disastrous
blunder and partly to vent their rage and chagrin, turned upon the
townspeople in a paroxysm of fury. A scene of indescribable terror
ensued, the soldiers, who had broken into the wine-shops and
drunk themselves into a state of frenzy, practically running amuck,
breaking in doors and shooting at every one they saw. That some of
the citizens snatched up such weapons as came to hand and
defended their homes and their women no one attempts to deny--
but this scattered and pitifully ineffectual resistance gave the
Germans the very excuse they were seeking. The citizens had
attacked them and they would teach the citizens, both of Louvain
and of other cities which they might enter, a lasting lesson. They did.
No Belgian will ever forget--or forgive--that lesson. The orgy of blood
and lust and destruction lasted for two days. Several American
correspondents, among them Mr. Richard Harding Davis, who were
being taken by train from Brussels to Germany, and who were held
for some hours in the station at Louvain during the first night's
massacre, have vividly described the horrors which they witnessed
from their car window. On the second day, Mr. Hugh S. Gibson,
secretary of the American Legation in Brussels, accompanied by the
Swedish and Mexican charges, drove over to Louvain in a taxi-cab.
Mr. Gibson told me that the Germans had dragged chairs and a
dining-table from a nearby house into the middle of the square in
front of the station and that some officers, already considerably the
worse for drink, insisted that the three diplomatists join them in a
bottle of wine. And this while the city was burning and rifles were
cracking, and the dead bodies of men and women lay sprawled in
the streets! From the windows of plundered and fire-blackened
houses in both Aerschot and Louvain and along the road between,
hung white flags made from sheets and tablecloths and pillow-
cases--pathetic appeals for the mercy which was not granted.

If Belgium wishes to keep alive in the minds of her people the
recollection of German military barbarism, if she desires to inculcate
the coming generations with the horrors and miseries of war, if she
would perpetuate the memories of the innocent townspeople who
were slaughtered because they were Belgians, then she can
effectually do it by preserving the ruins of Aerschot and Louvain,
just as the ruins of Pompeii are preserved. Fence in these
desolated cities; leave the shattered doors and the