GERMAN BANDITS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3169, 9 December 1914, Page 27

GERMAN BANDITS.

THE MASSACRE OF DINANT. MEN AND BOYS MURDERED. (Feom Oub Own CoHBESPONDaNT.J LONDON, October 2. M. Arthur Terwange, a brother of the Deputy of Antwerp, R'ives, in the Belgian newspaper Lo Matin on September 2b, a detailed account of the fate of Dinant. He writes: “ It will be remembered that on August 15 a tremendous battle was fought n the streets of the town Detween the French and the Germans, ' while the guns thundered away at each other from both sides of the Ale use. The town suffered very little during this battle, only a few houses afterwards bearing signs of the bombardment, which lasted 13 hours. During the following days the French retired on" to the left bank of the Meuse, where they remained up to the day on which the order for a general retreat was given. In the night of August 31 a German armoured motor car entered Dinant by the Rue Saint-Jacques, and, without the slightest provocation, began to fire on the houses in the street. A woman sleeping in her bed was killed, and her child, which was at her side, was mortally wounded. Startled by the noise of the firing, a man and his wife opened the door of their house. They were immediately done to death by Lilians. An employee of the gas works, who was returning from his work, was killed on his doorstep. The assassins—for one cannot call them soldiers —sot fire to several houses before they bravely withdrew. But these savage acts were only the prelude to the fate which the horde of brigands were reserving for the unhappy town of Dinant. On the following day large masses of troops arrived, and were guilty of the most abominable atrocities which have ever been recorded. The Germans forced open the doors of the houses, and murdered everyone they found within. There was Victor Poncolet, done to death in the presence of liis wife and of his six chiidren; there were the "members of the staff of the firm of Capollo, murdered in cold blood. In every house a fresh crime was committed, while the women were driven from their bods and taken, halfnaked, to a monastery, where they were kept for three days with hardly any food, and half-dead with hunger and fear. WHOLESALE SHOOTING. “ Some workmen of Leffe hid in a drain near the large cotton mill, the manager of which (M. Hummer) was killed. There were about 60 of them, and when the Germans discovered them they shot them all, although not one of them was armed. .In the Fauborg Saint-Pierre a number of men hid in the cellars of the brewery owned by the brothers Nlcaise (old men of over 70) and their nephew (Jules Mourn). The modern barbarians had pity on none. All of them fell under the German bullets—they were about 40 in number. Over 200 men and lads—old) men of 75 and boys of 12 and 14, —fathers and sons together, wore driven on to the Place d’Armes. In order that the work might be carried out more quickly a machine gun was brought up. It was here that Xavier Wassoigo, the manager of the Banque do la Meuse, was killed, together wivh his two sons, and here, too, died Camille Fisetto and his little boy, aged 12. “ Tho fate of the male inhabitants having thus been settled, the Germans set to work methodically on tho destruction of the town, vising bombs to set tiro to tho houses. Scon nothing but a heap of ashes remained. Tho district of Saint Medart, between the station and the bridge, had been wiped out. Coming from the bridge to Bouvignes, the first house that is loft standing is the Hotel du Nord. The splendid post office building is a heap of ruins. The bridge is destroyed,

the Germans having built a pontoon bridge a little higher up the river. The church has lost its celebrated tower, and all the houses of the Rue Sax, near the Meuse, have been destroyed. In the Rue Grande, the Grand Place, and the Place Saint-Nicolas it is tho same; and it is said that many families who had hidden in the cellars died in the flames. But for one or two houses in the Place de la Meuse—the Laurent Restaurant and a few houses standing beside it, the barracks and the communal school, in which the German garrison is lodged,—the whole town of Dinant has been destroyed. That is what the bandits of the groat empire which wished to rule Europe have done to one of the most picturesque towns ;n Belgium. The monster who presided over these abominable atrocities was Lieutenant-colonel Haegor.”