street. Another
civilian was shot dead at his door on the same night. On the following
day the witness was taken prisoner together with thirty others. The
money of the prisoners was confiscated, and they were subsequently used
as a screen for the German troops who were at that moment engaged in a
conflict with the Belgian Army in the town itself. The Germans burned a
number of houses at this time. Corpses of 14 civilians were seen in the
streets on this occasion.

A well-educated witness, who visited the Wetteren Hospital shortly after
this date, saw the dead bodies of a number of civilians belonging to
Alost, and other civilians wounded. One of these stated that he took
refuge in the house of his sister-in-law; that the Germans dragged the
people out of the house, which was on fire, seized him, threw him on the
ground, and hit him on the head with the butt end of a rifle, and ran
him through the thigh with a bayonet. They then placed him with
seventeen or eighteen others in front of the German troops, threatening
them with revolvers. They said that they were going to make the people
of Alost pay for the losses sustained by the Germans. At this hospital
was an old woman of 80 completely transfixed by a bayonet.

Other crimes on noncombatants at Alost belong to the end of the month of
September. Many witnesses speak to the murder of harmless civilians.

In Binnenstraat the Germans broke open the windows of the houses and
threw fluid inside, and the houses burst into flames. Some of the
inhabitants were burned to death.

The civilians were utilized on Saturday, Sept. 26, as a screen. During
their retreat the Germans fired twelve houses in Rue des Trois Clefs,
and three civilians, whose names are given, were shot dead in that
street after the firing of the houses. On the following day a heap of
nine dead civilians were lying in the Rue de l'Argent.

Similar outrages occurred at Erpe, a village a few miles from Alost,
about the same date. The village was deliberately burned. The houses
were plundered and some civilians were murdered.

Civilians were apparently used as a screen at Erpe, but they were
prisoners taken from Alost and not dwellers in that village.

DIARIES OF GERMAN SOLDIERS.

This disregard for the lives of civilians is strikingly shown in
extracts from German soldiers' diaries, of which the following are
representative examples.

Barthel, who was a Sergeant and standard bearer of the Second Compan