The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-06-24

the town had risen In body against them. The signal, they said, was given by a son of Burgomeister Collins, by shooting German off cer who was in the polite act of of- fering him light from his cigar cite. After l learned that M. Collins never had a son, l ceased to believe this story. The version now gener- ally accepted ty the Belgians is that a German regiment, fighting before Antwerp, was driven back in panic by a Belgian sortie. Arriving, very nervous and disorderly, in Louvaln, they began shooting at imaginary enemies. The garrison took this for a popular uprising and applied the usual reprisals. I have, however, piece of evidence indicating more deliberate intention. During our lm- prisonment-perhap I might better call it detention-in Louvain, we were permitted to occupy quarters in the Hotel of Thousand Columns which, as one might deduce from it's pretentious name, was very hum ble inn indeed. It consisted of par and cafe below and four large bed- rooms upstairs, and it faced the rail- road station.
 The Inn Keepers Story.
 Madame, who ran it assisted by her husband, was buxom. capable, executive. Amidst all her distress and apprehension. she found time to care for us with proper efficiency, vet she granted us, I felt. very scant courtesy. In December, 1918, en- tered the small. corrugated iron shack on the charred site of this ho- tel. was wearing my American correspondents uniform. Madame rose from a bench In the corner looked me over, suddenly threw her self into my arms and kissed me on both cheeks.
 "You." she said, land you are truly an American, Mon Dieu! I thought ynu were all spies set by the Roche to watch us. How Is the fat ana folly one, who jokes always" She was referring, of course, to Irwin Cobb.
 From madame's subsequent hour of genial chatter came a fact more After we left, it appeared, Colonel Mannteuffel, commander of the Lou, vain garrison, took over for personal quarters our old rooms at the front of the hotel. At about 4 o'clock one afternoon he came suddenly to the hotel with his orderlles' packeo ano moved out his baggage in great haste.
 All that day" said madame. i've had been feeling sense that some thing was going to happen. The Germans seemed agitated l demand of the colonel why he is moving away. He refuses to answer. He thrusts me aside. Nothing happens until about g o'clock. Then sud denly I hear firing-close at hand. near the station. It all began right here on our street. There had been no firing previously. Squads or Ger mans go from house to house, drag ging out men and shooting them. They seize my husband from his bed. stand him up against the wall of the station. They are about to shoot him. I throw myself upon his body. They tear me away.
 German Captain Saves Him.
 Then the German captain comes along-you remember the one who lived in the house when you were here. He says. This is good man. lease him. They do not shoot, but they take him away to Germany. and I do not know for four months whether he is dead or alive"
 Now, Colonel Mannteuffeps remov- al. hours before the trouble began. started, argues reconciliation. It gives color to the theory current among allied officers at the time that the Germans destroyed Louvain as a warning to Brussels, IS miles away. The capital was growing restless and needed a lesson" Of course, this one piece of evidence does not prove the case, and 1t Is not likely that we shall ever have the full truth about Louvain.
 Certainly. when on the second night I witnessed the completion of the job, the Germans were not act ing in the heat of passion, but work ing methodically. You would see an cendiary squad enter house. remain few minutes. step outside, wait. There would follow dull explo- sion the windows of the ground floor bright flame. Then the squad would proceed to the next house. With the same cold, methodical. business like air they lined up four men priests, I am told-on the pedestal of the monument before the station. marched the bound and captive men of Louvain into the square to wit ness the spectacle, read the death warrant. led the condemned men away to face the firing squad. As a massacre. it seemed to me rather cut-and- dried.
 Religion Made a Weapon.
 One other piece of tactics on the part of the general staff demands at tention for it's cold blooded, subtle calculation. Belgium is in sentiment the most Roman Catholic country in northern Europe. There are scarcely 10000 Protestants in the country and very few Jews. Your Belgian is typi cally Catholic or religiously he is nothing. Now, so far as l could as- certain, the Germans sent through Belgium on the first rush had not a single regiment from Catholic Kingdom or duchy. The invaders were cha ra ct cteristically Protestant, adher- ing, if they had any religion at all, to a branch of Professionalism which still cherishes the resentments of the Reformation. Catholics, you see, might have been too easy on their fellow-religionists. As it was, these troops, upon finding a real or fancied conspiracy against their safety, de- lighted to pin it on to priest. Further, they desecrated many between Brussels and Mons l noted that nearly every wayside shrine had been smashed or defiled.
 The defeat of the Marne. the estab- lishment of more or less perma- nent front on the Aisne- Somme- Yser line, changed German plans concern ing Belgium. No longer was the long line of communications necessary. They could establish bases of supply well toward the interior of the coun try. At precisely this point the Ger mans removed their Protestant troops, replaced them. by the Bava- rian and Rhineland landstrum-old family men and Catholics. The "era of conciliation" began.
 Thugs a Universal Problem.
 So much for the main German atrocities-those proceeding from the general staff. Of loose" atroci-