The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-03-15
ALLEGED GERMAN ATROCITIES
Rpo,t Of the Committee Appointed by the British Government
and Presided Over by The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce,
Formally nhsh Amba washington

upon Liege from northwest, east,
and south were covered with Ger
man Deaths Hoad Hussars and
Uhlans pressing forward to seize the
passage over the Meuse. From the
very beginning of the operations the
civilian population of the villages
lying upon the line OF the German
advance were made to experience the
extreme horrors of war. "on the
4th of August" says one witness. at
Herve," Ca village not far from the
frontier 81 saw at about O'Clock
in the afternoon, near the station,
five Uhlans; these were the first Ger
man troops had seen. They were
followed by German officer and
some soldiers in a motor car. The
men in the car called out to cou-
pie of young fellows who were stand
ing about thirty years away. The
young men, being afraid, ran on
and then the Germans fred and kill
ed one of them named D." The Inur-
der of this innocent fugitive civilian
was prelude to the burning and
pillage of Herve and OF other VII
lages in the neighbrohood. to the In
discriminate shooting of civilians OF
both sexes, and to the organized
military execution of patches of Sc
lected males. Thus at Herve some
fifty men escaping from the burning
houses were seized, taken outside the
town and shot. At Melen, a hamlet
west of Herve, forty men were shot.
In one household alone the father
and mother (names givcn) were
shot, the daughter died after be-
ing repeatedly outraged, and the son
was wounded. Nor were children
exempt. About Aug. A." says one
witness, near Vottem, we were pur-
suing some Uhlans. l saw a man,
woman, and a girl about nine, who
had been killed. They we're on the
threshold of house, one on the top
of the other, as IL they had been
shot down, one after the other, as
they tried to escape"
The burning OF the villages in this
neigh hborhood and tho wholesale
slaughter of civilians, such as oc-
Cured at Herve. Michcroux, and
Soumagne, appear to be connected
with the evaporation caused by the
resistance of Fort Fleron, whose
guns barred the main road from AK
la Chapelie to Liege. Enraged by
the losses which thoy had sustained,
suspicious of the temper Of the civil
ian population, and probably think
ing that by exceptional seventies at
the outset they could COW the spirit
of the Belgian Nation, the German
officers and men speedily accustomed
themselves to the slaughter Of CIV
Iilians. How rapidly the process was
effected is illustrated by an entry In
the diary of Kurt Hoffman, one
years man in the First Jagers, who
on Aug. was in front OF Fort
Flcron. He illustrates his story by
sketch map. "The position" he
says, twas dangerous. AS suspicious
civilians were hanging about
houses 1, 2, 8, A, s, were cleared,
the owners arrested, (and shot the
following day.) Suddenly village A
was fired at. Out of it bursts our
baggage train, and the Fourth Com
pany Of the Twenty-seventh Regi-
ment who had lost their way and
been shelled by our own artillery
From the point d. p, (shown In
diary), I shoot a civilian with rife
at 400 meters slap thru the head
as we afterward ascertained." With
in a few hours, Hoffman, while In
house 8, was himself under fire from
his own comrades and narrowly es.
, capped being killed. A German, ig-
norsnt that house 3 had been oc-
cupied. reported, as was the fact
that he had been fred upon from
that house. He had been challenged
. by the field patrol, and failed to give
|. the countersign. Hoffman con
tinues:
), "Ten minutes later, people ap-
: proach who are talking excitedly-
: apparently Germans. / call out
, Halt. who's therc?' Suddenly rapid
fire is opened upon us. which car
only escape by quickly jumping OF
! one side-with bullets and fragments
! Of wall and pieces Of glass flying
I around me. l call out Halt, here
Field Patrol Then it stops, and
there appears Lieutenant Romei
with three pIatoons. a nsaa has re
ported that he had been shot at out
I our house; no wonder, II he doeI
not give the countersign.p
5he entry, tho dated Aug. 8. wal
evidently written on the 9th or later
3 because the writer refers to the sus