MEN TO THE RIGHT, WOMEN TO THE LEFT
Reading edition
On Sunday, August 23rd, at half past six in the morning, the soldiers of the 108th regiment of the line drove worshippers of the Premonstratensian Church, separated the men from the women, and shot about fifty of the former through the head. Between seven and nine o’clock there was house to house looting and burning by soldiers who chased the inhabitants into the street. Those who tried to escape were shot off-hand.
At about nine o’clock the soldiers drove all who had been found in the houses in front of them by means of blows from their rifle-butts. They crowded them together in Place d’Armes, where they kept them until six o’clock in the evening. Their guards amused themselves by telling the men repeatedly that they would soon be shot.
At six o’clock a captain separated the men from the women and children. The women were placed behind a line of infantry. The men had to stand alongside a wall; those in the first row were told to sit on their haunches, the others to remain standing behind them. A platoon took a stand right opposite the group. The women prayed in vain for the mercy of their husbands, their sons, and their brothers; the officer gave the order to fire. He had not made the slightest investigation, pronounced no sentence of any sort.
Belgian Gov. Committee’s Report.
