GERMAN BRUTALITIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 705, 19 September 1914, Page 5

GERMAN BRUTALITIES.

INFLICTED ON BELGIANS. TALES OF HORROR. Antwerp, Wednesday. Brandenburg troops slaughtered 182 civilians at Soignies, in Snuthern Belgium, on the ground that rifles were found in sorao houses, despite the fact that workmen in the Liege district take rifles from the factories to finish them in their homes. Such rifles are minus hreech mechanism, and are without ammunition. Louise Mack, Antwerp correspondent of the Evening News, describes the horrors of Asrschnt. In the Cathedral,, on the High Altar, were many empty wine and beer bottle?. TLe offertory box was stolen and replaced by a beer bottle. Bottles and filth were everywhere. The Madonna's head was cut off, and a large crucifix was burnt. The Altar brocades were slashed, pictures chopped from their frames, and a dead pig lay on one side of the chapel. These deeds were the work of drunken soldiers. Street after street in Aerschot was destroyed and lay in blackened ruins. At the chemists' shops the Germans mixed all the drugs together. They shot the Burgomaster's two children. A German colonel was shot in the Burgomaster's servants' room from the outside of the building it is supposed by the girl's sweetheart. The girl and her lover were instantly executed. When the Germans approached Soissons the nrlitary authorities ordered the civil officials to leave. In their absence the Germans began pillaging the houses. Madame Machered, presenting herself to the commanding officer, said "You may coneider me the Mayor of Soissons and aßk me for anything you want." Pillaging then ceased. Refugees are streaming into Holland from the east of Belgium. Thay tell harrowing 3torieß of German butcheries. A drunken German officer at Lioee, near Liege, killed an old man. The latter's son then shot the murderer. Thereupon th 9 Germans fetched the old man's wife from the kitchen and killed her son before her drunken frenzy they made har drink his blood, all the while threatening her with bayonets. Records are b<sing taken of these and other incidents for the purpose of denouncing the Germans. The Germans, during their retreat, occupied Coulororaiers, arrested the Mayor and Public Prosecutor,' and demanded 100,000 franca tebout £-4000). The Mayor and Public Prosecutor refused the demand, and the Germans took them outside the town to be shot, playing Chopin's "Funeral March" as a last threat. The arrival of the British qaved the lives of the Mayor and Public Prosecutor. ;

EVIDENCE BEFORE COMMISSION. Wednesday. The Government Press Bureau states that the second report of the Belgian Commission gives instances of German atrocities at Louvain, Malines, and in the neigbouring villages. Bodies of old women were found bayoneted, their fingers still holding their sewing needles. A man had his arms and legs cut off. A woman was bayoneted, petroleum Was her and then she was thrown alive into her own burning house. Another woman was slain and burnt in a similar manner. An old man was suspended by his arms from a rafter and burnt alive. A child, aged 15, had h ; s hands tied behind his back and his body was torn open. Many corpses of peasants were found in an attitude of supplication. Two wounded Bslgian soldiers were thrown into a flaming house. Witnesses completely confirm the statement that the Germans, alleged that civilians were guilty of firing upon them, and sacked the town. Drunken soldiers in several towns killed unoffending civilians at random. Fifty bodies were found on the road hetween Tirlemont and Louvain. Many others Wero found incinerated on doorsteps, where they had been shot in escaping from tbeir burning homes. In some cases drunken Germans fired from deserted houses, and the shots were used a3 a pretext for massacre and incendiarism.