the military scheme of the
invaders, however much it may appear to have been the inevitable result
of the system of terror deliberately adopted in certain regions. Indeed,
so much is avowed. "I asked the commander why we had been spared," says
a lady in Louvain, who deposes to having suffered much brutal treatment
during the sack. He said: "We will not hurt you any more. Stay in
Louvain. All is finished." It was Saturday, Aug. 29, and the reign of
terror was over.

Apart from the crimes committed in special areas and belonging to a
scheme of systematic reprisals for the alleged shooting by civilians,
there is evidence of offenses committed against women and children by
individual soldiers, or by small groups of soldiers, both in the advance
through Belgium and France as in the retreat from the Marne. Indeed, the
discipline appears to have been loose during the retreat, and there is
evidence as to the burning of villages and the murder and violation of
their female inhabitants during this episode of the war.

In this tale of horrors hideous forms of mutilation occur with some
frequency in the depositions, two of which may be connected in some
instances with a perverted form of sexual instinct.

A third form of mutilation, the cutting of one or both hands, is
frequently said to have taken place. In some cases where this form of
mutilation is alleged to have occurred it may be the consequence of a
cavalry charge up a village street, hacking and slashing at everything
in the way; in others the victim may possibly have held a weapon; in
others the motive may have been the theft of rings.

We find many well-established cases of the slaughter (often accompanied
by mutilation) of whole families, including not infrequently that of
quite small children. In two cases it seems to be clear that
preparations were made to burn a family alive. These crimes were
committed over a period of many weeks and simultaneously in many places,
and the authorities must have known, or ought to have known, that
cruelties of this character were being perpetrated; nor can any one
doubt that they could have been stopped by swift and decisive action on
the part of the heads of the German Army.

The use of women and even children as a screen for the protection of the
German troops is referred to in a later part of this report. From the
number of troops concerned, it must have been commanded or acquiesced in
by officers, and in some cases the presenc