SACKING OF LOUVAIN

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 59, 7 September 1914, Page 7

SACKING OF LOUVAIN

GERMANS DRUNK WITH BLOOD DESTRUCTION REMORSELESSLY COMPLETED. (Received September 7, 10 a.m.) LONDON, 6th September. Mr. Will Irwin, an American author, tfho, with three American war correspondents, witnessed the sackii» of Louvain, states that the destruction and massacres originated in some youths firing on the Germans from houses. Every such house was burnt down and the oscupants slaughtered. The destruction was remorselessly completed on the second day, the occupation proceeding street by street and house by house. Only 2000 German soldiers were engaged, but they were drunk with blood, not liquor. Mr. Irwin believes that the Germans in general are not defying the rules of warfare, but are- applying them in. their entirety with a brutality?hitherto unknown vi civilised warfare. Inhabitants who did not fly from the ruins of their towns and villages were left starving, destitute, and stunned. [Will Irwin is a well-known American author and journalist. He went into newspaper work about 1899 in San Francisco, where he was special writer on the Chronicle. In 1904-6 he joined tha Nwv York Sun, became managing editor of M'Clure's Magazine in 1906, and took up general magazine writing in 1908, contributing especially to Collier's Weekly. He has written several novels, but excels chiefly as a writer of short stories and magazine. articlej.J