Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-05-14

examination. The dispositions were
taken in many different places. | am
not quite sure that they were sworn
to-not that it makes any difference,
for l could never quite see, myself,
why so much TODD was made about
oaths, since a man who would lie
would probably be willing to swear
to it. But the dispositions were made
many of them weeks and even
months afterwards, and it is a Gu
rious coincidence that they were de-
vised so as to refute in advance the
points that were afterwards raised.
The FatefuI Whistle
This echauffouree skirmish in the
Place de la Station was the most in
tense. Pay Officer Rudolph testified
that from the night of the oath to
the 25th all of the chambers we're
still held by German officers. He
tried to get a room at the Hotel
Marie Theresa but it was full. On
the evening of the 18th the cafes
we're closed at s o'clock, in accord
ance with the order of the komman-
dantur and no civilian was allowed
in the street. The Place de la Sta
ton was at the moment filed with
wagons and with soldiers. A few
moments after s o'clock a whistle
blew somewhere, and Immediately
the soldiers in the place began shoot
ing in all directions. The occupants
of the houses, naturally frightened,
took refuge in the rear rooms and in
the cellars. The officers and sol
diers themselves, stricken with panic,
joined the people in the cellars.
Every one in Louvain knows and
smiles grimly about it, except when
they speak of those Germans who
had the very ones with whom tkey
had taken refuge dragged out after
wards and shot.
One other deposition is of interest
that of Oberleutnant Won Sandt, the
comrade of Berghausen, captain of
the Neuss landstrum. Won Sandts
company was at the railway station
early in the evening when the shoot
ing began.
I'm about an hour" he says, AN
adjutant came, who cried my name,
Won Sandt. He told me that he was
the adjutant of his excellency Won
Bohen, and he put the following
question to me: Can you affirm on
oath that Belgians shot at your COM
pany from the houses situated in
front and at the side?' l replied,
Yes, 1 can swear it. Thereupon the
adjutant conducted me to his excel
lency Won Bohen, who was nearby.
His excellency desired an exact re-
port; l gave 1t to him exactly as /
have made it here before the mem
Der of the council of war, DR.. Ivers.
When l had finished my report his
excellency said to me: Can you
affirm, on oath, that which you have
just told me, in particular that it was
the inhabitants who began to shoot
from the houses?' l replied to him:
Certainly, 1 can"
All through Won Sandt's deposit
ton are such phrases as 81 was told
So" and soldiers told me that" and
all of the soldiers dispositions are full
of hearsay and of conclusicns-which
must be believed in Germany, because
they are made by German soldiers.
The account would not be COM
plete no history of those times by
whomever written, would be COM
plete without word or two con-
corning DR.. Georg Berghausen.
DR.. Georg Berghausen, surgeon-in-
chief of the Second battalion of the
landstrum of Neuss, is a young man,
who appears at several points in this
narrative and in his own deposition,
almost in the first line, he gives us
an accurate description of himself;
for there ia this terrible and fatal
quality in all writing, which should
no doubt adjure to silence, namely,
that no mater how imperfect a pic
ture the writer gives of everything
else, he always draws a perfect por-
trait of himself.
81 arrived at Louvain," says our
doctor, ''the oath of August in the
afternoon and went to the hotel. In
order favorably to impress the land
lord and his walters l turned out of
my pocket the sum of forty francs,
destined to the purchase of food"