On the same day, in Dinant prison, a soldier strangled a baby in the arms of its mother because it was crying too loud.
At Sorinnes, still in the Dinant district, and on the same day, Jules and Albert Houzieaux were burned alive.
At Aiseau, on the 21st August, the Germans shut two men into a house, to which they set fire. But the unexpected arrival of a shell prevented them from enjoying the sufferings of their victims.
At Hofstade chance favoured them better; they threw Victor de Coster, whom they had just stripped, into the furnace provided by his own house; his servant shared his fate.
We must suppose that the Germans take great pleasure in the contortions of the hanged. Herr Heymel had to content himself with admiring the corpse of a priest swinging in a tree; and his friend, Herr Klemm, was careful to devote, to the memory of this comforting spectacle, a drawing, published in _Kunst und Künstler_ (January 1915). Herr Heymel expresses his great satisfaction before this spectacle; but what pleasure he would have experienced could he have witnessed the hanging of the men whom the Germans boast of having hanged to the trees of the Herve district; or could he have assisted to hang that inhabitant of Èvelette, whom the soldiers put to death at Andenne, on the 20th; or the cabaret-keeper who was strung up to a lantern before the Louvain railway-station, on the night of the 26th; but our fastidious _littérateur_ would have tasted the keenest delight at Arlon, when an old man was put to death; he remained hanging for hours, with his feet just grazing the soil (p. 351).
The Germans, perhaps, will say--supposing they think they ought to excuse themselves--that these executions were carried out as a result of the attacks of francs-tireurs, or after the mutilation of the German wounded by Belgian civilians. But it will be impossible for them to allege these lies as circumstances extenuating the inhuman treatment which they inflicted upon Belgian soldiers at the time of their first attacks on the forts of Liége, on the night of the 4th August; that is, a few hours after the commencement of hostilities. Not only did they maltreat in every imaginable manner their Belgian prisoners, but certain German soldiers pushed _Kultur_ so far as to refuse water to poor wounded fellows dying of thirst; more, they even gave themselves the atrocious pleasure of spilling on the ground the water contained in the wounded men's own flasks, and this before their eyes.