Signed: MICHAHELLES, Captain and Detachment Commander.
Present: President of the Court, SCHWEINITZ. Secretary, LIPS.
There appeared as witness Acting-Sergeant-Major Kern, who made the following statement:
As to Person: My name is Theodor Kern. I am 37 years old; Catholic; formerly mason; later frontier guard; at present Acting-Sergeant-Major of Landwehr in the 3rd Infantry Munitions Column.
As to Case: On August 22nd, 1914, about 2.30 p.m., I rode back through Marche, after I had previously ridden into the place to arrange for quarters. In front of me rode Captain Michahelles. As we passed a cross-road the Captain began to trot. At the same moment I saw at a first-storey window of a house in this cross-street a civilian, who was aiming with a gun at the soldiers, and in my judgment more especially at the Captain. Almost at the same instant came the crack of an infantryman's rifle, who fired up at the civilian.
On August 23rd, 1914, we were at Sorrinnes. During the day one noticed no signs of hostility among the inhabitants, but at 9 o'clock, when it had become dark, we were fired at from various houses. From one house Lieutenant Knauer received a shot in the abdomen, from which after some days he died.
REPORT of the Infantry Regiment von Winterfeldt (2nd Upper Silesian) No. 23 (24th Infantry Brigade).
Captain Wagner states: On 22nd August, at Léglise, two civilians from Antier were handed over to the company, which was acting as escort to the heavy baggage. These had been caught with guns in their hands by two gendarmes. At this period the company was fired at by civilians on several occasions.
At Tintigny was discovered the body of a reservist of Infantry Regiment No. 38, who had been slain by the inhabitants with a mason's pickaxe. At Laheycourt a man of the 1st Battalion shot dead a civilian who had fired at the soldiers from a garden.
Captain von Debschitz states: At Nothomb, our first quarters in Belgium, after the General in command had issued a proclamation, the inhabitants immediately handed in a very large quantity of military rifles and ammunition, which not long before had undoubtedly been distributed by the authorities for the purpose of a "franc-tireur" campaign. These were, as far as I knew, Menier rifles, recently oiled, with cartridges in cotton packing, labelled exactly as if they had just been received from a depot.