e and connivance of officers
is proved.

The cases of violation, sometimes under threat of death, are numerous
and clearly proved. We referred here to comparatively few out of the
many that have been placed in the appendix, because the circumstances
are in most instances much the same. They were often accompanied with
cruelty, and the slaughter of women after violation is more than once
credibly attested.

It is quite possible that in some cases where the body of a Belgian or a
French woman is reported as lying on the roadside pierced with bayonet
wounds or hanging naked from a tree, or else as lying gashed and
mutilated in a cottage kitchen or bedroom, the woman in question gave
some provocation. She may by act or word have irritated her assailant
and in certain instances evidence has been supplied both as to the
provocation offered and as to the retribution inflicted.

(1) "Just before we got to Melen," says a witness who had
fallen into the hands of the Germans on Aug. 5, "I saw a woman
with a child in her arms standing on the side of the road on
our left-hand side watching the soldiers go by. Her name was
G., aged about 63, and a neighbor of mine. The officer asked
the woman for some water in good French. She went inside her
son's cottage to get some and brought it immediately he had
stopped. The officer went into the cottage garden and drank
the water. The woman then said, when she saw the prisoners,
'Instead of giving you water you deserve to be shot.' The
officer shouted to us, 'March.' We went on, and immediately I
saw the officer draw his revolver and shoot the woman and
child. One shot killed both."

Two old men and one old woman refused to bake bread for the
Germans. They were butchered.

Aug. 23--I went with two friends (names given) to see what we
could see. About three hours out of Malines we were taken
prisoners by a German patrol--an officer and six men--and
marched off into a little wood of saplings, where there was a
house. The officer spoke Flemish. He knocked at the door; the
peasant did not come. The officer ordered the soldiers to
break down the door, which two of them did. The peasant came
and asked what they were doing. The officer said he did not
come quickly enough and that they had "trained up" plenty of
others. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was