The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-03-29
at Washington

stolen. 6unuTeuS Ol pTlSOuSlo Wei
locked up in various churches and
! were in some instances marched
about from one village to another
Some of these were finally conducted
to Louvain and linked up with the
bands of prisoners taken in Louvain
itself, and sent to Germany and else
where.
On Sept. IL, when the Germans
were driven out of Aerschot across
the Rives Demer by a successful
sortie from Antwerp, murders OF
civilians were taking place in the
villages which the Belgian Army
then recaptured from the Germans.
These crimes bear a strong re-
semblance to those committed in
Hosstade and other villages after
the battle of Malines.
AERSCHOT AND DISTRICT.
Period I. Aug. 10 and following
days.
AERSCHOT.
The German Army entered Aer-
schot quite early in the morning.
Workmen going to their work were
seized and taken as hostages.
The Germans, apparently already
irritated, proceeded to make search
for the priests and threatned to burn
the convent IL the priests should
happen to be found there. One priest
was accused of melting the inhab-
itants to fire on the troops, and
when he denied it the Burgomaster
was blamed by the officer. The
priest then showed the officer the
notices on the walls, signed by the
Burgomaster, warning the inhabit-
ants not to intervene in hostilities.
1t appears that they accused the
priest of having fired at the Germans
from the tower of the church. This
is important, because it is one of
the not infrequent cases in which
the Germans ascribed firing from a
church to priests, whereas in fact
this firing came from Belgian SOL
diers, and also because it seems to
show that the Germans from the
moment of their arrival in Aerschot
were seeking to pick quarrel with
the inhabitants, and this goes far to
explain their subsequent conduct.
Hostages were collected until 200
men, some of whom were invalids,
were gathered together.
M. Tielmans, the Burgomaster,
was then ordered by some German
officers to address the crowd and to
tell them to hand in any weapons
which they might have in their pos
session at the Town Hall, and to
warn them that any one who was
found with weapons would be killed.
AS matter of fact, the arms In the
possession of civilians had already
been collected at the beginning of
the war. The Burgomaster's speech
resulted in the delivery OF one gun,
which had been used for pigeon
shooting. The hostages were then
released. Turnout the day the town
was looted by the soldiers. Many
shop windows were broken, and the
contents of the shop fronts ransack-
ed.
A shot was fired about z o'clock in
the evening, by which time many of
the soldiers were drunk. The Ger
mans were not of one mind as to the
direction from which the shot pro-
ceeded. Some said it came from
jewelers. shop, and some said it came
from other houses. No one was hit
by this shot but thereafter German
soldiers began to fire In various di-
rections at people in the streets.
It is said that a German General
or Colonel was killed at the Burgo-
masters house. AS far as the COM
mittee have been able to ascertain,
the identity of the officer has never
been revealed. The German version
of the story is that he was killed by
the 15-year-old son of the Burgo-
master. The committee, however, is
satisfied by the evidence of several
independent witnesses that some
German officers were standing at the
window of the Burgomaster's house,
that large body of German troops
was in the square, that some of these
soldiers were drunk and let off their
rifles, that in the volley one of the
officers standing at the window of
the Burgomaster's house fell, that at
the time of the accident the wife and
son of the Burgomaster had gone to
take refuge in the cellar, and that
neither the Burgomaster nor his son
were in the least degree responsible
for the occurrence which served as
the pretext for their subsequent exc
cution, and for the firing and sack
of the town. (This account agrees
substantially with that given in a
letter written by Nine. Tielman. the