ed that this statement must be considered
false. It is, in fact, ascertained that the people of Louvain, who,
moreover, had been disarmed by the Communal Authority, did not provoke
the Germans by any act of hostility.

The commission has resumed the inquiry begun at Brussels on the subject
of the occurrences at Vise.

This place was the first Belgian town destroyed in pursuance of the
system applied subsequently by the invader to so many other of our
cities and villages. It is for this reason that we have been careful to
determine what truth there is in the German version according to which
the civilian population of Vise took part in the defense of the town or
rose against the Germans after the town had been occupied.

Several witnesses now at Antwerp have been heard, notably soldiers
belonging to the detachment which disputed with the Germans the passage
of the Meuse, north of Liege, and a lady of German nationality, who
belongs to the religious community of the Sisters of Notre Dame at Vise.

Innocent Vise.

The result is to prove that the inhabitants took no part whatever in the
fighting which took place on Aug. 4 at the ford of Lixhe and at Vise
itself.

Moreover, it was only in the night of Aug. 15-16 that the destruction of
the town began, the signal being given by several shots fired on the
evening of the 15th. The Germans asserted that the inhabitants had fired
upon them, particularly from a house the owner of which gave evidence
before the commission.

The Germans discovered no arms in this house, any more than they did in
neighboring buildings, which, nevertheless, were burned after being
pillaged, and the male occupants of which were carried off to Germany.

The evidence has brought to light the improbability of any rising among
a disarmed population against a numerous German garrison at a time when
the last Belgian troops had for eleven days evacuated the district, and
the witnesses have declared that the first shots were fired by
intoxicated German infantry soldiers at their own officers. This fact
appears not to be exceptional. It is, indeed, notorious that at
Maestricht, either by mistake or in consequence of a mutiny, Germans
about this same time killed one another during the night at a cavalry
camp which they had established at Mesch, close to the Dutch frontier in
Limbourg.

It is confirmed that the town of Vise was entirely burned, with the
exception, it appears, of a religious establishme