The German army
was checked by the guns of the forts to the east of Liege, and the
horrors of Vise, Verviers, Bligny, Battice, Hervy and twenty villages
follow. When they entered Liege, they burned the houses along two
streets and killed many persons, five or six Spaniards among them.
Checked before Namur they sacked Andenne, Bouvignies, and Champignon,
and when they took Namur they burned one hundred and fifty houses.
Compelled to give battle to the French army in the Belgian Ardennes they
ravaged the beautiful valley of the Semois; the complete destruction of
the village of Rossignlo and the extermination of its entire male
population took place there. Checked again by the French on the Meuse,
the awful carnage of Dinant results. Held on the Sambre by the French,
they burn one hundred houses at Charleroi and enact the appalling
tragedy of Tamines. At Mons, the English hold them, and after that all
over the Borinage there is a systematic destruction, pillage and murder.
The Belgian army drive them back from Malines and Louvain is doomed. The
Belgian army failing back and fighting in retreat took refuge in the
forts of Antwerp, and the burning and sack of Hougaerde, Wavre,
Ottignies, Grimde, Neerlinter, Weert, St. George, Shaffen and Aerschot
follow.
[Illustration: Painting: Three soldiers in a bombed out shack, one on a
telephone.
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