ropean cities and still is, or still was,
the headquarters of the Jesuits. In
= their Louvain college many priests i'll
e America have been educated. and lG
e days ago over the great yellow walls
of the college | saw hanging two
: American flags.
q | found the city clean, sleepy and
d pretty, with narrow twisting streets,
n smart shops, cafes set in flower gar
a dens, houses with red roofs, green
shutters and white walls. Over those
n that faced south had been trained
g pear trees and their branches heavy
t with fruit spread out against the
i walls like branches of candelabra.
7 The town hall was a very old and
very beautiful example of gothic az
e chitecture, in detail and design more
celebrated even than the town halls OF
: Bruges or Brussels. 1t was a hundred
e years old and lately had been repair
q ed with great taste and at great cost.
d Opposite was the church of st. Pierre
e dating from the Fifteenth century, a
e very noble building with many chap
# els filled with carvings of the time OF
the renaissance, in wood, stone and
iron. In the university were 0,000
volumes. Near it was a bronze stat
I lie of Father Damien, the priest Of
l. the leper colony in the south Pacific
a, of whom Robert Louis Stevenson
t. wrote.
er Work of Ruin Complete.
sc All these buildings now are as
Al empty as exploded cartridges. Stat
is ues, pictures, carvings, parchments
l. archives, all are gone.
IN No one defends the sniper. But be
y cause the ignorant Mexicans wher
their city was invaded fired upon oul
su sailors we did not destroy Vera Cruz
re Even had we bombarded Vera Cru;
Is money could have restored it. None.
y cannot ever restore Louvain. Ant
n its peoples handiwork belonged u
al the world. With torch and dynamit
y the Germans have turned their mas
II terpieces into ashes, and all the kai
es ser's horses and all his men canno
II bring them back again.
AZ When by troop train we reachc
" Louvain the entire heart of the cit
a. a. was destroyed and the fire had reach
~ II. ed the Boulevard Tirlemont, whic
~ faces the railroad station. The nigh
ne was MINDLESS and the sparks rose i
a. steady, leisurely pillars, falling bac
~ into the furnace from which the
IN sprang, In their work the soldier
-. were moving from the heart Of tn
~ CITY to the outskirts, street by stree
- and from house to house.
ON Sacking Done Systematically.
his In each building, so the Germs
cn- soldiers told me, they began at Il
al first floor and, when that was bun
ici- ing steadily, passed to the one mex
the There were no exceptions, whether
the was store, chapel or private residenc
ov- Il was destroyed. The occupants h
been warned to go and in each d
Won serted shop or house the furnitu
yice was piled, the torch was stuck und
his II and into the air went souvenirs
ose children and parents and heiriooi
the that passed from generation to &c
nos' Grafton. -,
The people had time only to fill
3os- rillow case and fly. Some were I
you SO fortunate and by thousands, i
n flocks of sheep, they were rounded
ear. and marched through the night to
niei- concentration camps. We were
first allowed to speak to any citizen
oilet Iouva;n. hut the Germans crow
II Il