It
was a frequent practice to set apart the adult males of the condemned
district with a view to the execution of a suitable number--preferably
of the younger and more vigorous--and to reserve the women and children
for milder treatment. The depositions, however, present many instances
of calculated cruelty, often going the length of murder, toward the
women and children of the condemned area.
"At Dinant sixty women and children were confined in the cellar of a
convent from Sunday morning till the following Friday, August 28th,
sleeping on the ground, for there were no beds, with nothing to drink
during the whole period, and given no food until Wednesday, when
somebody threw into the cellar two sticks of macaroni and a carrot for
each prisoner. In other cases the women and children were marched for
long distances along roads, as, for instance, the march of the women
from Louvain to Tirlemont, August 28th, the laggards pricked on by the
attendant Uhlans. A lady complains of having been brutally kicked by
privates. Others were struck at with the butt end of rifles. At Louvain,
at Liege, at Aerschot, at Malines, at Montigny, at Andenne, and
elsewhere, there is evidence that the troops were not restrained from
drunkenness, and drunken soldiers cannot be trusted to observe the rules
or decencies of war, least of all when they are called upon to execute a
preordained plan of arson and pillage.
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